Why Do I Keep Smelling Fragrance?

Some people who practice Buddhism diligently will from time to time smell a special fragrance. One kind is a fragrance from the body itself: because the mind has become pure and the qi meridians are unobstructed, a fragrance arises from within the body. The other kind is an external fragrance: when heavenly beings or Dharma-protecting deities follow at one's side, they bring celestial fragrance with them. If you can explain some rudimentary Dharma to those around you, heavenly beings may come to listen, and the surroundings will become very, very fragrant—this is the fragrance of heavenly beings. If you often recite mantras, Dharma-protecting deities will follow and protect you, and the fragrance they bring is also celestial fragrance.

The fragrance of the heavenly realm does not exist in our human world; it cannot be found here. That kind of fragrance is very special, making one's mind open, joyful, pure, tranquil, and bright, and it can dispel afflictions. Those with good roots of goodness will have Dharma-protecting deities following and supporting them at all times, and their progress will be very rapid. If one keeps the precepts strictly, the Dharma-protecting deities will also take responsibility for you, guarding you at all times, helping you reduce afflictions, change your habits, create more wholesome karma, and refrain from creating unwholesome karma.

Therefore, as long as you do your best to perform more meritorious formations (puṇyābhisaṃskāra) and wholesome deeds, the one who benefits most is still yourself. On the surface it appears that you are doing it for others and that others receive the benefits, but in reality the benefits you yourself gain are the greatest and the most. Many people, when given the opportunity to cultivate merit, refuse it no matter what, as if they would be losing out; but in reality, if one is unwilling to cultivate merit and to work for others and for Buddhism, one will fail to obtain many readily available benefits—is that not truly losing out?

If a person's selfish mentality of thinking only of oneself does not change, no matter how great the benefit, one will not obtain it. Merely worrying about not losing anything, one in fact fails to gain great benefit, which is itself a loss; in the end, even the little one currently has cannot be maintained or held onto. When the mind is too narrow, one's progress on the Path cannot advance. Cultivation is about the mind being empty of self; yet if all day long you cling to a selfish self while also trying to cultivate selflessness, how contradictory is that? Holding onto a self while cultivating selflessness—when will you ever succeed in cultivating selflessness? You should learn to slowly let go of the self; only then can you be without self.