Weekly Community Prayers
Every Thursday, 9:30 AM to 10 AM (MST)
Join us each week on Zoom! Beautifully guided by Ven. Angie Muir.
Please feel free to leave your camera off and just listen. Just hearing the prayers brings great benefit, and your presence offers support and benefit to the whole group!
Join us each week on Zoom! Beautifully guided by Ven. Angie Muir.
Please feel free to leave your camera off and just listen. Just hearing the prayers brings great benefit, and your presence offers support and benefit to the whole group!
How to celebrate Lhabab Duchen, Nov 11, 2025
How to celebrate Lhabab Duchen, Nov 11, 2025 (IST)
November 10, 2025, from 10:30 AM to November 11, 2025, 11:30 AM (MST)
Lhabab Duchen, one of the four great holy days of the Buddhist calendar, takes place this year on November 11, 2025. This day celebrates Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s return to Earth from the God Realm of the Thirty-Three after teaching Dharma for three months to the gods, including his mother, Mayadevi, who had died a week after Buddha’s birth and been reborn there. As a merit-multiplying day, the karmic results of actions performed on this day are multiplied 100 million times. This remarkable result is taught in the Vinaya text, Treasure of Quotations and Logic.
Specific practices recommended by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for merit-multiplying days can be found on the fpmt.org website on the “Practice on the Four Great Holy Days” page, such as:
Swift Return Prayers for Lama Zopa Rinpoche - Please do take the opportunity to dedicate all of the merit generated for the swift return of our most precious Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Please read the latest advice offered by His Holiness to continue reciting Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri as well as Migtsema.
Offerings - the FPMT Puja Fund will be sponsoring numerous pujas, including the recitation of the Prajnaparamita Sutra, Lama Chopa, Medicine Buddha Puja, Drugchuma, and Chanting the Names of Manjushri. The stupas of Boudhanath and Swambyunath in Nepal will be freshly painted, and the umbrellas will be offered at the pinnacle of each stupa. A new set of robes will be provided to the Buddha statue in the Mahabodhi temple in Bodhgaya. Additionally, animals will be liberated, sutras will be recited and printed, and offerings will be made to all of Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s gurus and to all the IMI Sangha communities within the FPMT. Rinpoche mentioned many times that he wishes for “the pujas being sponsored and offered on each of the four Buddha days to continue forever, or for as long as the monasteries and nunneries exist.”
Additional reading:
Big Love
November 10, 2025, from 10:30 AM to November 11, 2025, 11:30 AM (MST)
Lhabab Duchen, one of the four great holy days of the Buddhist calendar, takes place this year on November 11, 2025. This day celebrates Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s return to Earth from the God Realm of the Thirty-Three after teaching Dharma for three months to the gods, including his mother, Mayadevi, who had died a week after Buddha’s birth and been reborn there. As a merit-multiplying day, the karmic results of actions performed on this day are multiplied 100 million times. This remarkable result is taught in the Vinaya text, Treasure of Quotations and Logic.
Specific practices recommended by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for merit-multiplying days can be found on the fpmt.org website on the “Practice on the Four Great Holy Days” page, such as:
- Taking the eight Mahayana precepts, students can receive the lineage of these precepts from a specially produced video of Lama Zopa Rinpoche granting them.
- Reciting the Sutra: Remembering the Three Jewels.
- The translated Sutra of Great Liberation, which Lama Zopa Rinpoche extolled the immense benefits of engaging in, is another sutra that can be recited.
Swift Return Prayers for Lama Zopa Rinpoche - Please do take the opportunity to dedicate all of the merit generated for the swift return of our most precious Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Please read the latest advice offered by His Holiness to continue reciting Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri as well as Migtsema.
Offerings - the FPMT Puja Fund will be sponsoring numerous pujas, including the recitation of the Prajnaparamita Sutra, Lama Chopa, Medicine Buddha Puja, Drugchuma, and Chanting the Names of Manjushri. The stupas of Boudhanath and Swambyunath in Nepal will be freshly painted, and the umbrellas will be offered at the pinnacle of each stupa. A new set of robes will be provided to the Buddha statue in the Mahabodhi temple in Bodhgaya. Additionally, animals will be liberated, sutras will be recited and printed, and offerings will be made to all of Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s gurus and to all the IMI Sangha communities within the FPMT. Rinpoche mentioned many times that he wishes for “the pujas being sponsored and offered on each of the four Buddha days to continue forever, or for as long as the monasteries and nunneries exist.”
Additional reading:
- How to Help the Turkeys at Thanksgiving: Rinpoche offered this advice on how to help the tens of millions of turkeys being killed for the Thanksgiving holiday in the USA.
- The Merit of Offering Service to the Guru: In this letter, with numerous quotations about correctly following the guru, Rinpoche advised that we accumulate vast quantities of merit and purify eons of negative karma by pleasing the guru and making offerings with devotion and respect.
- Enjoy Your Life with Bodhicitta: A New Student Wrote to Rinpoche Requesting Life Practices. In his response, Rinpoche emphasized the benefits of practicing tonglen and nyung nä.
Big Love
The Perfect Human Rebirth: The Dharma Path to Happiness
Many Kopan students, of course, came because they could see that the happiness being offered them in the West was somehow illusory. Even those from great cities like New York could see through the material progress that had been made there and realized that it was not enough. Every year there was more progress but somehow there was never any more happiness. A new invention solved one problem but immediately there were more problems to be solved. As their societies became more and more complex, the problems became more and more complicated. These students could see that there was something missing in the methods being used to overcome problems. Those who made it to those early Kopan courses shared a dissatisfaction with their societies’ reliance on external methods to fix external problems, and somehow intuitively knew that there must be a deeper, more meaningful way of attaining happiness. Just taking this step was a very wise action; it opened the door to inner peace. Outside in the street was the crazy, confusing world, but they had found the gate to a beautiful park.
Right now, with this precious human body, we have the perfect conditions to see beyond this external confusion—we can understand what suffering is and how to overcome it and what true happiness is and how to attain it. We have the Dharma. The Dharma is whatever leads us toward happiness and away from suffering; it is whatever destroys the root of suffering—delusion and karma. It is the path we all must take, whether we consider ourselves Buddhist or not. Only by renouncing the causes of suffering, such as attachment, and developing compassion and a correct understanding of the nature of reality can we truly liberate ourselves.
Excerpted from The Perfect Human Rebirth by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, edited by Gordon McDougall. Read the entire teaching on the website.
Right now, with this precious human body, we have the perfect conditions to see beyond this external confusion—we can understand what suffering is and how to overcome it and what true happiness is and how to attain it. We have the Dharma. The Dharma is whatever leads us toward happiness and away from suffering; it is whatever destroys the root of suffering—delusion and karma. It is the path we all must take, whether we consider ourselves Buddhist or not. Only by renouncing the causes of suffering, such as attachment, and developing compassion and a correct understanding of the nature of reality can we truly liberate ourselves.
Excerpted from The Perfect Human Rebirth by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, edited by Gordon McDougall. Read the entire teaching on the website.
Buddhist Mind Science - Coming Winter 2026
The course is intended to address the needs of modern students, with a fact-based approach to the study of the mind and meditation.
Course Overview
The course is presented over seven modules, with a strong experiential component:
Happiness and suffering are dependent upon your mind, upon your interpretation. They do not come from outside, from others. All of your happiness and all of your suffering are created by you, by your own mind.” – Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Course Overview
The course is presented over seven modules, with a strong experiential component:
- Cultivating lasting happiness: What Buddhism and science have to say about it is an exploration of purpose in life and what leads to dissatisfaction and suffering, and what to happiness, for oneself and others. It also explores the value of warmheartedness and wisdom, and it lays out the general foundation for the following modules.
- Transforming the mind to cultivate lasting happiness focuses on meditation, mental balance, and emotions.
- Getting to know your mind focuses on the mind.
- Fundamental trainings to cultivate lasting happiness presents the foundations of the Buddhist paths.
- Wise paths to the heart focuses on warmheartedness.
- The nature of perception focuses on wisdom.
- Embodying warmheartedness and wisdom explores how to bring the values of warmheartedness and wisdom into the world.
Happiness and suffering are dependent upon your mind, upon your interpretation. They do not come from outside, from others. All of your happiness and all of your suffering are created by you, by your own mind.” – Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Helps Us Find our Next Meeting Space!
Lama Yeshe House is looking for a space to meet in the Denver - Boulder Area. We would like to secure a venue to consistently host weekly meditation sessions, group practices and courses.
We are looking for space, donors and volunteers. Please let us know of any ideas, opportunities, or connections you may have!
Lama Yeshe House is looking for a space to meet in the Denver - Boulder Area. We would like to secure a venue to consistently host weekly meditation sessions, group practices and courses.
We are looking for space, donors and volunteers. Please let us know of any ideas, opportunities, or connections you may have!
Uniting Words with the Heart
From the video archive this month, watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche demonstrated how to feel the words in one's heart when reciting prayers and setting motivations. This practice advice was given during the 2004 Council for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (CPMT) meeting in the Netherlands, hosted by FPMT's Maitreya Instituut.
Visit and subscribe to the LYWA YouTube channel to explore a complete video collection of teachings by Lama Yeshe and many from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, available from the archive. For many more videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche's teachings, visit the FPMT YouTube channel.
Visit and subscribe to the LYWA YouTube channel to explore a complete video collection of teachings by Lama Yeshe and many from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, available from the archive. For many more videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche's teachings, visit the FPMT YouTube channel.
The Best Use of Your Life
Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Taos, New Mexico, 1999. Photo: Lenny Foster.
Ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, enlightenment, everything, all this happiness — the creator is your mind, not somebody outside. This gives you incredible freedom.
— Lama Zopa Rinpoche
On this month’s podcast, Lama Zopa Rinpoche encourages us to make the best use of our lives by understanding that the mind is the creator of all our happiness and suffering. Through practicing thought transformation, we can discover true freedom. These teachings were given by Rinpoche at the Thirty-third Kopan Meditation Course, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2000. You can follow along with the transcript on the website.
The LYWA podcast contains hundreds of hours of audio, each with links to the accompanying lightly edited transcripts. See the LYWA podcast page to search or browse the entire collection by topic or date, and for easy instructions on how to subscribe.
The LYWA podcast contains hundreds of hours of audio, each with links to the accompanying lightly edited transcripts. See the LYWA podcast page to search or browse the entire collection by topic or date, and for easy instructions on how to subscribe.
Newly released How to Live and Die
The newly released How to Live and Die: The Transformative Power of Meditating on Impermanence presents Rinpoche’s guidance on the essential truth of impermanence—what death is, how to face it, and the mind to cultivate at the time of death. Rinpoche reminds us not to turn away, but to look directly at this reality.
Order a print or ebook copy on the Wisdom Publications website.
Order a print or ebook copy on the Wisdom Publications website.
About Lama Yeshe House
Grounded in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of the Dalai Lama, we operate with a non-sectarian spirit, and offer both Buddhist and secular programs and meditation. We are affiliated with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a global Buddhist organization founded by the visionary Tibetan masters Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Most activities are open to join anytime, and are offered freely. Our smaller class sizes create a relaxed atmosphere and space for discussion, plus easy access to instructors. Donations gratefully accepted.
Most activities are open to join anytime, and are offered freely. Our smaller class sizes create a relaxed atmosphere and space for discussion, plus easy access to instructors. Donations gratefully accepted.
