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The Realm of Dharmas, Chapter Three: Metaphors of Bodhicitta
CHAPTER THREEMETAPHORS OF BODHICITTA[Having shown the nature of Bodhicitta, now the nature where all dharmas are gathered into the Great Completion in Bodhicitta’s continuity is explained.]Absolutely...
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Bagel, Baklava and Bag-leb
I suppose this to be the original bagel, even if in Turkish it’s called simit.I won’t waste time apologizing for the frontispiece. Still, I wish I hadn’t put it up there. It’s making me drool......
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Doughballs
Scapegoat - Photo by Natesh RamasamyTODAY’S BLOGis about how I found, to my amazement, a very clear and specific ritual practice shared by ancient Mesopotamia and Tibet until modern times. Looking back...
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Śākyaśrī's Chronology of 1207 CE
Everything you need to know about Śākyaśrībhadra you will find in this biographical sketch by Alexander Gardner. Otherwise I would have to teach you Tibetan, and then your work will be cut out for you....
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A Word for the Gaze
His divine fish-soul hung there, poised in its alien element, gazing, gazing through huge eyes that perceived everything, understood everything, but having no part in what it saw. —Aldous Huxley,...
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Naga Queen Cosmogenesis
A gracefully uplifting Nâga figure extracted from the famous tomb-chortens of Densatil HAR 32071, from a private collectionout of the becoming that was not-at-all-becoming...out of the duration that...
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Kālacakra Tantra, the First of Two Rare and Early Woodblocks
1. Woodblocks Carved for OrgyanpaOne Thanksgiving holiday in Boston back in 1998, E. Gene Smith gave me free use of his library with permission to take out and photocopy anything I found interesting. I...
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Kālacakra Tantra, the Second of Two Rare and Early Woodblocks
Folio 1 verso. The label below the miniature seems to say “dang po'i sangs rgyas” ༼ ? ༽2. Woodblocks Carved in Memory of NyagpuwaIn his essay mentioned in the previous blog, Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp*...
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Is This That Long Lost Buddhist History?
Buddha Miniature from the Gondhla KanjurI hope to better demonstrate the truth of it to you if you have a little time for it, but I can tell you one thing right away. I am ready to swear that the...
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Kālacakra Tantra Woodblock Prints: A Guestblog in Response
Woodcut miniature of Pad-ma-dkar-po,or in Sanskrit PuṇḍarīkaToday’s guestblog was written by Marta Sernesi. It is in response to two recent Tibeto-logic blogs about early woodblock carvings of the...
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The Realm of Dharmas, a Treasury of Jewels, Chapter 4: The Nature of Bodhicitta
—CHAPTER FOUR—THE NATURE OF BODHICITTA[So now that it has been approximated by metaphors, in order to drive home the significance, the nature of Awareness-Bodhicitta is uncompromisingly presented as...
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Consecration Rite of the Great Translator
‘ Supreme of All the Translators of the New Translations Rinchen Zang ’ His iconography shows him as both a monk and a meditator, and oddly, without a single book.Here you will find a brief note about...
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Maṇḍalas of Medieval Arabic (and Latin) Magic
Tibetan studies hardly ever get old or boring. They can lead in unexpected directions. At times they can pull you far outside the boundaries defined by and for that semi-(?)academic discipline(?). And...
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Maṇḍalas of Medieval Jewish Magic
Book of Secrets manuscript, New York Public Library, page 167This blog means to add some persuasive force to the preceding one on Maṇḍalas of Medieval Arabic (and Latin) Magic. I wrote to a professor...
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One Secret of the Seals
A scene from Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh SealAs so often here in the land of blogs, it may seem like it’s about who receives the proper credit for getting something started. So before I start to give...
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Seven Seals, Times Several
Seven Seals (as seen in Arabic magic, read from right to left)I’ve long had the intention of blogging about the Seven Seals, and more than once announced that I would. In a sense I’m just plowing ahead...
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The Firmament, Its Opening, & the Milky Way
photo by Kevin Trotman (It looks like a Magritte painting, doesn’t it?Sky doors are not something we often visualize let alone view, and even then they’re not likely to take on the precise image you...
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Incursions of the Foreign in a 13th-Century History
(Click on the slides if they aren’t big enough for you)The white beard always gives me away, so no need to confess my age. But I will tell you it was back in 1989 that I first knew of the history book...
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Inner Struggle for Inner Calm - Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish
PeraldusCivilization means to be made to conform to your social world, it makes you feel more and more a part of your society the more you give in to its demands. Cultivation, an entirely different...
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A Nyingma Apologetic Surfaces, One by a Renowned Gelugpa
In recent times an old polemic text has surfaced. Actually, it has surfaced twice, not that I’ve heard of anyone remarking on it. I haven’t. Because of obscurity in the front title, and because...
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