His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche’s Puja Teachings – October 31, 2021
His Eminence Rinchen Dorje Rinpoche presided over the auspicious Amitayus Empowerment Puja at the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Center in Taipei. After lighting lamps as an offering to the Buddha, Rinpoche ascended the Dharma throne to bestow precious teachings.
“The monastic, who had shared her father’s story before the puja started, has taken refuge in me for 10 years, and has also been ordained for almost 30 years. Have you (the non-ordained disciples present) been ordained for 30 years? What is your thinking based on that you feel you are amazing just because you have completed the Four Uncommon Preliminary Practices? This monastic’s father had relied on me because his daughter has believed in me; no matter how I have scolded her or told her to leave me and the Center, she has remained as my disciple. Because her father had not been clearheaded, in an unexpected way, he actually believed in me; as such, he was better than you. You are too clearheaded, too smart. Every one of you is very talented with awesome brain power; then again, you cannot attain achievements in the Dharma.
Some people say that they will begin learning to be brave and vigorous but they do not know what bravery and vigorousness are about. Starting from conducting my first retreat, I naturally knew already that I needed to divide my daily practice into six parts during my retreat, with each part lasting about one-and-half to two hours. In the past, when I conducted my retreats, I always practiced about 15 to 16 hours a day, sometimes longer. At the time when His Holiness wanted to transmit the Mahamudra to me, I worried that I did not have enough good fortune to receive the transmission. I only dared to accept it after I had chanted 100,000 times of the Hundred-Syllable Mantra in 10 days. I was close to be 60 years old at the time; I don’t dare to say that I was courageous and strenuous then, but I know at least I was not afraid. You have practiced the Four-Armed Avalokiteshvara Ritual and the Dharma Protector Achi ritual every day. If you are able to chant each type of mantras in these two rituals for an hour (combining the time spent on chanting each) I feel thankful already to Drikung Kagyu Lord Jigten Sumgon, Dharma protectors, and the lineage gurus for their blessings. For the rest of your time of the day, you do other things that are irrelevant to the Dharma.”
(After having finished the teachings, Rinpoche started to perform the Dharma. Then the Tsok Ritual, tea-offering ritual and the mandala offering were in progress. Rinpoche made an instruction that he did not want to accept the monetary mandala-offering. After His Eminence Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche instructed that the monastics were to distribute longevity pills and longevity wine (juice) to the attendees, he asked all participants to sit up straight. The guru then continued performing the Dharma, and led everyone present to recite the verses in the Dharma text. Then, he descended the Dharma throne to bless the attendees with a handheld statue of Amitayus. During this blessing process, Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche continuously rang the handbell and chanted the mantra of Amitayus. The compassion expressed in his eyes was profound, immense and boundless, benefiting and protecting all sentient beings. All the attendees respectfully joined the palms of their hands together and kneeled for a long time, and received the auspicious blessings from the guru. There was no one who wasn’t feeling grateful and moved to tears.)
Rinpoche continued the teachings. “You all live a very good life; we have seen many people who do not. I have often taught every one of you that you should not think if things are fine for you, then life is good enough. In fact, when others are not fortunate or are having difficulties, such hardship will be relevant to you and to all people as well. As there is pandemic of coronavirus now, all people feel toilsome and life is hard. I have often advised you, my disciples of more than 1,000 in number, to have a same aspiration, and such an aspiration will be very powerful. What kind of the aspiration then? It is one that my mind has given rise to – benefiting sentient beings. As long as you have such an aspiration, you will be fine; do not behave that you still think or act for only yourself. Now you don’t have abilities or skills to benefit sentient beings, but at least you should have such a sense that you want to help them. It seems that you don’t even have such a mindset. What are you going to do then? What is to be done with you?”
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Updated on January 17, 2022