Questions about wearing Tibetan jewelry

Our film team travelled deep into Tibet to live with our team of painters and experience life in Tibet for several months. Many precious images deserve to be remembered. One of them filmed a thangka painter living in a remote temple painting thangkas, which can answer many friends' questions about thangkas.

Many people often have questions about whether all people can wear thangkas. Is there some kind of ceremony required to wear them as a Tibetan Buddhist believer?

The answer is that everyone can wear them. The Buddha will shelter all people in the world.

There is a saying you’ll occasionally encounter within Western Buddhism that says something along the lines of “Zen Buddhism is for poets and Tibetan Buddhism is for artists”.

Although this was just an observation from an academic view of Buddhism coined by the American spiritual book author, Robert Wright, , there is a certain air of truth to it, particularly when looking at the vast and vibrant diversity of religious artwork that can be found within Tibetan Buddhism.

Some of these paintings mounted on these elaborate textile scrolls, known as thangkas, are an integral decoration of temples and buddhist centres that practise a certain tradition of Buddhism, or in another context, a certain path towards liberation, known as Vajrayana Buddhism.

Each one has a profound spiritual significance and importance, each one has an element of mystery and awe, even to those outside of the Buddhist faith.Whether one is a follower of Tibetan Buddhism or not, one can wear such artefacts with them. We believe it is a mystical amulet that will help bring us good luck by carrying the blessings from the ancient temples of Tibet with us.