The Accumulation of Merit

and Daily Prayers in Tibetan Buddhism

INTRODUCTION

Gathering of what Tibetan Buddhists call the two accumulations is a necessary condition for attaining enlightenment. By accumulating merit, we create the environment for accumulation of wisdom.

Prayer in Tibetan Buddhism is, along with making offerings, circumambulating sacred objects, spinning prayer wheels, and other activities, considered an accumulation of merit. The importance of accumulation of merit is explained here through fragments from a teaching by Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche (the teaching in its entirety is available as a transcript The Two Accumulations: Merit and Wisdom from Namse Bangdzo Bookstore, www.namsebangdzo.com, tel.: 845-679-5906, ext. 12).

The reader will also find basic daily prayers that each Tibetan Buddhist practitioner recites daily usually at least three times during the course of a day (a larger collection of prayers can be found in the KTD Prayerbook, which has been published in the Tibetan style called pecha, and is available from Namse Bangdzo Bookstore).

May all being benefit!

ACCUMULATION AND DEDICATION OF MERIT

(From the transcript The Two Accumulations: Merit and Wisdom, based on a teaching by Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, revised)

    At present, each of us is working toward success in our own life, a success measured in terms of experiencing pleasure as well as physical and mental wellbeing. Although that is everyone’s goal, some of us reach that goal while others, no matter how hard they try, do not. Instead of achieving happiness and wellbeing, they encounter illness and other unfavorable circumstances. Even though we may think that their inability to succeed is a result of lack of creativity, intelligence, and wisdom that is not the full explanation. The deeper reason is a lack of accumulation of merit. On the other hand, an individual who does experience success has these qualities of creativity, intelligence, and wisdom, but also has an accumulation of merit. The key factor for success is the accumulation itself.

The idea of wellbeing, happiness, and success can be explained by an example. If we want to cultivate crops, we need to know the right time to plant the seeds. If we plant the seeds during the right season, we will experience the result, the fruition, after the amount of time it takes the crops to grow. By virtue of hard work and appropriate timing, we will reap the appropriate harvest. In the same way, if we have accumulated merit in the past, we can experience fruition in our present life.

However, even if we know when to cultivate a crop, if we plant the seeds in the wrong type of soil, the crop will not be able to develop. Likewise, if we accumulate merit in the wrong way, while harboring negative thoughts, for example, we may have burned up the beneficial results of the karma involved. To experience wellbeing in our lives, we need to have accumulated merit properly in our previous lives.

Even if we plant seeds in very fertile soil, if we burn them before planting, the fact that the ground is fertile will not make the burned seeds grow. Similarly, when we practice with impure motive, with neurotic thoughts, then we are like a farmer who burns the seeds before planting them in fertile soil. We will not be able to experience any benefit from such accumulation.

How the result of accumulation is experienced also depends upon an individual. Some are able to experience the outcome of their accumulations from past lives in this life. Some are able to experience the benefit of proper accumulation from a particular lifetime later in that same life. It really depends upon the individual.

However, the main thing to bear in mind is that we are responsible for all of the accumulation, no matter when it occurred. We are the only one who experiences the goodness of our accumulation; the result is never lost.

It is also said that even a tiny virtuous accumulation can be great, just as by cultivating one seed, not one, but several grains result. As one seed can produce many grains, if we have accumulated even a small amount of merit with a pure motivation and a pure heart, the outcome can be great.

Up until now, I have talked about accumulation in terms of wealth and success, which sounds very materialistic. However, accumulation is actually not a materialistic activity at all, and that is very important for a Dharma practitioner to understand. The accumulation of merit opens the door to the accumulation of wisdom; without it we would not have a way to develop wisdom. Therefore, accumulating merit is an essential part of our lives. The accumulation of merit helps us develop spiritual realization much quicker. A fully realized being is known as “one who has perfected the two accumulations.” Thus, in order to reach the full realization of buddhahood, we must accomplish the perfection of the accumulations. […]

There are three objects of accumulation, which are known as superior, ordinary, and inferior. A superior or exalted object is one that is higher than we are, such as an enlightened being. An ordinary object is basically on the same level as we. The third object of accumulation is inferior beings —those who are totally caught up in pain, suffering, and struggle. As a result of this they suffer from constant fear. They are designated as inferior in the sense that they are to some degree helpless or powerless.

In Buddhism, the superior objects of accumulation are the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, also known as the Three Jewels. Making offerings, chanting mantras or sadhanas, and praising enlightened beings are all forms of accumulation through superior objects. Due to their limitless generosity, enlightened beings have supplied many emanations in tangible forms, in speech, and in other ways. This diversity of emanations enables us to accumulate merit by making offerings to images, reciting sadhanas, and so forth, to a variety of enlightened beings. Because the object of this accumulation is superior, we can experience the fruition of that accumulation more quickly and in limitless forms. […]

The second is an ordinary object of accumulation. In this case, the beings are quite ordinary, but out of gratitude we make them an object of accumulation. As you may know, in Buddhism we particularly thank our parents for their kindness.

Many people have been kind to us, but the ones who have been most kind to us are our own parents. In this particular generation of our society, when we talk about the kindness of our parents, many people find it hard to accept. There is a lot of conflict and alienation between parents and children. It is difficult for some of us to accept that our parents are indeed the kindest persons to whom we should be grateful. Because of our lack of knowledge regarding the bardo (the intermediate state after death and before rebirth), we do not understand what our parents have really done for us. In the absence of gratitude toward our parents, it is common in this generation for children to think that they are equal, and perhaps even superior, to their parents. Children are defiant of their parents, and even take them to court and try to win legal judgments against them, which build up tremendous hatred. This is because they lack understanding of what sort of benefit the parents have given them in bearing them and giving them human life. […]

The third type of object of accumulation is inferior beings. There are many who are experiencing a lack of food—in fact, starvation—as well as a lack of water to drink and proper clothing; there are many whose very lives are in jeopardy. If we try to protect them from the fear of loss of life, hunger, thirst, and cold by providing them with food, drink, protection, and so forth, that is accumulation through the object of inferior beings. In addition to material gifts, the general means for benefi ting beings that are experiencing such fears is to manifest compassion and understanding. […]

When we have done any virtuous actions, through giving, offering, doing meditation, or reciting sadhanas, we end with the dedication prayer. In dedicating, we are really sharing the merit, not only with a few people we know, but with every sentient being in existence. The reason for sharing the merit is not only to bring others an experience of temporary happiness, but also to lead them to enlightenment. Therefore, the action of sharing or dedication is vast and profound. It is vast in the sense that sentient beings are limitless, so we are sharing the merit with limitless sentient beings. It is profound because we are dedicating the merit for the enlightenment of all sentient beings. Based on that, the merit we have accumulated becomes inexhaustible. No matter what happens afterwards, even aggression, or anger, or anything else, this merit cannot be destroyed. That is the virtue of the dedication. Here is an illustration of this idea. Suppose you were given a handful of water and asked to keep it forever. You could not keep that handful of water; and sooner or later it would escape through your fi ngers and be gone. That is similar to the result of not dedicating. To make that supply water permanent, so to speak, you can put it into the ocean. Even though you had a very small amount of water in your hand, when it is being protected by the vast ocean, it becomes inexhaustible, in a sense.