Lung-ta Flags Replacement Ceremony

On an auspicious occasion, the children of Class IV gathered around the stupa to participate in the ‘Lung-ta’ prayer flags ceremony. The intensely curious children had many questions about the tradition - “Why are the flags in different colours?”, “Why are they hung here in the school?”, “What happens to the old flags?”

To begin with, the children listened to the story behind the ‘Lung-ta’ flags shared by Minoti Didi. In Tibetan, ‘Lung-ta’ stands for the ‘mythical wind horse’ that carries the 3 jewels of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The jewels help in unlocking the 3 doors to happiness - mind, speech and body, a concept that the children had explored earlier in the year. Didi then clarified the connection between the 3 jewels and the doors of happiness. Buddha represents knowledge of the mind used well, Dharma represents the communication of this knowledge through good conversations and positive speech, Sangha represents the people around oneself and the physical surroundings that are affected by our actions.

As the Lung-ta horse makes the flags flutter, it is said to carry and pass on the ‘mantras’ written upon them to the entirety of nature without any discrimination. Similarly, the rain that drips through the flags onto the soil imparts their blessings to all living beings living on or beneath the earth.

Minoti Didi further explained that the differently coloured flags signify the elements of Water, Earth, Space, Wind and Fire that the Tibetan culture lives in harmony with. With chants of ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’, the old Lung-ta flags were replaced with the new ones. The flags that had faded slowly with time were placed in a clean container and burnt to ash that would be mixed with nature.