This week’s meditation session is led by Swami Chidananda and the theme is Interconnectedness. The guided meditation begins at 15:50.

The practice of rotating a prayer wheel is believed to originate with the Indian master Nagarjuna. In Tibetan Buddhist culture, those who are unable to read are instructed to spin a “wheel” filled with thousands of inscribed mantras, or mani, written on paper. It is believed that turning the wheel in a clockwise direction is the same as reciting the prayers and mantras, leading to the accumulation of merit and wisdom while purifying negative karma. Turning the wheel also releases the mantras into the world, benefitting countless beings.

This stationary prayer wheel would have been placed outside of a temple or shrine so visitors could turn it on their way in and out of the temple while circumambulating it. The rectangular panels that house the wheel are painted in the traditional Central Tibetan style and display teachers and deities of the Sakya Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The mantra of the deity of compassion Avalokiteshvara, Om Mani Padme Hum, decorates the posts of the structure in ornamental script.