Tag Archives: Lankavatarian

True Virginity

As was announced earlier in this series, the phrase “knowing as he was not” is indicative of mystical virginity—being lathered in imagelessness and thus freed from all that is not the Godhead; principally, all that is prior to conception. If there is a religion in the Unborn, imagelessness is its creed. The source of this vision is Eckhart’s Sermon Eight, as listed in the Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart. read more

Posted in Meister Eckhart | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Summer of the Nagas

The catalyst for this series occurred on June 1, 2017, when an old nemesis came back to haunt me. Earlier in 2010 I was on a catheter for three months due to ramifications of surgery on my spine. Thankfully, there was no such recurrence for the past seven years—that is up until that awful day in June when I suddenly found myself unable to urinate. Unfortunately, I knew what was next in store for me. A visit to the ER and having a nurse insert the dreaded foley-catheter through the tip of the penis, then proceeding along the extended trek up the urethra, until the catheter reaches the bladder and attaches itself inside—with a balloon inflating to keep it in place. For a man this is a true hell-like experience. A woman experiences agony, too, but only briefly as her urinary track is much shorter than the male—who has to endure nearly a 12-inch excruciating crawl through the urethra before finally culminating at the bladder. To make matters even more unbearable on this particular occasion, being transported for an x-ray to hopefully determine the cause of this recent bout after the catheter was inserted turned-out to be an even more torturous situation. There was a blanket laid over my lap which the transport-person suddenly grabbed-hold of and proceeded to yank it-up, somehow oblivious to the prior emphatic-caution that I was attached to a catheter. Holy Hell! The tube of the catheter was nearly ripped from my body, only somehow remaining in place due to the balloon that kept it attached to the bladder. I bled profusely inside over the next few days as I watched clots of blood issuing forth from the foley-tube into the adjoining urine sack. Of course, I reported this incident to the urologist who just shrugged it off —stipulating that the balloon had kept it all “in place”. Afterwards, I had to endure the tortures of the foley being inside me for the next week. When it was removed, I still was unable to urinate and so had to endure that agonizing procedure all-over again. They were never able to determine the initial cause of my acute urinary-retention. I surmised on my own that it most likely occurred during the rigorous exercises endured while practicing Primordial Qigong. I am no longer a young man in his 30’s and 40’s—I will turn 60 later this month, on August 21st—which, incidentally is the date for the great total solar eclipse…more on this in a blog which will follow at that junction. I was pushing myself beyond the allotted allowance for a man of my age—and I most certainly paid the piper! There is a need to undertake these exercises in a more restrained-fashion. A severe pain had developed on my right side which produced a numbing effect which led to the inability to pee. read more

Posted in The Naga Chronicles | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Seeing Yathābhutam

The Buddha’s most prominent stance was ehipassikocome and see. Come and see, on your own, the nature of Reality (Dharmadhatu) AS IT IS, or Yathābhutam. The blog The Undiscovered Country: Bardo 3, Yathabhutam offers a nice exposition of the term. read more

Posted in The Doctrine of Awakening | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Wet and Dry


Stefano Baldini

Evola was a prolific writer and the depth of his spiritual gnosis is pretty much inexhaustible. His spiritual autobiography (The Path of Cinnabar) is just that, the growth of a mind imbued with the yearning for the undivided truth of self-realization—a realization that is embedded within sundry paths, from Hermeticism with an erudite insight into the Western Psyche, to more esoteric Eastern Paths like Yoga and transcendental Buddhism. He writes in his autobiography: read more

Posted in The Doctrine of Awakening | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

And Butterflies are Free to Fly…


I Dreamed I Was A Butterfly by Alice McMahon White

Chuang Tzu’s Taoism is perhaps the most profound in the Taoist Treasury; although he would be the first to state that his positionless-teaching was no form of “ism”, but rather simply that which radiated a “boundless vitality” that is the very heart of the imageless-Tao. From the onset of this series one needs to be aware that the Unborn is synonymous with the Tao and henceforth will be used to convey That which is Imageless and Unbound. As a man of the Unborn he lived unabatedly in the Dharmadhatu—the Pure Light Realm of Deathless Suchness, As It Is, with no obstructions of the born and created, or as the Chuang Tzuian spirit would say, “Or is not Is, when Is is-not”, just to provide a pliable-variable bearing no-fixed position. In all that he was about it was not “he” that acted, but rather the spontaneous breath of the Unborn Spirit. As the late sinologist Angus Graham wrote, “Zhuang Zhou distrusted official rules, standardized categories, established opposites, and the dictates of language, instead inspiring people to see things from different perspectives, illuminating the flow of cosmic spontaneity, and allowing heaven to work through him in all his thoughts and actions (Graham 1989, 191).” How, then, is a man of the Unborn to act in the world? Not through any pre-ordained impetus, but through the actionless (Wu-Wei) spontaneity that is never independent of the Unborn Itself. Perhaps a good way of illustrating this is through one of the most familiar anecdotes in the Zhuangzi (this italicization will be used when the “text” is indicated, as opposed to the person), Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly: read more

Posted in Chuang-Tzu | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Hidden Elixir That Heals All Woes

Chapters 13-21 addresses the spiritual careers of bodhisattvas accompanied with prescriptions for right conduct and proper ways in which to reverence the Lotus Sutra. Chapter 16 is unique on its own since it focuses on the vast spiritual career of Śākyamuni, one that stretches across endless eons. It’s in this chapter that he declares that his supreme awakening beneath the Bodhi-Tree during this present life-cycle was not the first such instance, as the original occasion took place inconceivable kalpas ago. Ever since that time he has been present in our saha-world teaching the Buddhadharma; what’s even more remarkable in all of this is that such passages infer that he is still present even now, not only in our own particular realm but in countless others as well, in his Sambhogakāyic-form. In light of this it’s apparent that his Supreme Teaching Career will be a Spiritually-Perpetual One, stating, “I abide forever with you without entering parinirvana.” He also points out that his awakening and apparent entry into nirvana was essentially all skillful means at his disposal in order to encourage an awakening in the Mind of all living beings who hunger for the Buddhadharma. Take a moment and absorb this spiritual-realization. Śākyamuni’s Spirit is with us even now, in Sambhogakāyic-form. This would be equivalent in Western Spirituality of Jesus still being present to devotees in the mode of the Holy Spirit. Hence, Śākyamuni is still present both in Sambhogakāyic and in Dharmakāyic (Absolute Dharma-Body of Perfect Suchness) Realizations. Of course, deluded people (those still not awakened to their own Buddha-nature) will not be aware of his ever-abiding presence. In order to counteract this, the Blessed One supplied the following parable as the prescription against the disease of avidya: read more

Posted in The Lotus Sutra | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Choicest Wine: Bardo 3, The Ariyan Mind

Before undertaking a breakdown of the Ten Stages of Mind Development it is best to posit their impact in Light of the Unborn. Above all, of course, the Lankavatarian Book of the Dead is a Lankavatarian interpretation; all references to the Bardo and Mind Development throughout this singular-series are indicative of this position. As was highlighted in our series on the Lanka, the Lankavatara Sutra was primarily written for advanced, or MahaBodhisattvas. This does not diminish its impact on general readership; yet its underlying structure and import is intended for those who have tasted the choicest wine of the Mahayana and are thereby referred to as arya-jnana—or those whose spiritual thirst has been assuaged through Noble Wisdom and Gnosis. The lesser-able, or those still developing spiritually in the lower bhumis are traditionally referred to as the prthagjana—or those enraptured with ordinariness. The Lankavatarian’s sole occupation is the development of this Ariyan Mind—or that Mind instilled with the self-realization of Noble Wisdom; it is this Ariyan Mind that is referenced in the forthcoming Ten Stages of Mind Development. It cannot be overemphasized enough that these Stages are of the choicest vintage and are developed As Such. read more

Posted in The Lankavatarian Book of the Dead | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Preliminary remarks: The Lankavatarian Book of the Dead

Perhaps the greatest words that were bestowed upon me during this go-round of the diurnal spin of samsara came from my maternal grandfather: “I seldom weep at funerals, but I always find myself shedding a tear when a baby is born into this world.” His words of wisdom did not originate from some deep immersion into the epistemological bowels of some eastern-esoteric philosophy, but rather from a simple (he was a Christian Fundamentalist) observation that birth into this world is delivery into the realm of some form of suffering. It’s an innate understanding. An understanding deeply ingrained into a psyche that has perhaps endured eons upon eons of life, death, and rebirth; in essence, being stuck on the karmic spin of what the Tibetan Buddhists refer to as the Wheel of Life. Like its Tibetan counterpart, the Lankavatarian Book of the Dead is an expedient vehicle that attempts to map the territory of what this psychic-journey entails, i.e., mastering the Bardo Pathways that lead to the beginning of liberation from samsaric incarceration, or, if all else fails, at least some direction and insight that will lead to a favorable rebirth—like that of a non-returner, an awareness that is indelibly linked with the imprint of immeasurable nirvanic satisfaction in the clear-light of boundless Dharmakayic ecstasy. read more

Posted in The Lankavatarian Book of the Dead | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment