Actual Practice
Becoming Wish-fulfilling for Others
From Aryasura’s Prayer in Seventy Stanzas[1]
May I become like a wish-granting jewel
Fulfilling all the wishes,
And like a wish-granting tree
Fulfilling all the hopes of transmigratory beings.
According to the previous verse, sentient beings are wish-fulfilling for you, now here you become wish-fulfilling for sentient beings. Like a wish-fulfilling jewel you fulfill all the desires of sentient beings, and like a wish-granting tree you fulfill all the hopes of sentient beings.
In the pure lands, there are wish-granting trees, which are very powerful in granting whatever you wish for. Not just for human beings, but for animals and all the rest of the numberless six-realm sentient beings, you become like a wish-granting tree, fulfilling all their wishes for happiness. You fulfill not only their wishes for happiness for today or for this life, but for all the millions and billions of future lives. You also fulfill their wishes for ultimate happiness, liberation from the oceans of samsaric suffering and the peerless happiness of the state of omniscient mind. Fulfilling the numberless sentient beings’ wishes is the essence of how to live your life and how to practice Dharma. When you do this, all your problems in life are gone. It depends on how much your mind is capable of thinking like this.
I will tell you a true story. Normally when I do dedications, I dedicate for any sentient being who relies on me or whose name has been given to me to pray for them, that all their sufferings of body, speech, and mind be pacified, that all their wishes succeed according to Dharma, and that ultimately they achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. Also, whenever I am staying in a Dharma center, I dedicate my merits for all the staff at the center and all the people who came there in the past, who are coming there in the present, and who will come there in the future. In Australia, a woman took her dog to the veterinarian, and he told her that the dog was going to die soon. He advised her to take it home as he didn’t think it would survive. So she took the dog home, put my picture near where the dog was lying, and prayed for the dog. The dog then got better. Now it is okay. She came to the airport recently when I was in Australia to thank me. Also, the mother of a sick child had a picture of me and gave it to the child. The child kept the picture at her heart and recovered from her sickness. So I realized my dedicating in that way helps others. You can do dedications in the same way. By the power of the mind, dedications definitely help. The Vinaya teachings say that whatever prayer you do, the result will happen just as you prayed. This is my experience after praying like that all the time.
If you don’t have much time, the short way to generate the motivation for the day is to reflect on the above two verses, which give very precious advice about how to live your life for others. With the following verses the bodhichitta motivation becomes more specific.