Open Buddha

So went to the Medicine Buddha Empowerment this morning at the Sakya Monastery. I quite enjoyed it and I’ve begun recognizing some of the faces there at the monastery.

I do have two complaints about the whole thing. For one of them, I’m not sure what the standard way of things is because I haven’t been around much… There was no instruction for practice or real discussion of the empowerment following the empowerment itself. There was some explanation of history and of the Medicine Buddha before things, of the history of it as an Action Tantra and then the empowerment of body and voice but that was it. I had expected after finding that Medicine Budda sadhana that I posted yesterday that we were going to be instructed in that sadhana or similar but we were not. Our only obligation and teaching is to do the Medicine Buddha mantra once a day. I was hoping for a bit more meat and a teaching of the sadhana. I don’t know enough about protocol to know if I’m allowed to do that sadhana and, even if I am allowed, whether I should since I haven’t been taught it.

My only other complaint is that both this and the Green Tara empowerment had us chanting at points in Tibetan with no written guide of any sort. For the Mandala Offering and other prayers, we have a booklet with the Tibetan, a transliteration and a translation, which makes it a lot easier to chant. For sections of the empowerment, we’re supposed to repeat after his holiness in Tibetan and it is rather hard to do when I’m not very familiar with the language and have no guide. I expect that this is standard and will get easier in time. Since I was supposed to be visualizing while doing this, I found it a bit distracting though. ;-)

Perhaps some of the other Buddhists here can tell me how normal all of this seems. I guess it is pretty normal.

Monk and I went to breakfast at an all you can eat vegetarian buffet afterwards. He hadn’t heard about the “no sex, no alcohol” rule for the 24 hours following the empowerment and is going to a party tonight. heh. R, my dearest love, met us for food and excellent coffee there.

I’ve cleaned for the horror which gleams in white (my bathroom) so my apartment can be shown and I’m off to get a tux fitted for a friend’s wedding now.