Buddhism Now
Once you have truly received the pointing-out instruction and recognised mind essence, becoming enlightened through training is not out of reach; it is in your own hands. You can remind yourself to recognise your mind essence as often as possible. If you train in this way, you can be liberated even if you spend your entire day doing something as simple as grazing cattle. If not—if you know all the words of the Dharma but don’t really experience the essential meaning—the moment you depart from this life you will just roam about in confusion. This is the essential point.
There is another thing that I would like to say. The Buddha was totally awakened and saw the three times as clearly as if they were held in the palm of his own hand. The teachings are based on this immense clarity. We don’t have to speculate about whether the words of the Buddha are true or not. I am not saying this because I am a Buddhist, but because it is really true. It is not the same as certain spiritual systems taught by unenlightened beings who had some partial insight and gave some portion of the truth but not the complete picture. Because of not being enlightened themselves and not having this completely unimpeded clarity, they were not able to teach in the same way as a fully enlightened buddha. This is something to bear in mind. I am not being prejudiced here, but it is really true that we don’t have to judge the words of a fully enlightened being. They have already been checked thoroughly. (more…)
Filed under: Buddhism, Buddhist meditation, Mahayana, Tibetan | Tagged: dharmakaya, Dzogchen, Photo: David Blanco, Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan meditation, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche | 3 Comments »
The Handbook of Iconometry (Tibetan title: Cha tshad kyi dpe ris Dpyod ldan yid gsos) constitutes a lavishly illustrated treatise laying down the iconometic principles and measurements at the heart of the 17th-century art of Tibet. The book was produced in ca. 1687 at the instigation of the famous scholar and statesman sde srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653–1705). Today, the original is kept in the Tibet Autonomous Region Archives (Lhasa). The Handbook includes more than 150 meticulously prepared drawings of buddhas, bodhisattvas and divinities, 70 script types and 14 stupa models all extrapolated from the rich heritage of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist art. These are accompanied by an introduction charting the production of the Handbook in the 17th century and the scholarly profile of its principal author Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho. In the appendix, it reproduces passages from the Vaiḍurya g.Ya’ sel that provide valuable additional information about the illustrations. 
