April 5, 2020, Avalokitesvara and Ksitigarbha Homa Ceremony, Rainbow Temple
Lamdre Exposition by Dharma King Lian-sheng
Summary of Dharma Talk
[TBS News]

On April 5, 2020, Dharma King Living Buddha Lian-sheng presided over the combined homa ceremony of Four-armed Avalokitesvara and Ksitigarbha.

The Four-armed Avalokitesvara is the Tibetan version of Guanyin. Tibet is known as Avalokitesvara's Bodhimanda in the saha world.

Ksitigarbha is the lord of the netherworld. His pure land is Cuiwei Southern Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss. In the saha world, his Bodhimanda is Jiuhua Mountain.

In Vajrayana’s Karma Yoga, there are practices pertaining to calamity eradication, enrichment, magnetization, and subjugation. Avalokitesvara is known as the deity for eradicating calamity and white is used to symbolize the removal of calamity. Ksitigarbha is Golden Padmakumara. Hence, the two deities are mainly white (symbolizing calamity eradication) and yellow (symbolizing enrichment) respectively.

However, on this day of the homa ceremony, the Dharma King wore a red dragon robe.

The Dharma King explained, Avalokitesvara has the best affinity with sentient beings in the saha world and hence she saves limitless and vast numbers of sentient beings. The words, “limitless and vast” denote the use of ‘Magnetization Practices’ to save sentient beings.

For Ksitigarbha, he is well-known for his emanation into the Six-realm Ksitigarbhas. Using ‘Magnetization Practices’, he saves sentient beings in the six realms of the Devas, Humans, Asuras, Hell, Hungry Ghosts and Animals.

Since both deities use ‘Magnetization Practices’, the Dharma King decided to wear red for the ceremony. He said, “Today, we are doing a combined ceremony of two deities. We hope to eradicate the calamity which sentient beings are currently experiencing. This is because the pandemic is worldwide and severe in nature.” The Dharma King called upon the compassion of Avalokitesvara and Ksitigarbha to subjugate the plague and end the pandemic soon.

Due to advisories on plague prevention, True Buddha School disciples can only see the Dharma King via webcast. “Now, everyone can see me; when I use my eyes, I can see millions of disciples tuning in to view and listen to my discourse," said the Dharma King.

When the Dharma King did his cultivation practices the previous evening and before sleep, he saw Amitabha and Avalokitesvara. “I also saw Green Tara, the Tara who saves from contagious diseases, and the 21 Taras. Today, they came and supported the homa ceremony just now. Green Tara has been helping us all along,” said the Dharma King.

The Dharma King also made three announcements during the webcast:
1. On April 12, there will be a homa ceremony of the Tara who saves from contagious diseases. The homa will target at the pandemic, which is getting more aggressive than before. Grandmaster hopes everyone can participate as primary supplicant.

2. The True Buddha Newspaper (TBN) office is now under the purview of the True Buddha Foundation in terms of administration and publication. The head of publicity, Master Lianyue, will handle the publication of the TBN. A revamp is in the works right now.

3. The Dharma King’s hardcopy books will be published in synchrony with the eBook version, the latter is available in TBBOYEH. Both versions will be handled by TBBOYEH’s overall-in-charge, Lawyer Zhou Huifang.

The Dharma King hopes that in the future, the TBN will have a circulation reach of tens of thousands of copies; he also hopes that his books – both hardcopy and electronic copy – will be equally popular, so as to save many more sentient beings.

The Dharma King continued with the discourse on the Lamdre. According to the Lamdre, there is a practice involving the removal of ‘dirt’ by homa. This means using homa to remove all karmic sins. According to the Dharma King, if one has karmic sins, and if one were to seek to remove these sins via homa, one should use black sesame seeds [during the homa]. That is the main pith instruction.

“Scatter the black sesame seeds into the stove. Then transform yourself into Ucchusma Vajra Protector. The black sesame seeds get swallowed by Ucchusma,” said the Dharma King.

He emphasized that the main crux lies in the all-important notion that all transgressions and karmic sins on one’s body are symbolized by the black sesame seeds. When these sesame seeds are placed in the homa stove to burn, one can visualize oneself turning into Ucchusma, who specializes in eating the ‘dirt’.

Hence, Ucchusma will implant one’s karmic sins into the sesame seeds, so that when one becomes Ucchusma and eat the karmic sins up, one becomes cleansed.

How does one validate if one has already been cleansed? One can do so based on one’s dreams.

Said the Dharma King, “For example, after you have done a few sessions of such homa, you may dream that you are vomiting; this means that you are vomiting the ‘dirt’ out of your body. This is a good dream. If you dream yourself bathing or showering, that’s a good dream too because you are cleansing yourself. Or if you dream yourself wearing a white chanting robe, it means you are cleansed. All these dreams indicate that your karma sins have already been cleansed.”

Before Shakyamuni Buddha entered Nirvana, he imparted a few sentences that Buddhists should adhere to. “Do not engage in evil deeds. Do good deeds. Purify one’s mind. These are taught in Buddhism.”

The Dharma King explained, “Not engaging in evil deeds means adhering to precepts. Doing good deeds means becoming a Bodhisattva by delivering sentient beings. This signifies the wisdom of a Bodhisattva; that is wisdom, in fact. When one purifies one’s mind, one is cleansing one’s heart, thoughts, and action; that is meditative stability.”

The Buddha had taught three important concepts, “Precepts, Meditative Stability, and Wisdom.” The study of non-leakage in terms of these three concepts can counter greed, anger and ignorance. Such spiritual cultivation will surely, if not quickly, lead to the validation of the fruition of Buddhahood.

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