Riding the Energy of Basic Goodness by Sakyong Mipham

During hard times, people often ask me for advice. They feel destabilized and scattered. They're often caught up in examining who they are, what the world is, and how they fit in. They're questioning their understanding of buddhadharma, as well as their commitment to acting in the world as a true practitioner. They seem to hope I'll be able to offer some secret antidote or remedy to make their hard time easier, because it's draining them of life force.

In the Shambhala teachings of warriorship, this life force is called windhorse (Tibetan lungta). Lungta is the unlimited energy of basic goodness, buddhanature, inherent wakefulness. Basic goodness is the most fundamental secret in any situation—difficult or not—and it's something that we already possess. We connect with it through meditation practice. Every day we need to contemplate our own inherent wakefulness. Then we'll have the confidence to raise our windhorse and ride it through life with joy and delight. This is how we become the kings and queens of our own lives.

Interview with a Dakini

Ven. Roger Kunsang: Can you tell me why you left Tibet?

Khadro-la: “It happened at the last minute. I didn’t have the intention, and I didn’t have the money to travel. I followed a sign that came in my dreams. There was a bus blowing its horn indicating its departure, and until I got on the bus I was unaware of where I was heading. I learnt from the other people on that bus that they were going to Lhasa and thence to Shigatse. A couple of days into the journey I learnt that they were also planning to go to Mount Kailash.

“One day, while we had stopped our journey at Shigatse, I was circumambulating Tashi Lhunpo Monastery when I came across an elderly man dressed in an Indian cloth doti. This complete stranger gave me 2000 gormo. He asked me to sit beside him, and begun to tell me many unusual stories. He told me that India was just beyond this mountain, and that I should be meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and many other lamas. He kept urging me to head for India – and at the time it didn’t feel at all strange, although when I recall it now it seems amazing to me.”

Yogini, the Enlightened Woman

by Shambhavi Chopra

"Aham Prema"
I am Divine Love

In the Bhavani-nama-sahasra (the Thousand Names of the Goddess Bhavani) as beautifully explained by Pandit Jankinath Kaul, "A Yogini is one who is possessed of magical powers.'' Para Shakti, the Supreme Shakti, in the form of Durga is given the name Yogini. She assumes various forms and takes on different divine energies to maintain harmony in the Universe, to combat evil and uphold the good. A woman who gains a transcendental state in sadhana comes back as a celestial Yogini or Bhairavi, a female adept at Yoga.  She carries the energy of Durga within her.

A true Yogini is an enlightened woman with exuberant passion, spiritual powers and deep insight. Yoginis communicate a sense of freedom, a sheer mastery in whatever they do.  With their compelling gazes, they can hypnotize even a great yogi and are capable of changing their shapes at will. Tantric scholars have written about Yoginis as independent, outspoken, forthright women with a gracefulness of spirit. Without them, yoga can fail in its purpose and remain sterile.

Communing with the air element — Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Here are some wise words from my teacher Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.

Go to a place where there is wind, perhaps a mountain pass or a beach. Or go where the air is cool and clean — in the shade of a forest or beside a river. Gentle your breathing. Feel the movement of air. Internalize it — the freedom of it, the quick intelligence of it. Feel the life moving in your flesh and in your thoughts, and the prana moving in the channels of the body. Recognize the air in the central channel, in the heart, in consciousness. The principal quality of air is flexibility; it is free.

— Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, in Healing With Form, Energy, and Light: The Five Elements in Tibetan Shamanism, Tantra, and Dzogchen. Snow Lion Publications, 2002.

Photography of the Tantric Realms and other Celebrations

The primary inspiration for my work is my longtime interest in Eastern spirituality, shamanism, folklore and dreams.  I am particularly interested in how the female is expressed through ritual and ceremony.  The numinous or ‘sense of the sacred’ portrayed in imagery—from wall paintings, sculptural forms, and as manifested in nature offers me the sensations of rasa, tastes of delight.
For over a decade I have photographed images taken during pilgrimages to the Dasain festival held in Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, the ten–day celebration of the Mother goddess Durga, where shakti (primordial cosmic energy) is celebrated.  Sacred images are dressed and adorned with colored powders, flowers, coconut milk and other materials, and offerings such as money, incense and sweets are given to these deities imagined as both living and liminal beings.  In my photographs, I also depict holy women sadhvis (renunciates), village deomas (women healers), as well as a panoply of ritualistic objects such as headdresses, bells and dorjes (thunderbolts), and other items used in the melded traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, the Bon Tradition, Hinduism and indigenous Shamanism evident in the Kathmandu Valley and beyond.

My photographs are an illustration and documentation of the unbroken living Tantric tradition that continues to exist in Nepal and serve as reminders of my connection to these figures and forces born from dreams, spiritual practices and in everyday life. Visit Art Slant website for slideshow and Surasundari website if you would like to make a purchase.

Uddiyana, Vehicle for Flying

Uddiyana is a Sanskrit word that literally means "vehicle of flying," or "going above and far." Uddiyana is also recognized as "Sanctuary of Supreme Great Bliss" and "The Royal Garden." Tibetans I've spoken with interpret the word to mean "beyond one's imagination." As such, Uddiyana is thought by some to be a place merely of legend -- and great legend at that. However, like its neighbor Zhang Zhung, Uddiyana is increasingly recognized by scholars as a genuine ancient kingdom with an incredibly rich culture and distinct traditions that have strongly influenced the social and cultural development of the region, which includes modern-day India, Tibet, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China.

Perhaps not so surprisingly, Uddiyana is also a concept, which denotes a place, or station one arrives at in meditation on the path to enlightenment -- for so many great Gurus, Mahasiddhas, Yogis, Yoginis, Dakinis, and Buddhist Saints either passed through or were born of this land. Uddiyana is also one of the three main "bandhas" -- a posture in which organs and muscles are contracted and controlled creating a psychomuscular energy lock that redirects the flow of energy in the body and locks it into a specific area -- in Hatha Yoga. By any definition, Uddiyana is both mystical and magical -- and no doubt a fertile ground for the origination, evolution, and dissemination of many Buddhist and Tantric teachers and teachings.