It’s important for us to understand the general information and of what Mandala offering is about.
The Mandala
offering is an extremely powerful method for accumulating extensive merit and receiving
realizations such as Bodhicitta 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's nothing that can be offered with your hands that is more meritorious than offering Mandalas.
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's nothing that can be offered with your hands that is more meritorious than offering Mandalas.
The Tibetan word for Mandala is "Khyil-khor" literally
means "taking the essence." The essence you take is the whole path
from guru devotion to enlightenment. Therefore, by doing this practice you receive inconceivable temporal and
ultimate happiness.
Mandala Offerings and the Six
Perfections
Offering the Mandala contains the practice of all six perfections. By cleaning and blessing the Mandala base with liquid mixed with a bajung pill you practice the perfection of giving (water symbolizes prosperity).
Checking the grain for insects and looking after the base, keeping it clean, leads to the perfection of moral conduct. Removing insects from the grain without harming those leads to the perfection of patience.
Offering the Mandala contains the practice of all six perfections. By cleaning and blessing the Mandala base with liquid mixed with a bajung pill you practice the perfection of giving (water symbolizes prosperity).
Checking the grain for insects and looking after the base, keeping it clean, leads to the perfection of moral conduct. Removing insects from the grain without harming those leads to the perfection of patience.
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, and by meditating on its emptiness,
wisdom is attained.
Therefore, offering Mandalas helps you to quickly complete
the two accumulations of the ordinary merits and primordial wisdom as it contains all six perfections.
This practice pacifies all hindrances to your temporal and
ultimate happiness and cutting the root of attachment or desire. The purpose or actual practice of
generosity is not having a stingy mind or mind full of desire. When we give up
all attachments to external material belongings , then that is generosity.
When
we have that kind of practice of generosity, then we have the accumulation of
merit. 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, the best thing you can do is to offer many Mandalas.
How to Get the Most Out of Your Practice?
Basically, offering the Mandala involves mentally offering the
entire universe: all the planets and worlds, all sense objects, and especially
the objects to which there is much clinging, such as your body, possessions and
friends. All these are offered in the merit field.
The essential technique of
offering is to offer the best quality materials, in greater quantity and
to have as clear a visualization as possible. In this way you can create
extensive merit in just a short time.
By visualizing and then offering whatever you need in the space
above the Mandala, you create the cause to receive it. Visualizing anything
golden and offering it to the Buddhas frees you from disease, and offering the
moon create the cause for you to be reborn as a god or a holy being. Offering
jewels, gold and enjoyments creates the cause to be reborn in the caste of
kings. As Mandala offerings are of great consequence, you should offer the
finest materials you can afford.
By visualizing the offerings as more precious and extensive, you
create vast merits. For example, imagining that you're offering a Mount Meru of silver,
lapis lazuli, and ruby and gold, even if there are no such materials on your
base, you receive the merit of actually offering them. So in just a few seconds, it's possible to create the merit of having offered the entire universe.
Do you earnestly cherish our devoted work? Assuming this is the case, we are delighted that you are finding our blog useful and valuable. Would you consider making a donation for our Buddhist research and development?
We need your help to secure the future of scholarly interaction with Buddhism. Since our very first publication of Dharma works and activities in the year 2008, we had been effortlessly providing free distribution of Dharma posts and articles throughout the previous 10 years. We have exceptionally constrained supports and do not receive subsidized or funding from people in general.
Please help us and to develop our Dharma activities that will not only benefit you, but to all Dharma readers on the planet. Please consider showing your support. Your generosity will certainly help us to enhance our work and to accomplish for a better and brighter prospect to come.
Do you earnestly cherish our devoted work? Assuming this is the case, we are delighted that you are finding our blog useful and valuable. Would you consider making a donation for our Buddhist research and development?
We need your help to secure the future of scholarly interaction with Buddhism. Since our very first publication of Dharma works and activities in the year 2008, we had been effortlessly providing free distribution of Dharma posts and articles throughout the previous 10 years. We have exceptionally constrained supports and do not receive subsidized or funding from people in general.
Please help us and to develop our Dharma activities that will not only benefit you, but to all Dharma readers on the planet. Please consider showing your support. Your generosity will certainly help us to enhance our work and to accomplish for a better and brighter prospect to come.
*Footnote
Please consult your Guru or a
qualified Lama or teacher for any Vajrayana preliminary practices! Should
a devotee even want to start studying and contemplating the Vajrayana practice, then it is
truly necessary to first have completed the preliminaries and to be certain and
sure that bodhicitta has arisen and developed in one’s mind.
It is absolutely necessary to have the pure motivation and to know that the Vajrayana tantric practice is not carried out to increase one’s own power and profit.
Negative intentions of any kind may not be.
Thank you for reading and may you find peace and
great bliss. With your support it helps spread the Buddha’s precious teachings
and turning the Dharma wheels in the world.
Aspiration For Bodhichitta
May the precious Bodhichitta arise
Where it has not arisen
And where it has arisen may it not decrease
But increase further and further.
Nagarjuna's Dedication of Merit
By this merit may we obtain omniscience then.
Having defeated the enemies wrong-doings.
May we liberate migrators from the ocean of existence.With its stormy waves of birth, old
age, sickness and death.
*Note
I do not own or infringe any copyright of the picture(s).
Picture(s) courtesy and credit to the rightful distributors and or studios.
Picture(s) is/are intended for editorial use only.
I do not own or infringe any copyright of the picture(s).
Picture(s) courtesy and credit to the rightful distributors and or studios.
Picture(s) is/are intended for editorial use only.