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Mahabodhi Stupa, Bodhgaya, India, February 2015. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche arrived at Root Institute in Bodhgaya, India on February 2. Ven. Sarah Thresher recently shared some of Rinpoche’s advice for practice during the first 15 days of Tibetan New Year:
We are now in the 15 days of Tibetan New Year, Losar, when Buddha performed miracles and any virtue created increases 100 million times. Rinpoche has been reminding us daily how important it is to use this opportunity to create merit.
“One prostration is 100 million prostrations, one light offering is 100 million light offerings, one flower offering is 100 million flower offerings, one Tara puja is 100 million Tara pujas!” Rinpoche will say raising his voice to stress the enormity of the increase. “This is the best business.” Why do we need to create extensive merit? “The more merit we have, it is that much quicker to achieve enlightenment and free all sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to peerless happiness, enlightenment.”
For more than two weeks now, days and nights at the center have been filled with prayers, pujas, practices and offerings, offerings, offerings. This is the time of Root Institute’s Festival of Lights and Merit when the center decorates the Mahabodhi Stupa with close to 100,000 multi-colored lights every night in addition to the 50,000 lights offered on a daily basis at the center throughout the year. Supplementing these offerings are hundreds of water bowls surrounding the Nagarjuna statue and on Rinpoche’s roof, where even Rinpoche’s prostration board has become a makeshift altar. Since every water bowl offering becomes 100 million, how is it possible to leave even one bowl empty?
In the evenings, when we go to circumambulate the stupa, Rinpoche will buy trays of heaped-up flowers and flower garlands to offer to the stupa in addition to the lights, and robes for the statue of Buddha inside the stupa. “First dedicate for all His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s holy wishes to be fulfilled immediately,” Rinpoche explains, “that is the most important dedication.” Then Rinpoche guides us in developing a bodhichitta motivation and offering mantras, prayers and extensive dedications for all the centers, students and six realm sentient beings as incense burns and the sound of the gyaling music plays. “Think that all the holy objects are in essence the manifestation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” Rinpoche explains. “By offering to the guru we collect the most extensive merit.”
FPMT Education Services offers many prayers and practices that can be done during Monlam, which continues through March 5 this year, as free PDF downloads. You can find Rinpoche’s advice on Monlam collected here (on Rinpoche’s Advice page, under Buddha Multiplying Days), specific advice for practices to do on the Buddha Multiplying days here, and a calendar of all the dates here.
Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and Rinpoche’s vision for a better world. Sign up to receive news and updates.