Teaching on Mind-Created Offerings and Offering to the Dharmadhātu

If we're talking about mind-created offerings, that is the dharmadhātu practice.Ordinary tantric practitioners don't reach the level of offering to the dharmadhātu, so they offer in the material realm.That's why Maitreya and Śākyamuni awakened and became buddhas on completely different timelines.Śākyamuni practiced in the worldly realm, cultivating in the world.Maitreya practices in the dharmadhātu.Śākyamuni, practicing in the human realm, had to spend a long time among humans; and secondly, almost all his cultivation in the human realm was austerity — worldly ascetic practice.Maitreya practices in the deva realm, making offerings to the deva realm.Śākyamuni practiced in the human realm, offering to humans.The gap is completely different.In the end Maitreya revealed a secret: he said Maitreya attains buddhahood in a single night, while Śākyamuni took forty-nine years to attain buddhahood.He had to teach in the human realm, offer in the human realm, so his speed and attainment lagged Maitreya by many lifetimes — not just those forty-nine years.

So in tantric practice, many gurus don't know what the deva offering or the dharmadhātu offering practice really is.So they spend many lifetimes practicing in the human realm and teaching Dharma to humans, not knowing the deva teaching and deva offering are the fastest Dharma gate, and the one with the greatest merit.

How to do deva offering and deva practice?Just now in the latter half of the Green Tārā Fire Puja I used no offering substances — all mind-created offerings.For the first offering, bodhi branches, in meditation I just fetch bodhi branches and offer them.Of course, you must be very familiar with the liturgy.While you recite the verses, you are blessing the offerings — all done within mind-creation.This is not fantasy.The whole dharmadhātu is actually not far: it's inside your head.The real dharmadhātu space is at your Mount Meru — at the position of the Niwan Palace, which is in the space of the pineal gland.That is the location of the dharmadhātu.The place is small, but it's the condensed version of the dharmadhātu.Open the pineal gland and you enter the dharmadhātu.The dharmadhātu is actually inside the Niwan Palace, "where the true person dwells." Daoism says "where the true person dwells" — the real person is in here.We are the false person now.The true zone of mind-created offerings is also in here.The path to the dharmadhātu is here.So if you can practice to the level of mind-created offerings — whether offering to devas, practicing with devas, or teaching Dharma to devas — that is dharmadhātu practice.That can bring immediate sudden awakening and buddhahood on the spot.If you're still doing material-realm offerings and material-realm practice, you may need many more lifetimes and still not become buddha.

So the true essence of tantra, and the essence of Dzogchen, the fastest path to buddhahood, is mind-created offering and dharmadhātu offering.

Only dharmadhātu offering reaches the deva realm, directly linking to the devas.Material offerings turning into deva offerings face huge obstacles — it's not that whatever you offer, the devas receive.That is very difficult.

So Maitreya is called the Future Buddha.Śākyamuni and Kāśyapa Buddha are called Past Buddhas.The past buddhas aren't disconnected from us, but this resonance has a longer time lag.

In this age of degenerate Dharma, why use Maitreya's deva-realm offering to cultivate?The deva offering is the fastest way to approach deva resonance.

So throughout the Green Tārā Fire Puja liturgy there are many secrets.Of course, these are secrets that can't be openly spoken.If everyone used mind-created offerings, no one would bring fruit or flowers to offer to the Buddhas — everything would change.

So only those qualified to hear this Dharma — truly initiated disciples, Dzogchen disciples — may teach this Dharma.Otherwise it disturbs the overall religious conduct.But in reality, to verify buddhahood, you must use dharmadhātu practice.So Maitreya, in ordinary meditation, goes to the dharmadhātu to teach, debating Dharma with devas, discussing Dharma with devas.When he makes offerings, he also offers in mind-creation to the fruit and flowers he visualizes — called deva offering.So Maitreya spends almost half of his life in the deva realm, and at the instant of awakening, returns entirely to the deva realm.If, by contrast, you practice in the human realm, every day in the earthly, material realm, the difficulty of leaving this material realm is enormous — because you've never practiced entering the dharmadhātu and the deva realm.You can't shed the pull of the material realm.

In general, to teach this Dharma or hear this Dharma, you need the fourth-level empowerment: your view of material versus dharmadhātu is already very clear; second, your tantric practice doesn't produce discriminating minds between "offering" and "not offering" — only then are you qualified to practice mind-created offering and deva offering.

Devas also need to hear Dharma and continue to train.Devas also need offerings, but what they're offered differs from the material.So whether practicing maṇḍala offering or fire puja, if you can get very familiar with the content of the liturgy and run the sequence in meditation — if the maṇḍala offering is familiar enough, transferring from material maṇḍala to mind-created maṇḍala — then you've entered and obtained your ticket to the dharmadhātu.If you're still offering in the material realm, you'll never get this entry ticket.

So today hearing Rinpoche's secret Dharma means you already have the qualification to enter the third-level-plus empowerment, able to practice tantra.Otherwise this tantra cannot be taught in any general transmission.It is the greatest secret, can't be made public.Make it public and no one will bring fruit anymore.Their reason: "Rinpoche said mind-creation is the greatest merit" — the maṇḍala-ground falls into disrepair.People at each level do what fits that level.There are standards.Once you qualify, you don't need to offer physically — offer in meditation.If not yet qualified, you still offer physically, making the human-realm offering.This is a way of exchanging for merit.The real greatest merit is deva offering.Offering the eight auspicious items is also brought forth from mind-creation.That is why we use mudrā — the mudrā means "I have already offered." The offering has already risen in my mind, and I use the mudrā to express it.So you don't need to lay out water, water, flower, incense, lamp, ointment, fruit, music.All arise in mind-creation.All arise from the Oṃ syllable, from the seed syllable, becoming all things.In mind-creation you can manifest all offerings, and of course can also manifest dharmakāya attainment.This gradually hooks and pulls you out, entering the state of the dharmadhātu.

The greatest secret of tantra practice is: cultivating the real out of śūnyatā, not cultivating śūnyatā out of the real.Cultivating the real entity out of emptiness, rather than slowly moving from entity into emptiness — that is the slowest method.Practice from emptiness into the real, not from the real into emptiness.Everyone's practice goes real-into-empty — that is all Śākyamuni's method, starting with the human-realm Dharma.Empty-into-real is Maitreya's method.

This has gone in, but the time hasn't quite come yet.Just now when we were doing fire puja and the disciples were reciting the verses, Rinpoche was doing dharmadhātu offering — that is the principle.

So this Dharma must be practiced very well.Not just the Green Tārā Fire Puja liturgy — all other offering substances and other practices will finally turn into deva offerings, deva practice, and deva teaching.So the Diamond Sūtra and many sūtras are deva-realm teachings.Śākyamuni says in the scriptures: present were so-and-so — Mahāsthāmaprāpta, Mañjuśrī, the eight classes of divine beings, all listening to the Dharma.This is dharmadhātu teaching.In the worldly realm there'd be no eight classes of divine beings and emanations of bodhisattvas listening.Only in dharmadhātu teaching does this situation arise.So most of the sūtras are dharmadhātu teaching and dharmadhātu offering, not human-realm teaching, not human-realm offering.

Everyone fails to inquire and research this deeper layer of practice.Whether you're a Dharma king or whatever rank, if you can't do mind-created offering and mind-created transcendence, it's very hard to attain Śākyamuni's level, and even harder to achieve Maitreya's dharmadhātu offering and dharmadhātu teaching — and harder still to enter the dharmadhātu.This life you don't attain, next life you don't, the life after you still don't — because for many lifetimes no guru has told you that everything is produced from mind-created offering.For a hundred more lives you won't become buddha, because you have zero connection with him.Buddha arises in dharmatā.Your whole life you can't enter dharmatā — how do you see Buddha in dharmatā, how do you attain Buddha in dharmatā?Impossible.A person who speaks of America in Taiwan for ninety years without ever having been to America — only seeing America on TV or in magazines — can never actually reach America and taste America's actual conditions.The Western Pure Land isn't reached by mouth.The one you talk about will never arrive.In mind-creation one already enters the Western Pure Land.One who has never been to America being very "knowledgeable" about America — learned from TV, films, magazines — he hasn't gone.Compared to someone just back from America speaking of America, it's different.If a person can't practice in the dharmadhātu, forget attaining verification into it.

So as your level improves, you move into mind-created offering, mind-created hearing of Dharma, mind-created teaching — this is the sequence.Only then do you have a chance to attain in this life.If still stalled in human-realm teaching, sorry, for another hundred lives you won't attain buddhahood.Impossible, absolutely impossible.Today Rinpoche is telling you this secret — things no guru will say.

Slowly, fire puja becomes practiced and familiar — then begin to learn, in meditation, the mind-created fire puja practice, altar-realm practice, mirror-gazing practice called altar-realm practice.Next, consciousness-transference.What is consciousness-transference?Leading your own spirit-consciousness out, allowing it to go to various spacetimes to practice.At this level you have the chance of this-life buddhahood and dharmakāya attainment.Otherwise, not very likely.You can read the entire Tripiṭaka and still not become buddha.Practice hundreds of liturgies and still not become buddha.So having a liturgy equals having none — the liturgy is only the stairs up the mountain.The liturgy guides you to enter the dharmadhātu and do fire puja there — not to burn fire puja your whole life.You're still spinning in the material realm; you don't even have the entry ticket.How do you enter another spacetime?Impossible.

Today Rinpoche tells you this secret.Take it in.Only in the Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara maṇḍala can this be heard — the only secret of Maitreya's buddhahood.Maitreya became buddha in a single night.He practiced joyfully, at ease, like Jigong — no ascetic practice.Why did Śākyamuni know this method and still choose to practice in the human realm?That relates to personal vows and intentions.Maitreya thought: why practice austerities?I have a better way.So he chose to make offerings, practice, hear Dharma, teach Dharma inside the devas and the dharmadhātu.He gradually shifted over half his life to the dharmadhātu.In one night it all transferred — overnight migration, instant buddhahood.So Yiguandao borrowed from Maitreya's rapid-buddhahood method as a cover: just believe in Yiguandao, faith in Yiguandao, be "dotted at the mystic gate," and you can "be registered in heaven and crossed off the underworld." All wrong.Not that simple.Even the Transmission Masters themselves can't ascend; could they really dot your mystic gate so you ascend?All a scam.One cannot fool others like this.One life, one practice-chance — fooled away by you, cannot ascend.Next time, less chance; no karmic affinity to touch tantra again.Enormous harm.Taiwan has far too many religions that harm people.Choose carefully.If you want to attain in practice, trust your guru's guidance; don't look for answers.The answers you find aren't recognized by anyone.Only what Rinpoche tells you is recognized.Questions raised and self-answered — those answers are useless.Only Rinpoche's are true.

So practicing tantra in the Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara maṇḍala — there's only one, no two.If you want to, really practice, really follow Rinpoche.Or don't practice.No two, three, four options.Wastes time, wastes Rinpoche's teaching, useless.

Though few people practice tantra in the Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara maṇḍala, what Rinpoche teaches is Great Dharma.With many people, sorry, you don't get to hear the real Dharma.That simple.

Excerpted from a teaching by Master Urgyen Topden Rinpoche on 2018-04-07.