Post Vajrayana in Kampuchea

30/4/25       The very late Pope Francis said he wanted a poor church. This sentiment reminds me of a sweet but unfortunate feeling I get from interacting with the people of Bihar, India’s poorest state. Spending most of my time in Bodh Gaya, especially in and around the Mahabodhi Temple, I’ve also made a majority of the following other Buddhist pilgrimages there: Pragbodhi, Barabar Caves, Champanagar, Dona Stupa, Ghosrawan, Gurpa, Hajipur, Kesaria Stupa, Nalanda University, Nalanda Archaeological Museum, Rajgir, and Vaishali. As one might detect, most of these are significant places of Buddhist pilgrimage.       Poverty, per se, having less than what is required to sustain a baseline of renunciation toward a worldly, sensuous absorption, is not a particularly positive virtue in Vajrayana culture. Poverty seems a poor take on reality’s plenitude and a bad place to start. Trungpa Rinpoche, who in the 1970’s transferred this culture to the Westerner...

     There is much discussion about Sutra or Mahayana Mahamudra as causal and Tantric Mahamudra as resultant. The term in common, Mahamudra, denotes ultimate experiencing of reality through the five aggregates, rediscovered as the five Primordial Wisdoms or Buddhas. The necessity for the  abhisambodi  transformation within the creation process of deity yoga is another way of stating the case for the supreme method of achieving Tantric Mahamudra. This is indisputable.         However, what’s known as the five Maitreya Sutras, reportedly dictated to Asanga by Maitreya, the next Buddha, were highly influential to tantric Buddhism in Tibet. In the Tibetan tradition, the five texts are: Mahāyānasūtrālamkārakārikā, ("The Adornment of Mahayana sutras"), Dharmadharmatāvibhāga ("Distinguishing Phenomena and Pure Being"), Madhyāntavibhāgakārikā ("Distinguishing the Middle and the Extremes"), Abhisamayalankara ( "Ornament for clear realization"), a...

  5/4/25 Going through the Buddha instead of around him may sound like one’s football coach’s defensive advice. But it may help to explain the old Zen dictum, “if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” I’ve found this quite shocking, but then Zen, popular with the Shogunate, has a violent past. My old coaches advice to us linemen meant simply to fully engage and ‘takeout’ offensive players so they can’t create obstacle or take down your team’s    ball carrier. How any Buddha of the three times, or beyond, is an obstacle to becoming fully enlightened I don’t understand. Unless by Buddha what is meant is an objectification of a compassion and wisdom that’s beyond any representation. Where in fact there would be no killer, killed, or killing. This then is ‘understandable.’ But is not a suitable teaching for disciples of the lower vehicles who haven’t been taught the above analysis or dialectical skills necessary not to take such a statement literally. For such disciples...

     To my love: What is the reason we aren’t together much? Might it be that with all my faults it’s more enjoyable for us mostly being apart and enjoying just wanting to be together? But this is a conclusion, a consideration strictly of my own self-conscious making. It’s necessary we want this friendship to stay connected. It’s necessary to stay connected to be reborn. New relations, new relatives of our conscious choice. This is what creates the joy aspect in our desire, as it arises from a pure, all-accepting consciousness. And this is why we really want to be together. To become more conscious and unconditionally caring.         Love then is the joy of wanting to become more compassionate and wise and not having to say we’re sorry for any faults on either side. This brings us to our physicality, which can generate great bliss, which is clarity, which is also consciousness. It’s the glue of our relationship we should never forget to apply....