Tsog offering during Lama Chopa, Tushita Meditation Centre, Dharamsala, India, September 2018. Photo by Simon Houlton.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche received a question from a student who was experiencing many obstacles to Dharma practice. In addition to doing the practice of the Thirty-Five Buddhas of Confession and Vajrasattva practice, Rinpoche advised doing mandala offerings:

… Yes, there are some people who have many obstacles when listening to teachings, and when they don’t meditate, then nothing happens. For some people it is like this, and it means there is an obstacle to practice.

It is also very good to do mandala offerings. The mandala offering is very important and at the end of Jorcho preliminary practice, when you make the mandala offering, make a request for the three great purposes.

SPECIAL REQUEST FOR THE THREE GREAT PURPOSES

I prostrate and go for refuge to the guru and the Three Rare Sublime Ones: please bless my mind.

Please bless me and all mother sentient beings to immediately cease all the wrong concepts from disrespect to the spiritual friend up to the subtle dual appearances of the white appearance, red increase, and dark near attainment.

Please bless us to immediately generate all the right realizations from respect for the spiritual friend up to the unification of no more learning.

Please bless us to immediately pacify all outer and inner obstacles. (3x)

The first request is to pacify all the wrong concepts up to subtle dual view of the white, red, and dark visions, next is to generate all the correct realizations from guru devotion up to enlightenment, and the third request is to pacify the outer and inner obstacles.

Outer obstacles are, for example, when you don’t have freedom and you are told by the king, the government or your parents to do something else, like go into the army or kill others, especially to engage in negative karma. Inner obstacles are diseases and also the delusions. Therefore, doing mandala offerings is very important in your life. Then dedicate the mandala. You have to visualize according to the commentary, that is best, and then you collect unbelievable, unbelievable merits, and you dedicate that merit to achieve these three things. That is very, very important, otherwise if you don’t do that, nothing changes.

You should think these obstacles are good and that they arise because of the benefits of practicing Dharma. Think you are experiencing the past karma now; that your past negative karma is finishing. That is a good thing, it is the benefit of practicing Dharma. It is a good thing.

It is very important if you can think that whatever problem you have, you are experiencing that problem for numberless sentient beings. You are experiencing all the suffering and the cause of the suffering—the delusions and karma—for sentient beings, so you receive that from them and then they achieve dharmakaya. This is unbelievable, unbelievable, most unbelievable purification and a quick way to achieve enlightenment. It’s a quick way to enlighten sentient beings, for them to achieve enlightenment. So mostly take the suffering.

Also give your body as a wish-granting jewel, as numberless, so make charity to all those six-realm sentient beings. Then give your possessions and all your past, present, and future merits to numberless sentient beings, so they receive all the happiness. They receive the happiness of this life and of future lives, and ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara, peerless happiness, enlightenment, so they receive everything. Then rejoice. When you give your body, possessions, and merits as a wish-granting jewel, then everything becomes wish-fulfilling for all the sentient beings. The main thing is that they achieve all that happiness, liberation, and enlightenment.

It is very good to do this as much as possible—taking other sentient beings’ sufferings and giving your happiness, your merits etc., to others. It is so good. Spend more time taking others’ sufferings, experiencing the suffering of others, the numberless sentient beings.

This can change your karma. It is a most unbelievable, most unbelievable way to collect merit and a quick way to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. This is most powerful purification, and it can change your karma the more you do it.

Read Rinpoche’s complete advice “Purifying Obstacles to Dharma Practice,” posted on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website in January 2019:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/purifying-obstacles-dharma-practice-0

The FPMT Foundation Store makes available the Lama Chopa Jorcho practice book and commentary by Lama Zopa Rinpoche on this heart practice: 
https://shop.fpmt.org/search.asp?keyword=jorcho&search=

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.