Can we bless a mobile phone?

[hope rainbow]

I heard in the news a few days ago that a church in Europe had organized a special mass for people to have their mobile phones blessed.

A blessing ceremony for... mobile phones?

Regardless of the fact that is was a Christian church, what do you think of that?
Can mobile phones be blessed?
Can objects be blessed anyway?

[Q]

Haha.... I never heard of such a blessing before.

As far as I know, objects can be bless. I know buddhists are very fond of blessing their car, they either request a monk to do so or hang a beautiful mala in the car. It is also a custom to Chinese people to bless the house before moving in. So, blessing objects is not very foreign to me... however, I must question.... why bless mobile phones??? cars I can understand because it can be related to accidents etc... but mobile phone is a little strange... to avoid brain cancer perhaps?

[negra orquida]

Why not?

I think it is possible to bless any object because ultimately the point of the blessing is to open up the good karmic seeds in the mind of owner to transform for the better.  Why this would work is because we view the object (assume it is a normal object, not a statue or dharmic items) as an extension of ourselves, we think it is part of us (otherwise why would we feel so sad when we lose things) hence the blessing done unto the object is like a blessing to the owner directly. 

Why mobile phones? Well, I am not sure about your part of the world but over here where I live, everyone is very attached to their phones! We sleep beside it, we take it everywhere, even when we go to the toilet, we feel so naked when we forget to bring our phones out.  The golden age of the smartphones... Since they would be looking at their phones way more often than at rosary beads, having a blessed phone would also help serve as a reminder to them to think of God / spirituality throughout the day.

[hope rainbow]

Why not?

I think it is possible to bless any object because ultimately the point of the blessing is to open up the good karmic seeds in the mind of owner to transform for the better.  Why this would work is because we view the object (assume it is a normal object, not a statue or dharmic items) as an extension of ourselves, we think it is part of us (otherwise why would we feel so sad when we lose things) hence the blessing done unto the object is like a blessing to the owner directly. 

Why mobile phones? Well, I am not sure about your part of the world but over here where I live, everyone is very attached to their phones! We sleep beside it, we take it everywhere, even when we go to the toilet, we feel so naked when we forget to bring our phones out.  The golden age of the smartphones... Since they would be looking at their phones way more often than at rosary beads, having a blessed phone would also help serve as a reminder to them to think of God / spirituality throughout the day.

Thank you very much Negra Orquida for this explanation.
I never thought of it this way, and it makes a lot of sense!
Yes it does...

However, most people would not get a blessing for their objects with that understanding, they would expect the blessing to protect the object. Right?
Wrong expectation, but, the fact is that it is how most people would see it, right?
So when they bless their car and then have an accident, the thought that the blessing was not potent may arise.
Same if the mobile phone doesn't boot up.

So could blessing then damage the faith of the very people that came to present their objects for blessing?

[negra orquida]

However, most people would not get a blessing for their objects with that understanding, they would expect the blessing to protect the object. Right?
Wrong expectation, but, the fact is that it is how most people would see it, right?
So when they bless their car and then have an accident, the thought that the blessing was not potent may arise.  Same if the mobile phone doesn't boot up.

Yes this is a common misconception of blessings.. Hence it is important to educate the public on how blessings work and what is it that is actually being blessed.

This applies to prayers/pujas as well.. imagine a patron offers a huge load of money to sponsor a puja to clear his obstacles but it "didn't work" or even "made things worse", and the patron had expected that the puja would solve all his problems the way he wanted, and he didn't know how pujas and Buddhas work... it won't be surprising if he loses faith or thinks negatively of the people / sangha who did the puja.

[nagaseeker]

hmm, i guess we can bless any object we want , just invite a ruel from  : ---

http://shop.dorjeshugden.com/blessed-items/dorje-shugden-protective-ruel.html




you can hang the ruel to your mobile like an accessories , there you go ! your mobile phone blessed n protected by Dorje Shugden   

[yontenjamyang]

One of the earliest lessons I received about Buddhism from a Mahayana practitioner was about the glass that we were drinking from. He asked, why are we using that particular individual glass and not the millions and millions of other glasses in this planet? Why I am not using his glass and vice versa?
His answer was that we have karmic links to that glass!! Karmic links to that glass? Yes! Yes, he said everything is connected (in his very round about way). So, somehow, I have affinity with that glass. So he went....Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.......!

I am using this example because, from this we can understand that not only sentient beings (beings with feeling/mind) can be blessed. Sentient beings body (those with form) come from the earth which is common to all things in the world including the glass and the handphone or our cars. And we know the earth evolved from the stars, supernovas and the big bang itself. All are one and one is all.

So back to the hand phones being blessed. By blessing the handphones on which every single atom is karmically link to us closely (that is why we own it) we are blessing ourselves the owner or any user of the hand phone in the case when someone borrow our handphone.

I am using a very physical explanation and Negra Orquida's explanation is from the side of the mind. From his explanation about the hand phone being en extension of the mind, I have a question. What if the item being blessed is a car. So I suppose the main reason someone have the car blessed is for safe journeys. What if someone borrow the car. Would the car still have the blessing of safe journey?

[Jessie Fong]

Yes I have heard of house blessing, vehicle blessing and baby blessing, but to bless a mobile phone is something new.  Like Q said, if it was meant to avoid brain cancer, then it's going to be a very busy day.

Yongtenjamyang : so would we need to bless everything that comes our way since we are karmically linked?  To your question about the blessed car - if the car is blessed, then are not the passengers and the driver also blessed when they are seated inside?  It does not mean that it was blessed just so for its owner?

[brian]

Don't even mention about mobile handheld phones if we can bless a human, piece of land, a house even an animal. I think so long it is an object, I am sure all can be blessed. So I am going for yes, we can bless mobile handhelds.

I do store quite a lot of Buddha images into my phone, I am wondering if its already a blessing indirectly since it is a blessing to have an image of a Buddha in a house, therefore it should be a blessing to have an image of Buddha in your mobile handhelds or personal computers.

[hope rainbow]

However, most people would not get a blessing for their objects with that understanding, they would expect the blessing to protect the object. Right?
Wrong expectation, but, the fact is that it is how most people would see it, right?
So when they bless their car and then have an accident, the thought that the blessing was not potent may arise.  Same if the mobile phone doesn't boot up.

Yes this is a common misconception of blessings.. Hence it is important to educate the public on how blessings work and what is it that is actually being blessed.

This applies to prayers/pujas as well.. imagine a patron offers a huge load of money to sponsor a puja to clear his obstacles but it "didn't work" or even "made things worse", and the patron had expected that the puja would solve all his problems the way he wanted, and he didn't know how pujas and Buddhas work... it won't be surprising if he loses faith or thinks negatively of the people / sangha who did the puja.

But then, what do we achieve by blessing an object of ours?

What is a blessing?

[Positive Change]

Firstly... why a mobile phone? Secondly... would this not diminish the "integrity" and "uniqueness" of a blessed item?

Why do I say this? For me, a blessed item is something we hold dear or perhaps I am misconstruing blessed with a bless-ed item. Whatever the case, I believe an item that has been blessed or is blessed should be well taken cared of. So if we were to bless a mobile phones and we stick it into our back pocket or just simply leave it lying around, it kinda is "disrespectful" isn't it? I mean, if mobile phones could talk, man the stories they could tell...

I think one needs to look at why one blesses an item or this is one trend that may go out of hand and in the long run would not serve the purpose of the initial "blessing" to begin with!

[Big Uncle]

Really? I wonder what is the Christian idea of blessing an inanimate object? Buddhists have specific reasons to bless houses, cars and so forth. We seek to plant enlightened energy in an inanimate object so that when we use the object, we have less accidents due to negative karma and the energy also serves to open Dharmic seeds in us, especially if the blessing is done by a Sangha member who holds his vows.

[vajraD]

Interesting topic. I have seen lamas that give lots of give to people and among them there is toys, books, mobile, watch, bags, plants and etc. I’m sure these items are bless before they were given away. I once receive a toy from a monk and I was thinking why the toy? Maybe I have think to much but what came into my mind is that he has given an object that has been bless so that I’m able to keep my connection with the Dharma.

[Tammy]

Blessing mobile phones? Seriously !? And what would be next object(s) to be blessed? Personal laptop and tablets would be my guess! 

This shows that religion practices of all faiths have to be in tuned with modern technology and trend. Similarly aged old teachings should and could be taught in ways acceptable by general public, new methods of spreading Buddhism and other religions have to be deployed in order to reach the mass.

I praise the churches which provide blessing services for their followers mobile phones, as this is one of the signs that they are willing to change and adopt to the modern world.

Kudos to whoever thought of this brilliant idea !

[lotus1]

This is really interesting. It is the first time I heard about blessing on a mobile phone.

According to Wikipedia, A blessing, (also used to refer to bestowing of such) is the infusion of something with holiness, spiritual redemption, divine will, or one's hope or approval.

For me, blessing is something positive, something that is good, from God, Buddha or highly enlightened beings who bless us, give us happiness and improve our lives. If after blessing on a person or on an object such as ourselves, our house, our Buddha statues or altar, when we use it and it improves our lives and we become a better person, then that will be a great blessing. So, if a blessing on a mobile phone can help us to have happiness and improve our lives, why not?