About Precious Offerings

Offerings are an essential part of Tibetan Buddhism. According to Buddhist belief, the offering of any pure and precious substance to the Buddhas helps us collect merits, gain spiritual attainments, and creates the causes to attain a Buddha’s body — one that is healthy, pleasant and possesses charisma that leads others to the Dharma.

The offering of precious items which represent spiritual and material wealth, also helps us reduce our attachments to the objects we hold dear. This is essential to advance in our spiritual practice. For this reason, Buddhists are also traditionally encouraged to offer the best within their ability and means.

In the case of offering bowls and mandala sets, grains such as rice and barley were traditionally used to fill the offering vessels. These days however, precious and semi-precious stones are the offering substances of choice.

This practice of generosity also applies to Buddha statues and wealth vases. We can offer gold, jewels, pearls, and other precious substances such as silks and brocades. Our founder Tsem Rinpoche always encouraged this practice of making offerings as it creates the causes for us to attain the Six Paramitas (Six Perfections).

Further Reading

• Making offerings to Buddha (video)
• Why we make offerings to arya beings (video)
• A note on offerings by Panchen Ötrul Rinpoche

• Material: Mother of pearl
• Weight: 0.3 kg (0.7 lb)