Teachings from the 52nd Kopan Meditation Course: Lamrim Teachings from Kopan 2019

Between November 29 and December 13, 2019, Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught the students of the fifty-second Kopan course, the one-month intensive lamrim course given each year at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu, the principal monastery of the FPMT. The course was held in the newly finished Chenrezig Gompa and had a new record attendance of about two hundred and seventy people.

This was just before COVID19 hit and the world went into lockdown for two years, which Rinpoche used to give daily thought transformation teachings from Kopan, with the aid of an ever-increasing number of soft toys. Here, however, his main emphasis is on emptiness. Using the wonderful verse, "A star, a defective view, a butter lamp flame…" over several days he explores how the cause of all our problems stems from misreading reality. Rinpoche, a master at teaching emptiness, does so here in great depth and with great clarity.

These teachings were simultaneously transcribed and then edited by Ven. Joan Nicell and simultaneously checked for errors by Tania Duratovic, Laura Haughey and Ven. Tenzin Tsomo. They have been subsequently lightly edited by Gordon McDougall.

The Kopan courses began in April 1971 with a ten-day program attended by about a dozen people. From these early beginnings, the Kopan courses evolved to become an annual event with over two hundred attendees from all over the world. Kopan Monastery is the heart of the FPMT, the international organization founded by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche to preserve and spread Mahayana Buddhism worldwide. The Kopan meditation courses were life-changing for countless students, and this is where many students met the Lamas, received teachings and became Buddhist.