The Contest Results

So, our first contest is over. I must admit, we received less reviews and articles than expected, and very few of them were worth to be published. Anyway, thanks to all participants!

And now - our winners!

• The 1st prize - Monica Torres from Spain shared with us her experience of burning sang;
• The 2nd prize - Chandra Prakash from US with his article on 8 Reasons for Burning Incense;
• The 3rd prize - Viv Smith from UK with her very touching personal story.

The winners will receive emails on how to get their prizes.

Thank you all, we’ll repeat it the next year!

How To Use Sang: Monica Torres

8 Reasons for Burning Incense: Chandra Prakash

It’s generous. It connects you to the elements. It sparks appreciation. It is healthy. It brings you back. It joins heaven and earth. It offers a lesson. It makes you prepare.

Those who never or rarely use incense often think of it as merely an air freshener or an odor eater and are unaware of the many benefits of incense to the mind and body. Even many incense fans who use it regularly may not fully appreciate all its physical and psychological benefits.

The list below will make it clear why just about every religion since the beginning of time has used incense for its spiritual powers, why tribal healers and physicians throughout history have used incense for its healing powers, why monks have used incense for thousands of years for its concentration powers, and why artists use incense to inspire creativity.

1. It’s generous. Ritual is an important part of living, even small rituals that may seem inconsequential. The insignificance of offering a stick of incense is key. It doesn’t move you any closer to stated goals. It doesn’t seem to address your current concerns, whether they are about personal relationships or world hunger. Yet, offering — without expectation of something in return for your gesture — is training in generosity, the act of letting go.

2. It connects you to the elements. Incense has to be lit. It requires fire to ignite and oxygen to burn. We need oxygen to breath and fire to live. It is a truism to say that to survive, we need a relationship to our world, our elemental world, the world of our senses. By striking a match, lighting and sensing a stick of incense, you have reignited a relationship with the world that sustains you.

3. It sparks appreciation. It takes time to find incense that appeals to you. Japanese varieties can be delicate and floral. Tibetan incense evokes a warm, earthy quality. There are many subtle differences and endless varieties. But you will offer incense that pleases you. What do you like? Do you know? Another way of putting this is: what makes you happy? By enjoying incense in the context of practice, you set a positive tone for your session. Practice is about appealing to the part of you that is able to relax, slow down and appreciate. Cultivating appreciation is the ground of discipline.

4. It is healthy. Incense enhances concentration & focus, prevents infections, relieves headaches, fights depression, reduces anxiety & tension, aids insomnia.

5. It brings you back. When you sit down to practice, the smoke from your incense joins you. Some even select the length of their incense stick to time their practice session. You may be lost in thought when, suddenly, you are brought back to the moment by the scent from a plume of incense wafting by. At this moment, you can recall the intention to practice that prompted you at the time you offered the incense and gently return to your discipline.

6. It joins heaven and earth. Smoke moves in space. Space extends everywhere. When you light incense you can invoke space. You can do this by letting the smoke go where it wants. Who would try to tell smoke where to go? At the same time, space is a reminder of earth. Eventually, after enjoying the space of heaven, smoke will settle into dust and land on earth. We can’t forget to enjoy the space of heaven in our practice. Practice takes effort –fire—but it can be lighthearted. It doesn’t have to be so serious. It is natural to enjoy space. It is natural to settle on the earth.

7. It offers a lesson. The incense stick begins at a full length and then grows shorter as it burns. There is no way to repair or retrieve a stick that has burnt. At first the scent is strong, soon the stick is gone and the scent will be faint. Sometimes the ash sits on top of the stick, like a memory of past glories, before toppling off into the incense bowl. The smoke may rise slowly like white ink from the stroke of an invisible brush or may disperse, fanned by hidden currents of air. All experience is fleeting — like the smoke from a stick of incense. This is a true lesson.

8. It makes you prepare. To offer incense, you need incense, matches, a bowl. You need to think about this before your practice session. To practice, you need time, a place, and intention. You have to work to gather what you need for practice. You have to plan and organize your life so you can sustain a practice. Your time and your space have value. They are the very commodities of existence and essential resources for practice. Always in short supply, they can be squandered or not. Prepare well and your practice will go well.

Chandra Prakash, Boulder, CA

Incense Review: Kate Steinard

Recently I began thinking about incense – the different types and scents, my favorites and where I was when I first smelled it.

It comes in sticks, ropes, powder, coils, dhoops, wood chips, cones. And comes from India, China, Japan, and all over the world, but the best ones are from Nepal and Tibet. You can light it for rituals or light it ‘just because’.

I’ve enjoyed many scents from the basic cheap to the handmade expensive and I always return to sandalwood. Or a sandalwood mix. It loyally permeated the sixties with me and followed me into the next century. Sandalwood has the history and the memory factor that none of the others have.

My first sandalwood incense experience began at a head shop in Daytona Beach, Florida. The ‘after dinner’ crowd was shopping and people watching on the sidewalks next to the beach. My senses were riveted with sounds of motorcycles, music by the Tams, kids screaming for snow-cones, Moms sipping on Singapore Slings and the freaks were stopping in the head shop to buy some new music or a peace sign patch. I could smell the incense long before I could see the head shop. I go inside and buy a ring with a large red stone. I hear Surrealistic Pillow on the turntable and we discuss the songs and talk about Grace Slick. I stood out like a sore thumb in my small town, but these were my people and I feel a real kinship with them.

Anticipation surrounded me that summer night and I felt I was in the midst of a beautiful memory that would last a lifetime. Permeated in a young girl’s adolescence and the smell of sandalwood.

Kate Steinard,
Daytona Beach, Florida

Burning Incense Review: Xian Kim

Obviously burning incense is not directly to do with meditation, but there’s an indirect connection. As part of our preparation for meditation it’s common to settle down by going through some form of ceremonial ritual.

Rituals can be very simple of very complex. One of the most common forms of ritual action is to light incense. It’s best if this is done mindfully. First one lights candles, and then the end of a stick of incense is lit in the candle flame. Usually we let the end of the incense burn with a flame for a few seconds, and then the incense is gently waved in the air. This has the effect both of extinguishing the flame so that the incense is now glowing as an ember rather than as a flame, and of sending a stream of smoke into the air. Some people will then bow before sitting for meditation.

I’ve always found that the choice of incense is important. Certain kinds of incense can produce a very calming effect, and we can very quickly build up positive associations with a particular scent, so that the mind becomes quiet and a retreat-like atmosphere settles around us.

The more refined the incense is, the more likely it is that it will have a positive emotional and mental effect. Japanese incense is generally more refined (and in fact the world of Japanese incense is like the world of wine, with a great variety of qualities ranging from merely good to connoisseur-level). Indian incense can be more rough and chemical-smelling. Tibetan incense is more natural, and although some is refined much of it is like a fire on a hillside. That’s my experience; your mileage may vary.

Xian Kim, NY

Aromatherapy Incense Review: John Marshall

I love many incense from your site, and especially from Aromatic series. Here is my review on some of them.

Benzoin. I really liked this soothing scent. It’s sweet and floral, in just the right combination of light and rich. My partner (not always wild about incense) loves it and says it reminds him of honey or honeysuckle. It’s very relaxing - I use it when reading or unwinding - and it’s definitely in my top five.

Amber. Being an asmatic I just could not take smoky scent indoors. This incense opened up a whole new world for me. They are low smoke and have a delicate scent the permeates the room even with one stick lit! Amber is one of my favorite scents from way back. Being a child of the 70’s when incense was very much in I used to burn incense everyday. Now that I have found Morning Star incense I can again smell the delightful calming scent of Amber! A quality product and a very good price.

Jasmine. It’s so hard to find jasmine incense that isn’t charcoal blanks dipped in oil. Even when the oil is of the best quality, dipped incense can’t hold a candle to a good durbar or masala. This is a nearly perfect jasmine scent, delicate and potent at once. The pleasant wooded undertone contrasts nicely with the jasmine, keeping it from getting too heady while loaning it an irresistible, ambrosia-like quality.

Tuberose. This is one of my all-time favorite scents. I find this irresistable. I put the opened packs in my clothing drawers, so that my clothes will be scented with this fragrance. It is very powerful emotionally, although the frangrance is not all covering. It is its essence and not its strength that makes it so inviting.

And a couple of words about your great site.

Since I first found your website I simply fall in love, then (unfortunately :) or not) I get addicted to the website and your wonderful items! You are the first (and often the last) place I am looking for the incenses. In addition your customer care service is second to none! I just placed order yesterday and another one today - and I am pretty sure it wasn’t the last one! Many thanks for wonderful things, reasonable prices, great service and simply for being there for me! I already recommended you to my friends! Thanks again.

John Marshall
Cape Coral, Florida, US

Tibetan Incense Review: Viv Smith

Christmas Incense Essay Contest

The Tibetan Incense Shop is having a Christmas Incense Essay Contest. If you like incense and like to write, this could be your chance to win big.

The rules are simple. Write a review of some incense from the shop (or other products), or go freestyle and write about your experience with any Tibetan incense. If not a review, an article about the usage and/or benefits of Tibetan incense will be accepted. Reviews/articles about sang (powder incense) and its usage are mostly welcomed.

The best entry will win $100 in merchandise from the Tibetan Incense Shop!

Results of the contest will be announced on December 1, 2008. At that time, winners will be able to ’shop for free’ in the Tibetan Incense Shop for the amount they won. All prizes includes free delivery of the merchandise.

Three prizes will be awarded:

• 1st prize - $100
• 2nd prize - $50
• 3rd prize - $20

The terms of the contest:

• Send your essay to e-mail contest@tibet-incense.com
• The best essays will be published on our site
• The winners will be enunciate on December 1, 2008
• The winners choose the merchandise for the amount they won
• The winners get free delivery of their prize by registered air mail
• The winners of the prizes are not eligible for general purchase discount

Good luck!

Blogosphere News About Incense

• Tibetan Medical College / Holy Land, Nectar - I’m so used to seeing Tibetan incense packages from $5 to $10 that when I started coming across packages more in the $15-20 range and even higher, I was very curious. Perhaps in the incense world more than anywhere else, the cost of an …
• Kuenzang Chodtin Tibetan Incense - Having had so much success with various high end Tibetans costing anywhere from the teens to the 40s, I thought, like Japanese incense, that you’d generally be safe with anything relatively expensive. While price is still often a good …
• Best Incense - July 2008 - Samye Monastery / Samanthabadra - Soon to be corrected, this is the only high end Tibetan incense I have in stock right now, so the samples of the other high enders have had me returning to this all month. It was my first incense of …
• Tibetan Incense shop online - More than 300 kinds of everyday incense, healing incense, incense for aromatherapy, gift incense…
• Using Incense In Tantric Yoga Practice - Tibetan Incense is made from a blend of different herbs, spices, plants and minerals from centuries’ old recipes. All natural ingredients are used such as flowers, leaves, grass, wood, bark, spices, and aromatic herbs found in the high …

How to Burn Incense Sticks

Courtesy of http://incenseinformation.com/2008/08/15/how-to-burn-incense-sticks

The most common type of stick incense burner is the simple wooden incense “boat”. Stick incense is the most popular form of incense because it is convenient, burns consistently all the way through, lasts a long time, and produces a clean, high quality smoke. Though it is not exactly rocket science to burn an incense stick, this article will aim to cover some general tips and safety precautions.

The most obvious first step to burning an incense stick is to get it lit. To light the incense stick, hold a flame to the coated end until the stick lights on fire. If the flame does not go out naturally after several seconds, blow it out. You do not want the stick to be on fire. You simply want it to smolder. The tip should glow red and release a steady stream of smoke. It may take up to 30 seconds of smoldering before the true scent of the incense stick is released.

Once the incense stick is smoldering, you should place it securely into an appropriate incense stick burner. The most common type of incense stick burner is the “boat”. To burn an incense stick in a boat simply place the bamboo end of the stick securely into the little hole in the raised part of the boat. This hole is very tiny and on the more ornate incense boats it can sometimes be well hidden into the design so you may have to look very closely to find it. An incense dish or tray may also have one or more holes for burning incense sticks and, since these usually hold the incense stick vertically or near vertically, it is especially important with these to make sure the stick is snug into the hole so that it does not fall out and potentially cause a burn or fire.

If you want to burn more than one incense stick at a time, you can either use a dish or tray with more than one hole or use an incense “tree”. An incense “tree” is a column with holes drilled into it that hold incense sticks near vertically so that when filled with incense sticks it resembles a pine tree. Some dishes and trays may have up to five or even more holes for incense sticks, though most will only have one or two. Also, it should be noted that some incense boats have two holes for incense sticks but most only hold one. If using an incense tree, make sure it is sturdy and in a place where it cannot be easily knocked over.

If you have kids or pets and are worried about your incense burner getting knocked over, the safest way to burn incense sticks is to use an incense bottle. An incense bottle is just a decorative glass bottle with a split ring or clip in the bottle opening that is used to hold the incense stick while it burns. The stick hangs down into the bottle and the ash drops into the bottom of the bottle so that there is no cleanup necessary. Simply insert the uncoated part of the incense stick in between the two rings or into the clip, light it, and then slip it down into the bottle.

Similar to an incense bottle, an incense tower holds the stick vertically and completely encloses the stick. Unlike an incense bottle, an incense tower holds the stick up rather than letting it hang down. An incense tower has two parts; a base and a tube or column that fits down onto the base. To burn an incense stick in an incense tower, put the incense stick into the hole in the base and light it. Then slide the column or tube over the burning incense stick and fit it down snugly into the base.

The ideal way to burn incense sticks is in a large censer filled with sand or ash, such as a ceramic or stone pot or bowl. With this type of censer, you can burn many sticks at once and there is little to no cleanup. Sand must be replaced after every four or five uses but ash can be used indefinitely and the ashes form the burning incense stick can just be mixed in with the ash without having to be cleaned or emptied.

The cheapest way to burn incense sticks is to just stick them in the ground. Push the uncoated end of the bamboo into dry ground and clear away any combustible materials from underneath the sticks. If you’re going to burn them in the ground, however, it is especially important to not leave them unattended as a strong wind might blow sparks off the end that could start a fire. You should also keep burning incense sticks away from paths where anyone might walk next to them.

Finally, though “spaghetti stick” incense and incense cylinders make look similar to incense sticks, they do not have any uncoated stick and will burn all the way through so these can never be used in a wooden incense boat. The cylinders would typically be too thick to fit into the hole in a wooden boat anyway but the spaghetti sticks can fit so it is important to remember to never burn this type in a wooden incense boat. They can, however, be burned in a soapstone or metal boat.