VENERABLE LAMA THUBTEN ZOPA RINPOCHE

"Rinpoche is someone who follows my guidance sincerely,
very expansively and with one hundred percent trust.
He possesses unwavering faith and pure samaya;
not only has he pure samaya and faith,
but whatever I instruct, Zopa Rinpoche has the capability to accomplish it.
So whatever dedications Lama Zopa Rinpoche makes,
I also pray to accomplish this and you should do the same thing. "
His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Sarnath, India, Dec 19 -22nd)

Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche was born in 1946 in the village of Thami in the Solo Khumbu region of Nepal near Mount Everest.

While still a young boy, Zopa Rinpoche was taken on his uncle's back for a pilgrimage to Tibet. When he arrived north of Sikkim at the Dung-kar Monastery of Domo Geshe Rinpoche, he startled his uncle by declaring that he had no intention of returning home with him. Rather, he wanted to stay at this monastery and devote his life to studying and practising the dharma.
From that time onwards his diet was kept free of those foods considered unclean. His education would have continued at Sera Je in Lhasa, but these plans were also interrupted in 1959. Eventually he found his way to Baduar where he first became the disciple of Geshe Rabten and then of Lama Yeshe . Lama Yeshe and Zopa Rinpoche's contact with Westerners began in 1965 while they were visiting the Ghoom Monastery in Darjeeling.

In 1967 the two lamas left India, not for Ceylon as originally planned, but for Nepal. After a few years, they were able to purchase land at the top of a nearby hill called Kopan. There they founded the Nepal Mahayana Gompa Center in 1969. The main building was constructed in 1971-2, funded almost exclusively by the lamas' increasing number of Western disciples. When the first meditation course was given there in 1971, it was attended by about twenty students. By the time of the seventh course, held in the autumn of 1974, interest was so great that attendance had to be restricted to 200 meditators, the limit of the local facilities. In December of 1973 Kopan became the home of the International Mahayana Institute, an organisation composed of Western monks and nuns.

In 1972 they purchased land in Dharamsala, the North Indian hill station that for many years has been the headquarters of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and since 1971 the site of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. In a house formerly belonging to Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, they established Tushita Retreat Center.

After the passing away of Lama Yeshe in 1984, Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche became the spiritual leader of the FPMT, a sizeable Buddhist organisation with over 100 centers world-wide.

Venerable Rilbur Rinpoche is known to have described Lama Zopa Rinpoche as, 'one of the hardest working tulkus (recognised reincarnations of teachers) I know'.

BRIEF LONG-LIFE PRAYER

You who uphold the Subduer's (thub) moral way;
Who serve as the bountiful bearer (zö)-of-all,
Sustaining, preserving and spreading Manjunath's victorious doctrine (ten);
Who masterfully accomplish (drub pa) magnificent prayers honouring the Three Jewels,
Protector of myself and others, your disciples:
please, please live long!
Requested by Geshe Konchog Kyab on behalf of the students of Thubten Kunga Center, Florida, USA
Composed by Choden Rinpoche on the fifteenth day of the month of Saga Dawa, 2000.
Translated into English by Jampa Gendun.

Links

For a much more elaborate biographies more pictures and a collection of his teachings, see the FPMT site.

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