Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 23-minute session, Ven Jampa Ignyen teaches the mandala offering as a practical foundation for developing generosity and overcoming self-cherishing. The practice can be done with rice and a simple plate, making it accessible to any willing practitioner. He covers the purpose and benefit of mandala offerings for accumulating merit, then focuses on deeper work: identifying the internal resistance to giving, understanding how our present resources arise from past generosity, and using visualization to transform miserly thinking. He connects this to the bodhisattva path’s perfection of giving, specifically the practice of those on the first ground. The talk concludes with participants performing a mandala offering together. Suited for practitioners interested in both the philosophy and direct practice of generosity.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 22 LR 2001 09 22.mp3
UUID: 756613ef-1485-4f0f-93f4-3a4d44571272
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Lam Rim 2001 Month 07-09 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-09-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 23.0 minutes
Words: ~1,815
Our innermost practice involving the accumulation of the two types of bodhicitta, and they also representing a mandala. So anyway, in brief, this is just a very brief introduction to the mandala offering. But I think in time, if possible, we should practice fully the thirty seven point mandala offering by which we’re able to by which we have the actual base. And if we have the rings, the three sets of rings in the top, then that’s also very useful. Because these types of offering are very central to our accumulation of merit.
Also they’re very relaxing. One can sit down and take time to do them. It doesn’t take that long to do a thirty seven point mandala offering. And it’s very nice, it’s very pleasant to have the mandala there and to simply visualize it, take one’s time in visualizing it, and then make a proper offering and dedicate the merit. It helps to relax the mind.
Because one thing we do need at present is to develop merit. And the more merit we do attain, the more our mind will tend to be at ease because it’s really through having merit by which we eventually establish all our goals. And one cause for a concern for us in the present is simply not having the conditions established for fulfilling all our goals, as we see them so. By this method, gradually one is able accumulate a vast amount of merit, whether or not we accept this presentation of how the universe exists or not. No.
It’s generally, it’s yeah. Best offer for everything that’s good. Even the emptiness of what is not so good. But here, probably initially best to concentrate more on what is offering those positive elements within the universe. And then we can visualize that we transform the negative elements as well and offer everything that beneficial, transformed, or which doesn’t need to be transformed and so on.
The main thing here is we need to develop our mind. It’s We need to develop and change, improve our mind from the present. So we need those means by which that will be established. Anyway, mandala offerings are highly recommended, and, it’s good if we can adopt a practice like Atisha, say, do three a day. But then as, as we have time and so forth.
Alright. Well, I’m thinking that maybe at some stage in future, it may be good to do more on the thirty seven point mandala offering. And maybe if we could get together and everyone had whatever, a plate, some rice, and maybe some you know, we can use anything. In fact, in India, you’d find all sorts of things being used. In fact, you can go to a cooking store and you can pick up just about everything in the cooking section.
It’s quite amazing, it’s all just there. But then one that doesn’t even need, you know, really sophisticated, if just on carpet can practice with a bit of slate and some stones, some nice coloured stones from a riverbed, then also we can use very simple objects. Because again, would be a pity if we spent a thousand dollars buying a very pukka mandala set, and of course it was only left on the we wrapped it up and just left it sitting there on the altar. It’d be far better than if we just got a, you know, an old battered tin from the backyard and used that instead. So it may be useful anyway to go through that offering at some point in the future in some detail so we can get some practice at it.
Oh, that’s part of it, to develop the capacity to give. Absolutely, there’s a lot of resistance internally to giving. And we notice it when someone will ask us to give something and we get tense or we think, oh, wait a minute, can I afford to give that? If I give that, what will I have for myself? And so on.
There’s a lot of resistance there. Even our teachers, when they ask us to do something, then there’s resistance. I haven’t got time or I don’t better not go and visit them. Maybe they’ll ask me to do something. So there’s often there’s a lot of resistance there and doing mandala offerings can help to overcome that resistance.
But they’re practiced by the Tibetans are, of course, exceptional practitioners of the mandala offering, and it’s such a pervasive part of Tibetan Buddhism. And so the great masters in the past have practiced mandala offerings. Of course, they’re not doing it simply as a pastime. They’re doing it because of the unsurpassed benefits that accumulate from this practice. So anyway, I think maybe at some some point we could go into more detail on the thirty seven point mandala offering.
Oh, when you’re using the base. Oh, you’re visual visualizing that your mind is being purified by that action. All the seeds are being purified. All the negative black karmic seeds are being cleansed by rubbing the mandala base in a clockwise direction. It’s a similar process, Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. That in fact, by doing that, yeah, the mind in its current situation, which is obscured by various countless black karmic imprints, is being, completely cleansed and being, in a way, being washed away by this process. And at the same time, you’re also dropping grains of rice onto the mandala base which indicates the practice of the perfections. But then, anyway, this can be gone into in more detail, think, at a later point.
Yeah, but the Vajrasattva meditation has a similar it’s directed at the same process. Perfection of giving, of course, is the practice that a bodhisattva on the first ground is mainly engaged in. It’s something in Tibetan it’s Töpa Paramita, perfection of giving. It’s defined as, in brief as being the mind of giving. This mind that is eager to give, is enthusiastic to give, that seeks opportunities to give because we understand the benefits that come from giving.
Because also as the Buddhist said, resources come from giving, happiness comes from ethics. So whatever resources we have at present, clothing, food, shelter, education, and so forth, Whatever we have which is a resource is really coming about through the our previous giving. And so giving is absolutely essential. It’s not easy for us to see, to link the two together, our resources are coming from past generosity. But because there is a causal link between the two, The causal link is established by the words of the Buddha, and the words of the Buddha are regarded as valid in this context, as in all other contexts.
And that can be literally accepted, that our resources at present are coming from generosity. Therefore we need to practice generosity for our future resources. So in a sense there’s no option. We need to practice generosity. What’s stopping us practicing generosity is our attachment, our inner miserliness, our avarice, our miserliness that’s tending to think if I give this object, what am I gonna have for myself?
So that that type of thought will tend to generate a rebirth in the realms of the hungry ghosts. Whereas the thoughts of divine beings are more if I don’t give, that being is going to go without. So we need to transform our current thinking as much as possible to thinking about the needs of others and then to give appropriately. Of course, what tends to stop us from giving is our self-cherishing, that we’re just focused on our own immediate situation. So if we can overcome self-cherishing, then generosity becomes much easier.
And much of the limitations of our present mind, if not all of the limitations of our present mind, are coming from self-cherishing. So that again is something we need to deal with. But we can also approach that from the point of view of developing the thought to give. And in developing the thought to give, overcoming our self-cherishing attitude. And it’s a bodhisattva on the first ground, the path of seeing, the path of meditation, which is the first ground.
That bodhisattva is mainly engaged from among the ten perfections in practicing the perfection of giving. So then giving resources, giving whatever possessions they have. That ground is called the Joyous. So in a way, that reflects how we should give in a joyous way. We should practice joyously.
And as much as possible, then engage in generosity. But we have to also there’s not much danger that we’re gonna give away all our possessions. But if there were, we have to be a little bit we don’t give to a fault so that what is given is inappropriate as well. That would also be silly. Talking to drug use?
Things like that, yes. If you can see that, you know, if an alcoholic or someone that’s living in the parks and, you know, drinking metho is coming around and asking for money or a drug addict or whatever. Give them food but don’t give them and so on. We need to give intelligently, otherwise it may act as a hindrance to our development of generosity. Yeah.
Or, in fact, wrong view, avarice, and harmful intent, which come which relate to the same thing, but they’re they’re often described differently. Avarice is attachment. Harmful intent refers to anger, and wrong view to ignorance. But those are not exactly the same. For instance, wrong view is regarded as afflictive wisdom.
It’s not ignorance. But anyway Okay. We might just stop there. It’d be good actually at the end just to do a mandala offering. And have we got an unshi?
Anyone wanna make this unshi? Okay. So has everyone got Also, can use the mala. If we have a mala, can use that in that way too. Sometimes you see people adding all sorts of things there, you know, put a bit of food in there as well.
If it helps with the visualization, can be used. You can see people put little statues in there. Okay, so we start on page two in Tibetan. So there, up to that point, we’ve assembled the mandala and then also identified the object to whom we’re offering the mandala, and now we offer the actual mandala, the outer mandala. So that’s the outer mandala there.
Now we can do the inner mandala, which is the same tune. Now we do the final dedication. Om idam guru ratna mandalakam niryatayami. So then we just make an offering, fold the hands. Otherwise, also, can just do an often the short mandala is recited, which is just the outer mandala itself.
We don’t assemble the mandala. We don’t define the object to whom we’re offering the mandala. Great. Okay. We’ll stop there.