Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Anyway, I wanted to tell you about the dogs. When we were circumambulating the Panchen
Lama’s monastery we saw that there were many dogs, each with its own place, like a personal
hermitage, and a pot to eat its food from. The old mothers from Shigatse carried tsampa and
water in buckets to give them. Sometimes they gave the dogs big pieces of the tsampa from
their home. By going around the monastery giving food and water to the dogs they were also
circumambulating all the unbelievable number of holy objects and holy beings inside. I was
really happy seeing those mothers being so kind and compassionate, giving food like that.
They were very, very kind.
In the same way that I visualized the Tsurphu monks as my guru, you can do that whenever
you throw a party for your family or friends. If you can also invite your enemy, that is the
best party! That is something that worldly people don’t do. Worldly people usually harm the
enemy, insulting him, shooting him and things like that. If you are a Dharma practitioner,
you can invite your enemy and offer him apple pie or momos or whatever.
At a party, if you think of each guest as your guru or His Holiness the Dalai Lama when you
offer them food or drink, you are making offerings to your guru or His Holiness. In that way
you collect the greatest merit and make the most powerful purification. It is much greater
than making offerings to the numberless Buddhas, Dharma and Sangha and the numberless
statues, stupas and scriptures. Such merit is comparatively small. As I mentioned, in
themselves, such offerings are unbelievable—even offering a small grain of rice or a tiny
flower to a stupa, a statue or a picture of a buddha, the benefits are beyond our concept, just
like the sky. But now, offering to the guru, the merit is much greater than offering to all
those holy objects. You collect the highest merit, the most powerful merit.
So, by imagining all the guests at your party as your guru, as His Holiness, that is your
Dharma practice, your guru devotion practice. Not everybody can go to the Karmapa’s
monastery in Tibet and make offerings to the monks while seeing them as the guru, but you
can collect a huge amount of merit even in your own home by having a party and serving
your guests food or drink, seeing that as an offering to your guru; that becomes your
Dharma practice. It is such a quick way to achieve enlightenment.
The guru is more precious than a wish-granting jewel
The Kalachakra Tantra says,
Even making offerings to the Three Rare Sublime Ones of the three times for eons
Or saving tens of millions of creatures,
You will still not attain enlightenment in this lifetime,
But if you please the guru by devoting yourself with a devotional mind,
Then you will definitely attain the common and sublime qualities in this lifetime.
This is something you should know. The usual translation of kon-chog sum is “Three Jewels”
but I think that is a very poor meaning of the term. I prefer to translate it as exactly as I can
according to the Tibetan because it is very important. We say the “Three Jewels” in relation
to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha but “three jewels” what? Three jewels what? It’s
nothing; it doesn’t give us anything. I prefer to translate kon-chog sum as “Three Rare Sublime
Ones”—the exact Tibetan translation—because it has great meaning.
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