Mo: Tibetan Dice Oracle

Arcadia

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About this app

Mo is the Tibetan word for divination: putting a question and reading the answer from a sign. This app follows the dice method tied to Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva of wisdom. A die carries six syllables of his mantra, A RA PA TSA NA DHĪ, and it is thrown twice.

ASK AND THROW
• Type your question, or simply hold it in mind.
• Shake the phone or press the button. The first throw is the ground: where the matter stands. The second is the turn: where it is going.
• A question you have already cast today shows the answer it had. Asking again because the first answer was unwelcome is not how mo is read; a new day is a new chance.

THIRTY-SIX ANSWERS
Every ordered pair of syllables has its own answer, and A then DHĪ is not the same as DHĪ then A.
• A title, a reading and one line of counsel.
• A tone, from Bright to Turbulent, worked out from the two syllables by a rule the app explains in full.
• Short answers on eight everyday matters: the matter asked, home and family, work and wealth, friends and partners, obstacles and disputes, travel and visitors, something lost, health and rest.
• A question to take with you.
• A verse of the Dhammapada in F. Max Müller's translation of 1881.

THE SIX FACES
Each syllable has its own page: the Tibetan letter, the old gloss it carries in the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, and what it means as the first throw and as the second. All thirty-six answers can be browsed on one grid, coloured by tone, and searched by word, pair or verse.

TO READ
Short articles on Mañjuśrī and his sword, the six syllables, dice at a Lama's belt in the nineteenth century, painted divination tables and seeds, the rosary as a second way of asking, how to put a question, and how this app reads two throws. The historical passages quote Emil Schlagintweit's Buddhism in Tibet (1863) and Kern's Lotus Sutra (1884), word for word.

YOUR RECORD
• Every cast with its question, and how your answers have fallen across the tones.
• Private notes on any answer.
• A home screen widget with today's cast, or the pair of the day before you ask.
• An optional daily reminder, off until you turn it on.
• Share an answer as an image: the syllables, the counsel and the verse. Never your question.

The readings are written for this app and say so; they are not a translation of any traditional manual of mo. Müller's verses are given as he printed them. Your questions, casts and notes stay on your device.

Free to install, with ads. A single one-time purchase removes them. Everything else is free.