The Power of Aspiration
One of my Dharma friends recently shared his perspective, stating that benefiting sentient beings and the Buddhadharma is not contingent upon one's intelligence or ability. Rather, the power of aspiration and the accumulation of merit are the pivotal factors. I find myself inclined to agree with this viewpoint.
Hence, we need to make good aspirations when doing our practice. We have some frequently recited aspirations, among which the most precious and significant one is :
“Precious mind of awakening,
May it arise in those who are without it
And never fade from those who hold it
But continually grow from strength to strength.”
Another important aspiration which goes after many supplications is as follows:
“May I never in future lives part from authentic lamas
And embracing ever the glory of dharma
May I perfect the qualities of the levels and paths
And thus swiftly attain the state of Vajradhara”
Furthermore, the marvellous aspiration we have recently included in our daily chant:
“May I, throughout my each and every life,
Illumine buddha's teachings, make them bright.
Yet, if I cannot so elucidate,
Then may I shoulder dharma's mighty weight.
Yet, if the load is more than I can bear,
May I at least feel deep concern and care.
And, worrying about dharma's decline,
Stand guard and keep an ever watchful eye.”
By sincerely making such aspirations, in the best-case scenario, we will benefit the Buddhadharma and sentient beings in this life. If that proves unattainable, we still might be able to benefit the Buddhadharma in our future lives, through the force of aspiration we generate in this life.
Therefore, when practising, we should definitely make grand aspirations with a pure motivation.
June 2023, Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre
བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་ནི་རིན་པོ་ཆེ།།མ་སྐྱེས་པ་རྣམས་སྐྱེས་གྱུར་ཅིག།
སྐྱེས་པ་ཉམས་པ་མེད་པ་དང་།།གོང་ནས་གོང་དུ་འཕེལ་བར་ཤོག།
སྐྱེ་བ་ཀུན་ཏུ་ཡང་དག་བླ་མ་དང་།། འབྲལ་མེད་ཆོས་ཀྱི་དཔལ་ལ་ལོངས་སྤྱོད་ཅིང་།།
ས་དང་ལམ་གྱི་ཡོན་ཏན་རབ་རྫོགས་ནས།། རྡོ་རྗེ་འཆང་གི་གོ་འཕང་མྱུར་ཐོབ་ཤོག།
བདག་ནི་སྐྱེ་བ་ཐམས་ཅད་དུ། །བསྟན་པ་གསལ་བར་བྱེད་གྱུར་ཅིག །
བསྟན་པ་གསལ་བར་མ་ནུས་ནའང༌། །བསྟན་པའི་ཁུར་ཆེན་འཁུར་བར་ཤོག །
ཁུར་ཆེན་བཀུར་བར་མ་ནུས་ནའང༌། །བསྟན་པའི་སེམས་ཁྲལ་བྱེད་པ་དང༌། །
བསྟན་པ་ཉམས་ཀྱིས་དོགས་པ་ཡི། ། བྱ་ར་ཙམ་ཡང་བྱེད་པར་ཤོག །