New Publications: The Dedication “Fulfilling All Aspirations” and The Dedication “Protecting All Beings”

84000 is pleased to announce two closely related publications:

Toh 285

བསམ་པ་ཐམས་ཅས་སུ་རྫོགས་པའི་ཡོངས་སུ་བསྔོ་བ།ད་ཡོང

The Dedication “Fulfilling All Aspirations”

 

Toh 286

འགྲོ་བ་ཡོངས་སུ་སྐྱོབ་པར་བྱེད་པའི་ཡོངས་སུ་བསྔོ་བ།

The Dedication “Protecting All Beings”

 

The Dedication “Fulfilling All Aspirations” (Toh 285) is a prayer of dedication, and is meant to be recited. Its structure partly reflects the liturgy of “seven branches” or “seven limbs,” a set of practices that serves as the basic structure of many Mahāyāna Buddhist prayers and rituals. In this instance, however, the text consists of two sections: the first is a detailed prayer of confession, and the second a prayer of rejoicing, requesting that the wheel of the Dharma be turned, beseeching the buddhas not to pass into nirvāṇa, and extensively dedicating the merit.

The Dedication “Protecting All Beings” (Toh 286) is a prayer of dedication that strongly resonates with the later Tibetan literature of mind training (blo sbyong). In addition to the classic element of dedication of merit to all beings, a substantial part of the text comprises a passage that enumerates the many faults, shortcomings, and afflictions that burden sentient beings, as well as the many possible attainments that they consequently may not have realized, and culminates in the wish that everything negative that would otherwise ripen for sentient beings may ripen instead for the reciter, so that all sentient beings would thus be liberated and purified.


Access these and other sūtras in the 84000 Reading Room:
The Dedication “Fulfilling All Aspirations”
The Dedication “Protecting All Beings”

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This is a free publication from 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, a non-profit organization sharing the gift of wisdom with the world.

The cultivation of generosity, or dāna—giving voluntarily with a view that something wholesome will come of it—is considered to be a fundamental Buddhist practice by all schools. The nature and quantity of the gift itself is often considered less important.