Making Offerings Living Buddha Sheng-yen Lu II
Making offerings to higher beings carries the meanings of `association`, `service` and `respect`. Offering also applies to giving to those less fortunate, carrying meanings such as `sympathy`, `compassion` and `care`.
When practising the Six Perfections of Generosity, Discipline, Patience, Effort, Meditation and Wisdom, it is Generosity that ranks first. Generosity is categorized into the generosity of giving wealth, the generosity of giving Dharma, and the generosity of giving fearlessness. I like to quote a passage from The Diamond Sutra: `Moreover, Subhuti, if a man or woman brought together as many piles of the seven jewels as all the Mount Sumerus in the billion worlds of the Universe and gave them as offerings, and a noble son or daughter grasped but a single four line gatha of this Dharma teaching of the Perfection of Wisdom and made it known to others, Subhuti, the noble son or daughter? body of merit would be greater by more than a hundredfold, indeed, by an amount beyond comparison.`
This illustrates that of all offerings, the offering of Dharma ranks supreme.
The generosity of wealth offers aid to physical, mundane existence, whereas the generosity of Dharma offers liberation to one? spiritual existence. The generosity of wealth is temporary, but the generosity of Dharma promises true liberation from suffering, allowing sentient beings to attain happiness, to leave the wheel of samsara, and to be free from life and death. Thus, the generosity of Dharma is enduring.
I observe that today's Buddhist schools are practicing just the opposite, in which the generosity of wealth ranks first, and there is nothing on the giving of Dharma. It is pathetic indeed!
These Buddhist schools are building majestic temples, hospitals, universities, television stations, attracting many to give wealth, but there is very little in the giving of Dharma. It is certainly a sorry state.
Let me emphasize this:
The followers of the True Buddha School need not make offerings to me, their Root Guru, with money and jewels. When you practise the True Buddha Tantric Dharma truthfully, you are making offerings to me.
I hold limitless treasures, for I am the Great Blessing Vajra. These treasures are not of this earth, but of the heavens.
