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    Joyful Parents, Successful Children
    Joyful Parents, Successful Children
    Joyful Parents, Successful Children
    Ebook96 pages1 hour

    Joyful Parents, Successful Children

    By Lama Zopa Rinpoche

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    About this ebook

    So success is not about having money; success is about having a good heart.
    That is the main education you should give your children.
    -Lama Zopa Rinpoche

    This book contains perfect advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, not only providing the Dharma context for how our children should be brought up but also containing many helpful suggestions of how we can introduce simple Dharma practices for our children. Rinpoche emphasizes the responsibility that Buddhist parents have to educate their children in good qualities and behavior and to set a good example and practice the qualities Rinpoche outlines as essential for achieving every type of happiness, both short- and long-term.

    This ebook was designed & published by Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive for Amitabha Buddhist Centre (ABC). We are non-profit Buddhist organizations affiliated with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) and invite you to visit us online for more Dharma teachings.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLama Yeshe Wisdom Archive
    Release dateDec 28, 2015
    ISBN9781891868665
    Joyful Parents, Successful Children
    Author

    Lama Zopa Rinpoche

    Lama Zopa Rinpoche was one of the most internationally renowned masters of Tibetan Buddhism, working and teaching ceaselessly on almost every continent. He was the spiritual director and cofounder of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an international network of Buddhist projects, including monasteries in six countries and meditation centers in over thirty; health and nutrition clinics, and clinics specializing in the treatment of leprosy and polio; as well as hospices, schools, publishing activities, and prison outreach projects worldwide. He passed away in 2023.

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      Joyful Parents, Successful Children - Lama Zopa Rinpoche

      DEDICATION

      Through the merit created by preparing, reading, thinking about and sharing this book with others, may all teachers of the Dharma live long and healthy lives, may the Dharma spread throughout the infinite reaches of space and may all sentient beings quickly attain enlightenment.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      JOYFUL PARENTS, SUCCESSFUL CHILDREN

      Dedication

      Publisher’s Acknowledgements

      Editor’s Preface and Acknowledgements

      Raising Children With Bodhicitta

      Making a Relationship Meaningful

      Generating the Good Heart

      Teaching the Seven Foundations

      -Kindness

      -Rejoicing

      -Patience

      -Forgiveness

      -Apologising

      -Contentment

      -Courage

      Making the Worry Worthwhile

      Helping Children Collect Merit

      Living an Inner Life

      Appendix 1. The 16 Human Dharmas

      Appendix 2. The 10 Powerful Mantras

      Appendix 3. A Practice for Children

      Appendix 4. A Letter to the Children of Maitreya School

      Appendix 5. A Prayer for Children

      Notes

      About Lama Zopa Rinpoche

      The Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition

      Amitabha Buddhist Center

      Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

      What to do with Dharma teachings

      Final Dedication

      PUBLISHER’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      Parenting is one of the most challenging undertakings in life for which nothing quite prepares us. At the same time, nurturing, guiding and raising children can be deeply joyful and fulfilling.

      As Buddhist parents, we have a special and very important responsibility to ensure that our offspring not only receive a good worldly education but are also educated to be good-hearted human beings.

      This book contains perfect advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche. It not only provides the Dharma context for how our children should be brought up but also contains many helpful suggestions of how we can introduce simple Dharma practices to our children.

      We wish to thank Ven. Joan Nicell and vbook; Nick Ribush of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, Tom Truty of FPMT Education Services and Laura Miller of Mandala for providing additional editorial materials; and Lobsang Drolkar and Soh Seok Keim for their support and assistance.

      Ng Swee Kim

      Publications Group

      Amitabha Buddhist Centre

      April 2015

      EDITOR’S PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      In this little book, Kyabje Zopa Rinpoche speaks about the need for Buddhist parents to make a plan for raising their children. This plan involves giving meaning to the decision to bring children into the world, and after having given birth to them, ensuring that they do everything within their power to make their children’s lives as meaningful as possible. Otherwise, as Rinpoche says, Being born in a Buddhist family will be no different from being born in a non-Buddhist family.

      Rinpoche then explains exactly how parents should go about doing this—by teaching their children how to generate a good heart and the Seven Foundations for Happiness and Peace (kindness, rejoicing, patience, forgiveness, apologising, contentment and courage) and by guiding them in virtuous actions while they are still young.

      The main body of the book comes from two talks given at Institut Vajra Yogini in Lavaur, France, on 15 and 23 May 2009 respectively. The context of these talks was a month-long retreat related to Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezig in Tibetan) who is revered as the embodiment of compassion.

      Students present at the retreat, as well as those participating in the retreat from their homes around the world, were encouraged to count their recitations of the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM, with the aim of reaching a combined total of 100 million mantras. Almost every day of the retreat, Rinpoche would join one or more sessions and give an explanation of some part of the practice.

      On one of these occasions, Rinpoche was inspired by the words mother and father sentient beings in the following request to Avalokiteshvara to talk about how Buddhist parents can best raise their children:

      Arya Avalokiteshvara, treasure of compassion,

      Together with your retinue, please pay attention to me.

      Please quickly free me and all mother and father sentient beings

      Of the six realms from the ocean of cyclic existence.

      Please enable profound and extensive peerless bodhicitta

      To quickly grow in our mindstreams.

      With the water of your compassion, please quickly cleanse

      Our delusions and actions accumulated since beginningless time,

      And with your compassionate hand,

      Lead me and all migrating beings to the blissful pure land. ¹

      By keeping in mind that their child is one of the numberless sentient beings—for whom they, as Buddhists, develop bodhicitta at the beginning of every practice—parents can avoid raising their children with the painful mind of attachment that thinks only of my child. By understanding that they receive every happiness, past, present and future, up to enlightenment from their child, parents will be able to rejoice in their opportunity to be of use to at least one sentient being. As Rinpoche says, Since you spend so many years of your life with your children, it is important to make them the focus of your Dharma practice and meditation.

      Just as parents can use their children to develop bodhicitta, so too can people use their partners, parents, other people in their care and even their pets, to develop this altruistic wish to achieve enlightenment.

      In these talks, Rinpoche emphasises the responsibility that Buddhist parents have to educate their children in good qualities and behaviour while they are still young; that is, when they are still willing to listen and do what their parents ask them to! Parents should also set a good example and practise the qualities Rinpoche outlines as essential for achieving every type of happiness, both short- and long-term.

      In addition, parents need to teach their children how to do simple Dharma practices like prostrating and giving offerings to holy objects. Even if children do not continue to do these practices when they grow older, because actions bring results, sooner or later, they will reap the results.

      Rinpoche sums up his advice saying, "Since as Buddhist parents, you can do so much

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