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Shakyamuni Buddha by artist Peter Peter Iseli.
We are fast approaching the auspicious merit-multiplying day of Saka Dawa—the fifteenth day of the fourth month in the Tibetan lunar calendar (falling on May 23, 2024)—which commemorates Shakyamuni Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and parinirvana.
Saka Dawa is one of the four great holy days of the Tibetan calendar, each of which celebrates an anniversary of Shakyamuni Buddha’s display of extraordinary powerful deeds for sentient beings’ sake.
It is a day when karmic results are multiplied by 300 million times as it commemorates Shakyamuni Buddha’s three major life events, as taught in the vinaya text Treasure of Quotations and Logic.
Specific practices recommended by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
- Taking the eight Mahayana precepts: students can receive the lineage of these precepts from a specially produced video of Lama Zopa Rinpoche granting them, which was edited from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s thought transformation video series, recorded in 2020 at Kopan Monastery.
- Reciting the Sutra Remembering the Three Jewels
Other recommended practices can be found on the Practice on the Four Great Holy Days webpage.
- REVISED Shakyamuni Buddha Puja – recently reformatted, with hyperlinks for smooth navigation, so that individuals can easily do the core practice and any additional ones as their time allows.
- NEW The Sutra of Great Liberation – Lama Zopa Rinpoche extolled the immense benefits of engaging in, is another sutra that can be recited on these special days.
- NEW Kṣitigarbha Ten Wheels Mahāyāna Sūtra from the Great Collection – Rinpoche often emphasizes that prayers to Kshitigarbha are much more powerful than those made to other bodhisattvas, “[the sutra] talks about so much power, how important the bodhisattva is; even reciting or just thinking of the name of the bodhisattva is very, very powerful.”
You can also find advice for merit-multiplying days in French and practice materials for merit-multiplying days in other languages.
Of course, it is also good to do any of the other meritorious activities often advised by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for these great holy days.
In accordance with the advice of Ven. Choden Rinpoche, one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachers, Lama Zopa Rinpoche observes all the auspicious dates in the Buddhist calendar by Indian Standard time, instead of any other local time.
Pujas and Offerings on Saka Dawa
The FPMT Puja Fund is arranging an extensive array of pujas and offerings on Saka Dawa, dedicated to the swift return of our precious guru, Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Rinpoche mentioned many times that he wishes for, “the pujas being sponsored and offered on each of the four Buddha days to continue forever, or for as long as the monasteries and nunneries exist.” We will be sharing more information on these activities in upcoming communications.
Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), is a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.