1.Prerequisites
• Perform daily recitation before reciting Little Houses
It is compulsory to perform daily recitation before reciting Little Houses. Beginners should start off by reciting the Great Compassion Mantra, the Heart Sutra and the Eighty-Eight Buddhas Great Repentance in order to establish a solid foundation. This will enhance the power and effectiveness of the Little Houses. Otherwise, the Little Houses will not be as effective.
After completing a few recitations of the Great Compassion Mantra for your daily recitation, you may proceed with the recitation of your Little Houses. However, you should ensure that you complete your daily recitation within the same day.
The recitation of Buddhist scriptures contained in a Little House and daily recitation must be performed separately.
Scriptures recited for the daily recitation should not be counted towards the Little House.
• Help yourself before helping others
Recite the Little Houses for your own karmic creditors before considering reciting for others. Otherwise, your karmic creditors can become agitated and you may encounter various obstacles.
• Ensure quality by reciting sincerely and conscientiously
As long as you recite sincerely and conscientiously, Little Houses can help foreign spirits ascend to a higher spiritual realm, dispel calamities, repay karmic debts and eliminate karmic obstacles. You must always ensure that any Little House you recite is of good quality. Otherwise, offering it will result in adverse effects such as worsening health conditions. It may also create negative karma as it is an act of deception toward heaven, the underworld, and foreign spirits.
• Suitable for everyone to recite
The offerings of Little Houses can help to eliminate karmic obstacles, repay karmic debts and dispel calamities. They are suitable for everyone to recite.
You should recite as often and as many as possible, especially if you experience discomfort such as a headache or fever, or if you dream about the deceased, have a miscarriage, suffer from serious illness, encounter calamities or domestic disputes, and so forth.
2.Time and place of recitation
• The Great Compassion Mantra and the Qi Fo Mie Zui Zhen Yan can be recited at any time between 5am and 12 midnight. During thundery weather, only the Great Compassion Mantra can be recited.
• There are not many restrictions on the location of recitation. Recitation can be performed at most locations except for toilets and other foul places. Do not perform recitation while cooking non-vegetarian food.
• The Heart Sutra and the Amitabha Pure Land Rebirth Mantra can be recited in the daytime and at night before 10pm during good weather. After filling in the recipient field on the Little House, non-beginners may recite these two scriptures until midnight under good weather conditions.
Avoid reciting these two scriptures at night when you are outdoors in the countryside, in a vehicle, or in any crowded or noisy place. However, you may recite them silently during the day. If you experience discomfort such as headache and dizziness, you should stop reciting these two scriptures immediately. Avoid reciting them in cemeteries or funeral parlours and do not recite them during extreme weather conditions, such as heavy rain, thunderstorms or dark, gloomy days.
• If you are in hospital, you can only recite the Great Compassion Mantra. If you are under long-term hospitalisation, recite the Heart Sutra and the Amitabha Pure Land Rebirth Mantra only during the day. At night, only the Great Compassion Mantra can be recited.
• For better results, it should take you no longer than seven days to complete a Little House and dot it as soon as possible after recitation.
3.Points to take note of when reciting the Little Houses
• It is best to recite the Great Compassion Mantra several times for yourself to enhance your energy before reciting a Little House. There is no particular sequence for reciting the Buddhist scriptures. If you feel physically or emotionally unwell, do not perform recitation of a Little House as it will exhaust your energy, affecting your ability to concentrate, and the quality of your Little House will be compromised.
If you feel exhausted or debilitated during recitation, pause and recite the Great Compassion Mantra several times for yourself to enhance your energy. If you are very anxious to help spirits ascend to a higher spiritual realm and you recite so much that blisters form in your mouth, then it is a sign that you are overexerting yourself. One should avoid doing so.
• Find a suitable time and a quiet place at home to perform recitations and avoid interruptions such as calls, visitors, etc.
If you are interrupted while reciting a long sutra, you should excuse yourself by reciting “Ong Lai Mu Suo He” once to pause your recitation. Once you have finished attending to the tasks that interrupted you, you may resume your recitation by reciting “Ong Lai Mu Suo He” once again. For short mantras, it is best to start over. You should also start over if the pause is longer than two hours.
• You can recite aloud or in silence. However, reciting too loudly is detrimental to your energy flow (known as Qi or Chi) while reciting in silence may cause poor circulation of blood. Generally, recitation should be performed softly.
• The full title of the Great Compassion Mantra and the Heart Sutra should be recited with the scripture each time. The full title of the Great Compassion Mantra is Qian Shou Qian Yan Wu Ai Da Bei Xin Tuo Luo Ni.The full title of the Heart Sutra is Bo Ruo Bo Luo Mi Duo Xin Jing.
It is highly recommended that you recite the title each time for the Amitabha Pure Land Rebirth Mantra and the Qi Fuo Mie Zui Zhen Yan. However, you may recite the title only once when you begin recitation of the two scriptures above.
• Minor pronunciation errors are acceptable, as long as they do not deviate too much from the intended sound. However, you should still recite the Mantra for Rectifying Errors in Recitation 3 to 7 times in such a case.
Non-Chinese speakers can recite the Buddhist scriptures according to the Wade-Giles Romanization or Hanyu Pinyin and achieve the same effect. It is best if you can recite from memory, and you must not miss out any words or phrases in the Buddhist scriptures during recitation.
4.Types of prayers
You may commence your recitation by saying a simple prayer or simply start recitation after filling in the recipient and the reciter fields of the Little House. Unlike daily recitation, please do not make any personal prayers prior to reciting the Little House, otherwise the Little House will become ineffective.
Depending on how you want to use the Little House, you may commence the recitation with one of the prayers listed below:
• For a Little House dedicated to karmic creditors of a living person, the deceased, miscarried or aborted children, karmic creditors of the house, say, “May the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva protect and bless me, “your full name”, help me to give these “number” Little Houses to XXX (being the recipient of the Little House that is written under “Offer To:” on the right-hand side, i.e.Karmic Creditor of “your full name”, Child of “mother’s full name”, “full name of the deceased”, Karmic Creditor of the house of “full name of the occupant”).”
• For a Little House used to resolve karmic conflicts, say, “May the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva protect and bless me, “your full name”, help me to resolve my negative karmic affinity with “the other party’s full name“.(Note that “the other party” can be your relative, friend, or colleague.) Generally, only your name will appear on the Little House and not the name of the other party.
Alternatively, you may state a general prayer, “May the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva protect and bless me, “your full name”, help me to resolve my negative karmic affinity.”
• If reserving Little Houses for future use, say, “May the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva be my witness, I, “your full name”, now recite the scriptures contained in this Little House (the Great Compassion Mantra, the Heart Sutra, the Amitabha Pure Land Rebirth Mantra, and the Qi Fo Mie Zui Zhen Yan).” Little Houses of this nature can be used in time of urgency.
