Importance of Buddhist Prayer beads - Japmala in one's life

                    Importance of Prayer beads or Japmala in our life

In our day to day to life, we human beings are so focused only on our career family, and income as we can say that we are only focused or attracted towards materialistic things and we simply tend to forget the inner values, happiness, and actual meaning of life and our self.

As today's article or post is all about knowing our self our happiness and our inner values by doing meditation and focusing using a powerful meditation tool traditionally called Prayer beads or Japmala.

JapMala

Origin Of Prayer beads or Japmala.

It is believed to have originated in India back in the 8th B.C. It is stated that the word "Bead" is derived from the old Anglo- Saxon word "Bede" meaning Prayer.

As time passed, many other religions began to include prayer beads in their religious activities, and mala prayer beads became popular in most Asian nations. 

Significance of Prayer beads or Japmala.

Prayers beads or Japmala is a set of beads used mainly for spiritual practices, meditation, and prayers. It is also considered a symbolic yet powerful tool for meditation. Mala word originates from an old Sanskrit word that means meditation garland.  Mostly prayer beads are practiced in different religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism.  

Traditionally the main body of mala is made with 108 special and unique beads. This number symbolizes the 108 forms that the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara is able to assume in order to help devotees. It is considered that this number was chosen to enable worshippers to repeat the sacred name of the Buddha 100 times, the extra beads allowing for any miscounts made through not focusing on counting or for the loss or breakage of beads. In Buddhism and Hinduism, the number 108 is considered a sacred number. An additional bead 109th referred to as the guru bead or the head bead is the larger bead used for counting rounds and helps remind you of your positive intentions, thoughts, desires, dreams, and wishes. Prayer beads or Japmala are primarily used as a powerful tool to incite a greater ability to meditate or pray. We should always maintain absolute focus and clear the minds while doing meditation or offering prayers. Each bead signifies a breath or a mantra that you concentrate on as you travel from one to the next. They reflect our spiritual identity as well as our link to the rest of the cosmos.

What is Guru Bead?

The Guru bead is considered as a head bead often larger than the other beads which indicate the starting and the ending point of the prayer beads. This bead is used to symbolize the bond between the influence from who the student has received their recited mantra and pay homage to this either literal or symbolic bond. At the point when the Guru Bead is reached through reflection, it ought to help the wearer to remember the mindfulness accomplished through mantra practice and that such mindfulness ought to be raised to be utilized in regular daily existence.  This head bead or the Guru bead is not counted during repetition and rather is a moment of reflection before continuing to another round of meditation.  The Guru Bead is utilized to make aim inside the wearer and to be a token of the intentions in sitting in reflection.

Buddhist Mala

How to count or use Prayer beads or Japmala?

The prayer beads are mostly used while meditating and offering prayers as we visit a monastery or a temple we often find Buddhist monks or Nuns sitting in a quiet place holding prayer beads or mala in their right hand draped between the middle finger and the index finger and slowly pulling it in towards using their thumb to count each smaller beads starting from the guru beads chanting mantras. As we can observe that it is repeated 108 times traveling around the prayer beads or mala once it reaches again to the guru bead. Again if we want to continue meditation we reverse the direction of the prayer beads and start it over again. During the meditation process, we should keep our eyes gently close and then breathe slowly in and out through our noses and keep our mind focused till we finish the meditation.