For every Buddhist, setting up a beautiful and feng shui home Buddhist altar is extremely important. It is a sacred place of worship and guides people towards good things. Therefore, the process of setting up the altar should be done in a proper and decent manner. The following article from Buddhist Goods will send you detailed instructions for the process of setting up a home Buddhist altar.
Most complete and detailed procedure to set up Griha Vedi 2023
I. What does it mean to have a Buddhist altar at home?
Worshiping beliefs, especially worshiping ancestors and Buddha deities is a long-standing traditional culture of our country. The Buddha was someone who found the truth, felt all human suffering and inspired sentient beings with his compassion and wisdom to overcome the cycle of samsara. Therefore, whether Buddhist or not, one should sincerely turn to the Buddha in order to feel pure in spirit as well as wish for good things in life.
Therefore, setting up a Buddha altar is a way of expressing respect and gratitude to sentient beings towards the Buddha. In addition, it also indicates the direction of goodness, purity in the human soul, chanting the name of the Buddha, bowing down in repentance, doing good and avoiding evil…
People who are reverent and have a Buddha-oriented mind often visit temples to bow to the Buddha, and chant sutras to guide themselves toward the spiritual life. However, to make worshiping more convenient, you can set up a Buddhist altar at home instead of going to a temple.
Second. What is included in the Buddha altar?
Depending on the circumstances of each family, as well as the area of the altar, the objects of worship may not be identical. However, more or less, the Buddha altar should be filled with the following items:
- Incense stick: there should not be too much ash
- bell: Burn incense and ring 3 bells after reciting Buddha
- flower vase: Lotus, lilies or trees of eternal life should be arranged. The vase should be placed on the right side of the altar facing outside.
- tray: Only used for offering fruit to Buddha altar, not for ancestor altar and other things. Fruits offered to the Buddha should be fresh and tasty, so choose meaningful, round-shaped fruits. When arranging the fruit on a plate, pay attention to curling the stalk upward to conform with nature.
- Pure water: Use clean water and a separate cup for worshiping Buddha. Pure water can be kept in the center of the fruit plate or on the left side
- Statue of Buddha, Bodhisattva: You can find this in stores that specialize in Buddha statues. The homeowner can choose to worship See the Three Buddhas (Amitabha Buddha – Shakyamuni Buddha – Maitreya Buddha), the Western Three Buddhas, or Buddha Shakyamuni Buddha, Amitabha Buddha (placed in the center of the altar) and the mother of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (placed outside to the left of the altar) have been).
In addition, for families with more circumstances, they may use more lamps, candlesticks, altar bowls, a set of incense sticks, or a pair of censers to burn incense…
The Buddha altar needs to be completely prepared as above
Third. how to decorate buddha altar
After preparing all the puja materials, the homeowner has to arrange the altar according to Feng Shui as follows:
- The incense bowl is placed in the center of the altar; on the full moon day of the lunar calendar, the incense can be removed for cleaning.
- The kalash is placed on the right side of the altar.
- The tray is placed on the left side of the altar.
- Place the altar cup in the center, right in front of the incense bowl and next to the tray.
- Just behind the incense stick, a Buddha statue and a picture of Buddha will be placed in the middle.
IV. Place and direction of Buddha altar in the house
1. Place of the altar
For traditional homes, the Buddha altar is usually placed in the central area of the home. But in today’s modern homes with multi-storeyed architecture, the homeowner can create a separate room for worship.
However, for families living in apartments, all activities take place in one place. Hence, the worshipers are placed in the living room.
The altar space should be a quiet, private place for people to express their respect for the Buddha.
The altar should be placed in a discreet, dignified location
2. How to determine the direction of keeping Buddha altar in the house
The direction of the altar will depend on the order of the owner. Here are some suggestions for your consideration:
- For people with Dong Tu Trach fortune, place the altar in one of the following 4 directions: Ton (Southeast), Chan (East), Li (South), Kham (North).
- For west-facing people, place the altar in one of the following four directions: Kain (northeast), Doi (west), Khon (southwest), and Kain (northwest).
Also, according to Feng Shui experts, the altar should be placed in the north-west direction of the house or worship room as it symbolizes heaven, which means the west side of ultimate bliss.
3. Ways to arrange Buddha statues
position and direction of idol
- The face of the idol should be towards the main door.
- The idols placed on either side should avoid doors and corridors or else they would face “gas pulse”.
- Do not place Buddha idol in front of toilet, bedroom or dining room.
- Do not buy too many idols.
- Do not keep the idol in a damp, unclean place.
- While keeping the idol, it is necessary to put a red sheet of paper at the bottom.
- Do not roll Buddha pictures or photos
- Old idols with blurred vision or hands should be cleaned or repainted.
how to arrange buddha statues
- Do not place Quan Am’s statue next to statues of other deities, as Quan Am is pure and vegetarian, it would not be good to place Quan Am’s statue next to other deities when offering salty food.
- When the pictures and statues of Buddha are brought back they should be thoroughly cleaned with new towels and utensils, alcohol, grape juice can be used…
- Just choose a moonlit day to find the place you consider most precious, with respect and choose an appropriate time to set up a committee to worship the Buddha.
- If you want to be more sincere, before lighting incense to worship Buddha at home, you should go to the temple and light 3 incense sticks, and then pray, ask Buddha to show your sincerity and allow him to stay at your home. Ask for Name. .. Year. ..should be worshipped. Then ask for 3 incense sticks that have just been lit in the temple and then burn them back on the Buddhist altars at home. After this, light 3 new incense sticks equally on all the altars of the house.
Buddha statue should be placed in the center of the altar
4. What should be paid attention to when setting up a home Buddhist altar?
The most important thing when setting up a Buddha altar is the honesty of the owner. Householders must observe five precepts, not kill, practice vegetarianism on the full moon or the first of every month. In addition, the following points should be noted:
- Install a Buddha altar in the central hall of the house and face the main door of the house, that is, any person, living or dead, just needs to set foot in the house and immediately go to that Buddha altar and pay respect.
- While setting up the altar, do not face the door, doorway, drying place, bedroom, toilet or other indestructible, foul-smelling places at all.
- The altar should be placed higher than the body and supported firmly against a wall, but not too close to a bathroom wall, hallway, or stairs. Do not install an angel altar in the bedroom. For multi-storeyed houses, it is necessary to establish Pitrivedi on the ground floor.
- If there is an altar to ancestors, it should be placed near the wall of the house on the left or right side opposite the Buddha altar. Because the Buddha is the Enlightened One, the teacher of all sentient beings in the three worlds.
- If they set up an altar to the Buddha, they will no longer make offerings to the gods or sages because they are still beings of six kalpas of rebirth and cannot be completely liberated. After practicing you should not follow any religion, be it ashram, temple or folk belief because only Buddha can save all sentient beings. However, we must respect those beliefs as well.
- When you take the Buddha or Bodhisattva out the door, you should immediately go straight home and don’t park your car on the street or anywhere.
- Just remember that never eat salty food and don’t buy votive items, gold, silver and jewellery. ..But to put it like this on the Buddha altar is to cause unintentional harm.
- On the Buddha altar in the house, images of Buddha and Bodhisattvas should also be chosen so that the colors are harmonious, the faces reflect kindness, compassion and purity.
- When he reached home, he immediately placed the bodhisattva on the altar. The day of the Buddha’s repose can be chosen as the first or full moon, or the anniversary of bodhisattvas and sages.
- When the arrangement of offerings as above is complete, burn 1 or 3 incense and then each member of the family will sit at the community altar and chant the sutra.
Above are all the ways to set up a Buddhist altar at home that Buddhist Goods sends you. If you are looking to buy Buddhist products, you can immediately go to Buddhist objects, It is a unit specializing in providing quality spiritual products such as Buddhist publications such as Buddha statues, Dharma equipment, Buddhist clothing, worship materials and more with diverse designs.
Wish you Amitabh Buddha.
