My favorite prayer to say every morning is below. Because of the intensity of my aspirations of it and through repetition, it has changed my perception of reality from one of a fixed nature to one of a more fluid, impermanent, and illusory nature. It helps me profoundly because when I ask for each of the blessings in it, I rewrite my narrative because if I truly wish to receive those blessings, I have to approach the world with “eyes” that are looking for them. And because I’m looking, I see the world in a new way. It also helps me to understand why the Lama is always right here, right now.
Symbolic Lama, shining outwardly
Like the light of myriad forms and appearances
Of limitless dependent arisings,
Ineffable play of the array of illusory projections;
In the state of empty appearance naturally liberated,
I pray through your blessings to realize
That the display of appearance is nirmanakaya.
Mantra-Lame, arising in the interim
As the vibration of the multiple sounds and words
Of ceaseless causes and conditions,
Inconceivable pageant of harmonious song;
Within the sphere of empty sound naturally liberated,
I pray through your blessing to realize
That this ceaselessness is sambhogakaya.
Real Lama, revealed inwardly
As the self-knowing of the manifold
Thoughts and ideas of awareness
That is empty and free of speech.
Infinite range of mind:
Within the sphere of clarity and voidness
Of great bliss and emptiness,
I pray through your blessing to perceive
That the unborn is dharmakaya.
All the various phenomena: appearances, sounds, and thoughts
Are thus but the glorious Lama’s play;
Your symbolic ways to show us the nature of reality.
Realizing your kindness I pray;
Bless me to realize the nature of all phenomena.
The immeasurable ocean of all the aspects of the three roots
Is none other than the play of the Venerable Lama
Who manifests like the moon’s reflection in water
According to the aspirations of each disciple.
Within the perfection of the totality of your qualities
I pray, bless me that my mind
May be inseparably mixed with yours.
Bless me to abandon belief in self-existence.
Bless me to develop absence of need in my mind.
Bless me to develop love and compassion.
Bless me to develop genuine respect and devotion.
Bless me to stop non-Dharmic thoughts.
Bless me to spontaneously pacify illusions.
Bless me to realize the state of mahamudra.
Bless me to attain buddhahood in this very life.
May I, from now until enlightenment,
Adorned with the ornament of perfect morality,
Master the awakening mind of equanimity
As well as the generation and completion stages,
Attain the enlightenment of a buddha, a state
In which the minds of Lama and disciple finally become one.