Meditation Altar
Home Buddhist altar – Tips and help! Does it have to be higher than your head?
I want to build my own altar at home, a sacred space for meditation. I had set up a little stool in a corner, with a cloth on it but it’s lower than my head. But I’ve just read that it should be on a high table, higher than your head. Is this true? Is this important? Can anyone who has set up their own home buddhist or other altar give me any tips? I don’t have of space or furniture to use but I want it to be respectful. Thanks!
I want to build my own altar at home, a sacred space for meditation. I had set up a little stool in a corner, with a cloth on it but it’s lower than my head. But I’ve just read that it should be on a high table, higher than your head. Is this true? Is this important? Can anyone who has set up their own home buddhist or other altar give me any tips? I don’t have a lot of space or furniture to use but I want it to be respectful. Thanks!
The traditions are very different in different Buddhist traditions. At least in the Tibetan tradition it is generally taught like this: if you can put at least the picture or statue of the Buddha higher than your head, that’s very good (advisable). If you can’t, don’t make it a problem, just do what you can.
Whatever you can do, that’s enough. Don’t get attached to your altar, to the things on your altar or to your ideas about what you should put on the altar. However, the more you study and understand, the more you will understand the traditions are actually well thought out, and they have good reasons to choose the objects they choose.
Generally, you put something to represent the Buddha (e.g. a stupa or a picture of one), the Dharma (e.g. a Prajnaparamita text or other Buddhist sutra, text or scroll) and the Sangha (a statue or picture of the Buddha). If you don’t have those things, a statue or a picture of the Buddha can represent all three. That’s the most important things, and that’s fully enough.
Ususally you want some kind of candle or other light. The easiest offering you can do every morning is light a new candle and do three prostrations, reciting the triple refuge. If you want more extensive offerings, you can the traditional seven (in some traditions eight) bowls, or whatever number you can get. Filling them every morning with water offerings (symbolizing the eight traditional gifts an Indian offered to every guest) is an excellent way of making up a daily meaningful ritual.
In addition, common things on your home altar is a stand or bowl for incense, pictures of your teacher(s), including the lineage masters even if you never met them, such as HH the Dalai Lama, a refuge tree, pictures of meditation deities and bodhisattvas related to the practices you do (e.g. Chenrezig/Avalokiteshvara, Tara, Padmasambhava), dorje and bell if you do vajrayana practices, flowers, and so on.
Don’t keep to many things and don’t put any non-Dharma things there (this is not the place for pictures of you family, new agy stones, crucifixes or whatever). Keep it clean and worthy. Never put Dharma things (including books and recitation texts) on the floor. Never blow out the candle on your altar (use your fingers if you need to put them out).
If you’re really devoted, always wash your hands and cover your mouth with a clean cloth before you touch anything at your altar (i.e. don’t breathe on them).
If you can’t follow some, many, most or all of these “rules”, don’t worry, don’t be upset, don’t feel like a bad Buddhist – they are useful if you can follow them, but they should never, ever become an obstacle for you.
Finally, there is a very good booklet about everything related to setting up your home altar and doing the daily water offerings for sale at the Fpmt shop, written by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, a very reliable and highly realized Tibetan master and friend to HH the Dalai Lama: http://www.fpmt.org/shop/product1.aspx?SID=1&Product_ID=674&Category_ID=8&
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