Author Topic: Prayers/Pujas and its Blessings!  (Read 3403 times)

Positive Change

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Prayers/Pujas and its Blessings!
« on: July 21, 2012, 07:51:28 PM »
What is a puja?

Puja (literally an offering) is a Meditation Ritual on one of the Bodhisattvas or Buddhas. It is a ceremony in which prayers are offered to the Buddhas to request their blessings or invoke their help.

Why are there different pujas?

There are different pujas for different purposes in our lives. There are pujas for meditation practice, purification, removing obstacles, long life, death, illness, business, and so on. Pujas are performed to avert and clear the three types of obstacles, conditions which prevent us from achieving our worldly and spiritual goals.

Pujas can be performed for various purposes:

For the dying: to help pacify their mind and decrease fear during the time of death.
For the deceased: to bless and guide their mind to a higher state of rebirth and liberation.
For sickness: to remove obstacles to mental and physical health.
For success in one’s activities: for removing obstacles to success in one’s activities, be they worldly or dharma.

The puja performed depends on the type of problem and the individual’s karma. Buddha taught us pujas for everything that we need in this life and also future lives. Buddha himself experienced and practiced many different rituals or pujas in his life.

Lama Chöpa Tsog: guru puja with offerings



In the Tantric Buddhism of Mahayana tradition, guru worship is a core practice. Without guru worship, it is impossible to achieve anything through all the various practices. The guru is a personified form of all the enlightened beings and he represents the complete blessings of Body, Speech and Mind, as well as the mission of the enlightened beings.

The guru is the closest point or the most accessible source of spiritual energy. For a common being, there is no better way then worshipping one's own guru in order to collect a great amount of merit and receive blessings from the enlightened beings. It is very important to recall the special emphasis put on guru worship in many great tantric treatises. In countless classical tantras, Vajradhara repeatedly stresses the importance of guru worship. This practice is also taught to be the highest form of worship in which common human beings can engage in this world.


Menla Puja: Medicine Buddha worship



Making offerings and prayers to the Bhagawan Medicine Buddha is called "encompassing all the Buddhas". This means that making the seven-fold offering to the Bhagawan Medicine Buddha is the same as the offerings made to countless Buddhas, bringing unconceivable amounts of merit, like the limitless space! The special mantra of Medicine Buddha quickly actualizes the prayers that these Buddhas have made in the past (to bring happiness to sentient beings by producing causes for enlightenment, pacify problems, fulfill good wishes and especially, to help those who are troubled by illness).

Medicine Buddha practice is extremely powerful and beneficial for the sick and dying, as well as those who have already passed away. It will help you bring profound and lasting benefits to others thanks to your chosen healing method.


Chittamani Tara Puja: Tara worship



There are many inner obstructions to our mental development and these manifest as external obstacles. To be successful in our Dharma practice and to actualize the path to Enlightenment, we need to rely on a special Buddha like Tara. Actions of the Buddha manifest in the form of Tara, to help sentient beings successfully accomplish both temporary and ultimate happiness.

By performing the practice of Tara, one can collect a great deal of merit, avoid suffering and lower rebirth, receive initiation from innumerable Buddhas and quickly attain Enlightenment. Tara's blessing is especially effective and appropriate for a person who has many virtuous missions to accomplish.


Monlam: Prayers for the deceased



In everyday life, we help living beings through charity and various acts of kindness. Similarly, we can help the deceased by performing specific pujas and proper dedications. Like living beings, dead ones also need help, especially while they are in a period of transition from this world to the other.

As soon as a person passes away from this world, he or she goes through various unfamiliar and mysterious stages on the way to the next world. Similarly to someone who requires guidance and help when he goes to a new place, the deceased also need a lot of assistance, the guidance of positive energy and the blessings of enlightened beings to be able to smoothly and peacefully cross the bridge to the other end.

In order to meet the requisite of helping the person who has departed, the Tibetans observe forty nine days of funeral rites for each deceased . During this period, the Assembly of Buddhas is invoked and worshipped. The merits accumulated from this practice are dedicated for the benefit of the particular deceased person and of all who have passed away.


Rabneh: Consecration and blessing



Throughout the consecration, we invoke the assembly of enlightened beings and worship them to the highest level of happiness and bliss. Then, we ask them to bless individuals, families, community, society, nations, natural resources or belongings (like statues, paintings, houses etc.).

At the end, the merit accumulated through the divine activities is dedicated to the benefactor as well as all sentient beings. It is followed by chants of auspiciousness and prosperity.


Kangso: Protector Puja



This world houses innumerable kinds of living beings, as well as all sorts of spirits. Invisible spirits has been living on Earth along with the mortals since time immemorial. Occasionally, unaware of the existence of a community of invisible spirits, people unintentionally disturb or harm them. Invisible spirits' reaction to such things can be disturbing, uncomfortable and dangerous, at times becoming so serious that the person affected may meet with sudden death. Unfortunately, the development of technology and medical science is incapable to protect our society from such events.

Thanks to its ancient origins, Tibet has acquired a profound understanding and experience of how to deal with such matters. For millennia, Tibetans relied on powerful protector (Dharmapala) to guard them against various harmful spirits. There are enlightened and unenlightened Protectors and also common and uncommon ones.

Some famous Buddhist protectors are Mahakala, Kalarupa, Kalidevi, Vaishravana, Mahayaksha, as well as our King Dorje Shugden.

Losang_Tenpa

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Re: Prayers/Pujas and its Blessings!
« Reply #1 on: July 22, 2012, 02:28:57 AM »
the above extracted from Zawa Rinpoche's website:
http://www.khenrab.org/prayers.htm

The website also has many nice photos.  :)

Dondrup Shugden

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Re: Prayers/Pujas and its Blessings!
« Reply #2 on: February 16, 2015, 06:22:45 AM »
The purpose of pujas and prayers and the different sets of pujas and prayers that we can conduct to evoke help from Divine sources.

Good to learn about them so that we can evoke the appropriate pujas when necessary.

eyesoftara

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Re: Prayers/Pujas and its Blessings!
« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2015, 06:42:13 AM »
There are deeper meanings of the Pujas apart from the outer meaning of offerings/propitiations. Inner meanings include the practice of the seven Limbs of, Prostrations, Offerings, Confessions, Rejoicing, Request to turn the Dharma Wheel, Request to stay and Dedications. There are secret meanings all well, which may be tantric like offering our ego and self cherishing mind and our bodies that cause pervasive sufferings life after life (meaning to offer up our samsara).
Finally, the pujas; whatever that is given by the Guru, must be done daily; with whichever of the above motivation to truly make progress in our path. It must be done with progress on the realizations of Lojong and the Lamrim, with Guru Devotion as the root of attainments.