Yesterday, I briefly visited a little shop of Tibetan books and items. Mostly, I noticed the bowl-shaped bells, the 'singing bowls'. There were many other things that looked interesting that I do not know. As I left, I asked about one of them. It was an ornate box with a spindle inside, a spindle holding a decorated cylinder. I asked the clerk about it, and she told me it's for prayer. I asked more about it - do Tibetans pray as they spin the wheel? She said, the spinning itself is a form of prayer. I spun the wheel.


Without knowing a lot about them, I have seen Tibetan prayer flags. Squares of cloth or paper, each one a different color, hang from a string, like flags on a clothesline. They flutter in the breeze. The spindle reminded me of the flags, that this is a culture that acknowledges wordless, physical manifestations of prayer.


As I left, I glanced at a book on Tibet, and read some of the forward, by the Dalai Lama. He wrote that the main gift that Tibet offers the world is its study of compassion and wisdom.