Offering Practices

I thought to tell about some benefits [of offering gold.]

In the time of Buddha Kashyapa, one person offered gold to a stone elephant and was reborn having an elephant that was gold and had golden kaka. The king confiscated the elephant at that time, but the elephant dissolved into the ground. However, for the man, his karma was to get another similar elephant.

Another benefit of offering gold is to be born with golden-colored skin. Like that, there are unbelievable benefits. Unbelievable, like that.

If someone offers a small flower or some rice to a buddha statue, a stupa or scripture, then the benefit extends from that time up to enlightenment. Amazing, amazing. It is said in the Sutra of Piled Flowers that on top of that benefit you achieve ultimate happiness—liberation from the causes of delusion and karma—and on top of that full enlightenment, all the realizations and the omniscient mind. After this, then you can liberate numberless hell beings, pretas, animals, humans, suras and asuras from the ocean of samsaric sufferings and bring them to full enlightenment. When all beings are brought to enlightenment, only then are all the results of the offering achieved.

So by offering gold, then wow, wow, wow. Can you imagine the result! From only a tiny offering of a flower or rice, so much benefit is received due to that statue. So really, holy objects are wish-fulfilling gems, unbelievably precious.

I have another story. In ancient times in India, there were four fully ordained monks. They were fully ordained but not aryas with the direct realization of emptiness. One person offered food to these monks and was later reborn as King Kashika. But now you are offering gold, so can you imagine the result. Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Another benefit, in order for you to get the idea, comes from the Sutra of the Mudra of Developing the Power of Devotion. In that sutra it says that someone who merely sees the image of a buddha, great or small, immediately creates numberless merits. The food of the devas is nectar and their cloth is extremely precious—all the wealth of the world is not enough to buy their ornaments. Compared to making an offering of the devas’ food and cloth one hundred times to solitary realizers equaling the sand grains of the universe for one hundred eons, to just look at the statue of a buddha has unimaginably more benefits. Wow! Wow! So imagine now offering gold. Offering has far, far, far more merit than seeing a buddha.

Now you see why we build big statues that people from all over the world come to see. You can see how the benefit is there.

Thank you very much for your understanding.

While there is the Guru who is like a wish-granting jewel and the unimaginable wish-fulfilling tree,
And the ever-undeceiving Rare Sublime Ones¹ who effortlessly fulfill all wishes,
Still to be dissatisfied and spend your body and wealth on what is non-virtuous and without meaning is so very foolish.

Dear friends,
Once you have understood that wealth is like dew on the tip of a blade of grass
And that your friends, body and life are like a bubble,
Then you must engage in virtues such as making offerings to the Rare Sublime Ones while looking at them as the Guru
And extract the essence from your essenceless body and wealth.

Due to this merit may I and all others
Be able to make offerings to the Guru and the Three Jewels since they are our crown ornament.
By keeping my prayers and commitments,
And by means of listening, reflection and contemplation,
With guru devotion and supreme bodhicitta,
May my life become fortunate, something meaningful and worthy of rejoicing,
And in this way, may I fulfill all the wishes of sentient beings.

Just as flies gather around dirty things
Due to seeing samsara as pleasure
So far I have accomplished only meaningless suffering
Lacking any freedom to practice Dharma.
Now, with my body, speech and mind
I will engage in great meaningful actions for the welfare of others.
May the Guru please bless me to be able to do this.

Arranged and composed by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery, 11 August 2011. Corrected by Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Ven. Kunphen, Tushita Meditation Centre, 26 March 2012. Further suggested editing by Ven. Sarah, 2 July 2012.

Notes:
¹ Tib. kön-chog sum, ie the Three Jewels. 

Keep doing the water bowls. Khen Rinpoche is not teasing when you ask something and he says, “Just do the water bowls,” because he knows this is what I like—this is what makes me happy. So, he wants you to stay at Kopan forever doing this.

The Six-Session Guru Yoga verse says, “Whatever supreme and mundane attainment…what only pleases you.” This is the quickest path to enlightenment, and it brings the result and the realizations quickly. There is nothing to do other than that. Whether we learn Tibetan or not, or do other things, whatever pleases the guru is the most effective and efficient thing for us to do. We should keep this in mind and remember to keep it in our thoughts.

You spent nine months in your mother’s womb and she experienced so much unbelievable pain when you were born. Then, for so many years, your parents sacrificed their lives for you and worried about you. When you weren’t obedient, they got angry and beat you and created negative karma because of you. They sent you to school to receive an education so you could have a good life. They spent so much money for so many years on your shelter, food, and expenses. Then you spent so many years learning, from kindergarten and primary school to college. You finally got a degree and found a job and then endured hardship to save money for so many years. With the money, you bought a house and other things.

All the money you raised is a dependent arising. It didn’t only come from your own effort, but was dependent on your parents and their many years of hard work and physical and mental exhaustion, on the education you received, and on your many years of hard work, bearing many hardships. Wow! If all the work for this money became Dharma, that is one thing, but usually the work is done with anger, attachment, or ignorance and becomes only negative karma.

But if you offer everything to the Sangha, you create unbelievable merit. Sangha are living in a high number of vows and are unbelievably powerful objects. I think Western people want to help others because they see that others need things, but many Tibetan lay people want to help out of interest for their own good karma, so that they have everything—happiness, wealth, a long life, etc—in future lives.

Giving to the Sangha is an incredible thing. One extremely poor person gave medicine and drink to four monks; they were not arhats, just ordinary monks. In the next life, that person was born as a very powerful and wealthy person. The karmic cause was very simple—just giving medicine and drink to four monks—but because karma expands, the result will be experienced over many lifetimes. If you offer to the powerful object of the Sangha with the motivation of bodhicitta, the result is even more powerful. You receive limitless skies of merit because you are thinking of benefiting numberless sentient beings—numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless sura beings and asura beings, and numberless intermediate state beings—and bringing them to enlightenment. You can imagine the merit you gain if you offer to the Sangha with the motivation of bodhicitta.

You can serve the Sangha with your body, or through talking to people, or with your mind. And when you die, you can offer your money, your house or your material possessions to the Sangha. Then there won’t be the problem of the family creating negative karma with each other, getting angry at each other because you didn’t give them this or that. They fight and quarrel and then there are court cases. The problems explode like a volcano.

If your family is not Buddhist, they won’t make charity to others for you; they won’t give even one dollar to charity and dedicate it for you. They will use all the money that you raised from so many years of hard work, exhausting your body and mind. Of course, as I mentioned before, if it is done with virtue, then the result is happiness, but almost everything becomes non-virtue, and then you have to experience the result, an unbelievable length of time in the lower realms. Then, even in the human realm, you have to experience the possessed result and creating the result similar to the cause and the result similar to the action. Due to past habits, you create the same actions again in the human realm. Your family does the same thing, using the money only to create non-virtue. Your family may not like to hear this, but this is the reality.

If your family is Buddhist and they understand karma and care for you with compassion, they will use the money to do something for you.

Of course, if you have children and a wife or husband, it is different. You have a responsibility to take care of them. However, it’s very nice to leave a will and offer to the Sangha. Then, the activities of the family don’t become non-virtue and you collect some virtue. You create virtue right now, when you make the decision, and later, when the offering is actually made.

The Benefits of Offering Music Such as Bells

If you offer the sweet sound of the bell, ting shak (very small Tibetan cymbals), conch shell, and so forth, you will have a very sweet and enchanting voice, and a big voice. You will have a long life, no sickness, be born in a high rank or class, with a perfect, beautiful body, have great wealth, and be very powerful. You should make such offerings if you wish for these results.

With your enchanting voice you will be able to attract many sentient beings—like world-famous singers—and bring them to enlightenment. If you offer any of these musical sounds to Buddha, it also becomes the cause to achieve Buddha’s perfect holy speech. Even if you offer music to Buddha without bodhicitta, and even if your attitude of offering music doesn’t become Dharma because it is stained by attachment clinging to this life, the thought of the eight worldly Dharmas, still it immediately becomes the cause to attain enlightenment, peerless happiness, and the highest success. And it also becomes the cause to achieve liberation from the whole entire suffering of samsara and total liberation from the oceans of samsaric suffering, including their causes—delusions and karma. It becomes the cause for the happiness of future lives, including good rebirths and so forth. You collect a vast amount of merit. Even one music offering to Buddha creates very powerful good karma, affecting even this life, bringing health, a long life, success in business, and fulfilling your wishes. It brings so much happiness in this life. The benefits explained here include also offering the sound of a gong or any kind of music that produces sound.

Regarding a bell offered to a stupa, especially containing the Stainless Beam Deity’s mantra, anybody in the area who hears the sound of the bell has any negative karma completely purified, including the five uninterrupted negative karmas (the five heinous deeds: killing one’s father, mother, or an arhat, maliciously drawing blood from a buddha, and causing a schism within the Sangha), which are extremely heavy. Also, the ten nonvirtuous actions that are normally created in daily life are also purified. It’s incredibly powerful.

Offering a Bell to Prayer Wheels

Each time the bell makes a sound, you are offering it. When you ring a gong at a Dharma center, for example, you don’t have to just ring it to assemble people. With each sound you can think you are making an offering of sound to the gurus, the Triple Gem in all ten directions, and the holy objects in all ten directions. This way, with each sound, you create so many causes for enlightenment, also so many causes for liberation and the happiness of future lives. Of course, this also affects this life—all your wishes for happiness are fulfilled, as well as being able to benefit others.

How to Make the Offering: Preparation: Motivation

Think: "The purpose of my life is to free all sentient beings from suffering and lead them to enlightenment, therefore I must achieve enlightenment, and I am going to make the offering of sound."

Actual Body: Making the Offering

Think: "I am going to offer sound to my root guru; all the buddhas, Dharma, and Sangha, who are my guru, in the ten directions; and all statues, stupas, and scriptures, who are my guru, in the ten directions."

Then you ring the bell.

While ringing the bell, think like this: "The sentient beings in the six realms have heard the sound of Dharma." The sound of the bell means  that phenomena are empty of existing from their own side. Think they have all heard this teaching on emptiness, realized emptiness, and become liberated totally from the ocean of samsaric suffering and delusion and karma. With the support of bodhicitta, they have completed the path, their body has become the rupakaya, and their mind has become the Dharmakaya. You can visualize any deity that you wish. You can practice the meditation when you are ringing the bell and you can also dedicate as follows: “May the sound of the bell affect sentient beings in this way.”

Then, recite the Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha mantra seven times:

OM PADMO USHNISHA VIMALE HUM PHAT

Then blow on the bell. Anybody who hears the sound of the bell, not just humans, but spirits and animals in the area, has the ten non-virtuous actions purified and even the five uninterrupted negative karmas are purified. You should do the same with the gong or bell when you ring it to call people to meals or to sessions, so it becomes incredible purification for oneself and all sentient beings.

Completion: Dedication

You create vast amounts of merit through the motivation of bodhicitta and offering to the gurus by thinking that each guru is countless buddhas, by offering to the buddhas in the ten directions, and by offering to the statues, stupas, and Sangha in the ten directions.

Give all the merits of the past, present, future, and all the causes of enlightenment to all sentient beings, so they receive whatever they want, whatever they need, eliminate all the defilements, and become enlightened. Again, you have collected vast amounts of merit from this.

Then, dedicate this merit:

Due to all this merit, may whatever suffering sentient beings experience ripen upon me, and may whatever happiness I have ripen upon other sentient beings.

Due to the merits of the three times collected by me and all sentient beings, may the precious sublime thought of bodhicitta be generated in my mind and in the minds of all sentient beings, without the delay of even one second. Whatever bodhicitta has been generated may it never decline but increase more and more.

Due to all these merits, may all the father and mother sentient beings have all happiness, and may all the lower realms be empty forever. Wherever there are bodhisattvas, may all their prayers be accomplished immediately. May I cause all this by myself alone.

Due to all the merits of the three times accumulated by me and all sentient beings, which are completely empty of existing from their own side, may the “I,” which is completely empty of existing from its own side, quickly achieve the state of enlightenment, which is completely empty of existing from its own side, in order to lead all sentient beings, who are completely empty of existing from their own side, to that state, by myself alone, who is completely empty of existing from its own side.

To Dedicate in the Same Way as All the Past Buddhas and Bodhisattvas

I fully dedicate all these virtues
To be able to train just like
The hero Manjushri, who knows reality,
And just like Samantabhadra as well.

I fully dedicate all my roots of virtue
With the dedication praised as the best
By all the gone-beyond victorious ones of the three times
In order to have good conduct.

Multiplying Mantras to Increase the Merit 100,000 Times

Recite these holy names to actualize all the prayers you have made and to multiply their benefits by a hundred thousand.

CHOM DÄN DÄ DE ZHIN SHEG PA DRA CHOM PA YANG DAG PAR DZOG PÄI SANG GYÄ NAM PAR NANG DZÄ Ö KYI GYÄL PO LA CHHAG TSHÄL LO (3x)
To Bhagavan, Tathagata, Arhat, Perfectly Complete Buddha, Vairocana, King of Light, I prostrate. (3x)

JANG CHHUB SEM PA SEM PA CHHEN PO KÜN TU ZANG PO LA CHHAG TSHÄL LO (3x)
To Bodhisattva Mahasattva Samantabhadra, I prostrate. (3x)

TADYATHA / [OM] PANCENDRIYA AVABODHANAYE SVAHA / OM DHURU DHURU JAYA MUKHE SVAHA (7x)

CHOM DÄN DÄ DE ZHIN SHEG PA DRA CHOM PA YANG DAG PAR DZOG PÄI SANG GYÄ MÄN GYI LA BAI DUR YÄI Ö KYI GYÄL PO LA CHHAG TSHÄL LO (1x)
To Bhagavan, Tathagata, Arhat, Perfectly Complete Buddha, Medicine Guru, King of Vaidurya Light, I prostrate. (1x)

CHOM DÄN DÄ DE ZHIN SHEG PA DRA CHOM PA YANG DAG PAR DZOG PÄI SANG GYÄ NGO WA DANG MÖN LAM THAM CHÄ RAB TU DRUB PÄ GYÄL PO LA CHHAG TSHÄL LO (1x)
To Bhagavan, Tathagata, Arhat, Perfectly Complete Buddha, King Fully Accomplishing All Dedications and Prayers, I prostrate. (1x)

Due to the power of the blessings of the eminent buddhas and bodhisattvas, the power of the infallible dependent arising, and the power of my pure special attitude, may all my pure prayers succeed immediately.

Please write this on a board by the bell: “By the sound of the great Dharma bell may sentient beings instantly be freed from their suffering.”

This wonderful, unbelievable practice comes from Lord Buddha’s teachings found in the Kangyur, in the section on tantra.

When we make offerings of incense (in powder or stick form), flowers, food, etc., recite the following mantra 21 times and then offer them to the Three Jewels:

NAMAH SARVA TATHAGATHA AVALOKITE OM SAMBHARA SAMBHARA HUNG

The benefits of this mantra are as follows:

1) The food offered becomes divine (of the divine substance of the Buddha) with the blessing of this mantra;
2) It becomes an offering to the Buddhas, Dharma, and Sangha abiding in the ten directions. We accumulate an inconceivable amount of merit;
3) The merit created is equal to having praised all the Three Jewels;
4) The merit created is equal to having made a request to the Three Jewels;
5) We create the same amount of merit as from having rejoiced at the qualities of the Three Jewels;
6) At all times, the Buddhas are always admiring, paying attention to, and thinking of us, just how parents are always thinking of their sons and daughters;
7) Many devas are always protecting and guiding us;
8) The paramita of charity is completed.

The Buddha told Ananda, “Ananda, just as I have taught this method to you, reflect on it, practice it, keep it in mind, and reveal it to all sentient beings so that they will be able to see and hear this practice. In this way, one will achieve limitless merit.”

More Teachings by Rinpoche on this topic:
How to Make Offerings and Prayers in Front of Holy Objects