Tibetan Buddhist Altar » Offering

Incense Offering

Jetsunma — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:04:45 +0000

The following is a prayer from the Namchö Daily Practice Book from Palyul Ling International:

TSUL TRIM DRI DEN PÖ CHOG DAM PA DI
This pure supreme incense, which bears the scent of pure moral self-discipline,

TING DZIN NGAG DANG CHAG JYAI JYIN LAB KYI
By the blessings of mantra, mudra and samadhi

SANG GYÉ SHING DU PÖ DRI NGED DANG WA
Is offered to the realms of the Buddhas. May this fragrant incense

GYAL WA GYA TSÖI TSOG NAM NYE GYUR CHIG
Completely please and satisfy the ocean-like assembly of Buddhas!

NAMA SARWA TATHAGATA BENZA DUPE PRATITSA PUDZA MEGHA SAMUDRA SA PHA RA NA SAMAYE AH HUNG

Understanding Offerings

Jetsunma — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:09:40 +0000

The following is a full length video teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo offered at Kunzang Palyul Choling:

Taught on Lha Bab Duchen in 1989, this teaching explains how the practice of offering helps purify our desire and grasping. It also, if done purely, can move us toward the state of pure enlightenment.

The Happiness Machine

Jetsunma — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:30:06 +0000

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo from The Spiritual Path

Sometimes the ordained have problems with desire. When you take on robes, it doesn’t mean that desire ceases. Why not make that desire meaningful? You can offer desire to the Three Precious Jewels. It’s not a big secret that you’re feeling it. Use it as an offering! It is the most profound and auspicious offering. Of course, this is true for lay people as well. All the ego-clinging that you participate in can be offered. But what do you do instead? How many precious minutes do you waste? You sit there and think about how profound your understanding of the Dharma is, and you juggle your insights in the air. Aren’t you just continuing the habitual tendency of perceiving phenomenal reality according to you? You use your insights to increase your ego-clinging. Maybe you’re doing it right now, contriving your own version of the insight you think I want you to have. What you are not doing is offering your perception to the Three Precious Jewels. You aren’t, are you? You forgot. With this practice, you can break through the seduction of phenomenal existence. It is a way to break the cycle of desire and ego inflation. It is a way to awaken to the Nature. If you did that and nothing else, you would be an excellent practitioner, and you would achieve the auspicious result.

How can you break the cycle? If you remember just three times during the course of one day, three minutes of generosity, that’s a start. If you lose it after a minute, don’t give up. Keep climbing back on. When you fall off the horse, climb back on. That’s how you establish generosity in your mind. Write yourself a note. Put it on all your favorite places: your mirror, refrigerator, CD player. Whenever you turn on your CD player, you’ll remember to offer the experience of sound. A little at a time, day by day, you can have that experience. I have had the experience of going for a walk and doing that for an extended period of time. Each time I sensed the experience of perception, I would turn it over immediately, turn it over.

Your habit is to take a perception, hold on to it, and make something. Have you noticed that? But you can come between that moment of perceptual experience and making something. It’s tricky, and you have to practice it, but you can learn to put a little space in there. And you can use that space to turn it over, to dedicate it, to offer it. You can develop a repeatable experience. It can even become automatic. Just remember: the moment you experience your own perception, avoid forming it into a superstructure that enhances your ego. Turn it over, turn it over, offer it. What will happen? Your whole personality will change. Your behavior will change. It will have to change—because your behavior has been based on desire and on inflating your ego. Not only that, but if you engage in this kind of practice for an extended period, you can have something like a blissful experience. I say this with dread in my heart because I know what’s going to happen. You’ll go for a walk. You’ll put some minimal effort into this practice, and you’ll contrive for yourself an amazing, blissful experience. And then you’ll seize upon that experience and have a more meaningful self because of it. Don’t do that! Just engage in the practice and continually make that offering. You’ll find there’s a happiness that comes with it. There’s a joy, a spontaneous feeling of joy. But don’t cling to it. The minute you see yourself sensing the feeling, you’ve got to turn that over too. You simply make an offering. That experience of joy is an offering. See all your connections with the world through the five senses as a kapala filled with precious jewels. But don’t contrive something out of it. Instead, find the subtle moment right before the experience. Then, once you find it, simply use that moment to make the offering.

I hope all this is helpful to you. I hope you will use it. This is the kind of teaching that can change your life. It can change everything about your practice. I don’t think it is arrogant to say that. It is my personal experience. This practice, I think, has contributed more to my well-being than anything, even though, if I tried, I could find reasons to be unhappy. But for me, this practice has been like a happiness machine. I feel it has deepened my mind. I feel it has made my mind more spacious, more relaxed, more peaceful. I feel it has created a lot of merit. I visualize an altar in my mind at which I can constantly make offerings. You should think of your consciousness as an altar—and all phenomenal experience as the offering. The instant you decide that you must have the best apples, make those apples count for something. Offer them and everything that is delicious and beautiful and satisfying. Offer as well all experience, in its purest form. Dedicate the value of that offering to the end of suffering for all sentient beings. You have entered the path of ultimate happiness.

Offering Mandala and Chod: Full Length Video Teaching by Khenpo Tenzin Norgay

Jetsunma — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:51:31 +0000

The following is a full length video of a teaching by Khenpo Tenzin Norgay offered at Kunzang Palyul Choling:

Khenpo Tenzin Norgey teaches from the Nam Cho Ngondro practices from Terton Migyur Dorje. Each of these has the capacity, if practiced diligenly, to accru a tremendous amount of merit.

Attain Your Potential

Jetsunma — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 01:09:25 +0000

The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

Haha! Someone made my day today. I’ve been described as a rigid, Lineage-loving, “tow the line” Buddhist, and I couldn’t be more delighted! These same folks used to say I wasn’t real Palyul, or a real Buddhist, that my throne and crown were faked, and I was never really enthroned. Even with the video, papers, real throne and real crown and real cape. It is a riot!

I guess it shows if someone wants to hate, they will find a way and a reason. This is why lies and slander are so hurtful. It is mostly not true, and there is an agenda of hate or envy. Both are strong non-virtues, and mean spirited. The lesson here is hypocrisy and cowardice. It is so easy to judge and prey on another behind a computer, a wall of safety, maybe far away. Haters deliver lies, have few ethics and no compassion.

But they probably wouldn’t do it without the computer. If we look into each other’s eyes and hearts we see human suffering. Look deeper, we see ourselves. Some people have a lot of feelings around failure, having not contributed much. That is changeable. We can still do good works. There is no reason to play the failure tape over repeatedly in our thinking until it rots into hate. Just don’t compare yourself with anyone – period, end of story. And it looks pathetic if you do that and then flip into announcing your “realization” or that there is no true Enlightenment other than your own “take” on it, or your squirrely thinking will make the grade, somehow.

Just get out there and benefit sentient beings. They are real, and are crying. Feed the poor, love, heal, animal rescue, care for homeless, it is all here for you to do. So get out there. After you wash the feet and warm the tummies and offer comfort, you aren’t dead yet. The disenfranchised need you…us.

I will offer a grand Christmas this year: dinner, care, and a tiny gift for all. Then I’m broke. And happy! Come out with us! #OccupyLOVE #OWS

Be real. Be real. Then no one can call you anything but necessary. Because you (we) have seen their eyes, and there is the truth. They are us. We are them. And no Bodhisattva can be free or happy until we care for, and love them. Our brothers, our sisters, all. This is the way, and the secret. Love. Yes, love. Until you are empty. Then you have attained your potential.

#OccupyDC #OWS #PEACE÷Occupation #PALYUL

© Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo

Deepening on the Path: The Importance of “Caring”

Jetsunma — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:30:36 +0000

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called, “Bringing Virtue into Life”

If your eyes are open at all, you have seen that you have often boxed your own ears, that you have often hurt yourself by engaging in non-virtuous activity that has brought you suffering. Maybe you’ve had time to see a little bit of that. But I’ll tell you that according to the Buddha’s teaching, and this is the truth, every bit of non-virtuous behavior that you have engaged in will bring about unhappiness. So it’s not logical to engage in non-virtuous behavior and that includes the lesser non-virtuous behaviors. The big ones like killing, we can get that. Killing, stealing, that sort of thing, but what about simple selfishness? What about judgment of others? What about just not giving a big flip? Not caring? What about reading the newspaper and thinking “Wow millions of people are starving over there. Too bad.” You don’t think that’s a non-virtue? That’s how we read the paper, every day. Of course that’s a non-virtue. We’re not caring. We’re not praying for them. We’re not sending them anything. We’re not doing anything to help.

The Buddha also taught us that virtuous behavior brings about happiness, but we have exactly the opposite idea. Most of us don’t like to practice, for instance. We don’t like to sit down and practice. Who likes to sit down for two hours at a stretch? I don’t know about you, but I get fanny fatigue big time. Two hours at a stretch. That is not how I want to spend the day. So we think like that. We think “Oh, you know, if I sit down today and practice for two hours, I’m really going to suffer!” So we have this weird idea that virtuous activity like practice is going to bring about unhappiness, and it’s because of our lack of understanding. What we don’t realize is that yes, while we have maybe the antsy-ness or the fanny fatigue or whatever it is that we get, ultimately that two hours of practice will ripen. And when it ripens it will be like a precious jewel within your life. At some point there will be an event or a change or a lift or a gift or something that you very much need in your life. It will appear as though out of nowhere. and it can be directly traced to previous virtuous behavior.

The Buddha also teaches us that if we offer even something, if we’re very poor and all we have is something simple like a candle or a butter lamp. If we offer only that, placing it on an altar and with a full and generous heart visualize it as being everything that we have, everything that we could ever have and offer it to the Buddha and the Dharma and the Sangha and particularly to the Lama as the representative of all three, then let that merit be used to benefit sentient beings. What we don’t realize is that while that took some time out of our busy day, yes, and we did have to prepare a butter lamp or light the candle or whatever hardship we had to engage, still we have created unbelievable happiness for ourselves. Actually, the Buddha has taught that if we could manage to make that offering with complete and total absorption in the expanse of that generosity, then we would be reborn eventually in unmovable samadhi, complete happiness, because we are engaging in the kind of activity that creates the habitual tendency of supreme generosity.

We are taught also to make offerings of our body, speech and mind. For instance, we visualize that our body becomes like food and we offer our bodies. Of course, we don’t cut off pieces of ourselves. Nobody would want to eat that anyway, I don’t think. But we do visualize our body as being transformed into this nectar that nourishes all sentient beings, and without holding on to ourselves, we offer ourselves in that way. So we offer our bodies to benefit sentient beings. We offer our speech to benefit sentient beings. We practice so that what comes out of our mouth will be of benefit to others, such as mantra or teaching about Dharma or some spiritual advice. We try very hard to give our speech to benefit sentient beings. And we offer our minds as well to benefit sentient beings. We make that offering. The way that we practice that offering is by no longer using our mind as a vehicle by which to accomplish nonvirtue. Instead we use our mind as a vehicle by which to accomplish virtue for the sake of sentient beings. That is the true meaning of offering our body, our speech and our mind.

Many practitioners unfortunately say that. They say “I offer my body, speech and mind” and they make all kinds of grand gestures but, boy, when it comes down to the clinch, they ain’t offering nothing, and that’s the truth. Not a thing. It isn’t happening. So we, as Dharma practitioners, have to learn how to practice more deeply than that in order to assimilate the causes for true happiness. It is that kind of virtuous activity that we have to engage in.

Blessings of the Tsawei Lama

Jetsunma — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:02:57 +0000

The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

An incense offering to be made first thing every morning with the purest intention and incense.

“This pure supreme incense, which bears the scent of pure moral self-discipline, by the blessings of mantra, mudra and samadhi.
Is offered to the realms of the buddhas. May this fragrant incense completely please and satisfy the ocean-like assembly of buddhas!

NAMA SARWA TATHAGATA BENZA DUPE PRATITSA PUDZA MEGHA SAMUDRA SA PHA RA NA SAMAYE AH HUNG”

This is a sacred way to begin the practice or start one’s day. One can also offer morning tea or coffee with ring finger on right hand, flicking the substance with finger in all directions with mindfulness.

Sadly it is often the case that practitioners perform a session every day, then forget to carry it forward, to bear it always. One way to antidote that is making morning offerings, and placing the Tsawei Lama above the crown of one’s head. Carrying that samaya is beautiful. Every moment think the Lama lights your way, protective and enlightening all.

To ready for sleep , the Lama descends through the central channel into the heart chakra where the Lama is enthroned on the lotus throne in the heart. From there, Tsawei Lama radiates compassion and wisdom all through the night. Upon awakening move Lama up to above the head, and there Tsawei Lama remains and blesses us all.

One may recite mantra before placing Tsawei Lama above head and on heart. And signs may occur. Like: auspicious dreams or other miraculous visions!

Incense Offering

Jetsunma — Thu, 26 May 2011 00:02:25 +0000

From: “Great Perfection Buddha In the Palm of the Hand: The Lama’s Oral Instructions Upon the Recitation and Visualization of the Preliminary Practices Ngondro” as revealed by Vidydhara Terton Migyur Dorje

TSHÜL THRIM DRI DEN PÖ CHOG DAM PA DI

This pure, supreme incense, which bears the scent of pure discipline,

TING DZIN NGAG DANG CHAG GYA’I CHIN LAB KYI

By the blessing of mantra, mudra and samadhi,

SANGYE ZHING DU PÖ DRI NGED DANG WA

Is offered to the Realm of the Buddhas. May this aromatic incense

GYAL WA GYATSHO’I TSHOG NAM NYE GYUR CHIG

Completely please and satisfy the ocean-like assembly of Buddhas!

NAMA SARWA TATHAGATHA BENZAR DHUPE PRATITSA PUDZA MEGHA SAMUDRA SAPHA RA NA SAMAYE AH HUNG

Offering Mudra

Holly — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 13:30:22 +0000

ARGHAM PADYAM PUPE DHUPE ALOKE GENDE NEWIDYA SHAPDA PRATITSA YE SWAHA

Water for drinking and for bathing, flowers, incense, scented water, celestial food and sound are all offered.

Lama Pema Rangdol, head umdze at a Palyul Monastery for many years and now living in NYC, visited KPC Maryland to instruct students in the Rigzin Dupai Tsog Practice. This is an excerpt from that training.

A Nontraditional Chod Practice to Establish a Sacred View

Jetsunma — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:30:37 +0000

An excerpt from the Mindfulness workshop given by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in 1999

Before I ever learned about the Buddha dharma, I actually used to do a practice that my teachers have told me was a natural kind of Chöd. What I would do is contemplate on different body parts and it took me months and months and months to do this. I practiced it for months because I felt like the deeper I went into it, the more involved it became. I would think about a certain body part, like my feet, and I would say, “Thinking of these feet in one way, here are their limitations,” and it’s easy to see what the limitations of feet are. You can’t walk on fire with them. Well, not most of us. You can’t walk on water with them – not most of us either. There are so many things you can’t do with your feet, but there are also many things that you can do with your feet. So thinking of feet in those ways, I would see all of the limitations of feet, being used as they are presently being used, and then I would think about all the possible ways that feet could be of benefit to beings. How could my feet be of use? That’s what I want. I want my feet to be of use. So I would think, “How can my feet be of use? Well, I can go to people that need me with my feet. I can go to do some meditation. I can make my body go and comfort someone that’s sick or feed someone that’s hungry through moving my feet.”

After I had examined both the down side and the opportunity associated with feet, I would then practice this kind of deep offering, and I would make many prayers. I would say, “I offer my feet to (back then I didn’t say Buddhas and bodhisattvas), Absolute Nature. I offer my feet to the Buddhas and bodhisattvas in order that they might be used to benefit sentient beings. Other than that, they have no meaning for me.” I would practice that until I felt like I had given up my feet and they were no longer mine; they were offerings. I went through my entire body. Then I found that that wasn’t enough, so I went through all my emotions. And then I found that wasn’t enough, so I went through all the different ways of thinking and attributes of mind. I would see the potential of each and I would see the downfall of each and I would contemplate on that very, very carefully. Then I would spend a great deal of time offering that particular quality or attribute or body part to be used for the benefit of sentient beings, to be used to accomplish some good.

It seemed to me that, generally speaking, the body is a marvelous thing, but if it’s not accomplishing any good, it’s kind of limited, so it seemed logical and reasonable to me to want to offer all of my limitations, all of my ordinary perceptions, all of my attachments in the hope that every part of me would be used to benefit sentient beings.

Think about your speech. Speech is a wonderful thing; it’s an amazing thing. It’s one of those human attributes that make it possible for us to teach and learn, so it makes it possible for us to practice Dharma. So although speech is an amazing thing, what do we use our speech for? For the most part, we use our speech to help us suffer. For the most part, our speech is like vomit coming out of our mouths. What I mean by that is, the stuff that comes out of our mouth often is not connected to any thought anywhere. We use our speech for blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, and yet this precious thing could be used to teach Dharma. This precious capability could be used to receive teachings of Dharma. How amazing!

Practicing this kind of nontraditional Chöd was when I really learned about speech. That was really important. When I learned about speech, I found out that if I were really to offer my speech and be constantly mindful of its power, constantly mindful of this blessing, and if I really, ultimately offered my speech to the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas, that instead their holy speech might be here. That makes the speech worth something. That makes it powerful.

I used to spend a lot of time considering the pros and cons, the limitations and the attributes of different aspects of what I considered ‘myself,’ and eventually, after offering all my parts and all my qualities and all my different attributes, at that point I felt that something was changed. I had done this so deeply that I got into the habit of thinking like this, to the point where, when it comes to benefiting sentient beings, I don’t have to make that choice because it’s already been made. I don’t own this stuff. It’s already given away. I developed this habit of constantly offering, and I’m telling you about the way that I did this is not so that you can say, “Ooh, aah, wasn’t she a great practitioner!” I’m not a great practitioner by any means. What I’m telling you is that as a Westerner, even if we don’t have perfect translations, even if we haven’t accumulated all the teachings, even if it seems to us strange to practice Chöd in a way where we boil stuff and offer it and all those things, even if we’ve never heard of that teaching, it is still possible for us to practice the same principles and to establish a sacred view. It’s still possible.

I feel like my main job is to speak to Westerners because Westerners have a particular outlook, a particular take on things, and I think one of the greatest blessings that I have is that I’m a Westerner and I think like you. I really do think exactly like you, so maybe I can help you, not just to follow the books by rote, not just to repeat everything like a magpie, but maybe instead to practice more deeply. Maybe I can help you practice in such a way that the practice becomes married with your life, with your body, with your speech, with your mind, with your consciousness, until they are so one that it’s like mixing milk with water. That is how practice becomes potent.