This Saturday, some of us will be doing a light offering practice as part of the Practice Day for our Discovering Buddhism course, The Wisdom of Emptiness.
The Benefits of Making Light Offerings
[excerpted from FPMT Essential Buddhist Prayers, Volume 2]
It is said in The Ten Wheel Sutra of the Essence of Earth (Kshitigarbha): “All comfort, happiness, and peace in this world come from making offerings to the Rare Sublime Ones. Therefore, those who want comfort, happiness, and peace should always try to make offering to the Rare Sublime Ones.”
In general, all goodness in samsara and nirvana comes from making offerings to the Triple Gem, but specifically, different kinds of offerings bring you different benefits. Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, whose holy mind was enriched with the ten powers, announced in Tune of Brahma Sutra Clarifying Karma that making light offerings brings you ten benefits:
2. When born human you achieve the clairvoyance of the pure flesh eye.*
3. You achieve the devas’ eye.**
4. You receive the wisdom of knowing what is virtue and what is non-virtue.
5. You are able to eliminate the darkness of ignorance, the concept of inherent existence.
6. You receive the illumination of wisdom; even in samsara you never experience darkness.
7. You receive much wealth and enjoyment.
8. You are reborn in the deva or human realm.
9. You quickly become liberated.
10. You quickly attain enlightenment.
Devas or human beings who accumulate the merit of making one light offering, a handful of flowers, will see the Buddha Maitreya.
The Sutra of Arya Maitreya says, “Those who offer a thousand lights or a thousand blue utpali flowers or make the pinnacle of a stupa or a holy form will be reborn when Maitreya Buddha shows the deed of gaining enlightenment and will receive his first Dharma teaching.”
It is also said that those who offer even one flower or rejoice in the merit of others who off er will achieve buddhahood. This means that even if you don’t get enlightened during the time of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s teaching, during Maitreya Buddha’s teaching your mind will ripen and you will gain liberation.
Offering light, in particular, is a special door of dependent arising for quickly completing the accumulation of merit and receiving great blessings. It is said in the second chapter of the root tantra of Chakrasamvara, who is a manifestation of Shakyamuni Buddha, “If you want sublime realizations, offer hundreds of lights.”
* The ability to know exactly where the spiritual guides teaching Dharma, your disciples, and so forth are abiding within the billionfold world systems.
** I.e., the divine eye—the ability to know where your disciples die, transfer, and are reborn.
[Notes on the eyes are drawn from FPMT Master's Program material, Ornament of Clear Realizations chart.]
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