Keeping Samaya and Making Offerings
April 4, 2025
Overview
Verse 18: Making offerings and why this is reasonable
Verse 19: Keeping samaya and to whom you should make offerings
Verse 20: What should be offered
Verse 21: Benefits of making offerings
His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa began by offering his greeting to all those listening to this Arya Kshema Spring Teaching. He also extended his greeting specifically to the nuns, members of the sangha, and the men and women all over the world listening over the internet.
Making offerings and why this is reasonable
The other day I spoke about the seventeenth stanza of the Fifty Verses on the Guru (Skt: Gurupañcāśikā). To correlate it with Lord Tsongkhapa’s outline, I am speaking about making offerings. In terms of subtopics, there are four:
Making offerings to purify disrespect
Offering everything you own
Why this is reasonable
How to continually keep the three samayas
Yesterday we spoke about the first two of these subtopics, which were the sixteenth and seventeenth stanzas. They correspond with a quote from Maitreya’s The Ornament of Mahayana Sutras (Skt: Mahāyāna-sūtrālamkāra-kārikā), which says:
Serve the spiritual friend with respect, gifts, service and practice.
This is related to serving the guru with gifts. To continue with the topic of making offerings according to the Fifty Verses of the Guru, I would like to speak about the third subtopic.
Why this is reasonable. Verse 18 says:
For they give in this very lifetime
To those who strive for buddhahood
That which is difficult to attain in even
Ten million uncountable eons. (18)
In the Sanskrit Commentary, The Textual Explanation of Following the Guru (Skt. Gurvārādhana-pañjikā), it says, “The reason this is taught is because it explains why we should be especially respectful of the guru.” Likewise, in Lord Tsongkhapa’s commentary Fulfilling All the Student’s Hopes: An Explanation of the Fifty Verses on the Guru (Tib. བླ་མ་ལྔ་བཅུ་པའི་རྣམ་བཤད་སློབ་མའི་རེ་བ་ཀུན་སྐོང།) he poses the question, “What is the reason you must please the guru by offering yourself as a servant and offering everything to them from your own body upwards?” This is the question which is answered in the eighteenth verse from the Fifty Verses on the Guru.
Explanation from the Sanskrit Commentary
The word “for” means “for what reason?”
“Difficult to attain” is stated because it is obtained through difficulty, hardship, and suffering.
How long of a time? “Ten million eons.” How is ten million eons calculated? His Holiness referred to the Sanskrit and Tibetan system of counting, on which the Western numeral system is now based. In this system place position gives the number its value. If you have a total of eight places, then 1 equal in first place equals ten million —10,000,000. One uncountable eon equates to 60 places. The Sanskrit verse is stating, “ten million uncountable eons.”
According to the Foundation tradition, it takes three uncountable eons to attain perfect buddhahood. There are many different discussions within the four vehicles of Buddhism that explain how long a great eon is. Perhaps in the future it will be beneficial to discuss how to calculate a great eon, but His Holiness said, there is not enough time today.
“Buddha” means someone whose nature is that of the three kayas. An individual who practices the Dharma with diligence and cultivates, or strives, continuously can achieve buddhahood in this lifetime; the guru will give them the state of buddhahood in this lifetime. Because of this, the guru is so very kind. In Lord Tsongkhapa’s commentary it says:
Because they bestow through Vajrayana the state of buddhahood, that is difficult to attain, and which is otherwise attained in ten million uncountable eons, one must please them in this way. To whom do they bestow buddhahood? They give it to supreme students whose diligence and effort blaze. If the student does not strive, they will not be awakened, and that is only the fault of the student. The supreme siddhi is bestowed, not to mention the common siddhis.
This stanza relates to giving the guru gifts or making offerings, however, in actuality, this stanza teaches the crux of why it is important to serve the guru through gifts, respect, and service. In brief, giving up everything from your own life to serve the guru.
The importance of the spiritual friend is not only taught in the Secret Mantra but is taught in the Mahayana as well. The reason it is taught in the Mahayana is because without them you will not know the methods for attaining buddhahood. However, in the Secret Mantra Vajrayana following the guru is considered even more important.
The sutras teach the various lengths of time that it will take to achieve buddhahood while following a spiritual friend:
• For bodhisattvas with sharp faculties it will take: three uncountable eons.
• For those with middling faculties it will take: seven uncountable eons.
• For those who have dull faculties, they will spend: 33 uncountable eons gathering merit and purifying obscurations. So, it takes an incredibly long time.
In the Secret Mantra perfect buddhahood can be achieved in either sixteen, sixty, or six lifetimes or even in this very lifetime. One’s ability to achieve it depends primarily upon the guru’s kindness and blessings. Therefore, within the Secret Mantra, the guru is especially kind.
There is some debate in the sutras about whether or not one can achieve buddhahood in one lifetime. But in general, the ability to achieve buddhahood in one body, in one lifetime, is said to be a particular quality of the unexcelled Mantra. As it is said in The Profound Inner Meaning (Tib. ཟབ་མོ་ནང་དོན།), by the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje:
Bodhisattvas may benefit all sentient beings in three uncountable eons,
By the distinction of means, instead of the path of the transcendences.
By knowing the methods of kriyā and caryā, the supreme siddhi is attained in
Only sixteen human lifetimes. And through the unexcelled Mantra, the diligent
Can certainly attain it in one single lifetime.
What do we mean by a human lifetime? We could consider this as one hundred years.
As the verse states, if one is extremely diligent, buddhahood can be achieved in one lifetime in the path of the unexcelled Mantra. Or even in three years, three lunar phases and three days. From one perspective, whether or not one is able to achieve buddhahood that quickly or not, depends upon one’s degree of prajñā and diligence. But primarily, within Secret Mantra, there are the superior skillful methods and the guru who teaches them.
Firstly, being able to enter into the path of the Secret Mantra depends upon the kindness of an authentic guru. Receiving the empowerments which ripen and the instructions which liberate, are also due to the guru’s kindness. Practicing properly, your qualities of realization increase. One is not overpowered by maras and obstacles. All of this depends, primarily, upon whether you have received the blessings of the guru or not. Whether you have supplicated the guru or not. In the very end when you awaken, with the ability to recognize the nature of your mind, and attain buddhahood, it is because of the guru. Thus, the guru is extremely important.
Within the biographies of many different masters, as their experience and realization begin to increase, even a little bit, their faith in the guru grows even stronger. Those disciples sing songs to remember the guru’s kindness and they sing them over and over again.
When we think about this lifetime, we have our parents who give us life and this body, and we consider them to be extremely kind. Likewise, when we receive a secular education, which we consider to be important, our teachers are very kind. In terms of other close personal relationships, no matter how much love they give one another in this lifetime, it benefits this lifetime alone. Relationships, such as lovers or husband and wife, if things don’t work out, it is quite possible that it will end up being more harmful then beneficial. However, if we have an authentic guru, in this very lifetime, we can completely exhaust all our suffering and be brought to the unexcelled happiness of buddhahood. In this world, there is no other kindness that is more amazing and greater than that of the guru.
Contemplating these reasons, we can realize The Fifty Verses on the Guru teaches us how to follow the guru in a way which truly accords with the nature of things. It will bring us great benefit in this and future lifetimes. If we do not have enough prajñā or diligence to achieve buddhahood in this lifetime, we should understand that the moment we have entered into the path of Secret Mantra Vajrayana, we can supplicate the guru. If we do this and are able to keep our vows, there is still a hope that we can achieve buddhahood within a few lifetimes. Therefore, it is crucial, and of absolute importance, that we do our very best to properly follow the guru and keep our samaya. His Holiness stressed that it is extremely important that we gather all of our energy and follow the guru properly.
The following three verses relate primarily to serving the guru with gifts:
Always keep your samaya
Always offer to the tathāgatas
And always offer to the guru;
They are the same as all of the buddhas. (19)
Those who want what cannot be exhausted,
Offer to the guru
Anything that is desirable
Or even the most superior. (20)
To give to them is to perpetually
Give to all buddhas.
By giving to them, one gathers merit.
The supreme siddhi, supreme awakening
Comes from the accumulations. (21)
Keeping Samaya According to the Sanskrit Commentary and Lord Tsongkhapa’s Interpretation
• The Sanskrit Commentary’s Interpretation of the 19th stanza:
Always keep your samaya
Always offer to the tathāgatas
And always offer to the guru;
They are the same as all of the buddhas. (19)
His Holiness the Gyalwang Karmapa begins the explanation of each of the three verses by giving a gloss of the text:
“Always keep your samaya.”
“Always” means at all times you must continuously practice and keep your samaya.
“Tathāgatas” refers to buddhas and is defined in two ways. The first is that they have gone to suchness and come from there. Alternately, they become the cause of beings’ benefit. Every day we should give various offerings to the buddhas/ tathāgatas.
“Always offer to the gurus” means at all times and the guru is the master to whom you need to make the offering to. One needs to prostrate and offer him gifts.
Why must one offer to the guru if there are buddhas and bodhisattvas? Isn’t offering to the tathāgata enough? Because the Guru is “the same as the buddhas”.
“They” refers to the guru and they are equal to, or the same as, all the buddhas.
• Lord Tsongkhapa’s interpretation of the 19th stanza:
“Always keep your samaya” refers to the body, speech and mind of the special deity.
“Always” means that we must continuously remain within the inexhaustible virtue; always keeping your vows.
The Seventh Karmapa Chödrak Gyatso said, “Always keep your samaya” means that you need to keep the samaya of body, speech and mind. What is meant by body, speech and mind? A passage in Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Thaye’s Treasury of Knowledge (Tib. ཤེས་བྱ་ཀུན་ཁྱབ་མཛོད།) speaks about the Mantra vows of the awareness holders and it says:
Because all sentient beings are by nature the vajra body, speech and mind.
Whether male or female, never scorn them, this is the samaya of vajra body.
Never distress or harm sentient beings, this is the samaya of vajra mind.
When speaking always do so in a pleasant way that isn’t harmful to their ears,
this is the samaya of vajra speech.
Many other tantras including The Ornament of Vajra Essence Tantra (Skt. Vajra-hṛdayālaṃkāra-tantra) are unanimous in this instruction. The Ornament of Vajra Essence is one of the most important sources for The Fifty Verses on the Guru.
The way to understand what is meant by, “always keep your samaya”, as it is taught in The Treasury of Knowledge, refers to the samaya of body, speech and mind. This teaches about how important it is to follow the guru, and just as following the guru is important, keeping samaya is also important. The reason is because they depend upon each other. The basis of the samaya in Secret Mantra is the guru. If you don’t keep samaya then there is no way you will be able to provide the guru with service.
The second line of the verse says, “Always offer to the tathāgata”. This could be understood as always offering mandalas to Vajrasattva and so forth. Normally, when we say Vajrasattva we think of the well-known deity who purifies misdeeds and obscurations. This way of thinking about the deity is fine, but another way to understand this is that Vajrasattva doesn’t mean a particular deity, instead, in terms of the unexcelled Secret Mantra, Vajrasattva can refer to the level of Vajradhara. When practicing Secret Mantra, you need to continuously invite the deities of the mandala as a field of merit and make offerings to them. Alternately, you can go through the stages of the rite of the ground, the preparation, the actual practice and so forth to perform the mandala ritual. When an extensive or grand puja is performed, the offerings and visualizations are done as elaborately as possible. Some people may get bored doing this or feel they don’t have enough time to recite such long texts, but actually, the more that is offered and the longer the praises, the greater the accumulation of merit. Many lamas have given such explanations of the creation phase.
Likewise, it is during the mandala rituals that you do the self-entry visualization and this is extremely important, one can effectively repair the breakages of samaya.
His Holiness tells a story to emphasize this point: There was a lama of the Phakdru Kagyu tradition named Sonam Gyaltsen. In his notes he wrote that in the tradition of Luipa Cakrasaṃvara, he performed the self-entry 230 times. He did the self-entry of the Kṛṣṇapāda tradition of Cakrasaṃvara 180 times, and the self-entry of the Ghaṇṭapāda tradition 350 times. This is one example. In Tibet, there are many lamas and monks who have done countless pujas and mandala rituals, performing the self-entry many, many times. The monasteries of all the traditions often hold grand pujas which include these ritual practices. It’s not simply to spend the whole day reciting, there is an important reason for doing it.
• The Sanskrit Commentary’s Interpretation of the 20th stanza:
Those who want what cannot be exhausted,
Offer to the guru
Anything that is desirable
Or even the most superior. (20)
According to the interpretation from the Sanskrit commentary, the second stanza is taught in order to instill enthusiasm for offering to the guru.
“Anything that is desirable”. There are the Sanskrit words ’yad yad’ which refers to ‘anything that’ is desirable such as wealth, grain and so forth. “Anything” means anything and everything. “desirable” is something that is pleasing or attractive. What is attractive to the student and what is attractive to the guru are not necessarily the same. It needs to be something that the guru desires. When making an offering it is important to think about this.
“Most superior” means an offering that is excellent or extremely important, the very finest of things.
“Those who want what cannot be exhausted”, refers to that which is most superior and cannot be exhausted; it is infinite. “Those who want” are those who seek and wish to please the guru. Whatever they offer to the guru will increase without ever being exhausted in this and in future lifetimes. The resulting virtue from doing this will also be inexhaustible.
• Lord Tsongkhapa’s interpretation of the 20th stanza:
What cannot be exhausted itself means, the state that once attained will never be exhausted as long as space endures; the dharmakaya. The student who desires that should give any offerings which they find most desirable and superior. Offering them to the guru, the guru should then accept the offerings in order to counteract the student’s craving.
The first chapter of the second book of the Saṃpuṭa-tantra states:
With a mind free of any hope, offer anything that is dear to the guru. This will counteract the student’s fixation. Accept it with the wish to benefit them.
• The Sanskrit Commentary’s Interpretation of the 21st stanza:
To give to them is to perpetually
Give to all buddhas.
By giving to them, one gathers merit.
The supreme siddhi, supreme awakening
Comes from the accumulations. (21)
“To give to them” teaches why it is inexhaustible. Why is it inexhaustible with the merit continuing to increase? The reason is because giving to the gurus is the same as giving to all of the buddhas and tathāgatas. One may ask, well aren’t the gurus and buddhas different? How can giving offerings to the guru be giving offerings to all of the buddhas? Actually, the gurus and buddhas are indivisible. They are indivisible in essence, they have different forms but, in actuality, there is no difference between them.
By giving such an offering to the guru, something most superior, one gains merit. Of the two accumulations: merit and wisdom, this is pertaining to the accumulation of merit. When you gather the two accumulations you attain siddhi. Of the two siddhis there are the inferior/ordinary and the supreme. The supreme siddhi is the siddhi of mahamudra; of completely awakening to Buddhahood.
• Lord Tsongkhapa’s interpretation:
The benefit of making offerings to the gurus, which is the same as making offerings to the buddhas, one will gather the accumulation of merit. Due to gathering great accumulations of merit, one will achieve the supreme among siddhis, Buddhahood. So, what need is there to mention the other siddhis? Thus, the guru is the supreme field for gathering the accumulations of merit and wisdom.
According to the Five Stages: The Stage of Blessing Oneself
Abandon all offerings
And begin to offer properly to the guru.
By pleasing them, you will achieve
Supreme omniscient wisdom.
This verse is saying that you don’t need to offer to anyone else, offering to the guru is the best way to make offerings; the most supreme, excellent offering.
From the stanza, “Therefore you should put all of your efforts…” from verse fifteen to, “Comes from the accumulations”, these stanzas, aside from the sixth, the rest of them are all found in the first two parts of the Supreme Glorious Primordial Tantra (Skt. Śrī-paramādi-tantra). For example, there are seven stanzas in The Fifty Verses on the Guru and among those seven stanzas, except for the sixth, all are taught in the Supreme Glorious Tantra. The first and fifth stanzas from The Fifty Verses on the Guru are also found in the Vajra Tent Tantra (Skt. Vajra-pañjara-tantra).
Summary and Conclusion
To summarize all of this concisely, whether we’re talking about your material wealth and what you cherish most, or whether offering something that pleases the guru, whatever it is, you should offer them all the guru. So, we have been speaking about serving the guru through gifts. In general, in our lifetime, if we wish to benefit others, there are many different ways that we can do so. The easiest and also the most important among these ways is by being generous. By giving material wealth, Dharma, or safety, all of these are examples of generosity.
Chandrakirti taught in Entering the Middle Way (Skt. Madhyamakāvatāra):
All beings desire happiness and human happiness does not exist without enjoyments. Knowing that enjoyments are obtained by those who are giving, the Buddha first taught about generosity.
Now, what most pleases an authentic guru, one who possesses all of the characteristics, is not being offered material things. What pleases them the most is when the student practices the Dharma. In terms of the student, while there are many ways to serve the guru, the most important way is to practice the instructions as the guru has taught them. In terms of pleasing the guru, accumulating merit, recalling the guru’s kindness, expressing gratitude and making offerings are among the different ways to please them. The last of these, making offerings, is a sign of your gratitude.
This is something that we speak about quite a bit, however, it may seem like a way for the gurus to accumulate wealth and to enjoy themselves. To live in such a way seems to contradict the Buddha’s teaching on needing little and being satisfied with what you have and avoiding the extremes of indulgence. Moreover, what’s even worse is when the gurus live in luxury and the disciples live in poverty. This just doesn’t look good. People may criticize this and we all know this is so.
When offering to lamas and tulkus, it is important to make doing so meaningful. In terms of the sponsors, they should be making the offerings to accomplish the accumulation of merit in order to benefit sentient beings. At the very least, it should never be a cause for harming themselves or others.
When it says in The Fifty Verses of the Guru that we need to make great offerings to the gurus, this is referring only to a guru who has all of the characteristics. Someone who doesn’t have any greed or attachment to wealth or possessions. Such a guru will only think, “How can I benefit the disciple? How can I benefit others?” They need to be someone who is only engaged in meditation practice. So, for such a guru, no matter how many offerings they receive they will use them in accordance with the Dharma; making materials and wealth meaningful. This is, “extracting the essence from material wealth”, as mentioned in the biography of Drikungpa Jigten Sumgön titled, The Lhorong Religious History (Tib. ལྷོ་རོང་ཆོས་བྱུང་།):
He never had anything but his three dharma robes and his alms bowl. He had no attachment or fixation to material things. He would use the auspicious connections of all things offered to him. He would accept them and not allow them to go to waste. He ensured they were never used improperly and encouraged others to do the same.
For this reason, no matter what kind of offering that you give to a guru with all of the characteristics, it is more meaningful than keeping it for yourself. This helps to counteract attachment. Normally you have your most treasured possessions that you couldn’t possibly give to anyone else, but when you meet an important guru and you feel great faith in them, by offering that possession to the guru, it is beneficial in helping you give up your attachment and fixation. From another perspective, if you give such an offering to an authentic guru, who has great prajñā, the instant that it comes into their hands there is nothing more meaningful because they can use it in ways that are beneficial.
When a guru and disciple with all the right qualifications come together, then you should serve that guru as it is taught in The Fifty Verses of the Guru: through gifts, service, paying respect and practice. But if the guru spends all their time living in comfort, doesn’t practice, doesn’t keep their discipline, or their samaya, or if they always make their students work and indulge in attachment and aversion, then there is no way that this fulfills the proper characteristics of the guru/disciple relationship as it is taught in Buddhism. Such relationships should be abandoned like poison and the hell realms, as stated in Ultimate Service (Tib. དོན་དམ་བསྙེན་པ།) composed by Rigden Pema Karpo. Many other tantric and Indian texts also stress this.
Likewise, within Je Tsongkhapa’s Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path (Tib. ལམ་རིམ་ཆེན་མོ།), when speaking of the three ways to please the guru, it explains that we have to make material offerings. Geshe Logshorwsa said, “If you have nice things that you could offer, but you offer the guru inferior things, this violates samaya. However, if you only have inferior things to offer, then the guru will be pleased with it.” From the student’s perspective, in order to gather the accumulations, they need to offer what they can and as often as possible. From the guru’s perspective, they must not have any attachment or craving for it.
As Geshe Sharawa said about this, “A guru who is pleased by practice does not concern themselves about material offerings. The opposite cannot be a guru who guides you to liberation.” An authentic guru is happiest when you practice the Dharma properly, not someone who likes offerings and things.
To further explain how proper gurus and students should exchange offerings, the Eighth Karmapa Mikyö Dorje stated in his Hundred Short Instructions (Tib: ཁྲིད་ཐུང་བརྒྱ་རྩ།):
Once the Kagyu Masters of the past began to follow a guru, they would not hold onto their possessions as being ‘mine”, instead, they would give them to the guru. They knew that these things, which they considered precious, came to them primarily because of the guru. Therefore, whatever they acquired was given back to the guru. They had a firm commitment to doing this within their hearts. If their guru was not physically present, they would make the offering during the anniversary of the guru’s passing away or take them to the guru’s monastery. Even before drinking a glass of water or if they had one myrobalan, or before eating even the tiniest piece of fruit, they would first place it facing the guru.
In brief, even if you do not have an attachment to things, for the sake of the gurus, and even if you only have a little spoon to eat with, or the counter on your mala, you should offer it to the guru. We have a tradition of making an offering even if you are drinking a cup of tea and the reason for this is because we have the tea due to the kindness of the Guru and the Three Jewels. We give the offering to the guru, there are the blessings from that, then having made this connection, we drink the tea ourselves. This is very beneficial for us in terms of purifying the obscurations of offerings. Every time you eat or drink, make an offering instead of thinking, this is all for me.
In the biographies of many lamas it is said, whatever offerings we give the guru, it should be given in person if they are there. If they are not there, then we make offerings for the sake of fulfilling the guru’s intentions. For example, when the First Lord of Dharma, Dusum Khyenpa met Gampopa he did not have much to give because he was only a poor mendicant. He only had a flower and ten katas. However, later when he went to Kham, his activities flourished and because of that, many people gave him offerings. Some of these he sent to Daklha Gampo Monastery before he left again for central Tibet. When he was much older, in his seventies, Dusum Khyenpa then returned to central Tibet. One reason he did this was to bring some of the offerings that he received to offer at his guru’s monastic seat.
The second time that Dusum Khyenpa went from Kham to Daklha Gampo, although Lord Gampopa had passed away, he offered one hundred volumes of texts written in gold, one hundred dzo [a hybrid from yak and domestic cattle], one hundred large horses, a large turquoise and so forth.
On his own part, Dusum Khyenpa didn’t have any attachment to material things. He passed away on the third day of the Tiger month in the year of the Ox. Two days prior to his passing, on the first day of Tiger month, he gathered five of his most significant disciples including Geshe Tsang Sowa and gave them his last testament. He said that the only things he possessed were his robe and a small hand mill for grinding barely flour for tsampa; probably given to him by Gampopa. Everything else belonged to the sangha. He told them:
You five should take ownership of these twenty-five gold srang, the silver, turquoise, silk brocade, dzo, horses, and cooking utensils. You should distribute the barley to the monks. Stay here for a year or two after I am gone.
His disciple Pön Drang Seng asked him, “How many people will stay? Will people come to a remote place like this?” When asked this, Dusum Khyenpa sat up straight and opened his eyes wide and said, “Can’t you stay for a least one or two years?” Now, during this time Tsurphu was in an extremely remote location, one of the most remote places in Tibet, and it was difficult for people to come and to stay there.
Likewise, there was Taklung Thangpa Tashi Pal, who was the son of a wealthy family. When he first met Phagmo Drupa Dorje he had gold and other things to offer. Later he established the Taklung Monastery, and his activities flourished with many people coming to give him offerings. He had great offerings that he gave to Phagmo Drupa such as one hundred srangs of gold that he offered as butter lamps. At the time of his death he said that all of his belongings should be dedicated to Phagmo Drupa Monastery. But his students asked that he keep a little so that he could fulfill his intentions, otherwise, it was all sent to the monastery.
There are many such stories; of Dusum Khyenpa, Drikungpa, Taklungpa etc. They were gurus but from another perspective, they were also disciples. In terms of being a guru they were authentic gurus, in terms of being disciples, they were authentic disciples.