The Long Life Puja Is Not a Real Long Life Puja

During a long life puja offered to Rinpoche on September 11 at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, Rinpoche offered the teaching, "The Long Life Puja is Not a Real Long Life Puja." In this teaching, Rinpoche explains many aspects of the long life puja that are so powerful to consider. Requesting the guru to have a long life purifies negative karma created in relation to the guru, Rinpoche explains. Disturbing the guru’s holy mind, having non-devotional thoughts arise, belittling the guru—these are very heavy negative karmas which are purified by doing the requesting prayer to the guru. Requesting the guru to have a long life also becomes a method for us to have a long life. The long life puja is a "very special party," Rinpoche reminds us. "If you read the prayers, if you pay attention, it leaves a positive imprint on your mind to actualize the path to enlightenment, sutra and tantra, by listening to Lama Chopa. You understand? It is a very incredible teaching.""We are doing a long-life puja, but it is not there," Rinpoche explains. "A real long life puja is not there. Everything is empty from its own side. Not nihilism, but empty from its own side. So not only this long life puja, but our whole life, from birth to death, from beginningless rebirths up to now and also into the future, there is nothing real appearing from its own side. It's all a hallucination. You have to meditate like that."