May
04
2010
Sacred Tibetan Buddhist Prayer Wheels
Many Chinese traditional items attract me attention such as Tibetan Prayer Wheel, Tibetan Jewelry and so on.
Sacred Tibetan Buddhist Prayer Wheels always fascinated me. I have always been drawn to tangible ways of sending energy into the universe.
When I first moved to my heart’s home in the Himalayan foothill village where His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama has lived in exile since 1959, I was drawn to the, to me, mysterious Tibetan Prayer Wheels around the local Buddhist temples.
Some are colorful, some metallic. Some are large, others hand-held. Some simple, others fabulously ornate.
All are inscribed with the mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum”…
At first I had no idea how to use them properly. It seemed like some super-secret ritual, one you had to be initiated into.
But it’s not.
Mar
01
2010
- Tibetan Buddhist Prayer Wheel
There must be something that you don’t know about the Tibetan Buddhist Prayer Wheel, now let’s read it together. Buddhist teachers and the ancient texts expound the profound benefits of the Tibetan Prayer Wheel for its ability to quickly harmonize the environment, increase compassion, encourage a peaceful state of mind, and assist practitioners on their journeys to enlightenment.
It is suggested that one recite the six-syllable mantra – Om Mani Padme Hum – while turning the prayer wheel. The Tibetan commentaries state that the benefits of doing so are immeasurable. This is the mantra of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion, and it is recited continually by many Tibetans. One also finds it carved on rocks, written on prayer flags, embossed on jewelry, and inside of most prayer wheels. Among Tibetans it is commonly known as the mani mantra, and thus prayer wheels are often referred to among Tibetans as mani wheels.
Mantras are strings of syllables empowered by enlightened beings to benefit others. “The word mantra’ means ‘mind-protection’. It protects the mind from ordinary appearances and conceptions” that characterize the ongoing cycle of samsaric suffering. Different mantras are said to bring different benefits, with regard to the mani mantra, Kalu Rinpoche notes that it is “extremely powerful” and “can be used by one and all” to speed their path to enlightenment. His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche wrote, “The mani is not just a string of ordinary words. It contains all the blessings and compassion of Avalokiteshvara,”
The role of mantras in Buddhist practice is often not well understood in the West. It has been scientifically documented that mantra recitation produces significant psychological and physiological relaxation, and statistical analyses have shown that meditation with traditional mantras produces a greater reduction than other kinds of meditation (including mediation with randomly selected Sanskrit syllables or with personally selected English words). Westerners have tended to emphasize the relaxing effect of mantra recitation in their understanding of this practice. From a Tibetan Buddhist perspective, such relaxation is not the goal of mantra recitation; rather it is a positive but minor side effect. You should know the effects of the Tibetan Prayer Wheel when you decide to buy it.
