Amulets and Blessing Strings

My dear students looking for liberation and enlightenment for sentient beings,

It is extremely important to have an image of this stupa with mantras because its benefit of giving protection come from Lama Atisha of Nalanda, where there were 300 great scholars and holy beings.

The purpose of keeping an image of this stupa in your house or in your room is to protect you from the mental pollution, not yet discovered in the West, from those who, in particular, have broken samaya with their guru, belittled their guru, given rise to heresy or anger toward their guru, or who, after making a Dharma connection through receiving a lung, commentary, initiation or vows, gave up their guru. This creates so much mental pollution, which is the heaviest negative karma.

If you meet that person, talk to or receive teachings from that person, or bring other people to a place where that person has been, your mind gets polluted. You lose your spiritual achievements, your mind becomes more negative, it becomes more difficult for you to achieve realizations, and you get reborn in the lower realms. It is very dangerous.

Also, the places where that person has been become polluted. The previous Kyabje Zong Rinpoche told us, during the First Dharma Celebration, that even the tap water in a place where that person has been becomes polluted. If you drink it, you get polluted, you lose any spiritual progression you have made, your mind degenerates and you go to the lower realms.

The external pollution from a car doesn’t cause you to be reborn in the lower realms, but this pollution does.

You can also wear the image of this stupa as a protection amulet so that wherever you go, you are protected from this pollution.

This is very important. It would be good for every FPMT center, service and project to have this image in its gompa, office or other public rooms, and on every level of its buildings.

If you are new to Buddhism and don’t understand this, it doesn’t matter; just keep it in your room for the benefit of other people.

Thank you,

Lama Zopa

[Note: Lama Atisha's Protection Stupa is available from FPMT Foundation Store. Read more about the history of the image and its benefits here.]

Of course, why not? Then you can hire other people to circumambulate you, and you can give them tea and biscuits or ice-cream, depending on how long they have been circumambulating you.

Anyway, yes, you can wear these, also the mantras can be recited. Please make your life most meaningful with the thought of bodhicitta.

With much love and prayers...

[You can find a link to the Four Dharmakaya Relic Heart Mantras in the FPMT Catalog (go to Printable Cards, then click on Protection Items.)]

All these blessing strings were blessed with many thousands of OM MANI PADME HUM mantras, as well as Namgyalma mantra, the five powerful mantras and others.

These blessing cords should not just be taken like a custom and put on your altar or in a container. They should be worn; the idea is for them to touch your body. There are so many benefits of these mantras and they can purify negative karma. So, these blessing strings can purify negative karma and your suffering can become less.

Also, when a person or animal dies or has died, you can put the blessed string on the body. Even if the being died a long time ago, you can still put it on the body, as it purifies the negative karma. Even if the consciousness is not there, but is somewhere else, no matter how far away it is, it still has an effect.

When you do a puja for someone who has died, using the person’s bones or ash, although the consciousness is not there and maybe hasn’t been there for a long time, the blessing string still has an effect on that person’s consciousness.

I emphasize to use blessing strings especially for wearing or for pujas for animals or people who are sick, dying or who have passed away. If we don’t explain all the benefits, then maybe people will just put them in a box.