परिणामना pariṇāmanā
dedication of merit
བསྔོ་བ་
bsngo ba
迴向
huíxiàng
Sanskrit - Noun
3·Study
Study details
- Abhidharma (Indo-Tibetan): In the context of the path, pariṇāmanā (T. bsngo ba) is the mental action that determines the specific maturation of a wholesome deed. While ordinary wholesome actions naturally result in pleasant rebirths within saṃsāra, the act of dedication intentionally steers that karmic potential. It is categorized as a virtuous mental activity that transforms a simple "root of virtue" into a cause for the "higher end"—liberation or omniscience. Without dedication, merit is compared to a seasonal crop that is consumed once it ripens
,with dedication, it is like a drop of water added to a great ocean, which does not disappear until the ocean itself dries up.
- Mahāyāna (Indo-Tibetan): Dedication is the seventh and final branch of the "Supreme Worship" (anuttarā-pūjā) or "Seven-Branch Service" (yan lag bdun pa). It is the crucial step that seals all other virtuous activities. In the bodhisattva path, the standard dedication is to direct merit toward the "unsurpassable, truly complete enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings." This is often performed with the awareness of the "three circles" ('khor gsum)—the dedicator, the merit being dedicated, and the goal of the dedication—as being empty of inherent existence. This "pure dedication" (yongs su bsngos pa rnam par dag pa) prevents the merit from being destroyed by later moments of anger or regret.
- Vajrayāna (Indo-Tibetan): Within Tantric liturgy, the dedication of merit concludes every sādhana or ritual session. It is often paired with "aspiration prayers" (praṇidhāna,T. smon lam). In the Vajrayāna, dedication also carries the sense of "transmutation," where the practitioner's efforts in deity yoga and mantra recitation are dedicated to the stabilization of the "mandala of the deity" and the swift awakening of all beings within that spiritual environment. It is the bridge between the "meditative state" (samāhita-jñāna) and the "subsequent attainment" (pṛṣṭhalabdha-jñāna).
In other languages
Tibetan
བསྔོ་བ་
bsngo ba
ngowa
Sanskrit
परिणामना
pariṇāmanā
Chinese
迴向
huíxiàng
Japanese
ekō
Korean
hoehwi
How translators render it
dedication of meritBuddha-nature Standard
In the dictionaries
Tshig mdzod chen mo
༡. སྔོ་བའི་མ་འོངས་པ། ༢. ཡོངས་སུ་བསྒྱུར་བའམ། ཡོངས་སུ་སྤེལ་བ་ལ་འཇུག་པ་སྟེ། འཁོར་བའི་རྒྱུར་གྱུར་བའི་དགེ་རྩ་རྣམས་བྱང་ཆུབ་ཆེན་པོའི་རྒྱུར་བསྒྱུར་བའམ། འཛད་པར་འགྱུར་བའི་དགེ་རྩ་རྣམས་མི་ཟད་པར་སྤེལ་བའི་དོན་ཡིན་ལ། རང་གཞན་གྱི་རྒྱུད་ཀྱི་དུས་གསུམ་དུ་བསགས་པའི་ཟག་བཅས་ཟག་མེད་ཀྱི་དགེ་ཚོགས་མཐའ་དག་བླ་ན་མེད་པའི་བྱང་ཆུག་ཀྱི་རྒྱུར་བསྒྱུར་སྤེལ་བྱེད་པའི་འདུན་པ་མཚུངས་ལྡན་དང་བཅས་པའོ།
Term type
Noun
Source language
Sanskrit
Topic
pariṇāmanā
Alternate spellings
bsngo ba, dedication, transfer of merit
