Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Casual conversation between friends. Anything goes (almost).
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Ogyen
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Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Ogyen »

CUSTOM MALAS CHEZ D. OGYEN

SEE the beginning of 2011~
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The Heart Drive - nosce te ipsum

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy
Blue Garuda
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Blue Garuda »

Lovely!

What stone is the dark blue/black with blue sparkle like a night sky (picture 7 from the top) ?

Thanks. :)
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Ogyen
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Ogyen »

Yeshe wrote:Lovely!

What stone is the dark blue/black with blue sparkle like a night sky (picture 7 from the top) ?

Thanks. :)
That my dear, is a fabulous mala maker stone. It is blue sandstone. In the Juzu set, you can see it in its natural tan, it's superb for contemplation, at least I've found, it has a relaxing feel. The optical effect of the the tiny tiny specks of light can guide the mind into the infinite potential, you'd have to experience it I guess. It speaks to some people as part of the practice on emptiness, because it looks like sand or a night sky/space trapped in a little ball. It adds a lot to the whole feel of a mala of either warm or cold tones. I'm starting to make more jewelry with it too, I really like its brilliance.



:heart:
D. Ogyen
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The Heart Drive - nosce te ipsum

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy
Ngawang Drolma
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Ngawang Drolma »

Your artwork is amazing and beautiful :bow:
Blue Garuda
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Blue Garuda »

Ogyen wrote:
Yeshe wrote:Lovely!

What stone is the dark blue/black with blue sparkle like a night sky (picture 7 from the top) ?

Thanks. :)
That my dear, is a fabulous mala maker stone. It is blue sandstone. In the Juzu set, you can see it in its natural tan, it's superb for contemplation, at least I've found, it has a relaxing feel. The optical effect of the the tiny tiny specks of light can guide the mind into the infinite potential, you'd have to experience it I guess. It speaks to some people as part of the practice on emptiness, because it looks like sand or a night sky/space trapped in a little ball. It adds a lot to the whole feel of a mala of either warm or cold tones. I'm starting to make more jewelry with it too, I really like its brilliance.



:heart:
D. Ogyen

Thanks.

And bless you for creating so many wonderful practice malas. :)
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Mr. G
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Mr. G »

Very nice Ogyen!

I like this wrist mala the best:

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  • How foolish you are,
    grasping the letter of the text and ignoring its intention!
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Individual
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Individual »

Wow. Do you sell these?
plwk
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by plwk »

And the mala mania starts... :tongue:
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Individual »

I want one. And I don't normally like malas.
Blue Garuda
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Blue Garuda »

Just ordered this mala (blue sandstone) to cannibalise for mixed beads:


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWNX:IT" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Chaz
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Chaz »

Yeshe wrote:Just ordered this mala (blue sandstone) to cannibalise for mixed beads:


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWNX:IT" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Nice!

Don't they call that "Goldstone" too? They come in brown and green, too?
Blue Garuda
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Blue Garuda »

Chaz wrote:
Yeshe wrote:Just ordered this mala (blue sandstone) to cannibalise for mixed beads:


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWNX:IT" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Nice!

Don't they call that "Goldstone" too? They come in brown and green, too?
I think so. I've seen blue and 'gold' colour, and even beads which have both, but I don;t know about the other colours.

Do you know, Ogyen?
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Karma Dondrup Tashi
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Karma Dondrup Tashi »

Do you sell your creations Ogyen?
It has been the misfortune (not, as these gentlemen think it, the glory) of this age that everything is to be discussed. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.
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Ogyen
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Ogyen »

@ Yeshe, wow you paid a lot for that. You can buy strands of it, 16" for 3 something dollars. JnS beads

These outlet pretty good deals for pretty decent product. It's not A grade, but certainly passable for malas. They ship international afaik. Check them out, they specialize in rounds, so 6mm and 8mm are abundant there.

:)

@ Karma I do not sell my creations. I have a pay it forward system. Someone tells me they want a mala, that's great. I find out a little about the person and their practice, then I wait for it to inspire me. Usually I have a dream, or something that really resonates with that person's request. I make it. Then send it. Whatever donations come in go to making someone else's malas. I do not profit from it personally. People so far have sent me materials, items to restring, sometimes small donations which I then use to find someone else their perfect mala, etc. Sometimes, I have a couple people who have multiple requests, so please keep in mind, I don't this for profit, so I don't customer service anyone. I'm not fast, as I am my household's provider, work full time, have a three year old, and a very busy life. Slowly I get to everyone who asks for a mala, however, there might be a bit of a wait.

PM if interested. :)
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The Heart Drive - nosce te ipsum

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy
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Ogyen
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Ogyen »

PS- in case you hadn't noticed I love stones.... so this is what I found about goldstone and aventurine.

Goldstone is a man-made glass which consists of minute octahedral crystals of copper dispersed in glass to created a glittering appearance. It is usually cut en cabochon for use in jewelry, and its popularity as a gemstone has waxed and waned over the past three or four centuries. Also called "Aventurine Glass," goldstone introduced the term of "aventurescence" into the mineralogical lexicon, and varieties of quartz which contain small, reflective spangles of other minerals such as muscovite are still referred to as "aventurine" quartz today.

Goldstone has been produced in reddish-brown, blue, purple and green colors. It is created by the melting of soda-lime glass containing copper salts in a reducing (oxygen depleted) environment, causing the copper salts to decompose to metallic copper. (A green variation of the formulation is the result of chromium salts being decomposed to form a green glass with silvery metallic crystals.)
Historical Notes:

A litany of apocryphal “urban folklore” mythologies regarding how and when goldstone was created have devolved. Foremost among these is that goldstone was accidentally discovered by Italian monks (religious order unknown) when they dropped copper shavings into a batch of molten glass in the 19th century (or 18th century. Or 17th century. Or 13th century); the “accidental copper shavings” hypthosis would not yield evenly sized, evenly distributed copper particles in the glass groundmass. Webster (1949) suggested that it was developed in the 13th century by Christoforo Briani, one of the great early glassmakers of Murano; while Briani did attempt simulations of agate and chalcedony in glass, there is no evidence of his creating goldstone. Another more colorful claim has been advanced that “goldstone” was the result of medieval alchemists’ search to create gold.

Fanciful notions aside, the best available evidence suggests that goldstone was developed by Vincenzo Miotti (sometimes spelled Miozzi), a member of a prominent family of Venetian glass makers, in the 17th century. Keeping with the tradition of the medieval craft-guild, the formulation was maintained a closely guarded secret. It was not until the early 19th century, after the family had stopped making glass, that the formulation was divulged by one of the surviving members of the family to restart the tradition of goldstone manufacture in Venice. In the 1860’s, two French chemists independently developed their own formulations for making goldstone, with the recipe created by Theophilus Jules Pelouze based on chromium salts being decomposed to form silvery chrome oxide crystals in a green glass groundmass. The basic process of making goldstone can be simplified as follows: a simple copper rich glass “metal” is prepared by fusing high grade sand, sodium carbonate, calcium carbonate, and copper oxide. When the glass in extremely liquid, iron or iron oxide dust is stirred in and dissolved to form a red, opaque glass that was once known as “hematine”. Rather than cooling the glass immediately, the “draught of the furnace is then stopped, the ash pan closed, the pot with its lid on covered with ashes, and it is allowed to cool very slowly” (Sauzay 1870). This creates a low-oxygen (reducing) environment which converts the copper salts into metallic copper. The process suggests that the origins of goldstone may lie in a failed experiment at creating a variation of “hematine” in the 17th century. Washington (1894) alternatively hypothesized a more direct process in which iron was added in the form of a flux charge of siderite (iron carbonate) along with the calcium and sodium carbonate fluxes and copper oxide during the initial creation of the glass.

In 1894, Henry S. Washington (who would later serve as President of both the Geological Society of America and Mineralogical Society of America) was permitted to visit the Venezio Murano Glass Co. at Murano, the small island off Venice to which the Venetian glass industry had been relocated in the 13th century. “The manufacture of this glass being a trade secret I could extract no information from the foreman who gave me the specimens as to the process or details of the manufacture; a fact which is greatly to be regretted.” He was, however, provided with samples of goldstone as well as samples of an unsuccessful batch of goldstone, and provided a detailed account of the shape of the copper crystals he observed in the sample, which are illustrated below.


Copper Crystals in Goldstone (after Washington, 1894)


In 1876, French gemologist Louis Dieulafait offered the following comments on goldstone:

For several centuries Venice has had the monopoly of the fabrication of aventurine; and even now, it is a Venetian artist, Bibaglia, who furnishes to commerce the artificial aventurine that is most highly prized. Aventurine is a glass the base of which is soda ash, lime, and magnesia, coloured yellow by oxide of iron, and holding in suspension a large number of small particles of oxide of copper. The distribution of these particles in a regular manner through the whole vitreous mass appears to be the chief difficulty in its manufacture. The dexterity requisite to accomplish this must be very difficult to attain, for the profits realized from the manufacture of aventurine are remarkably large.

According to its quality, the artificial gem sells for $5 to $15 the pound, while the raw materials that enter into the composition of a pound of it are certainly not worth a quarter-dollar. French chemists--M. Hautefeuille in 1860, and M. Pelouze in 1865--have published processes by which productions have been obtained equal to that of Venice, and, in the latter case, perhaps superior. The new aventurine of M. Pelouze has a beautiful lustre, and a hardness exceeding that of glass and ordinary aventurine. It is obtained by melting together 250 parts sand, 100 parts carbonate of soda, 50 parts carbonate of lime, and 40 parts bichromate of potassium. It will be seen that by this formula the spangles with a basis of copper are replaced by spangles with a basis of chrome. – Dieulafait (1876)

The uniform shape and size of the metallic crystals as well as the uniform distribution of the copper crystals through the glass body helps differentiate goldstone from aventurine quartz and sunstone. The copper crystals in goldstone are readily visible under 20x magnification. The crystals may appear more silvery than coppery red in the blue, purple and green variations of goldstone, sometimes appearing tinted as a result of the filtering effects of the colored glass comprising the body of the material. Large masses of rough may sometimes preserve flattened contact surfaces, rounded edges, and surfacial flow lines that were created when the molten glass was poured out onto a hard surface to chill.
Bibliography:
• Dieulafait, Louis (1876) Diamonds and Precious Stones - A Popular Account of Gems Co. 1876 Scribner, Armstrong & Co. New York pp. 245-246
• Hautefeuille, E (1861) Artificial Aventurine (Aventurine Glass) Bull. Soc. Encour. Id. Nut., 60, pp 609-17 (1861)
• Sauzay, A. (1870) Marvels of Glassmaking in All Ages. London, 1870 pp. 173 - 175
• Washington, Henry S. (1894) On copper crystals in Aventurine Glass American Jornal of Science, Third Series, Vol. 48 no. 287 pp. 411 – 418
• Webster, Robert (1949) Aventurine: Glass, Feldspar, Quartz Gems and Gemology, Vol 6 No. 7 (Fall, 1949) pp. 207-211
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The Heart Drive - nosce te ipsum

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy
Chaz
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Chaz »

Ogyen wrote:@ Yeshe, wow you paid a lot for that.
ACtually, he didn't.

He'd need 3 16" strands (50 beads (8mm) +/- per strand) to make a 108 bead mala. If you're getting a strand for three bucks then the beads would be $9. Add a few bucks shipping and you're pushing $12. He's also getting a couple nice, reuseable tassels. The seller doesn't seem to charge for shipping. The way this mala was made he'll even get a couple extra beads to cover beads that get lost.

If he wants, he could use that mala just as it ships. It's perfectly useable the way it is. You don't need a fancy gemstone and silver mala to do recitations. Back in the day, monks used a knotted cord and little else. It's said that the Prophet Mohammed could recite the 99 Names of God on his fingers rather than the Misbaha most Muslims use today, so it's possible to do recitation without any sort of mala or other counting device. Difficult perhaps, but not impossible.

I'd say $9.99 isn't such a bad deal for 108 beads and a couple tassels, even if he's going to take it apart and make a different mala out of it.

That mala, as is, would make an excellent mala for Medicine Buddha sadhana or practices associated with Guru Rinpoche (Konchock Chidu, etc). Good choice Yeshe.
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Ogyen
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Ogyen »

LOL .. good points Chaz. Whatever works! :)

:heart:
Ogyen.
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The Heart Drive - nosce te ipsum

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy
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Su DongPo
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Su DongPo »

Lovely. I like the feel of amber as well as its soft beauty. I like agate too, and lapiz. And turquoise and -- well, I think I like them all.

:tongue:

Nice woody beads too sometimes. Or seeds.

I like techy beads too. I don't know what they are called -- forget just now -- but they are glass and metallic and can be extremely beautiful. They come in many colors and shapes.

Oh boy, attachments...
:roll:
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Su DongPo
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Su DongPo »

For Ogyen, "Mala Vida" -- :jumping:

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Blue Garuda
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Re: Ogyen's Mala Affairs

Post by Blue Garuda »

Chaz wrote:
Ogyen wrote:@ Yeshe, wow you paid a lot for that.
ACtually, he didn't.

He'd need 3 16" strands (50 beads (8mm) +/- per strand) to make a 108 bead mala. If you're getting a strand for three bucks then the beads would be $9. Add a few bucks shipping and you're pushing $12. He's also getting a couple nice, reuseable tassels. The seller doesn't seem to charge for shipping. The way this mala was made he'll even get a couple extra beads to cover beads that get lost.

If he wants, he could use that mala just as it ships. It's perfectly useable the way it is. You don't need a fancy gemstone and silver mala to do recitations. Back in the day, monks used a knotted cord and little else. It's said that the Prophet Mohammed could recite the 99 Names of God on his fingers rather than the Misbaha most Muslims use today, so it's possible to do recitation without any sort of mala or other counting device. Difficult perhaps, but not impossible.

I'd say $9.99 isn't such a bad deal for 108 beads and a couple tassels, even if he's going to take it apart and make a different mala out of it.

That mala, as is, would make an excellent mala for Medicine Buddha sadhana or practices associated with Guru Rinpoche (Konchock Chidu, etc). Good choice Yeshe.

The seller is very reliable but of course free shipping takes several weeks to arrive. He also supplies a very nice blue catseye mala.

For Medicine Buddha I use Lapis, but my understanding from Robert Beer's excellent books is that 'Vaidurya' is more likely to be Blue Beryl:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-380 ... &q&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I use different malas for different Buddhas and types of practice. However, for HYT and some other powerful practices I have one main mala, bodhiseed and bone, which has been used by me for several hundred thousand mantras and has been blessed by my root guru. It is never even been shown to anyone other than my root guru.

Anyone interested in how different faiths use beads as malas or rosaries will probably like this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Beads-Faith-Gray- ... 1903258472" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Chaz is correct - I priced up beads from various sources and it was cheaper to buy the mala. I actually ordered two. I sometimes give malas to new Vajrayana disciples and teach them how to use it and how to set up a simple shrine and make offerings etc. at the appropriate stage in their path.
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