Protection (24) * Omamori blessed by monks, Kyoto * For wallet

Omamori PROTECTION (bad luck, negative energy, evil eye, curses, demons, etc.) for wallet

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IMAGE: Daibutsu (drawing by Fujishima Takeji, 1867-1943)

The Daibutsu is properly known as Vairocana Buddha, the Buddha the light of whose knowledge and compassion illumines widely. Śākyamuni, the Historical Buddha, who was born in the city of Kapilavastu in India sometime around 580 B.C.E., became a mendicant at the age of twenty-nine and after spending six years practicing austerities eventually gained great religious insight at the foot of the Bodhi Tree on the banks of the Nairanjana River. The Avatam.saka Sutra (Kegon-kyō) describes the moment of Śākyamuni’s enlightenment as his achievement of the condition of a Buddha who transcends both space and time. It describes the world of Vairocana as magnificent, virtuous and grand and embellished by the various accomplishments of the bodhisattvas. According to the text, the songs of birds, the colors of flowers, the flowing of water and the forms of clouds are all part of Vairocana’s teachings to save all living things.

On the lotus petals on the base of the Great Buddha are engravings of the World of the Lotus Treasury (Rengezō sekai), pictorial representations of the “world of enlightenment” described in the sutra. They are beautiful representations of the notion that each individual is not an isolated existence, but that all phenomena have limitless connections and dimensions and that the entire universe is enveloped in the light of Vairocana’s wisdom.