Ruby: I want to write a little thing about the prayer flags. And so, here are my questions. I wonder if the meanings of the colors are the same as we just learned -- blue: energy; green: activity; yellow: knowledge, wisdom, prosperity; white: peace; red: power?
Rinpoche: It's the same.
Ruby: Same. Ok, that's good. And secondly, what actually does windhorse mean?
Rinpoche: Well, windhorse actually is, on the prayer flag you have this horse. That's actually symbolic, because the Tibetan people are a horse people, like the Mongolians. The horse is one of the main source, main method, of traveling. We travel on horse, all over the mountains in Tibet. We ride the horse. And people ride yaks and mules, but they're not good, really. Yaks are too slow, mules, they're too stubborn. They don't go the way we want to go. They're not very agreeable. So horse is the best one, best way to travel.
So the windhorse, putting the horse on the prayer flag is sort of symbol,
so the prayer that you want on the flag, it will carry by the wind, on
top of the wind. Then the prayers on the top of the wind, then it goes
wherever the wind goes. So wind could blow anywhere, to all ten directions,
wind can go around the world, around the world, into the valleys, everywhere.
So the prayer goes everywhere.
Ruby: Into our bodies?
Rinpoche: Yeah, gone with the wind.
Ruby: Good! Now when you make a set of prayer flags, does each flag need to be windhorse? Or can you put windhorse, Chenrezig, …
Rinpoche: No, that's fine. See some prayer flags, they have windhorse in the middle, horse in the middle. But many of them don't have horse. They just have Tara in the middle or Chenrezig in the middle, or maybe some other symbols -- like the mantra, seed syllable, big one, like Kalachakra seed syllable. Something like that. So if the woodblock print that you have doesn't have a horse on it, in the middle, that's ok.
Ruby: Now, I have been using your chop, and I brought it back to return to you. And I wonder where else, where can I get some different ones, some others?
Rinpoche: The wood block?
Ruby: Yeah, the blocks themselves?
Rinpoche: You can buy, the best place is Kathmandu. [Ruby laughs.] If someone goes next time to Kathmandu, you ask them to bring some wood blocks. They're not very heavy. It's no problem to import them.
Ruby: How much, about, do they cost?
Rinpoche: Oh, very little money. I paid the one I have 200 rupees, $10.
Ruby: Oh, wonderful! Good. And what does that prayer say on it?
Rinpoche: Well, in there, in that one there's mantras. Mostly all mantras. Mantra of Shakyamuni, Chenrezig, Tara, Manjushri, I think maybe some mantra of dependent origination, shunyata mantra. So you're sending the blessing of Tara, Manjushri, and Chenrezig to all over the world.
Ruby: Good! Now I think I told you that I made 450 impressions from the block? And I brought up, we got a request from the center here to donate money for their gompa, and our center, being so small, we don't have very much money. So what I did was, I made a dozen sets that I want to give to the center that they could sell and keep the money for their center.
Rinpoche: That's wonderful!
Ruby: And also I wanted to give you a bunch of sets so that you can hang them or give them away or whatever you want to do with them.
Rinpoche: Thank you. I'd like to hang some up on the land. You bring them here? Good, so we can hang them tomorrow on the trees.
Ruby: Everywhere! I love doing this! I do mantra while I do it.
Rinpoche: It's so nice. In Tibet, they have so many prayer flags. Sometimes they have a big pole, wooden pole. They have a big pole called a dharchen. For prayer flags, they're called dharchog. Prayer flags itself. "Dhar" mean color like scarf, flag. Dharchog. Then, so what they did is they put the prayer flags, they put a big pole. Because many parts of Tibet there's no tree, right? So you have to put a pole in the middle somewhere. In the middle of the courtyard or somewhere and put a pole. Then you put the prayer flags from the pole, down, down, and maybe tied down on a rock or somewhere, big boulder or somewhere. And then eventually so many prayer flags, they're worn out, and then they're tied up on the pole. And they go on doing like years and years. Eventually the pole become kind of fat, with tons of prayers flags sitting around like this.
Ruby: Wrapped around it.
Rinpoche: Yeah. Sometimes it can fall, because they're so heavy. And then they put a new one. Their called dharchen. This pole is called dharchen -- great pole of the prayer flags. On Mount Kailash, they have this celebration every year; they do this celebration on the day of the Buddha's birthday. So they erect this pole. What they do is they tie down the prayer flags on the pole, hundreds, hundreds of them. Then they make a big pole, and then they put a rope on the pole, and hundreds of people pull it up. And then while they're doing that, the lamas sit around and play music, and people doing mantras and doing prostrations. It's amazing, so beautiful! They do that every year.
Ruby: We could do something similar at your place.
Rinpoche: Yes, we could do some things. They do that every year.
Ruby: Is there anything else you can think about prayer flags that we need to know?
Rinpoche: Well, there are also different kinds of prayer flags. Some of them is like one piece, and it sort of goes straight up, along the side of the pole. So you tie up one piece of cloth, down, and then you print it on like this…
Ruby: Multiple times?
Rinpoche: Yeah, multiple times.
Ruby: Now, I have some pieces of bamboo, long, like six-feet long. And I was going to make these narrow banners that have all the Dharma colors on them in stripes, with no printing. But could I hang one of these strips with images like that?
Rinpoche: Yeah you can. One strip and you print from wood block on it. Then you put with a big rope and tie it on the pole. Yeah you can do that. Then, usually in Tibet, we put in the backyard or the roof of the house, in the four corners of the house. Houses in Tibet, their roofs are flat. So we put the prayer flags on the four corners. Four directions. Or you can put on trees, on the tops of hills.
Ruby: You know, before you came to Moscow the last time, we made all those prayer flags, and we hung one strip out on the street. And then, when you left, I got this idea that maybe it would be fun, when we have events like you're coming to town, maybe we could have prayer flags all along Main Street, all up to the square, our big square. How does that sound?
Rinpoche: That sounds good. You should tell the city people. Don't say the "prayer flag." Say, "peace flag." Then it's less sounds religious. You say prayer some people, atheist, don't like it. They feel like intimidating, or too much pushing, you know. Some other religious people might don't like it. You say, "peace," who can accuse you're doing something bad. We doing this for the purpose of peace, symbol of world peace. You can say "world peace flags."
Ruby: Good!
Rinpoche: It is world peace, depend on the word. Symbolize world peace. It's our tradition.
Ruby: That sounds good. I'll work on that.
