Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Prayers

Dharamsala based Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) called for a solidarity prayers on 20 Wenesday to all Tibetan dispora across the world. The prayer is for those Tibetans who have self-immolated recently and all those did the same in past. Tibetan community in the common wealth of Virginia responded to Kashag's call for mass simultaneous prayers.

Within a short notice, a member of the Capital Area Tibetan Association announced the prayer to be held at a Tibetan family house in Vienna. I look at prayer as a way of escaping from the pain and sorrow inflicted upon ourselves from death of a relatives or dear ones. What really prayer helps for the deceased is something we have no evidence. It is a belief, and that the  light we lit help the deceased to show the path of darkness, and the recitation of our prayers help the dead in mitigating their pain and sorrow of leaving the world.  All traditions and culture have this powerful ritual for the dead and following the custom and tradition is a way of a respecting the deceased.  So I attended today's prayer session at Rinzin la's house and wholeheartedly prayed for those Tibetan martyers who choice the path of no return one after another apparantly for the greater cause of Tibet, now reaching 104.

The community members have come in considerable numbers. One top floor shrine is filled with people and another mid level room is also filled. The power of praying by coming together is tremendous. All Tibetans these days, who have knowledge of the ongoing  self-immolation are filled with sorrow and grief. One is not knowing what to do when each incident of burning hit us.  So the prayers is the answer to all the tragedic story that is filling us frequently.

As I was sitting along with other CATA members and reciting the prayers in unison. It gives you a sense of empowerment and liberating feeling. All of all status converged under  one roof to hail those heros of Tibet. I hope our prayers will be answered and sooner or later, Tibet will get the sun of happiness. Flipping through the pages of prayer book, I was curious of what those stanza mean.
our prayer was lead by an ex-monk, who is always very helpful in social gathering and for the smooth conduct of religious rituals and ceremony. The gentleman acts as a very smart chant master and lead the crowd. If we understood, what we have been reciting, then that will awesome. But unfortunately, very few people grasp what is been read in the book.

The highlight of the prayer session was serving Tibetan tea, and making Tso offering.  The reading for the Tso was brief, but that served  the same purpose. People have brought cookies, fruit and other ediable for the Tso.   As we ended the offering and all the required recitation, then everyone got a bag of Tso offering.  Come for prayer and leave with a Tso bag.

Prayers is the only thing that the living can do and it is very powerful gesture of sympathy, support and sorrow. While this is one way of  addressing the concern of self-immolation, there is need to be more pratical actions and pratical movement to further amplifying the voices of Tibetans in Tibet.

This is my second day at Xsport, as I came right here after the prayer session.