Guru puja
Guru Puja and Tsog
The word puja means "to please" and has the connotation to please through offerings and practice. The Guru Puja lays the whole path to enlightenment on our mindstream, connects us more strongly to our teachers, allows us to accumulate skies of merit and purifies eons of negative karma. We chant the first 2/3rds of this puja in Tibetan and the last 1/3 we recite in English.
We always recommend bringing offerings of some sort, food, unscented tea lights, flowers, etc, as a way of earning merit.
By making donations at, or sponsoring, a specific puja, you are strengthening and empowering the merit you receive in relationship to that puja, in this case the merit we receive by celebrating our gurus and the immeasurable benefit they have offered all sentient beings through their teachings.
Generosity is the first of the six perfected qualities of a bodhisattva, planting the seeds to ensure that we will have all the material things necessary in future lives to continue our study of Dharma and working for the benefit of all beings, and this puja is a wonderful opportunity to practice generosity.
This does not necessarily mean making more offerings, but rather making offerings that are of high value to you, that you find delightful and want to offer your gurus and all buddhas, quantity and quality being factors but not defining marks for an offering. Offerings are not an obligation but an opportunity, so we encourage you to make the most of it.
Twice every month guru puja) is performed by all the monks in celebration of the spiritual master. Guru Puja is an important practice to please and thank our gurus whose kindness and guidance help us to progress on our path to Buddhahood.
Participation in a Guru Puja helps one not only to purify one's negative karma but also to accumulate immeasurable merits.
This puja is quite often recommended as a means to accumulate merit for those who died.
It is a comprehensive practice containing the essence of the entire teachings of sutra and tantra.
It strengthens the bond with one’s spiritual master and creates the cause for finding ones’ spiritual master again in future lives.
It accumulates extensive merit – offerings are made to all the enlightened beings in the form of the merit field, from Shakyamuni Buddha over the linage lamas to the personal spiritual master. A well thought out and effective merit accumulating puja.