Geshe la began the class by reminding the Class that the previous few lessons we had been discussing the 1st 3 limbs of Prostrations, Offerings and Confessions, and this lesson would be about the 4th limb of Rejoicing.
The long and short about Rejoicing is that if one rejoices in the virtuous deeds of other sentient beings, one gains great merit, even if one were not the primary person performing that meritorious deed. In fact, we can also rejoice in the acts of the Buddha Himself who, during His time in this world system, brought so many sentient beings into enlightenment, and left those precious teachings which continue to benefit us today.
If one looks at verse 9: it talks about rejoicing in the positive deeds of all sentient beings.
So what are the subjects that we can rejoice in? There is a wide plethora here. Whether it be prayers, practices of generosity, retreats etc – these actions by others are very worthy of us rejoicing in.
In spite of its seemingly obscure meaning, rejoicing can be done quite easily, even when we are doing other mundane things like eating, lying down etc. If the sentient being whose meritorious acts we are rejoicing in is of a lower spiritual attainment than ourselves, we can get more of the merits than them. If we are of same level of spiritual attainment, we get same level of merits. If we are of a lower level of attainment than them, we can nonetheless benefit from half their merits!
So say for instance, you are not a monastic and you see a great master who is a fully ordained member of the Sangha. If you rejoice in the great example that he/she sets, with the thought: I am so far from that level of spiritual attainment as a practitioner but rejoice in his virtues – this very moment, you get an immense amount of merit. So even if you may not be a member of the Sangha, if you admire and genuinely rejoice in his/ her merits, you can get up to half of his/ her merits.
Geshe la reminded the class of another story dating from the time of the Buddha which he had previously shared, involving the King who had invited the Buddha and many members of the Sangha for lunch. After the feast, the King invited the Buddha to dedicate the merits. And the King said: dedicate the merits to the one here in this assembly who has generated the greatest merits.
Buddha to everyone’s surprise, dedicated the merits generated by this activity to the beggar who was at the door, who had not been part of this feast.
The King was surprised that he was not regarded as the one who had the greatest merits generated. The Buddha explained thus: whilst you are the most generous benefactor, the old lady, the beggar at the door, rejoiced in all your meritorious acts, and had wished in her heart: how I wish I one day be like the King to be able to make such a grand offering to the Buddha and the members of Sangha.
This event was recorded in the Sutras, and shows how quickly one can gain merit if one practices rejoicing diligently.
Geshe la further shared that in the Monasteries, there are many great and accomplished masters. One habit that student monks would try to develop was to rejoice in their virtuous deeds and attainments of these masters, and through this rejoicing, their merits would increase exponentially. Likewise, doing the same in respect of the classmates in the monastery who had exceptional ability at their study of the Dharma instead of being jealous of their academic achievements, would also help to generate great merit.
By the same token, even if we can’t be a generous benefactor capable of donating generously to the Buddha Dharma’s cause, we can equally accumulate immense merit by rejoicing in the other benefactors’ practice of generosity.
So one can see that rejoicing is an act of the Mind. As long as we tell ourselves this internally, the merits come exponentially. In contrast, for example, if instead of rejoicing in a very highly attained individual, but we are jealous of his or her attainments, and even slander them, the negative karma so created is very very grave, so one has to be very careful here.
When we talk about rejoicing, it is not confined to acts or virtues of highly acclaimed spiritual leaders. The acts and achievements of merchants, intelligentsia or academics, or industry leaders etc, who may well not have any religious beliefs, are also worthy of rejoicing – so long as they have had the track record of contributing to society or humanity in a positive way, your rejoicing of their deeds will similarly bring you merits!
So rejoicing is a practice that gives one a naturally upward spiral that has a very strong momentum of its own.
Geshe la went on to explain the 5th limb.
(V) Requesting the Wheel of the Dharma to be turned
The Dharma is the light of the world that can dispel the ignorance of all sentient beings – Verse 10: “I request all the Enlightened Ones to continue to turn the peerless wheel of the Dharma.”
It is important to remember that whatever Dharma we receive today comes from those who were accomplished in it, which then qualified them to teach it. If there is no one to invite the accomplished masters to teach it, the Dharma is no longer precious and not as useful. That’s why the request to teach the Dharma is so important.
Some of you may recall that on the occasion of Saka Dawa, 15th day of the 4th lunar month, the Buddha attained enlightenment, but did not immediately teach the Dharma. He kept quiet for 49 days. Only after the gods (devas) Lord Indra and Lord Brahma asked Him to teach did He teach. The Dharma only has value to the listener if it is requested.
Let’s take another example. If we wish to have a highly accomplished lama to come to teach, we have to ask him if he is free come, we have two arrange his air tickets and accommodation, check his schedule and make adjustments along the way, and make that request for him to turn the wheel of the Dharma for us, to give us teachings, oral transmissions, tantric empowerments etc; the importance of this preparatory process is not to be underestimated. The act itself of requesting, preparation etc prepares the basis for us to gain benefit from that (eventual) teaching. So that is the sentiment that one must harbour in one’s mind when requesting such a master to come to turn the wheel of the Dharma.
So for example, before we attend an event to receive an Empowerment, we register our names at the Centre via email or through an EvenBrite software etc. One should not under estimate the importance of this act – it is this act that constitutes this request for the Wheel of the Dharma to be turned, so that we can become the beneficiary of this virtuous activity. It is not a cavalier thing, but this registration of interest (with a sincere heart) locks in our positive wishes, and goes a long way to generate the necessary merits.
Another example is how in Dharamshala, where His Holiness resides, there are often many pujas, prayers, teachings carried out daily. Yet, they are strict on ensuring that there is an attendance list so as to record the names of the attendees who had sincerely registered. This creates a strong bond between the teacher and the student of the Dharma.
So whatever Dharmic transmission we are to receive, we must treat it seriously. Back in the very early days, the Masters would not transmit anything to students whom they didn’t know. The two would have had a long time relationship of observing one another. Nowadays, many of these things are even done virtually. Neither Master nor Student know each other!
It is not ideal if the Student does not know the Teacher. Geshe la explained this is why it is important for the student to at least research on what the Master’s background and attainments are. It is only when the Student can muster the requisite respect and faith in the Master that any such transmission becomes fully effective.
Milerapa learnt from Marpa only after he knew what a great Master Marpa was.
Similarly, Marpa did not transmit any empowerments or teachings immediately. Marpa administered a lot of arduous tests to Milarepa before he was even qualified to receive these transmissions. But once he obtained them, he became enlightened very quickly. The student would by the time he or she received the transmissions, already developed firm faith in the Master, and that would explain why they would shortly reach enlightenment once they received those transmissions.
(VI) Beseech the Buddhas who wish to pass into Paranirvana
Over here, we request the Buddhas to continue in samsara so that they can continue to teach the Dharma. Many can decide whether they can leave or stay.
Some may decide, even if I remain I can’t help others. So they may think: it’s time for me to leap out of samsara and manifest the aspect of passing from this world..
To fully understand the importance of this beseeching and increasing the Enlighten Ones to remain, we need to go back to the story of the Venerable Ananda Maha Thera who was the Buddha’s attendant during the Enlightened One’s time in this world system.
We know that during the time of the Buddha, before enter final parinirvana, He had once hinted to Ven Ananda that He was about to enter final Parinirvana. Ven Ananda didn’t quite catch the point perhaps due to certain karmic delusions, and he failed to beseech the Buddha to remain. He hadn’t appreciated the point that he could have beseeched the Buddha to remain longer. The Buddha shortly entered parinirvana.
Buddha passed away at the age 80, due to Ven Ananda having missed that opportunity. Some critiques say that Ven Ananda had 5 mistakes during his lifetime – this one was a major one, which led to the Buddha going earlier than He necessarily had to.
Nowadays, we see many long life pujas for our great masters. We have these in order to have Students make offerings and prayers to create the positive conditions have their masters live long, in order for them to be continue to turn the wheel of the Dharma for us. The idea behind these prayers is actually to create the right conditions for the enlightened masters to stabilise and stay and this concept is well encapsulated in the wording intervention used to describe the consecration of stupas and reliquaries. The consecration process is quite elaborate. The first step is to bath and clean, then invite the deities to come in body, speech and mind, and thereby give blessings, and to then stabilise and stay put. It is through this that we can benefit from the blessings – it is a very similar concept to this 6th limb of beseeching the Buddha to remain and not to pass into final parinirvana.
Some people ask: when we do a long life puja, does that work? Geshe la says: of course. For many of these masters with such attainments, they do work! These people have the ability to yield to the requests of the sentient beings. They can decide when they die. For others, perhaps not quite there yet, they can also benefit from this. This approach is the story of one of Geshe la’s precious gurus, the late Khensur Lobsang Tsering Rinpoche who fell very ill when he was about 80 years old. He refused medical treatment and said he had already lived a full life and was prepared to go. His students, of which there were many, started to gather together and did various long life pujas, praying that he would remain for longer. After the pujas, Khensur Rinpoche said: “Alright alright, I will try to stay till I’m 95.”
True enough, he went to the doctor, got cured, and then lived till he was 95! Geshe la recounted this as he witnessed all these events himself. Whether Khensur Rinpoche had the attainment of the level where he could control when he would die, we don’t know, adds Geshe la, but at the very least the long life puja has been able to show its effect.
VII) Dedication of Merits
This verse involves the dedication of merits generated from all these 7 limbs of practice, to the Great Enlightenment. This is an important aspect.
It is important to dedicate merits to all sentient as a matter of habit, and to do so as quickly as possible. Geshe la explained that this would help to avoid a situation where the merits are inadvertently destroyed through a moment’s anger/aversion.
Before we attain enlightenment, if we keep doing this for the innumerable sentient beings, dedicate it to them and the great Enlightenment, it will help us increase our merits exponentially. If we dedicate these continuously, the merits will keep multiplying.
Geshe la emphasised the importance of this Verse 12, that can be recited (in the language of one’s choice) after any meritorious activity is carried out.
Geshe la thus concluded the series of lectures (4 Classes in total) on the 7 limbs of practice and advised that Dharma classes will resume on 22nd May 2023.
May all of you who read these teachings, and indeed all sentient beings who are continually in our thoughts, benefit from the blessings of the Triple Gem!
The Maha Tare Team