Prayer that Nullifies Karma

1) Prayer is what Nullifies Karma

Prayer, as one of the more important ways of practice, has a very mysterious and subtle substance.
The powers of sentient beings are limited, and their sins are heavy, and with only a light connection to the rewards of virtue, all things are not as they want them to be.
Not only that, they are chased by all kinds of disasters and calamites.
They carry these hardships, obstacles and calamities, from the day that they are born, and they are all due to the karma of their past lives.

Through prayer we are empowered by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
And by that empowerment the karma we were born with is nullified, and we attain the rewards of virtue, and so we are able to accomplish the work that will let us get rid of all hardships, obstacles and calamities and attain the way of salvation as we please.
In other words, prayer is precisely that by which we will be empowered by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas by devoting ourselves to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and by bowing deeply to them, making offerings to them, repenting and making wishes.

Along with prayer, thinking of the Buddha and the power of incantations also nullify our sins, and it is that by which we attain wisdom and the rewards of virtue, but prayer, moreover, is the way to having our sins nullified and attaining the rewards of virtue directly through the empowerment of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
The compassion of the Buddha permeates the universe.
However, we do not know how we can receive that compassion.
The Buddha functions as the recipient of compassion.
If we think of the Buddha or pray with all our hearts, the dark clouds that are accumulated in the hearts of sentient beings will be removed and the light of wisdom, which is just like that of the sun, will shine forth brilliantly.

2) How to Pray

Observing the following five rituals in praying is a custom that has been passed down from ancient times.

A: Devoting oneself wholeheartedly to a Buddha or Bodhisattva is the first procedure.
We devote ourselves to a single Buddha or Bodhisattva or many Buddhas or Bodhisattvas wholeheartedly.

B: The second thing is making offerings.
Making material offerings is where we burn good incense, light candles, offer pure water or tea, and offer such things as flowers, fruit and uncooked rice to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
However, according to the situation, it does not matter whether we offer incense, candles and tea alone, or only offer up a single stick of incense.

C: Third is bowing deeply.
We bow deeply, with utmost sincerity, to a single Buddha or Bodhisattva or many Buddhas or Boddhisattvas.
We should offer three, 108 or 1000 deep bows to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

D: The fourth thing is repenting.
Among the repentance rituals there is the Vairocana method, the Amitabha method, the Avalokiteshavara method, the Samantabhadra method and the Kshitigarbha method of repentance.
However, these days there are many situations where the methods of repentance are not used in the prayer halls.
Repentance is the most fundamental way to sincerely nullify our karma and attain the rewards of virtue.
It is also good to practice these repentance methods independently of prayer.

E: The fifth thing is calling the name of the Buddha.
We call the name of a single Buddha or Bodhisattva or the names of many Buddhas or Bodhisattvas diligently and with the utmost sincerity.

http://junggaksa.com/xe/board6/11660

Understanding the Kshitigarbha Faith

The buddhist teachings are really extensive and so they form a truly great ocean of teachings. However, while all these teachings comprise an orderly ideological outline, they were explained according one’s ability to accept them, and fitting to one’s patience. For example, the teaching of cause and effect is a teachinh that lets one see the self of the past, present and future. Moreover, the Prajna ideology is a teaching that gives one the wisdom to be able to live with the truth, while the Saddharmapundarika and the Avatamsaka ideologies are teachings that guide us so that we can live as bodhisattvas and buddhas ourselves.

That which is most fundamental among these diverse buddhist ideologies and teachings, is the ideology of cause and effect, and that of karma and samsara. The Buddha did not accept as buddhist disciples those who did not believe in cause and effect or samsara in past lives either. Considering this alone, one can see that the teaching of cause and effect is the basic ideology of Buddhism. ”Cause and effect” means that the law of cause and effect forms a chain of innumerable causes and effects and controls our lives. So within Buddhism it is said that if one wants to know the self of the past, one has to look at the present self, and if onw wants to know the self of the future, one has to look at the deeds that the present self is doing. That is to say, that ”cause and effect” is a teaching that signifies that ones life and destiny is determined depending the deeds that one has done. So ”cause and effect” is the teaching that one is precisely able to guess the future by looking at the past and knowing the present. So Buddhism begins with the realization of cause and effect.

If this is true, then what is the power that puts the law of cause and effect in motion? It is precisely karma. ”Karma” means all the deeds that I do with my body, speech and mind. When I do a good deed, it becomes good karma, and when I do a bad deed, it becomes bad karma. The relation between relatives, and the relation between societies, and the relation between a nation and the world, is determined depending on precisely this karma. A sutra that clearly demonstrates the teaching of cause and effect, which is so fundamental to Buddhism, is precisely the Kshitigarbha Sutra, and the faith that most believes in the law of cause and effect and stresses true deeds and practices, is precisely the Kshitigarbha Faith. Consequently, we should reflect on our selves anew, through the teachings of the Kshitigarbha Sutra and the Kshitigarbha Faith, and step onto the path of true deeds of faith.

http://www.buruna.org/gicho/jigang.html

The Way of Practising Prayer

The word ”prayer” means to pray so that what you wish for will be granted. Normally it refers to an act the intent of which is to achieve something depending on a higher power in a situation where one cannot do anything with one’s own power. Consequently, this act of prayer became the driving force that gave birth to primitive religion.

That is to say, as a human, which was a being whose weakness before the great forces of nature was incomparable, one could not help having a feeling of awe with regards to nature, and moreover had no other choice but to adapt oneself to the flow of nature. Here it was that the various primitive religions were born. Consequently, one could regard prayer as possesing the most primitive mode of faith. However, while humanity’s civilization gradually developed, we further created a system within religion that was rational and theoretical with regards to the object of this faith.

However the various religions of the Orient have divested themselves of the religious outlook centered on the gods that came out of this primitive faith, and made their goal the ultimate realization of the ideal, which humanity must pursue. Buddhism and Confucianism are representative examples of this.

Thus Western religionists also strive to classify Buddhism and Confucianism as philosophies rather than religions. However, Buddhism is not a philosophy, it is a religion.

This is because Buddhism is a concrete philosophy of life and methodology for emancipating sentient beings. The place in which these religious features are most extant is prayer. Because prayer is the last hope of a human being confronting a state of limitation. The buddhist spirit of compassion and world redemption cannot disregard the prayer of these human beings. Thus, many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who lend ear to their wishes have come into the world. They have vowed to rescue people from all the hardships that human beings are undergoing and to bring to completion a supreme realm that the people of this world are wishing for.

Our hope which is accomplished and completed in this way makes a gorgeous flower bloom with the name of ”the original vow power of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas”. Now everything has been accomplished and everything has been completed. But where is it completed? Later on I will explain the concept of Buddha-recitation, but as has been stressed time and again it is not something which exists as a substance that is fixed to the outside world. It is the nature of our lives and is composed of itself which is the source of the universe, and as we rest and drink water already we are carrying on life within its benevolence. If we say that I am a wave, then it is the ocean. If we look at the globe from the outside, will we able to find a being called ”I”? Merely something that has become one among great spherical things called ”globes”.

In this way, we are all waves which appear and disappear, and just like waves cannot leave the ocean, we ourselves are not seperate from the source.

The supernatural powers of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are not seperate from me, if I will only realize this. However, sentient beings who are ignorant and who have many doubts are not able to believe this and are wandering in the midst of suffering, so it is their practice to make them divest themselves of this kind of ignorance. Thus, all the ways of practice that are spoken of later on will ultimately let me realize my essence and the source of the universe and will let me divest myself of all evil fetters and shackles.

However, this ignorance is solidly lumped together through karma that has been piled up during innumerable kalpas, so removing even a little of it is hard. Moreover, with regards to enlightenment, since there is no promise as to how long it will take, the path of practice is consider even harder. If someone where to ask whether one is enlightened by reading a single word from the four line gathas of the Buddhist sutras, there are situations where a person cannot even take one single step even if he spends his whole lifetime on it. To exactly this kind of person, prayer is necessary. When exactly I will be able to attain enlightenment seems to be something altogether impossible to answer. At such a time, one must think of the many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who attain enlightenment first, and then make efforts to rescue sentient beings.

Were they not also born as human beings just like us, and have they not attained enlightenment after cultivating the Bodhisattva practices for an infinite number of years and months? In what way am I different from them? It is not merely that they have exerted themselves, they promise that I too will devote myself even more zealously by thinking of them.

Prayer within Buddhism is exactly like this, and accordingly, since such prayer eventually becomes the enlightened nature, it is a way of practice. Although there might be cricism regarding the question of whether prayer is a practice, in this sense I stress that prayer is a way of practice which is certainly necessary for the novice.

Accordingly, as a practice, prayer is not where I ask an external object to carry something out for me, it is where I make a wish to achieve something and promise myself to attain the power to fulfill that wish.

But although this is the meaning of prayer, can we advocate a mere general rule to people who are faced with a situation of immediate urgency? They have neither the power nor the time to understand the principles of prayer or to abandon the path through their strength. With regards to the skillful means of praying for them, it is not known how great its power is. If people are buddhists they will all acknowedge that the sutras are truthful talks. In the sutras, appear the vows of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and moreover it is said that they have fulfilled they have fulfilled those vows and have been able to free themselves from all hardships by their virtues.

It is said that a person who has fallen in the water grasps even if it is to nothing other than a straw, so how should one have the ability to not believe in these words? It exhibits ones earnest desire to divest oneself of suffering and ones hope that faith in the supernatural powers of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas has the ability to free one from suffering and ones powerful strength. In reality one is saved from suffering depending on such a poweful faith and strength of hope. At first, while one has faith one finds peace of mind, and while one has hope ones life is transformed from what it was before.

If one tries to be absorbed in prayer all ones carnal desires will disappear, and ones distracted and anxious mind will find tranquility. If one tries to pray like this, one wil experience samadhi where one’s spirit will be pure and tranquil and even time and space will disappear and even one's self will disappear. At his time usually the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will appear and will either touch one’s forehead or display a smiling figure. Or there will a token such as appearing in a dream, and by this the prayer will be fulfilled.

http://junggaksa.com/xe/board6/17652/page/2

A Short Introduction

Welcome to my blogg. My names is Rasmus, I am 25 years old, and I have a BA in Korean studies from the University of Copenhagen. The primary purpose of this blogg is to make information about modern Korean Buddhism more accessible. As anyone who has tried to study Korean Buddhism will know, not much concrete information about this topic is available in English (or any other western language for that matter). So on this blogg I will be posting my own translations of Korean articles, mostly taken from various websites, that in one way or another are related to Buddhism.

It is my sincere hope that it will become an invaluable source of information to those who want to devote themselves to the practice of Buddhism as well as to those whose interest in the religion is of a purely academic nature. Bear in mind though that I am not a native speaker either of English or of Korean, and since, at the same time, I aim to stay as true to the original text as possible, the phrasing of the sentences may have a bit of an akward or unnatural feel to them from time to time.

My first post will be the first part of a longer article about the practice of prayer in Buddhism taken from a website affiliated with a Zen Buddhist temple in Korea, which is really an excellent source of material. But apart from this focus on buddhist prayer, what I will mainly be focusing on is articles specifically regarding the Kshitigarbha Faith. Or at least that was my original idea. Hence I chose to give my blogg the name Jijang Bosal, the Korean name for Kshitigarbha Bodhisattva. But I also plan to post articles about lots of other things, such as the Thousand Hands Sutra and the Great Dharani of Mystical Phrases and Sentences (as it is mostly referred to in Korea).