Mar - Apr Issue - Amitabha Buddhist Centre

The Meaning of LongLife Puja—Not just aTibetan pastime!The FPMT has a tradition of offering a long life puja to our precious guru and Spiritual Director,Lama Zopa Rinpoche, in Kopan Monastery at the end of each year. During thelong life offering to Rinpoche on 29 th December 2012, Rinpoche spoke about the significance andmeaning behind performing the puja. The long life puja, Rinpoche explained, was based on theLama Chöpa or Guru Puja practice. It was through the practice of guru yoga that many masters ofthe past were able to achieve full enlightenment quickly, within one lifetime.Rinpoche cited the great yogis, Saraha, Tilopa, Naropa, Marpa and Milarepa, as examples as wellas Gyalwa Ensapa and Lama Tsong Khapa.This Lama Chöpa is what theypractised, what made themenlightened in a brief lifetimeof this degenerate time. This iswhat they had practised. In a veryshort time, they could achieve fullenlightenment. Panchen Lobsang8 Chökyi Gyaltsen [who composedamazing—can’t imagine the amount but you cannot count the merit of happen to us. We have to know that 9the Lama Chöpa] checked manyguru yogas, from ancient Indianpandits and from the four differentsects—Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu,Gelug. This Lama Chöpa whichhe himself practised, he himselfchecked many others, and he himselfexperienced, and practised, achievingenlightenment. This was [entirely] hisexperience.For us just even to hear the words,besides to practise, is something likea dream for us—extremely precious,most precious.There’s one verse, two stanzas Ithink, by Gyalwa Ensapa: “The validguru—without looking at mistakes,look at the side of the qualities.” Thispractice should be the heart practice.Do not look at the side of mistakes,look at the side of the qualities—itshould be the heart practice and to beable to complete such a practice, sucha commitment.Seven-Limb PracticeThe seven-limb practice, as you allknow, is the normal daily life practicewhich creates enlightenment—sevenvery important practices to createenlightenment. It is the preliminarypractice for the actual body of lamrimpractice of Lama Chöpa, GuruPuja practice.1. ProstrationsThat’s the antidote to the generalnegative karma collected frombeginningless rebirths with body,speech and mind. What is to beachieved by doing the practice is thethree kayas.2. OfferingsOfferings are the antidote tomiserliness. Those delusions, negativekarma, these are obstacles to achievingenlightenment. The result, whatyou achieve, is unceasing, like sky,unceasing offerings, what buddhasreceive, unceasing offerings.3. ConfessionThe antidote to negative karmacollected with body, speech andmind, and what it purifies bydoing the practice of purification iscessation of the two obscurations—cessation of the disturbing-thoughtobscuration and the obstruction tofull enlightenment in your mind—thecessation of those two obscurations.4. RejoicingRejoicing is the antidote to jealousy.By doing the practice, you achieve theresult, Buddha’s holy body which hasall the beauties [marks and signs]. Itmakes you achieve that, by rejoicing.Each time as you rejoice, yourmerits collected from beginninglessrebirths—just by rejoicing, howwonderful it is—all the merits youcollected from beginningless rebirthsbecome double. By rejoicing a secondtime, it becomes triple. Double!Triple! Amazing, amazing, amazing.As Lama Tsong Khapa mentioned,“Ge la je su yi rang chog tu sung.”The easiest way to collect mostextensive merit is rejoicing. Rejoicingin your own merits, wow, wow, wow,wow! Can’t imagine, can’t imagine.Just in the next second—double,triple—through rejoicing, howwonderful it is. And then, by rejoicingin others’ merit, other sentientbeings’ merit—the numberless hellbeings, numberless hungry ghosts,numberless animals, numberlesshuman beings, numberless surabeings, numberless asuras, numberlessintermediate beings—even in justone realm there are numberlesssentient beings. If you rejoice, howwonderful it is, all the sentient beings’merit. How much the numberlesssentient beings, in zillions, collected,that much merit you gain. So byrejoicing, that much merit, whatsentient beings collected, you gain.Then by rejoicing the second time, itis double! Triple! Oh, that is amazing,of merit you collect.For example, Pabongka DechenNyingpo has mentioned in “Liberationin the Palm of Your Hand” that if yourejoice in one bodhisattva’s one day ofmerit, you collect half day’s merit.What they collect in one day, youcollect half day’s merit. By rejoicing,in one second you collect that muchmerit. But without rejoicing, it takesthirteen thousand years. That muchrejoicing, it takes thirteen thousandyears for you. But if you rejoice inone bodhisattva’s one day of merit,in that second you collect that muchmerit. Half day—that much merityou collect—what one bodhisattvacollects in one day. So we rejoice inbodhisattvas’ merit—past, presentand future—and not only that, thenumberless bodhisattvas. There arenumberless bodhisattvas. Can youimagine when we rejoice in merit,how much merit you collect? Canyou imagine? Amazing!Then by rejoicing in the Buddha’smerit, by dividing by ten, you getthat much amount of merit. In theKangyur, in the Buddha’s teaching,it is mentioned that you can countMount Meru into [heaps of] sang,Tibetan coins, but by rejoicing onetime, the amount of merit cannotbe counted. Also it is mentioned,you can count each continent [ofthe mandala] into sang, small coins,rejoicing one time. Unbelievable,unbelievable, unbelievable! It ismentioned in the Kangyur.5. Requesting to Turn theDharma WheelNext one, requesting to turn theDharma wheel, to the Buddha’snirmanakaya aspect, the gurus’and buddhas’ nirmanakaya aspect,requesting the merit field to turnthe Dharma wheel, to pleasegive teachings, is the antidote toignorance and abandonment of theholy Dharma. That is very dangerousfor us, very easy to create this negativekarma, to abandon Dharma.For example, the Abhidharmakoshaor philosophical subjects which youdon’t understand, whatever is theBuddha’s teaching, you lose faith inthe text, in the subject, you don’thave faith. It’s not out of respect ofyour body, speech and mind. All thisphilosophy, you don’t understand,have no faith, or it’s not the objectof your respect, that is avoiding theholy Dharma. Even the Nyingma,Kagyu, Sakya, Gelug, those TibetanBuddhist teachings, and thosethat are presented according to thedifferent levels of mind of sentientbeings, Hinayana, Paramitayana,Tantrayana, for example. Any of theBuddha’s teachings, when you losefaith in the text, have no respect,that’s avoiding the holy Dharma. Butyou know the missing pages of textswhich we burn in the fire, withoutlosing your respect when offering tofire, that is not necessarily avoidingholy Dharma. If you have respect, no;anyone who has lost respect, has nodevotion, yes.That’s very, very, very dangerous forus, avoiding the holy Dharma. Youcreate the negative karma of havingdestroyed all the chorten. Not onlyholy stupas, chorten means all theholy objects. All the temples, all thestatues, stupas, scriptures in the world,if you destroyed those completelyyou would create more negativekarma than that [of abandoning theDharma]. It is very easy for this towell.Requesting to turn the Dharmawheel is the antidote to that. Theresult is you achieve the Buddha’sholy speech. Because you request forteachings, you achieve Buddha’s holyspeech. Not only that, then also as akarma, you are able to give Buddha’steachings to sentient beings. There aremany, many, many benefits explainedin the sutras.6. Requesting the Guruto Live LongThe next one is requesting for longlife, the antidote to disturbing theguru’s holy mind. If you disturbedthe holy mind in past lives, in thislife, by requesting the guru’s long life,this purifies that. It is the antidote tothat. You achieve the undying vajraholy body.7. DedicationI want to emphasise that dedication