Hungry Malas

About mala making

I make malas. I make them to sell. I make them to give away. I do it because the creative expression is important in my process. I do it because it is important to me to support practitioners in their process. I do it because everything I do I want to be Dharma in some way.

I like adding dimension and meaning to the malas. This is more a Western than Eastern view I think, but I am not sure. If I have a recipient in mind, I choose materials carefully according to my wishes for them. Or sometimes I make a mala and then wait for the right person to appear. I tend to give malas with high expectations.

I gave a Tiger Eye mala to my best friend of the time (she was not yet a practitioner) for auspiciousness. For comparison, the Dalai Lama has a Tiger Eye mala. A couple of years later, here she is in India practicing alongside the rest of us. I gave a huge heavy cobalt blue glass mala to a friend when I saw that underneath her quiet nature was a density and vibrance emerging -- an intensity of being alive that is only associated with high practitioners.

Recently, I made a mala on commission of mother of pearl, lapis and malachite. It had an endless knot on the end. It was for a special woman who is not yet a meditator. She came into this world with a deep talent for empathy and healing. The mala was inspired by my wish for her to experience the deep transformations that come when great compassion arives in its full form. We will see. Perhaps that mala will call to her, perhaps her friends will call to her, and most importantly perhaps inside her actual being is calling her to be something greater than she already is. I hope so. With her talent, many beings could benefit.

Malas are born hungry

Back to malas. One thing we know is that all malas are born hungry. I know. My teacher says so. They must be fed a steady diet of mantra. They could start with OM MANI PEDME HUNGS and then graduate on to something else as the practitioner advances. Other times they start with Medicine Buddha Mantra, or Tara Mantra. In India, we are all doing the mantra associated with our Green Wisdom Light practice. This practice is associated not only with Wisdom, but also with the development of Great Compassion. It is an Annutara Yoga Tantra practice, done in the abstract form, which is more suitable for westerners. In addition to that mantra, we chanted OM MANI PEDME HUNG as we did cora at the temple and stupa today in Sarnath.

Malas and the mind of a pilgrim

In Ganpathi Guest House in Varanasi, RInpoche handed each of us our malas, one by one, and explained what it was like to have the mind of a pigrim. She said our malas should rarely leave our hands. When she placed the mala in my hand, I entered a different way of life. One where the world has a totally different meaning. Now the feel of my mala reminds me I am a pilgrim, not a tourist. My attempts to muster interest in shopping and pictures are short lived. I am not attracted to strong flavors or smells. I am more interested in the deep meanings contained within our work here. I want to look out from a deep inside place, and see the world from the lively and vibrant home of a meditator. Outside is nothing, what do these places remind us of on the inside.

That is what we pilgrims are here for. The reassurance of mala in hand, the clicking of beads as we fill every open space with prayer. The space between Varanasi and Sarnath. The space between the hotel and the stupa, the space between conversations. The space between sentences. The space between thoughts. The space between breaths.

And suddenly even the smallest place becomes vast.

There are no hungry malas here.