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About the project

World peace prayer wheel in Israel

 

Many voices, many faiths together with common aspirations….

 

Sometimes our differences of faith or ethnicity are used to foster a sense of distance, suspicion, anger or hatred between people.  This peace wheel project arises from a view that at the core of all of our faiths are wishes for peace, love and compassion.  The world peace wheel is intended as a symbol and practice for bringing people of varied faiths together in a spirit of mutual respect and compassion to express our common wish for peace.  We are initiating the project in Israel during a time of war as a reminder that in such times, the need for recognition of our common humanity and shared wishes for peace are particularly important.  Our hope is to gradually build more such interfaith peace wheels all around the planet.

Tibetan culture has a long tradition of building “jewel wheels,” with the word “jewel” standing for compassion, as compassion is considered to be most precious.  Such wheels were long built throughout central Asia, filled with the mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, which means that by practicing a path that unifies compassion and wisdom, we can transform ourselves and the world.  The wider our circle of compassion, the more it helps at bringing peace.  World peace wheels will include those mantras from the Buddhist tradition as well as prayers for peace, love and compassion from as many different world religions and faiths as possible—including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Baha'i, and many other traditions including those of Indigenous peoples from various parts of the planet. 

The first peace wheel in Israel (where the clip in the home page and on the bottom of this page was shot) will be located atop a hill overlooking the Mediterranean sea to the west, the Carmel mountain to the north, Nazareth to the East and central Tel Aviv to the south.  It will be part of a peace garden, and people of any background or faith will be welcome to come and connect with peace and with the many voices in many languages whose prayers and wishes expressing love are inside the wheel.  The wheel will be designed to be turned by hand.  So, one will be able to turn it as you yourself pray for peace, feeling that your own wishes are connected with the loving and peaceful aspirations of others all around the planet!

 

How you can help

  • Send a prayer from your own faith community which focuses on the wish for peace, mercy, love and/or compassion to be added to the interior of the peace wheel.

  • Donate any amount large or small to the creation of the peace wheel in Israel.

  • Send your own personal prayer for loving peace to be added to the interior of the peace wheel.

  • Share about this project with others you know.(Part of our wish is for as many different people as possible to get involved whether in large or small ways).

  • Consider initiating the building of a peace wheel in your own community.We’ll be happy to share our information and resources with you to help!)

The peace wheel project 2023

One day, about a month and half into the 2023 war in Israel, we got an email from Lorne Ladner PhD (who wrote the book on prayer wheels - https://wisdomexperience.org/product/wheel-great-compassion/) asking us a question, or rather a proposal…. To build a large out door peace prayer wheel in Israel in a time of war…

Lorne's idea was to gather endorsements from various Tibetan teachers and masters, from Jewish Rabbis, Muslim Sheiks and Christian priests (and all other representatives of all other faiths and belief systems) to come together as one, to put ALL of our most sacred text and prayers inside one big out door prayer wheel and to spin it in one common goal, peace.

This idea of a peace prayer wheel was thought up a few years ago by our very dear friend Sagi Shalev (the founder of the "Living together" foundation) and was presented to H.E. Garchen Rinpoche first in October of 2018 and he loved it and asked us to craft one for him and so we did.

A year later, in 2019 H.E. Garchen Rinpoche asked us for all the prayers we have collected and gathered from different faiths and had a big out door world peace prayer wheel build in his center in Arizona, The Garchen Buddhist Institute. (click here to see Rinpoche with his peace wheel in hand and a photo of the outdoor peace wheel in GBI in Arizona)

The same year of 2019, we had made a tabletop peace prayer wheel that was hand given to H.H. the Dalai Lama personally (by our very good friend who we collaborated with the making of this one-of-a-kind peace prayer wheel) with the explanation of what this prayer wheel is and he loved it! That prayer wheel is now in his private quarters.

We (me and Ayelet) were so overwhelmed by Lorne's proposal but we could feel that this is a calling, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to make something real, to make a real change, to touch the hearts and minds of all people on earth and show them all that peace is a common goal that it CAN be achieved if we all put down our differences in thought and opinion and come together as one. To treat each other with kindness and love, with compassion and understanding… we are all one.

Of course, we said yes!

And from that moment we started to work on this huge and amazing project, and that is how it all started…

Meet The Team

תמונה של WhatsApp‏ 2023-12-28 בשעה 12.48.14_9a8ec709.jpg

Micha Strauss and Ayelet Cohen

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Founders of Holy Land Prayer Wheels

Dr Lorne Ladner PhD

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Pproject Manager

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