The significance of the eight auspicious symbols on Buddhist temples

Someone just told me that he’s been totally distracted away from Dharma all summer and that, notwithstanding his discombobulation and re-growing anxiety, it was only when his wife pointedly asked him “Have you meditated recently?” that he realized, “I have got to get back to that temple!” And, he added, “I’m very happy to be back. I won’t let that happen again.”

I’m sharing this because, for one thing, he probably will let that happen again unless he develops a consistent practice – it’s an all too common hazard to get distracted from Dharma even when we really like it and don’t mean to. And, for another, it’s lucky the temple was still standing so that he could come back! Yesterday was Buddha’s Return from Heaven Day, marking the end of an annual three-month retreat for all the Sangha …. it reminded me of how many people have worked really hard since the time of Buddha Shakyamuni to ensure that Buddhist centers and temples can provide sanctuary and meaning even centuries later, in these desperately troubled times. Venerable Geshe-la often told his students, “We are working for future generations.” I don’t think we can take these places for granted.

Having said that, here’s the last article about the symbols on Buddhist temples. The first two are here:

What is the significance of the Dharma wheel, deer, and vajras on Buddhist temples?

The five exalted wisdoms: unpacking the meaning of omniscience

The eight auspicious symbols

As it says on the Tharpa Publications website, the eight auspicious symbols together symbolize the spiritual path that leads to freedom from suffering and the permanent inner peace of enlightenment. These are the stages of the path of Sutra. I will repeat what Venerable Geshe-la said about each symbol and its relevance to our spiritual progress, beautiful contemplations, and then I’ll add something about what they mean to me. I invite you, as always, to add something in the comments section.

The Precious Umbrella

The Precious Umbrella symbolizes the umbrella of the Buddhist community and teaches us that first we should enter the Buddhist family. To make progress on the Buddhist path to enlightenment, we should first come under the great umbrella of Buddhism by going for refuge to the Three Jewels – Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

If you’ve already found a spiritual community, that’s kind of priceless; I don’t know where I would be without my Sangha, but not here, that’s for sure (and I like being here). When things go wrong in your life, and even when they go right, please consider spending time with your Sangha. Centers are a three-dimensional refuge of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha that, like a cosmic umbrella, can shield us from obstacles and harmful forces while we make spiritual progress. More about that in this article: Just passin’ through.

Refuge is an immense practice. What do we want out of life? The polluted places, enjoyments, andbodies of samsara will always let us down because their very nature is suffering. The precious umbrella is obviously not just a regular umbrella – but, just as a good umbrella keeps out the rain and the heat, so this umbrella keeps out samsara’s entire s*** storm.

A monk and Yogi who keeps me on my toes sent me this picture the other day. It reminded me of the three types of renunciation explained in The Mirror of Dharma, where we long for refuge from lower rebirth, samsaric rebirth, and a rebirth in which we have self-cherishing. Current times are challenging, I agree! But seeking temporary freedom from particular sufferings is still not enough. As Venerable Geshe-la says in The New Meditation Handbook:

Whenever we have a problem, it is easy to think that it is caused by our particular circumstances, and that if we were to change our circumstances our problem would disappear. We blame other people, our friends, our food, our government, our times, the weather, society, history, and so forth. However, external circumstances such as these are not the main causes of our problems.

In other words, solving these circumstances will not solve our problems. There is always something. There’s always been something. In samsara, there will always be something. When the proverbial hits the fan, that’s actually our cue to doing something more deeply liberating, ie, more radical internal work.

We need to recognize that all the physical suffering and mental pain we experience are the consequences of our taking a rebirth that is contaminated by the inner poison of the delusions.

It’s helpful to start by identifying with our Buddha nature and remembering how this is all a dream. Buddha, the “Awakened One”, is appearing in our lives to lift us out of this pit of excrement by waking us up. If we replace our discouragement at what’s going on with effort, we can become just like him. We can it one day at a time by acting locally to help individuals and using our experiences to make progress along the path. But since rescuing one person at a time will take too long and is not enough, each day we can set our sights on a Buddha’s omniscient wisdom, universal compassion, and effortless enlightened deeds, and be heading in that direction.

The Precious Fish

The precious fish symbolize peace and harmony, indicating that having come under the umbrella of Buddhism we should always live in harmony and joy. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

Sangha try to glide together smoothly through the ocean of Dharma toward enlightenment, one heart and one direction. Harmony is considered to be really important in Buddhist communities and it comes from cherishing and respecting each other. In any community, obviously, this is preferable! And of course any number of fish can join in, everyone.

Trijang Rinpoche also explained that, like fish, “we can run (sic) and enjoy freely from happiness to happiness, with no resistance, and with no fear of drowning in the ocean of suffering.”

The Precious Vase

The precious vase symbolizes wealth and encourages us to take the precious jewels of wisdom and compassion from the treasure vase of Kadam Dharma. The vase teaches us that we should enjoy the inner wealth of our faith, moral discipline, our study and practice of Dharma, benefiting others, sense of shame, consideration for others, and wisdom. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

These seven treasures are vastly better than external wealth – you only have to look at most wealthy people to see that they haven’t cracked life’s mysteries and are justas deluded as the rest of us. And although a lot of us aren’t even that good at making money, there isn’t a single person who cannot collect the wealth of Dharma.

Don’t take it from me, take it from someone who actually is rich:

The Precious Lotus

The precious lotus symbolizes purity, encouraging us to enjoy the purity of our mind and actions. The lotus indicates that we should always strive to become a pure being by practicing the Bodhisattva’s way of life. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

As it says in Introduction to Buddhism:

The lotus flower is a traditional Buddhist symbol of purity. A lotus is born from them mud at the bottom of a lake but blossoms above the water as a stainless flower that brings pleasure to all who see it. In a similar fashion, living beings are born in the ocean of suffering with impure bodies and impure minds, but if they train in meditation they can attain a completely pure body and mind, and bring peace and happiness to all who meet them.

This is only possible because we’re not inherently impure; and, indeed, we already have a pure nature, our Buddha nature. Meditation ripens this potential for peace and lasting happiness.

As Shantideva says in Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life:

Those born in Buddha’s Pure Land arise from the lotus of pure actions performed through receiving the light of Conqueror Buddha’s blessings.
They are completely pure, uncontaminated by delusions, like a lotus unstained by mud.
Nourished by hearing Conqueror Buddha’s speech directly, they experience supreme inner peace.
All this happiness and goodness is the result of virtuous actions, such as the six perfections, prayer, and dedication.

The Precious Conch

The precious conch shell symbolizes the Dharma Jewel, encouraging us to listen to precious Dharma teachings and contemplate and meditate on their meaning. It teaches us that we should accomplish the Dharma Jewel, the realizations of the stages of the path, within our mind. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

Buddha’s teachings resound in a far-reaching way – just like you can hear the sea if you hold a conch to your ear, wherever you are!

Buddhism is not about staring at our navel. As you may or may not know, Buddhism has always put an emphasis on (1) listening to lots of teachings, (2) contemplating them to check they work in our own experience and transform them into our own idea, and (3) meditating on them to bring them deep into our heart where they will be a constant joy and protection, leading us all the way to enlightenment. Buddha gave 84,000 teachings of Sutra and Tantra, and basically the idea is to learn the gist of all of these and put them into practice. That is the main reason these centers and temples exist.

The Precious Indestructible Knot

The precious indestructible knot, or knot of eternity, symbolizes an uncommon quality of Buddha’s realizations, namely his realization of omniscient wisdom, and encourages us to apply great effort to attain enlightenment. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

There is nothing that is a whole unto itself, everything is part of something else. Omniscience is not a gathering of facts and data outside our mind, as it were, but the experience of an unobstructed mind that has understood that everything is interdependent, like an infinite interconnected knot. Bit more on that here: Exploring our potential for peace and omniscience.

From a Buddhist perspective, we say that all things that exist are not absolute but relative realities, each depending upon many factors, including their causes, their parts, their basis of imputation, their name, and imputation by conceptual thought. For example, our body is not its individual parts nor the collection of its parts, but take these away and our body disappears. Our body is not imputation by conceptual thought, but take this away and it disappears. We cannot find our body existing from its own side. Our body is not real.

Nothing at all is independent or inherently existent, that is, existent from its own side, in and of itself. (Not even our mind and not even emptiness itself.) If we understand this lack or emptiness of inherent existence, this is the first step toward omniscient wisdom. (I wrote about the five types of dependent relationship recently with respect to time and space, if you have the time and space to check it out, lol: Dharma and the space-time continuum.)

The Precious Victory Banner

The precious victory banner symbolizes an uncommon quality of Buddha’s abandonment, his abandonment of the delusions and mistaken appearance, and encourages us to be victorious over the enemy of our delusions. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

There’s so much that could be said about this that I am opting to say nothing.

The Precious Dharma Wheel

The precious Dharma Wheel indicates that, having attained these two uncommon qualities of Buddha, we are able to lead all living beings to permanent liberation from suffering, principally by turning the Wheel of Dharma, that is by giving Dharma teachings. This is our final goal. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

Which brings us back full circle to the other Dharma wheel, the one between the two deer.

Conclusion

As Gen-la Dekyong concluded in her short talk quoted in the first article:

What is the symbolism teaching us? Through processing in the basic practice symbolized by the eight auspicious signs, the path to enlightenment in general, and then through practicing the uncommon path of Highest Yoga Tantra, great bliss and emptiness, finally we’ll attain the five omniscient wisdoms. So when we are looking at all this, we remember to become a Buddha, when our omniscient wisdom has five parts. We can visualize it easily at any time.

The shrine and other features

In any Dharma Center, there is also the shrine full of Buddhas, of course, which makes it a holy place, beneficial to all who visit. And in all the six big traditional Temples for World Peace, there are many other features such as the eight pillars and four doorways. This is because they are Heruka’s mandala. Story for another day.

As Geshe Kelsang said:

Buddhist Temples are representations of a Pure Land of an enlightened being – an enlightened heaven. Whoever sees them immediately experiences peace of mind, or inner peace. When we experience inner peace we are happy, so Temples function to give happiness to everyone, whether Buddhist or not.

Dedication for world peace

When our Dharma wheel, deer, and vajras went up on August 29^th, we made a special dedication, with which, if you don’t mind, I’d like to conclude these three articles. Please leave your comments below!

May these sublime and blessed symbols grace our new city temple for many future generations. May everybody who sees these enter into, progress along, and complete the path to the supreme enlightenment of Highest Yoga Tantra. May compassion and wisdom grow in their hearts, turning the Wheel of Dharma for ever more.

May the eight auspicious symbols on our shrine cabinet bless the minds of all who see them, inspiring them to practice the stages of the path to enlightenment of Sutra.

In this world of so much suffering and conflict, may our qualified city temple swiftly bring blessings, peace, and lasting liberation to millions of people here and beyond. May everyone be happy and may our world be peaceful.