Consecration Puja & Blessing from 1000 Buddhas

Today is Deepavali, and public holiday. Today is Lati Rinpoche's public event in Suntec, which will go on till Sunday. The huge event hall was transformed into a grand holy environment with big thangkas of all the buddhas and many offerings, lights, on the stage. Mrs Goh Chok Tong was the VIP guest in the opening ceremony. The first puja was the Grand Consecration and Statue blessing Puja, whereby Rinpoche and the 25 lamas from Gaden Shartse Monastery invokes the blessings of a Thousand Buddhas.

Only a fully-qualified Master can only perform the consecration ceremony, which is based on the unbroken century-old Gelug tradition. The consecration ceremony first purifies an image in order to make it suitable for habitation by the Buddha. Then it imbues the statue with the power and presence of the Buddha. Buddha’s supreme wisdom and compassion (Dharmakaya) is invited into the statue through the power of meditation, the potency of the ritual, as well as the faith and devotion of the participants. After being invited, a Buddha is drawn into the statue to be consecrated, and its presence is sealed by the procedures of the ritual.

Whenever a statue is made, it should be consecrated to infuse it with the spiritual presence of the deity or Buddha it portrays. Otherwise a statue is not considered suitable for use in religious practices. Buddha himself declares that consecrated images of him will serve as his true representative in future, thereby having the same benefit as seeing Buddha in real perfect body. Buddha says that even seeing consecrated Buddha’s image out of anger will lay down a karmic potency that can lead you to the liberation from cyclic existence.

This grand consecration ceremony that the Lamas performed not only imbued the sacred images with the divine presence, but also invoke the blessings of all Buddhas to the entire environment in which the consecration ritual is being held.

Many people brought their Buddha statues, paintings and images for the ceremony. I brought my miniature statues of Amitabha Buddha, Green Tara, Chenrezig and White Umbrella Goddess to be consecrated, and got myself blessed by 1000 buddhas as well!