Sounds and images of the Bodhisattva of Absolution, Vajrasattva, who represents the highest state of the enlightened mind

As described by the video's producer, Euterpe Jones, this is a "[s]hort Tibetan Buddhist meditation video based on the Hundred Syllable Mantra of Vajrasattva. I realize its inclusion may be objectionable to some, based on the controversy caused by Google's deal with China. I say, all the more reason why this video should be here. This video shows various Thangkas of Vajrasattva while we hear the venerable Hundred Syllable Mantra of Vajrasattva. Vajrasattva grants absolution to the penitent, and a fully enlightened mind to the sincere aspirant."

This video is the mantra of Vajrasattva sung by Dechen Shak-Dagsa

THERE'S A 20% CHANCE WE ARE ALL JUST A VIRTUAL SIMULATION

The Nechung Kuten, Venerable Thupten Ngodup (Medium of the State Oracle of Tibet)

The Venerable Thupten Ngodup was in Los Angeles this weekend. I was present at two of the events. One involved a cross-discussion with a Messenger of the Mayan Nation. The other was a Long Life White Tara initiation and empowerment.

This easily is and will remain one of my most significant life experiences! Thanks, Nechung Kuten!



The Medium of the Oracle of Tibet is in the United States RIGHT NOW!

The Diamond Sutra (Recited)

Just to play and listen to the audio of the Diamond Sutra (i.e., teaching) is to accumulate inconceivable, immeasurable merit for the pacification of one's karma and one's enlightenment. As well, to play and listen to the audio of the Diamond Sutra is to accumulate inconceivable, immeasurable merit for the pacification of the karma of all sentient beings and their enlightenment. This audio makes for an excellent meditation. It is 38 minutes long.

This sutra has a distinct Zen flavor and is a favorite sutra among Zen Buddhists.

"The Diamond Sutra" in Wikipedia

The Song of the Bodhisattva Ratnapani

Ratnapani, the Bodhisattva and Spiritual
Emanation of the Buddha Ratnasambhava

The musicality of being is the harmonious wind of a warm evening
It is the jewel of contentment, the shining light of happiness.
Like children playing on a seashore, in the fresh summer air,
So do I shine with the joy of sharing, and the wealth of peace

One may strive forever, never satisfied or happy
Struggling, toiling, never at rest
Or he may realize that all which he may possibly want
Awaits him within, and all around him
His vision is swelled, for it is all beautiful
And his heart is radiant

I am the way station of fertile land in the desert
The golden treasure that bids man to stay,
The sunlight which drives away storms
I hold the promise of a warm dinner or a lazy afternoon
A long embrace beneath lilacs
A cat dozing underneath the porch
A long stretch upon awakening

There is no need for violence and vicious refusal
Nor of endless waste and suffering
Call upon me, and I give you the gift
Of peace and satisfaction, and clear smiles
Do not slash yourselves with razors, that only what you like this week may remain
Nor freeze and burn, kill others or yourself
Why take a thousand miserable ways to Emptiness
When my way is full and pleasant, without strife?

Rest and relax, give and receive
Share and be renewed, while the problems of old
Drop as dry leaves in the spring.

"the 'certain' Lama"

Khandro Déchen and Ngak'chang Rinpoche
Monterey, California, 1994

"the 'certain' Lama", a transcript of teachings on the five certainties, apprentice retreat – the 19th of March, 1993
by Ngak’chang Rinpoche



The Aro gTér Lineage
The Aro gTér is a stream of Vajrayana Buddhism in which ordination is congruous with romance, marriage, and family life. It focuses on the teaching and practice of the Inner Tantras from the point of view of Dzogchen, an essential non-dual teaching.

It's not about others

It is not the shortcomings of others, nor what others have done or not done that one should think about, but what one has done or not done oneself.
The Dhammapada, Verse 50

Overcoming Death Mandala

from "the art of asia," minneapolis institute of arts:

Yamantaka Mandala (Overcoming Death Mandala)

A mandala, or circle, is a representation of the Buddhist universe. These cosmograms represent in symbolic color, line, and geometric forms, all realms of existence and are used in Tantric meditation and initiation rites. The creation of a mandala, considered a consecrated area, is believed to benefit all beings.

This is the Yamantaka mandala, a cosmic blueprint of the celestial palace of the deity Yamantaka, Conqueror of Death, who is represented at the center by the blue vajra, or thunderbolt. It consists of a series of concentric bands, the outermost representing eight burial grounds with a recognizable landscape and animals symbolizing our earthly plane of existence. Moving inward are a circle of flames, a circle of vajras, and a circle of lotus petals. These bands circumscribe a quadrangle with gates at the four compass points, suggesting the realm of form without desire. The innermost square is divided into triangular quadrants, and an inner circle is subdivided into nine units containing symbols representing various deities. This is the realm of absolute formlessness and perfect bliss. In the four outside corners are the attributes of the five senses (smell, sight, sound, taste, and touch), reminders of the illusory nature of our perceived reality.

All mandalas represent an invitation to enter the Buddha's awakened mind. Tibetan Buddhists believe there is a seed of enlightenment in each person's mind; this is uncovered by visualizing and contemplating a mandala. The complex symbols and exquisite combination of primary colors are considered a pure expression of the principles of wisdom and compassion that underlie Tantric Buddhist philosophy.

This mandala was created to honor the 1.2 million Tibetans who have lost their lives to political/religious persecution during this century.

The museum thanks the Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota for bringing the Gyoto monks to Minnesota and for their efforts to preserve Tibetan cultural traditions.

In Search of the Garudas

This is a traditional Tibetan image of the Red Garuda.

This description of garudas follows from the The Symbols of Tibetan Buddhism page:

"The Garuda is daring and fearless and abides in the north. With great strength and power it soars beyond without holding back. It symbolizes freedom from hopes and fears, the vast mind without reference point. It is a powerful antidote to the negative influences of Nagas (spirits) which can cause disease and all kinds of harm."


Ogyen (Green) Garuda.
This is a description of the Green Garduda (Ogyen Garuda):

"Ogyen Garuda is Padmakara in the form of the immense space eagle who is born fully enlightened and in full flight. His furious gaze burns away the fabric of duality for all beings, conditions, and situations. His brilliant blue complexion reflects his spacious intelligence and the vast expanse of Dharmata. His hair is a roaring mass of wisdom-fire, which scorches the perceptual distortions of monism, dualism, nihilism, and eternalism. His two meteorite iron horns impale the deluded division of samsara and nirvana. His golden razor beak bites through every dualistic contrivance, and his two wings bear him beyond the limited spaces of existence and non-existence. The nine-fold pinions of his razor wings liberate beings in the temporal spaces of the nine bardos. He wears the human bone ornaments which display the spatial essence of the six classes of Vajrayana. At the centre of his chest ornament is the luminous green 'Trom' which illuminates the universe and makes total collision with reality inescapable.

In each hand he holds a nine-pronged meteorite iron phurba. These two phurbas liberate the potential of the solar and lunar channels and overpower all apparent phenomena in empty rage. With his two phurbas he stabs attraction, aversion, and indifference as they pertain to clinging either to samsara or nirvana. In each claw he holds a nine-pronged beryllium copper grigug. These two grigugs slash the fabric of dualistic clinging in every dimension of existence simultaneously -- without need of moving from the vast single point of awareness."

The Dark Blue Garuda.

The Mandala of Buddha Akshobya

My enemy is my friend

The Mahayana Equilibrium Meditation, as instructed by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Lama Rinpoche is the Spiritual Director of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition.

This meditation comes from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s book, "The Wish-fulfilling Golden Sun of the Mahayana Thought Training" (Kopan Monastery, 1974). Rinpoche has described it as more than the standard equilibrium meditation, as he has added a number of techniques for overcoming anger and developing patience.

[Meditate in the first person and pause for contemplation between paragraphs.]


Think: It is never enough to gain only self-liberation. Attachment to personal peace and striving solely for this is both selfish and cruel.

Visualize that you are surrounded by all sentient beings, with your mother seated to your left and your father to your right. In front of you, visualize an enemy; someone who dislikes you or wishes you harm. Behind you, place your dearest friend; the person to whom you are most attached. To the side, visualize a stranger; someone for whom your feelings are neutral.

Think: There is no reason at all for me to be attached to and help my friend or to hate and harm my enemy.

If I were to strive for only my own self-peace, there would be no reason for me to have been born human. Even as an animal, I could strive for this. The various animals have the same aim as many highly educated people--self-happiness--and also create many negative actions, such as fighting with and destroying enemies, cheating others with political mind and so forth, all in the pursuit of their own happiness. There is almost no difference between them except their shape.

The main purpose of my having been born human is to strive for and achieve higher aims--to bring every sentient being to everlasting happiness. This is something no animal can ever do.

Just as I wish to avoid suffering and find happiness, so, too, do all other sentient beings. Therefore, I and all other sentient beings are equal, and there is no logical reason for me to care more about myself than others or to harm enemies or any other sentient being.

For countless rebirths I have been discriminating other beings as friend, enemy or stranger with the self-I consciousness. Chandrakirti said, “Where there is self-I consciousness, there is discrimination of other.” From discriminated partisanship between self and other, attachment and hatred arise.

All misfortune arises from acting under the influence of these negative minds.

The self-I consciousness causes attachment to self, which produces attachment to my own happiness.

The entire range of negative minds arises from the above.

Anger is caused by greed and self-attachment and makes me discriminate against whoever disturbs my happiness, producing the enemy.

Attachment creates the friend, who helps, and determines the enemy, who hinders.

Ignorance labels those who neither help nor hinder as strangers.

Anger makes me hate and harm the enemy; attachment makes me cling to and help the friend; and ignorance makes me see the stranger as having a permanent self-nature. By acting under the influence of these negative minds, I lead myself into difficult and suffering situations.

Attachment creates danger and suffering for myself and others. The whole earth is in danger of exploding. Attachment offers no peace and brings only suffering.

Since beginningless time, the two negative actions of helping out of attachment and harming out of anger have thrown me into samsaric suffering, making it impossible for me to achieve the perfect peace of liberation and enlightenment.

Negative actions leave negative imprints on the consciousness; these ripen into endless experiences of suffering. If I continue to behave in this way, I will experience the same suffering over and over again for eons and will never receive any realizations or enlightenment itself.

The three objects of friend, enemy and stranger are false and have been labeled incorrectly for extremely temporal reasons. The current friend, enemy and stranger have not always been friend, enemy and stranger in my countless, previous lives. Even the enemy of last year can this year become my friend and yesterday’s friend become my enemy today. It can all change within an hour and does so because of attachment to food, clothing and reputation.

A scripture says, “If you try for a moment to befriend an enemy, he will become your friend. The opposite occurs if you treat a friend like an enemy. Therefore, the wise, understanding the impermanent nature of temporal relationships, are never attached to food, clothing or reputation.”

Lord Buddha said, “In another life, the father becomes the son; the mother, the wife; the enemy, a friend. It always changes. In cyclic existence, nothing is certain.”

Therefore, there is no reason to be attached to friends or to hate enemies.

If the ignorant, self-I conception and its objects were true, the three designations of friend, enemy and stranger should have existed from countless previous lives and should continue to exist through the present to beyond enlightenment. This makes complete nonsense of the concept of enlightenment, since the Buddha’s sublime, enlightened mind is completely free of the delusions and imprints that create such distinctions.

Out of his compassion, Lord Buddha taught the equilibrium meditation so that I, too, might become free of delusions, imprints and ignorant discrimination. The concepts of friend, enemy and stranger are false because they and their basis are totally illusory. There is no self-I.

My problems are created not by the enemy but by me. In my previous lives, I harmed others through ignorance and the results of this return in this life, causing me hardship and suffering.

Lord Buddha said, “In previous lives, I have killed all of you before and you have all slaughtered me. Why should we now be attached to each other?”

Chandrakirti said, “It is foolish and ignorant to retaliate to an enemy’s attack with spite in hopes of ending it, as the retaliation itself only brings more suffering.”

Therefore, there is no reason to retaliate.

The enemy is the object of my practice of patience, which helps me overcome my anger. I should not hate this enemy, who brings peace into my mind.

The enemy is infinitely more precious than any material possession. He is the source of all my past, present and future happiness. I should never hate the enemy. Any possession can be given up for his peace.

An enemy is my greatest need, the source of all beings’ enlightenment, including my own. The enemy is my most precious possession. For his peace I can give up myself.

From now on I must never hate or harm the enemy or any other being.

The enemy harming me mentally and physically is under the control of his negative mind. He is like the stick that someone uses to beat another. There is no reason to get angry or to retaliate by harming the enemy. It is not his fault; just as the pain I experience from a beating is not the fault of the stick.

If I had clear wisdom I would see that harming others out of hatred is harming myself out of hatred. Obviously, I should not harm others.

All sentient beings, including the enemy, are the object of Lord Buddha’s compassion. The numberless buddhas hold the enemy and all other beings dear to their heart. Therefore, harming another, even slightly, is like harming the infinite buddhas.

The Buddha always considers all sentient beings, including enemies, to be more important than himself. Mindlessly harming another being for my own benefit is the act of a mind of stone.

The enemy and all other sentient beings have been my mother countless times. The holy body, speech and mind of the infinite buddhas are servant to all beings, enemies included. Therefore, I must never give harm to any other being.

Not harming my worst enemy, the ignorance in my mind, and destroying an outer enemy instead is like killing a friend by mistaking him for an enemy. I should not harm the outer enemy but the inner one, the actual cause of all my suffering.

Because of transcendent realizations based on the equilibrium meditation, no bodhisattva would ever see another sentient being as an enemy, even if all rose against him or her.

The enemy is merely a concept created by my hatred, just as friends and strangers are concepts created by my attachment and ignorance. I should not believe the distorted perceptions of my negative minds.

If I investigate with my wisdom eye, I will never find my attachment’s friend or my hatred’s enemy anywhere, neither inside nor outside their bodies. Wisdom tells me that these are merely names.

For all these reasons, I can now clearly see how foolish and nonsensical I have been over beginningless lifetimes.

If you could realize this equilibrium meditation it would be your most priceless possession. Equilibrium brings peace to numberless beings and all your future lives.

The Heart Sutra

Prajnaparamita, the Goddess of Perfect Wisdom, and Mother of the Buddhas

The Heart Sutra

"The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, while meditating on Prajnaparamita, shed light on the five skandhas (i.e., components of ego) and found them equally empty. After this penetration, he overcame all pain.

"Listen, Shariputra (a disciple of the Buddha), form is emptiness, emptiness is form; form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form. The same is true with feeling, perception, intention and consciousness.

"Hear, Shariputra, all dharmas (teachings) are marked with emptiness; they are neither produced nor destroyed, neither defiled nor immaculate, neither increasing nor decreasing. Therefore, in emptiness there is no form, feeling, intention, or consciousness; no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or mind; no forms, sounds, smell, tastes, touches, or mental objects; nor is there the realm of the eyes, up to and including the realm of mind consciousness. There is no ignorance or ending of ignorance; up to and including no decay and death or ending of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination of suffering, no extinction of suffering, and no path; no knowledge and also no attainment.

"Because there is no attainment, the bodhisattvas, supported by the Prajnaparamita, find no obstacles for their minds. Having no obstacles, they overcome fear, liberating themselves forever from illusion and realising perfect Nirvana. All Buddhas in the past, present, and future, through reliance upon Prajnaparamita, arrive at full, right, and universal Enlightenment.

"Therefore, one should know that Prajnaparamita is a great spiritual mantra, a great wisdom mantra, a supreme mantra, an unequalled mantra. It destroys all suffering because it is the incorruptible truth. A mantra of Prajnaparamita should therefore be proclaimed. This is the mantra:

"GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHISVAHA."
pronounced as:
"gah-teh gah-teh, pah-ra-gah-teh, pah-ra-sum-gah-teh, boo-di so-ha"