HOLY OBJECTS

By Kathy Vichta

In September 1974, Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche taught a traditional lam-rim course in Diamond Valley in southern Queensland, Australia. Out of this course, Chenrezig Institute was born – the first FPMT center established outside Nepal – continuing the tradition of Kopan Monastery in the West and founding what has become a strong group of centers in the region. In the spring of 1994 Lama Zopa returned to teach a course similar to that first lam-rim course in celebration of the center’s twentieth anniversary. At the end of the course, five resident teachers from centers in Australia and New Zealand joined Lama Zopa and the 200 participants in a joyful week of elaborate pujas, blessings and festivities, culminating in the consecration of Chenrezig’s beautiful, massive, just-completed prayer wheel.

Our experience with building prayer wheels began six years ago, when Chenrezig Institute was without a resident teacher, and Venerable Geshe Lama Konchog came from Kopan to stay and teach for five months. During that time, at Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s suggestion I think, he instructed us in the making of our first prayer wheel.

This one was relatively small – about 30 inches high and 18 inches in diameter (750 mm and 450 mm). The basic drum is covered with sheet copper and decorated with Sanskrit letters cut from a 1 mm brass sheet. Inside are more than 330 million mantras, reproduced on microfiche to fit so many in this comparatively small space. It was a fine effort, and later Rinpoche was to attribute the peaceful atmosphere and successful development of our center to the effects of having the prayer wheel on the property.

If a small wheel containing 330 million mantras had such a positive effect, then what could we expect from a huge one? On Rinpoche’s next visit he recommended that, after completing a stupa dedicated to the memory of Lama Yeshe and to the long life of Lama Osel Rinpoche, we start work on a prayer wheel “like the one at Boudhanath or the one between the two roads in McLeod Ganj.”

The new wheel became an integral part of preparations for our twentieth anniversary celebrations – a very suitable deadline to work towards. What a time for the consecration of such a holy object! Committees formed, discussed, agreed and disagreed, and eventually, with much help from more experienced and professional members and friends, working drawings of the prayer wheel were completed and the hard work began.

A prayer wheel of such magnitude brought all sorts of interesting engineering problems, such as how to reproduce the mantras. We decided first to print them on paper. The sheet volume alone was astounding – literally fifty miles of paper were printed with a finely reproduced mantra originally written by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Enough paper to fill the wheel weighed in at nearly two tons; the bearing that holds it came from a large truck. Just the physical job of rolling the paper onto the central shaft with special pulleys and supports took weeks of constant work.

We achieved our goal, and joyfully informed Rinpoche that things were proceeding well and that the wheel would contain an amazing one billion mantras!

Hmmmmm … one billion mantras is wonderful, Rinpoche said, but ten billion would be better. Possible?

We delved into the mysteries of microfilm, the only way to fit that number of mantras into the space remaining. With the help of a very cooperative computer company with fantastic equipment, and an even more helpful microfilm crew who took the project completely to heart and worked long hours and weekends, we finally ended up with a satisfactory result – a method for creating 100 foot lengths of 16 mm microfilm containing 14.4 million mantras each, mantras that can all be read clearly, even if it is with 50 times magnification.

This cost us a small fortune but meant that a grand total of 16.5 billion mantras could be fitted into the wheel: 15.5 billion mantras on 117,600 feet of microfilm, from a mantra specially written by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and one billion mantras on the original fifty miles of paper.

The heart of the wheel is obviously the mantras contained therein, but the external decoration is also important. Traditional Eastern techniques not being available to us, we put much effort into finding a method of our own. What eventuated is exquisite. Covering the mantras is a metal sheath painted a hard glossy bright red. The numerous auspicious symbols and offerings are painted on the sheath, and the letters, cut laboriously from 3 mm brass sheeting, filed smooth and highly polished, are fixed to it. The whole is rich and glorious, and reflections glitter as the wheel smoothly turns.

The wheel is housed in a classic little building tiled in shiny glazed green, and surrounded by landscaped gardens. The building will eventually be decorated outside with the eight auspicious symbols, and inside with scenes of the pure realms. The gardens will include running water and pools with a Dzambala statue under a fountain.

The consecration of the new prayer wheel tool place in a striped tent out on the lawns in front of the newly landscaped prayer wheel site. It was the final event of our 20th anniversary celebrations: several days of elaborate, awe-inspiring pujas, wonderful blessings, and celebrations with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, our resident teacher Ven. Geshe Tashi Tsering, Ven. Khensur Losang Thubten Rinpoche of Buddha House in Adelaide, Ven. Geshe Dawo of Vajrayana Institute in Sydney, Ven. Geshe Doga of Tara Institute in Melbourne, and Ven. Geshe Pal Tsering of Dorje Chang Institute in Auckland.

We were also honored to have as our guest Mr. Chhime Rigzing, the representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Australia.

I can’t express how fortunate we all felt to have the presence of this group of powerful holy teachers to inspire us and to add their blessings at such an auspicious time.

HOW BIG IS BIG?

The actual prayer wheel is two meters high, 1.5 meters in diameter, and stands 700 mm above the ground (that equates roughly to 6.5 feet, 5 feet, and 28 inches).

It contains one billion mantras printed on 83 km (50 miles) of 350 mm- (14 inch-) wide paper from a mantra written originally by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and 15.5 billion mantras on 40 kilometers (24 miles) of long-lasting 16 mm silver gelatin/polyester-based microfilm from a mantra written specially by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

The overall cost of the project was A$37,687.65, including the wheel, the house, and minimal gardens. Of this, $29,000 was the cost of the mantras.

We tried various ways of raising funds for this project, and received a total of $27,241 in donations. By far the most successful (and well-received) method was to encourage people to pay for individual roof tiles for the house as well as for individual rolls of mantras. Written on each donated roll, and remaining there for posterity, are the names of those who paid for it, or of the friends and relatives to whom they wished to dedicate the merit of their generosity.

We are happy to provide details and/or help with any aspects of this project if you’re interested in learning more about it or in building a prayer wheel of your own.