Ancestor Prayer

for destroying limited concepts of ancestors

All over the world, people make ancestor offerings and consult the wisdom of their ancestors. They understand that ancestors are a resource available to us in present time and that ancestors also appear as aspects of our own bodies and capacities.

I wrote this prayer for my students in 2017 on an occasion when we dressed up as our ancestors and cooked a meal comprised of foods from our various ancestral heritages.

But rather than constrain our concept of ancestors, and thus our prayers, to our conventional family lineage, this ancestor prayer encourages us to recognize that we are totally continuous with all of life. We are birthed by the entire world. We are made of countless lives.

Ancestor Prayer

Who are our ancestors?

Did they bring us dumplings, honey cake, brisket, barbeque, corn bread, falafel, pasta, petit fours, burfi, curry, yogurt, ramen, and mead?

Did they give us bodies filled with loves, joys, traumas, shames, secrets, and needs?

Are they those whose stories we remember, forget, embellish, or make up, carved from positive or negative space, but always with the hope that their stories will tell something about us?

Are they those we know most intimately through their children, our parents, whose lives alive times past even when there are no known stories to tell?

Are they those whose wisdom we seek and whose ignorance we pray to befriend and heal?

We find our ancestors among our kin, but in truth, our ancestors are an immeasurable gathering across uncountable times. Giving up limited concepts of ancestors, let us heal ourselves of all separations!

Giving up limited concepts of ancestors, I count among my kin every being who has contributed to my body, energy, mind, and circumstances throughout time.

Giving up limited concepts of ancestors, I count among my kin every meal I have eaten and the ground, trees, minerals, rivers, rain, sky, sun, fungus, insects, and animals that contribute to preparing my food and keeping me alive.

Giving up limited concepts of ancestors, I count among my kin the oceans that birthed me in archeological time and the stardust that birthed everything before this version of the world began.

Giving up limited concepts of ancestors, I feel my heart’s longing to know the real nature of things as a mighty host of spiritual ancestors, my real wealth. May you be ever with me.

I am an infinite event, and my ancestors accompany me wherever I am. There is nowhere where I and my ancestors are not.

May I accomplish kin-dness to the infinitude of my ancestors in all times.

May I offer the infinitude of my ancestors brave and generous acts.

Freeing myself from the fetters of a few heavy stories about the recent past, may I cherish all stories equally as natural arisings from what is outside of time and circumstance.

May I not dwell on past traumas and injustices and instead dwell in the constant and overflowing generosity of the heart.

In the fine grain of everyday life, in my own body, energy, and mind, may I truly know all beings and things as my ancestors and kin.

In the fine grain of everyday life, may I unstoppably worship my ancestors with kindness, bravery, honesty, and generous acts.

Shambhavi Sarasvati

22 November 2017