The dome and spire of St. Paul’s in London

A STUPA IS A SYMBOL

A spire is that which rises to a point, it ‘points up’. To aspire means ‘to yearn or to hope for’ , from the Latin aspirare ‘to breathe upon’ and spirare ‘to breathe’. Both the steeple of a church and the cone of a stupa may be seen as ‘pointing to’ a similar thing; the yearning, the aspiration to rise up out of ignorance into freedom. This aspiration is for true ‘life’ - to physically breathe the air, to spiritually breathe the truth.

Trees, rising above the earth are sometimes called ‘the lungs of the world’. The idea of rising up, of breathing, of life itself, of hoping and aspiring to something better, these are all part of the religious life.

A Buddhist stupa has many elements in its construction that help us reflect and recall the religious possibility we all have.

FORMED FROM THE EARTH

A stupa is made from elements of the earth, it ‘grows’ out of the ground. As a religious symbol its purpose is to reach, not only towards ‘heaven’ (in the broad sense of the religious achievement), but to help lift us beyond our animal nature, beyond the limitations of the sense realm. Enlightenment is about this going-beyond; it is about transcendence. The accompanying mind states of happiness, joy and freedom often have a feeling of lightness about them; there is a sense of ‘feeling high’, of being unburdened. This symbol of rising up, or being uplifted, is commonly found in religious speech and writing.