Sponsor a Puja

Sponsor a Puja

According to Buddhism the world in which we live and all what happens to us is a result of our past actions. Harmful actions in the past create suffering and skillful actions create happiness.

One way to increase our potential to experience happiness is to make offerings to the different manifestations of enlightened beings and to monks and nuns. We offer you the opportunity to sponsor a puja, which the monks of Nalanda will then perform.

A puja is a ceremony in which prayers are offered to the deities, the different manifestations of enlightened beings, to receive their blessings or invoke their help.

Pujas are performed to avert and clear all types of obstacles, conditions and sickness which prevent us from achieving our worldly and spiritual goals.

Pujas are also performed for the dying, to help pacify their minds, and for the deceased to bless and guide their minds to a higher state of rebirth and liberation. In each puja the monks follow a sadhana, a meditation manual, which contains the prayers, mantras to be recited and the visualisations.

Important parts of the liturgy are taking refuge, developing love and compassion, confession, invoking the deity, making offerings and paying homage.

Each puja is finished with an elaborate dedication. We sing the pujas partly in Tibetan and recite some prayers in English. The name and the dedications for the sponsor is read out during the ceremony.

The type of puja performed depends on the type of affliction and the individual’s connection to the deity. For a minimum donation of €50 we perform the Guru puja, the Medicine Buddha puja or the Tara puja.

For the Mahakala and Kalarupa puja the minimum offering is €30. The donation is used to cover the costs of the puja, the offerings to the deity and to the monks.

To request a puja, please contact the director.

Medicine Buddha, the Healing Buddha, has promised to help all those who are sick and dying. He is depicted holding a bowl continuing the five kinds of medicines.

The puja helps to clear and avert obstacles due to sickness and diseases. The blessings from Medicine Buddha prevents one from falling into the lower states of rebirth. Those already in a lower state of rebirth will be quickly liberated and will take rebirth in a precious human body.

This puja is specifically recommended by our teacher Kyabje Zopa Rinpoche as the Medicine Buddha is particularly effective during these difficult times.

Tara the Wisdom Mother is invoked in times of personal difficulties, health problems, and when there is need for quick wisdom action. Closely associated with Chenrezig, Tara is virtually inseparable from the Buddha of compassion.

She personifies the feminine aspect of his solicitude and actively assists him. She manifests in many different forms to benefit all beings. To recite the praises to the Twenty-One Taras is considered immeasurably helpful in all adverse circumstances.

In the aspect of Cittamani Tara she benefits quickly the mind of those who pray to her. Gifted with a variety of powers, Tara is the guardian of all fears. She arrives, ready to put to right the most terrible of situations.

The Guru puja is a profound practice which is performed in Nalanda nearly every day. In our tradition the reliance on our spiritual teacher is the foundation of every spiritual progress. In the practice we pay homage to our teacher and try to identify with his qualities. This practice contains the whole path to enlightenment and performing this puja creates a powerful potential of spiritual growth for the participants and the sponsor.

Kalarupa is the wrathful manifestation of Manjushri, the Buddha of wisdom and Mahakala is the wrathful manifestation of Chenrezig, the Buddha of compassion. The anger of these wrathful deities is not directed at the sentient beings, rather it is directed at the disturbing thoughts that harm and destroy their physical and mental well-being. These pujas are performed in order to dispel obstacles in spiritual and worldly life.