Who (be quiet) Are You?

The essence of realization is nowness,
Occurring all at once, with nothing to add or subtract.
Self-liberation, innate great bliss,
Free from hope or fear is the fruition.

~Marpa, from his song of realization and experience

(Translation and image of Marpa is from Asia Karma Kagyu)

Martine Franck - Tulku Khentrul Lodro Rabsel (12 y.o) and his tutor, (Hechen monastery, Bodnath, Nepal, 1996)

At the age of 5, KHENTRUL decided that he had lived enough with his parents and that it was time for him to enter the monastery.

Two or three years after their death, important lamas are reincarnated in the body of a child. The search for this child is based on the information left by the lama himself: dreams, visions and the intuition of other lamas. The Tulkus are discovered at 3 or 4 years of age, declared at about 4 or 5 and then enter the monastery at the age of 6. According to the rules of the monastery, each Tulku is instructed by a tutor and is either prevented or restricted from seeing other young monks from their age group. All the Tulkus are called Rinpoche which means “the precious one”. 

“Mudra” by Sheila Rock (via www.galeriehilanehvonkories.de)

Thanks to parabola-magazine for the link. 

The mind’s original nature is like space;
It pervades and embraces all things under the sun.
Be still and stay relaxed in genuine ease,
Be quiet and let sound reverberate as an echo,
Keep your mind silent and watch the ending of all worlds.

~Tilopa’s Mahamudra Instructions to Naropa (trans. by Keith Dowman)

(Photo by Sippanont Samchai)

Like the Morning Mist

Is space anywhere supported? Upon what does it rest?
Like space, Mahamudra is dependent upon nothing;
Relax and settle in the continuum of unalloyed purity,
And, your bonds loosening, release is certain.

Gazing intently into the empty sky, vision ceases;
Likewise, when mind gazes into mind itself,
The train of discursive and conceptual thought ends
And supreme enlightenment is gained.

Like the morning mist that dissolves into thin air,
Going nowhere but ceasing to be,
Waves of conceptualization, all the mind’s creation, dissolve,
When you behold your mind’s true nature.

~Tilopa’s Mahamudra instructions, translated by Keith Dowman

(Photo by scbi)

At first a yogi feels his mind is tumbling like a waterfall;

In mid-course, like the Ganges, it flows on slow and gentle;

In the end, it is a great vast ocean,Where the lights of Child and Mother merge in one.

~Tilopa’s Song of Mahamudra, from: Teachings of the Buddha, Ed. Jack Kornfield

(Photo by David Fokos)

A woman on a pilgrimage to Potala palace, looking at the view of Lhasa below.

(Photo by Gergory Bedenko)

We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When we understand this, we see that we are nothing. And being nothing, we are everything. That is all.

~Kalu Rinpoche

(Photo:Tibetan prayer wheels, by Ira Gosalia)

Thunderbolt and bell, 1403-1424 China Ming dynasty, reign of the Yongle emperor (1403-1424) Gilt bronze.

The Vajra (Tibetan: Dorjie) and bell (Sanskrit:g h a n t a ; Tibetan:d r i l b u) are the most important ritual objects of Tibetan Buddhism. Most every lama has a pair and knows how to use them. They represent “method” (vajra) and “wisdom” (bell). Combined together they symbolize enlightenment as they embody the union of all dualities: bliss and emptiness, compassion and wisdom, appearance and reality, conventional truth and ultimate truth, and male and female, etc.

Avalokiteshvara- the Boddhisattva of compassion, 19th Century Thangka, Tibet. Colors and gold on cotton.

In this painting he has four arms and is white in color. His upper hands hold prayer beads and a lotus; the lower ones, poised in a hand gesture of prayer, clasp the wish-fulfilling jewel at his heart. This jewel embodies the bodhicitta —the altruistic aspiration to attain highest Enlightenment in order to thereby save all beings from misery and establish them in perfect happiness

In the lower right of the painting is Vajrapani, a wrathful deity, who embodies the sacred power of the Buddhas. He is a great protector of Buddhism. His ferocity is a comfort to believers and terrifying to demons who seek to harm living beings and destroy their paths to salvation

In the lower left of the painting sits Manjushri, the Boddhisattva of Supreme Wisdom. He holds the Book of Wisdom and the flaming sword that cuts the roots of ignorance, and severs the sprouts of misery.

Above the Boddhisattva’s head is Tsongkhapa, the sage who established the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism (that of the Dalai Lama). He is accompanied by his chief disciples.

On the upper left and right sides are the White and Green Tara, the boddhisattvas  of compassion and wisdom. They are said to have been born out of the tears of Avalokiteshvara, when he cried out of compassion for all the suffering beings experience in samsara.

(Source: Terese Bartholomew, “A Tibetan Thangka: The Four-Armed Avalokiteshvara,”Tr i p t yc h (November/ December, 1990): pp. 8-9. )

Mandala, 18th century, Tibet.

The center of this mandala shows Cakrasamvara (pronounced “Chakra-some-vahra”) in a militant pose, firmly embracing his partner, Vajravarahi.  Depicted above are the first three lineage holders of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism- Buddha Vajradhara (middle), the Indian Mahasiddhas Tilopa (left), and Naropa (right).