The Meditations
When you have finished reading this chapter and watching the videos, do the following meditations by reflecting on the quotes drawn from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings. During the meditation session, you can re-read the related section of the chapter to refresh your memory. Try to make the meditations as personal and meaningful as possible.
To qualify for the Certificate of Achievement, each meditation session should last a minimum of half an hour. Start the session with a short bodhichitta motivation and, if you like, do some preliminary prayers. End the session with some dedication prayers. Spend at least 20 minutes of the session doing the actual meditation.
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To qualify for the Certificate of Achievement, keep track of the meditations you do using the Personal Log. Then, when you finish the entire module, tick them off in the Checklist for the Certificate of Achievement.
Meditation 9: Dedicate Your Body to Others
By generating compassion for suffering sentient beings, take their sufferings on yourself. Take the oceans of suffering of hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals on yourself. Then take both causes of suffering, delusion and karma, on yourself. Then, take all the sufferings of human beings, asuras, and suras and their causes on yourself.
[Visualize] taking these sufferings in your heart. You receive the suffering and it destroys the self-cherishing thought that doesn’t allow you to achieve nirvana, liberation from samsara, and has caused you to suffer in the six realms. It also hits and totally destroys the selfish mind that also does not allow you to achieve enlightenment in the future and free numberless sentient beings from samsara and enlighten them. It also eliminates the real I, the object of ignorance. Meditate on that a little bit.
Then generate loving kindness for sentient beings and begin by dedicating your body to them. Visualize your body as numberless eight-sided wish-granting jewels filling the whole sky. Then offer these wish-granting jewels to the numberless hell beings and each one receives skies of wish-granting jewels. Then do the same for the hungry ghosts, every hungry ghost receives skies of wish-granting jewels. Then every animal, in the ocean, in the ground, in the grass, receives your body numberless times in the form of wish-granting jewels. Then the numberless human beings, numberless sura beings, numberless asura beings, and numberless intermediate state beings receive skies of wish-granting jewels. They get whatever they want and whatever they need. What they need is Dharma, a virtuous friend, and the realizations up to enlightenment, so they get these. They also get whatever they want, such as temporary happiness, and then everyone—the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, asuras, and suras—becomes enlightened. (Lama Zopa Rinpoche)
Meditate on tonglen: motivated by compassion take others’ suffering upon yourself, and motivated by loving kindness give your body to other sentient beings.
(To qualify for the Certificate of Achievement do this meditation at least one time.)
Meditation 10: Dedicate Your Wealth and Possessions to Others
By generating compassion for suffering sentient beings, take their sufferings on yourself. Take the oceans of suffering of hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals on yourself. Then take both causes of suffering, delusion and karma, on yourself. Then, take all the sufferings of human beings, asuras, and suras and their causes on yourself.
[Visualize] taking these sufferings in your heart. You receive the suffering and it destroys the self-cherishing thought that doesn’t allow you to achieve nirvana, liberation from samsara, and has caused you to suffer in the six realms. It also hits and totally destroys the selfish mind that also does not allow you to achieve enlightenment in the future and free numberless sentient beings from samsara and enlighten them. It also eliminates the real I, the object of ignorance. Meditate on that a little bit.
[Then generate loving kindness for sentient beings and] whatever numberless wealth you have, whatever numberless enjoyments you have, however many hats you have, however many trousers you have, however many coats you have (for wintertime, for summertime, and for springtime), however many shoes you have (for outside, for inside, and for parties), however much money you have in the bank, make charity of all these to every sentient being—to the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, asuras, and suras. Think that these things also become wish-granting and that they receive whatever they want and whatever they need. Then, think that the numberless hell beings become enlightened, the numberless hungry ghosts become enlightened, the numberless animals become enlightened, the numberless human beings become enlightened, the numberless asuras become enlightened, and the numberless suras become enlightened. (Lama Zopa Rinpoche)
Meditate on tonglen: motivated by compassion take others’ suffering upon yourself, and motivated by loving kindness give your wealth and possessions to other sentient beings.
(To qualify for the Certificate of Achievement do this meditation at least one time.)
Meditation 11: Dedicate Your Merits to Others
By generating compassion for suffering sentient beings, take their sufferings on yourself. Take the oceans of suffering of hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals on yourself. Then take both causes of suffering, delusion and karma, on yourself. Then, take all the sufferings of human beings, asuras, and suras and their causes on yourself.
[Visualize] taking these sufferings in your heart. You receive the suffering and it destroys the self-cherishing thought that doesn’t allow you to achieve nirvana, liberation from samsara, and has caused you to suffer in the six realms. It also hits and totally destroys the selfish mind that also does not allow you to achieve enlightenment in the future and free numberless sentient beings from samsara and enlighten them. It also eliminates the real I, the object of ignorance. Meditate on that a little bit.
[Then generate loving kindness for sentient beings and] dedicate all your merits collected in numberless samsaric rebirths—the virtues you collected in the past from beginningless rebirths, those you are collecting now, and those you will collect in the future—to them. Dedicate all that merit, past, present, and future, to the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, asuras, suras, and intermediate state beings. From that they get whatever they want and whatever they need, all the happinesses—this life’s happiness, next life’s happiness, ultimate happiness (freedom from samsara), and peerless happiness (the cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations). The numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, asuras, suras, and intermediate state beings get everything up to enlightenment. (Lama Zopa Rinpoche)
Meditate on tonglen: motivated by compassion take others’ suffering upon yourself, and motivated by loving kindness give your merits to other sentient beings.