How do you experience blessings?

As a pragmatist, I think it would be very helpful to beginners if we all could share a little bit about our personal experience of an important aspect of Vajrayana practice: blessings.

So feel free to share anything about your experience.

Here are some questions that might inspire you:

From your own experience, how would you describe what a blessing is?

How do YOU experience blessings?

Can you remember your first time when you got aware of receiving a blessing?

Looking forward to read about your experiences :slight_smile:

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Blessing is an energetic charge of pure energy. Pure means selfless and selfless is natural. This pure energy from a guru, is transmitted to the one whoā€™s requesting to be blessed. Because selfless pure energy is released into the energy system of a person who has unnatural egocentric constructs and whose energy is dirtied by it, is the reason why blessing feels like a relief. The blessing makes the psychological burden drop so natural state can be felt, experienced and recognized. All kinds of people who pray and request blessings, be it from Jesus, God, the Buddha of Light (Amitabha) or some guru know how meaningful and powerful this is and sure enough all world religions have this at the heart of their teaching.

From a bit more technical perspective a blessing is a medium to transmit and point out the natural state of all beings or in other words to bring out the basic goodness in us. Because blessing is not egoistic is why it is a way to transmit and communicate the empty nature of mind (dharmakaya) and natural joyfulness (sambhogakaya) to others. I realize this all sounds unnecessarily complex so Iā€™ll try to make this more down to earth.

Blessing is an outburst of pure love, kindness, being present and supportive to other peopleā€™s hardships, understanding, encouraging and acceptance. Without having a clue about the technicalities or mechanism behind this, many people do this naturally because thatā€™s how people act if they are in touch with who they really are. If there is respect and love between people in any type of relationship, there are definitely blessings, good energy, involved. On the other hand, egoistic people do the opposite and transmit bad vibes, negativity and traumas often unknowingly to others which makes relationships (of any type) go bad. We all know this already and yet often donā€™t really act accordingly to make our lives and the lives of others a joyous experience.

Blessings from fully enlightened masters like Jesus are special only because there is never a moment when the transmission has the slightest dirt in it. Also, masters transmit higher volume of blessings meaning that the blessing can be so strong that one joyfully disappears into it, i.e. oneā€™s ego drops off completely. All kinds of people from Finland to Mongolia, to China to US and back to Europe have practiced like this. Christians, buddhists, hindus, taoists, shintoists and muslims, not a single religion is an exception to this rule, though having said that there is more to all religions than this.

Anyone can wish good and transmit blessings to others because underneath all the self-based pain and ignorance there is our soul or wakeful nature that is always pure. Go ahead and try it.

  1. Sit down and take a moment to relax the muscles of your body.
  2. Then think of someone you know and wish her/him good, for example, ā€œI wish my friend James much happiness, peace, safety and health. May he be happy, healthy and enjoy his life in full. May James have great friends and success in all ways in his lifeā€. You can verbalize your blessing in any way you like as long as youā€™re wishing good and beneficial things. Put some energy and emotion into your blessing, put power and meaning into it.
  3. After youā€™ve prayed for a few minutes, sit silently and see how the blessing made you feel. In what way do you feel the same or different than before the session?
  4. You can do this to all your friends one by one, to your family members, relatives, people of you town/city, country, planet, animals, all life forms and so on, if you like.

This brings out the inherent good in us. Blessing is the art of that.

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Blessings are guru/love someone has not fully realized; if they had, the blessing would not be possible. To bestow a blessing, or increase merit, love the being fully, focus total awareness onto/into them while anchored to the guru in the ajna and spiritual heart.

That is an excellent and very accessible definition of blessings, Kim.

Also your definition, Mahasiddhabuddhababy, makes a very good point about not fully realized energy/love. Iā€™d call it the contrast effect a blessing has on the experience of a sentient being. The contrast of feeling in comparison to the usual default self-based state of mind is ā€œfeeling blessedā€. A person on the other hand who has attained complete realization doesnā€™t have this contrast anymore and always experiences herself simoultanously as the very source of the blessing.

I think, itā€™s very important to have a clear understanding of blessings so that it doesnā€™t get mystified or completely lost in formality. Often when buddhists talk about blessings, thereā€™s no aspect of feeling involved. They often talk about the ā€œblessing of the lineageā€ as if it is something magical one has to believe in.

Thereā€™s not much left of Tantric practice if it becomes a matter of belief. The whole purpose of Tantric practice is in the feeling and direct experience. Tantra is inner science. Itā€™s the opposite of mystification and belief. Itā€™s about clearly examining oneā€™s mind and all itā€™s phenomenality. Clear explanations and instructions are at the heart of it.

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Ugi you have all my blessings !!!

Hello, very good descriptions of a blessing. Thank you
I can add that because since birth I am a very sensitive person I have felt, on occasions when being blessed by high teachers, the blessings phisically as a form of energy ( a tension or warm fluid) growing up from legs to the centre of the body. It bring blissful feelings.
Usually almost everywhere I go I feel ā€˜strangeā€™ energy (smth like insects crawling up your body) especially in shopping malls these days.
But the energy of blessing is uplifting, warm and openning.
That is what I experience.
Bless

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