Be the Blessing

I've begun sharing occasional tea visits with my lama, now that I am living so near him. This week the subject was primarily about bodhicitta.

Bodhicitta is called the heart of enlightenment, and what it refers to is the compassionate wish to benefit all beings. This wish is not an idea, but a way of being in the world, and when fully developed it leads the person to their own Buddhahood because it is only then that they can be of maximum benefit to others. It is the most powerful urge towards enlightenment, empowering a person to fully commit themselves to practice of the teachings in daily life as well as creating discipline with respect to seated practice.

We talked about those people (Buddhist teachers especially) who talked a lot about compassion, but showed none towards the people they had daily dealings with. "They love humanity but don't give a wit about people" is how I put it. He said that I had a deeper insight than most people and that I must trust my own feelings about such people no matter what recognition or status such teachers had among others.

We also discussed my own fledgling bodhicitta. I told him of my efforts to send blessings to people I would see as I went about my day, people I saw on the street as I drove home from work who looked sad or co-workers, clerks and cashiers I interacted with during the day. He said that I must allow myself to be the blessing, not give it.

I realized when he said that that earlier that day I had seen an overweight teen standing by herself looking down at the ground for an inordinate amount of time while I waited at a stop light. I had tried to send her a blessing in my usual way, but I just couldn't get the visualization to form clearly in my mind. I kept trying but it wouldn't work and eventually the traffic light changed and I had to drive on, but then I had the thought that my intent for her happiness was the blessing. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw that she was no longer looking down but up and around her, as if she had newly found the courage to be present there on the street as she waited for her bus to come. And I thought, "maybe the wish to give blessing is the blessing and no need for mental formulations of any kind beyond that simple goodwill."

So when my lama said that later the same day it carried a lot of weight with me. I already have a habit of sending blessings to people throughout the day, but now when I catch myself doing it I stop and observe my own heart and how it is opening to them. And I try to be aware of how my open heart may be affecting theirs. Similarly, I try to be aware when my heart is closed, as I mechanically interact with people, and I take responsibility in those moments for the affect I may be having then also.

If there was one blessing I would most choose to give, it would be to let my heart be so open all the time that it was like a sun always glowing, constantly giving off the blessings of joy and warmth and alighting the hearts of all it touched.

My lama says that the prayer for bodhicitta is the highest aspiration of Buddhism. Well I don't suppose I need to have the highest aspiration to be satisfied. But it is the truest for me. I have tired of all the concepts about what is. I have played with all sorts of ideas about truth, and found them quite engaging, but now I would trade all of that for a steady glow of blessing.