How to Care for Your Namkha
Congratulations! Your namkha has arrived! I’m delighted you and your namkha are united.
For me, it’s an honor to have prepared a namkha for you. I took great care each step of the process, from accepting your request, through cutting the wood and weaving, to doing the Namkha Authentication Ritual and dispatching, making sure everything is carried out exactly how the master, Namkhai Norbu, had intended and would approve.
So your namkha has been prepared according to an authentic method and empowered through a Buddhist ritual. It is not only your personal healing and protection tool, but also a sacred object in your possession, which requires a bit of responsibility on your part.
But don’t worry; Taking care of the namkha is easy. All it takes is mindfulness.
Your namkha is complete and functional as you receive it. When you unpack it from the box, you can already feel its power beginning to work. You see an ordinary object with your eyes, but you know that it functions as a support for the energies that are invisible but which you are already beginning to feel working on you.
It’s that first, intimate feeling of connection with an object that is alive with the wish to benefit you. Namkha is like a friend, whose sole purpose is to love and protect you. You naturally want to find a clean and respectful place to keep your namkha.
If you don’t have an altar, keep it on a shelf or a place that is in a high position, not bellow waist height. You can even hang it on the wall. The way I like to keep my namkhas is in a new, previously unused heavy-glass vase-like container filled with rice grains to keep it erect, like in this picture:
A new, or previously unused vase filled with clean sand or raw rice can be used to store your namkha on a shelf.
You can even put your namkha on the wall, or inside a case to keep it safe and dust-free.
The way you keep your namkha is important, because right treatment and storage will ensure that the energies the Namkha holds remain intact. In extreme circumstances, a namkha can lose its function and die. So please take a moment to read this information:
Fact sheet for keeping a namkha
- Where to put it: Choose an unused, clean support for your namkha, like a vase filled with rice grains. Change the rice once in a while if dusty.
- Keep it safe: Namkha is a FRAGILE and delicate. Choose a clean, elevated place to display your namkha, or keep the namkha wrapped and stored carefully. You may feel namkha is an intimate object so might not want others see or touch it. It is okay to keep your namkha wrapped and hidden from sight. This will not impair its function. Just like with all sacred objects, these are to be avoided: dropping, putting on the floor or a place where one sits (sofa, chair), stepping on or over it, handling carelessly, letting kids play with it as a toy etc. These precausions will also limit physical damage.
- Keep it clean: Make sure your namkha does not come into contact with poluted air, such as tobacco smoke. If you smoke at home, best keep your namkha wrapped.
- Cleanse it: Incense, on the other hand, is very welcomed. Keep the namkha clean and energized by cleansing it with an authentic Tibetan incense smoke or expose it to the scent of a pure, natural fragrance like lavender. Read more in detail how to cleanse your namkha.
- Practice with Namkha: The energies of the namkha respond to the energies in its environment, including the phase of the moon and astrological influences. If you have had the transmission from Namkhai Norbu, it’s beneficial occasionally to recite the authentication mantra and do the short Namkha ritual from the Thun Book once in a while. You can also do other mantras, like Vajrasattva, for example. Nevertheless, rest assured that I will regularly be doing the practice on your behalf!
- Authenticate: If you have received the Namkha transmission: Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche advises that you should authenticate your namkha once a month, or at least once a year at Losar (Tibetan New Year) because namkha functions to harmonize your energies with the energies of the current year. If you like, you can also send me your namkha to do this for you.
- Commitment: Your namkha is meant for life. If kept properly, it will remain your lifelong servant and companion, harmonizing any discord in your internal and external energetic environment. Namkha is a commitment, for both of us. Having made you your namkha means a lifelong commitment for me, too. If your namkha is damaged, becomes loose or undone, please arrange for service with me and I’ll get it back into shape.
- Disposal: If your namkha is irreparably damaged or no longer wanted, please DO NOT THROW IT AWAY just like that. You namkha should be disposed of through a burning ritual to release the energies properly, so as not to create any obstacles. Unless you know how to do this, please send the namkha back to me to do this for you.
- After death: As namkha works with living energies, it is traditionally burnt with the body upon death. If this is not possible, returning it to me for the burning ritual means I’ll also do the mind liberation prayers for the deceased.
- Keep in touch. You are a special friend. As the maker of your namkha, I am both bound and delighted to give you a lifelong service. Please keep in touch for as long as you are a namkha owner. Contact me with any issues.
Namkha is an incredible blessing, a unique healing and protection tool, which is an intimate companion of yours now. It will work selflessly for you, on just a single condition: to be treated with respect. You’ll receive a great benefit from so little – just being mindful!
Thank you.
Pedronma Zuzana Čerňáková
NAMKHA 