Some Examples
When offering a cup of tea, filling until the edge. And ensuring it’s always filled.
When half-dreaming, that sensation of rapidly falling down, that produces scare-jump is seen to be a bad omen.
When passing the broom when sweeping to another person, not giving it from hand to hand, but placing it at the floor first.
བླ་གཡུ་ is a amulet with a turquoise stone that protects spiritual force (བླ་). As opposed to སྲོག་ (physical life force), you can still live physically without བླ་ but not in a comfortable or healthy way: you might have mental afflictions or obstacles.
A piece of dough is passed around the body to absorb the negativities and then pressed with the hand and disposed. I remember at the monastery a friend doing it, I would then have asked him to pass me the dough and he told me “No! This already has the negativities, you must use a clean one”. I wasn’t aware!
ལོ་གསར་ཚེས་པ་གཅིག་ལ་དངུལ་འགྲོ་སོང་བཏང་ན་ལོ་ཆ་ཚང་དངུལ་མང་པོ་འགྲོ་སོང་གཏོང་གི་རེད་ཟ། That’s another reasons why shops are closed on the first day of Losar: to prevent people from having lots of expenses later onto the year.
When someone manifests, shows up, when talking about him/her it’s said that person will have a long life!
Internal and External Perception
When doing kora the wrong way (སྐོར་ལོག་རྒྱག་པ་) it’s not only about the internal perception you are doing it “wrong” but also the affect of other people seeing it do like that. So there’s external as well as internal factors when it comes to superstition.
Conceptual Thought and Superstition
རྣམ་ཏོག་ refers to conceptual thought, and in Buddhist it has a slight negative connotation but not as much as རྣམ་ཏོག་ཚ་པོ་ which carries a stronger meaning supersition.
Blind Faith
The Dalai lama many a times speaks about not following faith blindly; to always be critical and examine. For this he uses the word རྨོངས་དད་, which might translate to stupid faith, blind faith, unfounded faith