General Q & A on Blessing

Rinpoche la, Vajrayana always talks about blessing. What is blessing? Many people superstitiously take it as some sort of mystical power that can pacify obstacles and fulfill our wishes. For example, when we can’t find a parking lot, we pray to our Guru, and we got it. Is this blessing?

Blessing, in a stricter sense, have nothing to do with the worldly activities. It is not at all superstitious beliefs. Of course, if you have accumulated sufficient merits, your worldly wishes and desires will be fulfilled naturally. Blessing, in Vajrayana, is more referring to the transmission of the state of enlightenment or realization.

For example, my root guru strongly hopes that I progress swiftly in my spiritual practice, enlightened and achieve higher siddhis. Through various skillful means and ways, he tried to transmit his state of enlightenment and realization to me, to spark the transformation in my mind; this is called conferring blessing. The transformation of my state of mind to his enlightened state of mind and attainment is what referred as receiving the blessing. When you truly received the blessing, you are enlightened.

This has nothing to do with superstition. The masters must have certain levels of realization and attainment before he can transmit the blessings. Otherwise, what is he bestowing? Heat has to come from fire. If there is no fire of enlightenment, where does the heat of blessing comes from?  

Likewise, when my disciples have earnest wishes to attain realization, and he supplicate fervently to me. I ‘see’ it, and willingly I grant them the blessings. This type of connection, based upon the transmission of the state of enlightenment from the root guru to disciple, is called blessings. And the key to receive the blessing is devotion. This is the true and authentic guru-disciple relationship that we emphasize so much in Vajrayana.

During the fourth empowerment, generally, the master will hold a crystal ball (that represents our true nature of mind). We use this crystal ball as a representation to bestow blessings, symbolizes the transmission of the guru’s state of enlightenment to the disciples … "I am bestowing my state of enlightenment and attainment to you." This is called conferring blessings. Through this ritual, it empowers you to realize the natural state of your mind, the co-emergent wisdom. This is blessing.

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