Prayer wheel

Prayer wheel or mani wheel (Tibetan: མ་ཎི་ཆོས་འཁོར་, Wylie: mani-chos-'khor) is a cylindrical wheel on a spindle around which is rolled paper (or in modern times microfilm) with mantras, usually the mani mantra, written or printed on it. It is said that by turning the prayer wheel, you accumulate the same amount of merit as reciting the amount of mantras contained in it. Whereas Karma Chakme's prayer wheel held 7,200 mani mantras, modern hand-held prayer wheels with microfilm inside can hold more than a 100 million!

Commentaries

It is said:

Buddha Amitābha explained the benefits of the six syllables

in order to benefit sentient beings living in dark times.

Someone who spins a prayer wheel

while simultaneously reciting the six syllables

has fortune equal to one thousand buddhas.

Garchen Rinpoche said:

There are some practitioners who have a strong aspiration to engage in practice and although they really want to practice, due to some karmas they have accumulated in the past, they have not the opportunity to practice and they are under the power of someone else and so they cannot practice.

For them it becomes very important to look for skillful means to engage in practices. For example, if you spin a prayer wheel which is very easy to spin, all the virtues of body speech and mind are contained.  There is a physical virtue, a virtue of speech and a virtue of mind when you spin the prayer wheel.

Further Reading

Lorne Ladner, The Wheel of Great Compassion - The Practice of the Prayer Wheel in Tibetan Buddhism, (Somerville: Wisdom Publications, 2000)

External Links

Mani Wheel of Dharma: Why spinning prayer wheels may be the ideal Buddhist practice for busy people; benefits to self and sentient beings