“I, too, make this dedication”

Many people are renewing aspirations and vows that benefit others and the world. Millions, maybe billions, of people are praying for the well-being of others and that this world-shared situation will foster awareness, compassion, equanimity, and positive change in the collective consciousness of humanity.

Below is a newly translated prayer from 84000. If it resonates, please join me in saying it aloud daily. Here is the webpage of the translation.

May all beings awaken, be eased from suffering and its causes, and may we take our collective stand in illumined pure perception. OM

Protecting All Beings

I prostrate to the Buddha, to the Teaching, and to the entire Assembly.

Blessed buddhas and all bodhisattva great beings, please pay heed to me!

I confess all sins.
I rejoice in all merits.
I pray to all buddhas.
I dedicate all merits so that all sentient beings attain the unsurpassed wisdom of omniscience.

Just as by their truth and true words the blessed buddhas who teach the truth have dedicated their perfect roots of virtue, in the same way do I, too, make this dedication. By that truth and those true words: whatever sins, nonvirtuous deeds, and evils that all sentient beings have committed; whatever falsehoods they have spoken and harmful thoughts they have had; whatever obscurations—afflictive obscurations, karmic obscurations, ripened obscurations, and cognitive obscurations—have obscured, veiled, and fettered them; that they have not correctly known their own and others’ aspirations, latent dispositions, constituents, or intrinsic nature; that they have not correctly known their differences in faculties and diligence or in their virtues and nonvirtues; that they have not correctly known those qualities that are blameworthy, not blameworthy, to be relied upon, or not to be relied upon; that they have not succeeded in encountering holy beings, listening to the holy Dharma, directing their minds appropriately, or practicing in accordance with the Dharma; that they have not correctly known the various methods of taming by which beings may be tamed however they are obscured, veiled, and fettered by obscurations: the taming of sentient beings, the taming of self, the taming of others, the taming of both, taming gently, taming wrathfully, taming with equanimity, taming threateningly, taming by exorcism, taming with censure, taming by means of acts of service, veneration, and worship, taming by explaining the Dharma, taming by smiling, taming by going into seclusion to meditate, taming by means of the ascetic disciplines and having few possessions, taming through the practice of the perfections of generosity, ethical discipline, endurance, diligence, meditative absorption, and wisdom, and taming by faith, ethical discipline, learning, renunciation, wisdom, and meditative cultivation; that they have not given rise to the causes of ethical discipline; that they have not made pure the causes of meditative concentration, the causes of mental focus, the causes of meditative absorption, the causes of calm abiding, the causes of transcendent insight, the causes of the superknowledges, the causes of the exhaustion of defilements, or the causes of the discernments; that they have not actualized the meditative absorptions, the liberations, the meditative concentrations, and the meditative attainments, and that when appearances arise they have allowed what has arisen to decline; that they have given rise in their minds to the wish for gain, the wish to be honored, the wish for fame, and the wish for followers; that they have harbored in their minds thoughts of desire, malevolent thoughts, violent thoughts, thoughts about immortality, thoughts about children, thoughts about relatives, and thoughts about the requisites of clothing, food, bedding, and medicines for treating illness; that they have experienced short lives, much ill health, bad complexions, poor figures, weakness, low status, meagre resources, stupidity, being reborn in the lower realms among the hell beings, in the animal realms, and in the realm of the Lord of the Dead, and that they have experienced many such kinds of suffering deriving from their bodies and mental unhappiness deriving from their minds; and that they have delighted in wrong aspirations and have not realized rightful aspirations—may everything that will ripen for sentient beings obscured and fettered by these and any other obscurations ripen for me! And may all sentient beings thus be liberated and purified.

Whatever extent the Buddha element may have, whatever extent the Dharma element may have, whatever extent the Saṅgha element may have, whatever extent the very limit of reality may have, whatever extent nonduality may have, whatever extent suchness may have, whatever extent sameness may have, whatever extent the elements of desire, anger, and ignorance may have, and whatever extent those who are bound and will be bound in saṃsāra may have—to that very extent may all sentient beings’ primary afflictions, all their secondary afflictions, and whatever elements of affliction itself there may be, all ripen for me! And may all sentient beings thus be liberated and purified.

However many roots of virtue I have created and accumulated from cyclic existence’s undiscoverable beginning, I dedicate them to all sentient beings. Attached to desire, tormented by anger, confused by ignorance, and yoked to the primary afflictions, secondary afflictions, and affliction itself, I do not correctly know, see, or understand how to dedicate the roots of virtue. But the blessed buddhas do know, see, and understand such things, and just as they dedicated their roots of virtue, so too do I dedicate mine. I dedicate them in accordance with the mind of the tathāgatas. Just as they tamed sentient beings; just as they ripened their roots of virtue; just as they multiplied their roots of virtue; and just as they knew suffering, abandoned its origin, realized cessation, cultivated the path, attained the unsurpassed wisdom of omniscience, abandoned all roots of nonvirtue, possessed all roots of virtue, vanquished the latent tendencies, and attained the state of non-forgetfulness and the knowledge of all aspects—in just the same way that all the buddhas appearing in the past, the present, and the future dedicated their roots of virtue when they were bodhisattvas, so too do I dedicate mine. I dedicate them through sameness; I dedicate them through nonduality; I dedicate them by means of the dedication that completely protects all beings; and thus I recite a second time, and thus a third time.

May sentient beings see me in whatever manner will tame them, without their having any such thoughts in mind. And may I always engage in physical, verbal, and mental actions in whatever ways sentient beings will be purified.

In whatever time, whatever place, and whatever way sentient beings will be tamed, may the sphere of reality be thus revealed to them without confusion!

The Noble Dedication “Protecting All Beings” is concluded.