Category Archives: pujas

Tibetan Buddhist Prayers or Pujas

The Power of Prayer

Buddhists believe that prayers can help relieve suffering and overcome obstacles. In Tibetan culture, it is common to request Buddhist nuns and monks to say prayers and perform spiritual ceremonies. The prayers and pujas can be for many purposes such as good health, long life, success, and to ease the journey of someone who has passed away.

Tibetan Buddhist nuns praying at Dolma Ling Nunnery.

In challenging times when we feel helpless, sponsoring prayers and pujas brings comfort to the giver and the person receiving the blessings. Tibetans recite mantras and prayers to purify the mind, deal with negative emotions, increase merit, and invite help from the Buddha and various enlightened beings.

What is a puja?

Puja is a Sanskrit term meaning offering or worship. In Tibetan Buddhism, the word puja is used to describe a variety of ritual performances and prayers typically conducted in temples, nunneries, or monasteries.

The specific actions vary depending on the tradition but generally include chanting and reciting ritual texts to bring blessings, purify the mind, and cultivate merit. Pujas generally include offerings to show respect and reverence for Buddhas and bodhisattvas. These offerings include incense, light as butter lamps or candles, flowers, fruit, and water.

Tibetan Buddhist nuns at Shugsep Nunnery holding sacred texts as part of a puja.

How to Sponsor a Puja by Tibetan Buddhist Nuns

You don’t have to be a Buddhist to request prayers. You can ask the Tibetan Buddhist nuns in northern India to perform prayers and pujas on your behalf.

People around the world can sponsor pujas or prayers through our Tibetan Nuns Project website. You can sponsor prayers in honor of loved ones, friends, family members, or even pets who may be suffering from obstacles, ill health, or who have passed away.

When requesting a puja or prayers from the Tibetan Nuns Project please provide information about who the prayers are to be directed to and for what purpose. The funds given to the nuns to sponsor pujas are used to purchase supplies and also help to support the nunnery as a whole.

butter lamps, Tibetan Buddhist nuns, Dolma Ling, Dharamsala, pujas, order pujas

Tibetan Buddhist nuns at Dolma Ling Nunnery prepare hundreds of butter lamps for a special puja.

A gift of prayer is something very special. As soon as we receive your request for a puja, we will send you a thank you message by email. As soon as possible after that, the nuns will email you a confirmation note and receipt to let you know that the puja has been performed.

Types of Tibetan Buddhist Pujas by the Nuns

There are many different types of prayers or pujas to choose from, ranging from offering 100 butter lamps to the elaborate “21 Praises to Tara” which includes 100,000 recitations of the Tara prayer, renowned for removing obstacles and fulfilling wishes. Here are the descriptions.

Butter Lamps Offering (Mar-me): Butter lamps are part of daily traditional Tibetan practice and are also lit for many occasions. It is common to offer butter lamps for those who are sick or have passed away (to light the path towards liberation). Butter lamps are also lit for happy occasions like birthdays and marriages, or to aid with focus and meditation. Tibetans light butter lamps on sacred days in the Tibetan Buddhist calendar, such as the 10th, 15th and 25th day of each lunar month, as well as during the holy month of Saga Dawa. This offering will provide fuel to light 100 butter lamps, which is usually butter or oil.

Tibetan nuns at Dolma Ling Nunnery offer butter lamps as part of a healing puja. Photo by Brian Harris

Medicine Buddha (Men-la): This puja aids in healing physical, mental, and emotional ailments. It invokes the wisdom and blessings of the Medicine Buddha (Sang-gyay Men-la) and can also enhance and support your work if you are a medical practitioner.

Offering to Tara (Drol-chok): Tara is known as a protector who relieves physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering. This elaborate offering involves creating ritual cakes called tormas and the use of musical instruments. This puja is particularly effective in removing obstacles and fulfilling wishes.

White Tara surrounded by mani stones by Heather Wardle

White Tara surrounded by mani stones. Tara is especially revered in Tibetan Buddhism and is known as the “mother of liberation”. Photo courtesy of Heather Wardle

Twenty-One Praises to Tara (Dolma-bum): Tara is believed to be a Bodhisattva of compassion and a protector who relieves physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering. Each of the twenty-one emanations of Tara has her own name, special attributes, and a specific mantra with which she is associated, offering protection from various types of fears, harm, and calamities. The Praises to the 21 Taras puja protects you from fear and dangers and is renowned for removing obstacles and fulfilling wishes, especially wishes on the spiritual path. This puja includes 100,000 recitations of the “Twenty-one Praises to Tara” prayer. Due to the time-intensive nature of this prayer, it will take an average of two weeks to complete.

Here is a sound recording made by Olivier Adam of the nuns chanting the Tara Puja. Can’t hear it? Click here and scroll down.

Long Life Ritual (Nam-gyal Tse-chok): This is a prayer for longevity to the female deity, Nam-gyal-ma, one of the three buddhas of long life.

Tibetan tormas, Tibetan Buddhist nuns, Tibetan sacred arts, tormas, Tibetan ritual arts

Tibetan Buddhist nuns prepare tormas for a puja. Tormas are figures made mostly of flour and butter used in tantric rituals or as offerings. Photo courtesy of Brian Harris.

Four Hundred Offerings (Gyab-zhi): Gyab-zhi is one of the most widely practiced ceremonies in Tibetan Buddhism. The ritual involves four sets of 100 offerings: 100 butter lamps to eradicate delusion; 100 ritual cakes called tormas to overcome desires; 100 human effigies made of dough to subdue the demon of death; and 100 tsa-tsa which are stamped clay votive images to overcome tainted aggregates. The intention of the Four Hundred Offerings is to aid in overcoming inauspiciousness, disease, untimely death, and challenging supernatural forces.

Tibetan Buddhist nun holding tormas. Photo by Olivier Adam copy

Three Pairs (Chak-sum): Chak-sum is an offering of three ritual cakes, or tormas: one to the protectors of the Buddha Dharma, another to local spirits, and a third to the suffering beings of the “Hungry Ghost Realm.” These offerings are intended to aid in the purification of negativities.

Cutting Through the Ego (Chöd – Simple): This puja aims at cutting through the hindrances or obscurations of self-cherishing thought and ignorance, the greatest obstacles on the path to enlightenment. The Chöd puja involves prayer, chanting, visualizations and the playing of Tibetan instruments such as the hand drum. It can also be effective for those who are severely ill. This puja is performed by the nuns at Shugsep Nunnery and Institute.

Chod practice at Shugsep Nunnery and Institute

Cutting Through Ego (Chöd – Elaborate with Tormas): The tantric practice of Chöd is effective for those who are severely ill. This elaborate version of Chöd (pronounced chö) involves the creation and offering of various ritual barley cakes called tormas. During the ritual, the nuns immerse themselves in chanting, music, prayer and visualizations. While reciting the Chöd rite the nuns are accompanied by the sound of several Tibetan instruments: the damaru or hand drum, the kangling, a reed instrument, and the large Chöd drum, which is larger than the hand drum. This puja is performed by the nuns at Shugsep Nunnery and Institute.

Gya-thong-pa & Sung-dhu: This puja involves reading the 800-verse Perfection of Wisdom Sutra and the Collection of Dharanis. It generates great merit and helps to overcome sickness and other obstacles.

Tibetan Butter Lamps

Offering Tibetan Butter Lamps

You don’t have to be a Buddhist to sponsor butter lamps or prayers by the Tibetan Buddhist nuns in India.

If you, someone you love or even strangers are suffering, you can pay for butter lamps to be lit or prayers to be said for them via the Tibetan Nuns Project. The cost to light 100 butter lamps is $10. There are many types of pujas which you can request from the nuns.

When requesting a puja or prayers from the Tibetan Nuns Project, please provide information about the purpose of the prayer and who they are for.

Tibetan nuns inside the butter lamp house at Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute. The building in set apart from the rest of the nunnery to prevent fires. Photo courtesy of Brian Harris

Lighting butter lamps is a spiritual practice. The entire process is carried out in a meditative and devout manner. When you sponsor the lighting of butter lamps, you also earn merit for your generosity and compassion.

The Tara Puja

2 Replies

Each Wednesday, more than two hundred Tibetan Buddhist nuns rise before dawn and perform the ritual practice of Tara. As do monastics at many nunneries and monasteries of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the nuns at Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute pray to Tara to help end the suffering of all sentient beings and to aid them on their spiritual path.

Starting at 5:30 am and continuing for 90 minutes, the nuns perform a complex ritual focused on Tara, the female Buddha who embodies the wisdom and the compassion of all enlightened beings.

Here is a recording of the Tara puja made by Olivier Adam, a French photographer and supporter of the Tibetan Nuns Project, when he visited Dolma Ling.

The nuns perform the drolchok or Tara Puja on Wednesdays because it is considered an auspicious day for His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

White Tara surrounded by mani stones. Tara is especially revered in Tibetan Buddhism and is known as the “mother of liberation”. Photo courtesy of Heather Wardle

Tara

Tara is believed to be a Bodhisattva of compassion and a protector who relieves physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering. She is known as the “mother of liberation”. Her name in Tibetan is Dolma, “She who Liberates”.

When meditating on Tara, one seeks to develop and enhance inner qualities such as compassion (karuṇa), loving-kindness (maitri), and understanding of emptiness (shunyata).

Painting of Green Tara from Dolma Ling Nunnery. Photo courtesy of Brian Harris.

Tara has a great many forms, in which she manifests in various colors. The main are Green Tara, White Tara, and Red Tara.

She is best known in her green form, associated with enlightened activity and abundance, and the best-known prayer to her is the Praises to the Twenty-One Forms of Tara. It is said that she herself revealed it to the great 11th century scholar and teacher, Atisha. He was about to leave on a journey to Tibet to share Buddhist teachings there, and it is said that she appeared to him and said that she would protect him on his journey and he should recite that prayer to protect himself from any difficulties or obstacles. That prayer in the centerpiece of the weekly Tara Ritual, in which it is recited 12 times at various points within the ritual.

Each of the twenty-one emanations of Tara has her own name, special attributes, and a specific mantra with which she is associated, offering protection from various types of fears, harm, and calamities.

The Tara mantra is Om tare tuttare ture svaha.

Early in the coronavirus pandemic, His Holiness the Dalai Lama advised people to chant the Green Tara mantra because it would be “beneficial for effectively containing the spread of the virus”. He has asked people suffering from the disease to chant the Tara mantra, Om tare tuttare ture svaha, to maintain peace of mind and remain free from worries.

Listen to His Holiness the Dalai Lama chanting the Tara Mantra.

H.H. Dalai Lama 尊者達賴喇嘛漢譯 · 度母心咒

The Praises to the Twenty-One Forms of Tara

Reciting the Praises to the Twenty-One Forms of Tara with devotion at any time of the day or night protects you from fear and dangers, and fulfils all your wishes, especially wishes on the spiritual path. Meditation on Tara feeds you with endless energy to continue on the path.

Here is an English translation of the Praises to the Twenty-One Forms of Tara.

The Praises to the Twenty-One Forms of Tara

OṂ Jetsunma, prostrations to exalted Tara!

1 Prostrations to Tara, swift and heroic, eyes like lightning, instantaneous,
Sprung from the opening petals of the Lord of the Three Worlds’ tear-born lotus.

2 Prostrations to Her, face as bright as the light of a hundred full moons of autumn,
Blazing with light resplendent of a constellations’ thousand stars.

3 Prostrations to Her, hand adorned with a gold-blue water-born lotus,
Giving, effort, discipline, peace, patience, and concentration Her sphere.

4 Prostrations to Her, crown ornament of the Tathāgatas who has achieved limitless victory
And is served by the Conquerors’ Offspring who have attained all the perfections.

5 Prostrations to Her, who fills the realms of desire, direction, and space with TUTTARA and HŪṂ,
Who pressing down with her foot on the seven worlds can summon all without exception.

6 Prostrations to Her, worshipped by Indra, Agni, Brahmā, Vāyu—by the many worldly Lords;
Before whom the hosts of spirits, corpse-raisers, gandharvas, and yakṣhas give praise.

7 Prostrations to Her who with TRAT and PHAṬ destroys foes’ harmful magic,
Pressing down with right leg bent and left extended, she blazes with raging fire.

8 Prostrations to TURE, terrifying one, destroyer of Māra’s warriors,
Lotus face displaying wrath, she slays all foes without remainder.

9 Prostrations to Her, fingers poised at her heart in the mudra of the Three Precious Jewels,
Her palm is adorned with a universal wheel whose fierce radiance fills all directions.

10 Prostrations to Her, spreading great joy with the rays of light that garland her crown,
Mirthful, laughing, with TUTTARA, she brings the worlds and demons under her sway.

11 Prostrations to Her, able to summon the entire host of earthly protectors;
Fiercely frowning, with the syllable HŪṂ she rescues from every misfortune.

12 Prostrations to Her, crown adorned with a crescent moon, all adornments blazing bright,
From Amitābha within her topknot, light rays always shine forth.

13 Prostrations to Her dwelling in the midst of a garland of flames like the fire at an aeon’s end,
Right leg out, left bent in, she destroys the encircling army of the foes of happiness.

14 Prostrations to Her who smites the earth with her palm and stamps it with her foot;
Displaying wrath, with the syllable HŪṂ she shatters the seven underworlds.

15 Prostrations to Her, blissful, virtuous, peaceful, her sphere is peace, nirvāṇa;
Her mantra graced with OṂ and SV H utterly destroys great wrongdoing.

16 Prostrations to Her who turns the wheel giving joy to those whose foes she destroys;
She liberates with the ten-syllable mantra and knowledge mantra with HŪṂ.

17 Prostrations Swift One, who stamps with her feet, whose seed is the syllable HŪṂ,
She causes Meru, Mandara, Vindhya and the three worlds, too, to shake.

18 Prostrations to Her, who holds in her hand the hare-marked moon shaped like a heavenly lake;
With twice-spoken TARA with the syllable PHEṬ, poisons are completely dispelled.

19 Prostrations to Her, served by the Kings of gods, by gods and kinnaras too;
With the armour of her joyful splendor she dispells conflicts and bad dreams.

20 Prostrations to Her, whose two eyes, the sun and full moon, illumine by their radiance;
With twice spoken HARA and TUTTARA she dispells pestilence and disease.

21 Prostrations to Her with the threefold suchness, perfectly endowed with the power to give peace;
She destroys the hosts of spirits, corpse-raisers and harmers, Oh TURE most sublime!

This is praise of the root mantra and is offered with twenty-one prostrations. (2x)

Tara Mantra OM TA-RE TUT-TA-RE TU-RE SVA-HA

How to request a Puja or Prayers

You don’t have to be a Buddhist to request prayers by the Tibetan nuns. You can ask the Tibetan Buddhist nuns to perform prayers and pujas on your behalf.

People around the world can sponsor pujas or prayers through the Tibetan Nuns Project website. Many people sponsor prayers in honor of loved ones, friends, family members, or even pets who may be suffering from obstacles, ill health, or who have passed away.

There are many different types of prayers or pujas to choose from. Full descriptions of each puja are available here.

When requesting a puja or prayers from the Tibetan Nuns Project, please provide information about who the prayers are to be directed to and for what purpose. All puja funds are sent to the nunneries. All funds are used to purchase puja supplies and to help the nuns and their nunneries.

Tara and the Tibetan Nuns Project Logo

The center of the Tibetan Nuns Project logo is made up of the seed syllables E (pronounced “ay”) and VAM, written in an ancient Sanskrit script, which symbolize wisdom and compassion. These are surrounded by a circle of 21 TAM, the seed syllable of Tara.

There are 21 because the 21 forms of Tara are one of her most popular manifestations. The nuns have a particular affinity for Tara, the feminine embodiment of compassion and are frequently asked by the Tibetan community to perform Tara rituals on their behalf.

Tibetan Buddhist nuns pray for victims of Australian fires

Tibetan Butter Lamp Offering

Offering butter lamps is deeply ingrained in the Tibetan tradition. Butter lamps are part of traditional daily Tibetan puja and serve a variety of purposes, including aiding focus and meditation, providing a symbolic flame to light the path towards liberation, and facilitating the cultivation of merit for those who sponsor the lamps’ fuel which is usually butter or oil.

Tibetan butter lamps may be offered for many occasions, such as when you or someone you know is in trouble. They may also be offered when someone is starting a new venture, to celebrate a birthday, anniversary or graduation, or to say thank you.

Tibetan butter lamp offering for victims of Australian fires

Tibetan butter lamp offering to the victims of the Australia bush fires. Photo taken at Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute courtesy of the Nuns’ Media Team.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Message to Australians

On January 8, 2020, His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote to the Australian Prime Minister to express his sympathy and deep sadness about the bushfires that have caused such devastating damage.

Portrait of His Holiness the Dalai Lama by Olivier Adam. In January, His Holiness expressed his sorrow over the bushfire devastation in Australia in a formal letter to the Australian Prime Minister.

Writing to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison from the holy city of Bodh Gaya, His Holiness said:

“It is simply heart-wrenching to see reports of these ferocious infernos, while the personal bravery of so many volunteers who have come together as firefighters is an inspiration.

“I offer my condolences to the families of those who have died and to the many people who have lost their homes in these fires.

“It is also becoming increasingly clear that a great number of birds and animals have died in the fires — this is also very distressing.

“I would like to commend your government and the respective state governments for the measures they have taken to provide victims with necessary support and assistance.

“I am heartened by the generous solidarity being shown by the global community for those who have been affected. Disasters like this remind us that humanity is one community. Even on an individual level, each and every one of us must take steps to counter global warming.

“As you may know, I have been able to visit Australia quite regularly over the years and have been deeply touched by the friendship and affection Australians have shown me, as well as the interest they have taken in my efforts to promote human values and peace of mind.”

The sign with the 1,000 butter lamps says, “Offering of Butter Lamps by the nuns for the victim of Australian bush fire. There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.’ No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.” by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.