Offering of the Illusory Body

Accumulating Merit Through the Offering of the Illusory Body

Offering of the illusory body means offering the physical body. This is a special practice as normally the illusory body practice is not in the preliminary practice. But Dru Gyalwa Yungdrung Rinpoche mentions it’s a very important practice for accumulating merit.

Why are we offering our body? Because the best offering to the enlightened beings, all the protectors, and all sentient beings is what we are most attached to – our physical body. If we can offer water, flowers, incense and that is okay. But to offer the body, is most precious because we can easily give up water, flowers, and material things but most people would never think of giving up their body for others. Through this practice we can loosen our attachment to our body.

Visualization:

Visualize in the sky in front of you your root lama, the Buddhas, the enlightened Yidam, Yungdrung Senpas (Bodhisattvas), khandros, and protectors of Yungdrung Bon including the eight classes of glorious protectors and six class of beings (all sentient beings).

Normally we offer to the four guests in illusory offering practice which are included in all mentioned above. 

Four Guests:

1. High Guests: Buddhas, Yidams, Khandros, Bodhisattvas and Enlightened beings.

2. Yungdrung Guests: Such as Enlightened protectors like Sipi Gyalmo

3. Protectors Guests: The eight classes of glorious protectors

4. Compassion Guests: Sentient beings of the six realm, especially those in the three lower realms.

After this visualization, imagine a primordial wisdom tube instantly arises at your heart. Inside that primordial wisdom tube your own consciousness is a single luminous sphere – thigle. Suddenly shout “Phet!” Instantly, the single luminous sphere emerges from the primordial wisdom tube in the heart upward like sparks from a fire. Your consciousness single luminous sphere comes up and out the crown of the head. Then the consciousness which is a single luminous sphere dissolves into light above your head. This light transforms into a wrathful wisdom deity.  

You can inhale through the nose down to the junction of the three channels, and up to the heart. Then on the exhale you can quickly exclaim “Phet!” expelling the breath out the mouth.

This wrathful wisdom deity comes from your own rigpa consciousness. This is not an external deity, but your own consciousness transformed. 

That wrathful wisdom deity’s color is light sky blue with one face and two hands wielding a sword in his right hand. Then, imagine that the right hand holding the sword cuts your four limbs off. These four limbs are arranged to make a hearth stone for a firepit. Next, this sword cuts your skull at the forehead clean off. Your skull cap is turned upside down like a cauldron and put on the hearth stone fire. Inside the skull cauldron, your flesh, bones, fat, fluids, and connective tissues, and organs are cut up into small pieces and put in the pot. All of this, from the heartfire, the skull cauldron, and all the cut up body parts increase in unimaginable size – bigger, bigger, bigger than even the world.

Then, after this the wrathful wisdom deity transforms into countless offering goddesses. These goddesses are offering the three levels of offerings. The best offering is the refined state of food which is offered like clouds in the sky to the primordial wisdom deities – all the enlightened Buddhas, yidams, khandros, and bodhisattvas. The second best offering is the juice of the food which is offered like a ocean of nectar to all the glorious protectors – the pure protectors. The lowest offering is impure sediment offerings which is offered visualized being transformed into the desirable objects of the five senses and offered to the eight classes of gods and demons and the six classes of sentient beings. 

All become satisfied from the offerings. Through the offerings the Buddhas are pleased, the oathbound protectors are fulfilled, the eight classes of gods and demons are pacified with calm minds, their negative actions are stopped, and the six classes of sentient beings are satisfied. 

Then imagine your illusory body has become the feast of offering. This is how we offer our body to the four guests. Then we can recite the offering prayer below. 

སྒྱུ་ལུས་ཚོགས་འབུལ།

The Offering of the Illusory Body

How amazing! I make a feast offering of my body, please accept it!

The four limbs make a blazing hearthstone.

The skull is a vast, precious-jeweled cauldron.

Put in this is flesh, blood, heat, breath, skin, fat, fluid, and tendons,

Elements, sense-spheres, channels and branches,

Senses, sense organs, all the inner organs,

Skeleton, teeth, nails, head and body hair.

The pure essences, impurities, and regenerative fluids thoroughly mixed,

I offer this inferior and contaminated body as repayment,

Your extraordinary view, wisdom, experience, and realization,

Please bestow them upon me right now!

Through this, may all material and karmic debts be purified!

May all harmful beings attain the supreme Enlightened Mind!

Through the blessing of dedicating this vastly and for all,

May all sentient beings be freed from ego grasping!

Through this practice our karmic debt of the body and mind are repaid. Through this practice all obscurations are purified at the same time. Through this practice the benefits through the accumulations along with accomplishment (merit and wisdom) are attained all at once.

This completes the teachings of accumulating merit through the offering of the illusory body.