Yungdrung Tharpaling...Lamayuru Monastery & Mahasiddha Naropa (11th c. AD)

**************************

"Lamayuru or Yuru Monastery (Tibetan: བླ་མ་གཡུང་དྲུང་དགོན་པ་, Wylie: bla ma gyung drung dgon pa "Eternal Monastery", Lama Yungdrung Gonpa......Urdu: لمیرو گومپا‎) is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Lamayouro, Leh district, India. It is situated on the Srinagar-Leh highway 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) east of the Fotu La ....A. H. Francke states that, "according to popular tradition," it was originally the foremost Bon monastery in Ladakh; its name means sauwastika and is a popular symbol in Bon for "eternity". .....Yungdrung is the name of the most popular school of Bon..... It is currently affiliated with the Drikung Kagyu school of Buddhism....Francke, A. H. (1977). A History of Ladakh. (Originally published as, A History of Western Tibet, (1907).

Click on the map to enlarge

"Lamayuru......Yungdrung Tharpaling (g.yung drung thar pa gling), known today as Lamayuru, is the most ancient monastery of Ladakh.... LamaYuru, a vast monastery complex on a steep outcrop of earth..... Legend has it that the region where Yungdrung Tharpaling is situated today, approximately 127 km to the west of Leh, the capital of Ladakh, at the time of Buddha Shakyamuni was under a big lake, which was home to many Nagas. Rising prominently from the eastern part of the lake was a little dry hill which was locally called Skambur. It is said that the Arahat Madhyantika, when he visited the lake at Lamayuru and made water offerings to the Nagas, made a crack into the ground of the lake with his walking staff to leak out the water. He also pronounced the prophecy that in the future, the teachings of Sutra and Tantra unified will flourish in this place.."..... http://www.drikung.org/drikung-kagyu-lineage/main-monasteries/ladakh/lamayuru

"Mahasiddha Naropa (c. 1016–1100) visited Lamayuru coming from Zanskar...... He spent a long time in strict retreat in a cave there and turned the place into a sacred land. The cave still exists, well preserved and forms part of the main shrine of Lamayuru Monastery.......When Naropa was a great yogi, that he visited Kashmir. He came to Sani in Zanskar and to Lama Yuru in Ladakh.....at Sani the stupa here was built 2,500 years ago they say. It is called Kaniska or Sani Kaniska.....Guru Rinpoche came some 1300 years ago and mediated here establishing the cremation grounds and many springs. Then 1000 years ago came Naropa who meditated in front of the Kaniska Stupa."..... http://www.drikung.org/drikung-kagyu-lineage/main-monasteries/ladakh/lamayuru......http://naropa.edu/documents/programs/ma-environmental-leadership/footsteps.pdf

"Later in his life Naropa stayed in Phullahari, where he died aged 85 (c. 1040 AD)....One of the few reliable historical accounts of him comes from a Tibetan translator named Ngatso Lotsawa, who made an effort to visit Naropa at the monastery of Phullahari while waiting to visit with Atiśa at Vikramashila:......' I thought I would go see the Lord Naropa, since his reputation was so great.... On the day I arrived, they said some feudal prince had come to pay homage. So I went to the spot, and a great throne had been erected. I sat right in front of it. The whole crowd started buzzing, "The Lord is coming!" I looked and the Lord was physically quite corpulent, with his white hair [stained with henna] bright red, and a vermilion turban on. He was being carried [on a palanquin] by four men, and was chewing betel-leaf....So, there I saw the Lord's face, but did not actually hear his voice."......Davidson, Ronald M. Indian Esoteric Buddhism. pg 317. Columbia University Press, 2003.

"In 1038 the great translator Rinchen Zangpo (958–1055) built five temples at Lamayuru. These were among the 108 temples and stupas he erected in Spiti and Ladakh. One of the five temples at Lamayuru is still in perfect condition."...... http://www.drikung.org/drikung-kagyu-lineage/main-monasteries/ladakh/lamayuru

"The Lamayuru monastery, which is around 125 kms away from Leh. During the Yuru Kabgyat Festival, the monks perform mask dances, prayers and rituals in order to get away from any kind of disaster and for bringing in peace in the world. This is a pre-historic monastery, which is called Yuru Gonpa by the locals. This festival is dedicated to Yuru Kabgyat and his mythical connection...The main objective behind this masked dance drama is to appease the deity.....The Yuru Kabgyat dance consists of Chams in which the Lamas dance in the form of circles with large colorful masks. This circular movement is often accompanied by drum beats, long pipes and cymbals. The masks are usually made from paper mache and there is also a thin coat of plaster enveloping it.....The main figures portrayed are the Yama or the Lord of Death and Padmasambhava..... At Lamayuru in Leh, this dance is a renowned dance drama which is held every year during the Yuru Kabgyat festival, (held around July –August.) This dance drama concludes with sacrificial offerings......http://www.lehladakhindia.com/festivals/yuru-kabgyat-festival/

"Zanskar (“bzang-dkar”, meaning good (or beautiful) and white).......Zanskar, together with the neighbouring region of Ladakh, was briefly a part of the kingdom of Guge in Western Tibet......The majority of Zanskaris are of mixed Tibetan and Indo-European origins; notably Changpa, Dard and Mon.... It is suspected that an Indo-European population known as the Mon might then have lived in this region, before mixing with or being replaced by the next settlers, the Dards. Early Buddhism coming from Kashmir spread its influence in Zanskar, possibly as early as 200 BC. The earliest monuments date from the Kushan period. After this eastward propagation of Buddhism, Zanskar and large parts of the Western Himalaya were overrun in the 7th century by the Tibetans, who imposed their Bön religion.......Buddhism regained its influence over Zanskar in the 8th century when Tibet was also converted to this religion. Between the 10th and 11th centuries, two Royal Houses were founded in Zanskar, and the monasteries of Karsha and Phugtal (see picture) were built. Until the 15th century Zanskar existed as a more or less independent Buddhist Kingdom ruled by between two and four related royal families..".....Namgail, T. (2004). "Zangskar: mystic land". Sanctuary Asia 24: 44–47.

"Guge was an ancient kingdom in Western Tibet. The kingdom was centered in present-day Zanda County, Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region. At various points in history after the 10th century AD, the kingdom held sway over a vast area including south-eastern Zanskar, Upper Kinnaur district, and Spiti Valley, either by conquest or as tributaries. The ruins of the former capital of the Guge kingdom are located at Tsaparang in the Sutlej valley, not far from Mount Kailash and 1,200 miles (1,900 km) westwards from Lhasa.....Guge was founded in the 10th c. AD.....Nyi ma mgon, a great-grandson of Langdarma, the last monarch of the Tibetan Empire, established a kingdom in Ngari (West Tibet) in or after 912 ADand annexed Puhrang and Guge. He established his capital in Guge.....

'A Summer Ride Through Western Tibet......1906.......By Jane E. Duncan..... FranckeAntiquitiesPNG.....Antiquities of Indian Tibet: Personal narrative.....Page 80.....By August Hermann Francke

**************************

Okar Research is an informal online review of published materials exploring the history, myths, legends, languages, geography, terms, practices, teachers and teachings of the ancient Central Asian 'Kingdom of Shambhala'.

**************************

Click Here to view the Okar Research Index

**************************

John Hopkins.....New Mexico
Email: okarresearch@gmail.com

**************************

Barak Baba & the Il-khanid (Tibetan Buddhist/Muslim) Rulers of Persia (1257-1307 AD)

**************************

Click Here to View the Main Index

**************************

"Barak Baba..........(1257-1307 AD), a crypto-shamanic Anatolian Turkman dervish close to two of the Mongol rulers of Iran, the Īlkhānid period.......http://www.iranicaonline.org

"Ahmet Karamustafa, Ph.D., associate professor of Islamic thought and Turkish literature in Arts and Sciences......his treatise on the Qalandars, a 13th-century Islamic dervish movement that also favored tambourines and psychoactive drugs, not to mention drums and naked revelry.....Among dervishes, he explains, such bizarre anti-establishment behavior was considered an intensely spiritual act of pious self-denial, an outward sign of disdain for earthly societal norms. It's an intellectual tidbit that might prove useful to anyone seeking answers to social unrest in the '60s......In his 1994 book, "God's Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period, 1200 - 1500," Karamustafa tells of Barak Baba, who led about 100 dervishes into Syria in 1306. Baba, who made a point of thumbing his nose at authority, liked to wander around nearly naked, wearing only a red cloth around his waist and a reddish turban on his head. His turban sported buffalo horns protruding from either side......Baba's dervishes were renowned for their "immoral" ways, which included consumption of illegal foods and drugs and failure to observe the ritual Islamic fast. Like the free-spirited flower children of this century, dervishes were castigated as no-account beggars, idiots, lunatics and impostors, both by contemporary church leaders and waves of subsequent religious scholars."....http://home.earthlink.net/~drmljg/id1.html

"Barāq Bābā left Sarï Saltūq and traveled to the Il-khanid court, probably because of a reverse his master’s forces had suffered. When Barāq Bābā came into the presence of Ḡāzān Khan in Tabrīz, a tiger was unleashed on him to test his occult powers; a cry from him was sufficient to halt it in its tracks. Thereafter he enjoyed the trust both of Ḡāzān and of his successor, Moḥammad Ḵodā-banda Oljāytū (Öljeytü)..... it is possible to see in Barāq Bābā an early exponent of the potent mixture of Turkic shamanism, Sufism, and ḡolāt-Shiʿism that some two centuries later brought the Safavids to power."....http://www.iranicaonline.org/

"In 1306 AD Barāq Bābā arrived in Damascus, carrying the Il-khanid banner and a letter of appointment. His outlandish appearance aroused both disgust and amusement: He was naked except for a red loincloth (fūṭa) and extremely filthy, wearing a kind of felt turban to which cowhorns were attached on his head. His companions were similarly dressed and carried with them an assortment of bones and bells, to the accompaniment of which Barāq Bābā would dance, imitating the antics of monkeys and bears....Tapdūq Emre, the preceptor of the celebrated mystical poet Yūnos Emre, were both regarded as Barāq Bābā’s successors....Qoṭb-al-ʿAlawī’s interpretation of the ecstatic utterances contained in the resāla in conformity with the classical Sufism of Iran suggests that no clear line of demarcation separated the crypto-shamanic Sufism of Barāq Bābā and his peers from its established and orthodox counterpart. Barāq Bābā is said, indeed, to have been one of those whom Ḡāzān Khan consulted concerning the life and teachings of Mawlānā Jalāl-al-Dīn Rūmī".....http://www.iranicaonline.org/

"ḠĀZĀN KHAN......(1271-1304 AD), oldest son of Arḡūn Khan and his eventual successor as the seventh Il-khanid ruler of Persia......he was appointed governor of the eastern provinces, i.e., Khorasan, Māzandarān, Qūmes and Ray..... Ḡāzān was a Buddhist who converted to Islam.....Once firmly on the throne, Ḡāzān launched a campaign against the non-Muslims in his kingdom. Particularly affected were the Buddhists, to which the Khan had belonged before his conversion to Islam. The Buddhist baḵšīs (lamas or scholars, q.v.) were given the option either to become Muslims or to leave the country. Buddhist temples were destroyed as were many churches and synagogues.....In spite of his conversion to Islam, Ḡāzān remained loyal to different aspects of Mongol tradition, most notably the yāsā, or law code attributed to Čengīz Khan." ....http://www.iranicaonline.org/

"The Ilkhanate, a khanate that formed the southwestern sector of the Mongol Empire, ruled by the Mongol House of Hulagu...The founder of the Ilkhanate dynasty was Hulagu Khan, (1218-1265 AD).....grandson of Genghis Khan....... It was founded in the 13th century and was based primarily in Iran as well as neighboring territories......Hulagu's descendants ruled Persia for the next eighty years, tolerating multiple religions, including Shamanism, Buddhism, and Christianity, and ultimately adopting Islam as a state religion in 1295......The Ilkhanate was originally based on the campaigns of Genghis Khan in the Khwarazmian Empire in 1219–24 and was founded by Hulagu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan. With the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire after 1259 it became a functionally separate khanate. At its greatest extent, the state expanded into territories that today comprise most of Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Turkey, western Afghanistan, and southwestern Pakistan. Later Ilkhanate rulers, beginning with Ghazan in 1295, would convert to Islam......

Click on the map to enlarge

"In the period after Hulagu, the Ilkhans increasingly adopted Tibetan Buddhism. Christian powers were encouraged by what appeared to be an inclination towards Nestorian Christianity by Ilkhanate rulers, but this was probably nothing more than the Mongols' traditional even-handedness towards competing religions. The Ilkhans were thus markedly out of step with the Muslim majority they ruled. Ghazan, shortly before he overthrew Baydu, converted to Islam, and his official favoring of Islam as a state religion coincided with a marked attempt to bring the regime closer to the non-Mongol majority of the regions they ruled. Christian and Jewish subjects lost their equal status with Muslims and again had to pay the poll tax. Buddhists had the starker choice of conversion or expulsion.".....

"In Sufism, teachers of ‘crazy wisdom’ are termed ‘Malamati’ or followers of the ‘Path of Blame.’ They may find it necessary in their teaching function to incur feelings of opposition in others, in order to challenge fixed ideas and assumptions......Individuals who follow the ‘Malamati’ approach do not worry about appearances, image or the impression made on others. They incur reproach, take no care of their repute, and simplydo and say what they consider right.".....http://www.lightwinnipeg.org/Crazy%20Wisdom.pdf

"The Qalandariyyah (Qalandaris or Kalandars)..... are wandering Sufi dervishes. The term covers a variety of sects, not centrally organized.......Starting in the early 12th century, the movement gained popularity in Greater Khorasan and neighbouring regions.....Particular to the qalandar genre of poetry are terms that refer to gambling, games, intoxicants......The Qalandariya may have arisen from the earlier Malamatiyya and exhibited some Buddhist and Hindu influences."

**************************

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

December 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

**************************

Buddhagupta-natha & Dumasthira, Oddiana (1580 AD)

**************************

Click Here to View the Main Index

**************************

"Buddhaguptanatha (1514-1610 ?)...about 1580 AD Buddhaguptanatha locates Urgyan (Uddyana) in Ghazni, about 50 miles south of Kabul in modern Afghanistan, which is in contrast with the traditional location of Urgyan in the Swat area......Tāranātha (1575–1634) gives a detailed description of the country and Dumasthira, the capital city of Uddyana....the focal location of the magic dakini women...."

"Buddhagupta-natha travelled to Uḍḍyāna in the north-west and beheld many miracles. While there, he visited the capital Dhuma-sthira and many sacred sites in the surroundig regions, such as the place where there is a reflection in the shape of a horse, known to be an emanation of the Master Ashva-ratna (Paramaśva), the place were Master Lawapa threw back a rain of stones sent by the ḍākinīs, and the temple that houses the personal Heruka statue of Master Padma-vajra. He visited most of the places associated with the former Māha-siddhas of great fame.......Buddhagupta describes the women of Uḍḍyāna as being of the various types of ḍākinīs, all posessing different types of magical abilities. A girl that he met upon the road threw a handful of sand into a rivers water. The flow of the water was cut off and she crossed safely. Thereafter the water resumed its flow. Another woman transformed herself into a bat and flew off into the sky, later to land safely in a far-off field. However, Tāranātha muses whether or not such occurences might not be beyond the scope of vision of rather more ordinary beings. While in Dhuma-sthira, Buddhagupta experienced the occurrence of signs of success in his practice and for three days and nights everything shone forth as the maṇḍala of Vajrayoginī."..... http://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/Buddhagupta-natha

"Buddhaguptanatha was remarkable. He travelled on foot to Iran, Balkh in the north of Afghanistan, Kashgar in Central Asia, Multan, Kabul, Khorasan, Badakshan, Qusht and the lands of the Mughals....."....Buddhaguptanatha and the Late Survival of the Siddha Tradition in India.....by David Templeman

"Buddhaguptanatha (16th C. AD).....for example, unequivocally states that Oddiyana is located to the west of Swat, in the vicinity of Ghazni, 50 miles south of Kabul...."......Historical Dictionary of Tibet.....By John Powers, David Templeman...Page 489

"Buddhagupta natha was, we should first look at his name. While the Buddha part tells us something about his spiritual affiliation, it is the nath part that we should discuss first. He belonged to what is known as the ‘Nath’ or ‘Gorakhnathi’ tradition of Shiva worship......Naths tend to wear white clothing and are identified by what is called the kanphata, the split ear, with an ivory ring thrust into the lobe. Naths have a tremendous tradition of pilgrimage and of scholarship. They practise a type of Hatha Yoga which, in its externals, is similar to the Tibetan yogic tradition. The Nath understanding of the physical and psychological structure of the body is much the same as that found in Buddhist tantric practices, with its focus on the ‘moon channel,’ ‘sun channel,’ bindu drops, et cetera. ....

"The Nath tradition is a heterodox siddha tradition containing many sub-sects. It was founded by Matsyendranath and further developed by Gorakshanath. These two individuals are also revered in Tibetan Buddhism as Mahasiddhas (great adepts) and are credited with great powers and perfected spiritual attainment. Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India, is the centre of Nath sampradaya.....The establishment of the Naths as a distinct historical sect purportedly began around the 8th or 9th c. AD......Gorakshanath is considered by many to have been the most influential of the ancient Naths. He is also reputed to have written the first books dealing with Laya yoga and the raising of the kundalini-shakti......".....Mahendranath (1990), Notes on Pagan India......Historical Dictionary of Tibet.....By John Powers, David Templeman...Page 489

".....about 1580 AD Buddhaguptanatha locates Urgyan in Ghazni, in modern Afghanistan, which is in contrast with the traditional location of Urgyan in the Swat area. Here, Taranatha gives a detailed description of the country and Dumasthira, the focal location of the magic dakini women:.....[Dumasthira]… is surrounded by mountains, valleys and dense forests and it sits in the midst of all of them. Going from east to west directly, it measures about two days’ journey and from south to north is about four days. Dumasthira is the only city in Urgyan. It’s the size of a small Indian city......There are four ways that lead out of the central area and the outer lands of Urgyan are also very extensive. It is in Muslim control, and even today, in the central part, there is not the slightest vestige of the order of Buddhist monks any longer. There are, however, groups of fully renunciate yogis, upasakas [lay people] and tirthikas [Jainas], as well as the Muslims there......It appears that most of the women of this town are of the dakini family and that they are fully accomplished in their spiritual practice. They are powerful in their exercise of mantras and they know how to both help and hinder with them. They are skilled in adopting various physical forms and they have the ability to work with the mystic gaze.....They displayed various magical abilities involving birds and my master, Buddhaguptanatha, saw these miracles with his very own eyes and he told me of them. He said that previously when he was in Upper Hor [Muslim territories]… he was fully protected by the mantras that he had received from those dakinis in Urgyan, as well as by his own physical powers. Urgyan is surrounded to the east, the south and the west by three large lakes. When he… crossed over the pass he came into the Hor Mleccha land of Balkh [northern central area of modern Afghanistan]......"Buddhaguptanatha and the Late Survival of the Siddha Tradition in India D Templeman

"... Above is a picture I took at an exhibition of Indian Sufi art titled Light of the Sufis: The Mystical Arts of Islam that was held at the Brooklyn Museum of Art from June to September of 2009......The painting depicts three sufi mendicants and one Buddhist yogin (practicing what I would assume is a Vajrayana completion-stage yoga based upon his asana as well as the use of the meditation belt)...... I was convinced that an interfaith meeting of some sort was underway...."..http://ganachakra.com/tag/buddhagupatnatha/.....Repa Dorje Odzer (Justin von Bujdoss) is the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of New York Tsurphu Goshir Dharma Center, the North American Dharma Center of His Eminence Goshir Gyaltsab Rinpoche.

"I brought the Sufi image with me to India to show H.E. Gyaltsab Rinpoche as he has a passionate interest in history, especially regarding the overlap between Buddhism and Islam. By most accounts Vajrayana (tantric Buddhism) was born somewhere in or around the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan. Other portions of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and northern Central Asia figure largely in the development and dissemination of tantric Buddhism. Many great buddhist teachers spent time in this region- generally refered to as Uddiyana. Such illustrious figures include the Mahasiddhas Tilopa and Kambala, and more recently Orgyen Rinchen Pal (1230-1309 CE) who brought to Tibet a unique system of meditation based upon the Kalachakra Tantra. It is also said that Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) was said to be born somewhere within the Swat valley- the same valley that over the past year has seen terrible devastation in relation to the war in Afghanistan......In response to the photo of the painting that I brought, H.E. Gyaltsab Rinpoche told me the story of a Buddhist teacher who was described in a historical treatise by Gendun Chophel. There was once a yogin (Rinpoche never gave the name) who wandered through Afghanistan and some of what is now Iran, and after some time started to teach. According to Rinpoche, this very realized teacher interchanged Buddhist philosophical terms such as Dharmakaya and nature-of-mind with Allah when he taught as a means to appeal to his audience. The sensitivity and depth of his teachings were eventually recognized by an elder Sufi teacher who came to name this Buddhist as his successor. "......Buddhism, Islam, and appearance....http://ganachakra.com/tag/buddhagupatnatha/........Repa Dorje Odzer (Justin von Bujdoss) is the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of New York Tsurphu Goshir Dharma Center, the North American Dharma Center of His Eminence Goshir Gyaltsab Rinpoche.

"Taranatha gives us a wonderful description of Dumasthira (the ‘smoky place’), which was the capital city of Urgyan. Urgyan has taken on an almost mythical quality over the centuries since yogi-siddhas first ‘colonised’ it in the 4th and 5th centuries. It is the site par excellence in siddha biographies. Here, we have a wanderer visiting it in about 1580 and still discovering its magical qualities! Buddhaguptanatha locates Urgyan in Ghazni, in modern Afghanistan, which is in contrast with the traditional location of Urgyan in the Swat area."....https://undumbara.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/buddhaguptanatha-and-the-late-survival-of-the-siddha-tradition-in-india-d-templeman/

"After this long and intense exposure to Shri Singha, Vairotsana was finally prepared to meet the adiguru of the Dzogchen tradition, the nirmanakaya emanation of Vajrasattva, Garab Dorje himself. This apocryphal encounter occurred in a cremation ground called Dumasthira, the place of fire and smoke, and Vairotsana emerged from the meeting with the transmission of the entire 6,400,000 Dzogchen verses and a body of light."......Original Perfection by Keith Dowman...Page 15

"...I am reminded of the story of Taranatha and one of his teachers named Buddhaguptanatha. Buddhaguptanatha (1514-1610? AD) was an Indian Buddhist yogin who also held and practiced several Hindu yogic traditions. Taranatha apparently discovered this fact while Buddhaguptanatha was in the midst of bestowing a series of empowerments that he himself had received from his guru, Shantigupta. Taranatha was particularly challenged by the idea that his teacher also practiced Hinduism. Sensing his student’s sectarian reaction Buddhaguptanatha became upset and abruptly left Tibet leaving the series of empowerments incomplete. It is humbling that even for a teacher as great as Taranatha, the notion of “pure” Buddhism being mixed with Hinduism was a challenge- that on some level his own sense of distinction got the better of him. ".....http://ganachakra.com/tag/buddhagupatnatha/.....Repa Dorje Odzer (Justin von Bujdoss) is the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of New York Tsurphu Goshir Dharma Center, the North American Dharma Center of His Eminence Goshir Gyaltsab Rinpoche.

Click on the map to enlarge

**************************

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

August 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

**************************

Drukpa Kunleg: Phallus Paintings: Crazy Wisdom from Bhutan (1500 AD)

**************************

Click Here to View the Main Index

**************************

"Drukpa Kunleg ('brug pa kun legs) [1455-1529] aka The Madman of Bhutan, Kunga Legpa ('brug smyon kun dga' legs pa)..... was a great master of Mahamudra in the Buddhist tradition, as well as a famous poet, and is often counted among the Nyönpa.... After undergoing training in Ralung Monastery under siddha Pema Lingpa, he introduced Buddhism to Bhutan and established the monastery of Chimi Lhakhang there in 1499."

"Nyönpa (Wylie: smyon pa "mad one(s)") may refer to a group of Tibetan Buddhist yogis or a single individual belonging to this group. They were mainly known for their unusual style of teaching, to which they owed their names......Famous Nyönpa....
Drukpa Kunley....(1455 - 1529)....The Madman of Bhuta
Thangtong Gyalpo (Tibetan: ཐང་སྟོང་རྒྱལ་པོ་, Wylie: thang stong rgyal po) (1385–1464) ...aka: Chakzampa (Wylie: lcags zam pa) and Tsöndrü Zangpo (Wylie: brtson 'grus bzang po) was a great Buddhist adept, a yogi, physician, blacksmith, architect, and a pioneering civil engineer.....He is said to have built 58 iron chain suspension bridges around Tibet and Bhutan, several of which are still in use today. ....
Tsangnyön Heruka (Tibetan: གཙང་སྨྱོན་ཧེ་རུ་ཀ་, Wylie: Gtsang smyon Heruka 1452-1507), was a Tibetan master of the Kagyu school and writer. Born in Tsang, he is best known as a biographer and compiler of the "The Life of Milarepa" and "The Collections of Songs of Milarepa", both classics of Tibetan literature.....
U Nyön Kunga Zangpo......"Madman of Central Tibet" (dbus smyon kun dga' bzang po) [1458-1532]....

"Phallus paintings in Bhutan are esoteric symbols of an erect penis in Bhutan and are generally traced to Drukpa Kunley.....which have their origins in the Chimi Lhakhang monastery near Punakha, the former capital of Bhutan. The village monastery was built in honour of Lama Drukpa Kunley who lived in the 15-16th century and who was popularly known as the "Mad Saint" or “Divine Madman” for his unorthodox ways of teaching, which amounted to being bizarre and shocking. These explicit paintings, though embarrassing to many urbanites now (this folk culture is now informally discouraged in urban centres), can be seen painted on the walls of houses and buildings throughout Bhutan, particularly in villages, and are credited as Kunley's creations. Traditionally symbols of an erect penis in Bhutan are traced to Drukpa Kunley....studies carried out at the Center of Bhutan Studies (CBS) have inferred that the phallus was an integral part of Bön tradition, an animistic and shamanistic religion, which existed in Bhutan before Buddhism became the state religion. In Bonism, phallus was integral to all Bon rituals. Dasho Lam Sanga, a former principal of the Institute of Language and Culture Studies (ILCS), while stating that there are no written documents on it, elaborates: “But the worship of the phallus was believed to be in practice even before the arrival of Guru Rimpoche and Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal ... What we know about it is what we heard from our forefathers....The phallic symbols are, however, generally not depicted in community temples and dzongs, which are most revered places of worship where lamas or Buddhist monks reside and who have adopted celibate lifestyle and pursue divine ideals. However, rural and ordinary houses continue to display them."..... Karma Choden (2014). Phallus: Crazy Wisdom from Bhutan. Bhutan: ButterLamp Publishers.

"Bhutan's pervasive phallus: Is Drukpa Kunley really responsible?.......by Francoise Pommaret and Tashi Tobgay (Royal University of Bhutan).....As the Bhutanese scholar Sonam Kinga has written, in Bhutan “phalluses are everywhere”......

"The Gold Manuscript of the Fifth Dalai Lama contains images of ritual cakes in the shape of a “Human penis representing Shiva, used in the rite for dealing with evil omens that occur”......The Indian reference to the Shiva linga is also explicit in Bhutan as the phallus is referred to by one of the names of Shiva: Wangchuk chenpo (dBang phyug chenpo). This is clear evidence that the phallic symbol echoes its association with the Hindu deity Shiva channelled through Buddhism."....Bhutan's pervasive phallus: Is Drukpa Kunley really responsible?.......by Francoise Pommaret and Tashi Tobgay (Royal University of Bhutan)

"Tandin Dorji in his unpublished PhD on the lha 'bod ritual of Bjena village in Western Bhutan, writes: 'Le phallus en bois est un objet qui a un rôle significatif dans plusieurs rituels : dans le rituel de chodpa'.....In these community rituals, which take place in the village and which are associated with Bon beliefs, as understood in the Bhutanese context, that is non-Buddhist."....Pommaret, forthcoming, CBS, 2004, and Tandin Dorji, unpublished PhD

"....an anecdote from the life of the ‘divine madman’ Drukpa Kunley ('Brug pa Kun legs 1455-1529). He convinced his mother to sleep with him, the act of incest par excellence, and when she finally relented, he left.".....Dowman, Keith,....The Divine madman. The sublime Life & Songs of Drukpa Kunley....1980.

"Contemporary Bhutanese associate the protective role of the phallus—its ability to wardoff evil spirits or obstacles—with Drukpa Kunley who subdued demonesses with his‘thunderbolt’ (rdo rje/vajra), meaning his male organ. Tiny phallus (called srung ma) are carved from special trees for the protection of children, but are also hung around the necks of animals, and nowadays on the inside mirrors of cars."....http://www.academia.edu/3197709 Bhutans_pervasive_phallus_ Is_Drukpa_Kunley_really _responsible

"Drukpa Kunley has become in Bhutan almost a timeless figure presenting similarities with two other folk heroes, Ap Wang Drugye of western Bhutan and the Tibetan Akhu Tonpa(A khu ston pa)....Stories of Akhu Tonpa are widely popular throughout the Himalayan world and across the plateau where Akhu Tonpa is an archetypal trickster figure.....They have their share of ribaldry and illicit sexual adventures, soit is clear that sexuality in Tibet was part, at least, of the popular discourse as it is in Bhutan."....http://akhustonpa.blogspot.com/2008/03/on-historicity-of-tibetan-folk-tale.html

Pommaret, Françoise, ‘Bon and chos, community rituals in Bhutan’, Proceedings of the XIIth IATSBonn 2006, in Antonio Terrone (ed.).....Buddhism beyond Monasticism, Brill. Leiden,forthcoming 2009

The Saintly Madman in Tibet.....http://www.case.edu/affil/tibet/booksAndPapers/Saintly_Madman_Tibet.pdf

Shiva......དབང་ཕྱུག་ཆེན་པོ་........། (Wyl. dbang phyug chen po ) Pron.: wangchuk chenpo Skt. महेश्वरः, maheśvara, Pron.: maheshvara. From Sanskrit: a great lord, sovereign, 'chief of the gods' ..... (•esp. of Śiva and of Kṛishṇa......of the Loka-pālas or guardians of the world

"Bhutan’s phallic worship is getting a second look. The age-old tradition is being reconsidered — to preserve its rich narratives, as artistic inspiration and as a tool for religious belief. In fact, the phallic symbol is suddenly again in vogue, contrary to the popular belief that modern Bhutanese are discomfited by the graphic paintings of an erect penis......A young Bhutanese female author has released a new book, “Phallus: Crazy Wisdom from Bhutan,” a filmmaker is working on a film that explores phallic culture and an artist has carved a provocative phallus with dragon......“I not only saw phalluses of all kinds — from one village to the other — but I found the stories behind its symbolism equally intriguing,” said the author, Karma Choden. “It is like a new art form is found. We are now giving our own spin to spirituality, culture and ritual.....An animist ritual, which predates the arrival of Buddhism in Bhutan, is still practiced in western Bhutan. During the festival called “Lhabon,” or “calling the gods,” one community uses a ladder that has its edges carved in a shape of a phallus. They believe the deities, who will bless them with prosperity and good health, descend on a rope tied to the ladder..”....Bhutan takes a second look at phallus worship....by Tara Limbu

"Drukpa Kunley, who is a very accomplished and unusual mahasiddha. He actually met Tsongkhapa as is a contemporary of Lama Tsongkhapa. It is said he requested Lama Tsongkhapa for a protection string from Lama Tsongkhapa. Tsongkhapa asked him where would he want the string to be tied to, Drukpa Kunley replied that he would like it to be tied on his penis which is as clean as his hand. Later on, it is said that he is able to use his penis to subdue demons and he refers to his penis as a vajra.".....Converting Demons with his Thunderbolt.....http://www.dorjeshugden.com/forum/index.php?topic=2078.0

"In Bhutan, they take fertility very seriously. So much so that there is even a monastery devoted entirely to promoting fertility…the Chimi Lhakhang, more commonly know in English as the “Temple of the ‘Divine Madman’” after its founder.......Long throughout human history, the phallus has been an important symbol, often used as a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva (though here it is referred to as a Lingam). In the case of Bhutan, this long tradition of painting phalluses on houses is thought to bring its inhabitants luck (particularly with the ribbon in the photos above) and serves as a symbol of fertility.....So just who is this divine man and why is he mad? Well, Drukpa Kunley, as he is known, is a 15th century saint who was quite famous for his sexual exploits, which were his methods of enlightening people… Rumor has it that he even tied a ribbon around his own phallus to give him luck with the ladies! (It seems to have worked, as now you see ribbons around painted phalluses all over the place! .....http://www.aaronswwadventures.com/2011/02/phallus-fertility-blessings-bhutan/

**************************

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….October 2014

**************************

Mahasiddha Kṛṣṇapāda, the Great & Rongzompa

**************************

Click Here to View the Main Index

**************************

Atiśa (980–1054) considered Rongzompa to be an incarnation of the Indian ācārya Kṛṣṇapāda, the Great.

Mahasiddha Khanapa… Kānhapa / Krsnācharya (nag po pa): “The Dark Master”/”The Dark-Skinned One”....Kṛṣṇācārya, Kṛṣṇāpāda, Kānhupāda, Kānphā, Kaṇha-pa, Kāṇha, ācārya Caryāpa, Kaniphanāth, Kānarī-nāth?, Kānupā....Kanhapa (Krishnacharya), the "Dark Siddha";

The Mahasiddha Kanhapa (Krsnacarya), The Dark Siddha......The Legends of the Eighty-four Mahasiddhas (Grub thob brgyad bcu tsa bzhi'i lo rgyus) by Mondup Sherab orally dictated by Abhayadatta Sri (12th c.) and Vajra Songs: the Heart Realizations of the Eighty-four Mahasiddhas (Grub thob brgyad bcu rtogs pa'i snying po rdo rje'i lu) by Vira Prakash, translated by Keith Dowman with Bhaga Tulku Pema Tenzin; introduction and commentaries by Keith Dowman; cover and 20 line drawings by H. R. Downs; published by the State University of New York Press, Albany, NY., 1985,

"Kanipa Nath.......The great Siddha yogi Kanipa was one of most remarkable personalities amongst the Māhasiddhas of the Tantrik traditions of India and Tibet. In different stories he appearing under various names, as Kṛṣṇācārya, Kṛṣṇāpāda, Kānhupāda, Kānphā, Kaṇha-pa, Kāṇha, ācārya Caryāpa, Kaniphanāth, Kānarī-nāth?, Kānupā and more. It is seems as the established historical fact that he was the chief disciple of the Natha Siddha Jalandhar Nath, and live at the same period of time with the Guru Goraksh Nath, whom he have met few times. He appeared as the remarkable and powerful yogi in the Indian Śaiva tradition of the Nātha yogis and in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of the Vajrayana Māhasiddhas. The both traditions agree that he was prominent Siddha yogi and at the same time paṇḍita (highly learned man), and had lot of disciples.".....The Great Natha Siddhas

"Guru Goraksh Nath......Gorakshanath (also known as Gorakhnath) was an 11th to 12th century Hindu Nath yogi, connected to Shaivism as one of the two most important disciples of Matsyendranath, the other being Caurangi.....Traditionally, Guru Gorakshanath is believed to have been born sometime in the 8th century, although some believe he was born hundreds of years later. He traveled widely across the Indian subcontinent, and accounts about him are found in some form in several places including Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Punjab, Sindh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Nepal, Assam, Bengal, Kathiawar(Gujarat), Maharashtra, Karnataka, and even Sri Lanka......

"Judith Simmer-Brown (2001: p. 127), in her exposition of the charnel ground conveys how great mahasiddhas in the Nath and Mantrayana Buddhadharma traditions such as Tilopa (988–1069) and Gorakṣa (fl. 11th – 12th century) yoked adversity to till the soil of the path and accomplish the fruit, the "ground" (Sanskrit: āśraya; Wylie: gzhi) of realization....."..... (2001). Dakini's warm breath: the feminine principle in Tibetan Buddhism.

"The Nath tradition is a heterodox siddha tradition containing many sub-sects. It was founded by Matsyendranath and further developed by Gorakshanath. These two individuals are also revered in Tibetan Buddhism as Mahasiddhas (great adepts) and are credited with great powers and perfected spiritual attainment......The establishment of the Naths as a distinct historical sect purportedly began around the 8th or 9th century.....

"There exist three principal legends about him considerably different from each other, one which was circulating as oral tradition amongst the Nātha Yogis and in the form of folklore tales, and second was presented in the book Caturaśīti-siddha-pravṛitti amongst the stories of eighty-four Mahasiddhas under number 17. The third variation of his biography was presented by Lama Taranatha in two of his books ‘The Seven Instruction Lineages’ and ‘The Live of Kṛṣṇācārya/Kāṇha’. ".....https://sites.google.com/site/nathasiddhas/kanipa-nath

"Most extensive account of his life was given by the famous Tibetan historian Lama Tara Natha in two his works, ‘The Seven Instruction Lineages’ and ‘Live of Kṛṣṇācārya/Kāṇha’, which vary in details from above mentioned. In the book The Seven Instruction Lineages author says that popular belive existed at his time among Tibetans was that Kṛṣṇācāri was born in the country called Karṇa, while in accordance with the oral tradition existed amonst Natha Yogis at that time, he was born in the city Pādyanagar, which also was called Vidyānagar (Vijayanagar). ‘Furthermore, as Vidyānagar is quite close to Karṇa, the early Tibetan accounts appear to be quite similar to the Indian oral accounts’. In accordance with old traditions of Indians he was of the Brāhmana caste, and old Tibetan tradition says that he was of Ārya (noble) family.".....The Great Natha Siddhas

"Tara Natha says that there was even existing prophesy of Buddha about the incarnation of Kṛṣṇācāri. In accordance with it, he would be born in country Uruvica (Uruviśa), which is in accordance with Taranātha’s guru Buddhagupta Nātha, the same with Odivica, the country which close to Bengal (modern Urissa). Prophesy further saying that there was not yogi equal to him in Jambu-dvīpa (the Indian sub continent) before, not it will happen in future. It says that he would have six disciples, which would trancend the existence of their bodies and attain Mahāmudrāsiddhi. Few letters of his name were also predicted by that prophesy. Names of those six disciples it is said were Bhadrapāda, Mahila, Bhadala, the novice Tshem.bu.pa, Dhamapa and Dhumapa. Some say that Bhadala, Bhadra or Bhadrapāda were identical. Instead of them they add Eyalā or yoginī Mekhalā and Kamakhalā or Bande. In his other book Five historical Works of Tāranātha, the author gives more detailed biography of Kānhapā. It is said that his birth place to be in Eastern India, in the Kinghdom of Gaura in an area called Oruviśa, near Bengal. .....In accordance with book Śrīnāthatīrthāvalī, composed by Raja Mansing of Jodhpur in 19th century, there exist place situated on Kalaśācal mountain in Rajastan, connected with his name. It is told that he performed his penance there. His twelve years long penance were mentioned in Caturaśīti-siddha-pravṛitti, but without defining the exact place where it has taken place."

".... the Vajrayana tradition of Tibet and Sahaja tradition of Bengal place him quite high in the list of their acaryas (teachers) and reverently call him ‘Paṇḍit-ācārya’and ācārya Caryāpa. .... First list shows the lineage of transmission which was accepted by Sakyapa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, in accordance with the book ‘History of Buddhism in Tibet’ by Sumpa-mkhan-po-Yeshes. In accordance with it, first stands name of (1)Dorje Chang, who also known as Deity Vajradhara, after him comes (2)Vajrapāni, who is another celestial Guru. Then comes (3) Mahasiddha Saraha, folloved by names of (4) Nāgārjuna, (5) Śavari, (6) Lūipa, (7) Vajraghaṇtā, (8) Kacchapāda, (9) Jālandhara, (10) Kāṇha, (11) Guhya, (12) Vijayapāda, (13) Tilopa, (14) Nāropa, (15) A newar Phum-mthing the greater, (16) Ngag-dVang-Grags-pa or Ngag-dVang-Phyūg, (17) Ngag-gi-dVang-phyug, (18)gLag-Skya-Shes-rab-brtregs, (19) Sakyapa Hierarh Phag-pa...."

"On the basis of existing historical evidence, some researches have expressed the view that there was existing not only one Kṛṣṇācārya, but two or even three of them. In accordance with some of Tibetan sources, Kṛṣṇācārya shown as being direct or indirect disciple of Kānhupā. Lama Taranatha also mentioned existence of ‘yonger Kṛṣṇācāri’."

" In the lineage of Hevajra transmission, in accordance with Taranatha, first comes name Śākyamuni, then Indrabhūti, Mahāpadmavajra, Anaṅgavajra, Saroruha, Indrabhūti younger, Jālandhara, Kāṇha, Bhadrapa, Tilopa and Naropa...."

" The most puzzling question about these two yogis is: ‘How is it happened that they became famous as being two of the most prominent Śaiva yogis and Vajrayana Mahasiddhas at the same time?...It seems that key point to settle this matter can be found in the Hevajra Tantra, the practices of which both of them were practicing. The text of this tantra presently available in form of many different manuscripts, few of which were published by different scholars. One of most famous of them is the text of Hevajra Tantra, with commentary by Kanhupa called Hevajra-pañjikā or Yoga-ratnamālā, which was published in 1959. After closely examining it, one can see that this Tantra, although being Buddhist by declaration, in reality included many Śaiva elements of worship, and those of them which were related to Kapalika practices in particular. ".....https://sites.google.com/site/nathasiddhas/kanipa-nath

Chinnamasta: The Awful Buddhist and Hindu Tantric........By Elisabeth Anne Benard

The Legends of the Eighty-four Mahasiddhas (Grub thob brgyad bcu tsa bzhi'i lo rgyus) by Mondup Sherab orally dictated by Abhayadatta Sri (12th c.) and Vajra Songs: the Heart Realizations of the Eighty-four Mahasiddhas (Grub thob brgyad bcu rtogs pa'i snying po rdo rje'i lu) by Vira Prakash, translated by Keith Dowman with Bhaga Tulku Pema Tenzin; introduction and commentaries by Keith Dowman; cover and 20 line drawings by H. R. Downs; published by the State University of New York Press, Albany, NY., 1985,

The Great Natha Siddhas .....https://sites.google.com/site/nathasiddhas/kanipa-nath

Vajrayogini: Her Visualization, Rituals, and Forms.....by Elizabeth English

**************************

Mahasiddha Kukuraja: the Dog King

**************************

Click Here to View the Main Index

**************************

Kukuraja…"Kukuraja was a mahasiddha within the lineages of Esoteric Buddhism and he was contemporaneous with Indrabhuti in Oddiyana (also known as King Ja) and Kambalapada (also known as Lawapa)…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukuraja

"Some sources hold that it was Kukuraja who prophesied the birth of Garab Dorje, the founder of the human lineage of the Nyingmapa Dzogchen Tantra teachings though the chronology is problematic. The tradition holds that there may be multiple Kukaraja's which are conflated (a view also propounded by modern scholarship) or the different Kukkaraja according to Nyingma tradition may be understood as a lineage of mindstream emanations."….http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukuraja

"…"Then King Ja taught the book to master Uparaja, who was renowned as a great scholar, but he could not understand their symbolic conventions and meaning. The king then taught them to the master Kukkuraja. He intuitively understood the chapter on the "Vision of Vajrasattva", from the Tantra of the Magical Net of Vajrasattva [Wylie: rdo rje sems dpa' sgyu 'phrul drva ba (also known as the Guhyagarbha Tantra)], and practiced it, whereupon Vajrasattva revealed himself and predicted that the Lord of Secrets would reveal the meanings of this tantra thereafter. When he had practised more, the Lord of Secrets actually appeared and granted him [Kukkuraja] the complete empowerment of the authentic teaching and of all vehicles. Then he told him to request the verbal teaching from the Licchavi Vimalakirti. It is said that, following the transmitted precepts of the Lord of Secrets, master Kukkuraja divided [the Mahayoga tantras] into the Eighteen Great Tantrapitaka (tantra chen-po sde bco-brgyad) and taught them to King Ja."…… The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History. Boston, USA: Wisdom Publications.

Kukuraja (ku ku ra dza / ku ku ra tsa – the Mahasiddha who lived with a cohort of dogs.) Another Kukuraja was one of the teachers of Marpa Lotsawa.

Kukuraja—the Dog King—lived on an island in the midst of a swamp of poison. He was known also as Kukkuripa—the Dog Lover—he is famous for these lines:…
"Where deliberate effort and self-conscious striving are present – Buddha is absent….
In view of this all chanting, rituals, and offerings are futile….
Within the peak experience of the Lama’s inspired transmission however, Buddha is ever-present – but who is there who wishes to see that?"
…..http://arobuddhism.org/words/the-year-of-the-dog.html

Kukkuraja; Kukuraja – Kukkuraja; the Dog King (khyi'i rgyal po ku ku ra' dza); [khyi yi rgyal po] . Early master in the sems sde lineage. ….http://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/Kukuraja

Kukkuraja the Younger (khyi'i rgyal po phyi ma) aka Dhahuna the Dog King aka Kukku Dhahuna …. Early master in the sems sde lineage….. http://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/Kukkuraja_the_Younger

"Kukuripa [Tib. Shiwa Sangpo] (ca. 1000) was one of the Mahasiddhas (one of the 84 greatest yogis) and one of Tilopa's teachers. He stayed not far from Pullahari in western Magadha, where he lived on an island "in a poison lake," surrounded by dogs. One of the females reveals herself as a dakini, and she is instrumental in his Realization, for . . . he descended from paradise to rejoin her in the cave…….The dog leaped and pranced with joy when she caught sight of her beloved master. But no sooner did he sit down and begin to scratch her favorite spot, just behind the ears, than she vanished from sight! There before him, wreathed in a cloud of glory, stood a radiantly beautiful Dakini. " ~ Keith Dowman's Masters of Enchantment. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1988. [link is to newer edition]

"Kukuraja was a Buddhist of brahmin origins who practiced in a cave in the company of a dog. In the legends of Guru Rinpoche, after some tantric scriptures landed on the palace roof, King Indrabodhi brought them to Kukuraja for interpretation."….http://www.khandro.net/animal_dog.htm

"Mahasiddhas: Nagarjuna, Shantideva, Mahasiddha, Dampa Sangye, Luipa, Saraha, Milarepa, Indrabhuti, Naropa, Kukuraja, Gorakshanath, Tilopa, Matsyendranath, Marpa Lotsawa, Kukkuripa, Geshe Lama Konchog"…http://www.amazon.com/Mahasiddhas

Kukkuraja the Elder, the son of Kukkuraja Gatu and his wife Crescent Moon….Wellsprings of the Great Perfection: The Lives and Insights of the Early Masters……edited by Michael Tweed, Marcia Binder Schmidt

"Aa monk, Acarya Pramodavajra lived a purely monastic, disciplined life for many years. His discipline as a monk prepared him for the contemplative life. With time he more and more turned away from scholastic studies, to sit in quiet meditation. He meditated in his monastery cell and in the caves and forests of the Kingdom of Uddiyana……At some point in the maturation of his spiritual evolution, he received the blessed Empowerment and Transmission of the profound Mahayoga teachings of the Secret Matrix Tradition (Guhyagarbha-tantra) from the renowned personal guru of the King of Uddiyana, the great white-robed saint Mahasiddha Kukkuraja. After that he retired into retreat on the slopes of Mount Suryaprakasa in the north, where he performed mantra practice in a small grass hut…….Kukkuraja's instruction had been very direct. "Everything without exception is the Divine Body-Speech-Mind," he had said. "The Divine Body-Speech-Mind is all-encompassing. Thus know your ultimate identity to be Vajrasattva, the Divine Body-Speech-Mind." As the Tibetan text of the Kulaya-raja Sutra (Kun.byed.rgyal.po'i .mdo) states: "When everything is seen as the Great Self-identity (bdag.nyid.chen.po), it is known as Atiyoga." Therefore Acarya Pramodavajra's spiritual practice (sadhana) consisted of meditating on the core of his being as ultimately the Absolute itself. For many years the meditation and mantra practice of the one divine Vajrasattva became his sole activity."….http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1766

Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde……by Namkhai Norbu

http://www.keithdowman.net/lineage/lineage_trees.htm

**************************

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….January 2014

**************************

Milam: Dream Yoga, Perceived Reality, Yoga Nidra

**************************

Click Here to View the Main Index

**************************

"The sadhana of Dream Yoga as practiced in Dzogchen traditions such as the Kham, entered the Himalayan tantric tradition from the Mahasiddha, Ngagpa and Bonpo. Dream Yoga or "Milam" (T:rmi-lam; S:svapnadarśana), is one of the Six Yogas of Naropa."......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahasiddha#Different_Mahasiddha_traditions

There are three requirements before a student may begin a practice:
1. the empowerment (Tibetan: wang)
2. a reading of the text by an authorized holder of the practice (Tibetan: lung)
3. instruction on how to perform the practice or rituals (Tibetan: tri).
An individual is not allowed to engage in a deity practice without the empowerment for that practice. The details of an empowerment ritual are often kept secret as are the specific rituals involved in the deity practice.

"Dream Yoga or Milam (T:rmi-lam or nyilam; S:svapnadarśana) — the Yoga of the Dream State are a suite of advanced tantric sadhana of the entwined Mantrayana lineages of Dzogchen (Nyingmapa, Ngagpa, Mahasiddha, Kagyu and Bönpo). Dream Yoga are tantric processes and techniques within the trance Bardos of Dream and Sleep (Tibetan: mi-lam bardo) and are advanced practices similar to Yoga Nidra. Aspects of Dream Yoga sadhana are subsumed within the practice suite of the Six Yogas of Naropa.....In a footnote on 'Zhitro' (Tibetan: zhi khro) Namdak & Dixey, et al. (2002: p. 124) identify that the 'dream body' and the 'bardo body' is the 'vision body' (Tibetan: yid lus): In the bardo one has...the yilu (yid lus), the vision body (yid, consciousness; lus, body). It is the same as the body of dreams, the mind body."... Lopön Tenzin Namdak and Dixey, Richard (2002). Heart Drops of Dharmakaya: Dzogchen Practice of the Bön Tradition. Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1-55939-172-3

"Yoga nidra or "yogi sleep" is a sleep-like state which yogis report to experience during their meditations. Yoga nidra, lucid sleeping is among the deepest possible states of relaxation while still maintaining full consciousness. Lucid dreaming is the Western term used to denote a practice similar to yoga nidra. The distinguishing difference is the degree to which one remains cognizant of the actual physical environment as opposed to a dream environment. In lucid dreaming, one is only (or mainly) cognizant of the dream environment, and have little or no awareness of our actual environment....Yoga nidra refers to the conscious awareness of the deep sleep state, referred to as prajna in Mandukya Upanishad....The Mandukya Upanishad is the shortest of the Upanishads – the scriptures of Hindu Vedanta. It is in prose, consisting of just twelve verses expounding the mystic syllable Aum, the three psychological states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep, and the transcendent fourth state of illumination. The Muktikopanishad, which discusses other Upanishads, says that the Mandukya Upanishad alone is enough for salvation."....Rama, Swami. Mandukya Upanishad: Enlightenment Without God.

"According to contemporary Dzogchen teachers Namkhai Norbu, Lopön Tenzin Namdak and Tenzin Wangyal, the perceived reality and the phenomenal world are considered to be ultimately "unreal" — an "illusion" (refer Mahamaya): a dream, a phantasmagoria, a thoughtform. All appearances and phenomena are a dream or thoughtform, inter- and intra- reflecting and refracting jewels and mirrors of possibility and potentiality, "arising in relationships" or "dependent co-arising". It is held by these lineages and due to the realisations of the sadhana, that the dream of life and regular nightly dreams are not dissimilar, and that in their quintessential nature are non-dual. The non-essential difference between the general dreaming state and the general waking experience is that the latter is generally more concrete and linked with attachments, samskara and skandha; whereas, standard non-lucid dreaming is ephemeral and transient, and generally culturally reinforced as baseless and empty. In Dream Yoga, living may become the dream, and the dream may become the living. Progressing the sadhana may be metaphorically likened to living the scientific hypothesis of a resolved superposition. The resolved superposition being a mindstream conflation of Dharmakaya with Shunyata and Indra's Net. The entwined Mantrayana lineages of Nyingmapa, Bonpo, Ngagpa and Mahasiddha are saturated with trance and dream transmissions of teachings, doctrine, etcetera that transcend constructs of time, place and space, these are often called "whispered traditions" and terma. "....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Yoga#cite_note-3

"Lawapa the progenitor of Dream Yoga sadhana was a mahasiddha....Lawapa or Lavapa (Tibetan: la ba pa; grub chen la ba pa; wa ba pa) was a figure in Tibetan Buddhism who flourished in the 10th century. He was also known as Kambala and Kambalapada (Sanskrit: Kaṃbalapāda). Lawapa, was a mahasiddha, or accomplished yogi, who travelled to Tsari.Lawapa was a progenitor of the Dream Yoga sadhana and it was from Lawapa that the mahasiddha Tilopa received the Dream Yoga practice lineage.".....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawapa

Seljé Dö Drelma is the Dakini of sleep in the Bon Tradition.....She is invoked and visualized in sleep-yoga-practice in the Ma Gyu (Mothertantra)..... http://ligminchastore.org/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/m/img_deity_card_sleepkhandro_full265px.jpg

**************************

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….February 2013

**************************

Mahasiddha Lakshminkara: The Crazy Princess of Oddiyana

**************************

Click Here to View the Main Index

**************************

Lakshminkara: the Crazy Princess.....(Abhayadatta Shri, mahasiddha #82)......The beautiful Lakshminkara was the sister of the great king Indrabhuti who ruled over the kingdom of Sambola in the land of Oddiyana....http://www.scribd.com/doc/94393016/James-B-Robinson-Buddha-s-Lions-The-Lives-of-The-Eighty-Four-Siddhas

"There are 84 Mahasiddhas in both Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist traditions......who flourished in India from the eighth to twelfth centuries. Basically, the lives of these eighty-four Indian men and women abound in episodes that demonstrate their conviction to perform any act contrary to convention.....The life story of Mahasiddha Laksminkara describes the kind of journey that is often required of those who seek ultimate truths.She was born into a royal family and had been delicately brought up in luxurious surroundings. She showed a grasp and understanding of tantric concepts even at an early age. All in all it was an idyllic life until she was betrothed to the king of Lanka as part of a deeper political alliance.....The princess despaired when she witnessed his inhuman treatment of animals. .....The next day, when she was finally invited into the palace, she locked herself into a chamber and refused to see anyone, discouraging visitors by throwing things at them. The princess then proceeded to unbound her hair, tore off her clothes and rubbed ashes on her body. She talked incoherently in a prattle, and to all appearances, she was hopelessly insane......One night, she crept out of the palace and fled to a cremation ground, renouncing the world to become a yogini, living by scavenging the food thrown out for dogs. She lived so for seven years until she attained siddhi. A sweeper of the royal latrines served her faithfully during this period. When she gained her realization, he was the first person to be initiated.".....http://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/paintings/mad-princess-who-became-mahasiddha-lakshminkara-WH78/

"Buddhist texts tell of the birth of the Buddhist Chinnamunda. A tale tells of Krishnacharya's disciples, two Mahasiddha sisters, Mekhala and Kankhala, who cut their heads, offered them to their guru and then danced. The goddess Vajrayogini also appeared in this form and danced with them. Another story recalls princess Lakshminkara, who was a previous incarnation of a devotee of Padmasambhava, cut off her head as a punishment from the king and roamed with it in the city, where citizens extolled her as Chinnamunda-Vajravarahi.".....Benard, Elizabeth Anne (2000), Chinnamasta: The Aweful Buddhist and Hindu Tantric Goddess, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-81-208-1748-7

Chinnamasta

"Mahasiddha Skt., roughly “great master of perfect capabilities.” In the - Vajrayana, this term refers to an ascetic who has mastered the teachings of the - Tantras. He distinguishes himself through certain magical powers ( - siddhi), which are visible signs of his enlightenment. Best known is the group of eighty-four mahasiddhas. They represent a religious movement, which developed in India from the 8th to 12th centuries against the background of, and in opposition to, the monastic culture of Mahayana Buddhism. Among the eighty-four mahasiddhas were men and women of all social classes; their model of highly individual realization strongly influenced Tibetan Buddhism. Also of importance were their spiritual songs. The biographies of the eighty-four mahasiddhas, preserved in Tibetan translation, describe personalities like Chatrapa the beggar, Kantali the tailor, and Kumaripa the potter. However, King Indrabhuti and his sister Lakshminkara are also among them, as are scholars like Shantipa. What is common to all of them, regardless of background, is the manner in which, through the instruction of a master, they transformed a crisis in their lives into a means for attaining liberation. Then, through unorthodox behavior and the use of paradoxes, they expressed the ungraspability of ultimate reality.".....http://www.ese-an.org/m/612-mahashunya.html

"Indrabhuti & Oddiyana.... O-rgyān, U-rgyān, O-ḍi-yā-na, and (2) O-ḍi-vi-śā, with the first series connected with Indrabhūti, i.e., Oḍiyăna and Uḍḍiyāna, while the second series falls back on Oḍi and Oḍiviśa, i.e., Uḍra (Orissa) and has nothing to do with Indrabhūti. N.K. Sahu objects, however, and points out that these two sets of names are seldom distinguished in Buddhist Tantra literature, and opines that the words Oḍa, Oḍra, Uḍra, Oḍiviśa and Oḍiyāna are all used as variants of Uḍḍiyāna. In the Sādhanamālā, he further points out, Uḍḍiyāna is also spelt as Oḍrayāna while in the Kālikā Purāṇa, as indicated earlier, it is spelt either Uḍḍiyāna or Oḍra. There is also evidence, Sahu continues, that Indrabhūti is the king of Orissa rather than of the Swāt valley. The Caturāsiti-siddha-Pravṛtti, for example, mentions him as the king of Oḍiviśa while Cordier, in his Bṣtān-ḥgyur catalogue, gives sufficient indications of his being the king of Orissa. Also, in his famous work Jñānasiddhi, king Indrabhūti opens it with an invocation to Lord Jagannātha, a deity intimately associated with Orissa and with no other area of India.".....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indrabhuti

Click on the map to enlarge

"According to Nyingma tradition, King Ja (also known as Indrabhuti) taught himself intuitively from "the Book" of the Tantric Way of Secret Mantra (that is Mantrayana) that magically fell from the sky along with other sacred objects and relics "upon the roof of King Ja" .....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indrabhuti

..." it should be stated that the falling of Buddhadharma relics upon a Tibetan royal palace also happened in the case of Thothori Nyantsen and these two stories (i.e. the story of Thothori Nyantsen and the narrative of King Ja) may have influenced each other as they share a distinctive motif of magical realism.....Lha Thothori Nyantsen (Tib. ལྷ་ཐོ་ཐོ་རི་; Chinese: 佗土度) (also spelled Lha Tho tho ri Nyentsen or lHa-tho-tho-ri gNyan-btsan) was the 28th King of Tibet according to the Tibetan legendary tradition. The syllable Lha (divine, pertaining to the gods of the sky) is an honorary title."......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thothori_Nyantsen...

**************************

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

Northern New Mexico….February 2013

**************************

Crazy Wisdom: Yeshe Chölwa…Craziness Gone Wise

**************************

Click Here to View the Main Index

**************************

In Tibetan Buddhism Crazy wisdom or 'yeshe chölwa' (Tibetan: ཡེ་ཤེས་འཆོལ་བ, Wylie: ye shes 'chol ba, literally: "wisdom gone wild") refers to unconventional, outrageous, or unexpected behavior, being either a manifestation of buddha nature and spiritual teaching (enlightened activity, Wylie: phrin'las) on the part of the guru, or a method of spiritual investigation undertaken by the student. It is also held to be one of the manifestations of a siddha or a mahasiddha. Teachers such as the eighty four mahasiddhas, Marpa, Milarepa, the Nyönpa and Chögyam Trungpa have traditionally been associated with crazy wisdom."

"What is Crazy Wisdom?.....by Chögyam Trungpa.....I would like to continue from last night's talk. We have discussed the three levels of the teacher relationship in terms of the student's development. Tonight I would like to talk about whom we're relating to in the sadhana. We have a sense of relating with somewhat ideal, ethereal beings, who are known as Dorje Trolö or Karma Pakshi, people who have already existed, who have lived and died in the past. How can we relate those people to the present situation? And how is that different from worshipping Jesus Christ, for that matter? That is an interesting question. Dorje Trolö or Karma Pakshi represent the notion of the embodiment of the siddhas. Siddha is a Sanskrit word which refers to those who are able to overpower the phenomenal world in their own enlightened way. A siddha is a crazy wisdom person. Crazy wisdom in Tibetan is yeshe chölwa. Yeshe means "wisdom," and chölwa, literally, is "gone wild." The closest translation for chölwa that we could come up with is "crazy," which creates some further understanding. In this case "crazy" goes along with "wisdom"; the two words work together well. So it is craziness gone wise rather than wisdom gone crazy. So from that point of view, craziness is related with wisdom.".....http://www.shambhala.org/teachings/view.php?id=131

"Although the siddha's activity should not, therefore, be perceived as "crazy" on account of transgression of moral and social parameters, according to Maitripa uncontrolled emotivity as a result of inadequate training is authentic divine madness....
The thought-free yogin is like a child,
Like a bee in a flower garden tasting every bloom,
Like a lion roaring in the jungle,
And like the wind blowing where it listeth.
If his mind is trained in attention and discretion
His behavior is immaculate;
If there are no checks upon his mind's effusion
The yogin behaves like a divine madman...
The Eighty-four Mahasiddhas and the Path of Tantra by Keith Dolman

"Georg Feuerstein however, takes a perennialist approach in equating this originally Vajrayana term with the trickster-type behavior of teachers in other Dharmic Traditions such as Zen, Tantra and Sanatana Dharma. He claims that parallels to this may be found among other forms of spirituality as well, citing Sufism, Bonpo, Taoism, Russian Orthodoxy (Yurodivy) and shamanism as examples."

MASTER WARRIOR..."Those who have been fearless in their search and fearless in their proclamation belong to the lineage of master warriors, whatever their religion, philosophy, or creed...They are the fathers and mothers of Shambhala." (Trungpa: 1984..pg 179)...."The basic quality of the master warrior is that his presence evokes the experience of the cosmic mirror and the magic of perception in others." (Trungpa: 1984...pg 176)..."The master warrior has relaxed completely into the unconditional purity of the cosmic mirror." (Trungpa: 1984..pg 177)..."the birth of the master warrior takes place in the realm of the cosmic mirror. The master warrior is humble, extremely humble." ...(Trungpa: 1984..pg 176-178)

The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness (volume 3).....By Chogyam Trungpa

"...Before describing the yogas and the teaching of these spiritual adventurers and multi-facetted adepts called siddhas, it will be helpful to define several Sanskrit words that remain untranslated throughout the work, words that have no English equivalents. The first word is siddha itself. Literally a siddha is a practitioner of Tantra who is successful in attaining the goal of his meditation. This achievement is known as siddhi. Siddhi is two-fold: magical power (mundane), and the Buddha's enlightenment (ultimate). Thus siddha could be rendered "saint," "magus," "magician," "adept;" but these words are feeble, failing to evoke the originality of the siddhas' tantric life-style. For the uninitiated Indian the word siddha evokes magical power above all; if a yogin can walk through walls, fly in the sky, heal the sick, turn water into wine, or even levitate and read minds, he deserves the title siddha. If that same yogin has a crazy glint in his eye, smears himself with ashes, moves himself or others to tears with his song, calms street mongrels by his presence, tears a faithful woman from her family, wears a vajra - a symbol of immutability - in his yard-long hair-knot, eats from a skull-bowl, talks with the birds, sleeps with lepers, upbraids demagogues for moral laxity, or performs with conviction any act contrary to convention while demonstrating a "higher" reality, then he is doubly a siddha. Common people impressed by appearances have no conception of the siddha's esoteric aim - Mahamudra - and cannot know that a siddha may also be an inconspicuous peasant, an office worker, a king, a monk, a servant or a tramp."....The Eighty-four Mahasiddhas and the Path of Tantra by Keith Dolman

"If the siddha's action is concomitant with Mahamudra, what then of his craziness, his flaunting of social convention and his uninhibited emotivity? To a large extent those very prejudices, preconceptions and other limitations of his critic's blinkered vision which the siddha rejoices to see eradicated, determine the perception of him as crazy. For instance, when the critic interprets the siddha's act, or gesture, as a crazy irrelevancy, as the non-sequitur of a madman, it is probable that he is failing to intuit the level of response upon which the siddha is operating, and that his discursive analysis is precluding the soteriological effect in his own mind through which those open to the siddha's transmission of meaning by symbolical action or gesture benefit. Similarly, when a moralist of the Confucian type castigates a siddha for violating social conventions such as the rules of pure eating, or for immoral behavior such as sexual transgression, from the Buddha's point of view there is less virtue in the moralist's inflexible social and moral prescriptions than in the siddha's "sinful" attempts to induce awareness, with all the social and moral benefits that accrue, wherein enlightenment is the ultimate goal. Thus on the short-cut path of Tantra, disregard of social and moral discipline is the corollary of the compassionate skillful means employed by the adept to eradicate obstacles to liberation."....The Eighty-four Mahasiddhas and the Path of Tantra by Keith Dolman

Chogyam Trungpa: His Life and Vision.....By Fabrice Mida

**************************

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….February 2013

**************************