Puja

Imagine a world without colour, beauty, poetry, myth, celebration, or ritual. Such a world would be a very dull, drab, dead world indeed. Such experiences are essential to human life; they cultivate our emotions, refine our sensesd, and enrich our imaginations...We cannot live in the the realm of rational thought alone. To feel fully and vibrantly alive, we must feel intouch with all the different aspects and levels of our being.

Buddhism is a spiritual tradition, and as such speaks to us inour wholeness.  Its various practices can help us to bring into being a harmonly of vody, speech and mind.  Theought it histoy therefore, amy forms of cermeonly ad ritual have been developed.  These range from the simplist recitation of a few verses to the most complec and lengthy rituals...

Ritual practices within the Buddhist tradition are referred to as puja, which means "devotional worship"...The recitation of verses is ften accompanied by the making of simple offerings that symblize both our gratitude to the Buddha fr the gift of his wise example and our determination to win through to that enlightened state. In addition to these verses, a puja often includes mantras...sound symbols of enlightenment.

(Extract taken from Introduction to PUJA, the triratna book of buddhism devotional texts, by Dhammadinna and Suvajra)