About Us
Meet the Mission team behind the World Peace Wind Prayerhwheels project
How it all started
We are Micha & Ayelet from Holyland Prayer wheels, living and crafting prayer wheels in Israel since 2009 and along with Dr. Lorne Ladner who is living and working from the USA we started this project together.
As prayer wheel makers living here in Israel, we had many requests for crafting prayer wheels that are not Buddhist but have other faith's prayers inside as many love the idea behind the prayer wheel but are more connected to other faiths. We of course asked for permission to craft such new holy objects and were given the permission to do so with much love. We then went to find the most authentic sources of all these different prayers and to put them into our prayer wheels for other faiths. At some point we got the request to make a World Peace Prayer Wheel and to combine all these different prayers we have collected along with the Buddhist mantras we have and a new prayer wheel was born! One that unites us all! Unites all of our holy prayers and mantras together, sending out as it spins a unified frequency of love, of oneness.
We were in contact with Dr. Lorne Ladner from the very early start back in 2009 and he contacted us back in November of 2023 and suggested that we make our interfaith world peace prayer wheels and spread them all over Israel at a time of war to unite the people of different faiths who want to live in peace. We of course took his advice and started working!
This is our best of all intentions put into a physical object meant only to unite our separation. These new wind powered interfaith world peace prayer wheels have only one goal, and that is to spin and spread all of our holiest of words spoken over time from realized human beings, and to unite us all in one goal, world peace.
Micha Strauss and Ayelet Cohen
Micha & Ayelet are the people behind Holyland Prayerhweels. They are prayerwheel makers since 2009 and live in Israel.
When we first met H.E. Garchen Rinpoche in Israel back in November of 2008 we fell in love with Rinpoche and his prayer wheel.
We immediately had a very strong urge to craft prayer wheels without and apparent reason... after all i have no background in wood working or any inclination to wood turning but something clicked and we had to do this. After months of studying this craft and receiving the blessings from our teachers we started to craft Buddhist prayer wheels for the world.
Not long after that we started to receive requests to craft prayer wheels for other faiths, after all we live in Israel.
Dr Lorne Ladner, PhD
"Buddhism asserts that a good, happy life is determined not by anything external but rather by the quality of our minds and hearts in each moment of life. Regardless of what we do or don't do externally, a life spent cultivating wisdom and compassion is a good life." — Dr. Lorne Ladner, Ph.D., The Lost Art of Compassion: Discovering The Practice Of Happiness In The Meeting Of Buddhism And Psychology.
Dr. Ladner is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Centreville, VA
Dr. Ladner also provides workshops and trainings on the psychology of positive emotions, the integration of meditation and psychotherapy, and on Buddhist psychology.
He is the author of a number of books and articles including The Lost Art of Compassion: Discovering The Practice Of Happiness In The Meeting Of Buddhism And Psychology (HarperCollins, 2004). He also edited Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Jampa's book The Easy Path: Illuminating The First Panchen Lama's Secret Instructions (Wisdom Publications, 2013) and (also by Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche) A Detailed Commentary on the Practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa (ebook, FPMT, forthcoming in 2024).
“A Detailed Commentary on the Practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa “ by Gyume Khenzur Rinpoche, compiled and edited by me and published by FPMT , copyright 2025.
Dr. Lorne Ladner, Ph.D., previously served as director of The Guhyasamaja Center for nearly 25 years. At the center, he has also led meditations, retreats, and interfaith events and has taught a range of topics related to Buddhist philosophy, psychology and practice including FPMT’s Discovering Buddhism and Basic Program curricula.
Dr. Ladner began studying Buddhist meditation over 35 years ago. Over the years, he has studied Tibetan Buddhism closely with some of the greatest living Tibetan masters and with numerous leading Western scholars. He was a student of the late Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche for many years, and was also a close student of the late Kyabje Ribur Rinpoche. In recent years, he's been studying closely with Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Jampa.
Dr. Ladner has also taught Buddhist meditation and practice for many years at various meditation centers around the country. He has taught workshops on using meditation in integration with psychotherapy — especially for evoking positive emotions such as compassion — at venues including Omega Institute, Tibet House, The New York Open Center, and the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. He also teaches workshops on these subjects for clinicians.
In addition to his Ph.D. in psychology (from Pacifica Graduate Institute), Dr. Ladner has also earned a B.A. with high honors in Religious Studies (from Wesleyan University) and an M.A. in non-fiction writing (from the University of New Hampshire). Other books by him include Bridges of Compassion: Insights And Interventions In Developmental Disabilities, co-authored with Alex Campbell and published in 1999 by Jason Aronson, Inc., and The Wheel Of Great Compassion: The Practice Of The Prayer Wheel In Tibetan Buddhism, published by Wisdom Publications in 2000. He also produced a video on integrating mindfulness meditation with psychotherapy published in 2006 by the American Psychological Association Press, entitled Mindful Therapy.
Many voices, many faiths together with common aspirations….
Sometimes our differences of faith or ethnicity are used to foster a sense of distance, suspicion, anger or hatred between people. This peace wheel project arises from a view that at the core of all of our faiths are wishes for peace, love and compassion. The world peace wheel is intended as a symbol and practice for bringing people of varied faiths together in a spirit of mutual respect and compassion to express our common wish for peace. We are initiating the project in Israel during a time of war as a reminder that in such times, the need for recognition of our common humanity and shared wishes for peace are particularly important. Our hope is to gradually build more such interfaith peace wheels all around the planet.
A photo of the outdoor peace wheel in GBI in Arizona
Tibetan culture has a long tradition of building “jewel wheels,” with the word “jewel” standing for compassion, as compassion is considered to be most precious. Such wheels were long built throughout central Asia, filled with the mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, which means that by practicing a path that unifies compassion and wisdom, we can transform ourselves and the world. The wider our circle of compassion, the more it helps at bringing peace.
World peace wheels will include those mantras from the Buddhist tradition as well as prayers for peace, love and compassion from as many different world religions and faiths as possible—including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Baha'i, and many other traditions including those of Indigenous peoples from various parts of the planet. The first peace wheel in Israel (where the clip in the home page and on the bottom of this page was shot) will be located atop a hill overlooking the Mediterranean sea to the west, the Carmel mountain to the north, Nazareth to the East and central Tel Aviv to the south. It will be part of a peace garden, and people of any background or faith will be welcome to come and connect with peace and with the many voices in many languages whose prayers and wishes expressing love are inside the wheel. The wheel will be designed to be turned by hand. So, one will be able to turn it as you yourself pray for peace, feeling that your own wishes are connected with the loving and peaceful aspirations of others all around the planet!
How you can help
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Donate any amount large or small to the creation of the peace wheel in Israel and the world.
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Share about this project with others you know.(Part of our wish is for as many different people as possible to get involved whether in large or small ways).
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Consider initiating the building of a peace wheel in your own community. We’ll be happy to share our information and resources with you to help!
Lern more about the project
These new wind powered prayerhweels contain immense powerful prayers and mantras. Lern more about them here.
Or go back to the World Peace Wind Prayerhwheels