Tag Archives: Right Magic

Maitreya and Vairocana’s Tower

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Vajragoni

Maitreya

We are now entering into the climatic-conclusions of the Gandavyūha-sūtra. First up: Maitreya and the Marvelous “Tower of the adornments of Vairocana”. Throughout this sutra, as well as the Avataṃsaka as a whole, we see that Vairocana rather than Gautama, occupies the premier-position of Supreme Buddha, remaining a silent—Resplendently Transcendent—figure bracketing the entire Avataṃsaka Enterprise. The Tower symbolizes the entire Dharmadhātu, the realm of Suchness, wherein the All interpenetrates the all—the entire macro and micro cosmos. Thus in the Undivided and All-Encompassing Realm of the Dharmadhātu, all things are interpenetrative. Hence, this tower is also illustrating what we referred to in an earlier blog of this series: the Fourth Dharmadhātu, or complete and undivided interconnectedness. What Sudhana will encounter in the Tower are emanations of the ultimate quiescence of All Buddhas, or the True Reality of THAT which Vairocana represents. When Sudhana gazes at the Tower, he comes to the ultimate realization: read more

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Gopa, Maya, and the City of Mind

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Vajragoni

Gopa

Gopa was the wife of Siddhartha Buddha and her name is indicative of a “sense of watching over, or protecting.” She says to Sudhana that she has “attained an enlightening liberation whose sphere is observation of the ocean of concentrations of all enlightening beings.” She also lets him know that the practice of Bodhi-Beings depends on the following: read more

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Ladies of the Night: Part 1

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Vajragoni

Impressed with the immaculate virtues of the first Night Goddess, Vasanti, Sudhana sets out to meet with Eight other Night Goddesses. These meetings constitute a hefty portion of the Gandavyūha-sūtra but for our purposes, in these next two blogs, we will be encapsulating them in the following snapshots; their names constitute lengthy Sanskrit compounds. Such “Buddhist epithets integrates them into the Mahayana salvational scheme and commends them as advanced beings well on their way to enlightenment, worthy of reverence and discipleship.” (Mirenda Shaw: Goddesses of India, pg. 160). read more

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