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Dedication is a way of building virtue on top of virtue. The merit that we have already amassed from other virtuous practices is further increased and augmented in the very process of dedicating it so that all beings attain the highest enlightenment. | Dedication is a way of building virtue on top of virtue. The merit that we have already amassed from other virtuous practices is further increased and augmented in the very process of dedicating it so that all beings attain the highest enlightenment. | ||
As it is said: | |||
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|quote-text=If the wishing gem, the two accumulations, | |||
Is not well polished with good aspirations, | |||
The needed, wished-for fruit will not arise. | |||
So finish off all your works with dedication.<ref>Blankleder and Fletcher, ''Nectar of Manjushri's Speech'', 393. The source of this verse is not identified by either Khenpo Kunpal or the Padmakara Translation Committee.</ref> | |||
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In his commentary on this verse, Khenpo Kunpal also draws an important distinction here between dedication and aspirational prayers. | |||
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|quote-text=Dedication and prayers of aspiration are crucially important. According to our tradition, the difference between dedication and aspiration should be understood in the following way. Dedication consists in pledging one’s positive actions to perfect enlightenment for the sake of beings. By contrast, a prayer of aspiration is just the wish that beings themselves attain enlightenment; it is not connected with the performance of wholesome deeds.<ref>Blankleder and Fletcher, ''Nectar of Manjushri's Speech'', 393.</ref> | |||
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Aspiration is more akin to the wish for something to happen, and it is not necessary to have been involved in the actual engagement in the deeds associated with it. Dedication, on the other hand, is done after the completion of positive acts to seal them off and make beneficial use of our merit. | |||
Khenpo Kunpal then reminds us of the dangers of not capping off all of our positive actions with dedication and how dedicating all our virtue for the purpose of all beings attaining enlightenment protects that virtue from ever drying up. | |||
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|quote-text=Failure to dedicate virtuous action to the good of others is a fault: | |||
:Not to dedicate or to dedicate awry, | |||
To brag to others or to have regrets: | |||
Four things that lay your virtue waste. . . . | |||
Accordingly, without the dedication of the roots of virtue, virtue comes to nothing, for there are many causes for its destruction, such as the occurrence of anger. By contrast, when virtue is dedicated to the attainment of enlightenment, it is as when drops of water fall into the ocean; they will remain for as long as the ocean lasts. Virtue dedicated to the attainment of buddhahood will not be spent until enlightenment is gained. Indeed, it will increase and actually take us there.<ref>Blankleder and Fletcher, ''Nectar of Manjushri's Speech'', 393–94. It is unclear whether the three-line verse here belongs to Khenpo Kunpal or whether he is borrowing it from some other source.</ref> | |||
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