Practices for Insects and Other Animals, Living and Deceased

How to Benefit Deceased Insects and Other Animals

The main thing you can do to benefit them is to recite the mantras of the Compassion Buddha (OM MANI PADME HUM), Stainless Pinnacle, Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha, Namgyalma (the short one) and the mantras of the five powerful deities. [Find links to a PDF of these mantras in the FPMT Catalogue.] 

After reciting the mantras a few times, or it can be fifteen or twenty times or one mala of each mantra, whatever you can, then you can blow on the dead body of the insect to purify its negative karma and obscurations collected since beginningless rebirths. Visualize that it then generates into the deity; depending on which mantra you recited, then that deity.

Of course, to begin with, generate bodhicitta motivation:

“May I free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment, especially these insects, the dead animals, who are my mother sentient beings from whom I have received all my happiness, not only today’s happiness, but also the next life’s happiness and ultimate happiness, enlightenment. It is received from each of them and they have all been my mother and kind to me since beginningless time.”

After you have recited the mantras, blown on the insects and visualized them as the deity, dedicate the merit:

“Due to all the merit created in the three times by me, by sentient beings and numberless buddhas, may bodhicitta be generated in the hearts of all the six-realm sentient beings, all the sentient beings in this world and particularly the students of FPMT and benefactors.

“May anybody who sees me, touches me, remembers me, thinks about me, talks to me, hears my voice, sees my photo, dreams of me; anybody who helps me or harms me, dislikes me or likes me, praises me or criticizes me, including my friends and family, may they never ever be reborn in the lower realms, may they be reborn in a pure land where they will become enlightened or may they receive a perfect human body, meet the Mahayana teachings and meet a perfectly qualified Mahayana guru who reveals the unmistaken path to enlightenment, and by pleasing the holy mind of the virtuous friend may they achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

“Due to all the merit created in the three times by me, by sentient beings and numberless buddhas, may this animal or insect be reborn in the pure land where it can be enlightened, or at least have a perfect human rebirth and meet the pure Mahayana teachings and meet the perfect guru who reveals the unmistaken path to enlightenment, and by pleasing most the holy mind of the guru, achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.

“Due to all the merit created in the three times by me, by sentient beings and numberless buddhas, that which does not exist from its own side, may the I, which does not exist from its own side, achieve buddhahood , peerless happiness, which does not exist from its own side, which is empty, and then lead all the sentient beings, who do not exist from their own side, to that buddhahood, which does not exist from its own side, by myself alone, who do not exist from my own side.”

How to Benefit Insects and Animals in General

Normally after any prayer, sadhana or mantra recitation that you do in your daily life as commitments or practices, you can keep a bottle of water next to you, then after each recitation blow into the bottle of water. Then when you see a living or dead insect or animal you can sprinkle the blessed water on it.

The monk in Washington, Ven. Tharchin, has been doing this every day when he does his prayers. After each mala of mantras he blows in a bottle of water, then he mixes this water with tsampa (roasted barley flour), sugar, butter and blessed pills from His Holiness the Dalai Lama (mani pills). These are crushed very well and then all this is mixed as a dry, fine powder mixture. Then he goes to about twenty different ant nests around the retreat land and he does the practice of Charity to Ants, by sprinkling this mixture on the ant nests while reciting mantras and in this way he is benefiting the ants. After one week, all the tsampa has been eaten by the ants. This practice started a few years ago when I found two ant nests on the retreat land in Washington and I did this practice for them. Now it is being done every week.

In addition to this, worms are bought every week. These are worms that otherwise would be used as bait for fishing, so the mantra water is sprinkled on them and then they are taken around so many holy objects, mantras are recited and then they are released into the garden. So about 1,300 worms are liberated each week like this.

In the past we collected all the dead insects around the house, the dead moths and bugs, and we even asked the neighbors to collect all their dead insects and give them to us, then we put all the dead insects on a cloth above a bucket, and poured the mantra water over the insects. So the insects stay on the cloth and the water drains through it, blessing their bodies. Also, reciting the different mantras: Compassion Buddha (OM MANI PADME HUM), Stainless Pinnacle, Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha, Namgyalma mantra (short) and the five powerful deity mantras. You can also recite Vajrayogini mantra if you are practicing that, but normally it is the five powerful deity mantras, which are extremely powerful and also Mitukpa mantra. However, the main one is Chenrezig, the Compassion Buddha mantra.

So do the purification like that. You can collect the dead animals and when you have quite a lot collected then you can do this, blessing them with the mantra water that you have already created by reciting your daily mantras and then blowing over the water. As you pour the water, think it purifies all their negative karmas collected from beginningless rebirths, then at the end think they are purified and they all become the deity.

After that, you can put the blessed dead insects in the ocean or river, but you can’t throw them in the garbage after you have visualized them as the deity. Or you can put them in your soup at nighttime. I’m joking.

For any insects that we find in the house, whether dead or alive, we use the animal liberation catchers to pick them up, so then the insects are placed inside the little box. The Namgyalma mantra is on the top of the box, so as the insects go under that, then however long they are there, they always get purified. I am sending you these insect catchers, so you can have them and use them. [You can find the Animal Liberation Tools PDF in the FPMT Foundation Store.]

On each of the small boxes there are mantras that bless the insect while it is inside and also words showing what to think and what to say to the animals, etc. The box has other mantras on it, so that when the insect goes under the mantras, 100,000 eons of negative karma are purified. There is Namgyalma mantra and also Lotus Pinnacle of Amoghapasha mantra.

If the insect is alive and still in the container, you can also take it around a stupa. Stupas have the four dharmakaya relic mantras, which are usually written in gold on the life tree, as well as rolled around it. The stupas in FPMT have so many of the four dharmakaya relic mantras inside.

Even a stupa that has only one copy of the four dharmakaya relic mantras inside, even just one mantra, every atom of the stupa has so much power and the insects that land on the stupa are purified; if they touch the stupa it purifies their negative karma. Even if the rain comes down and touches the stupa and then that rain, after touching the stupa, touches any insect on the ground etc., it purifies those insects. Even the wind that has touched the stupa, when the wind touches any other being it blesses them. After the wind has touched the stupa, then any human being or animal that is touched by the wind is purified. Any dust that touches the stupa, then if the same dust touches a human being or animal they all get purified.

There are incredible benefits of the four dharmakaya relic mantras. One of the mantras is the secret relic mantra, so if this mantra is inside the stupa, even if we go around that stupa just one time, it purifies all our negative karma completely. It even purifies the heavy negative karma to be reborn in the eight hot hells, which are: 1) being alive again and again; 2) black line; 3) gathered and crushed; 4) crying; 5) great crying; 6) hot; 7) extremely hot; and 8) unbearable, inexhaustible hot hell realm. If we are born there it is for one intermediate eon, then even if this world becomes empty, if our karma is not finished, then we are reborn in the inexhaustible hell realm in other universes, and this continues until our karma finishes.

[You can find a link to the four dharmakaya relic heart mantras in the FPMT Catalogue. Go to Printable Cards, then click on Protection Items.]

By going around the stupa one time it completely purifies all that negative karma and we don’t have to be reborn in the eight hot hell realms. Not only that, our life goes toward enlightenment without break, we continuously go to enlightenment and by not returning to the lower realms, that also that helps us to be born in the pure land.

There are so many incredible, unbelievable, unbelievable benefits, just from this one mantra. Here I am talking about the essence of just one mantra, but there is also a mantra called "Ornaments of Enlightenment," so if you have that mantra inside the stupa, then even with just one mantra inside, by going around the stupa you collect the same merit as having built 100,000 stupas. 

This is just the very basic essence of the benefits, but they are so vast. It purifies the negative karma of having killed one’s father and mother, killed an arhat, drawn blood from a buddha and created disunity amongst the Sangha. These are very heavy negative karmas that when created we have to experience the karma without break [five immediate negativities]. So all these negative karmas get purified. The karma of just going around the stupa or statue that has the four dharmakaya relic mantras inside is so, so, so unbelievable.

These are just some of the benefits of the mantras, but there are far more benefits of the Lotus Pinnacle [of Amoghapasha] mantra, Stainless Pinnacle mantra, Stainless Beam mantra and the Ornaments of Enlightenment mantra. One of the benefits of the Ornaments of Enlightenment mantra is that by putting this mantra inside the stupa, you get the same merit as having built 100,000 stupas. 

These are unbelievable, unbelievable benefits that you are giving to the animals and insects by taking them around a stupa that has the four dharmakaya relic mantras inside and by the way you also get unbelievable benefits.

If you have a stupa in your home, when guests come over to visit, you can also take them around the stupa if that is possible and convenient. Or you could even offer them a drink and by the way you carry the drink around the stupa, so they follow you and, in this way, they are circumambulating. Or while you are talking, you can be walking around the stupa. This is for those who don’t believe in stupas, so in this way they get to go around the stupa, by the way. 

Of course, as I have already mentioned, any live insects you find in the house, like ants, bugs, moths, etc., you can put them in a container and take them around the stupa. However many holy objects there are inside the stupa, for example, if there are one billion holy objects inside, and you have one plastic bag with one thousand crickets in it—sometimes you can get these from a pet store as they feed them to other animals—by taking them around the stupa, you help them to create the cause of enlightenment one billion times.

So I just wanted to mention a few ways you can think about helping sentient beings—there are so many ways to help them and it is incredibly enjoyable. 

If you can, from time to time buy bait worms from the market, whatever you can get, even two or three boxes, and take them around the stupa, bless them with mantra water and then release them in your garden.

Here in Washington, as we have to go the shops regularly, I thought each time we go shopping to buy a box of worms, so then I can take them around the altars here, which have so many tsa tsas, texts, statues, etc. Last time we went shopping I bought ten boxes [of worms] and carried them around, not so much, then Ven. Tharchin and Ven. Kevin also took them around the holy objects.

I also want to mention some other ways we are trying to help the animals in Washington, just to give you an idea. Here in Washington we have a bird bath. Ven. Tharchin puts in water that has been blessed by the Padmasambhava mantra, so the benefit is that by drinking the water it’s the cause of achieving enlightenment in one lifetime. It is a very blessed mantra. How we do this is by putting the mantra [etched on glass] inside a jug of water, then water is poured from that into the birdbath. The reason we don’t put the mantra straight into the bird bath is so that the birds don’t sit on top of it and then create negative karma, so instead we put the mantra in a jug filled with water and we pour from the jug. In addition, we add mantra water that has already been blessed by recitation. As I mentioned above, we can recite mantras and then blow in a bottle of water. In this way, when the birds drink or bathe in this water it benefits them and helps them to quickly achieve enlightenment.

In addition to the blessed water, Ven. Tharchin adds very finely powdered mani pills that have been blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and thousands of monks. These pills are crushed and mixed with the water for the birds. In addition we have a speaker by the bird bath and bird feeder, which is playing the Golden Light Sutra, Arya Sanghata Sutra and Vajra Cutter Sutra, as well as different mantras, twenty-four hours a day. So when the birds come, they hear the sutras being recited and this purifies their mind and plants the seed of enlightenment. Actually, the birds and animals who get to hear these sutras are more fortunate than even the billionaires and millionaires in this world who do not have the fortune to hear these sutras.

When the birds drink the water they are so fortunate because it purifies them in many ways. It not only stops their thirst, it also purifies their mind and negative karma. For all those who bathe in the water or eat the seeds in the bird feeder, it purifies so much negative karma. Even the water given to the birds benefits them. We also have mantras on the roof of the bird feeder—Namgyalma mantra and also the mantras that just by seeing and by going under the mantra, 100,000 eons of negative karma are purified. The birds also hear the recitation of the sutras and powerful mantras day and night while they eat the seeds. In addition, by feeding the birds it stops them having to eat other insects and create negative karma that way.

The other day we went to a large lake and put the same Padmasambhava mantra there. We had it printed on tin and we stuck the tin mantra on plastic so we could place it standing up on the side of the lake in the water, so that animals don’t swim over the top and also, so the mantra is not on the ground. We also have Namgyalma mantras which are laminated and then we put them inside hard plastic, so they float and are kept dry and the mantras are protected.

The mantra floats, so we put a few on the lake’s surface. Unless people find them and throw them away, they should bring benefit to the animals for a long time. By having the Namgyalma mantra in the water it blesses all the fish and sentient beings, it purifies their negative karma and if they die, they get born in a higher realm and hopefully meet the Dharma. So, it purifies their negative karma. We are hoping to put more of these mantras around in different lakes. 

These practices are different ways you can benefit sentient beings, including the insects. This is what makes your life most beneficial, most happy, most meaningful, not only for you, but for all sentient beings.

With much love and prayers ...