Connecting with Ancestral Merit and Assisting the Deceased
In Asian culture and society, having a strong connection to the ancestors is traditionally considered to be very important. In the west, more and more, this type of tradition is being diluted and lost. This connection is known as Ancestral Merit.
Master Yu on Ancestral Merit:
As human beings, every one of us has roots. We all come from somewhere. What are these roots? To put it simply, our roots are our bloodline. We come from our parents, they come from their parents, there is a bloodline.
Let me give you an example: look at a big tree. The root of that tree is deep. The deeper the roots grow, the taller the tree gets, and bigger the leaves. If the root of the tree becomes damaged, if it becomes severed, the tree may not die.
Although the root is damaged, but there still may be other, lesser, smaller roots and the tree may live on. But you will know something is happening to the tree. It is not dead, but something is happening to it. You may see the leaves changing colors and withering. Certain branches may be drying up.
What has happened to people today? I have said over the years, modern people think they have become more knowledgeable, they have so much knowledge. But this knowledge is all braches of knowledge. The knowledge is incomplete. As people advance their knowledge, they are parting ways with their culture at the same time. There are many ancient cultures, but gradually they are lost or forgotten by their people.
In the old days, the nobility of the west also considered bloodlines to be an important matter.
Although you have never met your ancestors from generations ago, the bloodline is still there. Your ancestors continue to look after you.
For example: Any woman who has become a mother has this experience. No matter how old her child gets and no matter how good or how bad her child treats her, as a mother, her heart is always worried about her baby. Unfortunately when a child is happy, he may forget his parents, but the parents never forget their children.
Even if a child is 80 years old, so its mother is 100 years old. She’s a 100 year old, she may be lying in bed, and cannot move, but she is still thinking of her child. What’s happening there? This is a symptom of the bloodline.
What is Ancestral Merit?
Think of ancestral merit as this big reservoir. As long as you continue to perform the act of paying respect to your ancestors, go to their burial place, put out flowers, talk nonsense, bow to them, it doesn’t matter what you do, this reservoir will continue to supply you with water through the pipeline. If you have long forgotten them, you don’t even know where they are anymore, you are not able to find the reservoir, there is no more pipeline, no water coming to you.
Water as an element, is the first element. It is the source of origin of every life we know. If we want to be living a really good life, if we want to be prosperous, the bloodline is water to us. You cannot live without the water element. If you don’t have the reservoir, your whole destiny depends on the rain, upon the heavens. If it rains, you have water. If there is a drought, there is no water.
Here is another example: There is a person who is extremely talented, very capable. He is able to do things well and is a smart person. He is like a plant. If there is no water source for the plant, the plant depends on its livelihood from the rain. When the rain is abundant, this plant grows strong. Some days later, if no rain comes and there is a drought, the plant’s leaves will wither. A few days later, rain comes again. Suddenly the plant comes alive again and starts to grow.
What would happen if there is a pipeline from a reservoir supplying the plant with water? If there is a drought, there is still water coming from the reservoir. If there is too much rain, it will fill the reservoir. When someone is linked to that reservoir, he will always have plenty of water.
If this person is no longer looked after by his ancestral merit, his link is severed. No matter how intelligent this person is and no matter how capable he is, his luck will go up and down like a roller coaster. When days are good, things will be good. When days are running thin, he’ll just crash. There will be no smooth journey for someone whose ancestral merit link is severed. – Living Buddha Dechan Jueren UK 2008
Every person has a root nature and a self nature.
Root nature is like the root of a family tree, where our ancestors' merits and karmas are passed down to us. This combines with our own personal past karma to create our present life at birth.
Our self nature can be described as the accumulation of karma of our present life, now.
People who continually experience good luck and fortune, while having good personal karmas, also have a strong connection with their ancestral merit. Ancestral merit can be lost though. One of the quickest ways to lose it is by being disrespectful to our parents. Master has said many times, “No matter what our parents may have done to us, we have to forgive them. If we cannot learn to forgive our own parents, how are we going to learn to forgive anyone? Without our parents, we wouldn’t even have a physical body. Without a physical body, we couldn’t even experience pain and suffering, much less happiness. Just for that, we are in their debt.”
If we disrespect our parents, we are cutting our ancestral merit off at the roots. It’s not that our ancestors want to punish us, not at all. In fact, they are always extending us a helping hand, unconditionally. But if we have strong issues of anger or disrespect towards our parents, we are in effect turning our backs not only on them, but on our entire bloodline as well. This causes a major obstacle for the practitioner intent on attaining the dharma.
For those who are experiencing obstacles, purifying your ancestral karma and reconnecting to your ancestral merit is very important. By doing your daily dharma practice, you will slowly and naturally purify this karma and reconnect to your merit. Master has stated, “When a person attains to the dharma, their ancestors and offspring are liberated for 7 generations.”
Conversely, liberating your ancestors will make it easier to attain dharma, because the practitioner doesn’t have to labor under the burden of ancestral karma. The main root of ancestral merit goes through the paternal line, through your father, to his father, to his father, and so on.
The Dari Rulai Temple has the ability to purify ancestral karma by doing rites to assist the deceased. Having the Temple conduct a seven day assist the deceased dharma rite for your late parent, grandparent, etc., will greatly increase your connection to your ancestral merit.
For those who are laboring under a severe burden, the temple offers a service called Link to the Merit of the Ancestors. This is a major 100 day empowerment, which can only be conducted by the Dharma King, which will completely re-connect you with the merit of your entire paternal bloodline.
To learn more about the dharma rite to assist the deceased, read transcripts of dharma talks by Living Buddha Dechan Jueren, look at testimonials of others who have received the rite, or call me to chat about your situation.
The next assist the deceased rite I and my family are doing personally will be for my great-great grandfather. The effect of these rites has been very beneficial not only for myself as a practitioner, but for my entire family as well.
Chanzhi Decheng (Sifu Dan Kendall) – Abbot
Dari Rulai Temple
626-330-0921