What Is a Mala?

A mala may be known as a beaded necklace which is used by monks to count their breaths, or, more accurately, to maintain focus while meditating.

How Does A Mala Work?

A Mala is a beaded necklace composed of 108 beads, divided into 4 sections. One bead is held between the meditator’s fingers to indicate one entire breath – in and out. After the out breath, the fingers move to the next bead, and the practitioner repeats that process.

This process is the perfect way to maintain focus on the meditation at hand.… When our mind wanders off, our fingers switch to another bead, and we come back to our focus.

The average meditation session lasts about 45 minutes, which accounts for 2 sections of those beads.

Dividing the sections are, “Focus Beads,” which are larger beads- different form the rest in size and texture, to bring the practitioner back to the original focus, or mantra, of the meditation. This is done because the mind easily wanders off and drifts throughout the meditation; so the larger beads remind the meditator to come back to the original focus.

Most meditators cannot sit for an entire session of the 108 beads.

One section is comprised of 27 beads, which usually takes about 27 minutes to get through. Two sections of beads usually equals 45 minutes of meditation.

Many Tibetan monks used Lotus seeds for their malas. Lotus seeds start out as white, and, overtime, they turn black from usage. That being said, anybody wearing a lotus seed mala which is Black is a very, very well conditioned practitioner!

The three bottom beads of the mala have more meaning, which I will describe at a later date.