FARMHOUSE IN KOPAN 1976
Hindu deities adorn adobe walls While hundred headed Ravanna scorns his foe, haloed Krishna eyes maidens bathing Against the painted backdrop of an English garden,… Read More »FARMHOUSE IN KOPAN 1976
Hindu deities adorn adobe walls While hundred headed Ravanna scorns his foe, haloed Krishna eyes maidens bathing Against the painted backdrop of an English garden,… Read More »FARMHOUSE IN KOPAN 1976
Unidentified is a place he has chosen Distant beyond, where simply devoted reach Unworkable will he be to for you to uncover Yet call him,… Read More »MY GURU
I am coming out as a human being, with something that wants to float through the heart, and entangle rhythmic pounding beats into new elastic… Read More »I AM COMING OUT AS A HUMAN BEING
A poem about the experience and recognition of the moment and the power within. Accompanied by photographs I have taken of such very special moments that I have found my self to be in.
Andra Samelson’s art celebrating the world’s two tallest standing statues of Buddha that were destroyed on March 11, 2001 in Bamiyan, Afghanistan by the fundamentalist Taliban rulers. These statues were of tremendous importance to the cultural heritage of Afghanistan. The intention was to relate the tragic event in Bamiyan to the tragic event of the eradication of Tibet, and to the Dalai Lama’s forced exit from Tibet, while emphasizing that as a living Buddha, he is still present in the world as a symbol of peace and compassion and tolerance.
I wanted the music to mingle unobtrusively with the sounds of the garden. By not creating a continuous web of sound with the instruments, as one normally would expect from music, and by always letting the music disappear into silence at unexpected places, my listening experience became that of a calm awareness of the entire field of sound around me. The sounds from the everyday become part of the music; an old man drove by on his bicycle and by the fountain were people playing games.
A powerful short-story by Rick Maddox: One could see that the god’s form was like that of a human, that the shape of his face could have been that of an Indian gentleman. But little else conveyed an impression of a human being. Ishvara’s face and body consisted entirely of colored light. His face was an oval of soft white light. Set in it were large eyes of the deepest black. Violaceous swirls indicated the folds of his loose garment. A scarf of aqua light draped over his left shoulder and onto his right arm.
These pure lands are self-arisen due to the blessing of the truth of the nature of reality and of the transcendent ones’ compassion; they are sublime and amazing.
~ Jamgon Kongtrul
Dance of three Vajras
Practice on three vajras
Mind body and speech
Revealing the three mysteries
Know this labyrinth, Friend. Know this dream. Know its luminous, transparent, liquid, holographic nature. Gnothe seauton, know thyself, as the Greek formula went, and know the dream. Feel its texture, for nowhere is its nature and mystery revealed but in the electricity of its experience. Feel the rainbow in whatever color or shape you see, whatever sound, texture, taste, smell. Whatever emotion, whatever thought, even sadness and pain.
Mind’s ultimate nature, emptiness endowed with vividness, I was told is the real Buddha. Recognizing this should help me Not to be stuck with thoughts of… Read More »MIND’S ULTIMATE NATURE: POEM BY DZONGSAR KHYENTSE RINPOCHE
We are not alone. We do not exist alone and we cannot create alone. What this world needs is a humanistic awakening of the desire to raise one’s life condition to a place where our actions are rooted in altruism and compassion. You cannot hide behind a profession or instrument; you have to be human. Focus your energy on becoming the best human you can be. Focus on developing empathy and compassion. Through the process you’ll tap into a wealth of inspiration rooted in the complexity and curiosity of what it means to simply exist on this planet. Music is but a drop in the ocean of life.
Om Svasti The delightful myriad phenomena constantly come and go And free of grasping to any of it One’s mind, That doesn’t exist as any… Read More »THE OPEN EXPANSE OF AWARENESS
God of Death: Now let’s discuss what it means to die. Understand the workings of this organism. Imagine you were brought up in an environment where you were not taught any alphabet or words. You had just this working mind, which is inbuilt in every creature for its survival. That working mind does not think in terms of words or sentences. Its working are entirely based upon electrical impulses produced by light, sound, touch, taste and smell, striking the sensors of the sense organs, which send impulses to reach the brain.
Show us the way through the realms of life and death. Show what does not change in the endless sea of change. And while time remains, live in our hearts as the light of our true being. Penetrating the darkness of painful illusion, show the dawn of Vajrasattva, the luminous bridge through the six realms and three times. Show us the path within the human heart to the Kingdom of Shambhala here and now.
Have you ever wondered why sometimes in a very bad situation, we can be well and in other times, even in perfect times, we find ourselves in a state of emotional boredom or stress?
–Sonia Gomes
Mystical orchestra sounds
without cessation, accompaniment
to marvels of
the great silent Mystery.
Since the beginning of all time until the end of all time there lives a ruler of a vast kingdom between myriads of interstellar clouds and within each single sentient being. May this timeless king of ancient lineage born in the foam of a colorful- iridescent sea of arising stardust remember his royal descent. May he wake up to the holistic realization of his eternally pulsating universe of body, speech and mind within an ocean of nourishing light for the benefit of all living beings as there are as many as shooting stars in a meteor stream.
Selections from Remembering Eternity, by author Rick Maddox:
He felt that he had been dissolved as a discrete entity but had, in an incomparably advantageous exchange, been reconstituted as the vital center of everything. Ego had nothing to do with this conception; on the contrary, the change allowed Skylar to see, in a profound way, that not only were all people and things in the universe interconnected, but that they all depended on one another.
Sufi music is a language around love and ecstasy, that is fundamental to the human experience, an abiding recognition of the astonishing complexity of being human. It is a tenderness around the most important, deeply felt emotional and psychological needs, and a cultural mechanism whereby satisfying these does not have to be a struggle.