Round Gau Box Pendant with Buddha Eyes or Om

Across Tibet and the Himalayas, people have long worn a gau: a reliquary small enough to hang from a cord, an altar folded down to the size of a palm. It rides at the chest of herders, traders and pilgrims, under heavy coats and against bare skin, wherever the day leads.

Traditionally it holds what its wearer holds most dear: a tiny image of the Buddha pressed from clay, a mantra copied out by a teacher, a blessing thread, a pinch of earth from a holy place. Closed and carried, the gau has served for generations as an amulet of protection and a portable refuge, a way of keeping the sacred within reach on a journey and in ordinary hours alike.

If your pendant carries the Buddha eyes, it recalls the pair of eyes painted on the four sides of the great Himalayan stupas, gazing out in every direction at once. They are often called the wisdom eyes: the awakened mind that sees all things clearly, and looks on all of them with compassion. The curl between them is commonly read as the numeral one, a sign that all things are one and that there is a single path toward awakening.

If it carries Om, it holds the syllable that opens many of the best-known Tibetan mantras. Tibetan teachers often describe Om as three sounds joined into one, standing for our own body, speech and mind and for the pure body, speech and mind of a Buddha that practice slowly reveals.

If it carries the lotus, it bears a sign counted among the Eight Auspicious Symbols. Rooted in the mud of a pond yet opening unstained above the water, the lotus is a traditional image of a pure heart, and its open petals a picture of awakening in full bloom.

Whatever its face, every one is ringed by lotus petals, so the design sits at the center of a flower, the way a teaching rests at the center of the heart.

Place something of your own inside, or let it stay empty until you know what belongs there.