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While you may follow your own ideas for creating a shrine, using the following Buddhist principles for creating a shrine will certainly add to the level of consciousness your shrine or sacred space will bring you. To create your shrine, place a cloth such as silk or some bright colored cloth preferably gold, yellow, or white on a table. The cloth should possess an enriching quality. Next, add a picture, statue or object that represents enlightenment to you. It is usually placed in the center and to the back, so that a symmetry is created in the placement of objects on the shrine.
Next, two candles, one representing compassion, the other wisdom, are placed at the front. These candles represent burning through ignorance or whatever covers our mind and is preventing us from discovering goodness and basic good. Also on the shrine we may place things that are useful to raise our energy or consciousness. There may be different things at different times, depending what matters to you at a given time in your life. Some may place a book or poem or a picture of someone, usually a teacher. It is also suggested that we have six bowls for offerings. The six bowls represent transcendental virtues. The virtues are: generosity, discipline, patience, exertion (overcoming ego), meditation, knowledge.
The transcendental virtues can be described as follows. Generosity refers to the giving of money, your heart quality, giving up a bit of ego, and being kind towards ourselves. Discipline is not the idea of strict adherence, but of an effort to have a sense of trust in our good nature and the good nature of others. It is not about obsession with our own inadequacies, but a trust that you can be more than you currently are. In describing patience, it really is a virtue! It is the willingness to work with our own emotions no matter how long it takes. Exertion refers to the effort required to overcome ego, and that laziness and self centeredness can be overcome. A willingness to work diligently is represented by the concept of meditation, while knowledge refers to an interest in the teachings. It is also a letting go. Incense is an offering usually contained in a bowl of sand.
Flowers are a welcome addition to the shrine even if they are plastic or silk. It is important to have flowers that have a bloom of some sort, to remind us of the sense of beauty in the world, and how all the energy of the plant is focused on producing the blooms.
All aspects of the shrine appeal to the senses, with the purpose of waking us up to the world.Be mindful of how you blow out the candles. Do not blow wildly, but use a candle snuffer, or place your hand around the candle and blow gently. It is in mindful ceremony that we open and close your shrine.
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