Number two is like you are saying “mandala offering”. It doesn’t have to be an object, it doesn’t have to be eight auspicious symbols, it doesn’t have to be a different planet. It can be anything like you say.
Keep your mindset open when you make a mandala offering, with the hand posture:
[OFFERING MANDALA] sa zhi pö chü juk shing mé tok tramThe ground is anointed with fragrant waters and strewn with flowers,
ri rap ling zhi nyi dé gyen pa di
adorned with Sumeru, the four continents, the sun, and the moon.
sang gyé zhing du mik té pülwa yi
Through my imagining this as a buddha realm and offering it,
dro gün nam dak zhing la chö par shok
may all beings enjoy and completely pure realm.
Even you read one time. And then, try to think that everything that is existing in this universe and all the different universes around, in this space, I offer all of this to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
The idea of the offering, the philosophy of offering that we need to have the right understanding is that, whatever we may be offering, it doesn’t have to be possessed in your hand. Possessing is just something that we created in our mind. So don’t have to create this idea that anything I have to offer has to be something that I possess before I make the mandala offering. It doen’t have to be that. Because it’s nothing to do with whether you possess or whether you don’t possess.
If what you possess can give you a greater impact of all the offering to all the bodhisattvas, if that is correct, then majority of the mahasiddhas would not accomplish their enlightment nor their mandala practice. Because the Buddhism has nothing to do with the economic structure or the social structure. It is beyond that. Isn’t it?
So therefore in our economical structure, we say we have to buy this, we have to possess this. So if you want to give something for your friends and family, of course, like a land, a house or something that is materialistic, of course, in order to be the part of the system, in order to survive within the system, of course, something has to be “purchased” and “possessed”. But the distinction between the spiritual offering, the mandala, it has nothing to do with how much you possess and how much you offer.
It is more to do with the maintaining that mindset that “everything that is to exist in this universe or all the other universe combined I offer to all the Buddhas and Boddhisattvas”. And that is the philosophy of offering and the mandala follows that philosophy. Mandala is just a metaphor, you know, it’s just an example of offering. So that’s that.
Kalu Rinpoche
Instagram Livestream – 15 May 2022 (5’ 16”)
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