How to consecrate ritual objects (as a layperson)?

[KiwiNFLFan]

How does a layperson consecrate ritual objects (eg dorje, bell, butter lamp) if they happen to become desecrated?

The book The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness mentions that the Mantra of Great Wisdom Bimala Ushnisha can be used to consecrate objects. Would reciting a mala of this mantra suffice?

Also, should we consecrate holy objects (whether with this mantra or another method) before we start to use them?

[conebeckham]

It largely depends on your sadhana. Most full sadhanas will have sections for consecrating bell, vajra, mala, etc.

[KiwiNFLFan]

It largely depends on your sadhana. Most full sadhanas will have sections for consecrating bell, vajra, mala, etc.

I don't have a sadhana. I'm talking about a one-time consecration, either for the first time you use the objects or if they have somehow become defiled/desecrated.

Would the mantra mentioned in the OP suffice?

[jmlee369]

It largely depends on your sadhana. Most full sadhanas will have sections for consecrating bell, vajra, mala, etc.

I don't have a sadhana. I'm talking about a one-time consecration, either for the first time you use the objects or if they have somehow become defiled/desecrated.

Would the mantra mentioned in the OP suffice?

Offering objects generally do not require consecration (like offering bowls, butter lamps, etc). Tantric forms of consecration for representations of enlightened body, speech, and mind require a practitioner to have at least completed the approximation retreat for a given deity. There is still much research to be done about the historical development of consecration rituals, and the differences between sutra forms and tantra forms of consecration. Kyabje Zopa Rinpoche's teachings on the Mantra of Great Wisdom Bimala Ushnisha suggests that it is a sutra form of consecration, but with holy objects like stupas and statues, you would still need someone with the expertise to fill the inside, so you may as well have them consecrate it too.

It would be good to have vajra, bell, malas, and other such ritual implements consecrated by your guru, then you would bless them every time you practice a sadhana. You said you don't have a sadhana, but since things like serkyem, vajra, and bell are usually used only after a person has entered a mandala and received initiation, what are you using them for if not tantric practice?

[TrimePema]

How does a layperson consecrate ritual objects (eg dorje, bell, butter lamp) if they happen to become desecrated?

The book The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness mentions that the Mantra of Great Wisdom Bimala Ushnisha can be used to consecrate objects. Would reciting a mala of this mantra suffice?

Also, should we consecrate holy objects (whether with this mantra or another method) before we start to use them?

Talk with your teacher about it. It's up to them. They might tell you not to consecrate the object because of how you would have to treat it afterwards, or not to use this one or that one...

[Könchok Thrinley]

Just a follow up, why should we consecrate those objects? What is the benefit?

As for OP: Jigten Sumgon mentions that a very easy way to consecrate objects as statues etc, is with immessurable love.

[Fortyeightvows]

I thinks it’s a lot like Trimepema said, the act of consecration changes the way one relates to the object.

If we went with sacred and profane, the object now exists outside of ordinary time- it has mana at least to the practitioner themselves. The object then serves as another way to help the practitioner enter the sacred space.

There would also be the psychological effect. If we do a ritual with a consecrated object, we may have more confidence. Similar to an amulet that a person might wear before they undertake some difficult task, it can make them feel more confident about it.

[Fortyeightvows]

The other thing, for ritual objects. We can say that once they are consecrated they have more power.
Just like they say if you walk around the stupa it has this and this effect. But walking around a trash can doesn’t have that same effect, right ? So there is something about the object involved that has a lot of bearing on the effects.

[lelopa]

The other thing, for ritual objects. We can say that once they are consecrated they have more power.
Just like they say if you walk around the stupa it has this and this effect. But walking around a trash can doesn’t have that same effect, right ? So there is something about the object involved that has a lot of bearing on the effects.

when you think the Stupa is a silly tower but the trash-can ist the holy object where Terton Lingpa found the latest
Yidam-sadhana then all changes...

what if the trash-can is consecrated?

it is not buddha's tooth
it is a dog-tooth

[jet.urgyen]

The other thing, for ritual objects. We can say that once they are consecrated they have more power.
Just like they say if you walk around the stupa it has this and this effect. But walking around a trash can doesn’t have that same effect, right ? So there is something about the object involved that has a lot of bearing on the effects.

when you think the Stupa is a silly tower but the trash-can ist the holy object where Terton Lingpa found the latest
Yidam-sadhana then all changes...

what if the trash-can is consecrated?

it is not buddha's tooth
it is a dog-tooth

imo, th trash-can is also a message itself.

i mean you are right.

[Fortyeightvows]

when you think the Stupa is a silly tower but the trash-can ist the holy object where Terton Lingpa found the latest
Yidam-sadhana then all changes...

what if the trash-can is consecrated?

it is not buddha's tooth
it is a dog-tooth

I don’t know much about it, but I have heard some teachings where they used words like ‘indirect perceiver’ ‘direct perciever’ ‘valid cognition’ and all that.

Anyways, I don’t remember much of it now, it they we’re talking about the way we label different things and that the labeling could be considered conventionally valid if the label was applied to a ‘valid base’.
I feel like this would be applicable here

If I remember right the valid base is defined by whether or not the objects functions. Like labeling a rope as a snake is not valid because the rope doesn’t function as a snake, where as a dog labeling a pen as a chew toy would be valid since it functions as a chew toy.

Like I said I don’t know much about it, but I think some of those types of teachings are probably applicable here

[Soma999]

One person had a sacred object, but not consecrated. When she wanted to have it consecrated, the answer was "your way of seeing it, your way on using it, your attitude concerning it has already empowered the object. No consecration ceremony is necessary. It is already empowered".

See what represents your object, have deep respect for them and use them accordingly. They will get empowered.

Look also at yourself as holding Buddha nature. And you empower yourself.

Set your inner eye right, and you will empower yourself and the world.

Some master just by the way at looking at you, and what they see in you, allow for your buddha nature to express itself and they transform yourself. Just by their presence. Without even a ceremony.

[heart]

In many traditions there is a short practice that you do, before a retreat or a tsog, where you bless your ritual implements before starting with the kator. Typical it is the blessing water in the shell, varja and dorje, phurba and drum. Also in the end you request the deities to remain in the objects on the altar.

Normally when you buy a new ritual you show it to your master, it is considered enough if he touch them. In our sangha we collect all new items people bought and in the end of the teachings our master through some rice and do a short recitation for all of them, this is also considered enough.

/magnus

[PadmaVonSamba]

The other thing, for ritual objects. We can say that once they are consecrated they have more power.
Just like they say if you walk around the stupa it has this and this effect. But walking around a trash can doesn’t have that same effect, right ? So there is something about the object involved that has a lot of bearing on the effects.

Yes, but that’s all because of our mental projections.
“Consecration” itself only matters because until fully enlightened, we are bound to an existence of fabricated illusions. The stupa is also a kind of trash can. The only difference is that it contains really special trash (“trash” meaning that which has been discarded. Maybe it’s the the bones or ashes of a great teacher; that teacher has no
more use for it, has discarded it).

I’ve always thought concepts such as “consecration” very strange. It’s like the concepts of political borders, or “royalty” ...only existing because we think they do.

My own mental projection is this: if you yourself see dharma related objects as lacking true, inherent existence, yet simultaneously recognize their relative value and importance to toward your own liberation and the liberation of others, that consecrates them right there and then.
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