Prayer wheel turns for Christchurch earthquake victims

Geshe Wangchen spins the Avondale prayer wheel, which is claimed to be the most powerful in the world. Photo / Natalie Slade

An Auckland Buddhist temple is inviting New Zealanders to use its new prayer wheel - said to be the world's most powerful - to pray this weekend for world peace and for calm in earthquake-ravaged Canterbury.

The Dorje Chang Institute in Avondale has completed building one of the largest Buddhist prayer wheels in the world, and will be showing it to the public for the first time at its annual open day this Sunday.

Traditionally, Tibetan Buddhist prayer wheels contained scrolls of paper, but using microfilm technology, the centre has managed to pack 111 billion Buddhist mantras, over five million prayers and 500 Buddhist texts into the 2.5m tall and 1.4m wide drum, weighing over four tonne.

The largest traditional prayer wheels in Tibet and Mongolia contain about 10 million mantras.

Followers believe that turning the prayer wheel has the same effect as reading the mantras it contains, and the more mantras a wheel holds, the more powerful its effect.

"Turning it one time, you get the benefit of many years of retreat in a few seconds," said spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who donated the prayer wheel to the centre.

A single mantra written by the Dalai Lama on his 1996 New Zealand tour was scanned, reduced in size and duplicated billions of times on to microfilm measuring 3100km which is stored in the wheel.

The prayer wheel is encased in handcrafted, embossed gold-plated panels from Nepal and took six years to complete.

Geshe Wangchen, the centre's resident teacher, said: "By turning the wheel, and dedicating it to the people of Christchurch, it will give them the calmness that they need during this difficult time."