The benefits of offerings
Each of the eight types of offerings—ARGHAM (drinking water), PADYAM (water for cleaning the feet), PUSHPE (flowers), DHUPE (incense), ALOKE (light), GANDHE (scented water at the heart), NAIVIDYA (food), and SHABDA (music)— has ten benefits. I remember seeing in the lam-rim teachings the particular benefits of offering flowers, incense, and light, but I don’t remember seeing the others. Generally, however, it seems that every offering has ten benefits.
A very poor person, who had no other offerings, offered a medicinal drink to four monks. As a result of that karma, in his next life he was born as a very wealthy and powerful king in a place called Kashika in India. Karma is also expandable. From one small merit you can experience so many results and for so many lifetimes. Being born once as a king doesn’t mean that karma is exhausted. Because karma is expandable, you normally experience the results of karma for hundreds or thousands of lifetimes. Some examples are given in relation to some negative karmas of experiencing results of one negative karma for hundreds of lifetimes or a thousand lifetimes. Somebody with a negative mind told a monk that, “You’re like a dog.” That person then had to be reborn five hundred lifetimes as a dog. Criticizing a monk by saying, “You’re jumping like a monkey,” is also mentioned. Because it’s also a powerful object, that person who criticized Sangha had to born as a monkey for five hundred lifetimes. And sometimes a thousand lifetimes is mentioned. For example, it is said in the great pandit Aryadeva’s teaching, Four Hundred Stanzas, that if you cheat one sentient being, you will then be cheated for one thousand lifetimes. Imagine experiencing such things for five hundred or a thousand lifetimes.
However, since you get that result from even offering a medicinal drink to four ordinary monks, there is no doubt about the result of actually offering drinking water and water for cleaning the feet to the deity. There is no doubt that the result will be very powerful and will be experienced for many lifetimes.
As far as offering flowers, it is explained in the same sutra, Clarifying the Aspects of Karma, that you become like a flower in the world. Among the people in the world, you become very special. It’s referring to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other great holy beings, whom everybody knows and admires, or respects. I guess they’re like flowers. Also, your sense of smell doesn’t degenerate. Your body never gets a bad smell. You only experience good smells, sweet smells.
The scent of your pure morality spreads in the directions and corners. You become a leader of the world. This is like His Holiness the Dalai Lama and many of the well-known great holy beings, who become leaders, bringing so many sentient beings peace and happiness or bringing them into virtue, into the path to enlightenment, thus bringing them to liberation and to enlightenment. It means you become able to guide and benefit so many sentient beings.
You receive all the beautiful things. You achieve wealth. You have a higher rebirth, as a deva or human, in your next life. You achieve the sorrowless state, which means the ultimate happiness not only of liberation from samsara but also of full enlightenment. So, you achieve these things by offering flowers to Buddha. Buddha explained these benefits, which our ordinary mind can comprehend, to give us some idea of the benefits of offering flowers.
There are also ten benefits of making light offerings. You become like light in the world. It could mean radiant, like light. It could also mean dispelling the darkness of ignorance of many hundreds of thousands or millions of people. One will achieve the flesh eye, which means the different types of clairvoyance. The eye has the power to see very clearly gross and very subtle phenomena. The mind becomes so clear that it is able to count the number of atoms in a mountain. You will achieve the deva’s eye, which means you are able to see your own future, when your death will happen and where you’re going to be reborn, as well as the futures of others.
You will achieve the wisdom knowing Dharma, knowing what is virtue and what is nonvirtue. Dharma wisdom is an extremely important achievement, involving knowing the whole path to enlightenment. You will eliminate the darkness of ignorance. You will achieve the illumination of wisdom. And even while you’re in samsara, you’ll never be in darkness due to the benefits of offering light to the Buddha. I guess there are many sentient beings who experience the opposite; some animals and also human beings, live where there’s no light and have to stay in darkness. Some animals live in darkness for as long as they live, even many hundreds of years. Even while you are in samsara you are never in darkness. You will have great wealth, and you will have good rebirths in your future lives. You will achieve the sorrowless state, which again means liberation from samsara and the other ultimate happiness, enlightenment.
If we offer incense, DHUPE, we become like incense in the world. I don’t think it means you become the shape of incense. Or powder. It means that you become important or beneficial for other sentient beings. I think it means in solving their problems, just as incense dispels bad odors.
The benefits of offering flowers and incense are similar. Your sense of smell never degenerates. Your body never gets a bad smell and always has a scented smell. You become a leader of the world. So, it means a virtuous leader, bringing others into Dharma, into the path. This is like Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, Nagarjuna, Lama Atisha, and those other great beings from various countries who brought great benefit and left so much peace and happiness in the world. You will achieve great wealth. You will have good rebirths in your future lives. You will get all the desirable, beautiful things. You will quickly achieve the sorrowless state. The text says just sorrowless state but it includes enlightenment, because every service, offering, circumambulation, or prostration to Buddha becomes a cause of enlightenment. That is common.
It’s also mentioned in the sutra, Requested by King Sangyal (a king in India requested advice from Buddha), that offering light to a stupa is incomparable. You will have very clear, beautiful, fine eyes, like a beautiful open upali flower. You will achieve the stainless deva’s eye. As I mentioned before, this refers to types of clairvoyance. The Sutra of the Compassion Buddha mentions that if you offer light to the Buddha’s stupa, you will achieve sublime liberation, which means enlightenment. You will possess ten powers, qualities of a buddha. You will possess the eighteen unmixed holy dharmas, also qualities of a buddha. So, you will achieve those qualities. You will always have the eye—I think it means the different types of clairvoyance. The wisdom eye is able to see emptiness directly; this is the Dharma eye of arya beings, those who have achieved the path of seeing.
If possible, we should offer one thousand of each of the eight offerings. If that’s not possible, we should offer one thousand light, incense, and food offerings. The food offering can be a biscuit or some other food. If it’s not possible to offer a thousand of all the other offerings, it says we should offer at least one thousand food offerings. In the Tibetan tradition they usually make a thousand tormas made out of tsampa. We should offer one thousand light, incense, and food offerings. If that’s not possible, offer one thousand light and food offerings, and as many of the others as you can.
There are also offerings of divine dress, ornaments, vase, five medicines, five grains, five jewels, five scented things, and five essences. You should offer as many of these as you can on the altar. You can either put those things together in one large container or put each one in a separate container. Even if you offer only a small number of water, food, and other offerings, they must be as clean as possible; otherwise, you can receive all the vices rather than al the benefits. With the other offerings, even if it’s not possible to have the actual offerings, you should at least have drawings of the eight auspicious signs, the eight substances, and the seven emblems of royalty.
The holy Dharma, White Lotus, mentions that even though you have been in samsara for eons and eons, such an incredible length of time that you can’t see the beginning of it, if you offer, or sprinkle, flowers to Buddha by thinking of Buddha, whether there’s an actual statue of Buddha or not, you will be born numberless times as the wheel-turning king, King Indra.
In the past, in India, the Brahmin child called [Damtsig Kuten] offering five upali flowers to the past Buddha, [Marme Tse] (not Kashyapa). By offering flowers to this Buddha, he achieved the patience of unborn Dharma. I think this patience has to do with having no fear in relation to emptiness. As a result of the karma of offering five upali flowers to this Buddha, he also went up in the sky to a height of seven horse carriages piled one on top of each other. At that time Buddha [Marme Tse] predicted that due to the karma of having offered those five upali flowers to him, in the future [Damtsig Kuten] would become Shakyamuni Buddha. So, what caused him to become Shakyamuni Buddha? A long time ago when he was this Indian [Damtsig Kuten], he offered five upali flowers to Buddha [Marme Tse], one of the past buddhas. At that time he achieved the realization, patience of unborn Dharma, and went up into the sky to a height of seven horse carriages. Buddha [Marme Tse] then predicted that this child, [Damtsig Kuten], would become Shakyamuni Buddha.
In this story, the merit of having offered five upali flowers to a past buddha caused this child to become Shakyamuni Buddha, who has already been able to liberate numberless sentient beings, is liberating them now, and will liberate them in the future. Shakyamuni Buddha descended in this world, revealed Dharma, and became the founder of the present Buddhadharma. Being able to offer infinite benefit to sentient beings was caused by that merit of having offered five utpala flowers to the past buddha, [Marme Tse].
So, it’s the same for us. When we do this sadhana, the practice of offering comes many times. Whether we physically perform the offerings or visualize them, then offer them, the merit is the same. As I mentioned before and as mentioned in the texts, if you visualize one more body prostrating, you get the same merit from that visualized body. For example, there is the story of why the powerful Indian Dharma king, Ashoka, was able to offer so much benefit: building many monasteries and offering food to Sangha. In one day he built ten million stupas in the world. In his past life, when the Buddha was in India, one day Buddha was going for alms to a village. Three children were playing in the sand, and as they had nothing else to offer, they wanted to offer sand in Buddha’s begging bowl as he was passing by. Since Buddha’s holy body was very tall, one child had to stand on another child’s shoulders, like in a circus. The third child, standing on the second child’s shoulders, then offered the sand grains in Buddha’s begging bowl by visualizing them as gold. There was no gold there, but since he visualized the sand as gold, he got the merit of having actually offered that much gold. Because of that in his next life he was born as the powerful Dharma king, King Ashoka. With so much wealth and power, he was then able to benefit so much sentient beings and the teaching of Buddha, spreading Dharma.
So, that’s the reference. When you offer a mandala, even if there’s not a single piece of gold or jewels but just sand grains or grains, you visualize the whole universe, with Mount Meru (one side of which is gold, another silver, another lapis lazuli, and so forth), many golden mountains, and all the enjoyments of human beings and devas. You visualize the entire universe made out of the best, most valuable substances, then offer it. Even though you don’t own the universe, you get the inconceivable merit of having actually offered the entire universe, with all those golden mountains, Mount Meru made out of jewels, and all the enjoyments. By visualizing all the offerings mentioned in the prayer, you actually get all the merit of having offered all of them.
How is that possible? If you have nothing there in your hands, how can you get the same merit by visualizing the whole thing according to the prayer? You can have faith in this because of King Ashoka’s story. In the past, when he offered sand by visualizing it as gold, he got the merit of having actually offered that much gold. In his next life, he was born as a Dharma king and was able to offer extensive benefit and service to others and to the teaching of Buddha. In that life he then again created so many causes of enlightenment.
It is the same here when we make all these different offerings: the eight types of offerings, the five desire object offerings, and so forth. By offering flowers to a past buddha, a Brahmin child later became Shakyamuni Buddha. That past Buddha predicted what the result of that karma would be. The cause was just offering flowers to a buddha, but the result was simply unimaginable. It is the same when we make offerings to the Buddha here and when we do sadhanas in our daily life and make all the various offerings. Of course, there’s no doubt about the benefit if we actually perform the offerings and offer them, but even if we just visualize them and offer them, the result is unbelievable. We have to understand that we are involved in the same karmic stories as mentioned in the texts. Those stories happened in ancient times, but it is the same here when we are making offerings in our daily life or doing practices in this retreat.
By understanding those stories, we see how important these practices are. Why do these offerings to Buddha come again and again? Why are they important? The result of making offering to Buddha is inexpressible. So, each time we do the practice of making offering, it’s like that. It’s something incredible, unbelievable. When you understand the benefit that you get, it’s just something to rejoice in your whole life. Doing this practice of offering to Buddha just once is something you can enjoy your whole life. It’s like winning the Olympics. When people win in the Olympics, they enjoy the whole life. But that’s nothing. That has no essence; it’s meaningless. But this Olympics is the best.
At the end of the eight offerings, there’s always NAIVIDYA, food offering, and at the very end of the last session, we do the torma offerings. The particular temporary benefit is that it makes you healthy, and you don’t lack food in this life and in so many coming future lives.
Offering water has many benefits, but the essence is that by offering water, your mind becomes calm, peaceful, clear, like still water. In his recent talk in Los Angeles, His Holiness the Dalai Lama talked about paying attention to inner values. His Holiness said that sometimes in our everyday life, even it’s only for five minutes, we must think about our inner life. We can’t ignore it. Anyway, in essence, offering water makes the mind very calm, very peaceful. You can feel that right after you finish a water offering. Somehow you feel a very peaceful kind of effect. You have a very calm mind, and your inner values, or qualities, become manifest or develop.
The specific benefit of offering light is that it develops wisdom. It also brings a long life and clairvoyance. For example, offering light all night to the Buddha becomes a cause of long life. Also, you will never be reborn in a dark age, when Buddha hasn’t descended in the world and there are no teachings. It is useless to be born at such a time because you can’t practice Dharma.
It becomes the cause of success. All your wishes succeed. This is mentioned in one of the sutra teachings—it might be in the White Lotus Sutra. Offering a scarf, as dress, to a statue, stupa, or scripture of Buddha, or even visualizing making the offering, becomes the cause for all your wishes to be fulfilled. I don’t remember it word by word, but there’s a stanza that says all your wishes get fulfilled by offering a scarf, as dress, to a holy object.
Offering a vase and the bath offering purifies all your negative karma and delusions and causes you to generate loving kindness, compassion, and bodhicitta.
It’s said in a sutra text, though I don’t remember the name of the particular text, that if you correctly make offering of the five desire, or sense, objects to Buddha all the time, you will quickly achieve enlightenment. There’s a reference for the benefit in a sutra text.
In the nyung-nä text, after the eight offerings, there are the five types of offerings. Though I don’t remember the details, there’s a karmic story about a woman who offered a mirror to Buddha and Buddha then predicted that in the future she would become one of the buddhas. So, there is offering of a mirror, music, food, and divine dress. These are the five sense objects. There is unimaginable benefit in offering them. Without knowing the stories or the quotations where Buddha explains the benefits, you can have doubts about the importance of all these offerings. You could ask yourself, Why are there all these offering practices in the sadhana? So, with those stories and quotations, you can now see how important they are.
Meditation on emptiness
The I, the meditator, the action of meditating, the object of meditation, emptiness or the deity; hell and enlightenment; samsara and nirvana; happiness and suffering; virtue and nonvirtue; the four noble truths—think of how all these things appear to our mind, to our hallucinated mind contaminated by the negative imprint left on it by past ignorance, the concept of inherent existence. Right after our mind merely imputed “I” because of the aggregates and action, object, and all these other phenomena, they appear back to us as not merely labeled. Even though these phenomena are merely labeled by our mind, when they appear back to us, they don’t appear to us to be merely labeled. That’s the problem. When they appear back to us, they don’t appear to be merely labeled by our mind.
How does this happen? If something is merely labeled, it should appear back to us as merely labeled. Why doesn’t it appear to our mind that way? Take the example of when you are sitting somewhere and somebody asks, “What are you doing?” Your mind first thinks of your aggregates, the association of your body and mind, and of what action they are doing. Because your body is sitting, your mind makes up the label, “I’m sitting.” And when you are talking, your mind makes up the label, “I’m talking.” And if your mind is thinking, the thought that imputes “I,” by knowing that your mind is thinking, makes up the label, “I’m thinking.”
Because this base does these different activities, the mind merely imputes “I am doing this and that.” Since they are merely imputed, why don’t these things appear back to us as not merely labeled? Because right after the mere imputation, the negative imprint left on our mental continuum by past ignorance immediately projects inherent existence, like a projector can immediately project what is on a film onto a screen. It’s exactly the same as that. Right after the mere imputation, the negative imprint left on our mental continuum by past ignorance projects inherent existence onto the mere imputation. The negative imprint left by the past wrong concept of inherent existence, which believes things to be inherently existent even though they’re not, manifests out. That’s why, even though everything exists by being merely labeled by our mind, it doesn’t appear back to us as merely labeled by our mind and but as something totally false. , so what causes that to happen? In the moment right after the mere imputation, this negative imprint left on our mental continuum by past ignorance projects inherent existence, just like a machine projecting the contents of a film onto a movie or TV screen.
That’s why, until we become a buddha, nothing appears to us as being merely labeled by mind. Even though when we realize emptiness, we realize that phenomena exist in mere name, it doesn’t mean that things will appear to us as being merely labeled by mind. It’s like looking at a mirage. You have a vision of water but at the same time you understand there’s no water there. In a similar way, you see an appearance of inherent existence, but you realize that it’s not true, that it’s a hallucination. Until we remove the subtle defilements, the subtle negative imprints left by the concept of inherent existence, which means until we become a buddha, we have this hallucination of inherent existence that covers I, action, object, and all other phenomena. This projection of inherent existence is decorated on the merely labeled phenomena.
Therefore, there’s false and there’s true in what appears to us. When we become an arya being, an arhat or a higher bodhisattva, when we’re in equipoise meditation directly perceiving emptiness, there will be no appearance of inherent existence at that time. Otherwise, when our mind is not in one-pointed equipoise meditation, everything that appears to us will appear to be inherently existent. When we have removed the subtle negative imprint left by the concept of inherent existence, there will be nothing to project inherent existence onto the mere imputation. The subtle negative imprint that projects inherent existence will be ceased. You will then see things as merely labeled by mind.
Here, for just a few seconds, think that I, action, object, and all the other phenomena I mentioned before, which are appearing as something real from there, are just projections from my mind. They are all false. Therefore, they are all totally nonexistent, empty. All phenomena, including the I, are totally nonexistent, empty. Concentrate on this for just a few seconds.
Like this, everything, including the deity, is of one taste in emptiness.
Rejoicing
You have collected all these precious merits of the three times. Keep on thinking this, feeling happiness in your heart. Feeling happiness in your heart at having collected merit is rejoicing.
If the other person’s level of mind is higher than yours, in that second of rejoicing you collect half the amount of merit that that person collected. So, it’s unbelievable. Simply by rejoicing, simply by feeling happy that that other sentient being has collected merit, you collect half as much merit as that person has collected.
Now, if you rejoice in one bodhisattva’s merit, not of the three times but just of one day, you collect incredible merit. The great Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo says that if you were to try to accumulate the merit you collect by rejoicing in the merit accumulated by one bodhisattva in one day without rejoicing, it would take you thirteen thousand years. But if you rejoice in the merit accumulated by one bodhisattva in one day, you collect half as much merit. We have to understand that bodhisattvas create merit only for other sentient beings, who are numberless. Every action a bodhisattva does is only for other sentient beings. Therefore, in every second, with every action, they collect limitless skies of merit. If you rejoice in the merit one bodhisattva collects in one day, you collect half as much merit, which is unimaginable as they continuously create limitless skies of merit.
Therefore, rejoicing is something incredible; it’s an unbelievably profitable practice. Without any effort or material expenses, by simply thinking, you collect inconceivable merit. When I visit large temples in Asia, particularly in Taiwan, I rejoice in the people who have collected so much merit by building the temples. If the level of their mind is lower, by rejoicing you get even more merit than the people who built the temple. Actually, so many people put so much effort for many years to build the temple, but in a moment of rejoicing in all their merit you collect half as much merit as those who have a higher level of mind than yours and twice as much merit as those who have a lower level of mind than yours.
Take the Maitreya Project, for example. It will cost many millions of dollars to build, and after it’s built, Marcel and so many other people will have put so much effort and so many years of hard work, so many years of their life, into the statue. After it’s finished, when people come to see the statue and rejoice in the statue having been built, they will actually collect unbelievable merit. They won’t have to do any fundraising. Without any effort, they will get that much merit. The person who rejoices doesn’t need to put in any effort. By simply rejoicing in all those who collected merit by building the statue, that person will collect unbelievable merit. They will get either more merit than the people who built the statue or half that merit. Some people who are rejoicing will get double the merit of those involved in the building whose level of mind is lower than theirs. If somebody rejoices, in that moment it’s like they have built this whole project. They can get even double the merit of the people who actually built the statue. As in this example, the practice of rejoicing is unbelievably profitable. And it’s so easy to do. It’s just a question of thinking, of feeling happiness that others have done the work or collected merit, whether by building a temple, making charity, helping other people, or some other good thing.
Now, we will rejoice in the past, present, and future merits of all the sentient beings. Sentient beings are numberless and the bodhisattvas in whose merit we rejoice are not just one but numberless. The buddhas are also numberless. As I mentioned, in every second bodhisattvas collect limitless skies of merit. Since every single action they do—eating, walking, sitting, sleeping—is only for others, with each action they continuously collect limitless skies of merit. Since each breath is only for other sentient beings, with each breath they collect limitless skies of merit. If we rejoice in the past, present, and future merit of the bodhisattvas, we create unbelievable merit, good karma, good luck, good fortune. So, it’s just unbelievable. There is no effort, no expense, nothing. It’s the easiest, most profitable practice. The benefit you get from rejoicing is mind-blowing.
Therefore, in daily life, when we do the seven-limb practice of rejoicing, it’s very good to stop to meditate, even a few seconds—of course, longer is better. For one minute or even a few seconds, stop to rejoice. It’s essential. Feeling happiness is an action of mind. Otherwise, if you don’t take the opportunity to rejoice, if you just recite the words and don’t do the meditation, if you don’t generate happiness, you have lost limitless skies of merit.
Why is it important to collect merit? Because all happiness comes from merit. How much success you have also depends on how much merit you have. And how quickly you can become enlightened depends on how much merit you have collected.
So many people put so much effort for so many years to build a statue or a temple, but actually, if you helped to build the statue or temple and other people rejoice in it, you have helped those people. You have put a lot of effort into building the temple or other holy object, but you have helped the other people who rejoice in it so much. For other people to collect merit, they just need to rejoice, to feel happiness, for a moment. So, you’re also helping other people to rejoice. This is an extensive way of benefiting others, by creating something for others to rejoice in.
Rejoicing is very important. If we don’t practice rejoicing in our daily life, we’re losing inconceivable times limitless skies of merit. So, it’s very important.
Meditation on emptiness
Buddha doesn’t see an inherently existent I, which appears to me. This means that it doesn’t exist. Buddha doesn’t see inherently existent actions of meditating, talking, sitting, writing. Buddha doesn’t see a real action appearing from there. Buddha doesn’t see hell and enlightenment, samsara and nirvana, happiness and problems, virtue and nonvirtue, the four noble truths, as real ones appearing from there. Buddha doesn’t see that. Buddha not seeing that means that they do not exist at all. Therefore, they are totally empty. They are all totally empty, nonexistent.
Additional offerings
The particular benefit you receive by offering those is a buddha’s five wisdoms. There are verses for offerings.
