e. The Kusali’s Accumulation

The word kusali means “beggar”. Hermits and renunciates who lack any other possessions make offerings of their own bodies. We cherish our bodies more than any of our other belongings, so the benefits of making them into an offering are also greater. As it is said:

Offering your horse or elephant is worth hundreds of other offerings;

Offering your child or spouse is worth thousands;

Offering your own body is worth hundreds of thousands.

Jetsün Milarepa described the meaning of the syllable Phat as follows:

The outer Phat gathers together thoughts that are scattered.

The inner Phat clears away the dullness of awareness.

The ultimate Phat is resting in the natural condition.

By abandoning all thoughts of self-grasping and attachment to this body held so dear, the demonic forces of seduction through desire (the “Mara of the Son of the Gods”) are destroyed. Your consciousness becomes a sphere of light, which shoots out through the 'aperture of Brahma' at the crown of your head into all-pervading space. Immediately, in order to destroy the demonic force of death (the 'Mara of the Lord of Death') your consciousness transforms into Tröma Nakmo, holding a hooked knife in her right hand and a skull-cup in her left, and with a sow’s head protruding from behind her right ear.

With her right hand she uses the hooked knife that symbolizes destruction of the demonic forces of conflicting emotions (the 'Mara of Disturbing Emotions') to slice the top off your corpse’s skull, destroying the demonic forces of the aggregates of ego (the 'Mara of the Skandhas'). Her left hand holds the skull-cup to carry out her activity, which she places on the hearth of three human heads inwardly representing the three kayas, each as big as Mount Meru. The skull-cup is placed so that the brow is facing towards you and then the corpse, now an offering as vast as a billion worlds, is placed inside it with the hooked knife in her right hand.

Below the skull-cup, the fire of wisdom blazes up from the stroke of a letter A and this causes nectar to melt and drip from the upside-down white syllable HAM above. Consider that any impurities are purified through OM, the offering is multiplied through AH, and transformed through HUNG into great clouds of 'space-treasury' offerings with the essential nature of wisdom nectar, but manifesting as whatever beings desire.

Recite OM AH HUNG as many times as you can.

Then visualize the field of merit as it appears in the refuge practice, surrounded by all the beings of the six classes, especially those beings that cause you harm. From your heart, emanate countless offering goddesses. Immaculate nectar is the white feast offered by the offering goddesses to the guests above, pleasing and satisfying them. Inconceivable offering substances manifest out of the steam that rises from the boiling nectar: the five offerings such as flowers, the five sensual pleasures such as visible forms, the eight auspicious symbols, the seven emblems of royalty and the five meats and five nectars. This is the variegated feast, and offering it pleases the guests, whereby the two accumulations of merit and wisdom are accumulated and, as the attainment of the supreme siddhi, your mind is perfected in the two types of bodhichitta. You also attain the ordinary accomplishments of long life, increased merit and so on.

For the guests below—the beings of the six classes of samsara—the dakinis take the nectar from the skull-cup and scatter it so that it falls from the sky like rain. Consider that all sentient beings receive some of the nectar to drink and are satisfied. As the variegated feast, consider that whatever the beings of the six classes desire rains down on them and through this they are pleased and satisfied. The creditors to whom you owe karmic debts that shorten your life because you have killed, that plague you with sickness because you have attacked and beaten others, and that make you poor because you have stolen, receive whatever they desire: food, clothes, houses, land and so on. As they enjoy these offerings, consider that all your debts are repaid.

In particular, think of the jungpo demons of the eighty thousand classes, who create obstacles for you and cause harm to sentient beings, together with the lame, the blind, the deaf and the mute, who gather in the hope of receiving the leftovers. To all the harmful influences and obstructing forces that crave flesh and blood, dedicate a mountain of flesh, an ocean of blood and a mass of bones piled up like the banks of a river, imagining it all to be like the flesh and blood of a seventh-birth brahmin[i]. Consider that it satisfies them physically and they develop the attitude of bodhichitta in their minds. Then the remaining guests all receive and enjoy whatever they desire, such as food or clothing. The lame receive the limbs of miraculous powers. The blind obtain the eyes of wisdom. The deaf hear immaculate sounds. The mute receive the tongue of intelligence and so on. In this way, all those who are weak and underprivileged are satisfied.

Through the merit and virtue of this, all illnesses that plague the body, all conflicting emotions that disturb the mind, and all destructive influences and obstacles are pacified into all-pervading space. Harmful circumstances that conflict with the Dharma, all selfish clinging to wealth and possessions, and thoughts of self-grasping are exploded.

Finally, the offering of the body and the mind that offers, together with all the guests to whom the offerings are made, dissolve into the nature of Dzogpachenpo, the fundamental nature of your mind, in which they are no longer clung to as being true, but seen as illusory and dream-like. This is the state of shunyata. Resting in this great simplicity, seal the practice into the dharmadhatu sphere of intrinsic reality with the syllable AH.

Unless you exert yourself in gathering the accumulations and purifying your obscurations through practices such as this, meditative experience and realization will never arise.

The Treasury of Songs of Realization (Dohas) says:

Ultimate co-emergent wisdom can only come,

From gathering the accumulations and purifying obscurations,

And through the blessings of a realized master.

It would be foolish to rely on any other method.