Our Origins

From Wood Carving in Sanming to Thangka in Tibet — Our Journey of Heart & Craft

I was born in Sanming, a city surrounded by mountains. The people here have worked with wood for generations.

As a child, I watched old craftsmen in my village turn blocks of wood into bodhisattvas, lions, and ornate window carvings with nothing but a chisel. The quiet understanding between hand and wood — I can't explain it, but it moved me deeply.

After graduation, I went into wood carving. Every day, I worked with chisels, wood, and sandpaper. Back then, I already felt that a craftsman’s whole life is really about just one thing — making what he makes as well as he possibly can.

In 2019, I got married. Soon after, my wife and I decided to go to Tibet for our honeymoon.

We went to Gyantse.

It’s a small town cradled by snowy mountains, where prayer flags crackle in the wind. We carried our camera and wandered the old streets. And on one of those streets, I stopped in my tracks.

An elderly man sat cross-legged on a low wooden stool. Across his lap lay an unfinished thangka. He was painting the face of Green Tara with an impossibly fine brush — later I learned it's called a "single-hair brush," with just a few bristles. Each stroke was finer than a strand of hair.

His hands were rough. But they were impossibly steady.

I moved closer. He looked up and smiled.

I asked him, through gestures and a few words: "How long have you been doing this?"

His name was Tsering. Sixty-two years old. He held up his fingers. "Since I was seven. My father taught me. And his father taught him."

Next to him, a younger man was stringing beads — dzi beads, one by one, twisting the cord with his fingers. His name was Dorje. He was Tsering's apprentice. No machines. No assembly line. Just decades of feel in his fingertips.

I looked around. There were others on that street — thangka painters, bead polishers, knot weavers. Their skills had been passed down for centuries, but no one knew their names. They sat by the roadside, waiting for passing tourists to bargain with. When wholesalers came, they pushed the prices painfully low.

That night, I lay in our guesthouse bed, wide awake.

My wife asked me: "What's wrong?"

I said: "What if we could help them?"

"Help them how?"

"What if we could sell their work to the outside world? Not at low prices. Not with them sitting on the street. And what if we put their names on it? What if we told their stories, too?"

She thought for a moment. Then she said: "Then let's do it. "

That was the beginning of Boddhi Energy.

We went back to Tsering and Dorje. Not to offer charity — to talk about partnership. We asked them: "What do you really need? "

They didn't ask for money. They asked for steady orders and fair prices.

Today, we work with a small community of artisans in Rebkong. Tsering paints thangkas. Dorje strings malas. Others do silver work or tie Tibetan knots. Some have been practicing their craft for over forty years. Their hands are calloused. But the Tara they paint still looks out with eyes full of compassion.

Every mala you receive is hand-strung. Every thangka pendant you take home is hand-painted. The knot bracelet on your wrist was tied by hands that learned the skill as children — taught by their fathers, who learned from theirs.

I worked in wood carving for years. I know what an artisan's hands look like. I know how many passes of sandpaper it takes to make wood smooth. And I know that what craftsmen fear most isn't hard work. It's having no work at all.

What we sell was never made on an assembly line.

What we sell is skill passed down through generations.

Every time you wear a Boddhi Energy mala, or hang a thangka in your sacred space, you're not just decorating yourself or your home.

You're helping Tsering and Dorje. You're helping them off the street and out of the bargaining.

You're helping an old craft survive for one more generation.

This is the energy we believe in.

With gratitude,
Mr. & Mrs. Boddhi Energy