Monday, May 16, 2016

Four Dharmas of Gampopa.

Grant your blessings that my mind turn towards the Dharma. 
Grant your blessings that my Dharma practices progresses as the path.
Grant your blessings that the path clarifies confusion.
Grant your blessings that confusion dawns as wisdom. 

Gampopa wrote these four Dharmas as an aspiration prayer.  It is a prayer to set your intention, to fortify your resolve.  It acts as a compass, positioning you and giving you a reference to chart a course. 

'Grant your blessings'.

We make the prayer from a place of reverence and awe.  We are praying to our teacher, to the Three Jewels of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, to the hosts of arhats and bodhisattvas, and to the vast array of Three Roots.  We pray that they grant their blessings and that we are receptive enough to receive them.  

We pray that these blessings transform our mind.
That they give us courage on the path to work with our demons.
That they allow us to undermine confusion and resistance on the path.
That they moisten our hearts and give rise to wisdom.  

When we receive these blessings, our minds are transformed.  This transformation engenders a deep gratitude and respect, from which kindness and compassion naturally flow.  Ultimately that transformation is our ordinary samsaric mind transforming into the awakened mind of complete enlightenment, our inherent buddhanature.

The aspiration of our prayer, fulfilled. 

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