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Originally uploaded by Vulgar Wheats

On the road to Bir

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Originally uploaded by Vulgar Wheats

Old meets new

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Originally uploaded by Vulgar Wheats

Early morning on Jogiwara Road

Reaction paper #3, Mandala: Tantric Visions

I have been attempting to cultivate an awareness of mandala into my daily experience. It is my way of informally participating in the mandala experience. There are two dimensions to cultivating such awareness: mental and physical. Both of these can be internally or externally manifested, and they are all closely linked to one another.

Internally, mental awareness of the mandala involves literally keeping the idea of mandala in mind. That could mean visualizing it to the best of one’s ability, or as I have been doing, visualizing the circumference of my mind as a mandala, locating the five Buddha families in the different directions, and attempting to assign dimensions of my psychological faculties in accordance with the characteristics of the five families. I oriented the mandala in such a way as to place Akshobya at the back of my mind, Ratnasambhava in the south, or above my left ear, Amitabha in the west, or at my third eye, and Amoghasiddhi at the north, or above my right ear, and of course, Vairocana in the center of my mind, radiating white light. It is a meditative exercise I engage in usually while unoccupied on the subway. Also there is a clearly physical dimension to this mental exercise, transposing the cosmic model of the mandala onto the microcosm of thought space. Another mental exercise I practice is visualizing mandala on surfaces around me. This likewise synthesizes the mental and the physical, and helps me in realizing the no-ground of emptiness, and the everywhereness of the cosmic architecture of mandala, in external phenomena and the internal fabric of thought.

The more explicitly physical or external ways of realizing mandala have been occurring as I explore possibilities for my creative project. I have been seeing mandalas everywhere in mundane physical objects, such as bowls, mirrors, plates, spiderwebs, fireworks, water ripples, and in more esoteric physical phenomena such as crop circles and megalithic structures such as Stonehenge. Some of these things are mysterious, their esoteric meaning having been closed by the doors of time, while others were never constructed with the intent to be read esoterically. Still, attempting to read these structures reveals the pervasiveness of circular imagery in the mundane as well as the exotic. It speaks to a collective experience of spatial harmony that not only supports the Vajrayana understanding of the essence of mind, tathagatagarba, but modern psychological understandings as well. I think that through these exercises in attempting to experience mandala in my everyday life, to perform mandala in an informally routine way, both internally and externally, has cultivated a new way of experiencing conventional reality that was not so readily accessible to me prior to this course. It has become so natural to me that I draw fundamental mandalas on my notes, create them out of clay, and even notice that my multi-colored pen is arranged almost perfectly according to the five family configuration, the one exception being that in place of yellow, there is black. And sometimes I even visualize myself as always standing at the summit of a mountain (Mt. Meru, perhaps?), regardless of my actual physical surroundings. I find externalizing the internal and internalizing the external is blurring the boundaries of both, creating a more fluid ground (or is it no-ground?) upon which I experience reality/emptiness/Dharma. And the vocabulary of mandala and Vajrayana lends me the language through which to express that experience, to the extent that it can be conveyed conceptually.

Secret Lines

As I sat in class today, the overwhelming urge to weave a map of the universe arose. I had no choice but to retrieve my loom and thread it with the fibers of flaming feathers. The fundamental nature of my heart has been awakening, a love of all things, an appreciation of the beauty of all phenomena. From that awakening has spawned a drive towards selflessness, a need to give to others; a need to give love, all my love, unconditionally. Whenever I weave this fabric, I stretch the limits of my self. Mapping the universe, I map the route to my heart. In forgetting myself, I remember all those without whom "I" am nothing. All I hope is to teach all those I love how to read my map, so they can likewise follow the secret lines to the hidden treasures of their hearts.

Passion Pit

Not only is this video great, but the song is beautiful, and deserving of any dancer's booty shaking.

Padmasambhava, the Lotus Born

This painting is tantric in its indulgent sensuality. Even though Padmasambhava is sitting alone on his lotus throne, this aura of mystical energy is exuded through the vibrancy of the color tone. As a vibration of light, there is a tonal quality, a low frequency mantra that one can quite clearly feel. Although the colors in the background are quite subdued blue and red, they remain vibrantly clear. The landscape appears energetic, verging on tempestuous. The clouds appear to be moving swiftly and the water is churning. The trees almost look like fire, and there is a circle of smoke encircling a mountain. It has the feel of charnel grounds. It seems like this is a sublime rendering of the mastery of samsara. The elements of air, earth, fire and water create a 3 dimensional mandala, in the center of which Padmasambhava sits upon a lotus cushion. He has one face and two hands. He is sitting in a relaxed posed. He is crowned, and his long hair falls over his shoulders. In his right hand he holds a vajra. There is a sublime symmetry that is more a feeling than something one sees. The symmetry of it hits the observer along points in ones body. It is a current of energy, a vibration of light that is sound. A banner is hanging from his staff, a sign of victory. The gold adorning his robe erupts with vibrancy from the surface of the image, mirroring the light of the observers mind and returning it on the same current. It is very easy to imagine tantric art in terms of energy wavelengths. There is a palpable presence to the images that is evoked purposefully by a master, or sublime artist, in Thinley Norbu's words. The creativity of the artist is to render something sublime with coarse materials. This painting seems to be a representation of a danger inherent not on in Tantra, but in the rendering of the painting. It evokes both the dangerous potential of Tantra and the sublime beauty of it. Even the air, which feels empty, is simultaneously full. There is a saturation of energy, catalyzed by ritual empowerment that crystallizes in the materials of the painting, its vajra body.