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ALL ABOUT THE ... Prayer Wheel
A
prayer wheel with a wooden handle is leaning upright in this old engraving.
Without the little swinging counter weight, the
device is referred to as a prayer mill and works somewhat like a pepper
mill. In places with a Tibetan Buddhist tradition, prayer wheels ( Tib. cho-khor)
appear as a series of vertical drums that turn on their axes set in a large
installation around the circumference of a stupa
or a shrine. When a practitioner walks around the installation in a
clockwise direction and rubs each one with the right hand as he or she passes,
they are sent rotating. In the interiors, thousands of mantras are thought
to be activated as the drums on which they are inscribed rotate.
At Land of Medicine
Buddha in June 1994, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this Advice on the
Benefits of Prayer Wheels:
"Just touching and turning a prayer wheel brings incredible purification
and accumulates unbelievable merit. "
At Lawudo among the many handwritten texts by Lama (Kunsang) Yeshe, who had
lived in retreat in a cave, was the Mani Kabum with a short explanation
of the lineage of the prayer wheel practice and a few lines on how to visualize
when doing the practice. It seems that the Vajrayana practice of the
prayer wheel spread when Nagarjuna gave the practice to Lion-faced Dakini,
who gave it to Padmasambhava, who then brought it to
Tibet.
Lama Zopa mentions that the installation of a prayer wheel seems to have the
capacity to completely transform a place and render it " ... peaceful,
pleasant, and conducive to the mind."
"One of the benefits of the prayer wheel is that it
embodies all the actions of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the 10
directions.
To benefit sentient beings, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
manifest in the prayer wheel to purify all our negative karmas and
obscurations, and to cause us to actualize the realizations of the path to
enlightenment.
All the beings (not only the people but also the insects), in
the area where the prayer wheel is built are saved from rebirth in the lower
realms; they receive a deva or human body, or are born in a pure land
of Buddha.
If you have a ... prayer wheel in your house, your house is the same as the
Potala, the pure land of the Compassion Buddha.
If you have a prayer wheel next to you when you die, you don't
need powa. ... itself becomes a method to transfer your consciousness
to a Pure Land.
Simply thinking of a prayer wheel helps a dying person to
shoot the consciousness up the central channel and out through the crown to
reincarnate in the pure land of Amitabha or the Compassion Buddha.
Simply touching a prayer wheel brings great purification
of negative karmas and obscurations. "
Turning a prayer wheel containing 100 million mantras
is believed to accumulate the same merit as having recited aloud, 100 million OM
MANI PADME HUNGs.
"Turning the prayer wheel once is the same as having done
many years of retreat. This is explained as one of the benefits of prayer
wheels. "
There are earth, water, fire and wind prayer wheels.
"With the water prayer wheel, the water that touches the
wheel becomes blessed. When that water goes into an ocean or lake, it carries
the power to purify all the billions of animals and insects there.
A fire prayer wheel is turned by the heat of either a candle or an electric
light. The light that comes from the prayer wheel then purifies the negative
karmas of the living beings it touches. It is similar with a
prayer wheel turned by wind. The wind that touches the prayer wheel is blessed
by the power of the prayer wheel and then has the power to purify the negative
karmas and obscurations of any being it touches."
"Because prayer wheels are so powerful in purifying negative karmas, I
think it is a very good idea to use them. "
" ... prayer wheels stop harm from spirits and other beings, and
also stop disease, so one idea I have is to use them for healing. "
For this purpose, "There are two visualizations. With
the first, you visualize light beams coming from the mantras in the prayer
wheel, illuminating you and purifying you of all your disease and the causes of
disease, your negative thoughts and the imprints of these left on your mental
continuum. You then visualize the light illuminating all sentient beings and
purifying all their sufferings, as well as their negative karmas and
obscurations.
With the second visualization, beams are emitted from the
mantras and, like a vacuum sucking up dust, they hook all the disease and spirit
harms and, most importantly, the cause of disease, the negative karmas and
obscurations. All these are absorbed or sucked into the prayer wheel. While
reciting five or 10 malas of the mantra, you visualize purifying yourself in
this way. "
"At the end, recite some malas while
visualizing that the beams emitted from the prayer wheel purify all the
sufferings and obscurations of the sentient beings of the six realms. These
absorb into the prayer wheel and all sentient beings, including you, are then
liberated, actualizing the whole path and becoming the Compassion
Buddha."
Lama Zopa says that one can also do circumambulations while
doing these visualizations.
He says that " ... . Even though the person might not know
about Dharma, about reincarnation or karma, because they want to have peace of
mind now and a peaceful death; because they care about having a healthy body and
a healthy mind, they should use this extremely powerful and meaningful method of
healing. I would like to emphasize that every large and small prayer wheel can
be used by sick people for healing." ~
Wisdom Publications, Boston, MA, USA.
As these extracts do not give the
full flavour of Lama Zopa's view and personal experience, visit
the Medicine Buddhas' site for observations on reincarnating bookworms and
more!
-
"A prayer wheel is a permanent fixture in HE Garchen
Rinpoche's hand.
Whenever I think of him holding it, it brings warmth to my heart and
sometimes even tears to my eyes. I'm not sure if that's just the
"magic" of the wheel, or simply the recollection that he holds the
wheel because he is so fully committed to the welfare of us all." ~ S.
at the kagyu email list
Ari
Salomon's art installation with
the prayer wheel as inspiration.
Put
a prayer wheel in your computer.
Read
about Mantras.
Richard Scheinin wrote for the San Jose Mercury News of
Sat., May 5, 2001 that:
Three Tibetan Buddhist monks from Katmandu were building a
prayer wheel in the Santa Cruz Mountains this week. Engraved with mantras, the
great wheel, nine feet high, will soon hum softly as it spins, spreading the
blessings of compassion across the hills.
So say the monks, who expect the wheel to start spinning by May 16 when the
Dalai Lama arrives in the Bay Area to teach and talk to thousands of people.
He is the embodiment of all the world's compassion, Tibetan tradition teaches.
Not only that, his visit to the area was initiated by the monks' teacher, Lama
Zopa, co-founder and spiritual director of this place in the [California]
hills, called Land of Medicine Buddha.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Founded in 1984 on 85 acres, Medicine Buddha is one of 130 centers around the
world that belong to the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana
Tradition. Mahayana is the stream of Buddhism that includes Tibetan
practice. ... .
Flynn, raised in Dublin, Ireland, and the Ven. Sarah Thresher, a Tibetan
Buddhist nun from England who lives at the center, walked to a memorial shrine
to say hello to Thubten Gelek, a Sherpa and master Tibetan artist who was
painting scenes from the life of the Buddha in vivid oranges and blues.
The shrine houses a 24-foot golden Buddha statue made of polystyrene. It
depicts the Maitreya Buddha; according to Buddhist texts, the historical
Shakyamuni Buddha, who founded the tradition in the sixth century BC[E] is to
be followed by many more Buddhas. The Maitreya Buddha of loving kindness is
said to be the next in line. The statue depicting this future Buddha will be
disassembled and moved to Shoreline for the Dalai Lama's visit.
A businessman for much of his life, Flynn has a graduate degree in applied
theology and a history of organizing large religious conferences. Twice
in the 1980s he organized conferences at the Vatican where Pope John Paul II
and Mother Teresa spoke. The response was huge; thousands came to witness the
events. Yet Flynn said the response to the Dalai Lama -- the almost physical
need of people to attend, to sit close to the stage to fully experience ``His
Holiness'' -- exceeds what he observed in Rome.
Thresher has studied with the Dalai Lama for 18 years and was ordained by him
15 years ago in Bodh Gaya, India, where the Shakyamuni Buddha received
enlightenment. She has also lived at various times in Dharamsala, India, where
the Dalai Lama has his home and the Tibetan government-in-exile is
headquartered.
"A lot of people would come and shake his hand,'' she said, "and
when they looked into the face of the Dalai Lama, they would start crying.
They don't know why, but he has this kind of effect . . . . He has
the ability to reflect the kindness in their hearts. They cried with joy.''
Over at the prayer wheel, a monk named Nyima Tashi stood on tiptoes, winding
rolls of microfilm into the opening at the top of the wheel. Each roll
contained 28 million mantras, or prayers. When the wheel is finished, it will
hold 3,600 rolls of microfilm, containing more than 100 billion mantras. Then
it will turn slowly, spinning many blessings over the Land of Medicine
Buddha."
Sorry! The prayer wheel Quicktime movie which originally
headed this page is not compatible with this Microsoft format
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