June 2010
1 post
Three Statements That Strike The Essence
Verse I: Recognize your own true nature (The Base) “This fresh immediate awareness of the present moment, transcending all thoughts related to the three times (past, present, future), is itself that primordial awareness or knowledge (ye-shes) that is self- originated intrinsic awareness (rig-pa).”
Verse II: Choose the state of presence (The Path) “Whatever phenomena of Samsara or Nirvana may...
April 2010
2 posts
March 2010
3 posts
The Three Vajra States
On the morning of March 17, 1714, Chögyal Terdag Lingpa said, “I must take seven steps toward the East”. He then rose and after walking seven steps, sat down cross-legged and, as his Last Testament, said:
“Appearance, sound and awareness are deity, mantra and dharmakaya, Infinitely pervasive as the display of the kayas and primordial wisdom. May practitioners of the great,...
The Dakinis
There are to be seen countless dakinis: some of them have eyes that dart out sun rays; others give rise to thunderclaps and ride water buffaloes; others hold sabres and have eyes which inflict harm; others wear death’s heads one above the other and ride tigers; others wear corpses and ride lions; others eat entrails and ride garudas; others have flaming lances and ride jackals;...
February 2010
6 posts
Thunderbolt III
“If his horned headdress is similar in meaning to examples found in Mesopotamia and Iran, the figure may be divine. The arrow-shaped forms emerging from his shoulders and under his arm may represent snakes or lightning bolts.” Central Asia (Bactria-Margiana), c. 1000 bce
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Thunderbolt II
Thunderbolt Pendant, Italic Amber 5th century bce
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Thunderbolt
Adad, Assyrian storm god 7th c. bce
One of the earliest depictions of a stylized thunderbolt which will eventually be wielded by Indra in Vedanta, and Vajrapani (among others) in Buddhism. Indra rides a grey elephant (storm clouds) akin to Adad’s bull.
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Thunder from the Great Conquering Battle-Drum
Always frolicking in pristine cognition, The pure, unchanging, peaceful expanse, Where there is no trace of elaboration, May the unequalled Guru conquer the world!
The sun of all-knowing pristine cognition alone is never obscured by elaboration:
May he protect us, for he sheds a thousand rays of spiritual and temporal well-being on the illusory city of the world, which arises dependent on...
January 2010
14 posts
Five Niyamas
“It’s all karma.” When looking at world events, as well as experiences closer to home, does that line ever sound a bit trite or too simplistic an explanation to be meaningful? You might want to hear what the Buddha said about it. According to Buddhism, there are five relatively independent orders or processes (niyama) which operate in the physical and mental realms, among...
The Main Verses of the Six Bardos
Now when the bardo of birth is dawning upon me, I will abandon laziness for which life has no time, enter the undistracted path of study, reflection and meditation, making projections and mind the path, and realize the three kayas; now that I have once attained a human body, there is no time on the path for the mind to wander.
Now when the bardo of dreams is dawning upon me, I will abandon the...
December 2009
20 posts
ONE GROUND, TWO PATHS
“O Vajra Realization! If you think that he who is called the heart essence of all buddhas, the Primordial Lord, the noble Victorious One, Kuntuzangpo is contained in a mindstream separate from the oceanlike realm of sentient beings, then this is a nihilistic view in which the connection between samsara and nirvana remains unconnected. Also sentient beings would be without the seed of...
Nonviolence and Culture →
Rigdzin Jigme Lingpa, a great yogi of the Nyingma tradition stated, “Just as in the story of Arya Katayana going to beg for food, I see that the animal which this meat must have come from was our mother in earlier lives. If so, can we eat our own mother’s flesh that was slaughtered by butchers? Imagine how much concern would arise! Therefore, if we concentrate honestly, there is no way we...
An Older Unity
And the deepest level of communication is not communication but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear brothers, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.
~ Thomas Merton
Patria
Herding and breeding of animals signaled a basic alteration in the relationship of humans to other life forms. It set into motion one of the true revolutions in human history. Until herding, humans depended on nature for the reproductive powers of the animal world. With the advent of herding, humans assumed the functions which had for all time been the functions of the spirits of the animals....
The most basic responsibility of the Hotinonshonni is to celebrate and sustain this relationship with the sacred through the annual ceremonial cycle, which starts with the Midwinter Ceremony - ‘the time when all things are new again’ - and moves through a series of ten more seasonal dances and rituals. The aim of the cycle is not directly to solicit spiritual help - the Iroquois,...
November 2009
19 posts
Sand Creek Massacre
NOV 29 1864 Col. Chivington and his volunteer militia descend on the Indians camped at Sand Creek on the plains east of Denver, killing 133 Cheyenne and Arapahoe, 105 of them women and children. Chief Black Kettle and his wife manage to escape but both will be killed by Custer’s troops on the Washita in Oklahoma under very similar circumstances four years hence.
Striking the Heart of the Essence
Before his death, Garab Dorje imparted his last testament to Manjushrimitra. These three precepts, known as the Three Words that Strike to the Heart of the Essential Point or Tsig Sum Nèdek (Tibetan: tshig gSum gNad brDeg) summarize the whole of the Dzogchen teachings:
One is introduced directly to one’s true nature or “Direct introduction.”
One attains certainty about this...