Simple Buddhist Chant for Love & Awareness in Your Wedding Ceremony

Add this simple Buddhist chant to your wedding ceremony for a moment of loving awareness

 

 

 

A Buddhist wedding ceremony, much like a Buddhist marriage itself, is all about harmony, understanding, wholehearted awareness, and love. Wedding ceremonies celebrate what is, and what is to come in a couple’s life together.

 

Buddhist weddings in the U.S. blend the old and new together to seamlessly combine ancient traditions like chanting, meditation, and incense offerings, with contemporary readings, custom wedding vows, and epic dance battles. They are easily adapted to honor interfaith couples and their communities, because there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ choices or set ways of celebrating.

 

Related: How to perform a Buddhist wedding & what guests can expect

 

It’s this flexibility to combine local customs, personal tastes, and traditions that give Buddhist ceremonies a timeless and harmonious quality.

 

The simple chant below has been recited by dedicated practitioners and devotees for centuries. It embodies the Buddhist principles of patience, compassion, understanding, friendship, community, awareness, and love – which form the foundations of a joyful and lasting marriage. 
 

 

Incense offerings can be added to indoor or outdoor ceremonies to bring a moment of loving awareness and mindfulness to the newlyweds and guests

 

 

 

Buddhist Wedding Chant: 

Traditional Incense Offering 

 

 

In gratitude, we offer this incense 
throughout space and time 
to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. 

May it be fragrant as Earth herself, 
reflecting careful efforts 
wholehearted awareness 
and the fruit of understanding  
slowly ripening.  

May we and all beings  
be companions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. 
May we awaken from forgetfulness 
and realize our true home.  

 

 

 

See the full wedding ceremony script : 

• Contemporary Buddhist Wedding Ceremony Script with Discourse on Love

 

 

Hear a recording of this offering:

 

 

How to include this chant in your wedding ceremony: 

 

The wedding officiant sings or recites the chant at the start of the ceremony (the invocation), following the couple’s entrance (the procession) and three bells, as part of a traditional incense offering. 

 

After the officiant completes the incense offering and chant, they’ll read from Buddhist literature or another reading chosen by the couple. “The Discourse on Love” (translated by Thich Nhat Hanh) is a popular choice, but the couple can choose anything they like.

 

Next, the wedding officiant may say a few personal words on the nature of love and marriage, and their relationship with the couple, before moving on to the “I do’s” (the declaration of intent) and wedding vows. 

 

This chant is taken from a wedding officiant script written by Reverend Karla Johnston. Rev. Karla is an ordained member of the Order of Interbeing Community of Engaged Buddhism and American Marriage Ministries.

 

 

• Get ordained online with American Marriage Ministries and start officiating weddings today

 

 

See the full wedding ceremony script and outline in the AMM Ceremony Scripts Library here: 

 

 

 

Contemporary Buddhist Wedding Ceremony Script with Discourse on Love

 

 

 

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You might also like: 

 

• 30 Buddhist Quotes on Love & Happiness for Your Wedding Ceremony Script
   
• New script! Buddhist Wedding Ceremony with Mindfulness Meditation for Guests
   
• How to Officiate a Wedding For the First Time

 

 

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