5

ASKING THE BUDDHA TO STAY

The bodhisattva mahasattva Maitreya made mental prostrations to the Buddha and mentally circumambulated him three times. Then, leaving the congregation, he traveled to the great stupa at Vulture Peak, the King of Mountains, sacred site of countless buddhas, numerous as the grains of sand in the ocean. There, for the Victorious One’s enjoyment, he blessed Vulture Peak so that it instantly became a level, open space with no sticks, thorns, stones, pebbles, or gravel, and the entire surrounding area was transformed into the seven precious substances.

—CHAPTER 17

MAYBE YOU ALREADY have some compassion, are practicing right action, have some knowledge and some experience in meditation. Once this has happened, you start to move from mere technical training into what we can call the “spiritual aspect” of the method. From this point, you will only advance quickly if you have spiritual support, if you aren’t spiritually lonely, and if you have spiritual confidence.

1ST: GAIN SPIRITUAL SUPPORT

You gain spiritual support by relying on the realization of those who came before you. You cannot walk this whole path alone, and if you try, you will fail. So, you begin to turn your mind toward the Buddha and all those who inherited the teachings of the Buddha, all the great masters of the past.

Maitreya’s actions in the above quotation from the King of Meditation Sutra are not just storytelling—his activity shows us how to practice. It is due to the power of the Buddha that Maitreya was able to bless the land for the Buddha’s enjoyment. This is a very profound point. Through prostration, circumambulation, and supplication he was able to connect with the wisdom of the Buddha and thereby bless the earth through that wisdom.

Prostration is an ancient way of demonstrating respect in many cultures and traditions, and the practice of circumambulating representations of the Buddha’s body, speech, and mind dates back to the time of Buddha himself. When Maitreya paid homage through prostration and circumambulation, the Buddha blessed his mind to be able to experience the world in a pure way. Maitreya saw the top of Vulture Peak as adorned with sparkling jewels. The air smelled sweet and delicious, the ground was exceptionally flat and even. It was as though a billionaire had organized the land for his daughter’s wedding. Nothing was left unadorned, rough, or imperfect. Everything was exceptional, pushing the limits of splendor.

Whatever we imagine will produce how we feel, and our feelings have an impact on the people surrounding us. When I walk into a room full of people who are angry, I can feel that anger—it is expressed to me in countless subtle ways. Likewise, the inconceivably powerful mind of an awakened being has the power to engender experiences that accord with love and wisdom, and we call these “blessings.” Through the power of the Buddha’s samadhi and Maitreya’s training and receptiveness, the land became beautiful in Maitreya’s actual experience.

2ND: DISPEL SPIRITUAL LONELINESS

You can practice in the same way as Maitreya by visualizing all the loving awakened beings in front of you. They are here for one purpose and one purpose only: to help you. The sky is not large enough to hold so many radiant bodies. Cultivate the certainty that golden Shakyamuni Buddha and all of those who have gone beyond samsara are with you, from now until enlightenment. Their presence says, “Don’t worry about the small stuff.” You should think that any obstacles you may have are just peanuts for them. Connecting with this feeling of being buoyed up by the wisdom of countless victorious meditators is what is known as spiritual support.

Look at your practice when you don’t train in this way, when you don’t have any spiritual support, when you don’t have awakened beings to go to for refuge. Look at your experience when you don’t supplicate. If you meditate without any of this then you feel quite lonely. Without support, you may have this hidden but strong suspicion that you will fail to attain the ultimate fruit of the path. You know you can succeed in some meditation and that it can benefit you a little, but the goal of enlightenment is usually well beyond the scope of what you believe is possible. Maybe you can become a little happier—but, enlightenment? Come on!

Spiritual loneliness is mentioned in the teachings of the Foundational Vehicle, but not very extensively. The Mahayana emphasizes it further, and in the Vajrayana it becomes extremely important. When we begin meditation practice in the presence of all the loving buddhas of all genders, all of them, surrounding us and actually looking at us, their presence and their eyes serve to remind us, “If you fail now, that’s all right. Do it anyway.”

To completely unveil our wisdom, this kind of total love and nonjudgmental compassion needs to saturate us. “If I fail now, fine!” When we have this confidence, we never feel alone. I gave this instruction to a group of people who don’t usually practice in such a way. I asked them, “Do you feel lonely when you do meditation?” It is true that they take refuge in the Buddha and chant his name, but they never chant with the thought that every buddha is present—every single buddha, male and female, red and yellow, big and small, from the past and the present and the future. I told them that if you meditate, visualizing you are in front of countless buddhas who blaze like the sun and direct their minds of wisdom toward you, then you don’t really need to do anything else. You just sit there and meditation comes.

At some pilgrimage places, meditation comes automatically. You don’t have to put great effort into the practice. If you go to Bodhgaya, the place where Buddha attained enlightenment, you have probably experienced this effortless meditation. The conditions are so conducive to practice that one just enters into a natural flow of meditation. This experience of naturally contacting wisdom is known as “receiving blessings.” People travel the world to receive blessings from holy places and holy beings. They trek over mountains and endure hardships to receive blessings. Blessings arise through the power of great meditators and the spaces and objects connected with those practitioners. Once you have received blessings, you can take them with you wherever you go. Simply think, “I have the blessings with me now.” Sit in your room and think, “I am in Bodhgaya and the Buddha is in front of me right now.” Burn incense or light a candle as an offering and sit in the presence of the Buddha. Through inviting blessings, we are not lonely and we enhance our practice. We become more concerned with blessings when we want to swim down deep into wisdom, rather than just learn meditation.

Many people ask, “Why visualize the Buddha?” It’s actually quite straightforward. If I want to learn how to build a nuclear reactor, I am fairly certain I will visualize the presence of Einstein. I will think, “Einstein, please bless me to become a physicist like you.” My mind will turn toward Einstein’s qualities. I will align my experience with the quality of his intelligence. Through recollecting him, I will reflect on his qualities, which will impress upon my own mind. Similarly, when I visualize my grandmother, a particular feeling comes, which is her specific love and care, that is then engendered within me.

Something similar takes place when we visualize the Buddha, though there is an added dimension and result. Visualizing the Buddha is particularly potent because the wisdom of the Buddha is already ever-present. We connect to the unobstructed wisdom mind of the Buddha through first connecting to his form. The power of this type of recollection and subsequent connection cannot be overstated. Something extraordinary begins to happen when we recollect the Buddha rather than an ordinary being.

The Buddha taught the genuine practice of meditation. He taught the path which leads to freedom from ego-clinging and desire. The Buddha taught the methods that will lead us to freedom. If we want to gain these methods, we ask the Buddha to bless us. We don’t ask him to bless us with a million dollars or to make us like Bill Gates or the president of the United States, but rather that we may swiftly gain his realization.

I used to encounter difficulties when I meditated because my mind did not listen to my commands. When I encountered a difficulty in my practice, it did not mean my mind was bad. It just meant my mind could not listen. Do you know why that was? I had spoiled my mind. Throughout my life I had told my mind, “Do whatever you want.” Then when I began to sit and meditate, my mind would naturally just do whatever it wanted.

When the thought arises, “I don’t like meditating,” we need to return to the practice at hand. Eventually, when the mind starts to think, “I love everybody, and I love to meditate,” and we are experiencing waves of bliss, we also return to the practice at hand. “It’s okay,” we tell our mind, and this becomes a powerful tool in our meditation arsenal.

“I am hungry.”

“It’s okay, go back to meditation.”

“I am tired, and I need a nap.”

“It’s okay, for a little while, go back to meditation.”

This is not to say we should not attend to our bodies—of course we must be healthy and rested. The point here is that as we continue to walk the path, the mind will not support us. Through practice we try to soften the mind, to make it malleable, and eventually undermine it. The mind doesn’t want to be undermined, of course, and it shows its resistance right from the beginning. I think you all know the result of a spoiled mind: stress, exhaustion, anger, fear, and all the other negative states that generally lead us to inquire about meditation in the first place. Whatever difficulty we have with practice, it is produced by our mind. When we supplicate the buddhas and bodhisattvas, we are calling for the intervention of wisdom, which cannot be tainted or swayed or corrupted by mind. We invoke the wisdom that burns away the cranky mind.

Somebody once told me that she practices forgiveness. I said, “Don’t try to practice forgiveness.” “What! Why not?” she exclaimed. What we are learning to do is to forget. When you forgive, the problem is your train of thought, which goes, “I forgive you for what you’ve done.” You are reminding yourself that somebody did something to you. I am not telling you to suppress, I’m saying that clinging to a narrative of forgiveness always reminds us of a “wrong.” When we are reminded, we hold on. The best place to get to is “Oh really? I already forgot about the whole thing!” Then there is no need for forgiveness, because you have already released the wrong. You don’t carry a stone in your heart.

If you can do this, then it means you are not holding on to the past. It means you are not attached to the dualistic narrative of harm. It means you do not go back in time. You do not internalize the sense of being a victim. On the other hand, by clinging to forgiveness, you keep the source of your pain, the source of your attachment, while trying to cover it up through the idea that “I,” as a solid unconditioned entity, am forgiving “you,” another permanent substantial being. How can we find release if we do this?

We approach confession in a similar way in Buddhist practice. Ordinarily, when confessing, we hold on to the very action for which we feel remorse. We should confess in the same way that we quickly and firmly slam a hand down upon a table.

“I confess.” Bam!

We confess, and then we decisively let go. We gain certainty in the purifying power of confession by gaining confidence in the presence and love of the buddhas. This comes through the continuous receiving of blessings. We receive blessings with the same decisiveness with which we confess.

“I have received the blessings.” Bam! Let go!

In the Vajrayana, for example, we often practice relating to Buddha Vajrasattva, who is the embodiment of pure wisdom. We imagine brilliant light rays streaming forth from Vajrasattva’s heart, carrying splendid offerings to all the buddhas and gathering their blessings, which then stream back to Vajrasattva. Receiving these light rays, Vajrasattva blazes with wisdom light. We then ask him to purify all of our negative karma. Vajrasattva, looking upon us, says, “Yes, you are purified,” and we actually have the experience of being purified. As we practice this again and again, we actually give rise to the experience of total purity, and our actions, speech, and mentality begin to reflect that. The entire practice takes place in the mind, but it begets a truly transformative result.

The practices of mentally inviting a buddha to abide, mentally prostrating to him, and mentally making offerings all come from the Mahayana sutras. Those of us who practice the Vajrayana should know that many of our methods come from the Mahayana. The methods of the Vajrayana are not something that Vajrayana teachers created out of nowhere. Like Maitreya, we should ask the Buddha to bless our minds and our places of practice. When we do this, we are following in the footsteps of the bodhisattvas in the King of Meditation Sutra.

3RD: DEVELOP SPIRITUAL CONFIDENCE

Thus, remember Buddha as the embodiment

and immeasurable wisdom of the victorious ones.

If you constantly cultivate this recollection,

your mind will truly settle on it.

—CHAPTER 4

I have a friend who seemingly does the practice of visualizing the buddhas in exactly the way I do, yet whenever I ask him if he receives the blessings he says no.

“How are you today?” I ask. “How is your meditation?”

“My meditation is okay.”

“Did you receive the blessings?”

“Um, no. Well, I’m not sure.”

He always says the same thing. Then he asks me, “Did you receive the blessings?”

I always respond, “Yes, I did receive the blessings.”

It is our pattern. Whenever I ask him if he received the blessings and he says, “I’m not sure,” it is precisely this uncertainty, this “I’m not sure,” that obstructs him from being blessed.

I receive the blessings because I am in the habit of thinking that I do. I have confidence in this and do my best to turn my mind toward the ever-present buddhas and bodhisattvas. This man never receives the blessings because he is habituated to the thought that he does not receive them. Being in the habit of receiving blessings is spiritual confidence. Slowly, slowly, we grow the confidence that we are immersed in the loving-kindness and compassion of awakened mind, steeped in the support of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This is not a blind type of confidence; rather it arises from the undeniable experience of being saturated with love and wisdom.

This confidence is free from pride because it does not produce judgment; it does not widen the gap between self and other. As we develop this confidence we practice compassion, we watch our judgment, and we do not reify the narrative, “Oh, I received blessings and therefore I am a superior practitioner.” It’s not like that.

Through the course of my training, I have occasionally felt I am not receiving the blessings. When this happens, I have to immediately change my mind. I have to instantly think, “I did receive the blessings.” This is very important. It is how we train in the spiritual aspect of the path. It is very different from the technical aspects of the path, which involve the parsing of experience, the method of meditation, and looking quite analytically at the mind.

The spiritual aspect is also method, but it leans away from how we conventionally understand method. We need both the spiritual and the technical aspects of method. When we combine them, we have totally firm confidence in the Dharma. If you take out the spiritual aspect, the motivation driving the technical aspect does not last very long. And if you have the spiritual aspect without the technical aspect, then Buddhism becomes blind faith.

Inviting the Buddha’s Blessing