dear Sanga,
for no reason apparent to me, we have started to receive orders again! why? i have no idea... but, we are so appreciative that we do! maybe this Karmic knot has been released! for what ever reason we did not get any orders at all, for now we have gotten some and we are so appreciative! Ayelet has found work in the local grocery shop and will work there for the whole month of March, she will come to the studio after work to work on the orders we have received... she is a real trooper! i did not find any work yet but i am still on the lookout for what ever i can find. for now i will still work in the studio and craft the orders that came in :-) i am so grateful to you all for your incoming orders! i am speechless with gratitude. there is nothing here on earth that i rather do.
crafting prayer wheels for the world has been and still is the most important thing i have ever done and i have done a lot!
i remember, many years ago when we just started to think about crafting prayer wheels, i had a really good guy who was in Santa Cruz CA help us out a lot by sharing all he know about making prayer wheels, his name was Jim McCann. we exchanged many emails and he became our microfilm roller. we had no understanding or equipment to roll microfilm and he did it for us in America. i would order the size i wanted, he rolled it up and ship it to me and we then crafted the prayer wheel around the microfilm.
i remember in one of our email exchange in the beginning he told me: "are you sure you want to craft prayer wheels? remember, it is a fantastic Karmic cleaner but, when Karma is being cleansed, it is not a pleasant thing! once Karma has been cleared, all is well. but beware! in years to come you will look back and remember me asking you this!"
i often think about Jim and his words. we had many hardships along this path, but we both feel (me and Ayelet) that whatever comes our way, we will handle it and keep making prayer wheels. what else is there to do that is a better use of our time and skills?
i would also like to say that we were very fortunate to have good friends who chipped in and gave us some money to go through this rough time and we are forever in their debt.
it is a very unpleasant feeling to be with no money and have to go to friends and family to ask for help, but fortunately, we were given financial help with love. we are so grateful for that!
sometimes, this life seems to flow with ease and sometimes with many obstacles. this is life on earth, at least for me! maybe there are some of you out there that have it much easier than me and for some of you much harder than me... we all get what we deserve.
i have died once when i was 25 yeas old and that made me realize how short this life really is and what is really important and what is of no importance at all and i must tell you this: "in 50 years after your death, no one will remember you were here, or your name or what you have done, and in a 100 years after your death absolutely no one will know you were here" so, what is SO important to you in this life? why do we spend ALL of our time worrying? trying our very best to have things? to be comfortable? to accumulate things?
when i asked H.E. Garchen Rinpoche once about making our prayer wheels one by one and not in an automated machine (we could not compete with the price of machined prayer wheels offered on the GBI shop) he told me: "Making prayer wheels has a lot of merits, make by hand only is very expensive, make by machine is cheaper, but same benefit.
In general, what you have to consider is how you can live. If you can earn money to live from other jobs then you should do so. If you can have stable living conditions and you want to make prayer wheels that is good. Making prayer wheels is earning money for future lifetimes.
People look at the price and want to buy cheaper things. So jobs will help your living you, should do. I will pray. Spinning or making prayer wheel accumulate merits for future lifetimes. Work we do at this lifetime benefit this life, and we need to take care this life too. Love you."
Rinpoche's answer cleared up things for me and i decided to keep crafting prayer wheels no matter what. there is nothing more important to us than crafting prayer wheels!
so, for now, we are still here, still crafting prayer wheels for y'all out there. we hope to be able to provide this service to you for as long as we can!
may it be so.
much love,
Micha (and Ayelet of course)
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