What Does Empowerment Actually Do
Neuroscience Gives Us an Answer
a friend asked me the other day
he said he saw a ritual at a temple
someone was kneeling
the acharya sprinkled a few drops of water on his head
and chanted a mantra
saying from today this teaching is passed to you
he asked me whether this is for real
when those few drops land
does something really pour into your body
after hearing him out
my first reaction was neither yes nor no
what I thought was this
people have been asking this for over two thousand years
hello
good to see you all
I am Leo Wang
today's word is empowerment
you have probably heard it in many places
calling a piercing remark a flash of pure insight
some think of empowerment the moment Vajrayana comes up
as if receiving it granted you lineage and blessing
and the energy transmitted by the guru
this word carries enormous weight
so heavy that many spend a lifetime hoping for it once
but what does it actually do
surprisingly few people ever explain that clearly
let us not rush to judgment
I want to show you something interesting first
empowerment was originally not Buddhist at all
go back to ancient India two thousand years ago
a new king's enthronement had its own ritual
priests brought water from the four great oceans
and poured basin after basin over the new king's head
once the pouring was done you were the king
this ritual has its own word in Sanskrit
rendered into Chinese it became the word empowerment
see
at first the meaning was utterly literal
pour water on the head
and hand power over to you
later around the seventh century esoteric Buddhism arose
it borrowed this royal rite and reshaped it into a transmission rite
what once poured enthronement water
now poured lineage water
the king became a practitioner
the throne became the dharma
by now you may sense something
at its core empowerment is a rite of conferral
the central act is one person solemnly
handing something invisible into another person's hands
and here comes the question
was that invisible thing really handed over
or did the ritual flip a switch that was already inside you
which brings in today's other main character
your brain
start with something we both know the placebo
a doctor hands you a pill and says it works well
but there is no active ingredient inside
it is just sugar
yet you swallow it and the pain really eases
for some people the readings really improve
this is not pretending
nor can it be waved away as just in your head
scientists have measured it with instruments
after the sugar the brain really released painkilling chemicals
the body's parameters really changed
the Italian placebo researcher Benedetti
has worked in this field for decades
his conclusion put plainly is one sentence
your expectation about something is itself a drug
the stronger the expectation the stronger the dose
I had a small taste of this myself
one year my head ached badly
I dug out a box of pills without even looking
tipped one out and swallowed it
before long I loosened up and felt much better
only later did I find it was no painkiller at all
it was a box of vitamins that had sat there for ages
I stood there stunned for a long moment
the pill did nothing
what worked was my believing it would work
do not underestimate this
it points to one simple truth
sometimes what acts on you is not the thing itself
but your belief in it
so how does expectation get stronger
this is where ritual walks on stage
think about it
an ordinary sugar pill versus a solemn ceremony
which one convinces you something big is about to happen
a figure in robes sits at the center of the mandala
incense is lit and mantras begin
you kneel below
knowing you have waited a long time for this moment
every sense what you see what you smell what you hear
all telling you the same one thing
this moment is extraordinary
what does all of this add up to
it pushes your expectation to a height you never normally reach
and many rituals like this are not done alone
a row of people kneel beside you chanting bowing waiting together
what a person feels in a crowd is nothing like being alone
a group making the same gesture the same sound
each person's conviction that this really matters
spreads between them and raises the stakes
you get swept in more easily
and find it harder to stand back and watch coldly
solemn scenes never lack this power of mutual ignition
here is an idea that matters a lot in recent brain science
it is called predictive coding
it says the brain is not a passive camera
taking in whatever happens to be out there
it is more like a machine that never stops guessing
it first guesses what will happen next
then checks that against the real sensory signal
here is a very small example
walking at night you see a dark shape by the road shaped like a person
your chest tightens
only up close do you find it is clothes hanging on a tree
ever wonder where the person you saw in that instant came from
your eyes did not deliver it
your brain guessed it first
when information runs thin it rushes to fill in an answer
the fear was real
but that person was painted by your brain
the brain does this all day long
this channel once explained why chanting needs total belief to work
that was the same mechanism
the key is that the brain trusts these guesses unequally
some are held loosely
some are held with absolute certainty
academically this trust is called precision weighting
a guess you are utterly certain of
can genuinely rewrite what you feel
now put these two things together
an extremely solemn ceremony
is exactly what takes the thought I am about to receive the lineage
and drives its precision weight all the way to the top
when a thought is pushed high enough
your body your emotions your sensations really follow
some feel heat flood the body during the empowerment
some weep
some feel a certainty they cannot put into words
these reactions are not faked
from the brain's side they really do happen
at this point
a deeper question surfaces
are these real changes
actually poured into you by the acharya
or already yours and only woken by this ritual
on this I have seen two explanations
I will lay out both
and let you weigh them yourself
the first says empowerment is a transfer of energy
the guru holds blessing power
and the ritual pours that force into your body and mind
so you receive what he transmits
those who hold this view believe
those few drops that mantra are a real channel
and something flows along it into you
the second comes from some very deep practitioners
they say empowerment never adds anything to you
the guru the mandala the mantras the incense are all conditions
outer conditions that lend you a hand
what truly lights up is what you already had
however grand the ritual it only helps you
recognize it in one instant of intense focus
by this account empowerment does not contradict seeking within
it is simply a very solemn supporting condition
these two explanations point in completely different directions
one seeks outward
believing the good thing sits in another's hands to be collected
the other recognizes inward
believing the good thing was always yours just unseen
interestingly judged by what changes in the brain
these two paths may look almost identical in the moment
the same certainty the same heat the same oneness
instruments cannot tell which path you took
only the days that follow can tell
let me be honest about what brain science can see today
the University of Pennsylvania researcher Newberg
scanned the brains of longtime deep practitioners
and found that when they entered the deepest state
of oneness with all things where the self disappears
a region of the brain in charge of marking
where I end and where the world begins
dropped markedly in activity
once it goes quiet
the line between me and the world fades
and you feel merged into everything with no boundary
see
science can measure the brain changes while the experience happens
it can tell you that certainty that oneness that warm current
really do have neural correlates
not an illusion not a hoax
but what science cannot measure is which of the two explanations
is the true one on the metaphysical level
whether energy really flows in from outside
or something innate is simply lit up
at this step no instrument can help you
and that is exactly what I want to make clear today
this is the closest correspondence I can think of
but it surely has holes
brain science cannot fully translate empowerment yet
we have only found a very interesting resemblance
a grand ceremony and the brain's mechanism
in which expectation rewrites feeling line up structurally
now let me pull this from the temple back to daily life
you may feel empowerment is far away from you
but you live this ritual changes people mechanism every day
think of a graduation
the president moves the tassel from one side to the other
nothing has actually changed
you know not one bit more
yet in that instant many people truly feel
they left one identity and entered another
then think of a wedding
for two people to build a life the certificate is enough
so why the ceremony the crowd the long vows
because the solemnity of that moment presses into both hearts
something far heavier than paper
oaths work the same way
an oath at a new job an oath of office
those words carry no legal force on their own
but saying them or not feels completely different inside
then there is the coming of age rite many had as kids
or the first day as a soldier the morning you first wore a uniform
the events themselves are ordinary
yet because one solemn moment presses down on you
you feel you must now live like an adult like a soldier
nobody poured anything into your body
yet you really did change
what changed was not the body
it was how you define yourself
have you noticed
our species seems born needing ritual
we need one solemn visible act
to mark an invisible transformation
inner things are too light too light to grasp
so we find a heavy solid form to bring them down to earth
a drop of water a vow a cap a turn
all of these are such forms
seen this way empowerment is that ancient human need
taken to its extreme inside spiritual practice
it is not mysterious
it is very old
as old as the human heart itself
so what can we learn from this brain mechanism
I want to leave you an angle you can observe yourself
not a conclusion drawn for you
if a ritual a solemn moment
leaves you standing more firmly on your own two legs
more able to walk by yourself
then it probably opened up something you already had
but if a ritual leaves you feeling
you can no longer do without the person and place that gave it
needing to go back again and again for a refill to feel steady
then what happened in there may be another matter entirely
you may not tell these two apart at a glance
but you can feel your way into it slowly
is the change in you making you freer or more dependent
that feeling is more honest than any doctrine
I have always found something deeply moving in the dharma
it seems to work tirelessly so that you finally need no crutch
including itself
what a good guide carries in his heart is
the hope that one day you will not need him
so back to that friend's question
when those few drops land is anything poured in
I cannot answer that for you today
all I can do is push the door open a crack
so you can see what the brain is quietly doing behind it
and see that this is not as mystical as you assumed
nor as simple as you assumed
the rest you walk in and see for yourself
and what about you
has there been some solemn moment in your life
that truly made you feel something had changed
did the outside give you something in that moment
or was something inside you lit up
I would love to hear your story
I am Leo Wang
see you next time