Egbert Moray-Falls

Met some Vajrayana Tashi Lhunpo Tibetan monks today who made a mandala and blew on these horns that sound much like a lur or dord

Today would be an excellent day for practicing Shakyamuni's holy name mantra.

According to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition today is the birthday (Tampei Duchen) of Lord Shakyamuni, Lion of the Shakyas. In this holy month of Saga Dawa this is an especially holy day. It is therefore a day when spiritual practice is more effective and moral actions are more meritorious.

The Traditionalist viewpoint as described by Julius Evola is, in a nutshell: 1) Accept that the downward trajectory cannot be stopped or reversed. It must play out. 2) Build yourself up spiritually, become a master of yourself, cultivate non-attachment. Do not allow the happenings of the world to destabilize you. 3) Work to serve Justice and Truth, regardless of whether you win or lose. Fight because it's the right thing to do, because you are the kind of person who cannot do any less, no matter the cost or reward. This question about what do we DO, practically, always seems to assume a change to be made, an outcome to be achieved. How do we force the external world to shift from point A to point B? Traditional man doesn't try to figure out how to get to a certain outcome. Traditional man focuses on what he must do to live with honour and integrity, regardless of circumstances. Traditional man is focused on creating the Golden Age within himself because he knows that people with Kali Yuga souls can never manifest a Golden Age. The only real prescription for the malaise is the transcendent quest. But this is not the answer that people attached to outcomes like to hear. First, break the attachment.

Buddha statue found in an egyptian temple, it was sculpted locally. Grecobuddhism vindicated. W. Polytheism+Buddhism syncretism wasn't a thing unheard of back them. https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/498493.aspx

"Of course the void is nothingness. By knowing things that exist, you can know that which does not exist. That is the void... "Until you realise the true Way, whether in Buddhism or in common sense, you may think that things are correct and in order. However, if we look at things objectively, from the viewpoint of laws of the world, we see various doctrines departing from the true Way. Enact strategy broadly, correctly and openly. "Then you will come to think of things in a wide sense and, taking the void as the Way, you will see the Way as void. "In the void is virtue, and no evil. Wisdom has existence, principal has existence, the Way has existence, spirit is nothingness." Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

Zen artworks by Musashi, including a portrait of Bodhidharma, and a carving of Fudo-myo'o (Acala).

I recommend this novel by Eiji Yoshikawa. It is based on the known biography of Miyamoto Musashi (who is widely regarded as one of the greatest martial heroes of history), from his teenage participation in the battle of Sekigahara (one of the most pivotal battles in Japanese history, although whether he was actually there is questionable), to his seminal duel with his arch rival in his late twenties. Most important is how, through Buddhist practice, Musashi's development as a warrior was dependant on his self mastery, and his final realisation that the greatest warriors are victorious without ever drawing their swords. While he remained a warrior into later life, his youth was unique because he didn't train in a dojo but in the woods and mountains, living as a vagabond (you may have come across the manga based on this book), and directly seeking out the hardest challenges to both body and mind. In his final years, he retired to a cave with a few close disciples, and there his composed his masterwork combining swordsmanship, practical advice and Buddhist philosophy: The Go Rin no Sho, the Book of Five Rings. The book also tells of his artistic ability, which he developed naturally, learning wrist control from the sword, and spontaneity from his zazen meditation. For those who think warriors must hate, or exalt their ego, this is a direct counter, and a must-read.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche's Holy Body remains in clear light meditation at this time. Following advice from His Eminence Ling Rinpoche, and confirmed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, his body will not be cremated but embalmed. During this time, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has not yet fully exited the Body into the Bardo - he remains dwelling in the heart, in Clear Light Meditation. It is a very precious opportunity to connect with Lama's Holy Mind. At Kopan Monastery, where his Body is in meditation - the Monks are engaged in 24/7 prayer and puja the next room over. It would be good for you to engage in practice during this time as well. https://youtube.com/shorts/Mai_kjVmZP8?feature=share

In reference to the common phrase "Eat my Tongue" that the Elderly of Tibet say towards their Grandchildren - which, as we noted, the Dalai Lama mistranslated to "Suck my Tongue" This comes from the story of the great Master Asangha. We've told this story in depth before - but, to put it simply. Asangha was in a very long retreat, and was trying to gain vision of Buddha Maitreya - the coming Buddha who will bring the Golden Age (pictured). After many trials and tribulations, Asangha was still blind to Maitreya. One day, Asangha left his cave. There he saw a wounded dog, his side full of festering maggots. Due to the heightened sensitivity he had towards Bodhicitta, he felt need to help the dog. He did so by removing the maggots from the dogs body, but then he realized ... he didn't want to injure the maggots either, so he offered the maggots his tongue instead, to feed upon. He pulled the maggots out, and the maggots ate his tongue. He then saw the dog & maggots were actually Maitreya all along.

Don't fall for clumsy propaganda.

I take refuge in the Guru. ཨོཾ་ཨཱཿ གུ་རུ་བཛྲ་དྷ་ར་བྷཊྚཱ་ར་ཀ་མཉྫུ་ཤྲཱི་ཝཱགིནྡྲ་སུ་མ་ཏི་ཛྙཱ་ན་ཤཱ་ས་ན་དྷ་ར་ས་མུ་དྲ་ཤྲཱི་བྷ་དྲ་སརྦ་སིདྡྷི་ཧཱུཾ་ཧཱུཾ།

This is a very good explanatory video.

Most people take the mental image of a Buddha-form as their object of concentration in order to develop shamatha. First one must become thoroughly familiar with the object that one will focus on. This is done by sitting in front of a statue or drawing of the object for a few sessions and gazing at it. Then try sitting in meditation, holding the image of the form in mind without the aid of the statue or drawing. At first your visualisation of it will not be very clear nor will you be able to hold it for more than a few seconds. Nonetheless, try to hold the image as clearly and for as long a period as possible. By persisting you will soon be able to retain the image for a minute, then two minutes and so forth. Each time the mind leaves the object apply mindfulness and bring it back. Meanwhile, continually maintain attentive application to see if unnoticed disturbances are arising. Just as a man carrying a bowl full of water down a rough road has to keep one part of his mind on the water and another part on the road, in shamatha practice one part of the mind must apply mindfulness to maintain steady concentration and another part must use attentive application to guard against disturbances. Later, when mental agitation has somewhat subsided, mindfulness will not have to be used very often. However, then the mind is fatigued from having fought agitation for so long and consequently torpor sets in. Eventually, a stage comes when the meditator feels tremendous bliss and peace. This is actually only extremely subtle torpor but it is often mistakenly taken to be real shamatha. With persistence, this too disappears. The mind gradually becomes more clear and fresh and the length of each meditation session correspondingly increases. At this point the body can be sustained entirely by the mind. One no longer craves food or drink. The meditator can now meditate for months without a break. Eventually he attains the ninth stage of shamatha, at which level, the scriptures say, the meditator is not disturbed even if a wall collapses beside him. The tenth stage of shamatha—or actual shamatha—is attained. When he meditates it is as though the mind and the object of meditation become one. Now the meditator can look deeply into the nature of his object of meditation while holding all details of the object in his mind. This gives him extraordinary joy. Here, looking into the nature of his object of meditation means that he examines it to see whether or not it is pure, whether or not it is permanent, what is its highest truth, etc. This is the meditation known as vipasyana, or higher insight. Through it the mind gains a deeper perception of the object than it could through concentration alone. Merely having shamatha gives tremendous spiritual satisfaction; but not going on to better things is like having built an aeroplane and then never flying it. Once concentration has been attained, the mind should be applied to higher practices. On the one hand it has to be used to overcome karma and mental distortion, and on the other hand to cultivate the qualities of a Buddha. In order to ultimately accomplish these goals, the object of meditation that it takes up must be voidness itself. Other forms of meditation are only to prepare the mind for approaching voidness. If you have a torch with the capacity to illuminate anything you should use it to find something important. The torch of shamatha should be directed at realisation of voidness for it is only a direct experience of voidness which pulls out the root of all suffering. Once a practitioner has come close to understanding voidness he is on his way to the perfection of wisdom. Prajna-paramita, the ultimate goal of the development of concentration. —Geshe Rabten Rinpoche