HAVING REFLECTED on the five contemplations from the Chinese Buddhist tradition, we now consecrate the food by imagining that it becomes blissful wisdom nectar, pay homage to the Three Jewels, and offer the nectar to them according to verses from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Below is the entire set of verses chanted before eating, followed by an explanation of what to think and visualize while chanting each one. You can listen to us chanting the verses at https://thubtenchodron.org/books/compassionate-kitchen/.
OM AH HUM (repeat three times)
Great compassionate Protector,
All-knowing Teacher,
Field of merit and good qualities vast as an ocean —
To the Tathagata, I bow.
Through purity, freeing from attachment,
Through virtue, freeing from the lower realms,
Unique, supreme ultimate reality—
To the Dharma that is peace, I bow.
Having freed themselves showing the path to freedom, too,
Well established in the trainings.
The holy field endowed with good qualities,
To the Sangha, I bow.
To the supreme teacher, the precious Buddha,
To the supreme refuge, the holy precious Dharma,
To the supreme guides, the precious Sangha,
To all the objects of refuge we make this offering.
May we and all those around us never be separated from the Triple Gem in any of our lives.
May we always have the opportunity to make offerings to them.
And may we continually receive their blessings and inspiration
To progress along the path.
By seeing this food as medicine,
I will consume it without attachment or complaint,
Not to increase my arrogance, strength, or good looks,
But solely to sustain my life.
Before offering our meal to the Three Jewels, we imagine transforming it into something magnificent that is far beyond ordinary food. Imagine that the food is in a beautiful jeweled bowl. It dissolves into emptiness — the absence of inherent existence — and then arises as blissful wisdom nectar.1 With palms together, chant three times OM AH HUM, which represents the Buddha’s body, speech, and mind, and think that the food is purified, transformed into nectar, and becomes inexhaustible.
When you eat, imagine that a small Buddha — who is made of light and embodies the Three Jewels — is at the center of your chest. Offer each mouthful of nectar-like food to him and think that he experiences great bliss. Light radiates from his body and fills your entire body; you feel satisfied and blissful.
To pay homage to the Three Jewels, visualize Shakyamuni Buddha with a body of golden light in the space in front of you. He is surrounded by numberless Buddhas and bodhisattvas, who are seated as far as the eye can see in the space around him. Next to each Buddha and bodhisattva is a table with Dharma texts on them. The Buddhas are the Buddha Jewel; the Dharma texts represent the Dharma Jewel; and the bodhisattvas are the Sangha Jewel, which also includes all the arhats who have attained liberation from cyclic existence. Don’t try to see the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and texts with your eyes; this is done on a mental level with your imagination. It’s the same mental function as imagining your friends when you’re not with them.
Here, the important point is to feel that you are in the presence of countless holy beings who have done what you aspire to do — to have an open heart with impartial love and compassion for all living beings. They look at you with complete acceptance and delight because you share their bodhicitta motivation to benefit sentient beings, and they are happy to guide you on the path to awakening. If you prefer, you can simply visualize Shakyamuni Buddha alone and think that he is the embodiment of all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas.
The analogy of a patient, doctor, medicine, and nurses illustrates how to relate to the Three Jewels. We are the patient: a confused sentient being subject to aging, sickness, and death. Wishing to be healthy, we go to the doctor — the Buddha—who diagnoses our illness and its causes. He tells us that we are suffering from duhkha, the unsatisfactory conditions of cyclic existence. This is caused by ignorance, anger, and clinging attachment. The doctor prescribes the medicine of the Dharma — the teachings describing the path to liberation and awakening. To be well, we must take the medicine. Neglecting to fill the prescription — or filling it, but keeping the medicine on our nightstand without taking it—won’t heal us. Similarly, purchasing Dharma books, a Buddha statue, and a mala (a Buddhist rosary) won’t remove our confusion. We must actually put the Dharma teachings into practice by having a daily meditation practice and applying what we learn to events in our daily life.
Sometimes we forget how to take the medicine or we become confused about what medicine to take at what time. The Sangha are like nurses: by practicing and discussing the Dharma with us, they guide us so that we understand the Dharma and apply it correctly and consistently.
Having taken the medicine according to the instructions, the patient will be cured. Similarly, we will leave cyclic existence behind and enjoy the bliss of liberation.
When paying homage to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, chant the following verses and visualize all sentient beings and all of your previous lives in human form around you. This huge assembly of beings joins you in generating the thoughts described in the verses. While chanting the verses, put your palms together at your heart to feel sincerity and respect:
Great compassionate Protector,
All-knowing Teacher,
Field of merit and good qualities vast as an ocean —
To the Tathagata, I bow.
Paying homage to the Buddha means to show respect to the Buddha’s magnificent qualities. It indicates our trust in his ability to teach us the path to awakening and to guide us as we traverse it. The Buddha doesn’t need our respect—fully awakened beings don’t base their self-esteem on the praise of others! However, we need to develop the ability to recognize, appreciate, and respect the good qualities of others, because doing this opens us to cultivating those same qualities. If we arrogantly think we are learned and holy, we close the door to improving our knowledge and gaining new virtuous qualities.
Why is the Buddha a reliable teacher who is worthy of respect? At the beginning of his Compendium of Reliable Cognition (Pramanasamuccaya), Dignaga explains that, in previous lives as a bodhisattva, Shakyamuni was intent on benefiting sentient beings. His great compassion spurred him to realize the ultimate nature of reality—the emptiness of inherent existence. Together, his compassion and wisdom enabled him to become a great teacher of sentient beings and a sugata (“one gone to bliss,” a Buddha). In this way he became the protector of all beings.
The way the Buddha protects us is not by standing guard, building walls, or swooping down like Superman to save us. He protects us by teaching us the Dharma. One meaning of “the Dharma” is protective measures — that is, what to practice and what to avoid in order to create the causes for happiness and to free ourselves from the causes of suffering. The Buddha protects us by teaching us how to protect our own minds from afflictions that motivate actions (karma) that cause rebirth in cyclic existence and miserable experiences. The principal way the Buddha protects us is by teaching us the path, which enables us to learn, contemplate, meditate, and practice the path to attain Buddhahood ourselves.
The Buddha is an omniscient teacher; he knows all that exists. How is this possible? The very nature of the mind is clarity and cognizance; our present inability to know all existence is due to obstructions. Sometimes the obstructions are physical: the wall prevents us from seeing what is on the other side. At other times, the obstruction is due to an impairment in a cognitive faculty — for example, when we are shortsighted, we have difficulties seeing things far away. Sometimes we are limited by the ability of our human cognitive faculties: for example, our human ears cannot hear the sounds that dogs can hear. Other times we have obstacles because our consciousness is clouded by the afflictive and cognitive obscurations that prevent us from knowing things. Because Buddhas have removed both obscurations, all phenomena can easily appear to and be cognized by their minds.
The chief benefit of being all-knowing is that Buddhas know the karma, tendencies, and interests of all living beings. They also know the various paths, their structures, and their practices. This knowledge gives them the ability to guide sentient beings most effectively according to their individual needs at that moment.
The Buddha is the field of merit and good qualities vast as an ocean. Having abandoned everything there is to abandon and realized all that there is to realize, his excellent physical, verbal, and mental qualities are as vast as a huge ocean. Due to his spiritual attainments, Shakyamuni Buddha becomes a field of merit for us, and the virtuous actions that we do in relation to him become extremely potent. The same is true for all other Buddhas.
Reciting verses of homage stimulates us to reflect on the Buddha’s good qualities. This uplifts our mind and evokes the aspiration in us to cultivate these same wonderful qualities. Reflecting that we have Buddha nature, we become confident that we can gain the realizations and cessations of a Buddha. Knowing that the Three Jewels can guide us to actualize this aspiration, we take refuge in them and practice their instructions.
Before attaining awakening, Shakyamuni Buddha was an ignorant sentient being like us. By learning, contemplating, and meditating on the Dharma, he attained Buddhahood. We have the same potential; our attainments are contingent on our effort to follow the path. Knowing this broadens our vision of life and encourages us to look beyond the narrow view of human potential that we previously held. We come to know that we have the potential to become fully awakened Buddhas who are of great benefit to sentient beings. We gain confidence that it is possible to eliminate our ignorance, anger, and attachment; it is possible to develop equal love and compassion for all living beings, even those who have harmed us. This is doable if we try. It may not happen quickly, but causes bear their effects; of this we can be sure.
Through purity, freeing from attachment,
Through virtue, freeing from the lower realms,
Unique, supreme ultimate reality—
To the Dharma that is peace, I bow.
The Dharma Jewel that is our refuge consists of the last two of the four truths for aryas: true cessations and true paths. By realizing true paths — the chief of which is the wisdom directly realizing emptiness—we can gradually eradicate afflictions from our mindstream forever, thereby attaining nirvana, the true cessation of afflictive obscurations and the suffering and unsatisfactory conditions (duhkha) they cause. The Dharma Jewel is the actual refuge that protects us from duhkha. When it has been actualized in our own hearts and minds, we are forever free from cyclic existence and its unsatisfactory circumstances. This is nirvana. Nirvana is not a place we travel to or something that we get from outside and paste onto ourselves.
By also eradicating the cognitive obscurations, we can attain the ultimate true cessation of a fully awakened Buddha. This removal of all defilements such that they can never reappear in our minds is ultimate freedom.
The first two lines of the verse above — “through purity, freeing from attachment, through virtue, freeing from the lower realms” — describe true paths. “Purity” means the absence of inherent existence. Through realizing and continually meditating on the natural purity of our mind — its emptiness of inherent existence — we cut craving, an insidious form of attachment that is the eighth of the twelve links of dependent arising. The Buddha’s teaching on the twelve links describes how we repeatedly take rebirth in cyclic existence. The wisdom-realizing emptiness terminates ignorance and the view of a personal identity, which are the root of samsara.
We need many fortunate rebirths in order to develop liberating true paths and liberated true cessations. The cause of such rebirths is virtue: that is, the constructive karma we create motivated by wholesome states of mind such as love, compassion, integrity, consideration for others, faith, generosity, wisdom, and so on. The karma we create — the actions we do — motivated by these virtuous mental states ripens as fortunate rebirths, temporarily freeing us from miserable rebirths in unfortunate realms. Creating virtue also has a freeing effect on our minds right now. We have no guilt, regret, and shame because our thoughts, speech, and deeds have been done without any intention to harm or deceive others. It becomes easier to cultivate concentration because we are not distracted by remorse for our harmful actions. In addition, we feel better about ourselves and our self-esteem increases because we know in our hearts that we are treating others fairly, honestly, and nonviolently.
The last two lines — “unique supreme ultimate reality—to the Dharma that is peace I bow” — explains true cessations. The unique supreme ultimate reality is the emptiness of inherent existence of a mind that has abandoned both the afflictive and the cognitive obscurations. The final true cessation is a type of emptiness, the emptiness of the mind that has eliminated afflictive and cognitive obscurations. From the point of view of their ultimate nature — the emptiness of inherent existence — our minds and the Buddhas’ minds are no different. The minds of sentient beings are naturally free from inherent existence, just as the Buddhas’ minds are. However, sentient beings’ minds are obscured by adventitious defilements, while the Buddhas’ minds are totally free from all defilements. In this sense, the emptiness of sentient beings’ minds and Buddhas’ minds differ. One is the emptiness of a polluted mind; the other is the emptiness of a purified mind.
Liberation and full awakening are true freedom. We usually think freedom means we can do what we want when we want to do it, without interference from the government or other people. While such freedom is certainly desirable, it is a limited type of freedom compared to spiritual freedom. Even when we are fortunate enough to experience this external freedom, our mind remains bound by the three poisons of ignorance, anger, and attachment, along with the host of other afflictions such as jealousy and arrogance that arise from these poisons. These make us miserable now and motivate us to do actions that cause others suffering and create the cause for our own misery in the future. True freedom is internal freedom — liberation, nirvana, the cessation of afflictions. Once attained, that freedom can never be lost or impeded in any way because it does not depend on changeable causes and conditions. This is true happiness, better than all the money and chocolate in the world!
“Peace” is a synonym of “nirvana,” which is a state of peace that is the absence of obscurations and the duhkha they create. There are different types of nirvana. Natural nirvana is the emptiness of the mind that all beings have. On the basis of that emptiness, we can attain other types of nirvana. The nirvana of an arhat — someone who has eliminated the afflictive obscurations and attained liberation — may be a nirvana with or without remainder. Nirvana with remainder is the nirvana of an arhat who still has the remainder of the polluted body he or she took at the time of birth.2 Nirvana without remainder is an arhat’s nirvana after he or she has passed away and left behind that polluted body. The nirvana of a Buddha is nonabiding nirvana, indicating that Buddhas do not abide in cyclic existence because they have eliminated all afflictive obscurations and do not abide in the peaceful state of arhatship because they manifest in the world to benefit sentient beings.
If nirvana seems too abstract to understand easily, think about it this way: Imagine what it would be like to never get angry again. Someone could insult you in public, betray your trust, beat you up, or kill the person you love the most, but your mind would remain peaceful. Of course, with compassion you could decry the person’s behavior and try to stop it, but there would be no anger, fear, or hurt in your mind. Wouldn’t freedom from anger be wonderful? Then think about what it would feel like to be free of clinging attachment, jealousy, arrogance, self-criticism, and so forth. Not only would we be much happier, but we would affect others in a positive way that would make a difference in their lives.
Having freed themselves showing the path to freedom, too,
Well established in the trainings.
The holy field endowed with good qualities,
To the Sangha, I bow.
The Sangha Jewel is an arya — a monastic or lay practitioner who has directly realized emptiness on the path of seeing or above. Aryas may be from any of the three vehicles: hearer, solitary realizer, or bodhisattva vehicle. Those who have attained the path of seeing have freed themselves of the acquired afflictions — afflictions that depend on having studied incorrect philosophies. Although these aryas no longer take rebirth under the control of afflictions and karma, they are not yet completely free from cyclic existence. However, they will not backslide. Having directly realized the ultimate nature of phenomena, they can show the path to freedom to others, teaching them the path accurately from their own experience.
Aryas are also well established in the three higher trainings of ethical conduct, concentration, and wisdom. These three become higher trainings when they are done with refuge in the Three Jewels and with the aspiration to attain liberation or full awakening. Aryas are well established in these trainings. They know and understand the scriptures explaining them and, more importantly, they have trained their body, speech, and mind in these practices and attained the correct results. Through both their teachings and their living example, aryas can show us the path to freedom.
These realized beings are a holy field endowed with good qualities. By making offerings to them, attending their teachings, asking them questions, and following their example, we will create great merit and after sufficient practice will gain realizations ourselves.
A community of four or more fully ordained monastics represents the Sangha Jewel, and that community is also a field for our creation of merit because they hold the monastic precepts established by the Buddhas and perform the rites that the Buddha prescribed for the Sangha community.
Having a full-fledged Sangha community in a place makes that area a “central land,” which is one of the eighteen qualities of a precious human life. While lay teachers and lay followers are very important, the monastic community plays a special role in terms of protecting and preserving the teachings from one generation to the next. Holding the precepts helps them to train their minds in the Dharma and to embody the teachings, which inspires others to practice. A simple lifestyle gives monastics more time to study, practice, and teach the Dharma. They have greater flexibility in accepting invitations to teach in other places because they do not need to stay home to care for a family or earn a living to support a family. For example, if I had a family, I would not be able to travel and teach. Even if I gave teachings in a center, the amount of time available to do that and to meet with people privately about their practice would be limited, because my family would require my attention.
In the West, sometimes the word “Sangha” is used for everyone who goes to a Dharma center. This is not the traditional usage of the word, and it can be confusing. For example, when new people are told that we take refuge in the Sangha, they think it refers to taking refuge in the people at the center. But most people at Dharma centers do not have high realizations and some aren’t even Buddhists. Although they are our Dharma friends, they cannot guide us on the un-mistaken path to liberation. The Sangha that we take refuge in consists of the aryas; they are completely reliable objects of refuge because they have directly realized emptiness and are well trained in ethical conduct, concentration, and wisdom. Even the monastic community is not the Sangha Jewel, although it represents that Jewel.
Having paid homage to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha in the previous three verses, we now offer the meal. Maintaining the visualization in front of us of Shakyamuni Buddha surrounded by all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, with Dharma scriptures on jeweled tables beside them, we recite:
To the supreme teacher, the precious Buddha,
To the supreme refuge, the holy precious Dharma,
To the supreme guides, the precious Sangha,
To all the objects of refuge we make this offering.
With the words “to the supreme teacher, the precious Buddha,” we offer the blissful nectar to Shakyamuni Buddha and all other Buddhas. In the scriptures, the Buddha is often referred to as the Teacher because he was the one who first gave teachings in this world — he turned the Dharma wheel by elucidating the path to awakening. His Holiness the Dalai Lama often reminds us that the Buddha is our fundamental or root teacher, and in Chinese Buddhism one of the most often recited chants is “Homage to our fundamental [root] teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha.” The main statue or painting in the center of an altar is of the Buddha. Pictures and statues of other deities are placed to the side or slightly lower than the Buddha. This reminds us that all the teachings and the lineages of spiritual mentors originate from the Buddha. For this reason, it is important to respect all Buddhist traditions. In fact, respecting all other religions is important because all of them teach ethical conduct, love, compassion, and forgiveness. Religious strife in the world is fostered by people who do not understand or adhere to the basic tenets of the religion they purport to be defending.
We have had many teachers in our lives, beginning with our parents, other relatives, or guardians who taught us how to walk and talk, tie our shoes, and be polite to other people. All of these teachers — as well as others who have taught us advanced skills and knowledge — have been incredibly kind and contributed immensely to our well-being. But kind as they are, none of them have the ability to lead us out of the misery of cyclic existence. Of all our teachers, the Buddha is the kindest because he gives us instructions on how to practice the path to awakening. Only Buddhas are incomparable in their wisdom, compassion, power, and skillful means. They have actualized the result of the path and are excellent exemplars in all ways. Our family and friends may love us dearly, they may praise us from here to the heavens, but none of them can teach us how to end our cyclic existence. In fact, many of them inadvertently encourage us to be more involved in cyclic existence and some, in their confusion, encourage us to engage in activities that create destructive karma that will ripen in unfortunate rebirths. For these reasons, the Buddha is the supreme teacher, the most trustworthy of spiritual friends.
Reciting “to the supreme refuge, the holy precious Dharma,” we offer the nectar to the Dharma. As mentioned before, the Dharma refuge is the actual refuge that protects us from all unsatisfactory conditions. When true paths are realized and true cessations are actualized in our mindstream, we are forever liberated from afflictions and duhkha. In the Sutra of the Pristine Wisdom Going Beyond, the Buddha reminds us: “Since [understanding] the mind is the cause of wisdom, do not look elsewhere for Buddhahood.”
Next we offer “to the supreme guides, the precious Sangha.” Unlike other religions where the objects of refuge are forever external to us, in Buddhadharma we can become the ultimate refuge objects. By generating true paths and attaining true cessations, we will become aryas, the Sangha Jewel, and our mind will become the Dharma Jewel. After we have thoroughly cleansed our mind of all defilements by meditating on the true paths and completely developed all good qualities, we will become the Buddha Jewel.
Members of the Sangha are good role models for us. Highly revered practitioners as well as those who are not widely known may be part of the arya Sangha. One of my spiritual mentors was especially humble. He wore old robes and scruffy shoes and when his students prepared a high Dharma seat for him, he put a cushion on the floor and taught the Dharma there. People would never recognize him in a crowd, but he was a very high practitioner who had meditated in the mountains for years.
We also benefit by practicing together with the monastic community. By witnessing how they apply Dharma principles to guide their daily activities, we are encouraged and inspired by their example. As Lama Thubten Yeshe used to say, the Sangha gives us a “good visualization.” We respect the monastic community not because we like them as individuals or because their robes make them look “holy,” but because they hold the precepts set down by the Buddha. When we receive reverence as monastics, we must remember that the respect is directed toward the Buddha, whom we visualize at our hearts, and not to us as individuals.
We learn so much by studying the sutras, commentaries, and treatises, but the Dharma comes alive for us when we witness people implementing it in their daily lives. Slowing down and observing practitioners’ behavior is important to increase our learning. We Westerners sometimes tend to be unaware of the opportunity to learn by simply standing back and observing people’s behavior, but in Asia this is a vital way that learning occurs.
Needless to say, living near our Dharma teachers, serving them, and assisting them with their virtuous activities are excellent ways to learn by observation. We have the opportunity to observe how they respond to various real-life situations that we may also encounter. Dharma teachers don’t always have an easy time: people criticize them, demand attention, and can be very rude to them. Observing how they respond to these situations is witnessing the Dharma in action.
In 1986 when I went to Taiwan to receive bhiksuni ordination, I was instructed to keep my eyes lowered and not let my gaze wander across the room to prevent distraction. There was no English translation during our formal training sessions, so to keep up with the others, I had to watch what was happening out of the corner of my eye and follow what everyone else was doing as closely as possible. If their palms were put together in a certain way, I noticed that and did the same. If they began walking with either the left or right foot, I discreetly observed that and copied them. Doing this was a big help to my training. It also enabled me to act in an appropriate way in another culture. Of course, sometimes I was careless, and when the guiding teachers noticed this, they corrected me.
In conclusion, “to all the objects of refuge we make this offering.” Now imagine goddesses offering the blissful wisdom nectar to the Three Jewels.3 They scoop up the nectar from the jeweled vessel and offer it to the entire merit field — the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and arhats visualized in the space in front of you. Imagine that the holy beings experience great bliss as they accept the blissful wisdom nectar. By chanting these verses and transforming our mind so that it reflects the meaning of the words we’re saying, we participate in the beautiful scene imagined around us and include everybody else in it as well.
As an alternative visualization, before offering the blissful wisdom nectar to the merit field, offer it to all the sentient beings imagined around you as far as space exists. Think that the nectar transforms into whatever is needed to fulfill their temporal needs and ultimate aims. Their temporal needs include procuring the four requisites for life — food, clothing, shelter, and medicine. They may need books, a computer, a car, friends, or government officials that work for the benefit of the people. Think that these offerings satisfy the needs of all sentient beings. Then imagine that the nectar transforms into Dharma teachers and texts and whatever else they need to practice the Dharma and fulfill their ultimate goal of liberation or full awakening. Imagine that the minds of all sentient beings are purified and that all beings are endowed with excellent physical, verbal, and mental qualities.
With all sentient beings’ needs now being satisfied, together with them we offer the blissful wisdom nectar to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. In addition to offering nectar, imagine all varieties of magnificent offerings filling the sky, and imagine all beings — including ourselves — respectfully offering these to the Three Jewels. Imagining beauty and selflessly offering it to the holy beings has a profound effect on our mind.
Some people may prefer to offer the nectar to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha first, and then to the sentient beings. Personally speaking, I find it helpful to imagine fulfilling the needs of sentient beings first so that they have the mental space and physical well-being to turn their attention to the Three Jewels. I like to think that they too create merit by making offerings to the Three Jewels. This helps my mind when it is irritated with others or upset by the actions of public figures.
If the food has not yet been served, put your palms together at your heart while reciting the verses. If food is already in your bowl or on your plate, put your hands on either side of the dish to offer the food while reciting the offering verses:
May we and all those around us never be separated from the Triple Gem in any of our lives.
May we always have the opportunity to make offerings to them.
And may we continually receive their blessings and inspiration
To progress along the path.
In this verse, we dedicate the merit from offering the food to the Three Jewels. The first dedication is so that we and everybody around us will never be separated from the Three Jewels in any of our lifetimes. Dedicating in this way is important so that the merit will ripen in our continually meeting the Three Jewels. We want to avoid rebirth in a realm, in a place, or at a time that inhibits us from encountering the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Imagine being born where you have no opportunity to hear about the Three Jewels or receive teachings from qualified spiritual mentors. Or suppose you are reborn at a time when a Buddha has not appeared and turned the wheel of Dharma. Imagine living in a place that lacks religious freedom such that you fear for your life if you are caught reading a Dharma book or moving your lips while reciting mantra.
There are countless hindrances and obstacles to meeting and practicing the Buddha’s teachings. To avoid these, we must make strong aspirations and dedications to continually, in all our future rebirths, meet the Three Jewels, to have all conducive conditions to practice the Dharma, and to have the wisdom and joyous effort to take advantage of this fortune. If we think deeply, we will understand that without the Three Jewels we would be completely lost, not only in the present life but in many future lives as well. Reflect on what you would be doing now had you not met the Dharma. Would you create more virtue or nonvirtue? What counterproductive activities might you have gotten involved in? What unwise choices and decisions might you have made? I find thinking about this wakes me up from complacency; it helps me to appreciate my present circumstances and to resolve to use them well, without taking them for granted.
I haven’t found a better method than the Buddha’s teachings to deal with all the frustrations and temptations that come our way. Without knowing the Dharma, in our confusion we might cope with stress by self-medicating using alcohol, pills, or other intoxicants. Maybe we would deal with dissatisfaction by having an affair. Perhaps we would resort to lying to get what we want.
The Buddha’s teachings provide reliable guidance on how to subdue our anger and discontent. They instruct us about how to realize the nature of reality and to cultivate equal love and compassion for all beings. For these reasons, it is important to pray to never be separated from the Three Jewels in any of our lives.
Next we dedicate, “May we always have the opportunity to make offerings to them.” In ordinary life, when we appreciate someone, we automatically want to give them gifts and act in ways that make them happy. With this mental state, making offerings to the Three Jewels comes naturally. Furthermore, we appreciate the importance of creating the causes for happiness by engaging in meritorious activities such as making offerings, and we understand that the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha are an incredible field of merit due to their spiritual attainments. To help us overcome stinginess, we aspire not only to meet the Three Jewels but also to have the mental attitude that takes pleasure in making offerings. Without the opportunity to make offerings to those worthy of respect due to their spiritual realizations, our ability to easily create merit is limited.
The creation of merit is important — it is like fertilizer that enriches our mind so that when the seeds of Dharma teachings are planted in the mind, they will readily grow and produce a crop of realizations. We don’t need to be rich to create a lot of merit, because the most important element in making offerings is not the object or the amount we give but our intention. At the time of the Buddha, an elderly, impoverished couple had only one garment between them. Wanting to make an offering to the Buddha, they left it by the roadside where he could pick it up. The material offering was meager, but the merit they created was magnificent due to the power of their sincere, virtuous intention.
Since we eat many times a day, there is a recurring opportunity to cultivate wholesome motivations and create merit by offering our food and drink. The process of visualizing our food dissolving into the emptiness of inherent existence and then reappearing as blissful wisdom nectar is a powerful psychological tool to counteract our ordinary perceptions. Imagining the Buddha at our heart reminds us that we have the potential to become a fully awakened Buddha. For this reason, cultivating the habit of pausing each time before we eat or drink, transforming our mind into virtue by making the offering, not only creates vast merit but also helps us center ourselves spiritually and renew our compassionate motivation frequently during the day.
In this way, may we continuously receive the blessings and inspiration of the Three Jewels to progress along the path. The Tibetan word jin lab (byin rlabs) can be translated as “blessing” or “inspiration.” It actually means “to transform into magnificence.” Two conditions are necessary to receive blessings or inspiration: the awakening influence of the Buddhas and our receptivity to receiving it. To hear music on a radio, it is not sufficient for the radio station to broadcast radio waves. Our radio must be turned on. Similarly, the holy beings’ awakening influence is always present, but we must be inclined and receptive to receive it. Making offerings and other practices opens our minds and makes them receptive. Requesting inspiration and then sitting back and waiting for a blessing to strike us like lightning doesn’t work. We have to make effort and train our mind in the Dharma. When we do, the awakening influence of the Three Jewels can connect with us, aiding us in the gradual process of gaining spiritual realizations.
For example, when we do the Nyung Ne practice — a retreat on Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion — each participant receives a little water from the altar vase at the end of each session. We sip the water three times. With the first sip, we imagine that all afflictive emotions are eradicated; with the second, that the cognitive obscurations are overcome; and with the third, that the dharmakaya — a Buddha’s omniscient mind and its emptiness — is attained. Depending on the sincerity and wisdom with which we contemplate these three, we receive a degree of inspiration or blessing. The way we think blesses our mind; the water we sip is incidental.
By seeing this food as medicine,
I will consume it without attachment or complaint,
Not to increase my arrogance, strength, or good looks,
But solely to sustain my life.
This verse was written by the great Indian sage of the second and third centuries, Nagarjuna. Similar to the five contemplations, this verse reminds us that the food we are about to eat is like medicine that nourishes our body and keeps it healthy so that we can practice the Dharma. It reminds us to accept the food with gratitude and to eat with contentment, enjoying the food without rushing. Instead of meticulously putting together each mouthful so that it has the right combination of flavors and textures that maximize the pleasure of each bite, we practice contentment, aware of the impermanent nature of the food and of the pleasure we receive from it.
This verse returns us to our motivation for eating. We practice eating without complaining about the food. Complaint arises from aversion and anger; we don’t like something and want it to be changed: “This food is too cold. It’s too hot. There’s not enough protein. You shouldn’t serve it in that dish. Why did you make white bread when whole wheat bread is more nutritious? This stale wheat bread tastes like cardboard; I want bread that is soft like cake.” We can go on and on, wanting to change this or that about our meal, without ever being satisfied. In the meantime, our complaining and the fuss we create ruins the meal for others. You may have experienced this when dining with friends or relatives in a restaurant and someone makes a scene over the food being undercooked or overcooked.
We love to complain, especially in a monastery where food is one of the few objects of sensual desire we can have. “I don’t have a boyfriend, I don’t sing or go to the disco, fishing is out, I can’t sleep until noon anymore or watch my favorite TV shows. But I still have food!” So a lot of our desire energy goes into what we want to eat.
This verse also reminds us that the purpose of eating is not to increase our arrogance, strength, or good looks. Someone could become arrogant thinking, “Look how wealthy and privileged I am. I eat only the finest gourmet food.” Athletes may eat in order to build their muscles, seeking others’ admiration: “Look at those muscles. He’s so strong.” Wanting to impress others with their good looks, some people eat to make their bodies attractive. In ancient times, being plump was a sign of wealth; a man could be proud if his wife were overweight. Nowadays it’s the opposite; people starve themselves to be thin, thinking that being attractive and sexy means they are worthwhile individuals. Meanwhile, they suffer from a diet that is out of balance.
People may also be a little arrogant because they eat organic food. Since organic food is usually more expensive, eating only organic food may be a status symbol. For some it may be a subtle way of saying, “Look, I’m someone who can afford organic food.” We may be proud because we are so health conscious and won’t allow ourselves to eat that “rubbish, fast food.” Our self-centered attitude can twist anything to become a reason for arrogance.
Other people may be proud because they are vegan, and some people are what could be called “born-again vegetarians” due to the enthusiasm with which they push everyone to stop eating meat. While I believe vegetarianism protects life and prevents ill effects in the environment, harping about it to others does not create harmony. People must come to the conclusion to be vegetarian or vegan themselves.
Overall, these verses remind us to eat with the proper motivation: to accept food without attachment, to eat without complaint or arrogance. We eat to keep our body alive. Having received the food through the kindness of countless sentient beings, we have the responsibility to repay the kindness of others by paying it forward in whatever ways we can. Each of us has unique skills and talents; we must use them to benefit others and make a positive contribution to others’ lives. For monastics, this entails keeping our precepts, studying and practicing the Dharma well, and serving sentient beings through teaching, counseling, and engaging in social service projects. Ultimately we repay others’ kindness by progressing on the path and becoming fully awakened Buddhas.
Since we chant these verses every day, it is easy to let our mind wander and forget the meaning of what we say. But if we try to lock our attention onto each word we chant and think of its meaning, these contemplations and verses have a powerful effect on our mind.
Sometimes you may be in a situation where you cannot recite the contemplations out loud or do not have time to slowly recite the verses — for example, you are dining at a restaurant or sharing food with friends or family who are not Buddhist. In this case, while your companions chat, mentally recite an abbreviated version of the offering verses. Think, “I will offer this food to Shakyamuni Buddha, who is the embodiment of all the Buddhas, Dharma, and Sangha, in order to attain full awakening for the sake of all sentient beings.” Say OM AH HUM to consecrate the food, and think of it as becoming very pure, like sweet nectar that tastes delicious and gives bliss similar to what the Buddha experiences. This nectar is completely beyond the usual ordinary appearance of food. Offer the food with the three following verses, and imagine that the Buddha at your heart experiences bliss as you eat:
To the supreme teacher, the precious Buddha,
To the supreme refuge, the holy precious Dharma,
To the supreme guides, the precious Sangha,
To all the objects of refuge we make this offering.
May we and all those around us never be separated from the Triple Gem in any of our lives.
May we always have the opportunity to make offerings to them.
And may we continually receive their blessings and inspiration
To progress along the path.
By seeing this food as medicine,
I will consume it without attachment or complaint,
Not to increase my arrogance, strength, or good looks,
But solely to sustain my life.
At the Abbey, we recite this shorter version before breakfast and medicine meal (our name for dinner, which some people eat and others do not). At lunch, which is our main meal, we recite the five contemplations and chant all the verses. You may choose which verses to recite depending on which meal is your main meal and with whom you are eating.