Water Blessing 2017

This Saturday, June 20th, 2020 is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, with the sun rising at 5:49am and setting at 8:29pm Pacific Time.   This year the solstice is also part of the concluding days of Saga Dawa, which ends on June 22nd.  For many years now, at both summer and winter solstices, Khenpo Karten Rinpoche offers a Blessing of the Waters, by reciting two prayers that he composed, Propitiating the Devas of the Four Elements and the Prayer for World Peace.   Typically we gather in community and send our good energy to the ocean, to all the waters of the world, and to all of nature and humanity.

This year, due to concerns about Covid-19, we will not gather together to perform this ceremony, but each individual is encouraged to visit nature while remaining socially distant, and to “collectively while apart” send good energy out to the world.   Practitioners may download these prayers to recite at the beach, by a river, or wherever you choose outside in nature.  Bring some flowers to offer and send your good energy and wishes for healing to the waters of the world, all the elements of nature, and all sentient beings.

Water Blessing 2017

Additionally, here is an “instruction on how to practice” the Blessing of the Waters, composed by Rinpoche and Pema/Aaron with more information on how to  conduct a “do-it-yourself” Blessing of the Waters 2020.

Instructions on Blessing the Waters

Tashi Delek!

Prayer for Peace

Through roots of goodness of us all on this vast earth,

May all living creatures become full of
love and compassion,

So that all enjoy peace on earth!

Stop bad intentions, thoughts and deeds
of all those who terrorize others,

That all living beings on this earth
come together like one family!

May all be well, have long life and health
with bliss of mind, free of illusion.

May all mothers have oceans of bliss
of body, for now, and ultimately of mind.

May this lamp of wisdom love, oneness,
highest remedy to clear darkness,

Enter the hearts of all living beings,
so their perfect path be illumined!

Footnote:  In the name of all religions on earth, as I see and hear of increasingly many unwarranted harmful actions being enacted, thinking, with a joyful, universal aspiration, how wonderful it would be if all such activities ceased entirely.  Khenpo Karten Rinpoche, on 2-4-2015, on Wednesday, His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s auspicious day, wrote this dedication prayer to be recited at the conclusion of other prayers, meditation, or practices.