Chapter 4. Lojong Advice from the Great Masters

Panchen Shakya Shri^[1] mentioned:

KYI NA DE WA TSHOG SU NGO
   When I am happy, I dedicate my happiness to collect merits:
PHÄN DE NAM KHA GANG WA SHOG
   “May space be filled with benefit and happiness.”
DUG NA KÜN GYI DUG NGÄL KUR
   When I am suffering, I carry the suffering of all myself:
DUG NGÄL GYA TSHO KEM PAR SHOG
   “May the oceans of suffering dry up.”^[2]

Panchen Shakya a great yogi, said, “When you are happy, dedicate your happiness to other sentient beings to collect merit.” You understand? Then, “May happiness and peace, like the sky,” means limitless like the sky, “be received.” The merit becomes like the sky, meaning it becomes limitless. “May each sentient being receive peace and happiness like the limitless sky.” You understand? When you are happy, do like that.

When you are happy, if you dedicate your happiness to every single sentient being, you collect more than skies of good luck, or merit, numberless times. Even if it is dedicated for one sentient being, you collect more merit than the sky. So now if you dedicate it for numberless sentient beings, you collect merit more than the sky numberless times. Then every sentient being receives peace and happiness filling the whole sky, like the limitless sky. That is the prayer; it is unbelievable.

Then, “When you are suffering, carry the suffering of all sentient beings: May the oceans of suffering dry up.” That means that when you suffer from depression or anything else, you carry all sentient beings’ suffering on yourself, or you take it on yourself, and you experience it for them. That actually means that their suffering absorbs into your self-cherishing thought, from where all your suffering and all the obstacles to your Dharma practice come, and destroys it. And when you destroy that, you also see that the real I, which ignorance believes in, which is not there, is totally false, that it is empty as it is empty. Through that, the root of your samsara, the ignorance holding it as truly existent is eliminated. You can think like that.

 “When you suffer, carry all sentient beings’ suffering on you. May their oceans of suffering dry up.” That means may the oceans of suffering of each sentient being dry up, meaning may they become nonexistent, which means may they become enlightened.