Mythology

June 13, 2012 — #Dalai Lama#Green Tara#Buddhist, Dalai Lama, mythology

Each of us is operating inside of a myth.  We hold beliefs that are common to our culture, our friends, and our family.  Some people use icons, art , music, and movement to bring the beliefs into physical existence.  I was first given instruction in Tibetan Buddhist mythology when The Dalai Lama came to Tucson in 1993 to teach patience.  The group of us who would be in a retreat with his holiness were offered a year long training and initiation to the ideas and methods he uses.  This was infinitely helpful, since the Tibetan practices are complicated and follow ancient traditions.  By studying each month and going on retreat once with our teacher, a monk who was also a law professor, we had a very good head start when the time finally came to study with him.

We gathered in a hotel conference room to hear teachings, meditate, and exchange questions and answers with his holiness.  He empowered us all  to Green Tara, emphasizing to us that she was known for her swift action.  We were to visualize her in great detail, having a postcard sized image to follow in our packets.  The really difficult instruction was that the eyes were to be slightly open, gaze fuzzy and unfocused.  I had not done such a visualization that required precision like that before, and found it to be challenging.  Meeting her as I did for the first time when I was 42, I was not very accomplished as a Green Tara visualizer.  The yoga I had done had always involved holding asana poses so long and so precisely that the mind and body required full attention to the task at hand, and therefore rose above distractions.  Sitting still in a room full of people in folding chairs picturing an incarnation of the mother of all Buddhas was a new experience.  I have since had the very good fortune to study with his holiness twice more, once in Zurich in 2005, and again in Tucson a few months later in 2005.  Each time, although he covers the same texts, Shantideva’s Bodhisattva Way of Life, I deepen my understanding and ability to practice.