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Benefits and important points to note

Writing about food offerings in the Buddhist hall is considered very important homework, but there are still many fellow practitioners who do not understand the reasons for making food offerings, and there are many other problems as well.

Therefore, the teacher explains the details one by one as follows.

【Benefits of making excessive food offerings】

When investigating the causes and effects over three lifetimes of everyone in the temple, the most common bad karma (killing) includes 116, 119, 121, and so on. <The king has no way to keep the country from being thrown into disorder> or <Dream interpretation: there is damage>, as well as other similar characteristics.

All of this is because karmic spirits from past or present lives are disturbing and harassing people, commonly known as “Kayin”!

Through the compassion of Buddhism, we cannot deal with them by controlling and killing evil spirits. Instead, through food offerings and offerings of worship, we make amends through repentance, restore merit and virtue, and pray to Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva for liberation from sin.

This means using food and sacrificial offerings to worship and send them onward, helping the dead reincarnate so that, naturally, they will no longer follow us. This affects health, careers, and wealth, and causes conflicts among family members.

【Important advice for making excessive food offerings】

Generally, everyone understands and accepts the principles above, but many people still do not understand the following points. This leads to incorrect practices when making food offerings to help spirits, meaning the intended effect of helping the spirits cannot be achieved.

1. Before making food offerings for liberation, you must write a small booklet and specify the intended recipient of the liberation first, but you cannot specify too many recipients at one time.

Second, food offerings for salvation should not be dedicated only through chanting and food worship; they should also be dedicated sincerely, from the heart.

Third, food offerings should not be limited to vegetarian food, but should depend on the recipient’s needs, such as meat, tobacco, and alcohol.

Fourth, make food offerings twice a month. The frequency should not be too low, but the intervals should not be too close together.

Fifth, for emotional karma and grievances, relatives should use “repentance” to reflect sincerely and pray for forgiveness.

Interacting with ghosts and sentient beings is like living together with people. Making food offerings is one way of feeding sentient beings. They must be cared for, given enough to eat, allowed to accumulate merit, and reincarnate—this is the greatest expectation.

However, many people think that the merit of chanting Buddhist scriptures is so great that they only chant and dedicate the merit. In fact, this is a very inadequate and mistaken idea.

Because the bad karma involving sentient beings differs for each person, you must first pray to Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva for mediation. At this time, you must first go to Shuwen to ask what the other party wants!

It is not that you can simply chant a scripture and dedicate it, and then all sentient beings will accept whatever you want to give them.

“Specified food-offering recipients”

Some people write the names of ancestors, karmic creditors, deceased parents, infant spirits, siblings, and relatives on memorial tablets—in other words, many deceased spirits!

This means attending a great Dharma assembly presided over by a highly revered master. Perhaps some can be helped to cross over in this way, but there are also demons with special karma who cannot always be helped to cross over.

Moreover, there are only one or two Great Dharma assemblies each year, which is not enough to save these special wandering spirits. Therefore, the food-offering ceremony at Yixue Buddhist Hall is held twice a month.

How can one know the severity of the karma involving sentient beings and nonhuman beings?

Have you participated in a Dharma assembly before, and have you already attained salvation?

What merit and virtue do sentient beings need?

Would it be better to ask Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva to determine this using a divination wheel rather than relying on one’s own assumptions?

Even after completing the Shuwen homework, must one still check whether the request-for-guidance homework has been completed and whether there are any shortcomings that need to be supplemented?

The food-offering ritual also helps increase one’s personal energy, which many people do not understand very well!

Food offerings and dedications give to all kinds of beings. In addition to making food offerings, chanting, and praying, one’s spiritual energy and personal blessings are also returned at the same time.

Therefore, after attending a food-offering ritual, people often feel tired and hungry. Once, after attending a food-offering ritual, the eldest sister woke up extremely hungry at around 2–3 a.m. and went to 7-Eleven to eat oden. She was very frightened, called the teacher nervously, and said that she had never eaten a late-night snack before. How could this be possible?

Therefore, the intervals between food offerings should not be too short. Two weeks should be allowed between two offerings. Time is needed to restore one’s energy. Excessive food offerings can make the body feel heavy and make it easy to become ill.

Some people want to make what is called a “smoke offering” every day. If they do not realize that this is a compassionate form of charity, they must first give up their own energy, blessings, and charitable merit, and then receive the blessings of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and create good causes. Merit is obtained only after giving (incurring a loss) first!

It is not the case that once one makes food offerings or a <smoke offering>, one can immediately expect wealth and rewards or hope to eliminate karmic misfortune.

Benefits and important points to note

Writing about food offerings in the Buddhist hall is considered very important homework, but there are still many fellow practitioners who do not understand the reasons for making food offerings, and there are many other problems as well.

Therefore, the teacher explains the details one by one as follows.

【Benefits of making excessive food offerings】

When investigating the causes and effects over three lifetimes of everyone in the temple, the most common bad karma (killing) includes 116, 119, 121, and so on. <The king has no way to keep the country from being thrown into disorder> or <Dream interpretation: there is damage>, as well as other similar characteristics.

All of this is because karmic spirits from past or present lives are disturbing and harassing people, commonly known as “Kayin”!

Through the compassion of Buddhism, we cannot deal with them by controlling and killing evil spirits. Instead, through food offerings and offerings of worship, we make amends through repentance, restore merit and virtue, and pray to Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva for liberation from sin.

This means using food and sacrificial offerings to worship and send them onward, helping the dead reincarnate so that, naturally, they will no longer follow us. This affects health, careers, and wealth, and causes conflicts among family members.

【Important advice for making excessive food offerings】

Generally, everyone understands and accepts the principles above, but many people still do not understand the following points. This leads to incorrect practices when making food offerings to help spirits, meaning the intended effect of helping the spirits cannot be achieved.

1. Before making food offerings for liberation, you must write a small booklet and specify the intended recipient of the liberation first, but you cannot specify too many recipients at one time.

Second, food offerings for salvation should not be dedicated only through chanting and food worship; they should also be dedicated sincerely, from the heart.

Third, food offerings should not be limited to vegetarian food, but should depend on the recipient’s needs, such as meat, tobacco, and alcohol.

Fourth, make food offerings twice a month. The frequency should not be too low, but the intervals should not be too close together.

Fifth, for emotional karma and grievances, relatives should use “repentance” to reflect sincerely and pray for forgiveness.

Interacting with ghosts and sentient beings is like living together with people. Making food offerings is one way of feeding sentient beings. They must be cared for, given enough to eat, allowed to accumulate merit, and reincarnate—this is the greatest expectation.

However, many people think that the merit of chanting Buddhist scriptures is so great that they only chant and dedicate the merit. In fact, this is a very inadequate and mistaken idea.

Because the bad karma involving sentient beings differs for each person, you must first pray to Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva for mediation. At this time, you must first go to Shuwen to ask what the other party wants!

It is not that you can simply chant a scripture and dedicate it, and then all sentient beings will accept whatever you want to give them.

“Specified food-offering recipients”

Some people write the names of ancestors, karmic creditors, deceased parents, infant spirits, siblings, and relatives on memorial tablets—in other words, many deceased spirits!

This means attending a great Dharma assembly presided over by a highly revered master. Perhaps some can be helped to cross over in this way, but there are also demons with special karma who cannot always be helped to cross over.

Moreover, there are only one or two Great Dharma assemblies each year, which is not enough to save these special wandering spirits. Therefore, the food-offering ceremony at Yixue Buddhist Hall is held twice a month.

How can one know the severity of the karma involving sentient beings and nonhuman beings?

Have you participated in a Dharma assembly before, and have you already attained salvation?

What merit and virtue do sentient beings need?

Would it be better to ask Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva to determine this using a divination wheel rather than relying on one’s own assumptions?

Even after completing the Shuwen homework, must one still check whether the request-for-guidance homework has been completed and whether there are any shortcomings that need to be supplemented?

The food-offering ritual also helps increase one’s personal energy, which many people do not understand very well!

Food offerings and dedications give to all kinds of beings. In addition to making food offerings, chanting, and praying, one’s spiritual energy and personal blessings are also returned at the same time.

Therefore, after attending a food-offering ritual, people often feel tired and hungry. Once, after attending a food-offering ritual, the eldest sister woke up extremely hungry at around 2–3 a.m. and went to 7-Eleven to eat oden. She was very frightened, called the teacher nervously, and said that she had never eaten a late-night snack before. How could this be possible?

Therefore, the intervals between food offerings should not be too short. Two weeks should be allowed between two offerings. Time is needed to restore one’s energy. Excessive food offerings can make the body feel heavy and make it easy to become ill.

Some people want to make what is called a “smoke offering” every day. If they do not realize that this is a compassionate form of charity, they must first give up their own energy, blessings, and charitable merit, and then receive the blessings of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and create good causes. Merit is obtained only after giving (incurring a loss) first!

It is not the case that once one makes food offerings or a <smoke offering>, one can immediately expect wealth and rewards or hope to eliminate karmic misfortune.