Disposition 3
After two days of blood sweat and tears poured by the villagers, the bridge was finally built. At last I felt that order was starting to come back to our village. All of us played a part in rebuilding the city. I would help as much as I could in the rebuilding of the houses and provide medication given by the doctors to sick or injured villagers.
Not long after we started our rebuilding effort our village was good as new. We have started trading with other villagers for resources. We heard rumours from the traders that a lama was coming to a neighbouring village. I wanted to invite the lama to our village to give us blessings and protect our village from future disasters. After what happened during the hail storm, we needed all the protection we could get. I talked it over with the leaders of the village and they all agreed to invite the lama. They were worried that more dangers such as the angry naga spirit in the neighbouring village were coming and the village needed protection.
So I went back to the temple where I was staying and started writing an invitation letter to invite the lama over to the village. It went,
In front of the golden throne of his supreme holiness lotus feet, to the crown ornament of gods and human beings, Best guide of the six realms of sentient beings, Great leader of World Peace, Lord of all the Buddhist teachings in the world, completely perfect leader of politics and religion for the Tibetan people. Jewel of the people, protector and refuge of everyone.
From your humble followers, of our village hidden in the mountains of the Himalayas, respectfully with body, speech and mind, we make innumerable prostrations.
We have no choice but to offer before your god’s ear our unworthy request. Please regard us with your loving compassionate wisdom.
Please fulfil our wish the essence of this request. We would like you to teach us in the ways to become better Buddhists, by teaching us how to get the strength and courage to overcome life’s many challenges. We would also like you to bless our village and protect our village from dangers that may fall upon us in the future.
Please regard us, please regard us, and please regard our request.
With our offerings of the white god’s cloth, mandala and a thousand gold and ten religious paintings will be offered as donations when you arrive at our village, from the humble followers, from our village hidden in the mountains of the Himalayas, please support our request.
After sending the letter, the whole village started to prepare for the arrival of the lama. We swept the temples inside and outside, cleaned and polished every statue in the temple. After we were done, the temple was spotless. We cleaned many offering bowls and filled it with water, washing water, incense and fragrant water. We cleaned the butter lamps which was used for prayers and filled them with freshly melted butter in anticipation of the lama’s arrival. We bought comfortable pillows for the throne and cleaned up a special room in the temple where the lama would be staying. We placed fresh fruits and plenty of drinking water in the room. Some of the villager were practising the music that would be played when the lama is here.
Once the preparation was done, I started to do my paintings. I did eight auspicious drawings with white chalk on the entrance to the temple. The auspicious drawings were a lotus, a conch shell, and dharma wheel, endless knot, offering vase, umbrella, goldfish and a victory banner. After drawing those drawings, I starting on my painting which we would offer to the lama. I had the help of the many village artists to do the paintings with me. The village leaders went around the village collecting donations which would be given to the lama.
A few days had passed and we had reached our target amount in donations and our paintings were done. At that moment, we received a letter from the lama’s secretary that the lama would be visiting us. The whole village started celebrating in anticipation of the arrival of the lama.
