Making Offerings to the Three Jewels on your altar or in a temple is actually part of the Perfection of Generosity. When you make an offering, you take something you own and you give it to the Three Jewels. As such, after you make offerings they no longer belong to you but the Three Jewels. Since they do not belong to you, you should act and think like they do not belong to you. This cuts attachment to material items and generates strong generosity in your mindstream. In addition, depending on what you offered, you generate the merits to receive certain things to aid you in your spiritual practice. For example, when you offer food, you create the causes to have sustenance and have your worldly material needs met, so that you can progress on your spiritual journey. For that reason, when we make offerings, we do not take offerings back for ourselves, and we do not make offerings with the sole motivation to give them to others as a blessing once it has been offered. Since the offerings no longer belong to us, we should think about doing something with them. Our motivation to make offerings, should be to generate merit and […]