merit | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

Freedom Isn’t Free: Understanding Merit and the Path

February 2, 2017 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Entering the Path”

It is important to remember that when you enter the path you have earned the right to be here. This is absolutely the case. I can swear to it because you are here. You have absolutely accumulated the necessary virtue and merit within your mindstream in order to be able to hear these teachings and to do these practices, and even to prepare for your own death.

Yet, there is a Catch-22 situation that’s very difficult with Dharma. You have absolutely earned this opportunity and it is your right and your responsibility to take advantage of it. Now think about this: You could not be hearing these teachings from me if you had not made extensive prayers in some way at some time. It has to be so or you would not be here. You must have made prayers to Tara. You must have made prayers to Guru Rinpoche. You must have made prayers to meet your teacher and to be with your teacher and to hear these words. This must be so, or you could not have created the causes by which you are enjoying this opportunity.

So what does that mean then? That means that you’re here. Simply that, only that. That means that you’re here, and you’re ready to rock and roll. Now think about this. This is something else that’s important and something to think: our Dharma, and particularly the Vajrayana path, is the singular most potent and powerful method that exists on this planet. That is to say that one can achieve true enlightenment, not what New Age people call enlightenment, but the real thing, like the Buddha, like great Bodhisattvas. One can achieve enlightenment within the context of one lifetime or immediately following this lifetime in the bardo state – that’s what the practice of Phowa is about – or within three lifetimes or within seven lifetimes. But surely, if one were to practice Vajrayana, and one were to practice it faithfully, one would achieve the ultimate result relatively quickly. That makes this the most potent path on the planet at this time, the most potent. We know this because we have seen that there are those who have achieved enlightenment in one lifetime. This is not true of other systems.

Now, that being the case, if it has that kind of weight, what kind of virtue or merit would be needed to keep that coming in, to keep that blessing flowing? An enormous amount. That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? It’s like the you-get-what-you-pay-for kind of philosophy. If we were to think in materialistic terms, if you want the best, the absolute best, you have to pay the highest price. It’s expensive. Good quality costs money. In material terms you think like that. Doesn’t it follow then, logically, that that which is potent and of highest quality spiritually would also require the highest spiritual investment?

On the path, there is the necessity to accumulate merit and virtue in an extensive and responsible way because when we first come to the path is we immediately expend our accumulated merit. Here’s the picture: What has come forward to us, what has ripened in our mindstream, is the accumulation of some meritorious virtuous activity we’ve done in the past that allows us to hook into the path in this lifetime.

Upon using up that tremendous amount of merit that fortunately has risen to the surface in order to bring us to the path, an obstacle may arise. It takes such an enormous amount of merit in order to travel on the path, particularly to begin the path, that we may not have at the surface of our mind, or at the surface of our expressive continuum, enough merit to sustain us. So immediately upon coming to the path, the teacher gives instruction. The teacher says accumulate many repetitions of the Seven-Line Prayer. That is a merit-making machine. It is a way to accumulate the most merit. Then immediately after that, we are told to practice Ngöndro, preliminary practice. In Ngöndro, you are given five different ways to accumulate merit, and they are extremely potent. It is actually meant to guide you through the shoals of beginning practice until the mind becomes sufficiently purified and deepened to the degree that it will sustain itself through the shining qualities of its own virtue and merit.

Merit & the Karma of Happiness

October 16, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

From The Spiritual Path: A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

You are able to practice because you had the karma to receive teachings. Merit has come to the surface of your mind; good karma is ripening. But linked with some of this ripening merit are some bubbles of not-so-good karma. So what happens? You sit down with the intention to practice, but now you’re just too tired. You start to fall asleep. Or you decide that you need to do some other things. You externalize what you think are the causes for your inability to practice. Maybe you even begin to doubt that you’re happy in the Dharma. You wish you were surfing in California, and this thought is like a little rat, gnawing in your head. It gnaws at you slowly and steadily.

You need to understand that good karma is ripening, but some negative karma is linked to it. Embedded in your mindstream is some non-virtuous activity associated with the intention to practice. Now you have repeated that pattern, in seed form, and it will ripen in the future. Sometime in the future, you will again sit down with the intention to practice, and you won’t be able to do it. So the sensible thing to do is to persevere, to push through as well as you can. Understand that your tiredness, sleepiness, and other excuses have no basis. They are puffballs.

When you find yourself making excuses why you are unable to practice, why you don’t really want to hear the teachings, the best thing to do is to break through by accumulating merit. By doing virtuous things. Study Dharma. Pray. Practice kindness and generosity. Meditate. Contemplate the teachings. Try to understand them more deeply. Be attentive. Make offerings. Repeat the Seven Line Prayer many times. Repeated with faith, it is an antidote that can end all your suffering. It can, the teaching says, lead to enlightenment. All these things are ways to accumulate merit. You must understand how merit (and lack of it) works, or you will have a difficult time maintaining potency on the Path. It will even be difficult, on an ordinary level, to have a good life. For you won’t have any way to understand what is happening to you. You will always blame external things, other people. It is true that when you encounter misfortune, other people are usually involved, and you may well have some mixed karma with those people. But the karma arises within your own mindstream; it isn’t somewhere outside.

Pull out of your addiction to reaction. Think of your mind as something like a mechanism, and you yourself as a mechanic. Understand that you can work with its levers, pulleys, and gears. To most people, their own minds are a mystery, a complete mystery. And they search for someone who can understand them.

What should you do? Persevere in your practice. What else? Create more merit. The big mystery of “me” is solved. Almost reluctantly, too, because it’s so lovely to remain a mystery. It’s so pleasant to think that there is something mysterious, special, and unique about us. How often we try to obtain something that seems just out of reach. Or we have it in our hands, and it slips away. What is going on here? Lack of merit, of course. And yet we keep on reaching and grabbing and forcing, all in vain. Sometimes we think we have made something happen by forcing it. And yet, we have merely rearranged our karma. The basic problem remains unsolved. Suppose you want a new car, but the cost is just out of reach. Both merit and lack are coming to the surface. Even if you contrive to get the car, you will still have, ripening, some non-virtue associated with lack. That lack will always show up somewhere—with the car itself, or in your relationships, your health, or in missed opportunities. So the key, whenever you lack something, is to accumulate merit.

Some people are unaware that it takes merit to be happy. Have you ever noticed that some people just seem to be happy, no matter what? And others … well, happiness seems to elude them. And it’s because there is no karma of happiness, no karma of having made others happy, ripening in their minds. You can’t even lighten them up with a joke. They just don’t have any happy bubbles ripening to the surface. “How are you today?” you ask them. “Not so good,” they reply. “Umm … Nothing seems to go right.” But if we haven’t got the karma for happiness, whose fault is that? Who did it to us? Someone else? No, but it’s a problem we can fix. The problem is within our own minds. We can create the karma of happiness by creating merit.

The Bodhisattva’s Logic

September 13, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Bodhisattva Ideal”

The posture of a Bodhisattva is misunderstood in our culture. When a parent raises a child, the parent does not say to the child, “What I’d really like you to do, darling, is to be a great, generous mystic. I want you to be so generous that you give your life up for others. I want you to be so generous that you pay no attention to your own welfare or comfort, but instead I would like you to live and die for the benefit of sentient beings.” Nobody’s mother told them that! Due to the culture that we are raised in, we are told by our parents, their parents before them, and everything around us that there are certain things that one must do in order to be successful. One must gain recognition, power, money, ease of living. These are the things that one must do. But when one enters onto the path and becomes a Bodhisattva, one is faced with an entirely new set of ethics and morals and responsibilities.

This entire process must be understood as an intelligent, logical and reasonable process, simply by virtue of the fact that no matter what we accomplish during the course of this lifetime, other than the impact it has on our own bouquet of habitual tendencies, there is not one piece of what we collect that we can take with us, not one thing. So here is the Bodhisattva’s intelligence. And it is an intelligence. It is based on truth. It is based on fact. It is something like the intelligence of a person who receives a great deal of money, let’s say, or something precious and, if they’ve never had that before, if they haven’t thought it through, they might say, “Oh now I’ve got, let’s see, I’ve got $10,000 here so I’m going to go out and I’m going to spend that money and have a really good time. I’ve never had $10,000 before, so I’m just going to go spend it, and I’m going to get all the things that I wanted to get. Get some of my bills paid up, and I’m going to get a, let’s see, a down payment on a car, and I’ve got some clothes that I have in mind and all these different things. Maybe I’m going to buy a new TV. I’ve got all this laid out.” A sentient being’s normal reaction to having blessings in their life, or to life itself, is a little bit like that. I’ve got this thing. How am I going to spend it?

The Bodhisattva thinks very differently. The Bodhisattva realizes that, according to the Buddha’s teaching, life is like a precious jewel. When one meets with Dharma, meets with the teacher, and meets with the method by which we can accomplish realization, this life is understood as wealth for sure. We understand that there is a tremendous gift here. But how is the gift utilized? There comes in a completely different kind of logic.

The Bodhisattva realizes that, in the end, all will come to nothing. If our only gain is on the material realm, in the end all of the effort that we put into self-cherishing and beautifying ourselves, and the ease and comfort of our lives, and the accomplishments on the mental and physical levels of our lives, even those greatly cherished social institutions like vast education, even that will come to nothing, other than perhaps the discipline of studying. That habit may be brought into the next rebirth. .But everything that we have learned to love and cherish will come to nothing.

And so the Bodhisattva thinks, therefore, if in samsara, all efforts come to nothing, if all that survives is one’s virtue or lack of virtue, if all that matters in samsara eventually breaks down, then why should I put much effort into these things? Why should these things be precious to me? Because ultimately they will be lost, they will come to nothing.

The Bodhisattva then thinks more like a smart investor. You want to invest in that which brings ultimate returns: kindness, generosity, spiritual habits, habits associated towards travelling on the path of Dharma and developing oneself spiritually. Making offerings, living with generosity, meditating, praying, contemplating, teaching—these virtuous acts are the things that will bring a result that one can carry over into the next life. So the Bodhisattva is not so much a martyr as someone who has been trained through logic and reason to understand not to put all of one’s emphasis and hope in that which will ultimately disappoint. The Bodhisattva has been trained well enough to know that ultimately all things in samsara are disappointing. And so the Bodhisattva then makes the choice, based on training, to put one’s emphasis and one’s effort only in those things which will produce the excellent result of enlightenment and benefit to others. This is how the Bodhisattva thinks.

Relax

July 4, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Entering the Path”

In a sense, the first thing the teacher does for you when you come to the path is to say, “Put on your crash helmet, study this obstacle course, fill up with gas, gun your motor, here we go. Put a spare in the trunk, carry a set of jumper cables, be fully equipped. Have a miniature, dehydrated tow truck in the back of your car. Just add water, and you’re set to go!” That’s the kind of instruction your teacher gives you. Your teacher very carefully lays out a program and says do the Seven-Line Prayer, do your Ngöndro. Do these things in order to accumulate merit because what happens is that should you use up a vast amount of merit when you first come to the path – and you will – you may experience obstacles. This doesn’t mean that you should not come to the path; this means that these obstacles are in your own mindstream. The causes for these obstacles have been in your mindstream since who knows, time out of mind maybe. They would have ripened eventually, they will ripen anyway, but if they ripen without the guidance of the teacher and without the tool of the path, they will ripen out of control. One never knows.

You know yourself that you’ve gone through life and things have wham! hit you just when it looked like things were going great and you had everything under control. Several times during the course of your life already you’ve looked in the mirror and said, “There is no such thing as control here in samsara! Things are really wacky!” But whatever obstacles arise when you first come to the path are yours. They’re not mine. I didn’t give them to you. I mean really, I didn’t do it. They’re not someone else’s. They didn’t do it. And yet, as new practitioners we think, “What’s happening here? Everything’s wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t do this stuff.”

Actually the opposite is true. You should think like this. You should think, “Now my mind is being ripened. Due to my merit and virtue I am able to hook into the path. I have to stabilize that. I have to take responsibility.” Think like a big boy or a big girl for a change: “I have to take responsibility for this. I have to stabilize my mind and stabilize my practice.”

So how is that going to happen?

The thing that you need to do to flush out any obstacles that ripen on the path is to first of all stabilize your mind. Relax. Don’t be such a heavy breather. Chill, will you? Get mellow! So you relax. Just relax. Be confident on the path. Be confident that you are in a boat with no holes.

Yeah, it’s scary to cross the ocean of suffering, but friend, you’re going to do that anyway, either in a boat or not. So you’ve got a choice. You can get out and do the backstroke or cross the ocean of suffering in a boat with no holes. You’re in a boat with no holes. You’re fine. You’re OK. Plus you have a good captain, a good captain who has themselves crossed the ocean of suffering before and brought others. So you should be confident in that. Relax. Try not to get yourself so worked up all the time. Just relax.

Remember, the more emotional you get, the more bent out of shape you get, it’s like you’re stirring up the water. Think of your mind as being like a bowl full of liquid soap, and if you start stirring it up like that with emotion, you know what you get? Bubbles and foam. Have you ever had that happen to your dishwasher or your washing machine where you get the bubbles and foam that come out all over the floor and then you’ve got to spend the rest of the day cleaning it up and the clothes are not clean, everything’s a mess? You have to think like that. Cheer up. Don’t get yourself all foamed up. Just relax. You’re on the path. You’re safe. Be cool.

This Is Your Temple

April 27, 2016 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

When you give money to the temple, do it because you need to, not because we need you to. Do it because you understand that you are the one that needs to practice the generosity. That’s your medicine.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that your root guru or your lama is the one that needs the temple. It’s completely false. It is not the lama that needs the temple. It’s the students that practice there. This is not my temple in Poolesville, Maryland. This is your temple in Poolesville, Maryland. You should take pride in its cleanliness. You should take pride in its prosperity. It should embarrass you when the bills are not paid here. It should embarrass you when things are not going well at the temple—when there is not enough participation, when we can’t find someone to cut the grass—because this is your temple. This is your house. Spiritually, you live here. This is for you. If you could just get that one small truth and take responsibility for your practice whether it’s the karma yoga of engaging in protecting your temple, propagating the teachings, making this place firm, pure and safe for others to come and practice, or whether it’s the meditational yoga of actually engaging in sit-down practice in order to benefit sentient beings, or both. Hopefully you’re doing both, because that’s what is needed.

Rejoicing

November 6, 2015 by Holly

[Adapted from an oral commentary given by His Holiness Penor Rinpoche in conjunction with a ceremony wherein he bestowed the bodhisattva vow upon a gathering of disciples at Namdroling in Bozeman, Montana, November 1999. —Ed.]

Consider all ordinary virtue, which is virtue accumulated by ordinary individuals, and all stainless virtue, which is virtue accumulated by buddhas and bodhisattvas. Ordinary virtue, also called tainted virtue, is virtue accumulated with [the stain of] passions. Consider all virtue and constantly rejoice. For instance, if you see that someone has made an offering of a hundred butter lamps, you may think, “How beautiful those butter lamps are! What a wonderful offering!” Perhaps you too may hope to make such an offering. Rather than be jealous that someone else has made the offering, rejoice in the virtue and merit of the person who presented it, and you too will receive the same results of that merit and virtue. Rejoicing is the antidote for having jealousy, especially having jealousy toward others and the virtue they are able to accumulate.

From “THE PATH of the Bodhisattva: A Collection of the Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva and Related Prayers” with a commentary by Kyabje Pema Norbu Rinpoche on the Prayer for Excellent Conduct

Compiled under the direction of Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche Vimala Publishing 2008

Wisdom Merit

November 5, 2015 by Holly

General offerings please the senses. Imagine those offerings to be vast and inconceivable. However, if you were to [attempt to] compare the outer offerings with a single particle of the realms of buddhas and the quality of offerings made in the minds of enlightened ones, [you would find that comparison] to be beyond the scope of your imagination. That is why it is so important while presenting offerings to try to connect with the ultimate nature of offering, which is mental and not just material. Material offerings you make are supports for your mental or imagined offerings, which should be as inconceivably vast and wondrous as you are capable of manifesting. The actual offerings you use as a support should also be the best substances you are able to offer. At least they must not be old, dirty, or leftover substances; they must be suitable supports for the basis of virtue. The pure material offerings you make will be the support for the continual manifestation of inexhaustible offerings that will remain until samsara is emptied.

There is a well-known story of an accomplished practitioner named Jowo Ben. One day Jowo Ben made a very beautiful, clean, and pure offering on his altar. As he sat and looked at his offering, he thought, “What is it that makes this offering I’ve made here today excellent?” Then he remembered his sponsor was coming to visit that day, and he realized he had made the beautiful offering in order to impress his sponsor. He jumped up, picked up a handful of dirt, and threw it on the altar, saying he should give up all attachment and fixation on worldly concerns. Other lamas, on hearing what Jowo Ben had done, proclaimed his offering of throwing dirt on his altar to have been the purest of offerings, because Jowo Ben had finally cleared his mind of attachment and aversion.

When offerings are made, they are rendered pure and excellent by a mind free from attachment and aversion to the ordinary, material aspect of the offerings—and they must be made with a mind that is also free from avarice. Don’t think you can throw dirt on your altar and think that will benefit you. You must adjust your mind. If your mind is free from attachment or fixation and aversion, then whatever you do will be right. If your mind is not adjusted and your intentions are impure, then no matter how beautiful and magnificent the offering is, it will be insignificant. If you present all offerings, whether abundant or meager, with fervent devotion from the core of your heart, that will produce profoundly amazing results.

In order to be free from the suffering of existence, the mind must be free from dualistic fixation. In freedom from duality, everything is inherently pure. Just imagine all the wonderful offerings that are made that are free from duality: pure water possessing the eight qualities, garlands of flowers, incense, light, superior perfume, celestial food, musical instruments, fine garments, beautiful umbrellas, canopies, victory banners, the sun, the moon—the finest and best of everything is offered. Consider those as offerings arranged in a magnificent array equal in size to Mt. Meru. Furthermore, know that those offerings are pure and free from duality. For example, if you were to pick a flower and think, “Oh, this is such a beautiful flower; I want to offer it,” but then you also think, “My flower is more beautiful than the others,” and you offer it with that dualistic thought, then that offering would be defiled by your dualistic fixation. On the other hand, if you focus on the pure nature of the offerings and present them with pure devotion, you will make offerings that are pure or free from dualistic fixation. Recite the verses of the branch for offering, and make the most excellent, immeasurable offering you are capable of with the enlightened attitude [bodhicitta], faith, and pure devotion.

It is important to understand that presenting offerings is the antidote for [having] desire. Offerings are not made to the Three Jewels because they are considered to be poverty-stricken and in need of receiving from their disciples; offerings are made to accumulate merit. By making offerings with actual material substances, we accumulate ordinary conceptual merit; by using the mind to manifest immeasurable offerings, we accumulate nonconceptual wisdom merit.

Compiled under the direction of Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche Vimala Publishing 2008

Flower of Gods: From “Sutra of the Wise and Foolish”

September 16, 2014 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is respectfully quoted from “Sutra of the Wise and Foolish” by Stanley Frye

Flower of the Gods

Thus have I heard at one time: the Enlightened One was residing in the sity of Śrāvastī at Jetavana monastery in Añathapindika’s park together with an assembly of one-thousand two-hundred and fifty monks. At that time, in that country, when a handsome and comely son was born to the wife of a householder of the highest caste, a shower of flowers of the gods fell from the sky and filled the house, and the boy was named Flower of the Gods. When he had come of age, he went to the Buddha, and seeing the Lord’s body endowed with the incomparable signs, rejoiced greatly and thought: “I have been born into this world where I have met the Supreme Among the Noble Ones, I shall invite the Lord and his assembly”, and said: “Lord, tomorrow I shall prepare alms-food in my home. In order to lay the foundation for Enligthenment, I beseech the Lord and his Sangha to deign to come”. The Buddha, seeing the boy’s pure and firm intention, said: “We accept your invitation”.

Thereupon the boy called Flower of the Gods returned to his home and in his mansion caused a great throne of jewels to magically appear along with many other seats, and adorned the dwelling with various kinds of decorations.

Upon the morrow the Enlightened One and his Sangha came, and when each had taken his seat according to seniority, the boy though: “Now I shall offer various kinds of food,” and, because of his virtue many different kinds of food appeared by themselves and these he offered to the Lord and Sangha.

When the Buddha had taught the boy the Dharma, the house became filled with flowers of the gods and the boy requested permission of his parents to become a monk. When his parents consented, he went to the Buddha, bowed his head at his feet, and said: “Lord, I request ordination”, and when the Buddha said: “Welcome, monk”, his hair and beard fell away by themselves and he was dressed in the red robes. Exerting himself in the word of the Buddha, he became an arhat.

When Ānanda saw what had taken place, he knelt and said: “Lord, this monk Flower of the Gods–by reason of performing what former good deeds did a shower of flowers descend and jeweled thrones and various kinds of good appear? I beg the Lord to explain the reason for this.”

The Buddha said: “Ānanda, if you wish to hear this, listen carefully. In aeons long past, when the Buddha Kāśyapa was in the world and was visiting the cities for the weal of beings, a householder of the highest caste honored and made offerings to the Sangha. When a poverty-stricken beggar saw the Noble Sangha, great faith was born in him and he thought: ‘I have nothing with which to make an offering to the Sangha’. He gathered various kinds of grasses and flowers and with a mind of faith showered them on the monks, bowed, and venerated the Sangha. Ānanda, this monk Flower of the Gods was that beggar who at the time made offerings of flowers. Because he sought Enlightenment with a mind of firm faith and gathered flowers and showered the Sangha with them, for sixty aeons, wherever he was born he was always handsome and comely and endowed with whatever he wished to eat and drink. As a result of that merit he has attained bliss. Therefore, Ānanda, one must not think that there is no merit when one gives, even if it is very little. As was the case with the boy Flower of the Gods, the fruits will come by themselves.”

Thereupon Ānanda and the assembly believed what the Lord had taught and rejoiced.

A Brief Summary of the Benefits of Building, Circumambulating, Prostrating to, and Making Aspirations Prayers at a Stupa

October 26, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is respectfully quoted from “Compassionate Action” by Chatral Rinpoche:

Homage to the Three Jewels!

I will briefly explain the benefits of building a Buddha stupa and the advantages for the faithful ones who prostrate before, make offerings to, and circumambulate it. By establishing here the perfect scriptures as witnesses, may those fortunate ones who can understand this teaching accept it with joy!

In the sutra The way of Distinguishing it is said:

The Buddha told the young Brahmin Naytso,
“There are eighteen benefits of building a Tathagata stupa.
What are those eighteen?
One will be born as the child of a great king.
One will have an excellent body.
One will become very beautiful and attractive.
one will develop a very sharp intellectual capacity.
One will become renowned.
One will have a great entourage of servants.
One will become a leader of people.
One will be a support to others.
[One’s greatness] will be expounded in the ten directions.
One will be able to extensively express whatever one wishes in word and verse.
One will be worshipped by gods.
One will posses many riches.
One will obtain the kingdom of a universal monarch.
One will have a long life.
One’s body will be like a collection of vajras.
One’s body will be endowed with major and minor marks [of a Buddha].
One will take rebirth in the three higher realms.
One will swiftly achieve Nirvana.

These are the eighteen benefits of building a Tathagata stupa.”

In the Manjushri Root Tantra it is said:

If you make a stupa with your own hands,
You will be able to purify your body even if you have committed the five inexpiable sins.”

If you build one hundred thousand stupas,
You will be transformed into a universal monarch of the knowledge-holders.
Completely understand all treatises
And be endowed with skillful means.
FOr the duration of an eon, when you die you will always be reborn as a king and never again go to the lower realms.
Like the sun rising in a central land,
You will be endowed with all your sense faculties.
You will be able to retain all that you learn and remember your past lives.

In the sutra called Chest of Secret Relics it is said:

The Bhagavan proclaimed,
“Vajrapani, when you write down Dharma teachings and place them inside a stupa, that stupa will become a relic of the vajra essence of all Tathagatas.
That stupa will be consecrated by the secret essence of all the mantras of the Tathagatas.
It will become a stupa of ninety-nine Tathagatas, as many as a heap of mustard seeds.
That stupa will be blessed as if it contained the yes and ushnishas of all Tathagatas.
Whoever places images of the Buddha inside a Stupa will definitely be blessed by those Tathagata images with the nature of the seven royal treatises of a universal monarch. Whoever pays reverence and honors that stupa will definitely become a non-returner and will eventually achieve the unexcelled and completely perfect state of enlightenment–actual, full Buddhahood.
Even if one offers only one prostration or makes a single circumambulation, one will be altogether freed from reaching various hell realms such as the Hell of Incessant Torture.
One will never fall back on the path to unexcelled completely perfect Enlightenment.
All Tathagatas will bless the entire area that surrounds the place the stupa has been built in.

In the Sutra of the White Lotus of the Sacred Dharma, it says:

Walls ar emade from mud and bricks
And a stupa of the Victorious One is made likewise.
Therefore, even if made by a simple heap of dust in a remote place of despair, or if a child playing games makes one from a mound of sand,
Whomever simply builds one on the account of the Victorious One
All of them will attain enlightenment.

The benefits of making offerings to a stupa are stated in the Sutra Requested by King Prasenajit:

If one applies whitewash to a Buddha stupa,
One will have a long life in the worlds of gods or humans,
One will be free of mental and physical ailments,
All suffering will be completely removed and
One will always be happy and will become wealthy with worldly riches.

By ringing a bell in front of a Buddha stupa,
One will speak with authority and have great fame,
One will have the pleasant voice of Brahma,
Be able to remember one’s past lives,
And obtain all kinds of adornments.

If a learned person silently recites prayers on their rosary with a faithful mind at a Buddha stupa,
They will have many golden rosaries adorned with beautiful precious jewels,
And will be foremost among the meritorious and fortunate ones.

Whoever makes a melodic music offering at a Buddha stupa
Will have an abundance of courageous eloquence in profundity and knowledge,
Their physical body will be perfect and their mind and speech pure.
Their voices will fill the world.

If any person who has a heart and body,
Hangs various banners from the stupa
Which is a stainless source of merit,
It will become a field of offerings and an object of worship for the three worlds.

If one affixes a silken crown to a Buddha stupa,
One will become a glorious ruler of gods,
Will experience great bliss, and in particular,
Will attain the crown of complete liberation.

If one cleans a Buddha stupa,
One will become very attractive and beautiful to look at,
One will have an excellent face
With the complexion of a lotus,
And one will be completely devoid
of the defects of Samsara.

Whoever cleans off the dust around a stupa
In the springtime with clean water
Will be joyfully fanned by ladies
Holding golden-handled fans.

Regarding the benefits of prostrating and circumambulating a stupa, it is said in the Avalokiteshvara Sutra:

If one respectfully prostrates before a Buddha stupa,
One will become a heroic and powerful world monarch.
Protected by the armor of gold-colored symbols
One will become an authoritative teacher who will delight the Buddhas.

In the Sutra of the White Lotus of the Sacred Dharma it is said:

Whoever joins their palms together before a stupa,
Whether with both hands or just one,
Whoever briefly bows their head
Or bows their body just once,

Whoever prostrates or merely says “Buddha” even with a distracted mind,
Whether once or a few times
Before a stupa where relics are kept,
Will attain supreme Enlightenment.

In the Decisive Verses on Circumambulating a Stupa it is said:

The excellent qualities of circumambulating
A Stupa of the Buddha, Protector of the World,
Cannot be sufficiently described with mere words.

These and other quotations from the sutra and tantra scriptures should produce great joy and confidence. I encourage all those who aspire to happiness to make the most of their human existence. Strive as much as you can to accumulate merit and purify obscurations by paying homage and making offerings, circumambulating, making prayers of aspiration and so on with a noble bodhicitta motivation, to the excellent supreme foundation (stupas), which grant very meaningful benefits through seeing, hearing and remembering them.

This was composed by the renunciant Buddha Vajra, who in this time of the rampant five degenerations gives the appearance of guiding beings through the physical embodiment of the Buddha body, speech and mind.”

Composed in the Male Fire Horse Year of the sixteenth Cycle (1966) in the ninth month on the twenty-second day. May it be auspicious!

Stupas and Healing

May 26, 2012 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

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

Greetings all from Poolesville Md where it is steamy and humid. All is well at KPC we are getting ready to make repairs and maintain Stupas. We will of course go to Palyul Retreat but there is fund raising and prep to do. And land clearing, taming the beast across the Temple.

Seems we are happiest working together as a family. Anyone wishing to give or help should watch here for how to get together.

We are busy these days and there is plenty to do. Members need to keep informed and responsible, and helping new people. Any Buddhist wanna dance?

Many miracles happen by the Stupa, healing, help with prosperity, we have many stories and testimonials as well.

To live long and well one must have merit. A good way to make some is by giving and helping with building and repair, and practicing near the Stupa.

I went to the Stupa yesterday and saw the need for repair and upkeep. I made offerings, and today I feel better than I have. My body craves rest and my Gurus demand it, so I’m working on resting. (Joke, haha) and saw “Avatar” again, and remembered that we are doing the same to this planet (see director’s cut) and we need Stupas more than ever. Worldwide.

We need help with our Sedona Stupa too. Always.

Stupas are curative for the land and balancing as well. They will help.

Stand up!

Incalculable Benefit of Stupas by Lama Zopa

Blessings of a Stupa by Tulku Sang Ngag Rinpoche