March 5, 2017
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| 15 nuns joined forces with professional Chinese incense maker Ru-Ruei Chung, translator Ani Jangchub and Dr Dawa to make high-quality Tibetan incense, an income generation project to support the education of the nuns. |
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| Gyalwang Karmapa visited the workshop every day to check on their progress. |
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| Using only the best quality, natural ingredients, the nuns’ first task was to grind down the herbs and special substances. |
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| This was done by hand using traditional methods: a large round stone was used on a stone surface. It was physically demanding work and many nuns suffered blisters during the nine days it took to prepare all the ingredients. |
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| His Holiness worked alongside the nuns. |
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| And also spent time conferring with Dr Dawa and Ani Jangchup Dolma. |
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| The ingredients had to be measured carefully and mixed together. |
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| The mixture was then fed through a special machine to produce long spaghetti-like strands of incense. |
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| These strands were carefully separated… |
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| And cut to the same length... |
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| His Holiness took a keen interest in all parts of the process. |
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| The incense was laid carefully in wooden boxes and placed on the roof to dry. |
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| Once dry, the sticks of incense were divided equally |
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| And packed into bundles. |
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| The bundles were placed in individual boxes with an explanatory leaflet describing the contents and benefits of the incense. |
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| This is the most expensive incense made from 13 special ingredients. |
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| The blue boxes contain the cheaper one which contains only 2 ingredients. Altogether the nuns made 1600 boxes of incense for sale. |
Read More: The Arya Kshema Incense Project Continues for a Second Year
http://www.kagyumonlam.org/index.php/en/2017-02-12-16-26-11/165-kagyu-monlam/in-pictures/1229-the-arya-kshema-incense-project