Prayers and Practices to support The Sanctuary Project
The Sanctuary Project breathes new life into the Old Courthouse.
With 3 phases designed to support each of our values and aspirations, the carefully-considered architectural interventions, design updates and curated spaces join the heritage of our Victorian building with the modern needs of our growing community.
Verses for the 8 Auspicious Noble Ones
The Verses for the Eight Auspicious Noble Ones is one of Jamgön Ju Mipham’s most well-known compositions and is recited daily by practitioners from a variety of different traditions. The verses are directly based on the Mangalaștaka Sutra. In these verses one pays homage to the Three Jewels, eight sugatas, the eight great bodhisattvas, the eight offering goddesses, and the eight worldly guardians.
The text invokes the auspiciousness of all these figures, and as mentioned by Mipham at the end of the text, its recitation, if done daily or especially before commencing new activities or projects, has inconceivable benefits. It removes obstacles, creates favorable circumstances and allows one to accomplish all of one’s desires
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has recommended reciting this prayer every morning for “the success of the center and your own success, the success of FPMT, and the holy wishes of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.” Geshe Namdak has included this text in the Daily Prayers for Jamyang, for the success of The Sanctuary Project.
The Celestial Mansion Mantra
Lama Zopa Rinpoche said:
“It is especially good to recite this mantra before going to see important people or participating in important meetings where you want the people present at the meeting to listen to you and do what you say. This mantra also can help for success in business and it brings wealth.
This mantra is much more valuable than the sky filled with diamonds, gold, and wish-fulfilling jewels. This mantra has benefits like the sky to remove obstacles and to bring success. It is good to frame this mantra and put it in your home in a place where it can be seen. Just seeing this mantra directs your mind irreversibly to enlightenment. Reciting this mantra purifies the ten nonvirtuous actions and the five heavy uninterrupted negative karmas. It prevents you from being reborn in the three lower realms. Hearing, touching, and keeping the mantra has the same benefits. Just remembering the mantra becomes an offering to all the buddhas.”
This mantra is Buddha’s skillful means to guide sentient beings to enlightenment and to solve their problems. The ultimate benefit is that it reveals the entire path to enlightenment.
Geshe Namdak has included The Celestial Mansion Mantra in the daily prayers at Jamyang for The Sanctuary Project.
Dedication of Merit
At the end of a practice session or at the end of the day we can dedicate that all the resources, inner and outer, may manifest for these projects to be actualised, especially The Sanctuary Project with its vast vision. By doing so, may Jamyang’s capacity to thrive as a study and practice community supporting realisations continue to be expand, becoming an ever-brighter beacon and refuge for all in a time of degeneration. Thus may we always fulfill the wishes of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche exactly in the way that they would wish.
Rejoice!
Our students, community, staff and volunteers all play a part in life at Jamyang and all its activities – in this we should rejoice, rejoice everyday!
As Lama Zopa says:
“Among the virtues, rejoicing is the best, because it is the easiest one to practice. It simply involves our mind thinking, and the merit we accumulate is infinite. If we rejoice in our own merit, we accumulate more merit than we actually accumulated by doing the virtuous action. When we rejoice in the merit of other sentient beings, if their level of mind is lower than ours, we accumulate more merit than they accumulated; but if their level of mind is higher than ours, we get half or a quarter of that merit. If we rejoice in the merit one bodhisattva accumulates in one day, we accumulate half or a quarter of that merit. If we were going to accumulate the merit that one bodhisattva accumulates in one day, it would take us 15,000 years without rejoicing, but by rejoicing we can accumulate in a few seconds the merit that would otherwise have taken us 15,000 years.”
“The purpose of life is to benefit others as much as possible.”
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche