26 Jan 2020
(Second day of the lunar new year celebration)
Today being a high holiday, I thought it’s good to raise a new set of windhorse prayer flags. They are called lungta in Tibetan & originated in the shamanic cultures of east asia.
Each coloured flag representing each of the 5 elements has a horse and prayer inscriptions printed on it.
Blue for the sky, white for air, red for fire, yellow for earth and green for water.
One of the beliefs regarding the purpose of windhorse flags agrees with my practice. And it is that as the prayer flags flutter in the wind, all the auspicious words printed on them are carried by the windhorse energy towards all sentient beings in all directions.
I started raising these prayer flags in hope of blessing & protecting homeless dogs & cats living in the industrial areas near my home.
Later on I started dedicating prayers of safety to their human feeders as well.
On the recent reunion dinner evening, an elderly feeder was busily cooking for “her” factory dogs when I dropped by her home to hand her a small donation.
Her home was beautifully decorated to welcome the Year of the Rat. This dog feeder has a husband, grown up kids and grandkids. She thinks cooking to feed the factory dogs is as important as cooking the reunion dinner for her family.
Her dedication renewed my interest in prayer flags.
There are also slaughter houses near my home. It is my intention that the consciousness of each duck, each chicken, each pig, each goat, each lamb each cow and each animal being that is killed be free from terror as the windhorse guides it towards an auspicious beginning.
And may the windhorse prayers also lead us to act kindly, wisely and calmly as we learn to placate the flu elements without causing further harm to ourselves and to all sentient beings.
Lisa Ong 