Blessings for Our Teacher

The Promised Land (Ben Heine)
Originally uploaded by Ben Heine
I awoke quite early this morning with one thing on my mind: our Kabbalistic teacher, Jason, is entering an operating room today to have a segment of his diverticulum removed which has been affected by bladder cancer. Each of us in our community have been engaging in group prayers and our own individual prayers for a week now. There are individual prayer slots, 20 minutes long, that we could sign up for - specifically for his surgery - from 7:30p last evening until 7:30p this evening. My slot was 8:30am this morning.

Before I did my prayer, I opened Jason's book and read a beautiful passage about kindness and how this shines through each of us in the form of blessing. The last line of his passage is magnificent: "Whenever you see clearly, your true nature stands up and blesses the world."

The words of this passage guided me in my specific prayer time this morning. I was actually a bit nervous, as this felt like a very sacred responsibility that I, and countless others, have been entrusted with. And once I let that wave of feeling run its course, I settled down on my meditation pillow, shawl wrapped around me, candles lit on the altar and sat quietly for awhile, letting the words of the passage and God lead the way to the next right action. And each piece just flowed and transitioned into another one.

I began blessing Jason for his wisdom and his love and for creating the school where I could learn and heal myself and have the ability to sit in prayer today, with God, because of him. I blessed his medical team for finding the cancer at an early stage and for their training and knowledge to do this surgery. I blessed the nurses and others who were assisting for the surgery. I blessed the people responsible for sterilizing the equipment to be used for the surgery. I blessed the anesthesiologist. I blessed any personnel who helped in any way. I blessed the people who cleaned the surgical room. I blessed the people who founded and built the hospital so he could have this surgery.

This flowed into chanting. The kinds of chanting I learned from Jason when he conducted blessing circles in our first year at the school. God, Creator, Allah, Yaweh, Adonai, Om Buddha, Higher Power, Lord ... all of these came out from this deep place in me; I was in child's pose on my meditation mat and could feel the deep vibration pulsing into the floor and around me and around Jason. There was this incredible ray of connection -- like I could feel him on the operating table.

This sensation found me back in silence and then quietly asking God to keep Jason's breath and his heartbeat steady, to keep him strong in his body, mind, spirit. To trust his body and this process that is here and that everything is exactly as it should be.

And then one of his Negun's entered in and I began to sing: "Life, life is around me, let me sing Hallelujah." And then it became: "Life, life is around you, Jason. Let us sing, Hallelujah." I don't know how long I sang, but it went on for awhile.

Lastly, I spoke to God again and returned to some familiar statements I had been making in the prayers of the past week: that Jason could feel God's tender hands on his shoulders and at his back and that he could really know the love God has for him. And that he could feel each one of us holding him. And that each teacher and each one of us could also feel God's hands and know God's love for us in our holding. In this moment, which has happened at other times, I began to see the faces of many members of our Kabbalistic healing community flash in front of me. I could feel people in prayer. I could feel the hands of others in mine.

I have never been able to drop into prayer in this way until I began really practicing my recovery program in AA. And because of that practice, I am able to do this practice. And really, they are just ONE practice because they have become integrated.

May Jason awake from his surgery knowing that he has been held by God's love and the love of his family and his friends in this community.

May Jason heal and recover in the coming weeks knowing that all of this was in God's plan for him and that he is awake to receiving this truth.

May we each be better, kinder, more loving souls because of our participation in these prayers and blessings for our teacher and for ourselves.

May we all know God's love and presence is with us always.

Amen.