108 bead 8mm Natural Indonesian Agarwood Buddhist Prayer Beads. This can be worn as a necklace or a wrapped bracelet or draped as prayer beads. These have a wonderful fragrance. Beautiful flower pouch included.

A thousand years ago Agarwood was a very precious medicine, and many ancient remedies included this indispensable resin. Across the centuries, the Chinese have worn bracelets of round Agarwood beads on their wrists which press down on pressure points to improve their health, balancing the Yin and Yang. Small items were also worn to scare away evil and bring vitality, good health and good fortune to the wearer and their family.

Agarwood has been used since antiquity, in particular the nobility of the Nguyen Dynasty, who would use it as perfume and pay large amounts of money to anoint themselves, or to use a few drops of the oil in their bath. It even appears on the nine large bronze urns outside the The Mieu Temple in the Royal Palace at Hue. The heady incense of Agarwood was regularly used to perfume the silk clothing of the aristocracy prior to rituals.

Why 108 beads for meditation?

Here is one way of envisioning the concept of these afflictions (defilements).

One must start with the concept of six senses. The sixth sense being Mind. Then consider that each sense has three types of feelings; suffering, happiness, and indifference. Also consider that each of the six senses has three types of reactions; good, bad, and neutral. A total of thirty-six possible afflictions. Furthermore, when paired with the concepts of past, present, and future in the three realms, Realm of Desire (Kāmadhātu), Realm of Form (Rūpadhātu), and Realm of No-Form (Arūpadhātu), we arrive at 108.

Vesak - Bodhi - Parinirvana