Blissings

Answering the question “What exactly are blessings?” on Facebook, Robert Thomas wrote beautifully:

“It’s that moment you feel the weight lift off your heart and you can’t say why (because nothing ‘out there’ really changed) but suddenly you see a way through a problem or a pain and you start to feel “It’s going to be ok”, and you know just what needs to be done. It’s also that moment where something you never understood suddenly makes sense. Or you see a thing you thought you knew in a whole new light, in a deeper way. Particularly with respect to Buddha’s teachings, but even everyday problems like solving something to keep your job! It’s also where you suddenly see into another person’s heart and ‘soul’ where all the barriers and differences between you and me or yours and mine dissolve. And you feel strong enough and inspired enough to do anything it takes for that or those other ones to feel real lasting joy. And so much more – like seeing and feeling an underlying purity and perfection in even the most terrible thing, and knowing that’s the real truth of everything. It’s being inspired, it’s finding a strength and patience and calm you never could imagine you might have. And and …. :-)) I think some people might call it grace. It’s a gift, it’s a blessing!”

Drop in an ocean. Ocean in a drop

I am carrying this on from a previous article, What are blessings? As mentioned then, whatever our spiritual background, providing we have some faith we can tune into blessings whenever we want. Our mind, like a drop of water, can dissolve into the mind of all enlightened beings, which is like a boundless blissful ocean. The drop is then pervaded by the ocean.

Taste reality

We can taste reality because we have never, ever, been separated from it. It is only our ignorance grasping at ourselves and everything else being independent, limited and ordinary, and the dualistic appearances we project, which are obscuring reality. Let them go for a moment through faith in the infinitely more powerful pervasive omniscient wisdom of holy beings, and anything can happen. Yes, I do believe that faith can move mountains. Mountains are mere appearance to mind like everything else.

The role of a Spiritual Guide

This is one big reason why in Buddhism the practice of relying on the Spiritual Guide is considered so very effective and important, because, due to our karmic connection, he or she is an obvious (to us) window open to receiving the blessings of all Buddhas at any given moment. (“Buddha” means “enlightened being”: anyone who has removed all ignorance and mistaken appearances from their mind permanently is a Buddha). If we consider our Spiritual Guide as the same nature as all the Buddhas, possessing their omniscient wisdom and bliss (pretty much disregarding how he or she may be appearing superficially to our temporary, mistaken minds), the Buddhas can effortlessly bless our minds through our karmic and faithful connection with him or her. Right now, NPR or some other station are beaming radio waves into your room, they’re dancing all around you. Are you picking them up? That depends on whether your radio receiver is switched on. Faith is like that radio receiver.

As my teacher Geshe Kelsang puts it:

“Because right now our mind is obstructed by the darkness of ignorance, we have no opportunity to communicate with enlightened beings directly. However, we will receive the blessings of enlightened beings through our Spiritual Guide.” ~ Teachings in Singapore 2007

Watering seeds of happiness

“Meditation” in Tibetan is “gom”, which literally means familiarity, and refers to familiarizing ourselves with positive thoughts, insights, feelings and so on. According to Buddhism, we take responsibility for training our minds in meditation, which we can do both on our meditation seat and around and about in our daily lives. Traditionally, meditation is said to be like sowing seeds, and receiving Buddha’s blessings is like watering those seeds so that the crops of spiritual realizations grow. Geshe Kelsang says:

“We know that in the summertime, through the sun shining on the snow mountain, water flows down. Similarly if we, from our side, shine the sun of our faith on the snow mountain of our Spiritual Guide, then from his or her side the water of blessings will flow down upon us continually. Through this we can easily make progress in our spiritual training, we can easily fulfil our spiritual wishes, and we can make our human life really meaningful.” ~ Teachings in Singapore 2007

Ask and you shall receive. As Genevieve Mancini puts it: “When I ask Geshe-la for blessings, my mind becomes happy.”

I believe mystics and the faithful in all spiritual traditions have had access to that window or snow mountain, one way or another, my grandfather certainly did, only he didn’t know how to access it on his own. So he and I talked about how he could do that through belief and faith, and he was very interested. It turned out to be my last long private conversation with him, so I might never know if he tried it or not.

Blessings are not that mysterious, it seems to me. More coming in the next article…

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