The Living Journal - Having a shrine in your home.

Why have an altar? A proper altar holds images or representations of the Buddha's enlightened body, speech and mind which serve as reminders of the goal of Buddhist practice is to develop these qualities in oneself so as to be able to fully benefit all sentient beings.

The reason for setting up an altar is not for fame, for showing off wealth, or to increase pride, but rather it is to reduce one's mental afflictions and to seek the ability to help all sentient beings.

As you know, every Tibetan family, even if they only have a tent to live in, will always set up a shrine with His Holiness the the 14th Dalai Lama’s photo or something like that. Having a shrine in your home is very good but it is not compulsory.  Lack of space is often a problem, too, for people in big cities where space is scarce and expensive.

If you do have the space and the support of your family or partner, then you should think whether you want to set up a shrine. It doesn’t have to be a separate room but you should choose where you have it carefully. In this case, I have a separate and private shrine room for my daily meditation and other practices.

Where to Place the Altar

The best place for an altar is in a separate shrine room, but if you live in a small place and cannot set aside a separate room for worship, any room can be used. The size of the altar is not important, but it should be in a clean and respectful place, higher than the level of your head as you sit facing it

Traditionally, it is not supposed to be in a bedroom because we normally associate a bedroom with sleep and it is not a very respectful area. If your space is limited, however, your bedroom might be the only available area. It needs to be a place which you can comfortably sit in front of to do your meditation and your recitations. It should be a place where you can do your practice quite easily.

When you have the space, choose the altar. It should not be very high so when you sit it is easy to focus your mind, nor should it be very low, which is considered disrespectful. When you sit on the floor you should be able to focus your eyes on the objects of meditation easily without having to stretch your neck to look at them.

Choosing what goes on the shrine is also important. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, His Holiness the Lama has commented that Buddha should be in the center. If you wish to have one, three or more statues on the altar, Buddha statue should be in the center, on the right of the Buddha statue, you can put a scripture or the prayer book that represents the speech of the enlightened ones. A stupa should put on the left of the Buddha statue; Stupa represents the mind of the enlightened ones.

The Objects and What They Represent - (When we are facing in direction)

(1) On the Right hand - A scripture or a prayer book that represents the speech of the enlightened ones.

(2) In the center - A Buddha or Bodhisattva statue that represents the Body of the enlightened ones.

(3) On the left hand - A stupa that represents the mind of the enlightened ones.

In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition it is customary to offer the followings:-

On the altar - Eight auspicious offerings and Mandala offerings 

(1)Water for drinking

(2)Water for washing

(3)Flower

(4)Incense

(5)Candle or lamp

(6)Fragrance or perfume

(7)Food

(8)Music

Making Offerings on the altar – The seven limbs practice

It is customary to offer the seven bowls of water offerings, which represent the seven limbs of practice.

Placing Offerings on the Altar

If you have the space, place the offerings a little lower than the objects of refuge on your altar. When you awaken in the morning, it is customary to wash at least your face before approaching the altar to offer prostration and then offerings-this is a sign of respect for the object represented there. One is making offerings as if one is accepting a dignitary or a great being into one's home and it is important to be gracious and respectful.                                         

Thank you for reading and may you find peace and great bliss. With your support it helps spread the Buddha’s precious teachings and turning the dharma wheels in the world. 

Aspiration For Bodhichitta

May the precious Bodhichitta arise

Where it has not arisen

And where it has arisen may it not decrease

But increase further and further.

Nagarjuna's Dedication of Merit

By this merit may we obtain omniscience then.

Having defeated the enemies wrong-doings.

May we liberate migrators from the ocean of existence.

With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death.

*Note*
I do not own or infringe any copyright of these pictures.

Pictures courtesy and credit to the rightful owners.

The Six Perfections - Mandala Offerings.

Mandala Offerings (General information only)

It’s important for us to understand the general information and of what Mandala offering is about.

The Mandala offering is an extremely powerful method for accumulating extensive merit and receiving realizations such as Bodhicitta and emptiness quickly. 

Just as great strength is needed to carry a heavy load, a great amount of merit is needed to lead all sentient beings to enlightenment. There's nothing that can be offered with your hands that is more meritorious than offering Mandalas.

The Tibetan word for Mandala is "Khyil-khor" literally means "taking the essence." The essence you take is the whole path from guru devotion to enlightenment. Therefore, by doing this practice you receive inconceivable temporal and ultimate happiness.

Mandala Offerings and the Six Perfections
Offering the Mandala contains the practice of all six perfections. By cleaning and blessing the Mandala base with liquid mixed with a bajung pill you practice the perfection of giving (water symbolizes prosperity). 

Checking the grain for insects and looking after the base, keeping it clean, leads to the perfection of moral conduct. Removing insects from the grain without harming those leads to the perfection of patience.

Thinking of how fortunate you are to be able to practice Dharma and making the offering with joy, you cultivate joyous effort. By not forgetting the visualization, you attain concentration. By clearly visualizing the colors and objects in the Mandala, and by meditating on its emptiness, wisdom is attained. 

Therefore, offering Mandalas helps you to quickly complete the two accumulations of the ordinary merits and primordial wisdom as it contains all six perfections.

This practice pacifies all hindrances to your temporal and ultimate happiness and cutting the root of attachment  or desire. The purpose or actual practice of generosity is not having a stingy mind or mind full of desire. When we give up all attachments to external material belongings , then that is generosity. 

When we have that kind of practice of generosity, then we have the accumulation of merit. These depend on merit and merit depends on offerings. The most meritorious object to offer is the Mandala. Therefore, if you wish to achieve temporal and ultimate happiness, the best thing you can do is to offer many Mandalas.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Practice?

Basically, offering the Mandala involves mentally offering the entire universe: all the planets and worlds, all sense objects, and especially the objects to which there is much clinging, such as your body, possessions and friends. All these are offered in the merit field. 

The essential technique of offering is to offer the best quality materials, in greater quantity and to have as clear a visualization as possible. In this way you can create extensive merit in just a short time.

By visualizing and then offering whatever you need in the space above the Mandala, you create the cause to receive it. Visualizing anything golden and offering it to the Buddhas frees you from disease, and offering the moon create the cause for you to be reborn as a god or a holy being. Offering jewels, gold and enjoyments creates the cause to be reborn in the caste of kings. As Mandala offerings are of great consequence, you should offer the finest materials you can afford. 

By visualizing the offerings as more precious and extensive, you create vast merits. For example, imagining that you're offering a Mount Meru of silver, lapis lazuli, and ruby and gold, even if there are no such materials on your base, you receive the merit of actually offering them. So in just a few seconds, it's possible to create the merit of having offered the entire universe.

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*Footnote

Please consult your Guru or a qualified Lama or teacher for any Vajrayana preliminary practices! Should a devotee even want to start studying and contemplating the Vajrayana practice, then it is truly necessary to first have completed the preliminaries and to be certain and sure that bodhicitta has arisen and developed in one’s mind. 

It is absolutely necessary to have the pure motivation and to know that the Vajrayana tantric practice is not carried out to increase one’s own power and profit. Negative intentions of any kind may not be.

Thank you for reading and may you find peace and great bliss. With your support it helps spread the Buddha’s precious teachings and turning the Dharma wheels in the world. 

Aspiration For Bodhichitta

May the precious Bodhichitta arise

Where it has not arisen

And where it has arisen may it not decrease

But increase further and further.

Nagarjuna's Dedication of Merit

By this merit may we obtain omniscience then.

Having defeated the enemies wrong-doings.

May we liberate migrators from the ocean of existence.With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death.

*Note
I do not own or infringe any copyright of the picture(s).
Picture(s) courtesy and credit to the rightful distributors and or studios.
Picture(s) is/are intended for editorial use only.

The Living Journal - A Blessed Silent Night

Silent night, holy night!

All is calm, all is bright.

Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child.

Holy infant so tender and mild,

Sleep in heavenly peace,

Sleep in heavenly peace

A silent night, a star above, a blessed gift of hope and love. 

May all the sweet magic of Christmas conspire to gladden your heart and fill every desire.

Faith makes all things possible, 

Hope makes all things work, 

Love makes all things beautiful, 

May you have all the three for this Christmas. 

May this Christmas season of loves brings your closer to all those that you treasure in your heart.

I do not have enough gifts, for all my Facebook friends tonight, but with my little home Christmas decorations and good wishes that all I could come up with that fills with all the greetings and loves that this festive season brings.

May you have the gift of faith, the blessing of hope and the peace of love always. Sharing with you the Glory, the Wonder, and the Miracle of this Holy Season. 

Have a Blessed Merry Christmas and a great blissful Silent Night.

Love always

Thubten Choeyang Maxwell

Admin, Tibetan Culture.

The Living Journal - The Sound of The Heavenly Melodies

The journal today is about Tibetan religious musical instrument, the Tibetan’s white conch shell. It's widely known as the sound of the heavenly melodies. In Vajrayana tradition, we offerings  religious music to the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and the enlightened beings during the ritual and other prayer practices.

The Buddhas, enlightened beings they do not requiring these kinds of music offerings. We make these offerings is for accumulation of merits and wisdoms, enlightenment, Buddha hood, is achieved through these great qualities - accumulation and purifications. As we knew the Buddhas had limitless of qualities which were attained through these two mentioned qualities.

“Dung-Dkar” literally means “white conch” in Tibetan language, because most of the trumpet made of white conch shell. Most Tibetan Dung-Dkar trumpet was made of conch shell; sometimes you can see some natural inclusions in the conch shell. Most of the Dung-Dkar trumpet is heavily decorated with ornate patterns in metals, such as silver, bronze or tin. Some beautiful stones will add on it, such as ruby, sapphire and so on. 

Dung-Dkar trumpet has a bright bead; someone even was inserted with beautiful turquoise and coral. When you blow through the mouthpiece on one end, the sound will be created, and it sounds like a trumpet, companioning music sheds long ago, it seems takes you to somewhere beyond the highest Himalaya peak.

Throughout recorded history, the Dung-Dkar has been used as a religious musical instrument, Tibetan people believe that it can invoke spirits or banish evil which is said to represent good energy. It is really a rare artwork and worth collecting for those people who interested in Tibetan culture! Explore Tibet offers you the most sincere invitation to Tibet.

There are different types of instruments, cymbals, bells, guitars, lutes, all are for offerings. Their nature is wisdom, which makes an offering to the ears of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and other enlightened beings. Sound represents wisdom because wisdom is a special power of the mind which penetrates phenomena. Compassion is achieved through great wisdom; interdependence of all phenomena is realized through great wisdom.

All phenomena have the nature of interdependence, causes and conditions, but sound is rather easy to understand. If you play a guitar, what does the sound depend on? It does not come just from the piece of wood, the string, not from the fingers, so where does it come from? Actually it comes from all these things; none is sufficient to produce the sound. That nature is called illusion.

We can hear the sound, but it has no independent existence. We should see all sound are having the nature, it just comes and goes like an echo. The realization is wisdom, and through that realization we can attain super mundane quality. 

May the wisdom, that quality of the super mundane, arise within the minds of all sentient beings and free them from all confusion and ignorance. May them achieve enlightenment. In one’s future lives one will be born with beautiful voice and always hear pleasant sound, especially the sound of Dharma.

Thank you for reading , may you find peace and great bliss. With your support it helps spread the Buddha's precious teachings and turning the Dharma wheels in the world. 

Aspiration For Bodhichitta

May the precious Bodhichitta arise

Where it has not arisen

And where it has arisen may it not decrease

But increase further and further.

Nagarjuna's Dedication of Merit
By this merit may we obtain omniscience then.
Having defeated the enemies wrong-doings.
May we liberate migrators from the ocean of existence.

With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death.

*Note*
I do not own or infringe any copyright of these photos.

Photos courtesy and credit to the rightful owners.

The Living Journal - The Indestructible Path

Vajrayana, refers to the third vehicle of Buddhism, often known as Lamaism, which originated in Tibet in the eight century and gradually spread to its neighboring countries. Vajrayana is made up the three Yanas of Theravada and Mahayana traditions, Vajrayana which is also regarded as Tantric or Esoteric Buddhism. 

To practice it, one must have the skillful guidance of an accomplished Lama or Guru because its emphasis is mainly on ritualistic ceremonial actions and practices which involve the body, speech and mind technique, the body being valued as the proper vehicle for salvation.

Beginners to Buddhism are advised to have thorough in the Hinayana before moving into Mahayana. Only when their foundations are strong enough and they have gained sufficient of wisdom should they consider entering the Vajra path. It may be a vehicle that promise enlightenment within a single-life time and many are therefore likely to be attracted to it.

The training in Vajrayana must always be carried out under the direction of a Guru or Lama since it entails a variety of complicated ritual practice and it is not advisable for anyone to practice them by reading from any text books alone.  Vajrayana or refers as a Diamond vehicle teaches that every Buddhas or Bodhisattva is associated with a particular mantra, mudra, which recite or performed correctly, can link one with the Deity in question and partake its transcendental powers.

A mantra consists of a number of syllables which when translated literally, may be quite meaningless, but it can be extremely effective when pronounced by one who has undergone the proper training and discipline and is familiar with its operations. Mantra, when uttered correctly, can have the  power drive off evil spirits or thwart the actions of black magic sent by enemies, It must be WARNED that mantras should not be learned from text books or freely used.

The Vajrayana practitioners should be able to keep his or her personal practice, the Vajrayana vows and any teachings that one has received, secret and sacred. If one were to share with all and sundry, this will break the power of one practice and their vows and one will then take a longer time to fulfill their aspirations.

Not all Vajrayana teachings are suitable for beginner, if the practitioner were to share inappropriately, one may harm the listener by causing him or her to develop a negative view towards the teaching, and, towards the practitioner himself or herself. By doing so, the students will create negative karma which will be an obstacle to their practice. Yes you can or may discuss topics with your Vajra friends or share with your Guru or Lama, but not with everyone.

The Living Journal - Equanimity and tranquility

A man of calm is like a shady tree,

people who need shelter come to it. 

As we get older, you find out that true happiness is not how much you have made, how big is your house is, how fancy is our car is, It's finding peace , joy and calmness in your life that will soon become the important aspect for you and your family are what matters most. When we get older, We see things that are of quality and not of quantity.

So, spend a couple of minutes to walk alone in silence,

Look up at the sky and look at the passing clouds and contemplate a while and reflecting how amazing life is.

Take away attraction,

Take away aversion,

Let go of attachments,

What are you left with ? 

Equanimity.

Breathing in , let calm my body and minds,

Breathing out, smiles this is the moments to be free.....

Dedication of merits

May the supreme jewel Bodhichitta

That has not arise and grow

And may that which has arisen and not diminish

But increase further and further

The prayer and the person who does the prayer are empty without existence.

Thank you for reading and may you find peace and great bliss. With your helps it spread and turning the Dharma wheel and Buddha's precious teachings in he world.

*Note

I do not own and infringe any copyright of these photos.

Photos courtesy and credits to it rightful owners.

The Living Journal - The Eternal Love

There is no fear in Love, if the Love is real and perfect it overshadows all fears and concern. Love is not what you can receive; it's all about what you can give.

Every body loves you, when you love every body. No one loves you, if you do not love any one. Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

Love someone is not because they give you what you need. But because they give you the feelings and overcoming of fears that you never thought you needed. 

Simple truth of present, if you don’t want to know what is pain, don't hurt and harm anyone. There is only one happiness in life, is to love and be loved with your open heart and open mind.

Sometimes when we come into someone's life, is not just to make them love, but is to let them feel that they are so much worth living for. 

Life ends when we stop cherishing, hope ends when we stop believing,love ends when we stop caring. So, let's love and hope that makes our life worth living for and make every possible move as our road to an eternal journey.... 

Aspiration For Bodhichitta

May the precious Bodhichitta arise

Where it has not arisen

And where it has arisen may it not decrease

But increase further and further.

Nagarjuna's Dedication of Merit

By this merit may we obtain omniscience then.

Having defeated the enemies wrong-doings.

May we liberate migrators from the ocean of existence.

With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death.

Thank you for reading and may you find peace and great bliss. With your support it helps spread and turning the precious Buddha's teaching in the world.

*Note

I do not own and infringe any copyright of these photos. Photos courtesy and credits to it rightful owners.