Stupa

Incalculable Blessings for All

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The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

Today I thought to share with you the Prayer Wheels of KPC. Having seen them in India I fell in love with Stupas and Prayer Wheels and determined to contact a Lama who is a specialist in the necessary steps. My students became well trained in compiling and stuffing them.

These Prayer Wheels are well kept, and filled with every conceivable Vajrayana mantra. All Lamas there blessed and sealed them. Hooray!

Here they are! Glorious.

There is method here, no ordinary artist can make one. They are to spin clockwise, and circumambulated clockwise (this is me demonstrating.) As many thousands have done over the years:

We have many testimonies that the Prayer Wheels and Stupas have healed so many. Many blessings. I invite all people suffering from illness, including cancer, mental illness, HIV-Aids to make a pilgrimage here to heal and receive blessings, as well as joining our 27 year, unbroken Prayer Vigil.

Here is the main Stupa, we have several here in Poolesville, Maryland and two in Sedona which are much loved by the community:

 

I am happy to have offered this blessing to the people of the world, and all worlds.

© copyright Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo All rights reserved.

Accepting the Offering of the Buddhas

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Lama Never Leaves”

I have seen amazing things.  My own students do amazing things. When they weren’t healthy or when they weren’t fit they would do amazing things and they would benefit the stupa and create the causes for continued accomplishment.  I’ve seen them do amazing things.  I saw once one nun who was determined to get to one of my teachings.  Her knees were so bad she couldn’t walk.  I saw her crawling, crawling.  And I immediately dedicated that merit to her swift enlightenment.  And you know, I didn’t think to myself, “Oh, look at that, she’s crawling to see me.”  I thought to myself, “Eh ma ho. How beautiful. How beautiful.”

So we have to stop thinking in such an ordinary way.  We have to start thinking in the way of Dharma, in the way of practitioners.  You can’t wear robes and live an ordinary life.  You have to do for the sentient beings.  You have to maintain this garden of refuge across the street for their sake as well as your own.  You have to do for the Sangha.  It’s just as much merit to do for the Sangha, to make offerings to the stupas, to make offerings to the Lamas. This is extraordinary.  To make offerings even to the Sangha. I know the wonderful Chang family has been offering food for myself and also for the Sangha here.  What a tremendous, tremendous gathering of virtue that is.  What an awesome family.  What values to teach your children.  My goodness.  What an extraordinary wealth to pass on to your young.  Sure you could pass on a few dollars, but what is that?  To pass on the wealth of how to be happy…  My goodness.

Yet we just kind of trudge around in our habitual tendencies without seeing the beauty of it all, the wonder of it all—that here in this place lives Lord Buddha himself, Guru Rinpoche himself, without doubt in Nirmanakaya form, and we can always go to pray.  You know, we might say, “Oh, I can’t practice right now, because my practice is not going very well.”  Well, that’s when you practice.   That’s when you crawl across the street to the stupa if you have to and you recite prayers to the stupa. You say, “Please, I’m begging you with tears in my eyes.  Help me in my practice.  Come to me as wisdom.  Clear my self-absorption so that I can benefit sentient beings and before I die let me do something meaningful other than to hang out with my own distorted phenomena.  Let me make this world a place with less suffering.  Please, I’ll do anything.”

You lay down your pride, you lay down your thoughts, you lay down your body, you lay down your efforts, you lay down your offerings and you rise up a practitioner.  The way of Dharma is to turn our minds from ordinary things—those things that are so relentlessly stupid as to take up all of our time and all of our effort and give us zero, zilch, nothing in return—and to pick up and accept and cherish that which is here for us, that which holds out its arms to us, like our own primordial mother, and says “Come, I’m here for you.  Bring the others.  I’m here.”

Do not turn a blind eye to these offerings that I and other lamas have given you.  They are for you.  These stupas, what we have here, is only for you.  And so I ask you to accept once again.  I ask you not to be beggars under the table lapping up crumbs, but to come to the feast.  Come to the feast at last.

That’s our Dharma talk for today.  I hope it is of some benefit to you.  And I really sincerely mean for this to result in activity.

Let me make one more mention.  We talk about creating the causes for bringing the lama back, so we maintain the house for the lama.  If the lama has a habit of putting a wrap on their legs when they’re by their chair, the wrap should be by the chair.  The lama’s slippers should be by his bed.  The lama’s favorite cup should be out on the counter.  The lama’s altar should be opened every day.  If you really want to create the causes for the lama’s return, that’s how you do it.  The lama never leaves.

When the lama is not here, the lama’s picture should be on the throne.  And we should think like that.  The lama has never left.  And that’s our practice.  That’s our guru yoga.  And we have the visible means of support using the stupas that way as well.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

Utilizing the Antidote

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Lama Never Leaves”

Now it’s also said that the stupa has a mandala of enlightened activity around it the same as a living Buddha does.  That is to say, that a stupa that is powerfully consecrated with relics, and consecrated by an enlightened lama who has accomplished the mantra,  has a radius of about 100 miles of influence.  Isn’t that amazing?

Yet, we are not keeping that strength going, that fire going.  The power of the stupas will be, by definition of mind, diminished because our minds are not with them.  So it’s a terrible, terrible frightful waste.  It’s really like having all the lamas of the lineage across the street.  Oh, we pride ourselves that we have robes and we can go places and we can do practices. Some of us even have the more advanced practices. We can stare at bindus and stuff like that.  But if we don’t walk across the street and take care of the stupas, you can say we have no practice.  You could say that.  Because it’s like the lamas of the lineage are there, and no one is honoring them.  We call them to our practice.  We pray to the lamas of the lineage. We visualize them gathering in front of us, but we abandon them.  And so what is this cartoon in the sky in front, when we have abandoned the actual Nirmanakaya form?

They say that the lama and also the stupas have this 100 mile radius, approximately, of activity.  I built these stupas here because I was hoping that they would influence our government, but I don’t think that has happened as yet,.  I could be wrong, but I don’t see it. So I’m wondering if I could prevail upon each and every one of you to take these stupas into your heart, to think of them as your guides, your objects of refuge and to honor them in the way that they should be honored so that the lamas through these magnificent stupas can carry out their enlightened activity.  Because these stupas are an extension and an appearance of the Buddha’s enlightened activity.

It’s up to us to plant that firmly in the world, to make the roots deep  and to keep the causes pure and untainted for future accomplishment and future happiness.  There are so many stories in Buddhist teachings about particular practitioners that came to their own fruition through some slight, almost mindless, deed in the past concerning a stupa.  I’m a terrible Buddhist storyteller because I forget the details and I get the punch lines wrong, but I’ll try.  I’ll try to tell you a little bit of what I remember.

There is this one story, for instance, about a pig who was being chased by a dog.  And the pig was a pig.  He had been wallowing in mud, and he was all dirty.  He had a muddy body and a muddy face and a muddy tail. And the dog thought, “Oh, I’m gonna’ get me some pork chops,” and started chasing the pig.  And round and round this stupa they went.  After they went round the stupa a few times, the pig smashed into the stupa accidentally and the mud from his body fixed a little crack in the stupa.  That [pig] was reborn in Dewachen, or some enlightened paradise, because of that cause and immediately received teachings and the ability of accomplishment. He was reborn as a bodhisattva, and was given every means to accomplish; and accomplishment was gained.  A pig!  Accidentally!  These stories are told to us as an indication of what you’re missing, of how amazing the merit is of caring for the body of the Buddha.

Conversely, we are told that to leave a stupa in decay and to not honor the stupa properly will bring nothing but obstacles.  And we’ve had lots of obstacles here.  We’ve had obstacles to seeing the teacher, and that’s me.  I’ve tried very hard to get here many times and yet there are obstacles.  And I believe in my heart that these obstacles are because when I left, the stupas were not like this. I’ve returned to this, and this is the body of the Buddha.

Now I’m not saying this to make myself seem like a high up person or anything like that. Normally in monasteries, the Khenpos get to tell these stories about their lamas. I wish we had that condition, but we don’t.  So, allow me to just commit the non-virtue of telling you what the other lamas have said about me.  They’ve said that if you don’t see this teacher very much because of who she is, you should understand that this is because your own merit is diminishing, not because she’s not here to serve you, not because she doesn’t want to serve you.  It’s strictly cause and result here. Because of the nature of this teacher—and because of the nature of my teacher and because of the nature of the other teachers of this lineage—their merit is such and their accomplishment is such that we must always create the causes of continuing to meet with them.  They’re just not a collection of Tibetan jimokes that do their thing over there and then come and do it over here.  These are beings who have accomplished Dharma and who have returned solely to benefit sentient beings.  Their only wish is to bring benefit., and yet we are not creating the causes for that.

Now that I know what the stupas look like, I will wait before I ask His Holiiness to return here until they are better.  I would not break his heart like that.  And I’m not saying I’m a good mama and you’re bad kids.  It’s not like that.  I’m telling you that this is your practice.  I want you to be happy.  I want you to be free of obstacles.  I want you to attain that pure awakened state where you know what to accept and what to reject.  I say to you, “Reject your own phenomena that tells you I don’t wanna. I’d rather have fun.  Reject your own phenomena that says I can’t because I’m sick, I’ve got a headache, I blah blah blah.  Reject your own phenomena and accomplish Dharma instead.”

Go to the stupa and if you can bend a little bit, you can bend to offer.  If you can bend a little bit, you can bend to clean.  I tell you if you are sick to death and worried for your life, you should crawl to the Migyur Dorje stupa saying prayers all the way, because that’s what a smart Tibetan would do.  That’s what I would do.  If you can’t walk, get there anyhow.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

Discerning the Extraordinary

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Lama Never Leaves”

Now, we have these amazing stupas.  How amazing!  Even when the lamas are not here, we have this occurrence of the living Buddha here on this property.  The living Buddha remains on this property.  The problem is that our mind is so deluded and so lacking in wisdom that we don’t see that.  We let the Buddha sit there with no company. Not that they need company, but we need them.  Rarely do we go and visit the Buddhas. Rarely do we make them offerings. Rarely do we offer them a little cleaning, you know, to take a little cloth and say, ”Even though the Buddha doesn’t need to be cleaned, may I offer you this. May I take this dirt from you.  And by that merit, may all sentient beings be free of suffering.”  We don’t do that because we’ve forgotten. Because we go to sleep in our minds whenever our living lama is not around to shake us awake.

The teaching that I want to give to you today is how to avoid that.  First of all, let me tell you the way that Asian cultures, particularly Tibetans (I can speak for them), that have stupas, chortens, available in their land, normally incorporate them into their lives. Usually once a year, around the time of New Years, Losar, there are certain days when one does religious activity and that religious activity is increased by 100,000 or 10,000. And of course, we have our 10,000,000 days where we look to accomplish a great deal of practice.  Tibetans always think of times like that as a very joyful occasion, particularly during Losar, a time to celebrate.  They all get out and the wealthier patrons (by the way, that’s how they get to be wealthy) buy the gold wash or the white wash or whatever color they are going to repaint the stupas with. They clean the stupas and give them a fresh coat of gold or white wash.  And that’s a very joyful thing because they realize how much merit they are accomplishing, and they are already, because of their confidence, enjoying the fruits of that.  Because of their confidence!

We’re saying, “Boy, when’s it gonna happen?”  And they’re saying, “I rejoice in my future merit.  By this merit, there will be plenty of clothing, I will be warm and comfortable. All sentient beings will be pleased and this is tremendous.  I am so happy about that.”  And so with the simplicity of just the joyful accomplishment, they are able to experience the happiness right away.  It’s like a festival.  After they finish doing that, there’s always a lovely dinner; and maybe the great patrons will offer a beautiful dinner for the Sangha. And there is always a beautiful tsog offered to the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas. It’s a gathering of the Sangha and the Lamas and all the people that is extremely joyful.  Because we all say, “By this merit, may we never be separated,”  it becomes a very joyful event.  And so, of course then, the stupas are living Buddhas that are brought into the occasion because they are washed, they are cared for. We offer great offerings to them—of course the eight auspicious offerings of water to drink, water to bathe in, all the different offerings and their different meanings.  We make offerings of food and butter lamps or candles. Sometimes Tibetans will make Mani rocks—write the Mani mantra on rocks and offer many of those.  So there are many things that the Tibetans do during that time to celebrate and to incorporate the stupas as living beings in their lives.

Plus, the Tibetans that care for stupas would not think of letting the sun rise without offerings being present on the stupas.  To let the sun rise without these offerings would be unthinkable.  That would be, in the way Tibetans have been taught, in the way that they teach us, that would be like if your Root Guru had spent the night outside and was cold and hungry and needed her attendants or his attendants to come and no one brought him any tea to warm him.  It would be like that.  Would you do that to your Root Guru?  Even before you took your own coffee in the morning, wouldn’t you bring your Guru his tea?  I certainly would.  I certainly would.

What does that say if we have our own coffee in the morning before we make an offering to the Buddha. That says ‘my ego is more important.’ That says, ‘I take refuge in me’ or ‘I take refuge in my coffee,’ which I know is not hard to do.  Of course, we don’t all of us live with the stupas, and so each in our own way, in our homes, maintain altars and, hopefully, we make offerings to the Buddhas before we take any offering ourselves.

Traditionally, lamas have a little cup. It looks like a protector cup but it’s not exactly.  It’s a little tiny cup, and it has a removable top that you can turn over. A lot of times the lamas will take their first tea of the morning and offer it in the little top and put it up on the altar for the Buddhas.  Such a simple gesture but so beautiful.  And so profound.  To do that every day of one’s life is quite beautiful.  Some have the custom that whenever a family gathers for a big meal, the Buddha always gets the first portion. Perhaps for the Sunday meal here at the temple, we can make the first portion and give it to the stupa outside.  Or in a home family situation, the householder family can celebrate their lives together as Buddhists by creating a meal, whether it’s an ordinary family meal or whether it’s Hanukkah or whether it’s Easter or whether it’s Christmas and offering the first portion to the Buddhas.  That’s the way that a householder practices.

We should always think of the objects of refuge as being so sacred to us that we care for them very mindfully, so mindfully that we, through thought, word, and deed,  indicate to ourselves in our own practice and also to all sentient beings, that our caring is such that our eyes are opened. Spiritually our eyes are open and we see the preciousness and the value of the objects of refuge.  We recognize their exquisiteness and extraordinariness and how much more important they are than our own phenomena.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

 

The Nature of Stupas

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Lama Never Leaves”

Today, I would like to talk about what we have here.  Not only the objects of support that I’ve talked about, but we have the stupas.  I would like to explain to you the nature of the stupas.  I would like to explain to you a little bit about the treasures that we have here. To say that there is nothing like this in America sounds prideful.  Yet, I am not the one saying it, really.  I’m telling you what other teachers who have come here and who have been around America have said—that there’s nothing else like this, that this is quite remarkable.  And I say, “Well, we’re just getting started.  I hope it’s good.” We have here these extraordinary stupas that have been built according to the ancient Palyul tradition by a number of lamas—His Holiness, and then Tulka Rigzin Pema Rinpoche who is a renowned stupa builder.  The stupas have  been blessed by every lama that has come here; but they have been properly consecrated, about that there is no doubt.

The stupas have different levels and ultimately when they are born, that is to say, after they are completely built and the lama actually generates the entire mandala of the deities and all the objects of refuge, , and descends that entire mandala into the stupa, the stupa becomes then a living presence.  The stupa becomes like the Buddha in Nirmanakaya form, that is to say in the physical form.

On the bottom of the Stupa, there are many objects there that indicate the things of the world to be overcome, such as objects of violence like knives and guns and weapons, and they are buried underneath.  There are prayers and objects and images of suppression, including symbols of death, that go on top of that and they suppress the things of the world that are harmful.,  At the time of the filling of the Enlightenment Stupa, His Holiness said, “Well, it would be good if we had the skull of a wolf to put down underneath there.”  I went, “The skull of a wolf?  In Maryland???”  So we were rushing around thinking, “How in the world does one get the skull of a wolf?”  trying to figure it out.  And then we had the great good fortune, I guess… A fox up the road got run over and we had an intact fox skull.  So we brought the poor little fox skull to His Holiness and said, “Would this do?”  And he went, “This is pathetic.  Look how small it is.  Well, if that’s what you call wolf in America, this will have to do!”  So it turns out, the fox gets in there   asthe symbol of death.  We have symbols of old age, of sickness, of death, of all kinds of suffering, and the suppression of that.

Above that, there are different layers.  There are the practices: beginning stage practice, generation stage practice, completion stage practice, accomplishment. Then there are the objects and prayers and mantras that are associated with all these different levels wrapped in a very succinct way, arranged perfectly like the mandala of the deities.  It has to be arranged very perfectly, and it’s all very secret and careful.  Nobody can look in there unless they’ve been on the stupa diet, which is no animal flesh, no alcohol, no sexual activity and no ordinary stuff of any kind while you’re building the stupa.   And the many many gizillions—I don’t even know how many—of mantras , with saffron water sprayed on them that are rolled so tight, some done by machine, because we could get them rolled tighter, and some of them done by students who themselves were reciting mantra at the same time they were rolling them very tightly and sticking to the stupa diet.  So everything very carefully arranged, everything very perfect.  You can’t leave a drop of sweat or a bit of DNA in the stupa unless you have achieved enlightenment.  So nobody gets to really climb in there without being clothed up and very very careful.

When the lama then brings the stupa to fruition, there is of course the vestibule in which the deity sits, and the deity itself is completely consecrated like the deities on the altar, and they themselves have all the accomplishment figures in them. And then the relics are at the top.  Some of them are wrapped up to the spine, that is a very large piece of wood with mantra written all over it going down the middle.  Some of them are wrapped body, speech, and mind mantras of enlightenment.  So then when the lama descends the deities into the stupa, the stupa is completely able to receive every blessing that the lama is capable of conferring.  All the materials are blessed, purified and perfect.  All the needs have been met.

The lama that actually empowers the stupa is always a lama of accomplishment.  That is to say, Tulku Rigzin Pema Rinpoche is known as a stupa lama and maintains the stupa diet always. He maintains retreat a lot of the time in order to keep the stupa-related accomplishments fresh in his mind as though they were like fresh bread, just right there at the tip of his tongue or the tip of his mind—however you would put it—able to be conferred.  Then of course His Holiness Penor Rinpoche who empowered the Enlightenment Stupa is a living Buddha and is known worldwide as a living Buddha.  In Tibet, people gather the dirt that he walks on and save it and put it on their altars.  His foot-print even.   He never is not practicing.  I’ve seen the way his mind works.  He is like…   Well, he is a living Buddha.  There is no other thing to say about it.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

Stupas of KPC: A Resource for Healing, Peace and Prayer

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The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

If weary, sick or sad, come to the KPC Stupas and rest and pray. Leave an offering to say “I was here!”.

Stupas are meant to heal suffering, bring peace, balance, strengthen one’s path. Come see for yourself.

I wish I had funds to build Stupas all along the Pacific Rim. They would heal, balance, purify the Earth.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved

 

A Brief Summary of the Benefits of Building, Circumambulating, Prostrating to, and Making Aspirations Prayers at a Stupa

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The following is respectfully quoted from “Compassionate Action” by Chatral Rinpoche:

Homage to the Three Jewels!

I will briefly explain the benefits of building a Buddha stupa and the advantages for the faithful ones who prostrate before, make offerings to, and circumambulate it. By establishing here the perfect scriptures as witnesses, may those fortunate ones who can understand this teaching accept it with joy!

In the sutra The way of Distinguishing it is said:

The Buddha told the young Brahmin Naytso,
“There are eighteen benefits of building a Tathagata stupa.
What are those eighteen?
One will be born as the child of a great king.
One will have an excellent body.
One will become very beautiful and attractive.
one will develop a very sharp intellectual capacity.
One will become renowned.
One will have a great entourage of servants.
One will become a leader of people.
One will be a support to others.
[One’s greatness] will be expounded in the ten directions.
One will be able to extensively express whatever one wishes in word and verse.
One will be worshipped by gods.
One will posses many riches.
One will obtain the kingdom of a universal monarch.
One will have a long life.
One’s body will be like a collection of vajras.
One’s body will be endowed with major and minor marks [of a Buddha].
One will take rebirth in the three higher realms.
One will swiftly achieve Nirvana.

These are the eighteen benefits of building a Tathagata stupa.”

In the Manjushri Root Tantra it is said:

If you make a stupa with your own hands,
You will be able to purify your body even if you have committed the five inexpiable sins.”

If you build one hundred thousand stupas,
You will be transformed into a universal monarch of the knowledge-holders.
Completely understand all treatises
And be endowed with skillful means.
FOr the duration of an eon, when you die you will always be reborn as a king and never again go to the lower realms.
Like the sun rising in a central land,
You will be endowed with all your sense faculties.
You will be able to retain all that you learn and remember your past lives.

In the sutra called Chest of Secret Relics it is said:

The Bhagavan proclaimed,
“Vajrapani, when you write down Dharma teachings and place them inside a stupa, that stupa will become a relic of the vajra essence of all Tathagatas.
That stupa will be consecrated by the secret essence of all the mantras of the Tathagatas.
It will become a stupa of ninety-nine Tathagatas, as many as a heap of mustard seeds.
That stupa will be blessed as if it contained the yes and ushnishas of all Tathagatas.
Whoever places images of the Buddha inside a Stupa will definitely be blessed by those Tathagata images with the nature of the seven royal treatises of a universal monarch. Whoever pays reverence and honors that stupa will definitely become a non-returner and will eventually achieve the unexcelled and completely perfect state of enlightenment–actual, full Buddhahood.
Even if one offers only one prostration or makes a single circumambulation, one will be altogether freed from reaching various hell realms such as the Hell of Incessant Torture.
One will never fall back on the path to unexcelled completely perfect Enlightenment.
All Tathagatas will bless the entire area that surrounds the place the stupa has been built in.

In the Sutra of the White Lotus of the Sacred Dharma, it says:

Walls ar emade from mud and bricks
And a stupa of the Victorious One is made likewise.
Therefore, even if made by a simple heap of dust in a remote place of despair, or if a child playing games makes one from a mound of sand,
Whomever simply builds one on the account of the Victorious One
All of them will attain enlightenment.

The benefits of making offerings to a stupa are stated in the Sutra Requested by King Prasenajit:

If one applies whitewash to a Buddha stupa,
One will have a long life in the worlds of gods or humans,
One will be free of mental and physical ailments,
All suffering will be completely removed and
One will always be happy and will become wealthy with worldly riches.

By ringing a bell in front of a Buddha stupa,
One will speak with authority and have great fame,
One will have the pleasant voice of Brahma,
Be able to remember one’s past lives,
And obtain all kinds of adornments.

If a learned person silently recites prayers on their rosary with a faithful mind at a Buddha stupa,
They will have many golden rosaries adorned with beautiful precious jewels,
And will be foremost among the meritorious and fortunate ones.

Whoever makes a melodic music offering at a Buddha stupa
Will have an abundance of courageous eloquence in profundity and knowledge,
Their physical body will be perfect and their mind and speech pure.
Their voices will fill the world.

If any person who has a heart and body,
Hangs various banners from the stupa
Which is a stainless source of merit,
It will become a field of offerings and an object of worship for the three worlds.

If one affixes a silken crown to a Buddha stupa,
One will become a glorious ruler of gods,
Will experience great bliss, and in particular,
Will attain the crown of complete liberation.

If one cleans a Buddha stupa,
One will become very attractive and beautiful to look at,
One will have an excellent face
With the complexion of a lotus,
And one will be completely devoid
of the defects of Samsara.

Whoever cleans off the dust around a stupa
In the springtime with clean water
Will be joyfully fanned by ladies
Holding golden-handled fans.

Regarding the benefits of prostrating and circumambulating a stupa, it is said in the Avalokiteshvara Sutra:

If one respectfully prostrates before a Buddha stupa,
One will become a heroic and powerful world monarch.
Protected by the armor of gold-colored symbols
One will become an authoritative teacher who will delight the Buddhas.

In the Sutra of the White Lotus of the Sacred Dharma it is said:

Whoever joins their palms together before a stupa,
Whether with both hands or just one,
Whoever briefly bows their head
Or bows their body just once,

Whoever prostrates or merely says “Buddha” even with a distracted mind,
Whether once or a few times
Before a stupa where relics are kept,
Will attain supreme Enlightenment.

In the Decisive Verses on Circumambulating a Stupa it is said:

The excellent qualities of circumambulating
A Stupa of the Buddha, Protector of the World,
Cannot be sufficiently described with mere words.

These and other quotations from the sutra and tantra scriptures should produce great joy and confidence. I encourage all those who aspire to happiness to make the most of their human existence. Strive as much as you can to accumulate merit and purify obscurations by paying homage and making offerings, circumambulating, making prayers of aspiration and so on with a noble bodhicitta motivation, to the excellent supreme foundation (stupas), which grant very meaningful benefits through seeing, hearing and remembering them.

This was composed by the renunciant Buddha Vajra, who in this time of the rampant five degenerations gives the appearance of guiding beings through the physical embodiment of the Buddha body, speech and mind.”

Composed in the Male Fire Horse Year of the sixteenth Cycle (1966) in the ninth month on the twenty-second day. May it be auspicious!

Auspicious Signs at Sedona Stupa

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The following was submitted by Wib Middleton, a member of the KPC sangha in Sedona:

Yesterday during a two-hour Shower of Blessings tsog at the Amitabha Stupa a gentle and very brief rain fell twice during the practice.
Then a wonderful thing happened at the end of the practice.

A visitor had come and was circumambulating the Stupa and as we were preparing to leave she had stopped and was looking intently to the East. Following her gaze we saw a rainbow. What was unusual was at the base of the rainbow it looked like the rain and the rainbow had mingled and rainbow light mixed with rain was being blown by the wind and had expanded beyond the boundaries of the rainbow above.

We took it as an auspicious sign!

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