Tibetan Prayer Flags are colourful, rectangle cloths containing prayers and mantras. Often these prayers and mantras are repeated over and over again as a form of meditation. Putting them on flags and stringing them up is a way to bless an area. Found strung along mountain ridges and peaks high in the Himalayas, and stretching across the grounds of Buddhist monasteries, they flap in the wind and are believed to thus bless the area. The colours of the particular flag holds a meaning: blue for sky, white for cloud, red for fire, green for water and yellow for earth. The five colours represent the five directions, the five wisdoms, the five mental attributes and the five meditation Buddhas. It doesn't matter where you hang the flags, as long as they will respond to subtle shifts of the wind to carry your prayers as they slowly disintegrate.
