Securing Success in Business

Securing Success in Business

Date Posted:
October 2005

A student who was encountering many obstacles in her business wrote asking Rinpoche how to create merit for success.

My very dear Jean,
Regarding your question about how to have success in your business, there are a few things that it would be good for you to do.

Go to Nepal, to the Boudanath stupa, and make 1,000 light offerings (candles) every day, using the long light offering practice that I wrote. You can also do circumambulations and prostrations in the morning, noon, and night. After each session, make strong prayers. You can do a few sessions each day, consisting of the light offering and meditation, circumambulation, and then prostrations. At the end, make strong prayers that your business has the greatest profit, and will immediately be most beneficial for the teachings of Buddha and sentient beings.

There is one other thing you can do, which has equal benefit, and that is to sponsor food for Chöden Rinpoche for seven days. After you have taken teachings from him and developed a guru-disciple relationship with him, you offer all his expenses for seven days’ worth of food. This is also very powerful for changing the situation with your business.

Another thing you can do to collect merit is to make a donation to the Sangha who are staying at Land of Medicine Buddha attending Chöden Rinpoche’s teachings. You could offer toward the Sangha’s food and accommodation, or just make a general donation to them. Offering to the Sangha creates unbelievable benefit. If you offer with the thought that they are the same as the guru’s pores, since they have the same guru as you, that is a very powerful way to collect merit.

Whenever you meet someone who has the same guru as you, you can offer him or her chocolate, water, or money—anything that you have—with the thought that he or she has the same guru, and so is the same as the guru’s pores. If you offer to many Sangha members who have the same guru as you, then you are making offerings to that many pores of the guru. This is the easiest way to collect a lot of merit through offerings.

By offering just one candy, flowers, or a grain of rice to a statue of the Buddha or even a visualized Buddha, you collect a lot of merit. But making offerings to the guru’s pores collects more merit than offering to all the buddhas, dharmas, sanghas, statues, stupas, and scriptures, not only in this continent and this world but all that exist in all the universes and all the directions. Making offerings to any pore of the guru with this attitude creates much more merit than all of these offerings.

No matter how much money you have—even 10 billion dollars—it is nothing compared to this benefit. You will attain temporal happiness and ultimate happiness from this good karma, as well as all realizations up to enlightenment. Even after you achieve enlightenment, the many qualities of a Buddha’s holy mind still cause so many sentient beings to become enlightened. These are the benefits of just that simple act of making offerings to the guru’s pores.

These benefits should be understood, so that when you make offerings to the guru’s pores, you think correctly. This is the best business. If your business needs purification, or is short of merit, then this is what you should do to create success for your business.

By making offerings to the guru’s pores, with the remembrance that they are the guru’s pores, you collect mind-blowing merits. With this business of making merit, there is no risk, and the benefit is always there, every time, no matter what. There is no risk of deflation or loss. By making offerings, or charity, the karmic result is ongoing. There is no negative change, and it won’t go decrease due to inflation.

So, if you can make offerings to the Sangha with this in your mind, whatever you can give, even just for a few days or one week, or just give a general donation to the Sangha, the most important thing is to think that you are making offerings to the guru’s pores.

By using these methods, you can collect the most merit. If you collect a lot of merit, suddenly a miracle can happen that you won’t be able to believe—not only great success in business, but suddenly everything booms in your life. Similarly with realizations, miracles can happen. Of course, miracles do not happen without causes and conditions.

With much love and prayers...