Resolutions for Buddhists

RESOLUTIONS FOR BUDDHISTS

Useful resolutions for enhancing
the cultivation of virtues
and pursuit of perfections

3rd Edition

As of 19 April 2016

PREFACE

As one of the required ten virtuous perfections, resolution making is a must for all Buddhists as it functions like a rudder that controls the direction in one’s living.  A resolution can possibly come to pass when it is empowered by the life energy called ‘merit’ which is accrued when one performs a good deed, either by way of thought, speech, or action.  Since there are many factors that contribute to its success, different resolutions take different period of time before they turn into a reality.  One needs to ponder carefully when making resolutions; otherwise, they may cause disorder or troubles to one’s life.  In addition, without a resolution, one tends to live one’s life aimlessly.  This book provides well organized resolutions for general Buddhists as they are designed to yield only positive outcomes whereas preventing oneself from many undesirable things in life.  Readers may choose to resolute only some parts or all of the resolutions given in this book, depending on their preference.

RESOLUTIONS

By the power of all merit I have done, may I become a virtuous Buddha [otherwise, a Silent Buddha or an enlightened person].  May the merit destine my action, speech, and thought to be pure and wholesome at all time.  May I have minimal or none of mental impurity, and let me be fulfilled with the 38 blessings of life (mangala), virtues, supernormal power, longevity, fine complexion, happiness, strength, intelligence, mundane wealth, noble spiritual wealth, human wealth, celestial wealth, spiritual liberation, insightful vision, insightful comprehension, wisdom, super-knowledge, and mental brightness.  May I be freed from bad karmas, karmic retribution, the evil mara obstruction, demerit, sin, unwholesomeness, misdeed and impurity. 

May I be able to righteously obtain abundant properties for doing good deeds and charity.  May I earn them at ease and have them managed by capable honest persons.  May I receive no harm, no trouble, and no difficulty due to my possession.  May I have good fame and become beloved, respected, and believed by others for the sake of doing good deeds, enlightenment, and Buddhahood [or arahantship] only.  May I become a leader of people in cultivating virtuous perfections who promotes wholesomeness and discourages unwholesomeness completely.

May I have great wisdom and might.  May I become a scholar and/or sage who observes pure precepts, has pure Dhamma quality and pure gender, and become a real man per my wish.  May I become skillful, capable, and well versed in all languages like the Lord Buddha. May I gain the ability to recall past and future lifetimes, either my own or others’.  May I be able to practice celibacy completely and purely throughout my life in every lifetime, per my wish, in order to increase my merit and purity.  May I become a righteous, capable, and knowledgeable master, teacher, student, leader, follower, governor, and management who has no ego for the sake of my own and others’ happiness and prosperity.  May I have opportunities to meet with the Lord Buddha, the Silent Buddha, and the noble enlightened disciples, as well as the righteous pre-enlightened Gotrabhu persons.  May I have opportunities to study and practice Dhamma as well as making merit with Them whereas They kindly welcome my alms and offerings.  May they also become my spiritual guides whom I am very much obedient to.

May I attain the supernormal powers, have an extra long lifespan, be freed from illness, harm, revenge, and sufferings, either mentally or physically.  May I be extraordinarily healthy, cheerful, and energetic.   When I work on the pursuit of perfections, may I receive good cooperation and kind support from my family members and the public who never obstruct or trouble me.  However, if I were to do a bad deed, may there be people who compassionately prevent me from doing so.  Thus, I will be unable to do any misdeed.  May I be unable to think, speak, and act unwholesomely.  May I be good at thinking, speaking, and acting wholesomely only.  May I reborn only in the wholesome realms until attaining complete enlightenment or Buddhahood.  When I die or reborn, may I be able to do so easily, safely, and free from pain, difficulty, and trouble.

May I have no enemy.  May I have only kindness, helpfulness, empathy and equanimity towards sentient beings and vice versa.  If I perform the duty of a virtuous spiritual guide by giving good guidance to someone, may it be successful at ease.  No matter which community I belong to, may such community be blessed with unity, love, respect, and harmony in doing good deeds.  May I always have good, virtuous, and capable fellows who unite to join me in doing good deeds.  No matter where I am, may such place be freed from pollution and have good, tidy, clean, pure, beautiful, and suitable atmosphere, surroundings, weather, and environment which are suitable for Dhamma learning, Dhamma practice, and the cultivation of virtuous perfections. 

May my fellows and I be freed from all harms in the cycle of rebirth.  May we be freed from any degeneration such as from birth, aging, sickness, and death which bring about sufferings.  May I live long and does not get old, similar to the celestial beings.  In the era that I reborn to, may there be no intoxicant and may there be delicious nutritious foods which are made from plants that people and animal prefer consuming, so nobody consumes meat which causes more disease and the violation of Buddhist precept. 

May I commit no sin to anyone, and vice versa.  May I obstruct no one who does good deeds, and vice versa.  May my fellows and I have no obstructing mara or the evil ones.  May I have much good faith in the Buddha, Dhamma, and the righteous Buddhist monks, as usual.  May I be a faithful Buddhist or a believer of a righteous religion if Buddhism does not exist.

May I reborn only to a family where parents and siblings are virtuous and have right views.  May I be able to do good deeds since I am born.  May I have outstanding IQ and EQ.  If I wish to ordain, may it be successful at ease and well supported by others.  May I have a complete body, beautiful figure, and good qualities and capabilities like the Lord Buddha whereas my figure resembles Him more and more in every lifetime until I possess the complete 32 signs of the great holy man (mahapurusha) and the 80 secondary characteristics.  May I have good manners, excellent etiquette and gesture, similar to the Lord Buddha.  May I speak of only wholesome and endearing words.  May I be good at both arts and sciences as well as music, sport, art, and capable of suitable things that comply to good conducts.  May I wake up early everyday to chant, meditate, and do good deeds conveniently.  When I sleep, may I dream of only auspicious things or dream of the future that allows me to know things in advance for the benefit of pursuing perfections.  May I sleep and consume moderately, so I can live a contented life at ease.

May I have great willpower in perfecting the ten virtues (parami) at three levels and possess the great wisdom which foresees and understand thoroughly in all Dhammic elements, as well as all proper knowledge, either in the mundane or the spiritual.  May I have superb, pure, and complete three wisdoms, namely wisdom from learning, wisdom from thinking, and wisdom from meditating.  May I understand and insightfully see thoroughly the three superknowledge (vijja) which belongs to the wholesome, the neither wholesome nor unwholesome, and the unwholesome.  As I know them, may I be able to improve the living beings and non-living beings to be prosperously wholesome whereas the unwholesome is diminished and eradicated completely.

May I be fortunate to make great meritorious deeds with the very pure deserved ones such as the Lord Buddha, the silent Buddha, and noble disciples whereas my mind is delightful before, during, and after doing so.  May I be delightful in my own and others’ merit without getting jealous or having ego.  May I have modern and advanced technology, tools and equipment which are safe for assisting my cultivation of the ten perfections at three levels.  So, they save my time and energy.  May the Lord Buddha, the noble disciples, the righteous Buddhist masters and the righteous sacred ones protect and secure me throughout my life.  May I become a contented peaceful person who doesn’t have greed, be satisfied with my possession, never over socialize, and doesn’t get trapped by praise and gain.  May I do not get attached to the five sensory, no matter what I see, smell, taste, hear, and touch.

May all of my resolutions yield results properly and in a timely manner, more and more.  As I accumulate more meritorious deeds, may I do not forget to make these resolutions over and over.  May I know more good resolutions which are beneficial for myself and other sentient beings further.  May I do not forget my resolutions as I reborn.  I wish I can make good resolutions repeatedly until they come to pass.  For the good resolutions which I made by myself or others made for me; which are good and beneficial to me; which promote wholesomeness and righteousness, may they come to pass at ease continuously.  On the contrary, may the bad resolutions which are not beneficial and cause harm and suffering to myself and others become diminished or don’t come to pass.  May I do not make these bad resolutions for myself and others, and nobody makes these bad resolutions for me as well.

May I earn much of pure merit, being able to fulfill the ten virtuous perfections completely at ease without being suffered or troubled.  May I be fortunate to make great merit frequently, conveniently, and successfully at ease.  When I invite people to join me, may they cooperate and support me with joy and pure hearts, and vice versa.  May I be the virtuous fellow for others, and vice versa.  May I have good and meritorious capable teachers who possess superb discipline, wisdom, virtues, knowledge, and supernatural power to teach and guide me.  

If I cannot become a Lord Buddha, may I become s Silent Buddha or a noble enlightened one, depending on the level of my merit energy.  May I harmonize and unite with other Buddha-to-be persons (Bodhisattas) very well.  Once I attain enlightenment, may I cherish the Four Meditative Bases of Spiritual Power (four iddhipada), which comprises of (i) concentration by means of desire (chanda-samadhi), (ii) concentration by means of persistence (viriya samadhi), (iii) concentration by means of intent (citta samadhi), and (iv) concentration be means of discrimination (vimamsa samadhi), in order to prolong my life even more for the benefit of others and myself.  May I enter the Nirvana by observing the aforesaid Four Meditative Bases of Spiritual Power. 

In any lifetime that I meet with any Lord Buddha, may my fellows and I have an opportunity to invite the Lord Buddha to observe the Four Meditative Bases of Spiritual Power which will eventually allow Him to prolong His lifespan.  Moreover, in the era that I attain Buddhahood or enlightenment, may there be an ethical universal ruler (cakkavatti) who supports and secures my religion.  If I have not attained Buddhahood yet, may I also become an ethical universal ruler, when I am qualified, in order to support and secure other Lord Buddhas, Silent Buddhas, enlightened disciples, and virtuous people and promote peace and prosperity of human society to be free from war and conflict.

I would like to humbly pay homage to all the Lord Buddhas, either in the past, present, and the future, with my accumulated merit.  And I would like to share my merit to the enlightened noble disciples, the pre-enlightened disciples, those who attain meditative absorption, virtuous people, Bodhisattas or Buddha-to-be’s, my parents, grandparents, descendants, relatives, friends, teachers, those whom I am indebted to, those who have revenge upon me, in this lifetime and every past lifetime, celestial beings, Brahma, Arupa-Brahma, and all spirits, either in the wholesome and unwholesome realm. 

Whoever that have received my merit, may they attain happiness and achieve the thirty eight blessings (mangala) of life, become the wholesome and righteous one who understands and foresees life and things according to the truth and reality as well as reborn only in the wholesome realm, by the power of merit they received from me and their own.  For those who have revenge upon me, once they receive the merit I shared, may they be kind to forgive and pardon me all alike.  However, if they receive my merit but still deny to pardon me, may they do not see me again until they fully pardon me or attain enlightenment. In addition, I would like to forgive all sentient beings for any wrong doing they might have done upon me.

Normally, one has to go through many difficulties and troubles in pursuit of perfections as one is obstructed by the evil mara.  So, I would like to make a resolution for myself to have my merit energy (punya) automatically fulfilled and condensed further [to become parami] at ease without any problem and hassle forevermore.

May others gain opportunities to make this resolution as I do, and may all of my wholesome resolutions come to pass throughout my lifetime and in every lifetime.  May all of my karma(s) and resolutions yield only good, beneficial, and wholesome results for the sake of wholesomeness and righteousness only.  May I be successful and prosperous in my pursuit of virtuous perfections until attaining the Nirvana conveniently, quickly, easily, joyfully, and cheerfully with happiness, peacefulness, purity, and auspiciousness in both the mundane and spiritual path without having any impurity, suffering, harm, and unwholesomeness contaminating to my life in any way.  

Nibbana Pajjayo Hotu…  May I succeed the Nirvana which is the state of supreme bliss!

Brief Resolution: “May all of the good and righteous resolutions I made in the past come to pass completely and easily in a timely manner.”