- Teachings ON THE BENEFITS OF PRAYER WHEEL
- Nguyên tác: “Advice on the Benefits of Prayer Wheels”
- Lat ma Zopa Rinpoche
- Teaching at Land of Medicine Buddha,
In Solu Kumbu older people are spinning prayer wheels every day.
When they are
at home in the morning and evening before bed, they hold a mala (string seed) in
the left hand, a prayer wheel in the right hand and recite the mantra OM MANI
PADME HUNG. And
when they go around, they constantly turn the prayer wheel and recite OM MANI
PADME HUNG.
I have often thought: "How
to turn the prayer wheel become Dharma practice?" In the beginning I have this
question because I do not know about the benefits of the practice. I do not understand an
important practice is and how beneficial it is in terms of purification.
Just touching
and turning a prayer wheel is enough bring incredible purification and
accumulates unbelievable merit is.
In Lawudo I have found many
ancient manuscripts, handwritten texts Lawudo Lama. Lawudo Lama ago, called
Lama (Kunsang) Yeshe and some people think he has something to do with my life.
No Lawudo Lama
monastery, but lived in retreat in a cave. He spent a lot of effort to copy the texts on the
practice of Vajrayana deities vary. At that time the texts are so rare, so he wrote many
texts manually.
Because they are stored in
damp caves, the text gets wet, and I used to dry them in the sun. If you do not dry them, the
texts will be deep fungal infection and then destroyed. The worms reincarnate among
the texts and make a few holes in them.
One day when exposed to these texts, I found an old text, entitled "Mani
Kabum." It consists of the entire evolutionary history of the world, including
the Dharma appears in the world to do and do How beings in Tibet, Land of Snow,
became the special objects to be subdued by the Compassion Buddha
Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezig.) Amitabha (Amida) and Compassion Buddha are the same
in nature and linked together very closely. And for more than twenty
years, the Compassion Buddha and Amitabha have guided not only Tibet and China,
but also Western countries, especially by spreading
Dharma.
In Mani Kabum I found a
short teaching on the practice of prayer wheels and a few lines on how to
visualize and meditate when you practice. In Tibet, and anywhere there Mahayana teachings of
Vajrayana, the practice of dapho turn prayer wheels. Nagarjuna (Nagarjuna)
Dakini3 gave the practice to Lion, who gave it to Padmasambhava (Lotus Born),
then brought it to Tibet.
After reading this book, I
developed the belief that practice is not nonsense, which is the reference point
is very valuable and precious and meaningful. From this text, I have some
idea of the prayer wheel practice is how powerful the effect in purifying the
mind and the vast accumulation of merit.
In 1987, when I was at
Chenrezig Institute in Australia, I noticed that the place had become incredibly
peaceful. It
felt so serene that you want to be there, live there. Chenrezig Institute is not
the same as before, and I wonder why it changes. At that time, Geshe Lama
Konchog there. Geshe-la has done a lot of Dharma practice. After the escape from
Tibet, he retreats for many years in the caves of Milapera in the Himalayan
ranges. He
practiced Nyung 2000-present, the intense two-day retreat on the Compassion
Buddha, it involves taking the eight Mahayana Precepts and doing many
prostrations and mantra. Geshe Lama Konchog has trained his mind in a very
nice way, so I thought that was the serenity of Chenrezig Institute might be by
his bodhicitta.
However, one day near the
end of my stay there, the thought came into my mind: "Oh, the change might be
due to the prayer wheel - that previously it was not there." Wheel Prayer is
much smaller than the one here at Land of Medicine Buddha, but it also contains
many mantras on microfilm and are very nicely made. Some time later, when I was
in Brazil at the invitation of a meditation center there, a student gave me a
book by one of the chief disciples Tulku Tarthang compiled about his experience
when he took the construction of the stupa (tower) and the prayer wheel in the
center of Tarthang Tulku. In one section he says that after a prayer wheel is
built, the area was completely transformed, becoming so peaceful, joyful and
engaging the mind.
This confirmed my belief, based on my own reasoning, that Chenrezig
Institute had become peaceful because of the prayer wheel it new. Some people experience a
similar effect from the construction of the prayer wheel helped to strengthen my
faith.
TYPES OF PRAYER
WHEEL
There are prayer wheels
soil, water, fire and wind. One of the benefits of prayer wheels is that it
embodies all the actions of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. In order to benefit beings,
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas manifest in the prayer wheel to purify all negative
karma and obscurations of us, and to cause us to enter the realizations of the
path to enlightenment . All the beings (not only 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 person, or be born in a pure
land of Buddha.
If you have a prayer wheel in your house, your house will look like the
Potala, the pure land of the Compassion Buddha. If you have a prayer wheel
next to you when you die, you do not need to have legal powa.4 The prayer wheel
itself becomes a method to transfer your consciousness to a pure land.
Just thinking
of a prayer wheel is for helping a dying person to shoot their minds on the
central channel and out through the crown to reincarnate in the pure land of
Buddha Amitabha and the Compassion Buddha. Simply touching a prayer wheel that has brought a
great purification of negative karma and obscurations. Turning a prayer wheel
containing 100 million OM MANI PADME HUNG mantras accumulates the same merit as
having recited this mantra 100 million.
Prayer wheel here at Land
of Medicine Buddha contains 11.8 billion mantras, so turning it one time is the
same as having recited that many mantras. In that few seconds, you make a lot of purification
and accumulating strong; great deal of merit. Turning the prayer wheel
once is similar to many years of retreat. This is explained as one of the benefits of prayer
wheels.
With prayer wheel, the
water was blessed by touching the wheel. When that water goes into a lake or ocean, it
carries the power to purify all the billions of animals and insects live in
it.
I had one wish, which has
recently become stronger, which is to build a prayer wheel in the ocean.
Because I was
asked to help many other Dharma projects, the idea of making a water prayer
wheel is delayed. However, when I was in the center in Taiwan recently, in a conversation
about prayer wheels, I'm referring to this idea. One of the benefactors, who
was running the family business for several years, very happy to make a prayer
wheel because his father had started his business by buying fish. Since the family prospered
from fishing, he felt his family owed a lot to the fish, and he already had in
mind of doing something to repay or to benefit the
species.
When I mentioned the idea
of the prayer wheel, he almost shouted, and then asked me: "Why are you
telling me to build this prayer wheel?" After I explained the reason, he I am
very happy with the construction of a water prayer wheel. I mentioned the idea of
building it in the waters near Taiwan, but he thought to build it in Hawaii
where the Pacific touches the prayer wheel and bring great
benefits.
A fire prayer wheel is
turned by the heat of a candle or electric light. The light emitted from the
prayer wheel then purifies the negative karma of living beings it touches.
With a prayer
wheel turned by wind, too. Wind touches the prayer wheel is blessed by the
power of this wheel and then have the power to purify the negative karma and
obscurations of any sentient being it touches.
By the prayer wheel is very
effective in purifying negative karma, so I think that using it is a very good
idea.
The
visualizations
After I explained the
benefits of it several years ago at Kopan, Lorna and Terry voluntarily took it
upon making the prayer wheel to be available for other students who want to
practice. It's
generous, they do many small prayer wheels and offer them for many students,
including me.
I then offered my prayer
wheels to the King of Nepal
. When
I mentioned to him that the prayer wheel will help when one dies, he suddenly
became distant. I think it is not a problem to talk normally to him. He asked, "Do I have to
keep this?" So I said, "Yes."
The prayer wheel is said to
prevent harms from spirits and other beings and also stop disease, so I got the
idea to use them for healing. People with a disease such as AIDS or cancer,
whether they understand French or not, can use the prayer wheel for meditation
and healing. For example, a person may come here to Land of Medicine Buddha for
several hours every day to turn the prayer wheel and meditation
practice.
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 the disease and the
causes of your illness, the negative thoughts and traces of these thoughts left
on your mental continuum. You then visualize the light illuminating all
sentient beings and purifying all their sufferings, as well as negative karmas
and obscurations of them.
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, negative karma and obscurations. All these things are
absorbed and drawn into the prayer wheel. While reciting five or ten chain mantra, you
visualize yourself being purified in this way.
At the end recite some
strings while visualizing that the beams emitted from the prayer wheel purify
all the sufferings and obscurations of beings in the six realms. The light is absorbed into
the prayer wheel and become the Compassionate Buddha (you can also go and the
visualize interference with it.)
If someone with AIDS,
cancer or some other disease meditated like this and every day, for several
hours as much as possible, then surely there is some effect. I know quite a few people
who have completely recovered from terminal cancer through meditation.
Even those who
may not know about Dharma, about reincarnation or karma, but because they are
interested in having a healthy body and healthy mind, they should use extreme
remedies effective and meaningful.
I want to emphasize that all prayer wheels are large and small can be
used for patient treatment. This practice is very practical and very meaningful.
Two years ago,
I asked Jim McCann to build a prayer wheel here at Land of Medicine Buddha, not
only for people to practice but also to bless the land. It helps all the insects
and animals and people alike. Jim and his wife Sandra have to much time and effort
to the implementation of the beautiful prayer wheels, although I am assured that
many others who helped them. In my heart, I want to thank them very much for
their achievements. A prayer wheel makes the place became very sacred and precious, like a
pure land. /.
Ma Lat Zopa
Rinpoche
Nguyên tác: “Advice on the
Benefits of Prayer Wheels”
Vietnamese language
translation: The United
Footnotes:
- Prayer wheel: the copy of the mantra "Om Mani Padme Hung," as much as possible, printed on very thin tissue paper (or on microfilm in today,) is wound around a spindle and is covered by a protective tube axis. The prayer wheel is made to rotate by hand or wind, water, fire, or abilities.
- Medicine Buddha Origin: center of teaching, practice and retreat near Santa Cruz, California.
- Dakini; holders goddess of wisdom. The companion of the Buddhas and the mediator, can teach the special insight when people get in a state receptive properly and the same time taught the proper place.
- powa: a meditation practice based upon the transference of consciousness from the body. Powa can be used to transfer your consciousness to a pure land at death.
http://www.buddhismtoday.com/viet/phatphap/banhxe_caunguyen.htm
.END=VIETNAMESE TRANSLATE ENGLISH BY BACH LIEN HOA.( TAM THANH ).21/4/2012.NAM MO SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA.( 3 TIMES ).
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