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Mandala

• When a bee comes near us, we protect the body. It is the same thing with a king trying to protect his country. That is why we offer mandala. This offering diminishes our self-grasping.
• We offer mandala to accumulate merit, because view cannot arise without merit.
• Everything we have belongs to the Three Jewels. How do we go about using possessions in daily life? Think of them as siddhis [gifts] from the Triple Gem. This is not just make believe. It is really so.
• We use material as support. What we offer is a mentally created mandala. We offer to the Guru and Three Jewels. We offer again and again, increase our faith and devotion. We offer over and over again to make habit, overcome our sense of possessing.
• Practice liberating grasping and craving, over and over again.
• When we offer seven-heaps, we do full visualization.
• Visualize rays of light shine from every atom in the world to arise countless realms. We offer this to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. In one moment, we can accumulate boundless merit.
• We can make limitless offerings without stinginess or pride. We can make offerings unstained by karma.
• When we offer mandala, we are deity.
• Whatever you offer, with proper visualization you can make it into a mandala offering.
• Offer body, speech and mind and the whole universe in the form of Mount Meru, the four continents, and so forth.
• Request to accept the offering. Request buddhas and bodhisattvas to purify obscurations and habits.
• Offer everything important. Offer whatever is most dear. Train to get rid of attachment.
• Again and again, let go of self-grasping – family, friends, possessions.
• Offer body, wealth and virtuous deeds of past, present, future, and multiply them.
• Offer everything that is visible.
• Offer thoughts: renunciation thought, enlightenment thought.
• Offer the whole universe.
• Offer object of attachment.
• Praise and devotion are offerings.
• When you become free of afflictive emotions, that is mandala offering.
• Offer your practice of the six perfections.
• Offer virtuous deeds of the past, present, future - manifested as objects of offering.
• Outer offerings: Objects of the five senses.
• Suchness offering: Nondual clarity and emptiness. Subject and object are not separate – they are manifestation of the mind.