Direct Intervention

[Karma Yeshe]

Hi all,

A short question, but one that I have debated offline with friends and would be very interested in your Thoughts.

Do you beleive in the Direct Intervention of Tara , CHENREZI, Dharma Protectors etc or do you look at them as mental representations to assist us in punching thru our own conceptuality?

I know that there is a difference of opinon on this topic and would love to get an overview.

All the Best.

[Aloka]

Hi all,

A short question, but one that I have debated offline with friends and would be very interested in your Thoughts.

Do you beleive in the Direct Intervention of Tara , CHENREZI, Dharma Protectors etc or do you look at them as mental representations to assist us in punching thru our own conceptuality?

I know that there is a difference of opinon on this topic and would love to get an overview.

All the Best.


No I don't think they exist independently from one's own mind. I think that its the wishing prayers that are made to these imagined beings that are probably a means of bringing a change of mind in the person who has a strong belief when performing them.

A similar example is the Tibetan story of the old woman who believes that a dog's tooth given to her by her son is a relic of the Buddha.



.

[Lobsang Depal]

I don't know if my opinion is correct, but I believe both.

I believe that the prayers are designed like a sort of self reminder/self hypnosis. They are designed to help us remember the good qualities of these beings and to model ourselves upon them.

However I also believe that there are positive energies in the Universe that we don't fully understand yet and that the practices can help us to connect with these energies and improve ourselves.

What do you believe?

[Esho]

Do you beleive in the Direct Intervention of Tara , CHENREZI, Dharma Protectors etc

Hard to believe in that Karma Yeshe... ;)


or do you look at them as mental representations to assist us in punching thru our own conceptuality?

Maybe for some, it can be of good benefit. However there is no ownership of concepts...

Sila and panna as well as the development of "Right View" is one of the best protections given by the Buddha Dhamma.

;D

[Karma Yeshe]

I don't know if my opinion is correct, but I believe both.

I believe that the prayers are designed like a sort of self reminder/self hypnosis. They are designed to help us remember the good qualities of these beings and to model ourselves upon them.

However I also believe that there are positive energies in the Universe that we don't fully understand yet and that the practices can help us to connect with these energies and improve ourselves.

What do you believe?

I think that there are Enlightened Beings whom work with Ordanary Beings in a direct and personal way due to their compassion. At the same time, they manifest thru each Beings mindstream and inherent Buddha Nature and cant be consideered seperate from us.

So I too think that both are correct.

[McNuffin]

I believe that you become the deity, with no distinction between yourself and it, when conditions suitable for the arising of the deity occur within your body.

But how you are brought to this state in the first place arises in dependence on another - the person bestowing the initiation.

By the way, I don't see the deity as anything other than a representation of a particular state of being, which is taught for a specific purpose, and for a particular stage in a person's development.

Can I just bring up another notion here - The Book of Genesis describes the process of deity manifesting very nicely. The trick is to read that book as the creation of a man/woman in the image of the divine, through the unfoldment described therein. I especially like the way the manifestation of the spirit within Adam and Eve is represented by the appearance of Fig leaves upon their genitalia, signifying the presence of new life within them. Rather like the Bodhi Tree, otherwise known as the Sacred Fig, in Buddhism. Vajrayana explains it's wrathful and peaceful lineages in very specific terms, but they appear also in the Bible as the lineages of Cain and Abel. The turning of the Wheel of the Dharma is even implied in Genesis.

[Aloka]

I believe that you become the deity, with no distinction between yourself and it, when conditions suitable for the arising of the deity occur within your body.

But how you are brought to this state in the first place arises in dependence on another - the person bestowing the initiation.



Can I ask which Vajrayana lineage you've received deity empowerment and instruction from yourself please, McNuffin ?



Vajrayana explains it's wrathful and peaceful lineages in very specific terms, but they appear also in the Bible as the lineages of Cain and Abel. The turning of the Wheel of the Dharma is even implied in Genesis.

I've never heard of that connection before.



With kind wishes

Aloka :hands:

[McNuffin]

Recently - Sakya empowerments, from the His Eminence Chogye Trichen. In my early 20's I did receive Kagyu empowerments, one in particular that left quite an impression on me. However, a local Sakya lama I spoke with didn't think much of the pedigree of that particular deity practice, so I tend not to discuss that one widely.

It was His Eminence who drew my attention to the representation of Christ on the Mount, which, in his opinion, was symbolic of a meditation practice known to him. It's worth looking up the Tale of Apollo and Marsyas.

You could also consider the removal of Adam's rib in the context of a Bone-Lineage practice. This leads to Eve in Genesis, or Kungama, a bone-ornamented and consecrated Nun, in the Initiation of Padmasambhava.

Cain tills the earth - down in the belly, from where a burning Vajrayogini might begin her ascent. Abel inhabits the hills, with his sheep, higher up in the body, where you might imagine a white rain of amritsa cascading down from a peaceful Vajrasattva.

Tibetans have well-defined mandalas of deities, whereas Christians seemed to have collapsed their wrathful figures into the Devil, although, as I mentioned, Cain and his descendants also figure in Genesis. Being Evil, Cain and his descendants are a wrathful lineage, in contrast to Abel and his descendants, who are a peaceful lineage. Now, I'm not saying that you can map a specific figure in Christianity, to a particular deity practice in Tibetan Buddhism, but Genesis raises the issue of Good/Evil, Adam/Eve explicitly, and these, along with the six days worth of events, point to processes experienced within a human being which the Tibetans *have* mapped to meditation figures with specific aspects.

Note that the Buddha began life in a paradisiacal state - as a King, protected from the outside world, but, upon leaving his palace, he encounters sickness, old age, and death, exactly as do Adam and Eve when they are driven out of Eden.

Regarding 'Turning the Wheel of the Dharma', consider that Cain is banished from the face of the Earth, and is condemned to wander ceaselessly, though without fear of being slain. He represents the invisible, ceaseless movement of Spirit, back and forth, which appears as the Damaru, or Drum of Immortality, in the hand of Kunsang, and which, so some Rinpoche's believe, is also symbolised by the Buddha's Turning of the Wheel of Dharma.

[Aloka]

Tibetans have well-defined mandalas of deities

Yes, I used to be a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner myself, so I'm familiar with deity practices.

Anyway, my apologies if I took the thread off topic from the OP #1 !

:topic:

[plwk]

...whereas Christians seemed to have collapsed their wrathful figures into the Devil...
This is a contestable claim. As my memory of Bible lessons serve me, for some time now, many theologians have speculated on the wrathful manifestation of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament passages like the prophet Ezekiel's fearsome Divine visions and other major prophets as well. In the New Testament, in the last book of the Revelations of St John, wrathful graphic depictions of the Lord are presented.


Do you beleive in the Direct Intervention of Tara , CHENREZI, Dharma Protectors etc or do you look at them as mental representations to assist us in punching thru our own conceptuality? I tend to side with the Yogacara on this matter... the existential truth of the human condition: there is nothing that humans experience that is not mediated by mind thingy. Having said that, here's some pondering on...

http://www.ymba.org/parable/parabfr3.htm
PARABLE 035: DEMONS OF THE MIND
In his Awakening of the Faith Treatise, the Patriarch Asvaghosa (first century) admonished:
"There may be some disciples whose root of merit is not yet mature, whose control of mind is weak and whose power of application is limited -- and yet who are sincere in their purpose to seek enlightenment -- these for a time may be beset and bewildered by maras and evil influences who are seeking to break down their good purpose.

Such disciples, seeing seductive sights, attractive girls, strong young men, must constantly remind themselves that all such tempting and alluring things are mind-made, and, if they do this, their tempting power will disappear and they will no longer be annoyed. Or, if they have visions of heavenly gods and Bodhisattvas and Buddhas surrounded by celestial glories, they should remind themselves that these, too, are mind-made and unreal.

Or, if they should be uplifted and excited by listening to mysterious Dharanis, to lectures upon the paramitas, to elucidations of the great principles of the Mahayana, they must remind themselves that these also are emptiness and mind-made, that in their essence they are Nirvana itself.

Or, if they should have intimations within that they have attained transcendental powers, recalling past lives, or foreseeing future lives, or, reading others' thoughts, or freedom to visit other Buddha-lands, or great powers of eloquence, all of [these] may tempt them to become covetous for worldly power and riches and fame.

Or, they may be tempted by extremes of emotion, at times angry, at other times joyous, or at times very kind-hearted and compassionate, at other times the very opposite, or at times alert and purposeful, at other times indolent and stupid, at times full of faith and zealous in their practice, at other times engrossed in other affairs and negligent.

All of [these] will keep them vacillating, at times experiencing a kind of fictitious samadhi, such as the heretics boast of, but not the true samadhi.

Or later, when they are quite advanced [they] become absorbed in trances for a day, or two, or even seven, not partaking of any food but upheld by inward food of their spirit, being admired by their friends and feeling very comfortable and proud and complacent, and then later becoming very erratic, sometimes eating little, sometimes greedily, the expression of their face constantly changing.

Because of all such strange manifestations and developments in the course of their practices, disciples should be on guard to keep the mind under constant control. They should neither grasp after nor become attached to the passing and unsubstantial things of the senses or concepts and moods of the mind. If they do this they will be able to keep far away from the hindrances of karma."(Wei-tao, tr., in Goddard, A Buddhist Bible. p.402-403)

http://cttbusa.org/42s/42sections.asp
Section 28 Don't Indulge the Wild Mind
The Buddha said, "Be careful not to believe your own mind; your mind is not to be believed.
After you have attained Arhatship, you can believe your own mind."From Chapter 20, Flower Adornment Sutra...
http://www.cttbusa.org/dharmatalks/10drealms1.htm
If anyone wishes to understand
All Buddhas of the three periods of time,
He should contemplate the nature of the Dharma Realm;
Everything is made from the mind alone
And this curious one...
http://www.ymba.org/parable/parabfr3.htm
PARABLE 0145: SUPERNATURAL BEINGS
"In secular Western thought, awareness of psychological projection as a source of supernatural being has served to demythologize demons, goblins, angels and saints and rob them of their power.

The Bardo Thodol [Tibetan Book of the Dead], however, speaks of the deities as 'projections' but never as 'mere projections.'
The deities are present and must be dealt with religiously ... not just by intellectual insight."
(D.G. Dawe in The Perennial Dictionary of World Religions, p. 93.)

[Karma Yeshe]

Wow I thought this thread had died a while back.

Anyway, Here is a link to some Teachings on Sadhana Practice from the POV of the Kagyu Lineage.

http://www.kagyu.org/kagyulineage/buddhism/dev/dev00.php

[Lazy Eye]

Hi all,

A short question, but one that I have debated offline with friends and would be very interested in your Thoughts.

Do you beleive in the Direct Intervention of Tara , CHENREZI, Dharma Protectors etc or do you look at them as mental representations to assist us in punching thru our own conceptuality?

I know that there is a difference of opinon on this topic and would love to get an overview.

All the Best.

I don't think there's a simple objective answer to this question. It's more a matter of personal sensibility. Those of a more rationalist mindset -- such as myself -- tend to approach beings such as Kuan Yin (or the Tibetan deities you mention) as a representation of some principle. Those of a more devotional mindset see them as "real" personalities who will help them in direct, tangible ways.

Ultimately they are manifestations of Buddha nature which is not separate from us.

Just my two cents...