Tibetan Ritual Items, Mandala, Statues, Incense, Buddhist Rituals ... By Tsondrue Gyatso

Stupa

2008-04-24T23:45:00.000-07:00

People mention body, speech and mind of a Buddha, the Buddha's Body is represented by the Holy Images, Buddha's Speech by Dharma Text and Scriptures and Buddha's Mind represented by a Stupa.

Stupas come in many sizes, as huge as a building or up to as small as a pendant. In stupas, normally is encased with holy relics of High Enlightened beings or Precious Items such as High Lama's prayer bead.

For small Stupas, we can insert holy relic inside and place on the left hand side of the Buddha Image (our Right) It serves as a reminder to us, to have the mind of an enlightened being.

Holy Items Part 2

2007-01-11T01:05:00.000-08:00

This Tibetan Ritual Items consists deep universal compassion imbues everything which is around them. Even every single strand of a “Hair” from their own bodies and their personal items such as Rituals items and belongings are considered holy because they are but extensions of the holy being’s aspirations because their constant wish is to bring immense joy to others and also to relieve the sufferings of all sentient beings.

Only a handful of us could develop these types of qualities as it is these their attainments which we are striving towards in our spiritual paths. Holy Tibetan Ritual Items / Relics serve as a reminder of these sacred qualities that we are seeking to develop within ourselves, and also to remind us on the potential we each have to reach that same attained level as these holy beings.

These Holy Items will remind us that we too as lay person have the power to “create” holy items because every single one of us has that potential to attain those same selfless, compassionate qualities. Buddhists regard such Holy items as equal to the Holy being’s own body, and as such prayers, prostrations and even offerings can be made to these items. Actually, it represents the qualities attained by the being; making offerings and prayers to it, is our own wish to achieve this same state of mind.

The holy energy in relics will also protects us from all negativities and interferences, heals, and opens our mind to spiritual development and progress.

Holy Relics for Kechara House Expansion Program

For the benefit of everyone, precious holy relics from great masters of Gaden Monastery are presented to you for invitation to fund raise for Kechara House Expansion Program. Whoever wish to benefit others and the center by introducing these holy relics to your friends and relatives will receive an appreciative token accordingly. The appreciative token to the introducer is given to anyone regardless who he/she is and where he/she is from. These holy relics are available at outlets in SS2, One Utama, Picollo Galleria and Lot 10.

Or please go to http://www.kecharahouse.com/ for more information

Giving to Dharma – it is the highest form of giving (generosity). For building monasteries, temples and Dharma centres has the best source of benefit and is an act of collecting immeasurable merits for fulfillment of wishes and realizing the path to enlightenment.

Donka – top shirt of monk’s robes

This is one of three pieces that form a monk’s robes, worn on top as a kind of shirt. . As it is something worn so closely, and so often, it carries the energy of the aspirational prayers and altruistic mind of the wearer. These are old robes of 20 – 30 years and are highly valued. They are treasures for prostration when frame up as a whole or cut up into smaller pieces and encased in statues, stupa, amulet for protection of human and animals and dispel spirits. The robe of a sangha is blessed by an ordination master and forms a direct link to Buddha Shakyamuni.

Meditation mala

As so much of a holy being’s activity and work revolves around his own personal wishes and prayers to benefit others, an item like his meditational mala (used for daily prayers/rituals and/or retreats) will especially carry the energy of this altruistic mind. The mala contains not only the energy of his own compassionate, altruistic mind, but also the specific energies and power of specific deities invoked upon during prayers and retreats.

Mala beads can be worn with precious gems as pendants, kept in stupas and statues as relics or added to our personal mala to amplify the power in mantra recitation These aspirational prayers and mantras are the essence of the Buddhas in the form of sound and when recited, invoke the energy of each particular Buddha whose mantra it is.

A mala like this will therefore bless anyone who touches them by opening the same aspirational prayers and imprints we developed from previous lives, inspiring us towards a positive path of spiritual practice and transformation. Ultimately, it will also plant more karmic imprints to fully develop the compassionate, altruistic mind of a Buddha. Each bead from this holy mala can be kept in a stupa on an altar, or worn as a pendant.

It can also be added to our own mala to amplify the powers of our own aspirational prayers. The beads of the mala contain the blessings from the altruistic mind, compassionate motivation and aspirational prayers of the meditational master himself as well as the energy of the Buddhas invoked during the prayers. These powerful energies can also act as a protection against negative forces

Dharma Scriputre

Dharma scriptures are holy in themselves for they represent and contain the instructions towards Enlightenment. Often, Buddhists regard them as higher than Buddha statues because they contain the very teachings that will liberate us from suffering. This text is on the study of mind by Great Master Dharmakirti and is studied by all in the Geshe ( Professor in Divinity) program.

Holy Items Part 1

2007-01-03T19:34:00.000-08:00

Speaking of Ritual Items, what is considered as Holy Ritual Items? These Items are normally blessed or normally Blessed Items that is used by Holy Gurus on theit normal daily or ritual practice.

How do we define the Blessed Items? Blessed items have received blessings and these blessings are on anything which is able to open up “something” within us and it will inspire us to be going forward to a much more positive way of living and encourages the “universal qualities” of being compassion, altruism, love and peace.

That “something” in us may be a lot of things, it may have been our previous life’s prayers or something that we had engaged in strongly and this consciousness remains in our mind even it has been one life time away.

Receiving these blessings from Highly Realized Guru can causes the imprint in our minds to grow such that we can continue our journey on the path we have chosen. One of the way of grow these imprints is to See, Touch and Feel these holy objects.

Holy items and the relics are being holy not because of the thousands of prayers that we recited using them but because of these items are imbued with Special Energies of the Guru that owned them.

The Holy Lamas, whom these items belongs to are revered and as well as respected as a Holy People who have

- Taken and held their monastic vows for decades
- Engaged in the everyday practices which is prescribed by their Lamas to transform their minds
- Reciting mantras and prayers continuously in conjunction with all the necessary visualisations, as set out and also practised by generations of spiritual masters before them.

Through all these practices and keeping clear and pure commitments, these rare and Holy Lamas have attained a level where they have the Special ability to strive continuously towards benefits of all sentient beings and generating the qualities of generosity, kindness, compassion, endurance, patience, forgiveness and peace.

By doing this, the mind which they embody, had extends to every single thing about them, everything items that a Holy Guru or Beings touches, uses or does with wholehearted and pure motivation in order to benefit others.

Interested to know more? wait for Holy Items Part 2

Varja and Bell

2007-01-02T20:13:00.001-08:00

Another Popular Ritual Items is the Varja and Bell, Varja Also known as Dorje, is a quintessential symbol of Varjayana Buddhism, the name Varja actually means “hard or mighty” in Sanskrit, it is equivalent in Tibetan, as it means “Indestructible” or something that cannot be cut or broken.

The Varja Symbolize immovable or indestructible state of Buddha hood. The 5 spokes Varja Resembles of the 3 wisdoms and the 9 spokes Varja Resembles the Buddha of the 5 Families and also the 4 mothers.

When a Varja is always paired with a Bell and Varja represents a method or compassion.

The Bell, also known as Dri bul, has many different heights, from 8 finger’s height to a 22 finger widths in height that comes with a round base. The Hollow of the bell symbolizes the wisdom of cognizing emptiness and the clapper represents the sound of emptiness.

When a Bell is paired with Varja, it represents wisdom, which means the wisdom for the method. As both of the Varja and Bell is always together and never separated.

Another saying is that the Varja Represents the Compassion of the Buddha and the Bell Represents the Wisdom. The Bell is always visualized as the Buddha’s Body and the Varja is the mind and the sound made by the bell represents the Buddha’s Speech in spreading the Dharma.

If you are interested in joining us for any Dharma work, go to http://www.tsondruegyatso.blogspot.com to check for out activites.

Chantting Beads

2006-12-29T18:26:00.000-08:00

Speaking of Tibetan Rituals, the most common rituals items in Tibetan Buddhism is the Mala! Some mantras have minimum requirement when you chant, the most common ones are 7 time, 21 times or 1 mala. 1 mala consists of 108 beads but chanting 1 mala is only equivalent to chant 100 times and the extra 8 beads are not taken count (don’t ask me why, but it is the common practice to void 8 beads)

The 1st mala is made out of Bodhi Seed, as Lord Buddha was sitting under the Bodhi Tree where he is enlightened, the King of that time (forgotten his name) came to Lord Buddha and asked for advice to take the path to enlightened.

Lord Buddha told him (the king) to pick 108 seeds under the tree and string them together and start chanting (wanna know more about power chanting? Go to http://www.tsondruegyatso.blogspot.com)

Well, that way how it started. Nowadays, there are many types of materials people use to make malas, some use yak boned (to remind one self that death is unavoidable) some uses wood crafted from trees such as Bodhi Trees, Precious stones such as Coral, Turquoise, Tiger eye, Crystals and much more.

What is the material used is not important, but to chant and practice Buddhism with “Effort” (Tsondrue – my name) and be devoted like a Varja and Bell (whenever there is a Varja, there is a bell) and hold on to the Buddhism practice is very important.

Wanna know more? Wait for the next post !

Tibetan Incense Sticks

2006-12-27T17:40:00.000-08:00

Tibetan incense stick is hand made by using Aromatic woods, Selected Leaves and Roots and Paste together using special adhesive. After all selected ingredient are pasted and rolled onto fine sticks of wooden incense, it is then sun dried to harden the sticks. After all the incense has been dried, these sticks are then dipped into variety of Aromatic Oil and Fragrance to be made available to different customer’s choice.

A good incense are made from non toxic fragrance and punk sticks as it will cause throat and nasal to irritate and sometimes it will causes headaches as well. The Process of making incense is to exercise our creativity in a both joyful and meditative manner.

There are also a few type of incense available in powder form made out of variety of natural ingredients, for example Aloe wood has very minimal aroma until it is heated over fire. These incense are sprinkled over burning incense or charcoal to release the aroma of the incense. These incenses are normally used to "give a pleasant scent to the surrounding", for relaxation and meditation, purification, or used in Puja.

Butter Lamp

2006-12-26T18:23:00.000-08:00

Silver Polished Butter Lamp is a simple and wonderful item to be placed on the Altar, Normally Butter Lamp has very attractive hand carved design. The best Quality of Butter Lamp that I have seen so far are from Nepal, The practice of using Butter Lamp starts from a long long time ago (cant get any information on that)

The name of a Butter Lamp came from the lamp itself, it is belief that it is normally filled with butter and was lighted and put on one's shrine as an offering to the Buddhas.

As the time passed and you wont want ants and bugs to swim in your Butter Lamp, people nowadays, replace butter with oil and some even with candles. Normally Butter Lamps are made out of Brass or Copper sometimes even Silver or Gold, but no matter what it is made out of, it is the offering that we offer to Buddha. There is also High Realized Lama that uses the Butter Lamp for Divination

Tibetan Rug

2006-12-26T18:21:00.000-08:00

The process of making a Tibetan rug is an ancient art, the rug craft is the tradition of the Tibetan people. Sheep's wool from the Tibet Highland are used in making of these rugs. Tibetan uses these rugs for almost anything, from flooring to wall hanging and even horse saddles.

This process of making the tibetan rugs is very unique in the sense that almost everything is 100% done by hand. When the Evolution of modern machineries came to Tibet, a few small aspects of the processes has been taken over by these machine primarily because of cost efficientsy and disappearance of cultural knowledge.

With Tibet being occupied by Chinese communists back in early 1950, the Tibetan refugees started migrating to both India and Nepal. Along with them, they brought their knowledge of rug making to both India and Nepal. At the moment Nepalese rug business covers the largest industries in the entire country and there are also many rug exporters in Nepal trying to promote the Nepalese rugs. In Tibet these rugs are made in square shapes and it is normally used as a meditation mat.

Tibetan Singing Bowl

2006-12-26T18:19:00.000-08:00

Tibetan singing bowl was originated before Buddhism was introduced into Tibet, the Himalayan culture known as Bon or Bon Po. These singing bowls are not only produced in Tibet only, they are also made in Bhutan, Nepal and India. The culture of using the Singing Bowl starts around 4,000 years ago during the Bronze Age in China, which is at its peak. The singing bowl are also previously used as an offering bowl in an altar containing which normally contains a mixture of barley, rice, water, and butter with a wick placed in the center to be used as a butter lamp.

Legend also says that the iron that was used in the singing bowl was sometimes replaced by meteorite found on the mountaintops of Himalaya, There is nothing much written about these Tibetan singing bowls in the history, even though they had been found in both monasteries and homes since long ago. The sound that came from the Tibetan singing bowls is very pure and powerful in centring both the mind and body.

Most of the Tibetans, when questioned about the actual usage of the bowls, says that these bowls are simply used to vessels for food. However, it is quite hard to imagine that these bowl are actually made out of 7 different types of metals which includes gold and silver and it can vibrate up to 7 individual or sometimes 9 and simultaneous tones, each tone at its own consistent frequency. These Tibetan singing bowls instill a very deep sense of relaxation and the experience of the opening of the inner space. Even a simple act of listening to the vibration sound of a singing bowl can stops one's internal dialogue, this makes the bowls a perfect tool for meditation.

The Tibetan singing bowl can also be used to cleanse the negative energy on one's amulet or mala, at the same time it can also be used to energize these items. Tibetan singing bowls are also used by most sound healers to both tone and balance the various energy in the bodies.

The most common ways of to play a Tibetan singing bowl is to strike the bowl once and can rub around the edge of the bowl with a wooden ‘wand' anti-clockwise (for cleansing) and clockwise (to energize). One can also place your amulet or mala inside the bowl before playing with it. Simply by resting the Tibetan singing bowl on the palm of your hand will enable you to experience to a greater depth of the vibration rather than placing the bowl on a sandbag on the tabletop.

The sound that the singing bowl produce can be affected by the pressure that you apply on the wand onto the singing bowl. A wand made out of wood makes the best sound produced by the bowl. Both too much or too little pressure on the wand, or even the wrong speed, will cause a very nasty ‘rattling' sound that irritates most people.

Mandala

2006-12-26T18:16:00.000-08:00

Mandala, in Sanskrit i means circle,community, polygon or connection. Mandala is diagram used as a support for the meditating person and sacred rites. It is very common for Mandala to be illustrated as a palace with 4 gates facing all the four corners of Earth. A Mandala is far more beyond than a simple round shape, it represents whole universe, a collection point for universal forcess and as a receptacle for Deities.

During Meditation, one mentally enter the mandala and shoule proceed toward its centre, analogy guided through the whole cosmic processes of both disintegration and reintegration.

Since before it was recorded in history, human's connection to Mandala has been a "vibrant link" to the universal ancestry. Many who have studied the Mandala's design, belief that it is a path toward achieving the ideal centrality in their own self. These interaction with the Mandala is a actual process of approaching the path to enlightenment.