Advice on Benefiting Animals
by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
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If you love your animal very much then this is what you must
do for them for their good rebirth and quick liberation from
samsara.
When the animal is dying or has died
Recite mantras: Om mani padme hum, Heruka
mantras, and other mantras such as Milarepa
and Namgyälma mantras.
Recite the mantras and blow over the body. You can recite
the long mantras 21 times or more and the short mantras one
mala or more. Blow strongly on the body after each time or
you can blow on water, visualizing each deity absorbed into
the water; each drop has the power to purify negative karmas.
Then pour the water on the animal; all negative karmas are
purified.
When the animal is dying, you can do the Medicine Buddha
practice as outlined in the small book, visualizing the Seven
Medicine Buddhas on the crown of the animal. Then you can
also do the Thirty-five Buddhas practice, with nectar coming
and purifying the negative karma, taking strong refuge to
the Thirty-five Buddhas to protect and guide.
There’s a mantra paper to put on dead bodies to purify.
You can get this from the online
shop of the FPMT. This is written especially to put right
on the body -- put it right on the skin, on the forehead or
the chest.
When the animal is in the process of dying or even after
the breath has stopped, if you have some sand from a Kalachakra
sand mandala, you can mix it with butter and put it on the
crown. Each sand grain has numberless buddhas abiding in it.
It’s especially good if it is blessed by His Holiness
the Dalai Lama.
Then burn the body. If there is a good practitioner or a
lama available to do the jang-wa puja, then do that
when the body is being burned. After the body is burned, keep
some pieces of bones, and if possible, do jang-wa
again on the bones. Crush the bones and make powder. Mix with
other material and make a stupa, or more than one stupa. Put
the stupa in a garden if you have one and then flowers can
be offered to the stupa. Dedicate to your animal for a good
rebirth and enlightenment.
What you can do for your animals in everyday life
It’s not enough that you keep the animals and they
give you comfort. You must do something of practical benefit
for them. This is what you can do every day:
Take them around holy objects -- circumambulate. Everyday
you can put on a table many tsa-tsas and statues, and take
the animal around chanting mantras at the same time. This
way it also helps the person who carries the animal around.
Recite prayers in their ears, verbally, to plant the seed
of all the realizations of the path to enlightenment.
This makes a huge difference. It has inconceivable result,
unbelievable result. That makes them have a good rebirth next
life, to be born as a human being and meet the Dharma.
There is a story when Buddha gave teachings to 500 swans
in the field and the next life they were born as human beings,
became monks, and they all became arya beings, able to achieve
the cessation of suffering and the true path. So the result
is unbelievable, just by hearing Dharma words. Vasubandhu
was reciting the Abhidharmakosha and a pigeon on
the roof heard this everyday. One day the pigeon died and
Vasubandhu checked to see where he was born. It was in a family
who lived down below in the valley. He went down and saw the
child and asked if he could have him and the family gave him
to Vasubandhu. The child became a monk named Lobpön Loden
and became an expert on the text that he had heard when he
was a pigeon. He wrote four commentaries on that text. Therefore,
it’s extremely important to recite lam-rim prayers and
mantras -- at least the mantras -- to animals.
It’s also extremely good before you give them their
food, to bless it. If you can’t do it at every meal,
then you can bless it all at once. Recite the five powerful
mantras if you know them; otherwise recite Om mani padme hum,
Medicine Buddha and Milarepa mantras. All this has power;
it helps those who eat it not get reborn in the lower realms,
blesses their mind and purifies their negative karma. If you
can, do it every time you feed them -- recite the mantras
and blow on the food. This is the biggest present you can
give them: good rebirth, finish samsara, liberation, and the
positive imprint of the Mahayana teachings and mantras also
to lead to enlightenment.
Especially for Buddhists who have animals, when the animals
die, it should be different for their future rebirth. So one
should attempt to have a special rebirth for them. That’s
what I asked the people who took care of our dogs at Tushita
in Dharamsala to do. Many years ago, Ven. Tseyang-la, who
is a translator at many centers and built the Kopan nunnery,
and Maureen, a student from New Zealand who taught at Kopan
for quite a number of years and then worked very hard at Tushita,
and for me, asked me to recite the Maitreya Buddha prayer
and mantra, the Lama Tsong Khapa praise to Guru Shakyamuni
Buddha Having Found the Realization of Dependent Arising
and other prayers and mantras to the dogs, while holding a
biscuit in the hand, so everyone waits, like listening to
the teachings, eyes looking at the biscuit and everyone is
humbly sitting, like respectfully listening to teachings,
all their eyes looking at the biscuit. We gave some of the
dogs away, and along with the dogs was the commitment to recite
a lam-rim prayer or mantras. Some people did it for years.
One lady from either the British or Italian Embassy in Delhi,
who wasn’t a Buddhist, did the lam-rim prayer The
Foundation of All Good Qualities every day for years.
Then one day, her maid left the gate open and the dog got
lost. She was very upset. That’s because she must be
a very kind person; even though she wasn’t Buddhist,
she did that prayer. She was very sincere.
There’s a story about an 80-year-old man. After he
entered into the Mahayana path, when the time ripened, then
he became enlightened, then he does perfect work for sentient
beings, bringing every sentient being to enlightenment. So
that means all that perfect work -- enlightening all the sentient
beings -- came from himself being enlightened, and that came
from having entered into the Mahayana path. Before that he
was an arhat and actualizing the path to liberation, which
started from being a monk. He was able to be a monk because
inconceivable eons ago, he was a fly following some cow dung
around a stupa, which became circumambulation -- one circumambulation.
So all these benefits -- becoming an arhat, becoming enlightened
and enlightening all sentient beings -- depended on the small
merit created by following the smell of the cow dung, which
became circumambulation. Therefore, we should always keep
in the mind how precious even one circumambulation is, how
precious it is to take the animals around; and of course,
there’s no question about us human beings intentionally
going around, how that has incredible benefit. Therefore,
one circumambulation of a holy object -- a statue or stupa
-- one must do it; since karma is expandable, we shouldn’t
be careless even with small merit. All this means that each
holy object is so powerful and can liberate so many sentient
beings from suffering and bring them to enlightenment, and
that it causes one to actualize the path. Therefore, even
if one can’t build a big stupa, even to have a small
stupa is unbelievably precious -- the benefits you and other
sentient beings get.
If you have many ants in your house, for example, then of
course, if you’re careless you kill them, but otherwise,
with a soft tissue paper or soft cotton or broom or feather,
pick them up and put them in a plastic bag and put some food
in it. Put something they like, something they’re excited
about or fascinated by and then close the bag and take it
around the stupa or holy objects as many times as you can
to liberate them from lower rebirth and to achieve liberation
and enlightenment. Then put them outside, releasing them by
opening the plastic bag, or shake it on the ground with the
food. The only way you can help ants and other insects is
if they come into your house, into your kitchen or room. Otherwise,
there’s no way to benefit them in this way. So this
is a very good way, an excellent opportunity, to benefit the
ants in addition to making charity by giving them food. If
you take them around a stupa or holy objects, there’s
both Dharma charity and the charity of fearlessness. By purifying
their minds, you’re saving them from suffering. Also,
for dogs and cats, blessing the food with mantras is not only
miscellaneous charity; it also becomes Dharma charity, charity
of fearlessness, and charity of loving-kindness because you
have the intention to cause them happiness. In this way, you
practice all four types of charity.
Advice given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for mantras to
be recited into dogs’ or other animals’ ears
1) Maitreya mantra
Root Mantra:
NAMO RATNA TRAYAYA / NAMO BHAGAVATAY SHAKYAMUNIYAY / TATAGATAYA
/ ARHATAY SAMYAK SAMBUDDHAYA / TAYATA / OM AJITAY AJITAY
APARAJITAY / AJITAÑCHAYA / HARA HARA MAITRI AVALOKITAY
/ KARA KARA MAHA SAMAYA SIDDHI / BARA BARA MAHA BODHI MENDA
BIDZA / MARA MARA AYMA KAM SAMAYA / BODHI BODHI MAHA BODHI
SOHA
Heart Mantra:
OM MOHI MOHI MAHA MOHI SOHA
Near Heart Mantra:
OM MUNI MUNI MARA SOHA
2) Padmasambhava mantra
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUM
3) Chenrezig mantra
Long mantra:
NAMO RATNA TRAYAYA / NAMA ARYA GYANA SAGARA / BEROTSANA
BUHA RADZAYA / TATAGATAYA / ARHATAY SAMYAK SAMBUDDHYA / NAMA
SARVA TATHAGATAY BAY / ARHATAY BAY / SAMYAK SAMBUDDHAY BAY
/ NAMA ARYA AVALOKITAY SHORAYA / BODHISATTOYA / MAHASATTOYA
/ MAHA KARUNIKAYA / TAYATA / OM DARA DARA / DIRI DIRI / DURU
DURU / ITAY WATAY / TSALAY TSALAY / PRATSALAY PRATSALAY /
KUSUMAY KUSUMAY WARAY / ILI MILI TSITI DZOLA / APANAYAY SOHA
Short mantra:
OM MANI PADME HUM
4) Medicine Buddha mantra
Short mantra:
TAYATA OM BEKANDZAY BEKANDZAY MAHA BEKANDZAY [BEKANDZAY]
RANDZA SAMUGATAY SOHA
Long mantra:
OM NAMO BHAGAVATAY BEKANDZAY / GURU BEDURYA / PRABA RANDZAYA
/ TATAGATAYA / ARHATAY SAMYAK SAMBUDDHAYA / TAYATA / OM BEKANDZAY
BEKANDZAY MAHA BEKANDZAY [BEKANDZAY] RANDZA SAMUGATAY SOHA
5) Milarepa mantra
OM AH GURU HASA VAJRA SARVA SIDDHI PALA HUM
6) Heruka Mantras
Root mantra:
OM KARA KARA KURU KURU BENDA BENDA TRASAYA TRASAYA SHOBAYA
SHOBAYA HROM HROM HRAH HRAH PEM PEM PAY PAY DAHA DAHA PATSA
PATSA BAKSHA BAKSHA VASA RUDHIRANTRA MALAVA LAMBINI GRINA
GRINA SAPTA PATALA GATA BUJAM GAM SARVAM PA TARJAYA TARJAYA
AKADDYA AKADDYA HRIM HRIM NYAUM NYAUM SHAMAM SHAMAM HAM HAM
HIM HIM HUM HUM KILI KILI SILI SILI HILI HILI DILI DILI HUM
HUM PAY
Heart mantra:
OM SHRI VAJRA HE HE RU RU KAM HUM HUM PAY DAKINI DZOLA SHAMVARAM
SOHA
Near heart mantra:
OM HRIH HA HA HUM HUM PAY
Also one can recite the Heart
Sutra.
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