Dear Friends,

the lifetrees will be set on the 22nd of August. There are two Sutras given by Buddha Shakyamuni which describe the building and filling of a Stupa:

Tsuktor Trime given in the god realm and
Öser Trime given in the human realm.

The stories connected with these two Sutras are similar. In case of the Öser Trime Sutra, a Hindu yogi had a dream that he would die in 7 days. He went to the place where Buddha Shakyamuni was. Since he wasn’t his student he stood shay in some distance until Buddha Shakyamuni addressed him directly and invited him to come closer. Then the Buddha told the yogi his close future exactly in the way the yogi had dreamed it. Thus he gained the trust and asked the Buddha to help him. Buddha told the yogi to go to a Stupa and repair it. Therefore he gave the Öser Trime Sutra which explains how the Stupa should be done – particularly the Öser Trime Mandala inside the Stupa and the lifetree. Doing this successfully the yogi prolonged his life and became Buddha’s student. On a similar occasion when a high god was about to die Buddha Shakyamuni gave the Tsuktor Trime Sutra which also describes Stupa fillings especially the Tsuktor Trime Mandala. At the beginning of the last blog post, you saw pictures of the blessing of the Tsa-Tsas as part of a Tsuktor Trime Mandala. On the 10th of August, we filled these Tsuktor Trime Mandala in each of the eight stupas.

We carry the pieces of the Tsuktor Trime Mandalas to the Stupas

We fill the Mandala into the Stupa

The filling of the Tsuktor Trime Mandalas into the Stupas is finished

The Tsuktor Trime Mandala is filled before the Öser Trime Mandala because the Öser Trime Sutra contains the explanations about the lifetree which is placed on top of the Mandalas. On the 12th we started with the blessings of the already filled Tsuktor Trime Mandalas. For this occasion we had to rearrange our Gompa in a way that the altar points towards the 8 Stupas: