Becoming Compassion Buddha

by Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi

What benefit will you get by practising Compassion Buddha? Compassion Buddha cherished sentient beings more than himself. By practising that, he became fully enlightened and dedicated his whole life for all sentient beings. Whenever you pray to Compassion Buddha, pray that Compassion Buddha will help us all the time, because he totally dedicated his whole life for us. By making strong prayers, we are able to receive all his blessings.

Here is a very simple practice for us. First, meditate on Compassion Buddha in front of you for a few minutes, as clear as possible. You have to try to get as clear a picture of Compassion Buddha as you can in your mind. Everyday if possible, for two, three or five minutes, try to get as clear a picture as you can. This is extremely important, to meditate like that every day, two or three minutes of meditation, and to continue like that all your life. This is very, very, helpful. Whenever you have a difficult time, problems, if you are able to remember Compassion Buddha immediately, especially at the time of death, you will have good rebirth in your next life. Also, you will be able to go to Compassion Buddha’s pure land.

Even how busy life is, if you believe in Compassion Buddha, at least spend two to three minutes, give yourself time to meditate on Compassion Buddha. Then put your palms together to Compassion Buddha and make a strong prayer: “How wonderful Compassion Buddha is. May I become like him to be able to benefit n u m b e r l e s s sentient beings.” M o t i v a t e yourself like that.

The first practice we can do is prostrate to Compassion Buddha. With Compassion Buddha in mind, we make three prostrations. First when you prostrate, put your palms together and touch to your forehead. Think of the qualities of Compassion Buddha’s body and also bring to mind all the negative karma you have accumulated with your body. Then visualise that nectar comes from Compassion Buddha and enters oneself and purifies all the negative karma you have accumulated with the body.

Also as you put your palms together at your forehead, think from your heart: “Today, I am not going to engage in negative actions of the body such as killing, stealing and sexual misconduct. I will not engage in these three negative actions today.” Think like that from your heart.

By avoiding the three non-virtues of the body, think that by this, “May I achieve Compassion Buddha’s body.” It is as simple as that, putting your palms together at your forehead, think: “I will not harm sentient beings’ bodies.”

Second, put your palms together at your throat and remember the qualities of Compassion Buddha’s speech. Then nectar comes from Compassion Buddha, enters oneself and purifies all the negative karma of your speech. Think that those four negative karmas accumulated with one’s speech are totally purified. At the same time, think: “I am not going to harm sentient beings through my speech.” You can also think: “By avoiding, abandoning these four negative karmas accumulated with speech, may I achieve the perfect speech of Compassion Buddha.” It is very simple. You can think: “Today I am not going to harm sentient beings by my speech.” If possible you can think that throughout this life, you are not going to harm sentient beings by your speech.

Third, put your palms together at your heart. At that time, think of the qualities of Compassion Buddha’s mind. Nectar comes from Compassion Buddha, enters yourself, then all the negative karma from your mind are totally purified. Think that those three negative karmas accumulated with the mind are totally purified: “By abandoning these three negative actions of the mind, may I achieve the qualities of Compassion Buddha’s mind.”

Think: “Today, I am not going to have negative thoughts. I am not going to generate negative thoughts to other sentient beings. I am not going to harm other sentient beings today with my mind.” If possible, think for your whole life: “I am not going to harm sentient beings. I am not going to develop negative thoughts.”

After that, put your knees, hands and forehead on the ground and bow down to Compassion Buddha. You can think: “I am offering myself to Compassion Buddha with respect.” Bow down to Compassion Buddha and think from your heart that you are offering yourself totally to Compassion Buddha. This is an extremely helpful prostration. If you do one prostration like that, your day becomes meaningful. When you offer yourself to Compassion Buddha, what does it mean? It means to follow Compassion Buddha.

What does Compassion Buddha do? His speech, his mind, his body, never harms any sentient being. He wishes all the time, even with his body, speech and mind, to always help sentient beings. He never harms sentient beings. So when you offer yourself to Compassion Buddha, it means you motivate yourself to not harm living beings with your body, speech and mind for that particular day. If you live your life like that day by day, not harming other sentient beings, then your life becomes meaningful. Your life becomes exactly like Compassion Buddha. There is no difference.

The logic is that if you don’t harm other sentient beings with your body and speech, you won’t have problems and you won’t get sick. You won’t have physical difficulties if you avoid harming sentient beings with your body and speech. If you don’t harm other sentient beings with your mind or you don’t have negative thoughts towards other sentient beings, then you won’t have mental problems. Your mind will be extremely happy all the time. You won’t have these mental difficulties. All the problems we have in life — sickness, ageing and death — all come from harming other sentient beings. If we avoid harming sentient beings daily, in the next life we won’t experience, we won’t have sickness, ageing and death. We won’t have all these difficulties and problems.

If you make one prostration, if you make one good prostration, you can change your whole life. The benefit of thinking of Compassion Buddha, his qualities of body, speech and mind, and trying to live your life by not harming other sentient beings with body, speech and mind, if you live like that day by day, your life becomes extremely meaningful. If you live like that, not harming others, then you are happy in this life. Not only this life but life to life, you will be so happy. So the practice of Compassion Buddha is to live for others. That is the whole idea. Living your life for others.

If you live your life like that, then anytime when you die, there is no need to worry about your rebirth. Definitely, you will have a good rebirth, to take rebirth in Compassion Buddha’s pure land. If you live your life like this, it is guaranteed. You don’t need to worry. Anytime you die, you die with a happy mind. If you live like that, of course you receive everything. Whatever you need, you will receive. If you live your life for others, then you will receive everything that you need.

On top of that, we can do offering practice. You can make any type of offerings — lights, flowers, water, incense — whatever you can, make offerings, thinking of Compassion Buddha.

The technique is, you can make one tiny light offering, but mentally you can think of numberless lights, like the whole universe is covered with lights. You can visualise numberless lights, then offer. If you think this way, you can accumulate so much merit. Just by making a tiny light offering, you accumulate numberless merits.

You can think that by making this offering: “May I quickly become like Compassion Buddha.” At the same time, in your heart, always think: “When I become Compassion Buddha, I will not harm sentient beings.” In your daily life always be reminded to make that kind of dedication. Remind yourself: “I will not harm other sentient beings because I want to become like Compassion Buddha.”

After that if it is possible, you can recite the mantra of Compassion Buddha. There is the six-syllable mantra of Compassion Buddha: OM MANI PADME HUM. Just to give a simple idea, OM symbolises body, speech and mind. MANI symbolises method, for example, loving kindness or compassion. PADME symbolises wisdom. HUM is the combination of wisdom and method. When these two are combined you are able to transform your body, speech and mind into Compassion Buddha’s body, speech and mind.

When you recite the six-syllable mantra of Compassion Buddha, you have the power to purify the negative karma of rebirths in the six realms. This mantra has the power to develop, to generate the Six Perfections in one’s mind.

The point is, when you recite the Compassion Buddha mantra, it means to remember compassion all the time. When you recite the mantra, remember compassion and also, remind yourself not to harm others. This is extremely important. With this thought you recite the Compassion Buddha mantra 108 times, or in one day maybe 1,000 or 10,000 times, as many as possible and remind yourself to be compassionate. Definitely with your thought and the power of the mantra, you become more compassionate.

If you become more compassionate, what happens is you reduce your problems. Immediately, you reduce your problems, have less problems, and you become a happier person. You become happy. From life to life, you have a very, very happy life. Then you become like Compassion Buddha.