Q & A with Robina

QUESTION

Further to our discussion about bringing joy to the buddhas [see May 4].

Do you have patience for me to chew on this a bit more with you? I know you are super busy and don't want to fritter away your time.

I think the problem for me is with all the visualizations where dakinis fly out of our hearts and carry offerings to infinite numbers of buddhas throughout the cosmos and they are pleased and delighted and shower blessings on us.

It would be my understanding that every buddha everywhere is always emanating, out of their compassion, as many blessings to benefit us as possible.

Do you think they would distinguish between blessing someone who makes offerings and some person doing harm, in sending their blessings?

Do they not radiate blessings evenly because that is their nature? There is obviously no way they would not emanate blessings. Is not objectless compassion referring to this?

I want to understand the interface between what I just said, the fact that buddhas cannot change our karma, and what it is that happens when we pray and make offerings. Recently, Geshe Sherab used a phrase saying that our prayers "activate" the buddhas.

This might arise from my Catholic part of my life when we were taught that that “in order to” receive blessings, you had to do your part and pray to ask for them.

ANSWER

Yes. I like Geshe Sherab’s “activate.”

From the buddhas’ side there is compassion for everyone; same; has to be.

But as to whether we receive the blessings is dependent on us — our requesting, our wanting, our offerings, our practice in other words. That’s what “activates” the buddhas. Or, more simply, it’s what enables us to receive the blessings.

You could be the best doctor on the planet, with the ability to heal everyone — the buddha, in other words. But the ability to receive benefit is to do with me, not you. If I appreciate you, ask questions, request you to heal me, pay my bill — I open myself to you, trust you: they’re the causes for me to be healed by you.

I always tell the story about how Harry got saved by Geshe Lama Konchog when he was falling backwards off the mountain top on the way up to his cave. He stepped aside to let four porters pass. He was walking up, they were walking down, a very treacherous part of the climb, and his first thought was, “Four of them, one of me, I’ll step to the side.” Then he said to himself, “If they knock me, I won’t hold on.” And they knocked him and he didn’t hold on. And he was falling backwards, his feet still on the ground. He told me, “I had psychic vision of the entire fall, I saw my body crash to the ground.” And then he felt the hands fo Geshe Lama Konchog pushing forcefully from behind, and he reversed direction and landed on the path.

The buddhas are capable of that every second. But it was his merit that created the cause to be helped.

And it’s not, “Oh, these buddhas will only help you if you ‘deserve’ it.” Not like that. That’s punishment and reward, and in Buddhism because there’s no creator, there’s no punisher and rewarder. It’s a natural law.

Look at the doctor, let’s say. She doesn’t heal me because I “deserve” it by paying my bill, etc. She’s able to heal me because I want her to, I asked her, I’m open to her, I can see her, hear her, trust her: they’re the actual causes.

The buddha is a dependent arising, like everything else.

The Christians ask: If God is perfect, why do people suffer etc.? They answer it by saying God gives us free will.

The Buddhists ask: If Buddha is perfect, why can’t he help everyone? Well, he can, he’s capable. But everyone can’t be helped by Buddha. Everything is dependent arising. If I could be healed by the the perfect doctor even if I don’t ask her for the medicine, don’t want the medicine, don’t trust her, and don’t take her medicine — that’s absurd, isn’t it? Things just don’t work like that. Why? Because everything is dependent arising.

Just because buddhas are omniscient and infinitely compassionate and infinitely powerful and pervade the universe and manifest in trillions of bodies to benefit others doesn’t mean they’re not dependent arising.

When we understand dependent arising and emptiness, it’ll make sense to us.

Rx

QUESTION

Oh, that is the best answer. Got it!