Bone mala

[kris]

I was told that the 3 types of mala which the traditional: Bone mala, Boddhi seed Mala and Lotus seed Mala. and out of the 3 types of mala, bone mala is the "best" especially human bone mala because it reminds us of death, and also since it is made of human bone, we can collect whatever merits the person had from the bones.

My question is this: If the logic above is valid, what happened if the person has done a lot of negative deeds, and we use his/her bones as mala? Will we also collect negative merits?

[nagaseeker]

I was told that the 3 types of mala which the traditional: Bone mala, Boddhi seed Mala and Lotus seed Mala. and out of the 3 types of mala, bone mala is the "best" especially human bone mala because it reminds us of death, and also since it is made of human bone, we can collect whatever merits the person had from the bones.

My question is this: If the logic above is valid, what happened if the person has done a lot of negative deeds, and we use his/her bones as mala? Will we also collect negative merits?

Kris , i believe we don't collect negative karma from it because whats the purpose of having a mala ? to count the recitation of mantra . we are talking about mantra , words that coming out from buddha's mouth . it is blessing from buddha not the object we use to count,instead we are helping the bone's owner to gain merits !

hm.... i'm looking forward from others answer ~

[Galen]

I don't think we will collect negative karma if the bone mala we use is from a negative person. If fact it will be good for the person because we use the mala for prayers and the person will collect merits for having their bone being made into malas.

[lightning]

Skullcap mala is best of bone mala and the bone mala from a highly attained practioner would be the best and is rare to find such treasures as most of the high lama would have it.

Some of these bone malas gives off negative vibration, which is could due to be unpleasant death or holding grudges during death. Whether human or animal are the same. Most of the times, these came from places like India, where bodies are casted aside without care.(Inferior goods in a sense)

The best solution is to have your guru to verify the bone mala could be used and have it cleansed. if your guru refused to help you to clease the bone mala, then something is very wrong with the mala. Preharps you may want to dispose by offering in fire puja.

[lightning]

Also another point, it wopuld be best to the bone mala from someone of your own lineage, as it is inauspicious to gather things from other than your lineage

[lightning]

Bone products which gives off negative vibration will affect your practice, unless you have the ablity to cleanse it with your own power. Just like a peacock absorbing poison, if not you will face hindrance  in your practise. I guessed it could be possible to get possessed by the spirit in worst case.

[yontenjamyang]

I heard about this also. Except, nowadays, how to get bone mala? Unless it is pass down to your from your lineage. In that case, only very special practitioners will get one. For new ones, almost impossible to get.

From the replies on this topic, for me even to get one, I am worried, unless our guru says ok.

To get just the bones from a ordinary joe and make a mala, we need to be really skillful. Pros and cons. This is another reminder albeit, not the most important reason, why we need to find a Guru.

[daka]

Bone products which gives off negative vibration will affect your practice, unless you have the ablity to cleanse it with your own power. Just like a peacock absorbing poison, if not you will face hindrance  in your practise. I guessed it could be possible to get possessed by the spirit in worst case.

I have a question here, let say the bone products that we use will give off negative vibration, do we really need to have the ability to cleanse it with our own power? The purpose of us using a mala is just to recite holy mantra of each enlightened beings, if you said the person who use this mala could be possible to get possesed by spirit, does it mean that the holy mantras don't have the power to avoid the negative influences? If a holy mantra doesn't have the power to even conquer the negative energy from a dead person, then what is the purpose of reciting a mantra? Please explain more as I'm getting confused now.

[Poonlarp]

I also have the same question as Daka.

I don't have deep study about that, but I think holy mantra does have power to subdue all the negative energy from the bone, Lighting might be speaking about a new practitioner, who yet to have full faith in the mantras, he / she might be affected by the negative energy of the mala.

We will also gain a lot of merits when we conquer our fear of the negative spirit and do more chanting for the dead person. When the motivation is right, the practice will be very strong.

[Klein]

I don't think we will collect negative karma if the bone mala we use is from a negative person. If fact it will be good for the person because we use the mala for prayers and the person will collect merits for having their bone being made into malas.

I agree with Galen. Because the person's bones are now used for something virtuous like a mala, the person will receive some of the merits generated from the usage of the mala. Just like a sky burial where the dead person's last form of giving is to feed the animals. The animal does not inherit the dead person's "negative merit". (I think kris is referring to negative karma because I don't think there's such a thing as "negative merit".)

[Aurore]

"we can collect whatever merits the person had from the bones."

This is like saying we can inherit other people's merits just by using a bone mala. I don't know how true is that. If this is possible, I would love to get hold of a very highly attained being's bone mala ... as what Lightning said a skullcap mala. These malas are highly blessed.

So using any blessed malas can help us increase our merits by opening our past imprints. So indirectly it helps us generate merits. I heard that it will help our prayers and practice gain quicker effects and results. I am trying to get hold of any mala which was blessed by a DS oracle in trance. 

Does anyone here have one of those? What do you feel when you use a blessed mala? Better memory? More focus? Please share your experience.

[Lawrence L]

I was told that the 3 types of mala which the traditional: Bone mala, Boddhi seed Mala and Lotus seed Mala. and out of the 3 types of mala, bone mala is the "best" especially human bone mala because it reminds us of death, and also since it is made of human bone, we can collect whatever merits the person had from the bones.

My question is this: If the logic above is valid, what happened if the person has done a lot of negative deeds, and we use his/her bones as mala? Will we also collect negative merits?

Dear Kris, as I know, we don't collect karma/merit from the bone but we could dedicate the merits of reciting mantras/prayers to the bone's owner. By doing this, we are actually collecting merits as we doing something good.

[lightning]

Bone products which gives off negative vibration will affect your practice, unless you have the ablity to cleanse it with your own power. Just like a peacock absorbing poison, if not you will face hindrance  in your practise. I guessed it could be possible to get possessed by the spirit in worst case.

I have a question here, let say the bone products that we use will give off negative vibration, do we really need to have the ability to cleanse it with our own power? The purpose of us using a mala is just to recite holy mantra of each enlightened beings, if you said the person who use this mala could be possible to get possesed by spirit, does it mean that the holy mantras don't have the power to avoid the negative influences? If a holy mantra doesn't have the power to even conquer the negative energy from a dead person, then what is the purpose of reciting a mantra? Please explain more as I'm getting confused now.

Yes, it is possible to get possesed when you are much weaker than the spirit, even if you had HYT empowerment, it does not mean that you are invincible. At least, you are armed with holy mantra and it can act as deterrent to malicious forces. This is a lesson learnt and I have seen things happening on several ocassions to relate that we (the laymans) are not almightly.

You will know by yourself better if you are weak. There are people doing self initations daily, protector saddhana, guru puja etc. daily. In a way, you will develope stronger and should have some at least some gurantee, when cleansing the bone mala yourself. To be insure yourself, you should ask your Guru if you are up to the level where you can do cleansing by youself.

Another point is that it is not really neccesary to have the bone mala, unless you are going for some special HYT retreat like Heruka, which may require real kapala. If you really want to use a human bone mala, please get your Guru to verify and cleanse the mala before use. Lastly, please cover with cloth bag when you use the human bone mala to pray, as it is to wrathful to be seen by the sentinent beings from the other dimension.

A highly blessed kapala or bone mala of highly attained practioner has some electrifying tingling senastion, which you feel very comfortable holding it. Usually the kapala have some sanskrit wordings of seed syllables on it.

[RedLantern]

Bone malas prompt the devotee to recall the Buddha's teachings about impermanence of the world.Most of the holiest malas are cut from the skull bones of deceased lamas.The most highly prized beads are made from the bones of a lama.There's unlikely be any harm using bone mala for any practise,otherwise these malas won't be so easily sold openly.
Personally,I have never had any interest in a mala made of bones.The important thing is the prayers you say with it and your overall practise,the motivation or intent that matters.

[pgdharma]

One of the purposes of having a mala is to keep track on the recitation of the mantras. I think the holy mantras will be able to subdue whatever negative energy in the bone mala and it can also help the deceased to collect some merits.

However, if in doubt, it will be advisable to ask one’s Guru for advice. I personally feel that for new practitioners, it is not necessary to use bone mala as our faith and practice is not strong and our uncertainties and fears will lead us to more doubts. In fact, it is not necessary to use bone mala unless one is going for higher initiation.