The Prayer to Grandmaster Wong

With the greatest reverence and respect,
I humbly and sincerely request divine Grandmaster Wong,
To hear this prayer and to grant what is right in His wisdom,
For the good of myself,
For the good of my family and friends,
For the good of my ancestors and children,
For the good for all future generations,
For the good of all the souls related to me,
For the good of all sentient beings,
Now and forever.

OM AH HUM! OM AH HUM! OM AH HUM!
 
May all beings be free of physical suffering and enjoy good health,
May all beings be free of mental suffering and enjoy serenity,
May all beings be free of poverty and enjoy great prosperity,
May all beings be free of negative karmic connections and enjoy happy relationships,
May all beings be free of obstacles and enjoy smooth lives,
May all beings be free of delusion and see wisdom,
May all beings be free of struggle and achieve effortlessness,
May all beings be free of attachment and achieve enlightenment.
 
May all beings discover the right view,
May all beings have the right intention,
May all beings engage in the right speech,
May all beings choose the right actions,
May all beings exemplify the right livelihood,
May all beings engage in the right endeavours,
May all beings achieve the right awareness,
May all beings attain the right concentration.
 
Please bless all the world leaders and spiritual leaders with wisdom and insight.
Please bless the earth and help it to achieve balance.
Please heal the sick and the suffering.
Please alleviate poverty and teach people the true causes of wealth.
Please bless all people with happy and long lives.
Please provide abundant guidance to light the path.
Please save the beings lost in ignorance and delusion.
Please release the karmic burdens so enlightenment arrives.
Please save the souls of the dead so they may attain liberation.
Please bless all beings to ignite the compassion heart and to attain enlightenment.
 
Please guide me to do what is right in Divine wisdom,
When I pray, please come immediately,
And grant my prayers that are True and Correct,
Make ineffective any wrong doing or intention,
Purify the ignorant mind,
Please multiply the merit of my good deeds,
So that I can play my part according to Heaven’s Divine Will.

Divine Grandmaster Wong, please hear this humble prayer of a sincere aspirant and
grant what is right in your wisdom.
Please act as my representative to deliver this prayer to the appropriate Buddhas,
Bodhisattvas, deities and beings, so that all souls may be saved in the correct way and
Truth will prevail.
On this auspicious day and auspicious hour,
I maintain my faith and release this prayer to you.
I genuinely and sincerely mean what is in this prayer, and I continue to cultivate the wisdom sentiment in myself. I know that it is my sincere intention that allows this prayer to be fulfilled.
May the merit of this prayer go to _____________________.

OM AH HUM! OM AH HUM! OM AH HUM!

Karma and The Secret - Can a Butterfly Change its Spots?

Source/Copyright: Richard Bartz/Wikimedia

Yes, before you ask, that's a Leopard Lacewing butterfly in the picture. I could have used the real leopard but that particular saying was getting a little cliched.

So, I was at yet another PhotoReading event presented by my friend Marilyn Devonish yesterday and this issue did come up in passing. With all the hooha about The Secret, has anyone cared to observe the karmic consequences?

Kaye, what the heck does karma have to do with The Secret?

Rather a lot, actually. Basically, it impacts it in three ways:

1. If you're attempting to manifest something, your past manifestations will play a part in it. The old energetic blueprint will be active unless you know how to deactivate it. That's personal karma.

2. If your manifestation impacts the fabric of the sea of awareness (which it assuredly will, since by definition you are affecting the flow of energies when you manifest), you will be subject to the kickback from the ripple effects from that effect. And contrary to what you may intuitively think, doing good doesn't necessarily mean you get good back in the short run. It certainly pays to be good in the long run.

That's because you also have to deal with group or social karma. When you change something, you are stopping a karmic event. That's the same as hitting the brakes on a car headed off a cliff. In the long run you may save lives. In the short run you may have to deal with the attendant problems of the smoking brakes. Make sense?

3. If you are doing multiple manifestations that are not congruent with each other, you are self-sabotaging. The butterfly is a good example of this - nice wings, no? But to get the perfect design it has to get into a cocoon and build from scratch. Somehow people think this has nothing to do with The Secret. As Byron Katie would say, "Oh, honey..." If you like polka dots, wear polka dots, but drawing polka dots over a Van Gogh canvas is a bad idea. Trust me. Been there, done it, got the t-shirt.

So what do we do?

Learn to manage karma. It's rather dangerous to ignore it, even after one attains enlightenment. I believe that in Tibetan Buddhism it's considered a cardinal mistake. Anyway, karma management as I see it has to do with two things:

1. Pacification of obstacles - inner, outer and secret. Outer obstacles are the usual ones related to the material world. Inner ones are delusions that prevent us from effectively achieving our goals. Secret obstacles - unseen ones. I prefer the Alex Viefhaus (my great friend and mentor) version - a block isn't a block until it blocks you from something.

Obstacles can be pacified by energetically paying off and releasing past karmic "debts". They can be pacified by forgiveness, such as the Hawaiian ho-oponopono. It depends on the particular energetic knot you've tied, really. People are so creative about how they get themselves into trouble. The only one-hammer-fits-all-nails solution I have found to cutting these karmic knots is to master the essence of shunyata, or emptiness. See two posts previous to this one - my commentary of the Three Words Hitting The Essence.

For those so inclined, listening to the Vajrasattva Hundred Syllable Mantra helps too. So does understanding what it means, which is really a much more complex issue.

For those who wish for a shortcut, pray to Grandmaster Wong. I will put it up in the post after this one.

2. Attainment of merit. This one is interesting, because one first has to decide what merit is. Now, if one asks me, I must say I can't really say. However, I vaguely recall a line in a Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche book which says something like, "Merit is a sense of satisfaction." Unfortunately, I haven't been able to relocate that quotation. However, I think it is accurate. I don't think it is so much about accumulating brownie points, but to congruently hold an energetic state. This is done through offerings, through the energy of enjoyment, faith and trust. More on that another time.

Ask me questions if you want to know more.

Sometimes a Prayer is Enough

So I'm back in Malaysia on a short holiday. I was exhausted last week and was suffering from eyestrain, thanks to my work as a trader. The eyedrops weren't quite cutting it too. Anyway, one evening I decided it was time to get in some extra help. So, I knelt down and prayed for a solution, did the incense offering, and got on with life. Later that evening, the strain started in again. These things can be rather peculiar - it feels as if your eyes can't stay open any longer, and also objects start looking blurred. A very frustrating experience. Before I knew it, I found myself reaching over to my kit of massage sticks, which I keep next to my bed. Getting a few out, I started massaging certain key points around the eye area, something I had never thought to do before. Solved the thing in about 5 minutes. In fact, the nerves responded immediately. I've been giving myself repeat treatments but that one seems to have done the trick. Eyestrain gone for good.

Sometimes, a prayer is enough. Then, of course, when it happens, you say, "Thank you!"