SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA PUJA

On the first 15 days of the first Tibetan month (Losar) & on wheelturning days, in English, app. 2-3 hours long.

Shakyamuni Buddha Puja – the source of good collections: A rite of homage, worship (making offerings) and prayer to the teacher, the king of Sages, remembering his previous lives and biography.

The main point of the puja is to develop one’s faith in the Buddha and collect vast merits by thinking about the wonderful things he has done – both in his countless previous lives as a bodhisattva and in his life as Shakyamuni, feeling joyful about them and making offerings, both real and visualized. Although the rite is very long, its structure is straight forward. The framework of the central part of the puja is the seven limbs. These are preceded by various preliminaries aimed at getting the participants into the right frame of mind and as setting up the visualization of the field of merit, to whom the seven limbs are addressed. One also purifies one’s negative karmas by confessing them with regret and creates further merits by auspicious wishes and prayers for the flourishing of the Buddha’s doctrine. These are followed by prayers which comprise the extensive limb of dedication and then saying goodbye to the beings in the field of merit.

ABOUT SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA PUJA

by Lama Zopa Rinpoche

I want to introduce the Guru Shakyamuni Puja, which I found very beneficial for the mind, and especially, I thought for developing bodhicitta and entering into the Bodhisattva deeds – the extensive, hard Bodhisattva deeds. It gives great inspiration to sacrifice oneself for sentient beings equaling the sky.

My wish is that when one does this practice one forms the offerings as extensively as possible. This is important because it all becomes the cause of success – to be able to practise, to spread the Dharma and to have all the necessary conditions.

If one accumulates merit by depending on these powerful objects, then it is so easy, and with small hardships one is able to collect great merit. This is the highest method.

The Importance of the Guru Shakyamuni Buddha Puja

 It is necessary to understand the importance of the Guru Shakyamuni Buddha Puja as well as of any practices that purify the obstacles and accumulate the necessary conditions, the merits – such as the seven limb practice and mandala offering and the practice of requesting the Merit Field – and that are done in order to receive blessings and for the mind to enter in the Graduated Path.

Lama Tzong Khapa, the Dharma King of the Three Realms, advised that:
When one listens to the teachings, if one cannot comprehend the words: when one reflects, if one cannot understand the meaning; when one meditates, if one cannot generate the realization; when one's mental capacity is so extremely small depend on the power of the Merit Field.

 Practising the seven limbs, purifying obscurations and accumulating merit, mixed with one's own heart, this is the method that one who has the race of the Mahayana, ripens the race – this is the quick way, the special means of eliminating the obstacles to the path. For this reason, the king Indrabodhi who became enlightened in one lifetime said in answer to the question "What should one do in order to achieve enlightenment?" One should practise the Dharma-deeds seven limb."

The importance of the seven limbs is like that of the seven parts of a horse carriage – all seven are needed for it to function in carrying the person to the place they desire. Similarly, without the seven limbs, there is no way for the practice to carry oneself to enlightenment.

It is said by Lama Tzong Khapa in the Great Lam-rim:
From the holy Merit Field one receives all the collections of good for this life and future lives, and it is here that one can plant the seed of all happiness and goodness unceasingly in all the four times. May I be able to cultivate this Field of Merit with the spade of devotion!" As it is mentioned in the sutra like this, if this does not get done, then it is an extremely great loss.

When help is badly needed because one is overwhelmed by thick karmic obscurations if one makes requests to the special field, accumulates merits and purifies obscurations, then quickly it works in the right way.