Rituals can be a beautiful way to spiritually connect the body, speech, and mind. They are also a powerful way to develop positive mind states and subdue the negative mind, while serving as a compelling foundation for your spiritual practice to flourish.

Enhance your practice by learning the meaning of these Tibetan Buddhist rituals. Learn the proper way to set up an altar and make water bowl offerings. Gain an understanding of the symbolic meaning of the mandala and how to perform the long mandala offering. Create new habits as a tool for climbing out of your own samsara.

This course is appropriate for beginners and seasoned practitioners. Deepen your understanding of the power of the rituals as an instrument to move your mind toward manifesting your own beautiful qualities and potentials.

Session 1: Why have an altar? 

Discover how to set up your own altar with the essential elements and how to customize it as a living practice, reflecting your own inner journey.

Session 2: Why and how to make offerings

Making water bowl offerings is a simple yet profound practice that gentles the mind, and it is a unique way to practice generosity no matter your financial resources.

Session 3: What is a mandala?

Mandalas are universal symbols of wholeness and transformation, found across cultures. In Buddhism this is also a way to break down our habitual ordinary (and often distorted) view of reality.

Session 4: How to make a mandala offering

Explore the deeply symbolic meaning underlying the long mandala offering, a joyful and extremely satisfying practice of building up the three-tiered rice and jewel piles that represent a perfect world.