Buddhists have made tsa-tsas imbued with prayers… sometimes placing them in stupas and other holy places… for centuries.
Over the last few years many of James’ students and those connected with them have being doing this around the world… and following the invitation and instructive help of others… and linked with the Earth Healing group, I’ve also made quite a few.
Sometimes making them on my own, sometimes with others…sometimes placing them on my own, sometimes with others…Sometimes others have placed them locations meaningful to them…
all these connections have been delightful!
Tending towards perfectionism, I spent a while checking out different types of clay…where it can be purchased….and fired (though that’s not essential)…
This brought me into connection with Devon potters and others…
but in the end a local ‘decorate and make your own pot’ shop cum café offered the solution for me.
The friendly lady who runs it gave me a large tub of clay for very little cost and fired the tsa-tsas destined to be buried in the earth pots free of charge…and I happily enjoyed her cooked breakfast! : )
It’s a soothing activity in itself to work with clay…and the image formed in the process is imbued with prayers for the most profound welfare for all. So the wisdom and beneficial capacity of the deity…and our own latent/ nascent potential…are clearly connected in the process.
Then the placement of these tsa-tsas takes us out into the world, into sites of beauty where, with the prayers we offer, we can see them as acting as ‘place-holders’, focal points of beneficial energetic radiance…and bringing healing into areas where activities arising from ignorance have despoiled land and sea… and the lives of those connected with such exploitation.
Many people are suffering through feeling isolated, disconnected, and impotent; we are very fortunate in having the practices that we do…
Being able to do what we can that’s beneficial, in a way that resonates with and for us, is such a blessing and as these tsa-tsas are placed across the world we can imagine a physical ‘web’ forming, infinitely illuminating the interconnectivity of our hearts and those of all sentient beings within the illusion of duality, with the infinite potential of emptiness…
Julie joined me in making some tsa-tsas a month or so ago and mine went up onto Dartmoor a little while later. The images above are of Julie’s …as they recently found their place… in Dartmouth.
On a gloriously sunny late-autumn afternoon and evening we did some prayers on the harbour wall… and then she gently lowered the flat tsa-tsa into the water… for its blessings to dissolve into the seas…
Later we found and followed some steps down to and old fort…part of the defence of the harbour and the prosperous town that grew up around it.
Now open to the sky it was quiet in the early evening and we could say prayers in the arched embrasure close to the water, where armed guards would once have kept look out ready to fire one of the two canons which covered the entrance to the port in case of attack.
Julie then placed the rupa in a niche, high up in the external wall …disguising it with jasmine, ferns and daisies…and, with the dedicating prayers…there it remains, transitioning… as the rain washes it, particle by particle… into the sea
It was indeed a beautiful evening…
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So if this connective activity takes your fancy, Hanna Holtbernd is kindly offering two days of opportunity to connect with each other around this 17 Nov. and 15 December. You’ll find the details on the Simplybeing website
