Verse 37: Dedicate the merit
Verse 37 of Gyalse Tokme Zangpo’s 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, from the section “Final precepts, daily conduct.” Below: the verse in three translations and what seven teachers say about it.
Open in the study browser →With the wisdom of threefold purity, dedicate to enlightenment all the merit gained from having made such effort. Dedicate it to dispel the suffering of limitless beings. This is the way of a bodhisattva.
The practice of all the bodhisattvas is to dedicate towards enlightenment All the virtue to be gained through making effort in these ways, With wisdom that is purified entirely of the three conceptual spheres, So as to dispel the sufferings of the infinity of beings.
To dispel the suffering of beings without limit, With wisdom freed from the three spheres Direct all the goodness generated by these efforts To awakening — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.
(Briefest of all.) All good deeds aim at beings' escape from suffering and enlightenment; dedication via the three-wheel method — purity of agent, act, object — purifies the mindstream: "all sentient beings are Buddhas."
(Brief.) Dedicate not to one's own well-being or rebirth but "solely to the attainment of buddhahood in order to relieve the suffering of others," conjoined with three-spheres wisdom. "So the main part is now finished."
Proper vs. self-centered dedication: "may everybody achieve enlightenment," not "may I achieve enlightenment so that I can eliminate the suffering of everybody." The caravan metaphor: add your small store of grain to the bodhisattvas' vast stores, all spent for the general good. The complete purity of the three spheres prevents grasping at a solid "me" attaining enlightenment.
The distinctive image: awakening from a dream while dedicating — no one dedicates, nothing dedicated, no one receives, all dreamlike. Dedication with this understanding renders merit inexhaustible.
Every Dharma activity has three parts — virtuous beginning (bodhicitta), middle (illusory accumulation), end (dedication) — and dedication determines destiny. Merit shared with all beings lasts like "a drop of water that we put into the ocean," while undedicated merit evaporates like a drop on a hot stone and can be destroyed by anger or pride. For ordinary practitioners who haven't realized emptiness: dedicate "in the same way as the past buddhas and bodhisattvas dedicated" — which makes it equally great.
Winter Retreat vv29–37 talk.
Talk 12: dedication done through presence rather than conceptual effort. Tricycle v37 (video/subscriber).
KS's ocean-drop vs. hot-stone-drop is the image to close every session with — and his workaround ("dedicate as the buddhas dedicated") solves the practical problem that three-spheres purity is beyond beginners. A dedication verse the group recites weekly would make this verse lived rather than studied. ---
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche — The Heart of Compassion (Shambhala). A purchased book — no text is reproduced here.