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Building a Buddha
Tibetan Buddhists use specialized meditation techniques to visualize themselves as peaceful or wrathful buddhas. Practitioners learn these techniques through initiations, which may involve cards painted with images of body parts, ornaments, and offerings.
Raising up the cards one by one, a teacher reads aloud the instructions or blessings written on the back (see below) as the initiate beholds the image on the front. By viewing the cards, practitioners sharpen their abilities to hold a buddha's image in their minds, building it limb by limb, ornament by ornament.
These fifteenth-century cards are primarily related to Heruka, a wrathful buddha. Meditating on Heruka's image enables practitioners to destroy all mental obstacles to enlightenmen |