With the special seeing and knowing that come through the power of practice,
I bring beings to spiritual maturity, purify domains of awakening, and
Fulfill the wishes of students to realize spiritual qualities.
May I be fully awake—the culmination of fulfillment, refinement, and ripening.
Commentary
The prayer reaches its climax in this wish for buddhahood itself, and all the qualities and abilities that come with being fully awake. Words fail here. One has to resort to simile and metaphor.
To be buddha is to be the sun. The sun sheds light and warmth on the world
without any thought of who deserves to be nurtured and who does not. Those
who are ready grow and mature in their practice.
To be buddha is to be rain. Rain provides the moisture of understanding and
compassion to everyone equally, impartially. Understanding clears away
confusion, compassion washes away reactivity. Together they leave domains of
awakening in their wake.
To be buddha is to be earth. Earth provides support and nourishment for all
who live and breathe in the world, inspiring them to make and realize their own
wishes for spiritual growth and understanding.
Buddha, then, is the end of a journey, and the beginning of another. Whatever
the questions or yearnings led us to embark on the spiritual path, they now
dissolve into space. What remains? A life of service to the welfare of others. This
life is not about making the world into some kind of utopia. We know that as long as there is ignorance and confusion, there will be pain, struggle, and suffering.
Yet we do not succumb to despair. We do what we can do, we do what the
conditions of our life make possible, not because we hope to achieve anything,
but because it is what life calls us to do. And we continue to live that way until it
is time to go