Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khensur Rinpoche opens this 47-minute session with the Buddha’s own instruction to examine teachings like a goldsmith tests metal — burning, cutting, rubbing — rather than accepting them out of reverence alone. The bulk of the commentary is a step-by-step guide to constructing and offering the mandala: the Buddhist cosmology of Mount Meru and the four continents, their sub-islands and special qualities, then the second level’s eight precious objects, eight offering goddesses, and finally sun, moon, parasol, and banner of victory, each with its symbolic significance. Rinpoche then outlines the six purposes of mandala offering across Sūtra and Tantra — from receiving a lama’s blessing to eliminating dualistic appearances — before closing with a striking pragmatic point: whether Mount Meru literally exists is beside the point; merit arises from genuine imaginative engagement, not from merely mouthing the words. Suited to practitioners learning the mandala offering practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 PP 1989-08-05.mp3
UUID: adadd90e-a87a-46ab-8f52-739295647c92
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Preliminary Practices (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1989-08-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.6 minutes
Words: ~2,622
So the Buddha himself said that when he was addressing the various monks and lay persons that he realized that many of them had great faith in him that they had they felt that he was the Buddha and that they held him in the greatest or highest regard and held what he said as being very precious. And he said, Do not accept what I have said out of respect for me, but examine it and when it is when you feel through your reasoning that it accords with the reality, only then accept it. One should take my teachings and assay them as you would gold. And when purchasing gold there is a process of that the gold is burnt, cut, and rubbed. In the same way, examine my teachings.
Do not accept them merely out of respect for me. So in the the so So the way in which the universe was formed was originally due to the karmic, the force of the karma of the sentient beings a great rain came filled the earth and then came a great wind ensuring the water. And from this as a cream or essence of the king arose forming first the king of mountains, Mount Meru and then the surrounding golden mountains and then the four continents were formed. And then we are proceeding through this, the actual mandala, if you want to read along with some books. So Then it says, so the, then the iron fence is formed around this complete universe, surrounding the universe.
So, now, Rirab Lhunpo — Ri Rab — is in the middle and then this is toward you, toward the individual. And we’re to go in a clockwise fashion. So, the first is the Eastern Continent, Videha, or Lüpakpo. In Sanskrit, it’s Videha and in Tibetan it’s Lüpakpo, the Eastern Continent. So continents in the four directions going clockwise, and east is Lüpakpo, in the south is Dzambuling, in the west is Balangchö, and in the north is Draminyen.
And then, on each of the so we have four main continents surrounding Mount Meru in the center. And then each of, on to the sides of each of the four main continents are the two islands, such as Lou and Lou Pog. So, the first that is mentioned is always to the left. So one is to the left of the continent and one is to the right. And likewise, Yenden, Langchokdro, Draminyan, and Draminyangyida.
So these are the two subcontinents or two islands on each side of the main continents. So, each of the four continents have their own very special quality or something which is very present, which is very precious, particularly precious on that particular continent. And so now we’re going to list those with respect to the Eastern Continent, there is the Precious Mountain. And with the south there is a wish granting tree, in the west there is a wish fulfilling cow, in the north the unploughed harvest. Then, so that’s the first level of the mandala.
Then there’s, we build a second stage, second level of the mandala and here are the various precious objects that first with corresponding to the eastern direction is a precious wheel and then to the south is a precious jewel, to the west is a precious queen, and to the north is a precious minister. Then in each of the, what do you say, the ordinal directions, the sub-directions, there is a precious object. Within the southeast is a precious elephant. In the southwest is a precious horse. In the northwest is the precious general, and in the northeast is the Pönta Great Treasure.
So we’re placing each of these, imagine placing each of these precious objects around. There are eight precious objects which are placed on the second level, four in the cardinal direction and four in the ordinal ordinal direction or the subdirection. Now, and then on the second level raised are the eight goddesses. There are going to be four in the main directions and four in the sub directions. The first is that the in the eastern direction is the, it says of Grace, the Goddess of Grace, whatever.
She is white in color and holding vajras. Then the, in the south, so we’re always going around clockwise and we’re going in the cardinal directions, in the main directions is the Goddess of Garlands. She’s yellow in color holding flower garlands. Garlands, flower garlands. And then the Goddess of Song.
And she is, I don’t know the name of the instrument, it’s like a lute. She’s holding, she’s red in color and playing a lute or like a guitar. And then the Goddess of Dance is in the north direction. She is blue in color and she is holding her right hand up in the air and left hand at her hip. And then in the sub directions, additional four goddesses.
In the southeast is the goddess of flowers, holding flowers. So each of them are holding the object in accordance with their name. So in southeast is the Goddess of Flowers, then the Goddess of Incense, Goddess of Lamps, and the Goddess of Perfume. Then on the next level, the third level, first we place the sun and the moon. And the position of these is, there are different traditions.
In some tradition the sun is placed in the south and the moon is placed in the north. In some tradition the moon is placed in the west and the sun is placed in the east. For example, the reason for this configuration where the moon is placed away from you in the west and the sun is placed toward you in the east is that the moon represents the eventual decline of the Buddhist teachings, Buddha Śākyamūni Buddhist teachings. And the sun rising is the coming of the teachings of Maitreya Buddha. This is the symbolism here.
So according to the different traditions, the sun and the moon are placed in different places. And with respect to the next objects which are the, it says here, parasol or just an umbrella. Yeah, parasol. And then the banner of victory. Sometimes this is placed, parasol is placed to the west and the banner of victory is placed to the east towards you.
And this is the reason that the banner of victory is placed for you, towards you is to symbolize that it’s necessary for to help uphold the banner of victory that is the teachings of the Buddha that this is of paramount importance and therefore it’s placed closest to you. Then we then having offered all these various precious objects, we then place in the very center of the mandala all the things which are precious to both Gods and humans. All the wonderful things that we can imagine that exist within the world were piling up in the center of the mandala. Then we then take a handful of our substance so our hand is not empty and we’re holding the mandala with both hands and we’re going to offer it. And then we, at this point, recite the outer mandala offering which, you know, up to that point, what we’re offering is simply an impure substance.
But now, then when we come to the section, I imagine this as a Buddha field, we’re going to transform it into our imagination and it becomes something up to this point, it’s been impure and now we’re going to imagine it as pure. And now there’s two ways, two different ways to think about offering the Mandala. There’s one that we’re going to offer this pure Mandala of all these wonderful things to the Buddhas in their pure land. This is one way. But a more powerful way to imagine this is that this is an actual Buddha field and I’m going to offer this Buddha field itself.
Imagine that you have transformed what was a simple substances into an Buddha field. And you’re offering not just a purified mandala of all these various things, but an actual Buddha field to the Buddhists themselves. So, we’re not just offering, you know, all these various wonderful things which are by nature impure, we’re to imagine them as being transformed into an actual pure land, a complete vast pure land and we’re offering a Buddha field or a pure land. So there are four different types of mandalas that we can offer. There are the external, internal, secret, and suchness.
And this is the offering of the external mandala. Offering in the sadhana of Vajrayoginī, there is a verse which is the offering of all four of these types of mandalas. So, in offering the mandala we’re not only offering what we’re visualizing. We should also imagine that we’re offering the body, speech, and mind, the possessions, and our roots of positive actions of the three times, both of oneself and others — that everything is being offered. And not only that, but we should try to use our understanding of emptiness that the offer, the object of the offering, the various offering substances and the act of offering are all empty of true existence.
And then offering this up this Pure Land that we’ve transformed, not just one Pure Land but an infinite number of Pure Lands, many as we, hundreds of thousands of Pure Lands, as many as that you can imagine. And that the Buddhas are receiving these joyfully. They generate a great deal of joy in having received these Pure Lands. This type of offering should be in the same way that Samantabhādra makes offerings. That is to say an unlimited or infinite numberless types of offerings, as many as we can imagine this is what we should be offering.
And this will increase the amount of power, the amount of positive potential that we create through the practice. So having offered the mandala, there are two ways that we can take down the mandala. Dismantle the mandala. We can either dismantle the mandala towards ourselves, that is pour out the grains toward ourselves. And this is done in order to receive blessings or we can pour it away from ourselves.
We can dismantle it away from ourselves and this is done in order to eliminate obstacles or to get of hindrances of obstacles. Also, eastern direction can be reversed. Normally, we’ve been describing the east is towards you, towards yourself, it’s east. This is in order to receive the blessing, to receive blessings. But if we simply are making offerings to the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas, then we place the east away from ourselves.
You know, we question why are we offering the mandala? What is the purpose for mandala? Just as in the world that if you want to, if you have some particular plan, some particular work that needs to be done and you need assistance, if you were to give someone a present and if this person were to appreciate what you had given them, then they would readily assist you and you could achieve whatever activity that you wanted. Likewise, is a purpose for making offerings to the mandala to the Buddha’s inseparable from one’s lama and the various bodhisattvas. There are three purposes according to Sūtra and three purposes according to Tantra.
Within the practice of the Sūtra, one makes offerings, there are three reasons for offering the Mandala. The first is that, is the offering to one’s precious Lama as a way of going for refuge and receiving one’s spiritual master’s blessing. The second is that in the practice of the path one needs a spiritual friend, must be guided by a spiritual friend from the initial point of the path up until the attainment of Buddhahood. And so one offers a mandala in order that to rid oneself of any contradictory distorted conceptions that one may have to rid oneself of distorted conceptions on the one hand, that’s the second, and on the purpose to develop the appropriate conceptions. And the second was to eliminate, get rid of distorted, inappropriate conceptions that we may have which act as a hindrance.
And the third is to, as a means for developing the appropriate conceptions or states which will be conducive to traveling the path. So, the Tantric System the three purposes are that the first two are similar to the latter two of the Sūtra System and that we are seeking to make the offer mandala in order to eliminate non conducive circumstances, hindrances, and distorted conceptions but on a much vaster level. And likewise, secondly, to promote promote conducive circumstances and to receive help in receiving the appropriate types of states conceptions in order to travel the path. The third purpose is that within the tantric system there is the elimination of the most subtle type of abandonment which is particular to the tantric system and this is the dualistic appearance. And this is the one makes mandala offering in order to be rid of dualistic appearances.
So when Rinpoche gave his teaching at Chenrezig Risa, he explained at that time that in general scientists would not, they did not accept the existence of the Kingdom Mountains. They have not seen Mount Meru, the King of Mountains. But there’s no pervasion that just because something is not seen that it doesn’t exist. The scientists aren’t Buddhists for example. So just to say that it’s not seen that it doesn’t exist is illogical.
But that is perhaps not of the greatest importance. The reason that we’re offering the mandala is to create personal power, positive potential, or merit. And so whether or not these things actually exist is not the most important factor. It is the fact that we offer these things in order to create positive potential. So, for example, with respect to the students, the trainees of the Greek Exposition School and the Sūtra School, they were taught and they accepted that things truly existed.
In fact, things don’t truly exist, but the in dependence upon thinking that way, they were able to develop their minds to travel a path. It was very beneficial for them to think in this way even though it did not accord with the way things actually are. Whether or not Mount Meru in fact exists or not is not the important fact. If we can imagine that it does and existing, we are trying to offer all these various precious things, then we ourselves are to be benefited. We are trying to benefit ourselves.
We’re trying to create personal power. So it’s important for us, while we’re making this offering, to imagine for that time that these things actually exist, that there is this king of mountains, Mount Meru, and all these various continents, and we’re offering this entire world system, and thereby we create personal potential for ourselves. If we don’t, if we think absent mindedly, well, I’m just if it’s just simply from the mouth that these things in fact don’t exist, I’m just saying that these things exist, then we might as well offer things like the son of a barren woman, the horns that are on a rabbit. We can offer sky flowers and the things which are totally meaningless. There’s no benefit to be derived in even imagining that you’re offering these things because they don’t exist.
We don’t feel that they exist and therefore we’re not giving anything. We’re not really offering anything at all. It’s just simply we’re saying from the mouth. So this is Rinpoche’s opinion. This is his idea that each of you have to think about this for yourself.