Serving you with Prayers and Pujas
Overview
One of DCI’s services is to make prayers and offerings at pujas and sutra recitations on your behalf. Sponsoring prayers and offerings at pujas is a way for you to connect in with the prayers. Through your generosity and good intention you help to create the merit and purification necessary to help achieve your aims – both temporary goals (good health, temporary happiness, success, etc.) and ultimate goals (realizations, enlightenment, etc.) Sponsoring the prayers and pujas also helps support DCI and DCI’s resident Sangha.
On this page you will find out:
- How to sponsor prayer dedications and
- More information about what regular and special pujas we do throughout the year and their benefits.
- Please see our online program calendar for dates of upcoming pujas.
How to Sponsor Prayer Dedications
Sponsorship of ANY amount is welcome for pujas. To sponsor a Full Set of offerings at a standard puja is $50. Again you are welcome to sponsor whatever amount you wish towards a puja. No amount is too small and if more is offered, more extensive offerings will be made on your behalf and the merit will be dedicated as you request.
You can make a puja sponsorship donation one of three ways:
- Internet Banking (preferred for those within NZ)
- Secure PayPal (with a Credit Card or PayPal Account)
- or by Cash / Cheque in person
Whichever method you choose, please let us know in advance by clicking on the Sponsor a Puja button below and filling out the details, so that we have time to purchase and arrange the offerings beautifully on your behalf and also prepare your dedications to be read out at the puja.
Regular Pujas at DCI
All pujas are helpful for accumulating merit and purifying negativities, but specific pujas are sometimes used for specific purposes (see below). Please also see our online program calendar for dates of upcoming pujas.
Medicine Buddha
Most Fridays 7.30pm – powerful for healing, success and also for those who have passed away
Dorje Chang Institute has been regularly doing weekly Medicine Buddha Pujas since 2003. The Eight Medicine Buddhas made powerful prayers to help beings during these degenerate times when war, sickness, natural disasters and delusions are rampant. In this puja we make prayers and offerings to these Buddhas for the benefit of all living beings. This puja is done primarily in English along with some chanting of the Medicine Buddha mantra.
Tara Puja
Usually performed once a month – powerful for quick action and receiving help
Tara is a female Buddha who embodies the enlightened activity of all of the buddhas. This beautiful puja includes a combination of Tibetan and English chanting and is particularly effective for receiving quick help with one’s practice or worldly matters. In the puja text itself it mentions some of the following benefits: granting fearlessness, pacifying negativities, eliminating unfortunate migrations, cleansing from being poisoned, pacifying the sufferings of torments caused by spirits, fevers and poisons, if one wishes for a child, one will get a child, if one wishes for wealth, one will receive wealth, fulfilling all your wishes and pacifying all obstacles.
Guru Puja with Tsog Offering
Usually performed twice a month – powerful to accumulate merit and purify negativities
Guru Puja combines very powerful methods to accumulate merit and purify negativities in relation to the most powerful object – one’s holy Guru. This delightful practice includes Tibetan chanting (using phonetics) and English recitation as well as an extensive food offering. This precious practice contains many powerful practices. Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains “It has all the aspects that create enlightenment – just as a car has all the parts that make it function. It enables one to fulfill all of one’s own wishes and the wishes of others.” Participants are welcome, but not required, to bring a contribution of any easily distributable food (fruit, savoury or sweet baked goods, juice, etc.). Sponsoring this puja will help to sponsor this extensive food offering.
The Benefits
Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche, our Spiritual Director, encourages people to join in these powerful regular pujas for the benefit of both others and oneself.
Rinpoche explains some of the benefits: “Tara and Medicine Buddha help so much for the individual’s Dharma practice. It is so good for people to come together… Medicine Buddha, Tara, and Guru Puja are very important, not only for others, but each person collects so much merit, like the number of atoms of mountains, the number of atoms of the sky, and there is unbelievable purification of obstacles and defilements. [These pujas] help for each person’s success and, most important, Dharma — learn, practice, realize. When you join the group, you inspire others to practice and others also help you. You see that there is so much you can do for sentient beings and this world. These practices are so good.”
Excerpted from “A Thousand Benefits” by Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Buddha Day Celebrations
Each year we hold celebrations during the four classic Buddhist Holy Days of Shakyamuni Buddha:
- The Days of Miracles – commemorate the special time when Guru Shakyamuni Buddha showed miraculous powers in order to subdue six tirthikas, or non-Buddhist teachers, who lacked faith in him, and to inspire more faith in his followers
- Buddha’s Enlightenment and Parinirvana – commemorating Buddha’s attaining enlightenment and also his passing into parinirvana.
- Buddha’s Wheel Turning Day – when Buddha first turned the Wheel of Dharma teaching on the Four Noble Truths (International Sangha Day is also celebrated on this day)
- Buddha’s Decent from God Realm of the Thirty-three where he went briefly to teach his mother the Dharma
The program can vary depending on what day these lunar dates fall on, so please check the calendar on our Program page for specific dates and celebration details.
On Buddha Days, karmic results are multiplied one hundred million times, as cited by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the Vinaya text Treasure of Quotations and Logic. As Buddha Days are particularly powerful, it is encouraged to put effort into creating merit through virtuous actions. An excellent day to take the Eight Mahayana Precepts (the first time you take these precepts you need to receive them from a qualified teacher who holds the lineage of the precepts).
Buddha Days can be sponsored. The types of sponsorship can vary depending on the Buddha Day activities. To sponsor any amount towards these and include your dedications for the next scheduled Buddha Day you can use the following form: https://www.dci.org.nz/request-prayers/buddha-day-sponsorship/
Special Annual Pujas at DCI
Please see our online program calendar for dates of upcoming pujas. We have a few special annual pujas at DCI. Registration for the Annual Pujas opens approximately one month prior to the puja. (There is a special registration form for each of our Annual Pujas that contains the details for each of those pujas. Links to those registration forms are available at the links below approximately one month prior to the scheduled puja. When registration opens it will also be announced through our weekly mailing list.)
Annual Jangwa Puja
performed by Geshe Wangchen
to benefit both the living and those who have passed away.
2023 Date: Sunday, 20 August 2023
(Registration will open approximately one month prior to the puja.)
Click here for more details on the Annual Jangwa Puja.
Annual Fire Puja
performed by Geshe Wangchen
to clear away obstacles and accumulate merit.
2023 date: Sunday, 17 September 2023
(Registration will open approximately one month prior to the puja.)
Click here for more details on the Annual Fire Puja.
Annual Tara Wealth Vase Puja
performed by Geshe Wangchen
to accumulate merit and create the causes for abundance of resources
2023 date: Tuesday, 17 October 2023
(Registration will open approximately one month prior to the puja.)
Click here for more details on the Annual Tara Wealth Vase Puja.
