Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 43-minute teaching, Ven Jampa Ignyen guides practitioners through mandala offerings—the physical ritual and the intricate visualizations that transform simple offerings into infinitely multiplied universes of perfectly manifested wealth. He covers spatial orientation, the mandala structure, and the central practice: emanating offerings through Samantabhādra’s cosmic emanations until each atom of each mandala contains complete mandala sets. He explains different systems for counting mandala components (23, 25, or 37 pilings), the structure of 100,000-mandala accumulation, how to use worldly wealth as an offering to create conditions for blessings, the visualization of the wish-fulfilling vase, and the inner mandala where one’s own body serves as the base. Directed at practitioners with prior initiation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 MO 1996 05 23.mp3
UUID: 5562d410-a6e4-451a-ad13-053efdfa1258
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Mandala Offerings (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 1996-05-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 43.0 minutes
Words: ~1,862
And then now next is piling next piling is the victory banner, and that is on the direction of north on the north. So with the direction here, the east is always towards your side when you’re making offerings and then that’s how you find the other directions. And you place what is it? On the left, the sun, on the right, the moon, and then the parasol. And then so then at the center, that’s when you pile the mandala, base, island, and you fill it with all the wealth of human and god, all the perfect wealth of human and god, so that’s how we pile the objects.
And when we are offering actual things, it’s what we have just what we have in our hand. So then you have to emanate that into billions of systems. So the what do you call it? The billion world system as it is how you count. That was explained last time too.
And it’s addition of, like, three thousand three thousand. That’s it. So while you make the offering, then you emanate into infinite numbers. And so and then imagine each of these that you have emitted or emanating a light. And again, each light that you emanate that you have visualized, you visualize again a full set of what you have visualized in this.
So again, you can visualize any set of mandalas. You can again imagine moreover that each atom on the mandala, you imagine it’s visualizing another set, another full set of mandala objects and offer. So whichever way you visualize, whether you visualize light coming out from this infinite set of mandalas that you have imagined, and again, setting another set of mandalas, or we imagine each of the atoms you’re visualizing again as full set of mandalas.
Whichever way you offer, the first moment of your visualization is impure, the offerings are impure, and right there in the second moment, you imagine it being pure. So then the first moment, it’s impure and second moment, you transform that into pure land, all your visualization. And then you make to make the offerings to whoever you offer, to Buddha Śākyamūni or to your own guru, whoever you offer, after offering, imagine that they are very pleased and also they accept, they have accepted the offerings.
So this setting that we set here in the offering is we offer this to the offering of refuge object or the gurus to receive blessings. So when we finally dismantle the setting, not just doing right away like this, but first, you pile some more, just pile some more grain. And then while you say — so at that time, what do you imagine is that because if it’s teaching or while you’re receiving some blessings, imagine that you are receiving, you have blessings entering into you. So this is when we’re making — when one is receiving the blessings and offering mandala offering, these are towards one side.
And then if you are making a mandala offering as an offering to someone during long life puja, then you have to turn all the way around, just facing towards the other person with only offering. So then you have to see, it’s just turning east to the other side, which then, you know, changes to complete. So then you pile in that way, and then when you pull down the mandala, the part of mandala, then you have to pull to the other side. And that’s the difference. And this is known as the thirty-seven point piling.
So then the twenty-three pilings, which came from, I would say, the master Candrakīrti. Then next one, the Ornament Treasury. And then follow-up, twenty-two. And then next is the multi golden ground and the fence around it. And the mountain, you count as one. So it’s twenty. So the first, the four continents and plus the ground, the fence, and the mountain as one. So total of five. And then the subcontinents. So I think — and then that’s thirteen and then plus the seven precious objects.
So if you count the first three that have the ground, Mount Meru and the fence as one each, then it comes to be twenty-five point piling. So you can do either one, twenty-five, or you can also say twenty-three piling. So now with this twenty-three pilings that you have visualized, you visualize on top of each of these twenty-three pilings, visualize one, you know, a lotus plant. You mentally create, you imagine a lotus plant. So each lotus have different numbers of buds. And also there are different numbers of petals. So each of those petals are visualizing that being the Samantabhādra which is holding in the hand.
So then that you, I would say, can emanate the infinite, let’s say, the offerings of Samantabhādra offerings. So this in one, the lotus way, we visualize Samantabhādra sitting on the flower, where from that flower, again, visualizing, like, twenty-five flowers, flowers growing up into this space where each flower that you have visualized, each of the petals that you visualize, visualize each flower, which, you know, twenty-five flowers going up from twenty-five of the flowers going up and then visualizing in the same manner that you did in the — and then at the same time, also, you visualize the seven precious objects. And then the —
So then if you are doing mandala for the purpose of prolonging your life, then you can in the mandala, you can also visualize a vase which is formed by precious stone, filled with nectar. And the vase filled with — and if you offer visualizing that offering, whatever one wishes. So whatever one wishes, you pile that, the wish that you have among the mandala offerings. And if you offer, you receive the benefit of offering. So you offer this to the gurus, to the Buddhas.
So as if we want to do some business, if you had to meet some ministers, and first, you go and see the minister, and you bring some things to please the minister, and then if you tell what you want to do, what you want from him, you might be successful. So as an example, you make first to the lamas. So the request that you will make is this, may I purify all the wrongdoing towards my spiritual guide and all my delusions. And may also could be also remove all the internal and external obstacles. And whatever wish that you have towards practice, you request. So this is the way how we pile the mandala offerings and how you make the offerings.
So if you have question. So if you’re doing a hundred thousand mandala offerings, then you need the motivation. That’s just going to say you don’t need any explanation. The next thing is at the very beginning, you do, like, one, two, or three times. If you can or if possible, then do the long mandala offering like three times. So if not three, then at least at the very beginning, you do one long. And then in between, you do short and you count the numbers. Short. And then again, somewhere in between, you make again that long mandala offering. And then finally, when you stop.
So when you’re doing the short one, then while you pile the portions, you have to do one chant. You have to chant the refuge one time, and then next is the short mandala, the outer mandala, one time. So within this, you do one outer mandala and one short mandala. So in one piling, you do we’re sort of quickly here. What you do in one piling, you can do the mighty golden ground and the fence.
So then next is do all the perfect wealth of humans and gods, which you place in the center. And while you finish that, you also finish reciting the refuge line and the — in the Bodhisattva, which is, again, same manner, he holds also a jewel, which then from that jewel, light emanates. So then according to tantra, then the wisdom which is known as the wisdom which is inseparable of bliss and emptiness is termed as such.
So generally speaking, mandala offering and this setting — so then the next inner mandala offering, which is explained in the long version where it says that one’s own body, the skin as the base or the ground. And then the internal inside part, the flesh as the ground. And then the secret is all which is explained to me. And again, next one, the suchness. So which is the ultimate offering.
Can you? So as one thing I was saying was that when you are counting the amount of offerings, this is advice that instead of using a very precious object as the mandala base and other set,