My very dear one,
Here is how to make the Dzambhala practice most profitable, in order to bring success and wealth. First, generate a bodhicitta motivation to obtain wealth for what is needed for the gurus and for the Sangha, who preserve and spread the Dharma, and for sentient beings who are experiencing a poverty of Dharma and material poverty. Perform Dzambhala practice to obtain all those things immediately. The main thing is to meditate on this.
When you are pouring the water on the head of the Dzambhala statue and reciting the mantra, visualize that the essence of Dzambhala is the guru. Offer the water and think that you have generated enormous amounts of bliss, and that Dzambhala is extremely inspired to grant you all success and bring you all wealth, or whatever you wish, without delaying for even a second.
In order to achieve a result, it is important not just to perform Dzambhala practice. The main thing for success is to practice generosity, making offerings to the guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and practicing generosity and kindness toward sentient beings. That is the basic cause. There are so many opportunities offered to you in everyday life to create as much merit as possible.
If one is very stingy, and doesn’t practice much generosity, even if you perform the practice of Dzambhala, the wealth-giving Buddha, many times, it can take a long time for success to come. In daily life, practice whatever generosity you can, like when you meet beggars: just give whatever you can. It doesn’t only have to be beggars on the street, it can be anybody. When people come to your house, offer them food and drink, and so forth. Use that opportunity to practice Dharma by practicing charity. Especially make offerings to other students of your gurus, thinking they are the same as your gurus. This creates so much merit, much more than making offerings to the buddhas of the three times, to the Dharma, and Sangha, and to the numberless statues, scriptures, and thangkas that exist throughout other universes. You can do this in many different ways. Besides offering money, give where there is a great need for charity.
Reading the Diamond Cutter Sutra is also good. This collects a lot of merit, more merit than making offerings to buddhas and bodhisattvas.
It is also very powerful to collect extensive merits by making prostrations to Buddha. This collects a lot of merit, with each prostration, especially if you prostrate to all the Buddhas, statues, scriptures, and thangkas, because, as you know, if there is only one atom under your body as you prostrate, you create the merit to be born as a wheel-turning king for 1,000 lifetimes. To be born as a wheel-turning king, you need inconceivable merit. That’s why Buddha taught this in the Lankavatarasutra, to give an idea of how much merit is collected. Of course, the number of atoms your body covers when you do one prostration to Buddha includes the atoms in the carpet and under that, down to the bottom of the earth, so there is an immense number of atoms. You create so much merit, and so many causes to achieve enlightenment.
Another thing to bring quick success and extensive merit is to recite the long-life mantra of Buddha Amitayus. Reciting the mantra functions to bring long life not only for you, but also for the other people for whom you recite it. It also functions to purify negative karma and collect large amounts of merit. Printing the Heart Sutra, Diamond Cutter Sutra, or any teaching on the Perfection of Wisdom also collects merit. To write or print them, and to have them at home so you can make offerings to them is so powerful. It’s an incredible way to collect merit.
Another way is to rejoice. Each time you rejoice in your own past, present, and future merits, it doubles or triples them. You collect so much merit by rejoicing, or feeling happiness about other sentient beings’ merit.
If you rejoice in a sentient being’s merit, and the level of the person’s mind is lower than yours, you collect double the person’s merit. If the person’s level of mind is equal to yours, you collect the same amount of merit. If the person’s level of mind is higher than yours, then you collect half their merit. Since there are so many sentient beings, you can imagine how much merit you collect. You will want to practice rejoicing all day long, and night. If you rejoice in the merit generated by one bodhisattva in one day, you receive half of the merit. Because bodhisattvas have realized bodhicitta, they seek only the happiness of others, so whatever activity the bodhisattva does collects so much merit, every second. Can you imagine if you get half of a bodhisattva’s merit for one day? Now you can see how incredible it is. It is said by Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo that to get that kind of merit without rejoicing would take 13,000 years! You can see that this is a great thing to do, and is so easy to do. You can collect merit within seconds that would take 13,000 years. You don’t need to prepare anything, just your thoughts. You can do this while walking, jogging, eating, lying on the beach: any time. So, this is a really fantastic practice, if you want to have quick success, great wealth, realizations of the path, and benefit others, especially if you want to achieve enlightenment in order to liberate sentient beings from samsaric sufferings, and bring them to full enlightenment.
There are also the four powers mentioned in the lamrim, in order to collect extensive merit and good luck, which is the cause of success. Among these is the power of the attitude, the bodhicitta motivation, which collects a lot of merit. Whatever you are doing creates so much merit if you perform it with bodhicitta. For example, when you are going to perform something for the benefit of sentient beings, each step you take is for all sentient beings, so an infinite amount of merit is created with each step. Each mantra you chant collects so much merit. When you offer food to humans or spirits, with each act of giving, you collect vast amounts of merit.
With much love and prayers...
