The Merit of Offering Service

The Merit of Offering Service

Date of Advice:
July 2022
Date Posted:
October 2024

This advice about the benefits of correctly following the virtuous friend was given to a couple who had offered service for a long time and wrote offering their practice.

Portrait of Kyabje Zopa Rinpoche, 2010. Photo by Roger Kunsang.

My most dear, most kind, wish-fulfilling ones,
You have been helping at the center so much and for such a long time. This is a healthy action and if your minimum thought is to benefit others, then it is a beneficial action. So that is incredibly good. Secondly, you might have been doing all that while thinking of me, so it is a very healthy action.

Sakya Pandita said,

All the merit you accumulate by practicing the paramita of charity for a thousand eons—giving to other sentient beings not only your head and limbs but even the merit you receive by offering your body in this way—is collected in one second by following the path of the guru. Therefore, offer service and feel happy.

That means by fulfilling the guru’s wishes or following the guru’s advice for even in one second, we collect all the merits of an eon in one second. So there was a need for the work you did and you did it by thinking of me. Also, the practice you did, same thing, you did it by thinking of me. You are offering service to the guru, therefore rejoice and be happy! There are many words and quotations that say this, but this is enough.

In this work, no matter how many difficulties you experience, it is beyond beneficial. Therefore, you should rejoice. It’s unbelievable! It is said that for those who correctly follow the virtuous friend, the karma to be born in the lower realms is purified. By following the guru, those heavy karmas are experienced as some small harm or difficulties in this life or even as some small harm in your dreams.

The Ksitigarbha Sutra mentions,

For those who correctly follow the virtuous friend and offer service, even the negative karmas that would cause them to wander in the lower realms for an unfathomable time, tens of millions of eons, are totally purified by manifesting in this life as disease or some other small harm to the body or mind, or even by experiencing that in a dream.

In this quotation, to “correctly follow the virtuous friend and offer service” doesn’t mean in the same place as the guru; it can be in another part of the world.

The Kalachakra Tantra says,

You cannot become enlightened in this life even if you make offerings to the Three Rare Sublime Ones and save the lives of millions of creatures for all the eons of the three times; but if, with devotion, you please the guru, who has oceans of qualities, you will definitely achieve the general and sublime realizations in this life.

Also, it is mentioned in the Oceans of Transcendental Wisdom,

For the wise fortunate one, serving the guru has greater meaning than making prostrations to all the buddhas of the three times for sixty million eons. If you accomplish the work according to the guru’s advice, all your wishes will quickly be achieved, and you will collect unimaginable merit. And those who please the guru with the offering of their possessions will be liberated from the three realms of samsara, be born in the pure realm of nirmanakaya and go straight to the sorrowless state.

With love and prayer ...