Lama’s Visit and Mani Rimdu

Herbert Xiangnong Hu
Disposition 2014–15
4 min readOct 29, 2014

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After two weeks of preparations, the lama has finally come to visit our village this week. Just as the village head had described, he was a modest, decent and humble Buddhist teacher, unlike the one my friend and I had watched on the video a few weeks ago. We offered him what we had prepared, such as rice cakes, greeting scarves, drinks, and dharma texts. I was happy to see that the lama gave his lecture and performed the ritual without asking for gold or money, again showing his modesty. The main ritual he performed for us was a famous Tibetan ritual called Mani Rimdu, which was dedicated to destroy illusions in the name of the Lord of Dance. This was the first time I observed at a close distant of a Tantric ritual, so I had recorded every detail of what the lama said and how the ritual proceeded.

The lama taught us that each of us lived in a private world that was created by ourselves, which meant that the private world we were currently occupying was an imagined world, created out of our own power of imagination. So, if one could change and control the power of imagination, i.e. changing oneself, then one could also in this way change the world. The ritual Mani Rimdu was a ritual dedicated to the Lord of Dance, which was the Buddha of compassion. The lama said that since compassion was the “cornerstone” of Buddhism, such ritual that dedicated to the Buddha of compassion was very important. By performing the dancing ritual of Mani Rimdu, our meditation would have a different meaning; meditating while imagining ourselves as Buddha would mean that we had already practiced as Buddha, our private world, which was formed by our power of imagination, would be the same as a Buddha’s world. In this way, there would be no desire and hate, since if we saw the world as perfect, there was nothing to desire; if we saw everyone as divine, there was no one to hate. Therefore, the lama concluded that the ritual Mani Rimdu, which would “harness the unlimited power of the imagination,” was important. It would confine our imagination in the way described above.

Then, the lama proceeded to talk about the need to destroy illusions via performing the ritual of Mani Rimdu. He pointed out that the cause of our sufferings was ignorance, and this ignorance bound us to a world of illusions. Prajna, or wisdom, that came out of meditative practices and dancing rituals would destroy the ignorance, thus destroying the corresponding illusions and set us free. The lama illustrated this by talking about freeing up the ghosts. He said there was a particular type of ghost called demonic ghost. The demonic ghost was different from other ghosts in the way that it was produced by the wrongdoings of lamas. One thing that the lama needed to do before the beginning of Mani Rimdu was to free these ghosts from the life of sufferings. The lama then showed us some gestures of such ritual while saying that these demonic ghosts were prisoners of their own illusions, freeing them from their own illusions was the highest form of magic. He then asked us if we wanted to be prisoners of our own illusions like these ghosts, we all laughed.

When the ritual firmly began, I noticed some special material objects were being used. After the ritual, I asked the lama to explain the functions of these objects in Mani Rimdu, and he explained each of them carefully. First of all, the lama showed us an iron triangle. He said this was a prison for the demonic ghost he had caught a few nights before the ritual; he then burnt the iron triangle, saying in this way, the demonic ghosts were gone. Then, the lama took out a bronze dagger that was used before and during the ritual. He explained that this dagger could summon a dagger deity to protect the temple where Mani Rimdu would be performed. During the ritual, the dagger could also be used as a tool to free the demonic ghosts from illusions. Then, the lama pointed to the ground, to where the mandala was drawn in different colours. The particular mandala that was being drawn for this particular ritual was the mandala of the Lord of Dance. By drawing it on the ground inside the temple, it represented heaven. In other words, the heaven was already here with us. The lama also took out a horn-like equipment he used when he freed the demonic ghosts. I could barely remember its name, but it was something that could ask the demonic ghosts for submission. Finally, the lama explained the importance of pills. The pills were charged with mantra first, thus providing spiritual nourishment to people who took them. They were also tools for meditation that could provoke the Lord of Dance. In this way, pills in the Mani Rimdu signified the relationship between religion, medicine, and magic.

Generally, I was very satisfied with what I had learnt from this experienced and knowledgeable Buddhist teacher. Before the lama left the village, he also donated money for building our library and medicine factories. Since I worked with the scholar community, we highly valued such generous donation. I also heard from my medical doctor friend Kedao that the doctor community also appreciated what the lama had offered. We would work hard together to change our village to be a better place.

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