ད་བཞན་གཤགས་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱ་གཙག་ཏར་རྣམ་པར་རྒྱལ་བ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་གཟངས་རྟག་པ་དང་བཅས་པ 6

6

observing fasting, with a mind directed toward benefiting all sentient beings, giving an offering that bestows longevity and intelligence, recite it one thousand times. If this is done every month, in six months one will be able to live for a thousand years. If practiced continuously for one year, one will be able to live for a hundred thousand years. If practiced perpetually, one will attain inexhaustible longevity, become endowed with strength, be unconquerable by anyone, and become the supreme sky-farer uṣṇīṣa unequaled among gods and asuras. Furthermore, another ritual: take earth from an utterly auspicious place, mix it with fragrant scents, and make stūpas, beginning from one thousand down to five or one. Each day, properly deposit the Victorious Uṣṇīṣa belonging to the stūpa, make extensive offerings as spoken, and read it from one thousand down to seven times. Dedicating it each day to the dhāraṇī that bestows longevity and intelligence, give the roots of virtue in common to all sentient beings. Renounce tying up, beating, and the like of sentient beings. Every other month, doubling the offerings, the recitation of eight hundred should be performed by oneself or someone equal to oneself. Through this ritual, the eight untimely deaths will be averted. One will have sharp intelligence, be free from sickness, live for a hundred years, be pleasing to all beings, and remember past lives. When the time of death arrives, discarding one's body just as a snake sheds its skin, one will be reborn with a beautiful body in the Sukhāvatī world realm. Furthermore, one will not be reborn in the hells, the animal realm, or the bad migrations of the realm of Yama. If even the sound of hell will not be heard by one's ear cavity, how could the ripening of its fruit occur? One will not go to the dwelling places of these. Then the Blessed One Amitāyus proclaimed yet another means of accomplishment: