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Why prayers sometimes don't work Sometimes, people new on the Buddhist path feel disheartened to find out that their prayers have not been answered. This is unfortunate as such people have yet to understand the true spirit of prayer. For prayers to be answered, we to need to play an active role to achieve the objective that is being prayed for. Suppose a person prays for a long life but still kills living beings, such prayers would of course never come true. We need to plant the seed for happiness in order to let the seed grow. If the seed was not there, any amount of sunlight or fertilizers (ie The blessings of the Buddhas ) would not produce the desired fruit. Praying is not an occasion for bribery or laziness. We need to start helping ourselves before the Buddhas can assist us in any way. In addition, some people experience unfortunate things despite being devout. Some might then ask, " What did I do wrong?, I have been kind and devout all my life!, Why did such a thing happen? " Well, we, as sentient beings are in the great sea of misery where there is not true happiness. Even though one has been kind all his life, there are many factors as to why we suffer. For example, wars and natural disasters are sometimes due to the collective karma of the people as a whole. Others are due to other people or circumstances that no one can control. To illustrate this, there was the occasion when Shakyamuni Buddha knew that his clan was to be massacred by a king. Three times he talked this king out of his cruel intention to war along the route to Buddha's hometown. However he always rekindled his wish and on the fourth time Buddha knew that his people were doomed. His disciple Maudgalyayana who had great spiritual powers did not heed Buddha's advice and still used his powers and hid his people in to his alms bowl. However he was shocked to find that all in his bowl still died. It was only then that he realized that there were just some ripening of bad karma that could not be avoided. We would never know when we would die (not mentioning those highly cultivated people who know), thus when time is short and we must do what is the most worthwhile for us and others. Avoiding death is not solving the problem, it is in knowing about death which is a fact of life before we can know the true meaning of life. However no matter what happens, we can rest in true faith that the Buddhas would do all they could to help all sentient beings. This is to be remembered in our hearts. Praying in sickness In sickness, trying to rely solely on mantras and prayers is not advised. Although high monks can pray, meditate to heal themselves, most people like us should seek medical help primarily first. This not an occasion to prove our faith, even the great masters of the past still learnt medicine to maintain the health of themselves and others. Some people deliberately refuse any medical help in the belief that their disease is the ripening of their karma and therefore the more they suffer, the faster the karma will go. This mentality is not unlike the Hindus who practise self-mortification (ie, torture themselves) in order to be born in the heavens as a reward. We need to take care of ourselves in order to pracise the Dharma and to be of service to others. Faith healing should be used to complement medicine and not to replace it. In times of terminal diseases, prayer should be used to strengthen the mind in preparation for death. If we practised the Dharma well beforehand, we would then be less likely to be confused when the stages of death starts to come. We should not hope for an unrealistic desire to get cured miraculously as death is certain to everyone. Thus a typical prayer for the terminally ill would run something like this: Homage to Amitabha Buddha and Avalokitesvara. The meaning of offerings The act of offering is practiced among all major religions but in Buddhism, offering has a different symbolism that few really understand. For easy reference, some common offerings and their meanings are shown in the table below.
There is a need to understand the true meaning of offering such objects as there is no point in doing things that are not understood completely. For example, as mentioned earlier, Buddhas do not need our offerings as many people think. The purpose of offerings is to cultivate a habit of generosity to others. Water as an offering is practised even by the very poor as an offering to the Buddhas. Water is widely available and yet without water, life is impossible! There is no stipulated offerings that must be done. Rather, it depends on the financial status of each individual. The form is also not important, whether it is chinese or tibetan incense, carnations or jasmine, glass or plastic plates etc, it means the same as long the motivation is pure. The different ways of offerings are due to differences in cultural and geographical reasons. For eg, Tibetans use butter for lamps as they don't grow vegetable oil in their area and flower motifs are used to represent flowers in Tibet for the same reason. To insist that only butter can be burned in lamps is then an extreme. The Buddhas are not interested over such trival things! In addition, it is to be remembered that the main objective as a Buddhist is to benefit others. Thus there must be a balance between helping others (charities etc. ) and religious offerings using the same amount of money. Offering 10 dollars to a starving person is much better than offering thousands of dollars to the Buddhas. Why? It is the welfare of sentient beings that the Buddhas are concerned about. They have no need for such things. If a person does not help others at all and yet make enormous offerings then he is losing the point altogether. Unfortunately history shows that there are cases all over the world where religious leaders were more concerned with hoarding wealth rather than doing what is supposed of them. Such mistakes must never be repeated again by the all people in the Buddhist world! Becoming a real Buddhist Like other religions, one is only a true Buddhist only if one takes
the Three Refuges 三皈依. The Three Refuge are:
One expresses one's desire to take the Buddha's teaching as one's guidance recites the following verse in an official ceremony organized by orthodox Buddhist temples of any tradition. During this ceremony, one is required to recite sincerely the following verse: Namo Buddhaya, Namo Dharmaya, Namo Sanghaya. After this simple ceremony, one is officially a full fledged Buddhist disciple. It is best to undergo this ceremony under the witness of monks or nuns but if it is not possible one can recite the Three Refuges sincerely in front of any altar of any Buddhas or Bodhisattvas. It is the joyous acceptance of the Three Jewels 三寶 ( another name for the Three Refuges) that is important, the ritual is not important. In addition, the particular monk or nun presiding over the ceremony is only a witness to our profess of faith. We take refuge in the whole Sangha not to a particular monk or nun. Thus we should avoid saying " I took refuge in Venerable So and So". Also, it is to be noted that only children who know what is Refuge Taking all about can be given Refuge as it is important for the takers to know what they are doing. Babies cannot be given the Refuge but it seems that some equate the process to be like Baptism where one's sins are " washed" away after the ceremony. If the true meaning of the Refuge ceremony is not known, taking it blindly as a salvation process defeats the whole purpose of taking the Refuge. After the refuge, one is now a Buddhist and should not pray to other gods ( Taoist, etc) as a upkeep of the refuge and a thorough understanding of who can offer the best teaching that enable us to attain enlightenment. Syncretism has no place in orthodox Buddhism! Please remember that one cannot step on two boats at the same time. The Memorial days of Guanyin By tradition, Guan Yin has 3 dates dedicated to her. These are All months are in the Chinese lunar month. On these dates, devotees flock to any temple dedicated to her and make offerings as a respect to her. Many chinese temples also have prayer sessions and vegetarian lunches prepared for the many people. Well some might ask, as Shakyamuni is the only Buddha to be born on earth then how did these dates come about? Many of these dates are by tradition and are usually dates where there was a major miracle by the particular Buddha or dates of birth, passing away of high monks who have demostrated(indirectly) that they were the emanations of the particular Bodhisattva. For example, there was this monk who emanated a buddha and rays of light from his mouth every time he recited Namo Amitabha Buddhaya, when he passed away in a miraculous way, people took his birthday 17 of the 11 month as the birthday of Amitabha. Such dates are for the masses to have a day of refresh their faith even though the Buddhas have infinite birthdays throughout their quest for Buddhahood. Well this is fine for people, we should not have this misconception to do good, be vegetarian, help the charities etc ONLY when her memorial days are near. This should not be the case, we should be praying to her and practice constantly whether it is her birthday or not. These days are for us to refresh and to affirm our faith in Guanyin. Holy Places Dedicated to Guan Yin Holy places dedicated to Guanyin are countless but the most famous of these is the PuTuo 菩陀山 mountain in Zhejiang province China. It is a small island with numerous temples built over the long period of chinese history. This mountain became sacred after many miracles and manifestations of Guanyin were experienced by people in trouble at sea. The name Putuo comes from Putuoluojia 菩 陀洛 伽 (Potalaka) which is a pureland of Guanyin on earth (although in another dimension which we cannot see). Although scriptures state that this island Potalaka (A Little White Flower ) is somewhere to the south of India, naming this chinese island as Potalaka is not unreasonable due to the frequent sights of Guanyin. It is still a popular pilgrimage site but tourism and commercial activities are destroying the charm and sacredness of this island. Some high Tibetan monks have also said that the place is also the holy place of the White Tara which is in fact no different from Guanyin. The place is packed with people during the 3 dates mentioned earlier especially on her birthday. I suppose the information given so far is helpful to my readers with regard to GuanShiYin the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion. As my Buddhism knowledge is far from adequate, please inform me of any suggestions or comments for improvement on this webpage. May my readers join me in dedicating the merit from this work. Homage to all great Mahayana teachers May I/we dedicate this merit for the eradication of all forms of suffering of all sentient beings and may all come under the protection of the Great Avalokitesvara. May I/we seek rebirth in Sukhavati so that we can learn under Amitabha and Avalokitesvara and be Enlightened so that I/we can come back and deliver others. May all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the 10 direction give their blessing that this would be achieved without delay! Om Mani Padmay Hum! |
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