About Sensory Offerings

Sensory offerings can be found on almost every Tibetan Buddhist altar. Required in most rituals, pujas and prayers, they represent offering all the things that we are attached to, to the Buddhas in order to reduce and dispel our attachments.

There are two types of sensory offerings — peaceful sensory offerings which comprise of eight substances, and wrathful sensory offerings which comprise of seven substances.

In general, peaceful sensory offerings can be offered to all Buddha-deities and include:

1. Water for drinking
2. Water to wash the feet
3. Flowers
4. Incense
5. Lights
6. Perfume
7. Peaceful food torma (or other edibles)
8. Music

Wrathful sensory offerings are generally offered to Dharma Protectors during the kawang confessional prayers and include:

1. Tea (representing blood)
2. Wrathful flower (representing the five senses)
3. Crossed incense sticks (representing bone)
4. Candle (representing human fat)
5. Alcohol (representing bile and other bodily fluids)
6. Wrathful food torma (representing flesh)
7. Spiked conch shell (representing a thigh bone trumpet)

Further Reading

• Sensory offerings demystified
• Sensory & water offerings by Tsem Rinpoche (video)
• How to make sensory offerings (video)

• Material: Alloy
• Flower height: 87 mm (3.4-in)
• Flower width: 57 mm (2.2-in)
• Flower depth: 39 mm (1.5-in)
• Torma height: 84 mm (3.3-in)
• Torma diameter: 40 mm (1.6-in)
• Combined weight: 0.28 kg (0.6 lb)