Offering Incense in August – Helps Protect against Accident and Bad Things Happening to You and Family

Offering incense to holy enlightened beings as well as hungry ghosts is an excellent way to create good karma. Just burning one tiny floret of incense benefits millions of hungry ghosts and pleases the enlightened beings very much. Different incense blends appeal to different deities and protectors; thus offering special incense that directly addresses specific deities and for different purposes can be very effective and quick-acting.

For instance, there is special incense for illness, for generating wealth luck, and for improving relationships and enhancing harmony. Be sure to choose the incense according to what you are wishing for, but also burn the general incense, which encompasses all the wishes in your mind.

It is important to use high-quality incense! We source incense only from the most reputable factories and these incenses are made of special herbs as well as the roots, barks and saps of trees. Some of the blends contain ingredients that are not readily available and are hard to find and thus more expensive. We also source directly from the monasteries and suppliers whom we know in Katmandu. These are often sold to us in very limited quantities as they are precious and contain medicinal herbs from the high mountains.

GREEN TARA INCENSE FOR SUCCESS

Green Tara incense contains all the herbs and ingredients beloved by Mother Tara. If you have some kind of project that you wish to succeed in, burn this incense and offer it directly to Mother Tara to request for her help.

Chant her mantra OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA (108 times). This also reduces obstacles that block success. Excellent to do this during August to dispel all hindrances to your success.

MEDICINE BUDDHA INCENSE TO DISPEL HEALTH PROBLEMS

The health of all middle son and those born in the year of the Rat are under severe attack this year, and this affliction is strongest in August; it is thus advisable for all to burn this incense, offering it to the Medicine Buddhas.

Chant the Medicine Buddha mantra TAYATA OM BEKENZAY BEKENZAY MAHA BEKENZAY RAJA SAMUGATAY SOHA 108 times while burning the incense.

DZAMBHALA WEALTH INCENSE FOR FINANCIAL STABILITY

This Dzambala Wealth incense contains distinctive ingredients that invoke the Wealth Deity Dzambhala. When burning the incense, offer directly to Dzambhala and his four Dakinis and invite them to enjoy this incense.

Chant his mantra OM PEMA KRODHA ARYA DZAMBHALA SHRI DAYA HUM PEH (108 times). Request blessings to remove all financial obstacles causing your wealth luck to be unstable. This ritual can be used to request for increase in income, improvement of sales and protection against losing your source of income.

MANJUSHRI INCENSE FOR ENHANCING EXAMINATION LUCK

Offer this incense blend directly to the Buddha of Wisdom Manjushri to request wisdom in making a decision that might be bothering you. You can request for your children to have good examination results or for better concentration in studying. If your child has insufficient focus or motivation to study OR has social problems at school, you can request for Manjushri’s blessings to ease the problem.

His mantra is OM AH RA PA CHA NA DI.

INCENSE TO APPEASE LOCAL LANDLORDS

This incense kit contains ingredients suitable for appeasing the local spirit landlords of your home who are your ‘first line of defence’ when it comes to spiritual intervention.

When your local landlords are happy and well-cared for, they become strong and loyal and they work hard to protect you and your family from harmful people and naughty wandering spirits. When they are happy they make excellent allies to help you stay safe and for residents of the home stay harmonious. They can be excellent guards who prevent petty aggravations from disturbing you.

INCENSE TO REMOVE NEGATIVE ENERGY

The Frankincense and Sage in this incense kit are effective for clearing the air after something negative has happened. When there has been a big quarrel, illness, robbery or death, burn and offer them to all the cosmic beings and protectors. Burning this will remove all the negative vibrations left from bad events.

SHORT INCENSE RITUAL

Light incense and recite the following:
I take refuge in the Buddhas and all the enlightened beings. I am making this incense offering to remove all obstacles and to appease all the hungry ghosts of the world this month.

Say OM AH HUM three times and blow on the incense. Chant the mantra to the Buddha you are offering incense to, then recite this special mantra 21 times. This mantra comes directly from Shakyamuni Buddha and is contained in a special Sutra. Buddha advises that this mantra will magnify the effects of the incense being offered.

NAMA SARVA TATHAGATA AVALOKITE
OM SAMBHARA SAMBHARA HUM (21 x)

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Then think, “I am offering this delicious uncontaminated smoke offering to all the Buddhas, [specific deity name], dakas, dakinis, dharmapala protectors and oath bound protectors, yakshas, nagas, smell eaters, sentient beings of the six realms, an entirety of regional deities and landlords of this house, this street, this suburb and this city and all the billions of hungry ghosts and wandering spirits in the world. Please accept this smoke offering. Please grant me all my wishes, grant my family long life and achieve all my aims as I envision them.

Chant the Heart Sutra text and say the Avalokiteshvara mantra OM MANI PADME HUM 108 times.

You can also chant the mantra of the Buddha you are directly requesting help from, and then add whatever requests you have here.

Due to the merits accumulated by myself and others, may all beings have happiness and may the Bardo and all the Lower realms be empty forever. Wherever there are Bodhisattvas, may all their prayers be accomplished immediately.

SPECIAL PRAYERS FOR HUNGRY GHOSTS MONTH

The Hungry Ghost Month of August is the best time to arrange for liberation pujas or prayers performed to assist those stuck in the bardo to be liberated, enabling them to get reborn again as humans. Ghosts are humans who have passed away and are trapped in the bardo state. Usually this happens when someone dies a hasty and tragic death – car accidents, suicides, heart attacks, etc… or if they are reluctant to leave this world at the point of death.

The bardo state is the “in between world” – the realm between death and rebirth –and once a soul is trapped here they come under the control of the Bardo King. Many of these souls have been stuck in this in-between world for thousands and thousands of years and they roam around pretty much like zombies, desperate for food, water and blessings. Until liberation prayers are done specially for them by their relatives or some good Samaritan, they simply cannot move on!

One of the most powerful practices that Lillian Too and her intimate group of Dharma friends will be performing in August during this Hungry Ghost period is called the 100 Deities Puja, presided by Khenpo Delek Rinpoche. This very profound prayer session will take an entire day as it involves making extensive torma offerings to the 100 Deities of the Bardo to request their help in liberating these poor hungry souls. We are very lucky because this practice is very rarely done outside the confines of a monastery, and it must be done by a very qualified Lama who knows how to do it correctly. Not only does it benefit millions of hungry souls, those who participate in this puja also reap worldly and spiritual benefits as it generates the blessings for one to having a peaceful journey between death and rebirth in the future. It also causes one to live a longer, healthier life!