Five Senses

In Tibetan Buddhist meditation, the Offering of the Five Senses is a practice that transforms ordinary sensory experiences into sacred tools for spiritual growth. Its imagery is the subject of this artwork, which depicts all five sense organs removed from their ordinary physical context and put in an inverted skull bowl. In this format the five senses become objectified as images fit for ritual offering to enlightened awareness. These offerings symbolize the practitioner’s dedication to purifying attachments and recognizing the interconnected nature of all phenomena (pratitya samutpada). In meditation, this skull bowl imagery is visualized as offerings to deities or symbolic manifestations of wisdom. By making sense offerings in this way the meditator can move beyond unthinking identification with and attachment to sense experience.