About Offering Vessels

Offerings are an essential part of Tibetan Buddhism. According to Buddhist belief, the offering of any pure and precious substance to the Buddhas helps us collect merits, gain spiritual attainments, and creates the causes to attain a Buddha’s body — one that is healthy, pleasant and possesses charisma that leads others to the Dharma.

The practice of water offerings, in particular, is one of the easiest methods to generate merits for the success of our spiritual practice. Water is generally considered to be plentiful and freely available, therefore no sense of loss is experienced when it is offered.

This in turn develops our generosity so that we may, in future, offer other substances as freely as we offer water. In this manner, the practice of making offerings to the Three Jewels represents the relinquishment of our inner desires and attachments to material objects.

“Making water offerings increases our merits and cuts down our miserliness. At a more basic level, making water offerings is a direct method for creating wealth and purifying poverty.” – Tsem Rinpoche

For this reason, Buddhists are also traditionally encouraged to offer the best within their ability and means. In the case of offering vessels, better materials such as gold, silver or copper are preferred to vessels made of glass, ceramic or plastic.

Further Reading

• Making offerings to Buddha (video)
• A quick note on food offerings
• A note on offerings by Panchen Ötrul Rinpoche

• Material: Copper with brass trim
• Height: 25 mm (1-in)
• Diameter: 178 mm (7-in)
• Weight: 0.39 kg (0.9-lb)