A monk makes dough-offerings (torma), Shang, Ladakh, India (R. Bloom)
Dough-sculptures (torma) on an altar, Lamayuru Monastery, Ladakh, India (N. Martin)
Seven bowls of saffron water on an altar, Lamayuru Monastery, Ladakh, India (N. Martin)
Offerings
The most common activity within Tibetan Buddhist shrines is giving offerings, an essential form of devotional worship and merit-making. Offerings are made to buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other deities to ask for blessings and help with worldly and spiritual concerns. The diversity of offerings is meant to honor these figures completely, appealing to all five senses with fragrant incense, glowing butter lamps, silky white scarves, melodious music, and sweet foods. Flowers, bowls of saffron-infused water, and colorful dough-sculptures (torma) are also commonplace in Himalayan shrines. Wrathful deities prefer offerings more attuned to their fierce nature: alcohol, weapons, and symbolic representations of animal and human sacrifice, such as flayed skins, entrails, and bones.
Guhyasamaja puja, Karsha Monastery, Zanskar, India (N. Martin)
Senior monk performs puja, Tongri Nunnery, Zanskar, India (R. Bloom)
Monks prepare for puja, Hemis Monastery, Ladakh, India (M. Adamski)
Puja
This Sanskrit term refers generally to any ritual in which offerings are made as a form of worship. In Tibetan Buddhism, such rituals are wide-ranging, but several features are shared by all. The space to be used for the puja is first purified with the aid of buddhas, bodhisattvas, and protector deities. Participants pay homage to buddhas and bodhisattvas, making offerings to them, praising their good deeds, and beseeching them to continue teaching. Confessing transgressions purifies the minds and bodies of participants, increasing the benefits of their puja actions. Finally, worshipers dedicate these positive, meritorious effects to benefit other people.
Monk carrying a reed trumpet, Kham region, China (A. Taveneaux via Wikimedia Commons)
Drum at a monk’s seat, Spituk Monastery, Ladakh, India (R. Bloom)
Monk holding a drum during a festival, Hemis Monastery, Ladakh, India (M. Adamski)
Chanting and Music
Music, both instrumental and vocal, is central to all manner of Tibetan Buddhist rituals, from daily prayers to initiations to annual festivals. Prayers and mantras (potent syllables) are chanted repetitively in melodic tones to ask buddhas and bodhisattvas for their blessings and aid, and to focus the mind on the spiritual goal of buddhahood. Buddhist scriptures also are rhythmically recited aloud. Instruments—including horns, flutes, drums, and cymbals of varying sizes, tones, and timbres—frequently accompany these chanting practices. And during masked dance performances, music is an essential part of the sacred choreography.
People prostrate as others circumambulate, Jokhang Temple, Lhasa, TAR, China (Ekem via Wikimedia Commons)
A long-distance prostrator, Lhasa, TAR, China (A.Taveneaux via Wikimedia Commons)
A prostrating nun, Larung Gar, Kham region, Sichuan Province, China (Chensiyuan via Wikimedia Commons)
Prostrations
Making prostrations involves stretching oneself out facedown on the ground and standing up again in one continuous, fluid motion. As a form of worship, prostrations are done in front of religious images and important teachers. They are also an important means of merit-making and spiritual training. Before initiation into advanced practices, Tibetan Buddhists must make one hundred thousand prostrations to prepare and purify the mind and body. Although they are most often done in place, prostrations can be a mode of circumambulation or even pilgrimage travel when a person takes a step after each one. Some Tibetan Buddhists travel hundreds of miles by prostrating!
People circumambulate the Boudhanath Stupa, Kathmandu, Nepal (Aiwok via Wikimedia Commons)
Circumambulation (khora) path around the Jokhang Temple, Lhasa, TAR, China (Luca Galuzzi, www.galuzzi.it)
Tibetan pilgrims spin large prayer wheels while circumambulating, Lhagong Monastery, Kham region, Sichuan Province, China (D. Griffin [Falsalama] via Wikimedia Commons)
Circumambulation
Walking around, or circumambulating, a sacred site or a holy image is a religious practice shared by many traditions. In Tibetan Buddhism, the action is called khora and is always performed clockwise, with the right side closest to the sacred image or site. Circumambulating is a form of worship and a means of making merit, which benefits the practitioner and others in the future. Many Tibetan Buddhists “do khora” daily, walking around their local temple or a nearby stupa. Circumambulation is also an important part of pilgrimage: for example, pilgrims walk around the whole of Mount Kailash and the entirety of Lhasa, Tibetan Buddhism’s sacred city.