Ancient Gods and Goddesses: Durga: Goddess Dharma Warrior or Delusion?

Continuing our theme; this month we will explore a Goddess of a slightly different nature, complexity and evident contradiction.
Durga has much to teach us; in her serene form she is named Parvati - the feminine expression of Shiva. In her more warrior form she is known as Durga, yet I propose her mission, in either manifestation, is always being the same; to maintain, create, pervade or restore stability to the cosmos for the purpose of perpetuating an arena where truth (Dharma) can be realized. In this she appears to be the feminine aspect of Vishnu and indeed manifests on Earth, from time to time, to correct errors that threaten spiritual growth (as Vishnu does). Yet her methods are very different and at first glance possibly confusing. Many of her exploits portrays her as apparently playing the role of hindrance to truth. In one story she is depicted as the sleep that keeps Vishnu, or all of us, from awakening to full consciousness; numbing and deluding. Her creation story weaves a picture of ‘other-ness’; independent from the world of masculine gods, she stands alone as the only expression of feminine divinity. To underscore this separation she imposes the condition that her consort must first defeat her in battle before acceptance. This condition can not be achieved on the battlefield for she is the all powerful warrior. Yet, it is made clear within other stories, that when the sleeper appeals she, as sleep, will remove herself and even assist in the awakening.
Durga is a powerful transcendent force whose sole concern to to maintain universal rhythms and be attentive to the needs of the individual. Her presence pervades the phenomenal world, imbuing all creation with a promise: ‘When the sleeper is ready, the veils of delusion will be lifted’. But, while dualism exists, while inequality between the sexes continues, while discrimination and ignorance prevails - she will use her beauty and seductive appearance to entice hindrances into battle and defeat them.
Reviewing the world situation at large, maybe it is time to find the Durga energy within each of us and enter the world, at whatever level individually possible, to intervene and restore stability that benefits all beings on this planet.

- Richard Rudis

Ancient Goddess: Sarasvati

Most of us experience life as a matter of course based on principle, well established concepts such as ‘fight or flight’ and Newtonian physics (cause and effect)। If gods and goddesses are given any notice it is as something other, someone beyond our ordinary surroundings. But what if that was not true? What if a god or a goddess was sitting next to you on the train; breathing the same air, reading the same paper, walking on the same earth - would we recognize them? - I wonder.

Sarasvati; (Vajravina); Goddess of Audible arts - (The Flowing-One, the Divinity of Knowledge).
Sarasvati began her life on Earth as a beautiful and great river which flowed from the Himalayas, in northern India, to the Indian ocean. Her waters and banks were lush, abundant with life and considered divine. This was no ordinary river: it was said to originate in heaven and flow to earth. The Sarasvati River represented the direct flow of celestial grace and blessing. For the spiritual pilgrim physical contact was an opportunity to touch transcendent dimensions and reality itself. Rituals were performed within her flow to purify and heal. Along her banks great institutions of learning were built, Vedic poets recited verse, songs were sang, teachings given, instruments played, healings and cleansing performed.
Nature grew with abundance along her edges and within her waters; and so great populations of humans naturally settled. Her inherent ‘Shakti’ energy permeated, bestowed bounty, blessings, defining reality. She gave birth to literature, poetry, eloquence, wisdom, learning, science, all audible arts and culture. Within her womb is the garden of Eden; the cradle of humanity - but alas just as Adam and Eve were cast out, as a result of their own doing, so has the Sarasvati river disappeared. Due to ignorance, greed and short sighted-ness; Eden was deforested, the ecosystem destroyed. Now, where once life flourished, only the expansive, barren Indian desert exists.
Sarasvati, the goddess, however lives on within that person sitting beside you on the bus, within a stranger’s smile, within yourself. Her great beauty and power continues, unabated, within the heart/mind of each human as knowledge itself. We experience her her union of power and intelligence, from which organized creation arises, within each breath. As an image she is calm and peaceful, most often depicted possessing four arms. She sits in an action pose holding a lute with two hands and in her other two hands she holds a book and prayer beads, (sometimes she holds a vase which contains the nectar of life - the underlying sap of vitality ‘Soma’).
We experience her within each coherent sound, within each thought, memory, teaching, expression of art, healing and inspiration. She is primordial, absolute nature which resides within each of us undistorted and transcendent.
In India she is recognized as the feminine aspect of creation. In Japan she is named Benten; Goddess of luck, love, eloquence, wisdom and the fine arts. In Tibet she is reflected in what is known as the ‘Diamond Self’ and in the western world the ‘Divine Mother’.

- Richard Rudis

Differentiation:

As many of you know I am a practicing Buddhist, - practicing is the operative word. The honorable elements that compose Buddhist thinking;
compassion for all sentient beings,
understanding the ‘other’ as a mirror of self,
wisdom to realize we are all interconnected within samsara and enlightenment, comprehension of ‘no-self’ - emptiness,
understanding impermanence and ultimate liberation,
- are concepts that are often alien to me.

Yet if someone was to ask me, “Do you know Buddha or Buddhism?”, I would reply “yes”.
The measure of knowing can not be determined by my perceived failures, successes or scholarship of Buddhist text. To know Buddhism is to know the difference it has made in me.

- Martin Buber, a wonderful Jewish philosopher, describes this level of knowing in one statement; “All real living is meeting”.

- To truly comprehend something or someone is to meet at level of communion. This is not the ability to compose a list of characteristics, actions or stories that describes who that person is or what an object does. To fully recognize another is to honor the profound change he/she/it has made in self.

- When lost and confused Buddhism sustains me even as I continue to struggle with a mind-scape composed of clouds that block out the sun, even when I know those clouds have no tangible substance.

- Heart Sutra of perfect wisdom says it best;
“There is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no tactile object, no phenomenon ...
There is no ignorance and no exhaustion of ignorance and so forth up to no aging and death and no exhaustion of aging and death.
Likewise, there is no suffering, origin, cessation or path; no exhaled wisdom, no attainment and also no non attainment ...”


Richard Rudis

‘IT’ and Aum-base

IT is always after us - IT is the apparent cause of our unhappiness, our joy, our hindrances and our liberation's. IT is the outside and the inside, the other and the you. Each of us manifest the IT uniquely within our own special life stories yet IT is common to us all. IT was the parent who didn’t understand you, IT is the love that must be reconciled, IT was the IRS or the homeless child. IT is the feeling of being lost, confused and without meaning - IT is suffering and temporary happiness.

Buddha was asked: "Which is first, awareness or knowledge?"
He answered: "Awareness arises first and then comes knowledge. One can then say, Because of my awareness, I know this as a fact.”

The ‘fact’ that Buddha is referring to is that no-matter how deeply ignorance (IT) has penetrated our being the essential nature of the mind, our Center, will never, never, never change. We are a glass full of cloudy water that, when allowed to be still, clears naturally into luminosity.

A friend recently told me that if only our consciousness would drop eighteen inches from the head to the heart suffering would cease. Know that this Center, this Aum-base, is always within reach, always the touchstone of your reality.
‘Center’ will appear differently for each of us but it’s nature is the same. It may be a god or goddess, a sound, a place, an image or retreat. When ‘IT’ becomes real enough to make chase - turn and stand smiling at IT’s sneering, IT’s red faced frustration and anger for you are within the safety of your own awareness, your own knowledge, your own Aum-base.

- Richard Rudis

Alternative Realities - devotional art

We sentient beings possess the wonderful ability to choose what reality to believe in. Proof of this can be seen within even a casual examination of any or all governmental elections.
If we apply this ability to the ‘seeing’ of Buddhist devotional art we furnish ourselves with a precious window into the realm of Enlightened beings. This is a vision into a world that can not be directly touched from within the confusion of ‘Samsara’. It can only be eluded to via emblematic archetypes, figurative symbolism, allegorical paradigms and ideographic metaphors; in an other word: art.

The Tibetan hierarchical frame work of artistic expression is as follows:
1. Creation of life itself; this expression is accomplished through the system of incarnation and it’s associated mechanism of karma.
2. Literature; expressing the ‘enlightened word’ through the medium of sound. This is accomplished by exposing ourselves to the voices of sacred instruments and chants, thereby opening the mind to vistas of great realization.
3. Sanctified architecture; provides a four dimensional diagram which models phenomenon and it’s connections to transcendent understanding. Here we dwell within enlightenment sensibilities.
4. Consecrated sculpture; is the conveyance of the enlightened emanation body, treasured energizing visualizations and a vessel of Buddha activity.
5. Sacred Paintings; which opens portals of understanding into the enlightened dimensions.

Next time you view a;
thangka, along your mine to follow it’s lines and colors into the teaching embedded within; or
as you face a sculpture of Buddha, allow the Bodhi presence to awaken within you; or
as you stand before a Stupa, see the chakra energy which connects it to the heavens and own it as your own; or
while resonating a Himalayan bowl find that bit of you which echoes within illuminated truth; and finally
as you pass through this lifetime look upon others and yourself as divine expressions, interconnected and precious.

- Richard Rudis

Every Breath a Prayer

In our everyday lives of mortgage payments, taxes and traffic jams we rarely glimpse or experience the deeply real. It is easy to lose touch with the inherent wholeness which lurks beneath the stereotypes of other people and other places.
How many miles can be traversed as onlookers but never as witnesses? To pilgrimage, weather it is to the roof of the world or into the back yard, is an attitude, an enthusiasm which elevates the journey into the realm of spirit-renewing sanctity.
With keen preparation, attention, focus and respect the pilgrim discovers gurus, saints, buddhas and gods. Their relics are exposed; movement changes from mindless to mindful and in turn awakens the divine that is innate within each of us.
There is an energizing moment of actually being somewhere you had previously only dreamed or read about but know that pilgrimage is so much more. To make your next step mindfully, no-matter where it takes you, is to unleash the natural state of internal bliss which resides within and to seed a gift. That gift evokes awe and wonder that unfolds into our own. It is poetry, art, music, sound; it is the source that replenishes; it is the astonishment of possibilities that utterly transforms us.
Kabir, mystic philosopher and poet, wrote, “If you have not experienced something, then for you it is not real.”
My challenge to you this month is to move through space consciously, step into the sacred of your own making and make each breath a prayer.

Richard Rudis

The Eighth Chakra (transpersonal)

Enter the realm of transcendence and the consequence of descriptive conundrum. Any word, concept, diagram or reality used to describe this state of realization will ultimately diminish it’s understanding. How does one portray the unseen, the beyond experience, the non-phenomenon? It can only be defined in approximate terms which are fundamentally that-which-it-is-not. All human understanding is predicated on the existence of ‘other’. A point, a consciousness, an experience or existence, can only be known within a relative counterpoint. Without this point of reference not even ‘nothing’ can be.
For a Being to willingly step into such an undefinable realm is the utmost ‘leap of faith’, yet it is just such a step that provides freedom from the suffering of our current immortal predicament of life, death and rebirth.
The conscience mind, and it’s attached physical/spiritual components, falls into six categories. A Being’s current point of departure on the path of uttermost recognition (transcendence) is depend on where his/her reality dwells:
Hell-Being, someone living in a torturous reality;
Hungry Ghost, a being that is greatly confused and can not fill the emptiness which they carry inside;
Animals, or beings not processing human self awareness, a diffused self;
Human, just enough identity to question existence and understand suffering;
Titans, powerful beings in a constant state of flux, and dissatisfaction;
Gods, a blissful experience within the perimeters of phenomena, (within the realm of suffering).
Debarkation onto the path of transcendence, (leading to the transpersonal, non-dualistic domain of Enlightenment), can therefore be launched from within the emotional states associated with these six territories of existence; destruction (death, guilt, shame), entrapment (desire, lust, fear), release (courage, trust), transformation (acceptance, harmony), revelation (unconditional love) or transfiguration (joy).
Recognize that these states are not experienced exclusive to one-another but are often visited within simultaneous moments.

No matter where we start on this sublime journey the character of the path is elementally the same; the natural unfolding of the Eight Fold Elemental Flow:
Earth Element; here the edges of our conscience are hard and well defined. Life is viewed through the veils of fear and frustration. As awareness matures this view melts into Water Element; fluid patterns of opportunity and trust intertwine with experience. As water dissolves the Fire Element ascends and knowingness, without sensory impute, surfaces. This in turn merges into Wind Element were energetic packets of boundless compassion take flight and fuses with Luminous Element a realm of vastness devoid of matter. Within this plot of awareness is realized harmonious interconnected and inexhaustible love. Even this state of bless must evolve and disintegrate into Radiance. This is the province of perfection, oneness, spear energy which disappears into Dark Light. Description no longer applies as conscience of Self ends, exhausted of time/space possibilities. Only the most accomplished spiritual pilgrims touch this non-place but once touched vanishes into Transparency; The Buddha Mind.
This is our collective destiny, the pure land we can only catch glimpses of from our time/space learning tree, but from where we have come and to were we are surely evolving to.

- Richard Rudis

Guided Pure Land Meditation

(Use to open healing realms - recommend accompanying sound of Himalayan Bowl)

There is only you, your raft and the vast ocean. You cannot remember how long you have been drifting. It is a clear, warm evening and the horizon is lost in the reflection of a million stars. While gazing at the night sky you imagine that the Earth is your vessel and the universe its' sea. All perspective is washed way as you are gently lolled to sleep.
In a dream;you are a pilgrim in search of something on an endless, remote and well worn path which stretches unbroken before you.
A smiling figure in long white robes draws near. In her eyes you can see a universe of stars. She is the White Tara, come to help you on your path. Walking together, her pure compassion enriches you and nourishes you with clear awareness.
When you awaken, in the dawn light, across the calm sea, an island in the East is visible. Steering your raft towards the land you find yourself in a gentle bay of smooth water. A reflection of an extraordinary building, made of clear crystal, is upon the waters. Lifting your eyes you see, on the waters edge, an enormous structure. There are soaring mirror-like towers crowned by golden Vajras. Each surface reflects all other surfaces into never ending depths of vision. The gates are the shape of two huge semicircles which mate into a full moon. Reflected within the closed gate you can see the water, your vessel and you.
Transfixed on the image you begin to realize the true nature of your being, the universe and it’s un-graspable simplicity. There, mirrored in the center, you stand naked of judgment, without accepting or rejecting. You are but another image in the Moon Gate. With this realization the Gates swing open and the realm of the Akshobhya Buddha is revealed. You enter into a ‘Pure Land’ where everything is a reminder of the Dharma and a encouragement on your path towards enlightenment. In the air is the ever present sound of the mantra “Om, Vajra, Akshobhya, Hum”.
You are drawn to the heart of this realm where the Buddha is seated in deep meditation. His quietude, serenity, wisdom and profound peace are irresistible. Radiating boundless compassion he sees through delusion, pierces the veil of ignorance and touches reality. He is well known to you. He is a wise friend and with a slight smile he offers his knowing to you. It flows through your body in the central channel from the crown of your head to the base of your spin. All negative and impure influences are washed out of you and absorbed by the golden transformative earth.
You are renewed with diamond nectar, purified and illuminated. Akshobhya melts into pure light and flows into you without effort or desire, you become the Buddha.
You are home!

- Richard Rudis

Musing

Musing

Buddhism is not a religion but rather a philosophy. It is however a wisdom with an embedded agenda . The goal of Buddhist investigation, as I see it, is merely to awaken the individual to the phenomenon of living. This in turn reveals, naturally, the truth of being. To that end I offer the following recent experience:

While sitting at a favorite tea house, reading and people watching, I became cognizant of the enormous capacity of a child to be happy, totally aware, accepting, present, apparently conscious of all sensory input .... and, in comparison, unlike the surrounding adults. Assuming we all materialize in this world as infants, I can’t help but wonder when and where the change occurred? Each life story is unique but generally the process of ‘maturing’ strips us of our awe and builds, in it’s place, believes that define us.
Allowing for slight variations in time/space geography we all learn proper behavior, what books are acceptable, what to think, when to get married, when to get unmarried, have children, buy a home, how to feel, behave politely, civilized, adult.

This common journey casts each of us far from the given of extraordinary sensory capacity present within our earlier years. The wildly interesting, transmuting, magnetic, charismatic quintessence of life is distilled and experienced as common place. The product of all this is another adult going about his or her adult business, following and being followed by endless lines of similar looking, thinking adults.
I wonder if this needs to be?
I wonder if we as individuals, or as a group, can reclaim the amazement for life we all once possessed?
I wonder if redemption is available even for the most ‘mature’ among us?

-Richard Rudis

Here is where I am:

To be ‘Mindful’ is to be at the epicenter of life and oddly enough it requires practice. Our minds are such as to be asleep to the unique unfolding experience of each present moment and it’s possibilities. It has become our common nature to proceed through life without actually touching more than the large bits. We begin to live for what is to come and ignore the omnipresence of now. Given the pace and apparent complexity of the world, we have created, our mind’s adaptation to ‘autopilot’ is understandable - but is it acceptable?
Each time we lose touch with our surroundings we miss an opportunity to grow, to learn, to heal, to feel, to love, to understand, to be compassionate, to actively sculpt the world around us and our own existence within it.
Consider reclaiming and cultivating the gift of each moment we all abundantly share.

Awareness:
Tibetan story:
“An aged lama practicing meditation by a pond is continuously being distracted by small insects drowning in the water before him. Each day he assumes his meditational position; each day he begins his prayers and each day he saves a bug from dying.
His fellow monks, concerned for him and his apparent inability to focus, suggest he cost his eyes while meditating or move away from the pond. The old lama replies: How can I sit with closed eyes and meditate on compassion while other beings suffer before me?”