Rimdro: Services
Rimdro literally means service. Rimdro comprises rituals, ceremonies and practices, which are undertaken for a wide range of purposes including elongating life, overcoming illness, accumulating wealth, having good harvest, successfully finishing projects and overcoming hindrances. Some rimdos are calendar events and undertaken seasonally or annually while others are observed as and when necessary.
The goal of all human endeavours can be classified into two types: the ultimate and the intermediate or temporary. The ultimate goal from the Buddhist perspective is to reach enlightenment, the final state of happiness. The intermediate goals include temporary happiness through health, long life, wealth, fame, good relationships and fulfilments of various wishes among other things in one’s ordinary life before reaching enlightenment. So, the ultimate purpose of a Buddhist rimdro is to reach enlightenment and or the ultimate state of happiness but a lot of rimdros are conducted for the sake of provisional goals.
Types of rimdro
Rimdros come in different forms corresponding to their various purposes. Most rimdros consist of meditation on a deity by visualizing a deity and chanting the relevant mantras. The priests visualize the deity and chant the mantras in order to cultivate and evoke the spiritual power associated with the deity. Having done so, they use the power to bring about the specific objectives of the rimdro.
For example, to elongate someone’s life, a devotee undertakes the visualisation of Buddha Amitayas and recites his mantras. As Amitayus is the Buddha for long life, the rimdo on Buddha Amitayus helps the devotee receive the blessings of long life from Amitayus. People often chant the sutra and mantra associated with Buddha Amitayus for long life. In the same way, one may undertake or sponsor a rimdo on the Medicine Buddha to recover from an illness or on Vajrapani to overcome a harmful spirit.
Most rimdro rituals and ceremonies consist of visualisation of deities and chanting of mantras in order to achieve their specific purposes. However, there are rimdros, which simply involve reciting supplications and prayers, such as the popular practice of chanting the praise to the female Buddha Tara or Guru Rinpoché in Bhutan. It is believed that when one prays to such spiritual beings, a devotee can get connected to them and become conducive for receiving their blessings, which clear the problems.
In some rimdros, one just reads sutras or scriptural texts as these texts are believed to have the power to dispel obstacles. The books are even carried around the valley to advert natural calamities. Rimdros for the deceased mainly consist of prayers for good rebirth in a pure Buddha realm such as Sukhavati. There are also rimdo rituals for appeasing the deities and spirits by making offerings, libations and ablutions. For instance, the lui and doe rituals, are mostly rimdo practices aimed at appeasing the harmful spirits by giving them gifts in the form of effigies. The priest uses the power of meditation or mantras to make the effigies appear as real things.
One can classify rimdros into four categories aligning with four enlightened activities: peaceful, intensifying, magnetising and wrathful. The first category of rimdro is conducted through peaceful means for the sake of gentle pacification of problems while the second type involves intensifying the good things such as wealth and power in order to have a flourishing life. The third category magnetizes others to gain control over them and lead them on to the righteousness path. It enhances one’s charisma and prestige, which helps impress others to do good. The fourth type of rimdro involves the use of spiritual force in order to subjugate and subdue those unruly and difficult beings who cause harm to others. Such rimdros include rituals of tordok or exorcism, srinan or suppression and drelwa or ritual killing.
What should one do during rimdro?
Firstly, when one undertakes a rimdro, one should be clear about what the rimdro is for. It is important to avoid conducting a rimdo out of non-virtuous and malicious intentions. Rimdos with ill intention are counterproductive and often cause harm to the one who undertakes it. It is crucial to have an altruistic intention to benefit all sentient being even when one is conducting a rimdo for one’s own welfare. With such noble motivation, the rimdo becomes more powerful.
As rimdro comes in different forms of rituals and practices, one should choose the right kind of rimdro, which is relevant and effective for the purpose. There are general rimdos, which can help one overcome negative karma or harmful spirits, which causes the problem or enhance the positive causes for one’s wellbeing. For specific purposes, often an astrologer or a priest doing the divination would prescribe the specific rimdro based on astrological calculation and divination results.
As our problems and wellbeing arise from a set of cause and conditions, it is essential to remove the cause for problems and cultivate the conditions for wellbeing. Harming others naturally leads to problems. Thus, it is wrong and harmful to undertake a rimdo with malicious motives and selfish intentions. One must carry out a rimdro with a sense of non-harming, compassion and altruism in order to overcome the suffering of all sentient beings. The ultimate rimdo is the removal of all suffering and problems. By wishing to remove the suffering of all sentient beings, one eventually eliminates one’s own suffering and attains wellbeing.
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