Buddhists do not worship idols

I as well as many other people was shocked when the 6th century monumental statues of standing Buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamwam Valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan were destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar after the Taliban government declared that they were idols.

Muslims are against idol worship. They, as well as others who do not understand Tibetan Buddhism, call Buddhists idol worshipers.

Buddhists do not worship idols. 

The art of Tibetan Buddhism especially is rich with imagery of many beings. Tibetan iconography is chock-full of symbolic imagery developed from Indian tantra and early Bon.  I am not going to speak of the minutia of Tibetan iconography here as there are great articles that can be found via an internet search that go into great detail. 

These beings represented in Tibetan Buddhist paintings and statues are either depictions of  historical persons, such as Padmasambhava, who is called the second historical Buddha, or others of the many who reached Buddha realization, as Yeshe Tsogyal did.  Marpa, Milarepa, Atisha, Mandarava are all historical people shown in regal garb symbolic of their achievements and station.  

Or, the beings depicted in paintings and statues are representative of principles that speak to aspects of our true being, our enlightened nature. 

Such as Tara, shown sitting on a lotus, her hand outstretched her foot poised in action to assist all who call upon her.  She is the mother of all the Buddhas.  She represents the principle of compassion.  All enlightened beings are born of compassion.

Avalokisvara, Chenrezig, is also a depiction of compassion, with a thousand arms, each having an compassionate eye in the center seeking out those in need with many hands to aid.

Kwan Yin  is the female form of Avalokishvara and the Chinese form of Tara.  She is the compassionate Mother who answers all who call upon her for aid.

These three above represent the principle of ourselves as Bodhisattva aiding us in dispelling those negative or troublesome aspects within ourselves that stand in the way of our realization of our true nature. 

Sarasvati means the one who gives the essence (Sara) of our own self (Swa).  She is the power of memory, the power of knowledge.  Her form represents intelligence, the power of intellect, the power of forming ideas.  She is the principle of our creative nature that is our intelligence and that produces all the arts: music, painting, sculpture, dance, and writing.

Manjushri, the principle of wisdom, holds aloft a great sword in one hand that cuts through delusion.  In the other hand he holds the texts of the teachings that show the way.

Vajrasattva, the principle of purification, purifying one of negative karma.  Lustrous white light emanates from his heart center as a mantra spins, each syllable casting light out that engulfs the world and all in it.

The wrathful-looking beings are in most cases wrathful forms of a peaceful principle.  The principle of using strong forces within ourselves to overcome negative and evil influences, which peaceful means cannot conquer.

Like Mahakala, the fierce and powerful emanation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion.  In some cases one needs a wrathful means to guide and protect the individual practitioner from all kinds of deception and delusion and to bestow the power to overcome life struggles and to eliminate one’s obstacles and any impediment that hinders.

Yamantaka, the principle of protection of a Buddhist practitioner against evil influences, reminding them to destroy passion and evil in themselves.

And of course there is the depiction of Buddha Sakyamuni, the symbol of our enlightened true nature.

There is an old saying attributed to the Ninth century Buddhist master Lin Chi, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”  

He said this because Buddha is not outside yourself, it is your nature, awakened.  His teachings explicitly instruct one that it is a mistaken idea to misunderstand imagery and forms as idols for worship.  

It is a mistaken idea that Buddhists worship idols.  Rather through the use of art in imagry, song in mantras and dance as in ancient movement yoga, Buddhists use that which speaks to our true nature for the purpose of awakening.

What are Terma? My musings...

The Tibetan word, terma, literally means “treasure” and refers to Buddhist or Bon scriptures and relics retrieved from the distant past through a process of revelation. There are two types of termas: earth terma, discovered in the Tibetan and Himalayan landscape, like the Bonpo texts found in caves at Mustang in Nepal, and mind terma, discovered in the mind of the terton or “treasure revealer.” 

This later type might be hard to accept as being true.  Did the "revealer" make it up in his or her mind?  How can a treasure text be found in “mind space”? 

Dodrup Tenpai Nyima has said that for beings to be able to reveal termas, they must have at least the realization of the "perfection stage" practices.  Yet the originator of the treasure, like Yeshe Tsogyal, must have the attainment of a Buddha.

OK, I am writing this for those of you who have read my novel or will read my novel and have not known of Yeshe Tsogyal and are not very familiar with Tibetan Buddhism.  For those reading who are familiar with and maybe practice Tibetan Buddhism, I will say here that I am just an ordinary person sharing my musings.

My musing of this latter type of terma is that it is a mystery.  Yeshe Tsogyal's biography is too detailed to have been made up.  What it shows me is that we live in a very small world; our ordinary minds. The internet, Netflix, and yes novels, make it seem larger.  But it is still very small.  We educated modern people are missing something very large, immense in fact, that we walk right along side in every moment yet never see; our true being or true nature; reality.  I say walk alongside, though of course this is not separate from us. 

 Some think that ancient people were more connected to true being because of their everyday co-habitation with nature. Yet, they had their own distractions. Dealing with marauders and the many battles and wars, growing and obtaining food, building shelter, finding cures for sickness, could not have been easy.  And then there was also superstition, greed, hatred and delusion.  

Mmm, I guess not much has changed.

I have always been amazed when I have been in the wilderness  camping how much time is spent just to do ordinary things, like get warm in front of a fire, make a meal, make shelter, wash clothes; takes most of  my time when there.  

But don't get me wrong here...we need to be able to be in nature and we have to protect our wild places and keep them free and open for us to go there and live there if we choose.

From our view looking back in history, their lives may seem as simpler in one aspect, no busy freeways and technology.  Yet as technology has both freed us in some respects, it has also filled up our time too.   

Sometimes we who follow these teachings and methods will get a glimpse of a aspect of this true being, of our true nature, on the meditation cushion.  Or, we will have a flash or glimpse when not on the cushion but doing something else after our practice.  But it is gone in an instant.  Inspired, we grasp and grasp trying to get that glimpse again.  But then that is the problem isn't it?   

I have been very fortunate to have been to several retreats with a brilliant man and teacher, he will hate my saying this as he is very modest, Steven Tainer who teaches at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery. Steven points out that the ordinary mind can never experience true being. (my term)  He just encourages his students to keep making a gesture through the methods, this will allow one glimpses.  These then must not be grasped, simply appreciated, then make another gesture and maybe another glimpse will come.  When that happens you go over to it and greet it, you don’t drag it to “you”; I am paraphrasing here. 

 Maybe the mind will rest and thinking will cease for an instant...wow it stopped "I did it!" whoops another thought?  It is so elusive. The ordinary mind that sits on the cushion trying to stop thinking can never stop thinking.  

A skilled teacher will guide one through all of this if one chooses to seek this reality we are missing. These traditional teachers sit on high cushions surrounded by flowers.  Yet, it is not the person who is revered in an egoic sense, I think that would be to misunderstand.  They share the teachings, it is the teachings that help people that is placed on the high cushion and is surrounded with flowers. Of course we appreciate and are grateful to those who have understood the teachings, realized truth and share their knowledge guiding others through the maze solely for the benefit of others. 

It was a beautiful sunset last night. Sublime clouds with lavender and pinks with deep reds here and there, the sky many shades of blue.  

Mmm, good coffee this morning, I hope you have a great day.  Breath...yum

An author's morning

I like to write early in the morning.  I get my coffee and toast with almond butter and fruit jam and yogurt with honey...yum.. and sit down at my computer in my shrine room/writing room.

My desk is set in front of a large window with a south facing view over the foothills cascading down in ridges of lesser elevation toward the central valley.  The view to  the east of our house, which can't be seen out of this window in front of my desk, is the Badger valley rising up to Big Baldy, the focus of this impressive scene.

Big Baldy is a Half Dome like rock in Sequoia National Forest. It always impresses me that beyond the view I see toward the east, beyond Big Baldy, a hawk could fly over forty miles of mountain wilderness, over Mt. Whitney to the desert.

If we saddled up our horses, Sherkai and Khiya, and take along a pack mule to ride over the mountain wilderness, it would be more like one hundred miles weaving  through forests and up steep switchback trails over granite passes, past lakes and down again only to climb up over another pass.  When I spread out the map of the wilderness comprising Sequoia National Forest, Sequoia National & Kings Canyon on my table and look at a trail to hike for a day, an inch is five miles. Beyond that inch is mountain vastness, it would take many days to cross it, maybe more.

To the west of our little ranch are more foothills, coyote and bobcat trails cut through the tall golden grass of summer on the hillside.

There are no lights at night except for the moon and stars. We spend each evening at the end of the day sitting out overlooking the vast open view and gazing up at the stars and the moon.  I feel it is very important to be able to see the stars, it reminds me of the truth of where I am; on a planet spinning in the unknowable.

I love listening to the coyotes call to each other from one end of the valley to the other, each has his and her own unique voice.

So, I like to write early in the morning when I am still a bit in dream state, or not so far from it.  I am very mentally visual at this time...so it is my best time to see the scenes that I write down.  That is really it... I see what is happening in the story and I write it down.  I also do not question what I choose to write in the scene,  I just start writing.  I can always change something later...yay, word programs.  ( I say this because I am old enough to remember typewriters)  Then throughout the day I will reflect on what I wrote and perhaps something will occur to me like... he would not have said that or she would have more likely done this, etc.  The next morning I will go over the previous days writing and make those type of changes.

I focus on getting the story written down, then I can flesh it out, with descriptions, clothes, sounds, smells, etc later.  I do not question my choices, I do not muddy up my creativity that way.  Of course a chapter can begin a hundred ways, why this way? Why not?  I don't confuse myself that way, I trust myself to tell the story. Later the characters help by making themselves known...yes that really does happen...it is a mystery.

Ok, well I was going to do a short bit about when I write and then talk about terma teachings...but I think this is enough for this morning.  Google "terma teachings".  I don't want to cut and paste what they are..next post I will write a bit about these.

 Mmm, good coffee..have a great day.  

Breath, you are alive.  Feel your feet.

A Bodhisattva story

I was fortunate to be able to study Tibetan, Vajrayana, Buddhism with the Venerable Chhoje Tulku Rinpoche as my teacher in Fairfax California in the early 90's.

  

A short background of Rinpoche...

Chumur Monastery is the seat of the Venerable Chhoje Rinpoche. Located in an extremely remote area of Ladakh, India, it is situated on the northern border close to Tibet, standing at an altitude of 15,500 feet and surrounded by the snowy Himalaya and Karakoram ranges.  It is protected by India so is accessible by Rinpoche.  Rinpoche's family fled Tibet during the Mao Communist Chinese invasion in the late 50's. Rinpoche was educated in a British run boarding school. As well as educated by his Buddhist teachers from the age of 5 years old.

Rinpoche used to tell great stories...Bodhisattva stories.  A Bodhisattva is similar to a saint in the Christian tradition.  Google Bodhisattva for a more in depth definition...

A Bodhisattva wandered into this village. In the village was a woman who's husband had died. She was so distraught that she carried his thigh bone around, retrieving it from the sky burial ground, and she's talking to it,washing it, feeding it, as though he were still alive; she had gone completely mad.  

The Bodhisattva, wanting to help her, went to the burial ground and found a thigh bone and started hanging around the woman, sitting near her as he talked to his bone, washing it, feeding it,  just like she did with her husband's bone.

Eventually she notices this guy sitting and talking with his bone and he begins to chat with her, introducing her to his wife..the bone.  

They start to hangout together talking to each other and their bones, washing their bones; on and on.

In this way the Bodhisattva builds a relationship with this woman.  

One night they were camped by a river beside the village. While the woman was sleeping the Bodhisattva eased her bone from her arms and took his bone and threw both of them into the river. 

When morning came he shook her awake. 

"Wake up!" he shouted. 

She rose groggy from sleep.

"What?" she asked. 

"Something terrible has happened," he said. 

She noticed her bone was gone. She rose to her feet, frantically she searched for it. 

The Boddhisattva said, "Your husband and my wife have run off together and left us both!"

Shocked by her husband's betrayal she began to regain her sanity and eventually was healed.

Yeshe Tsogyal

Yeshe Tsogyal was a Princess in a small kingdom of many small kingdoms unified under Emperor Trisong Detsen in Tibet in the 8th century.  The history is, of course, more complex than this.  But I want to tell about why I wrote the novel...not give a history lesson.

There are books written about Yeshe Tsogyal, translated from a secret biography narrated and concealed by Yeshe Tsogyal herself. It was revealed by Terton Drime Kunga in Central Tibet in 14th century.  It was a terma text..I will write about these in another post.  

Her narration of her experience, her journey to enlightenment, is on a more esoteric level focusing on inner experiences and visions rather than conventional sequence of events in this text.
When I began my journey into Tibetan Buddhism, Vajrayana, I was very interested in the actual people in history that had traveled the path; I was interested in their life stories. 

So when I came upon the books that had translated the text written by this Princess I was enthralled. I have read every translation published of her account of her life. That was years ago in the 90's. They are very mystical and symbolic accounts of her life.

After reading and listening to many books on tape of historical fiction novels over the past years I decided I wanted to write an historical fiction account of her story from the viewpoint of a girl, grown into a woman, walking the earth. A real person having to get from here to there. A person with parents, friends and foes.  What her journey would look like from feet planted on the earth and in the context of what was happening in Tibet in that time in history; the swirl of life around her.  

I wanted to tell her story in a way that would be interesting to those people who are not particularly interested in Buddhism, people who would never pick up one of those books translated from the Tibetan text she wrote.  I want people to know about her, that there was a woman Buddha.

And for those people familiar with her and Buddhism, I felt it would be a nice change to read of this historical person in a novel, bringing her to life.

So for four years, having an hour before work every morning, I wrote her story.
It is now published and available on Amazon.  "Princess of Wisdom”