2016: Year of the
Male Fire Monkey

Events

• Vegan Thai Dinner (please RSVP)
• Traditional Buddhist Smoke Offering
• Prayers for World Peace and Happiness
• Short Chenrezik Puja

What is a smoke offering?

Sang is a traditional Tibetan Buddhist ceremony, intended to:

• purify obscurations and accumulate merit and wisdom
• pacify illness, destructive influences, and obstacles
• bring about virtuous and positive circumstances
• free sentient beings from suffering
• repay karmic debts accumulated through past lives

During the smoke offering (Tib. sang) food and other items are burned as an offering to the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, Bodhisattvas, and Protector Deities, as well as sentient beings including hungry ghosts and hell beings, and finally to anyone with which we have a karmic debt.

We will be doing the Riwo Sang:

Riwo Sangchö has been called one of the most powerful practices for benefiting both the living and the deceased because, in this practice, we make offerings to everyone with whom we have a karmic connection, alive or dead. By making offerings—both real and imagined—we satisfy the needs of all beings and thereby make good the damage caused over many lifetimes to ourselves and others, thereby removing obstacles to our health and life, healing our connections with others and setting them onto the path to enlightenment. Through this practice we also create auspicious circumstances for our spiritual progress.

Offerings you may bring:

(Offerings should be fresh, clean, and of high quality)

• "White" dairy: milk, cream, yougart, butter
• Sweets: cake, cookies, candies, fruit, sugar, honey
• Savory: crackers, nuts, cheese
• Grains and Flour: barley, wheat, rice
• Incense, medicine, and alcohol

Please do not bring:

• Meat; eggs (except in baked goods)
• Onion, garlic, or spicy foods