The Preciousness of Human Life with Karma Yeshe and Karma Zopa
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Join Zuisei and the sangha in conversation with Lama Karma Yeshe Chödrön and Karma Zopa Jigme.
Yeshe and Zopa are Western teachers in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism who describe their mission as empowering practitioners to engage spiritual practice with integrity, creativity, and joy.
This conversation, based on a death contemplation that Karma Yeshe and Karma Zopa shared with our sangha, touches on the importance of understanding the fragility of a human life so we can make the most of the time we have.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
The Preciousness of Human Life
May the merits of these teachings benefit all beings. May these words help and not harm. May they clarify and not confuse. May they self-liberate, leaving no trace behind.
I have been sharing with a group over the last few months about some of our conversations and my excitement at being in the midst of fellow teachers, Dharma practitioners, and being able to speak about the Dharma and learn about our different traditions and just the different ways in which we take in and then express the teachings.
And so I had for some time been wanting to share that in different ways with the group, and so I thought I would start doing this, right? Inviting fellow teachers to join us, share a practice with us, and then have a conversation.
And so I want to come back to that practice because there's so many things in it. So I'd love to come back to it. But if we could start, if you could share a little bit with us your path—how did you become Yeshe and Zopa? How did you meet? And what is it like to be able to, in the context of your marriage, share and teach the Dharma? So if you can, tell us a little bit about your story.
Becoming a Tibetan Buddhist
Sure. I guess I'll start. I was very interested in lots of brainy kinds of things when I was growing up. I was a biology student and really loved science and was in graduate school, heading toward a doctorate in biology, but decided that that didn't quite work for me and decided to go to law school. And I did that.
I did a lot of intellectual property and insurance and health law because it combined those two fields. And I would say that I came to Dharma because all of these things that I was told when I was growing up… I'm a first-generation Latinx American person. My family emigrated from Cuba. My parents emigrated from Cuba when Castro took power, very soon after he took power, before the very large wave of exiles.
But there was a real focus on success and striving and hitting that American dream. That was a very big part of the immigrant experience for me growing up. And I felt like I'd done all those things. I checked all those boxes, and there wasn't much happiness in sight that I was told to expect from that. There was some contentment, of course, and there were some good things about it, but it seemed that all of the contentment and success brought with it new kinds of ways to be uncomfortable and discontent in addition to the ones that were there.
So I started to explore meditation and eventually Dharma. The Tibetan Buddha Dharma was particularly compelling to me because I felt that it both hit the strengths of the intellectual curiosity that was always a part of my life and also provided a much more experiential basis for meditation. So it was a very good marriage of theory and practice that I hadn't found before. It was very one-sided for me in life. And having that combination was really compelling for me. It was something I really enjoyed doing and wanted to do more of.
So I had the opportunity to leave work on good terms and go spend a year or two in Asia and study at this fancy monastery in Nepal, where I could get really in-depth in the teachings. And so I did that. It's Kulwari Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal. I met Zopa there. He had already been going for about a year. We ended up studying and practicing there for several years. We were living in Asia between Nepal and India. Our guru is Bokur Rinpoche, whose monastery is in Northeast India.
So we spent a lot of time there studying and practicing, learning the Tibetan language, and being trained as translators. Then eventually we started to divide our time between the U.S. and Asia and prepare for the traditional three-year retreat, which in our lineage is the training. It's one of the ways—not the only way—but one of the ways that people become authorized teachers. It's one of the few ways to become a lama, which is a title that generally means teacher but literally means "highest mother." It's meant to be a very nourishing kind of role that we play with our students.
So that's the general outline for me.
Life throws challenges at everyone, but the practice allows us to face them with more equanimity and openness.
Can I just ask you a quick question? When you say "fancy monastery," what do you mean? Because that's not my experience of monastery life.
Yeah, that's a perfect question. Because when I started out, I was raised… my mother was Protestant and my father was Catholic. My mother wasn't very observant, and my father was. So I felt like I was raised very Catholic. I went to Catholic school. I went to the churches.
And when I was looking for a Dharma center, I was avoiding those Tibetan centers because they looked too Catholic to me: all the incense and the chanting and the colors. I was all for that nice Zen aesthetic, which is not fancy. But the Tibetan Dharma centers are extremely colorful. It's an explosion of almost chaotic sensory experience. And the monastery, Pulari, that I eventually went to, is very much in that line. It's very elaborate. There are gilded statues and very elaborate tapestries or thangkas, and different techniques, either painted or embroidered.
It's fancy in a way that's almost opposite to the, I think, absolutely elegant, beautiful simplicity of a Zen monastery. And it's one of the ways that I think our traditions, on the outside, seem very different. But in my experience, I think the Zen tradition is probably closer to others than others to the Tibetan outlook on Dharma, despite the radically different aesthetic.
But "fancy" doesn't mean like a lot of creature comforts. Certainly when we were there, a lot of the time it was winter, and there was no heating, and the buildings were on the north side of the hill. Bathrooms were outside, things like that. So not fancy in that five-star hotel kind of fancy.
Right. And so how about you, Zopa?
I grew up in northern New Mexico in a spiritual community that was founded by a Western guy who kind of combined Christian mysticism and Buddhism and some other things. That teacher died when I was quite young. I don't have any memories of him, but the community stayed together. Then eventually, around the time I was 12 or so, some of the people got involved in Tibetan Buddhism.
I had some exposure to Tibetan teachers. There was a sense of curiosity because it seemed like these teachers, who didn't have a lot of the trappings that society, schooling, and all of these things were telling me were necessary for happiness in life, nevertheless seemed a lot happier than many people I knew. That was intriguing.
I took refuge when I was a teenager, but I didn't really get involved seriously until after I graduated from my undergraduate studies in California in 2000. Then I went on pilgrimage over to India, Nepal, and Tibet, and that really hooked me. Being in those cultures, seeing it permeate life, and getting exposed to that—at least—started to hook me.
In particular, going to this program for international students at Pula Hari, where there was in-depth daily study and practice of the Dharma and the philosophy behind it, and getting some sense of the graduated path of Dharma, kind of blew open my mind. That really hooked me.
Then the rest, as Yeshe described, we did our three-year retreat between 2013 and 2016 and continued to work with the monastery in Nepal. In fact, Yeshe was translating for some teachings there this morning. So it's been a busy Dharma day today, which is great.
Partners in Teaching and in Life
And so your community is online, or do you also have in-person?
Our community here in the U.S. has been almost entirely in-person until the pandemic, and then it's been online since then. We mostly work with individual centers, so we travel to different centers traditionally, and those would have been in-person. But it kind of depends on each of the centers whether they're ready to open up or are still doing things online. We've been doing things online when we initiate the teachings and the practices.
So when you’re teaching together, how do you divide the roles?
Generally, Yeshe is the primary teacher, and I assist in the teaching and help manage the organizational side, but there’s a lot of fluidity. In practice, we’re both teachers, and we both do the kinds of things that teachers do. But Yeshe tends to lead the talks, the formal teachings, and I support with logistics, practice guidance, and discussions. But it’s a very fluid partnership.
I think that’s really important to highlight because people sometimes think of teachers in very rigid terms. But for us, the teaching arises out of our experience and our practice, and so it’s not a hierarchy; it’s more of a partnership in sharing the Dharma.
And how about the students—what do they notice about your teaching as a couple?
They notice a few things. I think the most common comment is that it’s practical. And it’s relatable because we’re not trying to present some idealized version of what it means to be a teacher or practitioner. We share our experiences honestly, and that seems to resonate with people. They also notice the humor. We laugh a lot, even in practice, and I think that’s important because Dharma can be very serious, but humor and lightness help people engage without feeling burdened.
Do you have any advice for people who are in partnerships, married or otherwise, who want to practice together?
Yes. I think it’s essential to maintain your own practice and your own connection to the teachings while also supporting each other’s practice. It’s easy to get caught up in trying to “practice together” in a way that becomes competitive or overly prescriptive. But it’s more about supporting each other, creating space, and practicing patience, compassion, and generosity within the partnership itself.
Also, communication is critical. Sometimes people think that if they’re married or partnered, they don’t need to check in about the inner work, but actually, that’s when it becomes most important. Being honest, asking for support, and sharing reflections can help both partners deepen their understanding and practice.
Finally, don’t underestimate the power of shared practice, even if it’s just sitting in meditation together or discussing a teaching. That presence, that shared energy, is meaningful. It’s not about always agreeing or doing everything together; it’s about being witness to each other’s growth and challenges.
Could you talk a little about your daily practice?
Our daily practice usually starts with meditation, followed by recitation or study depending on the day. We try to balance personal practice with teaching and administrative work. It’s not perfect every day, but the intention is consistent. And we also do some joint practices, like specific ceremonies or recitations that support the community.
We try to integrate practice into daily life as much as possible. Even when teaching or traveling, there’s always some mindfulness and awareness that guides our interactions, decisions, and responsibilities. It’s really about bringing Dharma into every moment rather than separating “practice time” from “life time.”
How has your practice evolved over the years?
It has become more subtle and refined. In the beginning, it was about structure—making sure we were meditating enough, reciting enough, studying enough. Over time, it’s shifted to understanding the teachings more deeply and embodying them in daily life. It’s less about the quantity of practice and more about quality and integration.
I also notice that our relationship with impermanence and uncertainty has deepened. Life throws challenges at everyone, but the practice allows us to face them with more equanimity and openness. That’s a profound change from when we started.
Nina. Thank you. I'm sorry, I'm joining on the phone and I really regret missing the practices, but it's never too late for the present moment, the end of your talk. And I wanted to go back to a question, the question that Zuisei asked about the dialogical quality you were referring to. And since I wasn't present virtually for the practices, I was interested in, I think it was the, it's not a metaphor, but you said that it was like searching, our center was like groping for something in the dark, but not in an intellectual way of, where was I when I dropped the car keys? And I wondered, somehow when Zuisei asked, like you're in dialogue with the Buddha, something flashed into my mind or just an association that I don't know if others will have some recognition, but very often when I'm reading the sutras or the Dharma or even just opening up some kind of book, even by Thich Nhat Hanh or somebody, there's an asking of question, of questioning, almost like you would oracle, asking a question knowing that there's no answer I think we have to answer, accept what arises from that conversation with the Dharma and with the question itself. And I think you said something like sitting with a… I guess I'm just really curious whether that, what resonated with me is what is close to what you were describing.
Yeah. So the full example that I use for that experiential analysis is let's say you're in a hotel room. So you've never been in this room before. It's your first night there. And in the middle of the night, the power goes out. The night lights are out. The clocks are out. It's pitch dark. So of course you've got glasses and you need to put on your glasses to try to make some sense of it. So you can lie there in bed completely still and say, "Oh gosh, where are my glasses?" Like, just like you said, "I know that I was in the bathroom and I had them on there." And you're completely still. You're just almost not embodied. You're just thinking entirely in your head. It's a total abstraction or imagining things, as opposed to, "I have to find my glasses, and now the fire alarm is going off, and I better go find them." And you're groping around.
So in that groping, there's a kind of physicality because you're using your senses, your touch, and so forth. But there's also, "Oh, no, this is paper. Oh, no, this is a book. Oh, no, glasses." So there's still an analytical quality that's happening with the subtle physicality. And that's the quality of the inquiry that's happening. It's not up here at all. It's really coming from the heart, really sort of leading with experience instead of leading with thought.
True Nature of Mind
And then when I talk about dialoguing with the Buddha, that's a common example in the way they present this teaching. But when you think about it from the perspective of Buddha nature, what is the Buddha? The Buddha is our own true nature of mind. What this practice is getting to is sitting still with the true nature of our own mind with questions, open questions, that spark our curiosity, our interest. And that's what invokes that precise knowing, the prajna, which we don't necessarily activate very, very much in the context of Dharma. So the aim of the practice is to start bringing up that prajna in the context of Dharma, and the consummate example of this practice is meditation on emptiness, shunyata, because we're trying to have an experiential understanding of non-self. And that happens through sitting with the qualities right in our mind and having our own curiosity, our own groping in the dark be what invokes that prajna.
Now, as I mentioned before, it's connected to actually listening to teachings on non-self, for example, or depth, as we did earlier, and really having thought about it for some time, having a clarity about what the teachings are saying, what that understanding is. And then we're actually sitting with that. So what we're actively dialoguing with is our own understanding that we developed while we were listening and contemplating. But what's happening under the surface is that we're tapping that bottomless well of infinite qualities of mind and invoking them. And as we invoke it and then we rest, basically marinate in that experience, we're instilling it.
The Tibetan word gom, which usually is translated as meditation, literally means to cultivate familiarity. We're getting familiar with the qualities of our own true nature of mind. And the more we do that, the more we habituate ourselves to that, the more accessible they are, the more they are immediate resources, spontaneously, without all of these steps. So it becomes more and more the view that we take off the cushion and into life and so forth. So basically, it's a practice for connecting with those qualities, instilling them, and really incorporating them into our everyday life. Not only so we will feel better because that's great, not only so that others will benefit from this because that's also great, but so we can uproot the misperception that is samsara and transcend to the point where we're accessible for all beings in the way that the mind of enlightenment is accessible for all.
So the Tibetan Buddhist practice very, very much foregrounds not only the possibility, not only the capacity, but the inevitability of each and every being attaining enlightenment. And this is one of the ways that that happens. That's kind of the perfect closing: the inevitability of enlightenment.
That's wonderful. We have run out of time. I just want to make sure if anybody else has any last-minute thoughts or questions.
Yes, Liz. I'm thinking about the Buddha's awakening and his seeing all his past lives at that time. How do you interpret that? I don't think I'll ever get to that place where I see all my past lives or my future lives, but how do you see that? I'm just curious. How do I understand that particular moment, you mean?
I have something. Do you want to say something, Chris?
No, I'll let you go ahead.
I see that as the Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree and seeing his past and future lives and seeing the past and future lives of other beings, which is how he himself describes it and suits us. So what I understand that to mean is Buddha in our tradition is equated with omniscience. But not omniscience like we immediately hear omniscience and we're like, "Oh, give me the lottery numbers for next week," because you know everything, I want to know those. But omniscience is very particular. It means understanding phenomena just as they are and in their full extent, understanding everything it takes to awaken because the name Buddha means awaken.
So how I understand that is that the Buddha awakens to the full range of experience and all of the, in our tradition, we call them obscurations, that cloud the ability of mind to know the full range of experience are completely lifted, they all fall away. But in that same sutta, when he's describing his enlightenment, probably the thing that moves me the most is his description after the enlightenment experience is over. He's wandering around in the trees of, around the Bodhi tree in the forest. And he is reflecting on that experience. And what he says is, "This peace so profound, this unpolluted, uncreated, clear light, this nectar-like Dharma that I have found, to whomever I may teach it, it will remain an enigma. So I will remain silent and stay here alone in the forest."
We always talk about the Four Truths as the Buddha's first teaching, and it's certainly his first public teaching. But to me, that's his first teaching. It's so subtle. It's so beyond concepts and words that even the Buddha doesn't know how in the world he's going to get this across. So then he comes up with skillful methods. And I take everything that the various traditions in Asia of Buddhism tell us about the Buddha, his life, and his teachings, as the skillful methods for us to encounter that unpolluted, uncreated, clear light, the true nature of our mind.
Now I'm wishing we had two more hours. Thank you so much, Yeshe and Zopa. Such a pleasure.
The Preciousness of Human Life, a dharma talk by Zen Buddhist teacher Zuisei Goddard. Audio podcast, video, and transcript available.