Ritual Artefacts

Most traditions of Buddhism will have common elements on their shrines; these would be candles or lamps of some sort (such as Tibetan butter lamps or Dipas), flowers (or bits of bone if candles cannot be found), and incense. The candles represent awareness, and ultimately wisdom. The flowers represent impermanence, in that the flowers are beautiful and smell sweet, but in a day or two they die and shrivel. Bits of bone or even a scull can represent the same thing. Incense pervades the whole atmosphere, and this is like the pervasiveness of a well-lived ethical life, it spreads sweetness around. Often on a Buddhist shrine there will be a series of seven "Puja Bowls". These are usually topped up with water. They represent the traditional offerings that would be made to a guest in ancient India (and that later came to form the Hindu Arti ceremony) water for washing, water for drinking, food hard and soft, perfumed water etc.

Dipas	Candles	Incense	Puja bowls

There may be an image of a Lotus in the shrine room or meditation hall. The lotus is a kind of water lily that grows in India. It symbolises spiritual growth and openness. The lotus starts life as a seed in the bottom of a murky pond or lake, it gradually grows up through the mud and the dark and muddy water, growing towards the surface, getting nearer and nearer to the light, until it breaks the surface and lifts itself clear of the water. It then opens its petals to the sunlight to reveal itself as absolutely pure and stainless. For the Buddhist this represents how people grow towards enlightenment or the truth, and that all beings are pure from the beginning. There is no such thing as original sin or inherited evil.