How to make a mala for Vajrayana practice

Technical equipment for Buddhist tantra. (Not a New Age knickknack.)

The mala I made on Easter, a few days ago.

A mala is a string of beads used for counting repetitions of mantra in Buddhist tantra (Vajrayana). They are also used as decorative, vaguely spiritual knickknacks. Ones made for that purpose may not work for serious practice.

Why make your own mala?

Tantra delights in involvement with complex specifics of the actual world. Making your own mala gives you a personal connection not easily bought. Tantra urges appreciation for perceptual qualities of material objects. Making your own mala is an opportunity to explore, develop, and display your unique aesthetic sensibility.

This post explains how. It’s pretty easy, taking about two hours once you’ve acquired the materials.

Alternatively, you could buy a ready-made mala that is functionally adequate. You can find them in any Tibetan/Nepali tchotchke shop, or probably in a bead store. You can get one that’s good enough to start with for about $15 on Amazon. Etsy has nicer ones (at higher prices). You need to know what to look for, though! I explain the requirements in this post, too.

There are many “how to make a mala” pages on the web. Most are about how to make decorative knickknacks with diffuse spiritual overtones. Those usually lack the functional requirements for tantric practice. The others I found use traditional materials and methods for stringing the beads. Tradition has its own value, but there is a much better high-tech option.

How malas work, and functional requirements

These malas would not be suitable for Vajrayana. Photo (CC) Suyash Dwivedi

You recite a mantra, associated with some particular yidam, many times. The mala is a piece of technical equipment for keeping track of how many. (How mantra works, why you might want to do it, and the point of counting, are all complicated. The answers are also quite different according to different Buddhist systems. So, I won’t go into any of that in this post.)

If you are moderately serious about practicing tantra, “many times” means “several hundred thousand, maybe millions.” I know that sounds absurd, but it’s doable, and if you get into it, you may find yourself motivated to go there.

This has two implications.

• You need a device that can count up into the millions. Early in my mantra practice, I thought using a mala was a ridiculous anachronism, and got a digital clicky counter thing. This was a mistake; the feeling of moving the beads through your fingers is part of how mantra works.

• You are going to put a lot of wear and tear on your equipment, so it needs to be made from durable materials.

If you look at the picture of the mala at the very top of this post, you can see that the main circular strand has a whole lot of beads on it. Traditionally, there are 108 identical ones,¹ plus one bigger one.² You start at the big bead, and move one small one through your fingers for each repetition of the mantra. Then when you get back to the big one, you have done “a hundred.” Traditionally, 108 repetitions counts as “a hundred,” as insurance against the catastrophic risk that you skipped a few by mistake. Depending on how long the mantra is and how fast you say it, a hundred only takes a few minutes. Probably not enough to have much effect.

If you go longer, you need to know how many “hundreds” you have done. That’s the function of the two short strings, with ten beads each, that come off on the sides. One of them counts hundreds. So each time you do a hundred, you slide a bead along on that side string. When you’ve got all the beads from one end of that to the other, you have done a thousand. The other side string counts thousands. When you’ve got all ten beads on the hundred counters at the far end, you push them back, and slide one bead along on the thousands counter.

Then there is a ten-thousands counter, which clips onto the main strand. This is called a “bum counter” (pronounced “boom”). Each time you finish ten thousand, you move the bum counter one bead along the main loop. So, altogether, the mala can count to 10,000×108, or a bit over a million.³ If you are serious, you get a second clip-on for counting millions. (I am not serious.)

So if you buy a mala, functional requirements are that it has 108 beads, plus a big one, and the two side counters. Or, if they are missing, you could get side counters separately and attach them with clips. Bum counters are always clip-on, and you can wait to buy one until you get that far. If a mala has some other number of beads, or lacks necessary bits, it won’t work for Buddhist tantra. Other religious systems use malas with other numbers, so you may see those for sale (as in the photo at the top of this section). Malas may also be designed only as decorations, with no specific religious function.

The remaining requirement is durability. The beads need to be made of something hard. Semi-precious gem stones, bone, and certain woody seeds are traditional. And, the string needs to be strong and inelastic.

Use Softflex instead

If you already know how to make a mala, or are following traditional instructions, or are restringing a broken mala, the main point of this post is: use Softflex beading wire instead.

Traditional string materials inevitably break, and then you have to restring the beads, which is a pain. And also you may lose some when the mala falls apart and they go everywhichwhere. (Speaking from experience here.) Traditional instructions tell you to make a knot between each bead, thick enough that they can’t slide over it. Then if the string breaks, only one bead falls off. The knotting is quite a lot of fiddly work. Softflex doesn’t break, so you can skip that.

Traditional string materials also stretch with use, opening up gaps between the beads. Putting a knot between each one limits how much extra play they get; otherwise, you eventually get a long section of bare string, which looks bad and also makes it more difficult to move the beads along. Softflex doesn’t stretch.

Stuff you’ll need

• 108 small beads

• One big bead, with a hole big enough for the string to pass through twice

• Two side counters (they come in pairs, with two different charms at the ends)

• A tassel, or materials for making one (explained later)

• Softflex beading wire

• Crimping beads and a crimping tool (shown in the picture at the top of the previous section). Needle-nose pliers would probably also work if you have those

• Eventually, a bum counter

Important principle: Vajrayana has many, many specific “lineages,” which are somewhat different religious systems. Some specify details of practice equipment, including the materials used to make malas. If you are practicing in a particular tradition, it’s important to find out first what requirements it may have. And, more generally, if you have a teacher, consult him or her before proceeding. Whatever they say should override random internet posts like this one.

Otherwise, the general principle is: design your mala by choosing materials you really really like! I suggest going to as many Tibetan stores and bead stores as you can. Fondle their wares until something speaks to you. Or, look at examples online.

A “wrathful” mala

I’ve illustrated the assembly instructions in this post with photos of a mala I made this past weekend, on Easter. You can see the result in the photo at the top of the post. I made this mala specifically for the yidam practice of Good King Gesar, who I wrote about in “You should be a god-emperor.” My choices of materials are meant to reflect his energy.

Your whirlwind of creative destruction clears empty spaces

In which we innovate glorious civilized forms.⁴

Gesar of Ling astride the magical windhorse. Wellcome Collection.

Gesar is sometimes categorized as a wrathful yidam. “Wrathful” in Vajrayana doesn’t mean “hostile” or “evil.” It means clear and direct. It means: willing to do whatever is necessary for the benefit of a situation. Even (but not only) when that involves destruction. And even when it is morally ambiguous:

I destroy whatever needs to be destroyed,

And encourage the flourishing of whatever is beneficial.

In the chaotic battleground of everyday existence,

Ethical certainty is never available;

An open heart is always available;

I act for the benefit of friend and foe alike.

Iconographically, wrathful yidams are associated with death. Years ago, I came across a string of snake vertebrae at The Bone Room in Berkeley, and bought it, thinking “this would make a fantastic wrathful mala.” So I used those as beads.

For the big bead, I used a grumpy rhinoceros. In Vajrayana, rhinoceroses are symbols of wrathful protective power, particularly military power, which seemed appropriate for Gesar as a warrior-king. The rhinoceros casting had an enormous hole through it, so I added the skull bead to fill it.

The side counters are specifically wrathful ones, which are uncommon. Usually you see ones made from a yellow metal. At the end of the counter strings there are two tiny charms, versions of key tantric equipment: a bell and vajra. These are symbols of emptiness and form, respectively. Or, equivalently in tantric symbolism, female and male energies.

Image source

Wrathful counters are made of iron instead, and the charms at their ends are a kartika (butcher’s flaying knife) and phurba (demon-destroying dagger). Those are also symbolic of female and male energies (or emptiness and form).

Making a tassel

Malas nearly always have tassels. As far as I know, they’re purely decorative, and not symbolic or functional, so I suppose you could omit this. Making a tassel is a bit fiddly. Craft stores sell them, or you can get them online. If you find a premade one you like, it will save some time and aggravation.

Embroidery thread is a good material for making tassels. There’s illustrated instructions here, in case mine are unclear!

In this case, I wanted to use black leather, in line with the “wrathful” theme. The best I could find is thicker than I wanted, and I’m not altogether happy with the result.

You wrap the tassel material around a piece of cardboard that’s a bit wider than you want the tassel to be long. That gives you a bunch of parallel strands:

Slip that off onto a coat hanger or similar:

You will wind thread around the tassel strands just below the wire in order to tie them together. You can use the same material as for the main strands, if those are thin. Here I’m using something thinner, which is common for tidiness. Run a length of the thread alongside the main strands, with one end loose at the bottom. (Shown above.)

Then wind its other end around:

Tie a square knot between the ends. (I feel there ought to be a way to conceal the somewhat untidy result inside the tassel, but I couldn’t figure out how.) To keep it from coming undone, dab a tiny drop of fabric glue on the knot:

Then cut through the bottom ends of the loops to create free ends:

The result looks kinda like Cthulhu’s beard maybe! This isn’t quite the effect I wanted, but it’s unique and interesting:

Stringing the beads

Leave one end of the Softflex attached to its spool, which prevents beads from slipping off. In other words, don’t cut the string to length until near the end of this process.

Start by putting a few beads on. The number doesn’t matter at this point. Eventually, you’ll join two ends of the Softflex, and you might think it natural to do that at the big bead, but that doesn’t work. Instead, the joint will be somewhere inconspicuous and random.

Add the big bead, and immediately after it the tassel. (The free end of the Softflex is off to the bottom left of the photo here. And, remember that I’m using two beads, the rhinoceros and skull, in place of the usual single big one.)

Then pass the wire back through the big bead, creating a loop to hold it in place:

Not very clear in the photo, but the free end of the wire is touching the table just to the bottom right of the row of vertebrae.

Now continue adding small beads until it’s time to put a counter on. Some lineages or particular practices may specify where that goes. (Check with your teacher if you have one.) At one point in the Gesar practice I’m doing, you sing the mantra twenty-one times, so I put the two side counters twenty-one beads along from the big bead:

Continue until you’ve added all the beads and both counters.

I made the mala with 111 beads rather than 108. Some lineages call for that variation, including the Aro gTér, the one I mainly trained in. Although no longer a member of that sangha, I used this number out of continuing respect for my former teachers.

Closing the loop

Now finally you cut the Softflex away from its spool, leaving a couple of inches of bare wire at each end. Pass both ends through a crimping bead, which is a tiny ring of soft metal:

Then slide the ends together, leaving about a centimeter between their end beads to allow room for your fingers when counting, and crimp the bead:

(I didn’t leave enough room there, and had to redo it. It was cramped as well as crimped.)

Then cut the free ends off as close as possible to the crimping bead; the joint will be nearly invisible.

Bum counter bunny

I had assembled all the materials I needed before starting, except for a bum counter. I planned to get one later. But just as I started stringing vertebrae, the doorbell rang. I went and retrieved a Fedex box and opened it. Inside there was a card…

“Rin’dzin” is my spouse Charlie Awbery’s Buddhist name. “Bless those bunnies” refers to my previous post, “You can just bless things,” which features a pair of them.

There was also a box of chocolates, and a chocolate egg.

Usually Easter eggs are laid by bunnies, but this one was as big as my hand. I think it must be a capybara egg:

It opened to reveal a magic charm:

And… those words, kitsch written by a chocolate company, are also the essence of the Gesar practice:

Grant me the impeccable integrity of a warrior,

That I may develop generous precision and courageous gentleness.

Your courageous caring compels confidence

That nobility is available to everyone everywhere always.

This little bunny, which came with a convenient clip, is now my bum counter:

I suppose many tantric traditionalists would object. Such incongruous, offensive sweetness has no place in the very serious business of wrathful practice, they’d say.

I’m more traditional than they are, though. Early tantra revels in paradox, absurdity, jokes and jarring juxtapositions. I love clipping a happy symbol of new life onto the skeletal remains of a poisonous predator. Like form and emptiness, neither negates the other. Good and bad, happy and sad, life and death: these are the same, and different.

Time, space, and awareness are non-separate.

Inside and outside: neither same nor distinct.

Activity and space entwine.

Thanks

To Ngakma Zer-me Dri'med, who showed me how and why to restring my first mala with Softflex, taught me to meditate, and introduced me to King Gesar.

To Rin’dzin Pamo (Charlie Awbery), for the bum counter bunny, delicious Easter chocolates, opportunities to practice and teach Vajrayana, and much else.

To the Evolving Ground sangha, for continuing inspiration.

1. 108 is a Buddhist magic number, possibly because it is 1¹×2²×3³. No one knows for sure. It must be a Holy Mystery.

2. The big bead is often referred to as the “Buddha bead” or “guru bead.”

3. Actually 100×108×108=1,166,400, but who’s counting?

4. The boxed quotes in this post are from the Evolving Ground Gesar liturgy.