Return from Cave Expedition — Blog 8
I have healed from my injuries from falling off of the cave, but I still remain weak and sore from the injury. I am very grateful that Chogyam was present to conduct healing when I fell his work in healing my fractures as well as giving me healing for cracked bones and for a gentle and speedy healing. I made my way back to the village with the rest of the group from the cave expedition, it was a very long journey and unfortunately I was unable to walk very long distances at a time, and slowed the whole process down of our return home. This was all worth the pain as we did find several texts and a history of our village that has already helped us so much. We learned that the village cairn is in ruins, it is truly important that it be rebuilt so that our village does not undergo a storm similar to the hailstorm earlier this year. There are rituals that must be done to activate the site including smoke purification rituals, fire rituals, wind-horse rituals and mandala creation. I am going to prepare for these rituals in the upcoming weeks to ensure that I am ready for them when the cairn is built. Our village is lucky that we discovered texts on some of these rituals to ensure that we do them correctly, as we did have problems with the juniper purification ritual at the caves as it had a complication, the cave and pathway up the side of the cave did not fully protect everyone.
I have never done a ritual for this before so I plan on learning everything I can from the texts, but I do know that smoke purification rituals are very important as it will gain me merit, which will assist me in my path of attaining dharma. I have to keep this in mind, as it is something I am able to do in my current sate of healing from the injury I have attained to my back and head in the cave.
Part of the smoke purification ritual is the sang offering that I will be taking part in as I am planning on attending the ritual. I have not yet decided what I will offer in the sang offering, but I must make sure that it is clean, because I would be putting myself in a situation that could lead to my rebirth as a hungry ghost if it is no longer good. Once the burner and the offerings are all orderly it will be time to start reciting bodhichitta and refuge versus, but it is not just reciting the versus that makes the ritual important it is the frame of mind and the alignment that I feel in my body as I am reciting the versus that makes a difference. I am mentally preparing for the amount of visualization I will have to do during the ritual, as I am not accustomed to such an amount of visualization in one period.
In the village I have heard whispers that there are people who have done smoke purification rituals, it is said that people are freed from their suffering and karmic vision if they were invited out of compassion as I am. I am invited out of compassion because I am just a human being. I am hoping that this ritual will make a difference in my merit, as well as assisting me in my daily suffering. I am very excited to do this ritual in the hopes for a good outcome for everyone, but I am also interested in the other texts that we discovered in the cave expedition.
I am very happy that the cairn is being rebuilt as it and prayer flags are often the first thing that travellers see before they come to any village. It will be a nice and comforting feeling to see this when I arrive home from my travels from trading once I am no longer recovering from my fall. Wind-horse flag rituals will also need to be done; luckily for the village again we also found two mantras for these rituals on the cave expedition. Before the expedition I did do some trading for prayer flags, so I do have some that can be used for the ceremony. It is important that this ritual be done for the cairn because it is a blessing for our village of good fortune, a long life, happiness and peace. It is helpful that ley people are able to perform the ritual themselves if desired. I have not decided if I am to do this ritual because I feel as though there is a lot of effort that I am to put into my mental preparation for the smoke purification ritual. Ultimately the wind-horse flags are for our over-all well being, hopefully once this ritual is done our village will not have the bad luck of a storm or any other types of misfortune. The other text from the expedition for the wind-horse prayer flags is the swift fulfillment of all wishes. This is a much longer mantra, but it is a good blessing for us to have, as it can assist us in our endeavors everyday.
For the rebuilding of the cairn it is also important that a fire ritual is done to give us protection, which is a very important thing for us to have. This is done by offering five sets of offerings including: the Vedic fire god, the lord of assembly, the chief deity of the ritual, bodhisattvas surrounding accompanying the chief deity and a set of Vedic deities. It seems that the fire ritual is the most complex ritual that needs to be done for the cairn. There is a large amount of things that need to be done with very particular steps, it makes me nervous that this will be done correct when it is performed as this ritual has not been done in our village is quite some time. The mantras need to be performed over a hundred times while holding the rosary, there is much meditation involved. In my travels I have come across people performing this ritual and it is a very long process, I can only hope that our village is able to succeed in this ritual is done correctly, so that we all may be protected. To carry out this ritual we will need a practitioner who has done the ritual before or has knowledge of how to do so because of its complicity. We also need a mandala, which will be the altar; it will have a rope, which has five strands enclosing it representing the five elements that will act as a gateway for the practitioner this will give the practitioner the ability to perform the rest of the ritual. I will further research what other preparations need to be done to ensure that we are able to have this ritual done.
