【Description】
Our blessings as well as our obstacles in life come from both personal and ancestral merits and karma. When it comes to inherited merits and karma, the descendants within five generations tend to be affected the most. How would it affect us if our ancestors had committed huge sins? How can we help our suffering ancestors? How can we avoid the karmic sufferings resulting from our ancestors’ sins? How can our descendants be blessed with auspiciousness? Find out in this video.
【You will learn】
- The influence of karma on the next five generations
- The concept of “repaying our father’s debt”
- The benefits of accumulating merits for our ancestors
【Content】
In this life, we experience all sorts of blessings, such as wealth, prosperity, intelligence, becoming an influential figure, or making money from our business, etc. These are all due to one’s own merits. In contrast, some experience serious illnesses, birth defects, and lifelong poverty. These are composed of two main reasons. One is our own merits and faults, and the other is the merits and faults of our ancestors.
Inheritance of our ancestors’ merits and faults mostly impacts the descendants within five generations. First of all, you, the youngest generation. Then, your parents. Next, your grandparents. Then, your great-grandparents. Then, the fifth generation: the great-great-grandparents. Everything this generation has, good and bad, is passed down. For how long? Until the debt is fully cleared.
Thus, you’re clearing not just your father’s debt, but also your ancestors’ debts. If your great-great-grandfather committed a sin, you, the fifth generation, shall help to clear his debt. However, on the other hand, if one of our ancestors did a great deed that benefited all beings, their descendants, including yourself, might be blessed with prosperity and good fortune. They have knowledge and degrees, or they’re officials or business owners. Overall, everything is good for them and all of them are still thriving today.
Doing meritorious deeds for our ancestors, such as offering lamps, chanting, doing good deeds, gilding Buddha statues, etc., helps our ancestors. If our ancestors, for example, have reincarnated as humans and are suffering from illness, they’d be fine the next day from the merits of your good deeds. They stop suffering immediately. If they are suffering in hell, doing these meritorious deeds might instantly liberate them. They might leave hell and be reborn in Heaven.
So, when we chant a buddha’s name, say, the Earth Store Bodhisattva, for our ancestors and descendants, they’ll be blessed for sure.
(Practice regularly, chant, and do meritorious deeds to bring prosperity and good fortune to all future generations.)