Vajragoni: What is this I discern before my mind’s eye?
Vasuki: I am from Bhogavati, the Great Spirit Realm of the Nagas. I am its sovereign Naga-Lord. I am an emanation of the Primal Naga, Anata, the primordial Dragon-Principle from whose uncoiling the Cosmos itself unfolds and whose coiling draws it back into the Void. This is represented by the Great Ouroboros, the sign of perpetual cyclic renewal and regeneration:
I appointed the mighty Muchilinda Naga, whose coils protected the Supreme Dharma-Lord himself from Mara’s wrath. The huge coils of such serpentine wonders also encompass many majestic mountains that are oftentimes attended by Holy Hermits:
I am the majestic-wonder of the rainbow, from whose junction with the earth little children run in hopes of discovering lost treasures of old:
As Nagas, we can assume various shapes—from the largest to the smallest, like little worms. You experienced such forms during your bout with acute urinary retention.
Vajragoni: How was that?
Vasuki: Recollect how after Nagakanya granted your request for her intercession, you were able to urinate freely again and when you first did so you witnessed little curdles of blood, likened unto miniature nagas.
Vajragoni: Yes, I do recollect that! I just assumed that they were little clots of blood.
Vasuki: If you had observed more closely, you would have become aware that they were in the shape of tiny tadpoles—but were in actuality miniscule nagas who cleared-out your urinary tract.
Vajragoni: Amazing!
Vasuki: Never forget that awareness is key—recollect what the Samaññaphala Sutta teaches:
With one’s mind thus concentrated, purified, and bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability, one directs and inclines it to knowledge of the awareness of other beings. He knows the awareness of other beings—having encompassed it with his own awareness.
It’s in this same fashion that you are aware of my presence now. If you clearly discern with a mind free and unobstructed by the myriad phenomena that assails your right-consciousness, then you will become privy to many mystical marvels.
Vajragoni: I recollect quoting a similar passage concerning the manomaya-kāya from that particular sutta in a blog entitled, The Queen’s Mahayana:
With his mind thus concentrated, purified, and bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability, he directs and inclines it to creating manomaya-kāya. From this body he creates another body, endowed with form, made of the mind, complete in all its parts, not inferior in its faculties.
Vasuki: Yes, and also recollect that it is through the manomayakāya that you encounter all things invisible—just as you are now entering into intercourse with this transcendent agency.
Vajragoni: So, then, it’s like shedding one’s skin in order to activate the Luminous Mind.
Vasuki: Excellent insight! That is precisely what the sutta specifies when it describes a snake being pulled out from the slough—being thus freed from mortal coils and soaring free in the spiritual heights of the manomayakāya. You have tasted the delicacies of this self-same manomayakāya in your contemplative disciplines, and also during your walking meditations. The other day your manomayakāya body was doing the walking for you…
Vajragoni: Yes! I do recollect that day—it was soon after that afternoon shower. Curious, but at the time I somehow sensed a presence being with me—it was like experiencing the smell of nagas mixed-in with the freshly fallen rain. It was indeed like I was walking on air—even up that steep hill I couldn’t feel my feet touching the ground and it was like being encompassed and uplifted by some transcendent cloud.
Vasuki: Yes, the spiritual-body of your own manomayakāya was actually engaging those mystical mists from the Naga-Realm. Our intercourse has become most profound during this summer—just like that other occasion when you were out walking and you encountered the loud barking of that large dog which always assails you when you passed by.
Vajragoni: I precisely am reminded of that incident. My bladder was recovering from a recent urinary-tract infection—it felt most acute at the time accompanied by that loud and incessant barking; suddenly, something inside said to point the head of my new amber Cobra-Head Walking stick in the direction of that dog and immediately the discomfort from within my bladder dissipated.
Vasuki: Your purchase of that cane was no accident this summer—it was awaiting you and only you:
What transpired during that incident was that you actually “transported” the bacteria of that infection right into the belly of that beast—the dog barked no more.
Vajragoni: Curious, I’m reminded of what was written in a blog from the Lankavatarian Book of the Dead series:
What is even more miraculous, the Manomayakāya has the potential bodhipower to actually transmute and transfer the energy-field, say of a given particularly revolting and recurring obtuse mind-kleśa, into an inanimate object like a rock—one that lies at the darkest corner of the universe; it can also transmute an ugly poison, like anger, in similar fashion.
Was something like this occurring with that dog incident?
Vasuki: The same principle applies.
Vajragoni: Have the Nagas always been with me in such a fashion?
Vasuki: We are as close to you as the double helix of your own DNA.
Vajragoni: When did a more direct recognition occur?
Vasuki: A most direct instance occurred last summer season during the filming of Terma: A Mind Film by Vajragoni, when you implanted that phurba into the hollow of the tree. In doing so you were actually invoking the serpentine energies of the Nagas to arise:
Vajragoni: I seem to recollect an even earlier encounter as described in the Notes from the Iron Stupa series:
Also, this is linked with serpentine, or naga energies. The naga is a Lankavatarian connection. I dreamt recently of a large-serpent crawling across my body, biting my left arm—not injecting any lethal poison, but rather secreting ambrosia of divine origin. All of these ascetic renderings can help to boost the pranaic-fields, thus empowering Mind to better develop the manomakayic-body in order to experience the Sambhogakāic plane.
Vasuki: Very good! Yes, a most direct-encounter indeed! That particular revelation permanently left you with the mark (Divine Nectar) of the Naga. Your Lankavatarian journey is progressing quite well; you are becoming evermore enjoined with the Lanka Buddha: