Buddhas

by Jason M. Wirth (Author)
In Nietzche and Other Buddhas, author Jason M. Wirth brings major East Asian Buddhist thinkers into radical dialogue with key Continental philosophers through a series of exercises that pursue what is traditionally called comparative or intercultural philosophy as he reflects on what makes such exercises possible and intelligible

In Tibetan Buddhism there is a ritual of rotating prayer wheels. A prayer wheel is a cylinder with mantras inscribed on it. Rotating a prayer wheel has a very powerful positive effect: it helps purify karma, not only of the person who is rotating it but also of all the living beings the person thinks about while doing so. One revolution is considered to be equivalent to reciting all of the mantras carried by the wheel, which can actually be quite a large number as the inner space of the wheel is filled with mantras written on rolls of the thinnest paper. The purpose of this "mechanization" is not simply to render the ritual more efficient: the circular motion of certain magic formulas acts to shape streams of energy in an optimal way thus purifying the space and everybody within it.