Supplement: Smoke offerings
Teaching from Gyalwai Nyugu Rinpoche regarding smoke offering
Smoke offering is quite simple and its benefits are enormous.
Sometimes, during Dharma practice, we feel pain and discomfort somewhere in our body, we experience a lot of worries and unhappiness for seemingly no reason. These are all due to our karmic debt with friends, foes and creditors in previous lives, which has ripened and bearing karmic fruit now. ACer the dedication of the merits of smoke offering to all beings with whom we have karmic connections, many people experience mental relief, their quality of sleep is better, better efficiency at work and improved health. By doing smoke offerings, many karmic diseases can be cured, life expectancy can be prolonged, wealth can be accumulated, wishes can be fulfilled and food may be sufficient in one’s future lives. At the same time, obstacles during Dharma practice can be eliminated, protection from gods, dragons and Dharma protectors can be obtained, internal and external obscuration can be naturally eliminated. If one’s aspiration is to be re-born in The Pure Land, rebirth in Samsara can be avoided and rebirth in The Pure Land can be realised. It is also a common supreme method to practice Bodhicitta and accumulate merits. Especially for lay practitioners, many obscurations will be naturally eliminated through performing smoke offerings.
Why do we burn food while performing smoke offerings? It is for the purpose of practising generosity and making food offerings to hungry ghosts. Since in the endless cyclic rebirth in samsara, they all once have been our parents, but now they are suffering from hunger, some of them for hundreds and even thousands of years, without a single drop of water or even a bite of food to eat. They desperately search for food every day, but may only find a few scraps of food within several hundred years. When they swallow the food, it turns into fire and their whole body burns, they experience so much pain and suffering. Due to their karma, they can’t eat food like humans do, but the smell and by breathing in the smoke of burnt offerings serves as nourishment for them. Thanks to the mantra and blessings of the Bodhisattvas, their throat can be opened and they are able to eat and pacify their intense suffering from hunger.
Smoke offerings may be done both on a massive or a small and simple scale and performed together by many people or simply by one or two persons. In Tibet, people often do it on their own at home. They believe that numerous wandering ghosts outside suffer from hunger and thirst and that the smoke offering is the best food offering for them.
Perform the smoke offerings as guided. Here are a few key points to be noted:
Firstly, the place. Where someone has passed away or a disaster has taken place is most suitable for performing smoke offering to accumulate merit. The deceased will benefit from it and one’s karmic creditors will obtain merit, be satisfied and be blessed. On occasions, it can be performed in the mountains, on a quiet field, or on the balcony, outside the house or on the street where nobody else will be disturbed. As long as nobody is inconvenienced and comes to you to complain while doing the smoke offering, it is fine. Just be considerate and perform the smoke offering according to the guidance provided.
Secondly, the timing. Smoke offerings can be performed daily, on the auspicious days only, being the 8th, 15th and 30th of each lunar month, regularly if a vow has been taken to do so, or done occasionally as and when one decides to. The best time for smoke offerings is between 5pm and 9pm.
Thirdly, the food offered. I have seen that in some smoke offerings the food has not been chosen appropriately. According to guidance, it should be clean and of good quality. The same quality that one would offer to any Buddha, Bodhisattva or to any sentient being in the six realms. Anything like tsampa, butter, cookies and noodles, which can be easily burned and any other food that we eat ourselves. Moreover, as an additional option, red and yellow cloth, a mantra wheel and even a few cents, may be included. Prepare and add some nectar as well. When smoke offerings are done by a single person on their own, a small amount of food, for instance a small plate of food, is sufficient.
Fourthly, the visualisation. Visualise that the offerings are multiplied millions even billions of times and that at the site of the smoke offering, five hundred, a thousand, hundreds of thousands, countless of karmic creditors and wandering ghosts attend and eat the fragrant smoke of the burning food offering. They joyfully share the food together, without hatred, being free and happy. At the same time, we visualise ourselves as one of the deities to offer the blessings, for instance like Avalokitesvara, Guru Rinpoche, Tara or Ksitigarbha. In our practice guidelines, we visualise ourselves as Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of great compassion and loving kindness. With the blessing of reciting the Six Syllable Mantra, those karmic creditors and wandering ghost are not only satisfied by the food and other offerings, they also have the chance to receive Dharma teachings, enjoy good fortune, be reborn in The Pure Land and attain the realisation of The Great Perfection in the future.
If you have the realisation of the Great Perfection, abide in this state while reciting the prayers and mantras according to the text. In this state it is not necessary to visualise or bless the offerings. In the Great Perfection state all you see and hear will naturally be blessed.
The procedure of performing a smoke offering:
All the offerings are put in a dedicated, clean and undamaged burner. It may be made of copper, ceramic, or aluminium. It shouldn’t be made of iron and nor should the burner be in contact with meat during the whole procedure, from the preparation to the end of the offering. While lighting the fire, recite the multiplication mantra ‘OM AH HUM’. Use a tree branch to sprinkle the nectar over the food offerings. Visualise, through the blessing of reciting OM AH HUM (this mantra multiplies the offerings) and the nectar, the food offerings become as high as Mount Meru, boundless. While reciting, we can also perform mudras. After reciting the mantra the offering will become boundless, even if one is not able to visualise food offerings as such. A list of names of deceased people can be put together and burnt with the food offerings. Let it burn naturally. Avoid blowing air into it with your mouth.
One can close one’s eyes and visualise oneself as Avalokitesvara. In a state of having great compassion and loving kindness, chant the prayer slowly. Do one’s best not to be disturbed, free of afflictions and discriminatory thoughts, focus on the prayer and visualisation in as mentioned above. Visualise that boundless karmic creditors and wandering ghost enjoy the offering. Recite the Six Syllable Mantra, at least 108 times, and while reciting visualise that one is Avalokitesvara and the mantra coming from one’s mouth becomes boundless light which shines on all karmic creditors and wandering ghosts, who then rise slowly up to The Pure Land and are liberated. At the end do the dedication.
Appendix:
Benefit and merit of smoke offering
- Elimination of karmic obscurations. Karmic debt will be repaid and the causes of negativities can be transferred and eliminated.
- Enhance merits. Offering to all sentient beings in the six realms will give rise to good fortune, longer life, good health and abundant loving kindness.
- Offering to The Three Jewels, The Three Roots, Dharma Protectors and Mountain God will enhance the accumulation of merit and wisdom and allow one to receive many blessings.
- Nightmares, misfortune and bad luck, all kinds of negativities can be eliminated.
- Elimination of obstacles caused by ghosts.
- Cleanse illness and causes of short life expectancy.
- All wishes being fulfilled.
- Removing obstacles during Dharma practice.
- Cessation of any natural catastrophes, like storms, drought, flood and epidemics.
- Aspirations to be reborn in The Pure Land and practise compassion. Rebirth in Samsara is avoided.
- Even the merit of only just one smoke offering will remain in the Dharma Realm.
Mantra wheel
