【用這個生命來修行，是對父母最大的報恩、也是對佛菩薩最好的供養】／海濤法師

【Life-long Cultivation is the Best Repaying to Parents’ Loving-kindness, and the Best Offerings to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas】／Master Hai Tao

Without great merits, we neither have chances to learn Buddha Dharma, nor know how to help liberate sentient beings. While going abroad to visit, I saw the foreigners dedicating flowers to ancestors as a way to worship. In fact, it's not about worship, but just their way to commemorate the ancestors. The ancestors could see the flowers, but get nothing to eat. Even if falling into the Ghost Realm after death, they still need to eat, but not the way of (offering food to ancestors directly).

When you go worshipping the ancestors, the meals are not for ancestors, because the concept of offering the meals to them is wrong as well. We contribute the meals, cookies, and fruit as offerings to the Three Jewels on behalf of them, and as donations to sentient beings in the name of the ancestors. Consequently, they could gain the merits.

For example, Maudgalyayana helped liberate his mother by contributing the offerings to Buddhas and monks/nuns. Furthermore, Ananda promoted offering food to hungry ghosts. We call it "Nectar Food Offering." Thus, the deceased could get the merits. This is exactly the correct way. It's the same while worshipping the ancestors. Hold a bowl of rice and vegetables to dedicate to Avalokitesvara at home first.

After contributing the offerings to the Buddhas, you dedicate the merits of making offerings to your ancestors. Even you put the meals in front of the ancestors, they may not be able to eat. However, through your contributing, the ancestors could gain the merits. Then you get the meal, a little of it, to donate to the sentiment beings, so the ancestors could gain more merits. This is the correct way in Buddha's teaching.

Of course, the most enormous merit is, repeating after me, "the merit of cultivation." In addition to making these external donations and offerings, if we practically and genuinely make use our lives given from the parents to cultivate, that's so-called the most tremendous offerings.

To lay people, the supreme practice is like what we are doing today: Undertake the Eight Precepts. These eight precepts--no makeup, no killing, … These eight precepts contain two important tips, repeating after me, 1. Abstaining from being harmful to living beings. 2. Abstaining from doing the things leading to reincarnation.

1. Refrain from destroying living creatures. 2. Refrain from taking what is not given. 3. Refrain from sexual activity. In other words, the couple ought to sleep in separate beds tonight without staying in the same room or the same bed to not only refrain from unchastity but also abandon greed. 4. Refrain from "incorrect speech." It is also categorized as not being harmful to sentient beings. 5. Refrain from "taking intoxicants." No drinking alcohol keeps from harming living creatures, and abstains from satisfying one's palate and insatiable appetite. 6. Refrain from wearing garlands, using perfumes, and beautifying the body with aromatic oil. No applying makeup or perfume today. No wearing earrings or taking a shower with perfumed soaps.

When you go back home later, if coming here wearing leather shoes, please hold the shoes with hands without wearing them. You see that monks/nuns wear only plant made clothes from head to toe without using animal skin. Having a plant based diet, while applying cow leather seems trapped in the upside-down delusion. It's against the Dharma because compassion is essential in Mahayana Buddhism. Consequently, neither pay attention to appearance, nor use animal fur.

7. Refrain from lying on a high or luxurious sleeping place. You should sleep in a single bed tonight, or, better yet, go sleep in a worker's room to change the environment for it's a day for practicing ascetic cultivation. It's proper to sleep on the floor, or in a single bed. "Refrain from dancing , singing, music, and going to see entertainments." Thus, don't listen to music, sing songs, or watch TV programs unless what you watch is Buddha Dharma programs. In other words, don't indulge your eyes and ears in amusement.

8. Refrain from eating at the forbidden time as "no eating after noon." The deities in heaven have meals before the sun rises. As a result, contributing meals to gods is held in the early morning. Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Arhats have meals before noon, so it's called "no eating after noon." Beasts have meals in the afternoon, hungry ghosts have meals at night, but beings in the Hell Realms have nothing to eat at all. Hence, we learn from Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Arhats to have meals before noon. No food after noon.
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