Excitement All Around
Since I found out that the invitation prepared by the scholars inviting the Lama to our town had been excepted, it has brought joy to the whole village including me. This joy, especially after the hardship the hailstorm and Naga illness at the next village brought, is visible in the town folk. Everybody is getting ready in their own way to welcome the Lama into our little town. Monastically there are plenty of guidelines to welcome a Lama into the monastery and town. I looked into these guidelines to be able to offer my services to the monks and nuns that were doing the main preparation at the monastery. I had already contributed my art resources to the drawings of the eight auspicious signs or symbols ( bkra shis rtags brgyad ) with white chalk for the entrance of the monastery by my artist friend and his fellow artists. The eight auspicious signs include a lotus, a conch shell, a dharma wheel, an endless knot, an offering vase, an umbrella, a gold fish and a victory banner. I cant wait to see what it will look like. Im also very curious of the Mandala drawing. Im so sure the Lama will like the eight auspicious signs and mandala our talented artists are preparing.
The monks and nuns have the hardest work cutout for them. They have to clean the temple up to tip top shape, purify the temple with fire offerings(bsangs mchod), prepare food offerings for the convoy of companions of the Lama and his holiness him self. They have to also prepare new tormas, A torma is an figure made out of flour and butter and is used in tantric practice and as offering. Have all the text and musical instruments out and ready. The texts being prepared is my biggest concern since the library got severe damage recently, i hope the scriptures needed are not ruined. I don’t have much resources to help other than my labour if needed. It has been long since a Lama came to visit our town, I was very young and my father had taken me to the sermon but I don’t remember much at all. So there is much to learn before preparing my offerings. I went to visit one of the monks at the monastery and offered to help him with his task of getting ready if he could teach me how to make a Mandala offering and to learn how a visit from a Lama would traditionally go. He explained how the short horns (rgya gling) are played as the Lama got closer to the temple. The sermon started after the Lama walked over the eight auspicious symbols into the temple and is seated on his throne. After this the chanting begins and offerings start to be presented by the monastic community first is a mandala offering followed by five monks lining up with offerings. The first monk would offer quality ;a bumpa, the second monk activity ;a double dorje, the third monk body ;an image of the Buddha, the fourth monk speech ; a dharma text and the fifth monk mind ;a small stupa. All of these offerings accompanied by an offering scarf and a five colored twine. The five colors represent the five Buddha families and activities. The color yellow represented Ratnasambhava family and enriching activity, the white the Dorje Sempa family and peacful activity, the color red the Amitabha family and magnetizing activity, the color green the Amogasiddhi family and Buddha activity and the color blue the Vairocana family and subduing activity. Before he could continue to explain his presence was needed for a task and had to leave. The rest i had to find out on the day of the visit i guess.
As my aspiration is to become a nun i stayed and watched without being in the way and helped when needed. I wanted to learn more about the monastic preparation if one day i needed to take part in it. For my own preparation I have cleaned my offering scarf which i plan to offer to the Lama with the five prayer flags. Im so excited i don’t know if i can even sleep until his holiness arrives in the village. Im sure i will gain a lot out of his teachings!
