03. The Blessing Empowerment of Buddha Vajrapani
01.11.2025
Begin by generating a sense of gratitude for:
- This beautiful new meditation hall
- International Temples Project Day - an auspicious day
- Our Spiritual Guide
We’re going to receive the Empowerment of Buddha Vajrapani, the Buddha of spiritual power.
Spiritual power = inner strength = inner confidence
It’s a mental power that empowers our mind to transform, endure, and progress along the spiritual path no matter what occurs. It’s a flexible mind. Like the weeping willow who bends and moves and works with the natural elements like storms and winds. It’s a flexible mind that can move with the winds of our karma and remain steadfast and strong.
Our lives are unpredictable, so we need a mind that can wrap around everything and work with whatever is around us.
Suffering comes effortlessly. Our mind isn’t producing what we want, so we spend a lot of time and energy trying to transform our external world to get the happiness we want. And we may achieve this briefly, but it doesn’t last. If our confidence only arises from worldly achievements, then it will be very fleeting.
Every meeting ends in parting
Everything collected is dispersed
Everything that rises will fall
All births end in death
Our life is very transitory.
Often what we think of as self-confidence is actuality pride - thinking that we’re special and somehow better than others, which is deceptive and dangerous. Our mind becomes blocked and we can’t actually learn anything. In HTTYL:
We need the minds of humility and respect. Someone who has spiritual power has immense humility. E.g. our SG - he had incredible presence but was quiet, spoke softly, and had immense humility. His confidence never wavered.
We need this confidence to change. So that when we suffer, our mind is so strong that we are ready to work with it, to embrace it and to transform it into our spiritual practice. In this way we become closer to our SG and the vision he has of us.
Buddha Vajrapani is an emanation of Buddha Vajradhara who functions to destroy the delusions of living beings by bestowing the vajra of great bliss and emptiness. The real vajra is the union of bliss and emptiness. He is the holder of Secret Mantra. He holds all the teachings of Sutra and Tantra. {Explanation of the symbolism of Buddha Vajrapani’s form}
All living beings are our mother. We can’t recognise them but we can know that we have this relationship with all living beings. So they are not our enemy. Our real enemies are our attachment, anger, and ignorance. Our life is dedicated to destroying these enemies of delusion in our mind. As they become weaker our good qualities grow and we become happier. In this way we progress to enlightenment.
In MTB:
To become mentally strong we can’t do it alone. We need powerful blessings, to have the assistance and care of a Buddha who has dedicated his enlightenment to giving us this quality of spiritual power. During the empowerment our mind mixes with Buddha Vajrapani and his spiritual power. We are receiving the blessings of our Guru and all the Buddhas of the 10 directions.