Mantras and Mudras: Meditations for the hands and voice to bring peace and inner calm. Lillian Too

DA-WA RINPOCHE DUG

       CHOG-LAY NAM-PAR, GYEL WAY GYEL-TSEN

       U-SU LHA DANG MI

       PEL JOR PUN-SUM TSOG-PA; MA-TSANG WAMAY-PA

       TSANG ZHING YID DU, WONG-WA

       DI DAG DRIN-CHEN TSA WA, DANG GYU PAR

       CHAY PAY PEL DEN; LAMA DAM-PA NAM DANG

       KYAY PER DU YANG

       LAMA LOSANG TUB-WANG DORJE CHANG

       CHEN-PO LHA-TSOG KOR-DANG CHAY-PAY NAM-LA ZHING

       KAM UL WAR GYIO

       TUG JAY DRO-WAY DON-DU ZHAY SU SOL

       ZHAY NAY KYANG DAG-SOG DRO-WA

       MAR-GYUR; NAM KAY TA DANG-NYAM PAY

       SEM CHEN-TAM CHAY-LA

       TUG TSE WA CHEN PO GO NAY JIN GYI LAB TU SOL

       RINPOCHE’S ADVICE ON THE IMMENSE SPIRITUAL BENEFITS OF MAKING THE MANDALA OFFERING

       “[The] mandala offering is an extremely powerful method for accumulating extensive merits and receiving realizations such as bodhichitta and emptiness quickly. Just as great strength is needed to carry a heavy load, a great amount of merit is needed to lead all sentient beings to Enlightenment. There is nothing that can be offered with your hands that is more meritorious than offering mandalas.

       “The mandala offering contains the practice of all six perfections. The six Buddhist perfections are: generosity, morality, patience, joyous effort, meditative concentration, and wisdom.

       “By cleaning and blessing the mandala base with a special liquid, you practice the perfection of generosity. Checking the grain for insects results in the perfection of moral conduct, and removing insects from the grain without harming them leads to the perfection of patience. By thinking of how fortunate you are to be able to practice Dharma and making the offering with joy, you cultivate joyous effort. By not forgetting the visualization, you attain concentration. By clearly visualizing the colors and objects in the mandala, wisdom is attained. Therefore, offering mandalas helps you to quickly complete the two accumulations of the merits of method and wisdom, as it contains all the six perfections.

       “This practice pacifies all hindrances to your temporal and ultimate happiness. These depend on merit, and merit depends on offerings. The most meritorious object to offer is the mandala. Therefore if you wish to achieve temporal and ultimate happiness, you can make many mandala offerings.

       “Lama Tsong Khapa (a fifteenth-century lama who founded the Gelugpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism) offered 1,800,000 mandala offerings and achieved all the realizations of the stages and paths. If you wish to gain realizations you should offer mandala offerings to your guru every day, to his jewel-like body, and so bestow the sphere of great bliss in an instant. All realizations depend on your guru.

       “Offering mandalas to your guru is like offering gifts to a king before requesting a favor of him. Achieving Enlightenment in one lifetime depends on your relationship with your guru.”

Purifying the space and ground

      An important part of the preliminary ritual to reciting mantras and practicing meditation is to ensure that the space and ground where one does one’s practice is kept clean and pure. There are mantras for cleaning, and visualizations for purifying the place of meditation.

       A CLEANSING MEDITATION

      When you clean with a cloth or broom, think “This is to sweep away all the defilements, negative thoughts, and obstacles that block my true awakening.” Recite the following two-word mantra at least 108 times each day:

       DURUPANG, TIMAPANG

      As you dust and remove stains in the room, think of your anger, attachment, and ignorance being erased, disappearing. Stains are subtle defilements that cause blocks in your life; wipe them away daily.