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Monday, September 7, 2026

When we don't get what we expect

No! We don't want to ever suffer! - Calm down, crybabies. Here's the solution: NIRVANA.

Accept what we cannot change? No
Why do we fall into the trap of our expectations? The Truth is much better.

Cry, Homer. But it's okay. It'll all be alright.
(Buddhism Podcast) When life, which is full of disappointment (dukkha), is not what we expected.

There are Four Ennobling Truths, four realizations that lead to enlightenment here and now and awakening in this very life, with spiritual liberation and freedom for all time. What are they?
  1. This is disappointing, incapable of ever fulfilling us.
  2. This is how pain/disappointment/suffering originates.
  3. This is the cessation of all suffering (nirvana).
  4. This is the Path to the cessation of all suffering.
Wait, remind me. What is "suffering"?

Many people misunderstand Buddhism because the word "suffering" comes up so much that it seems that's all there is -- depressing talk about pain. This is very misleading. Buddhism is ALL about bringing about the END of all suffering.

I'm not like this. I'm just having a bad day, k?
That is nirvana, attainable here and now, no having to wait till death, which is actually a lot late to be starting to do anything about all the suffering that awaits us for remaining ignorant and asleep. So since we don't suffer, we dismiss anything they Buddha said, thinking it doesn't apply to us. But do we suffer? Well, that depends on, What is "suffering"? The Buddha defines what he is calling suffering (dukkha):

Various sutras sum up what unpleasant things and experiences in countless rebirths we undergo. It is not just the pain that touches us in this life; the process rolls on and on in the "continued wandering on" of saṃsāra.


Oh, the Buddha found the end to all pain?
This process itself (the Five Aggregates clung to as self) is suffering, is unsatisfactory, is disappointing, is liable to great pain, is utterly incapable of ever fulfilling us. Rebirth is suffering (unsatisfactory, disappointing, painful, unfulfilling) as are growth (maturation), aging (slowly breaking down), illness, death, loss, sorrow, crying (lamentation), physical pains, grief, and despair.

Contact with unpleasant (hateful, unloved, unwanted, repulsive) things suffering, as are being separated from the pleasant (wished for, loved, wanted, attractive). Not getting what we want, getting what we don't want, never being satisfied with anything we get, always longing and craving for more...all of it is unsatisfactory, disappointing, painful, suffering.

Things we can control
Stoic philosopher/pilot James Bond Stockdale

And it all comes back to a more fundamental disappointment beneath it all -- the Five Aggregates clung to as self: body (form); feelings (sensations), perceptions, formations, and consciousness clung to as "self."

Emphasis in Buddhism is NOT on belief. That's nearly useless and only preliminary. The emphasis is gnostic like the ancient Gnostics, for whom direct personal experience of the Truth is everything. Part of that is cultivating insight (vipassana, lit. "clear seeing") into the nature of this "suffering" along with the other two marks of existence.

List: Seven Stages of Insight
The process of craving, grasping, and clinging starts with sense-contact, part of the Five Aggregates clung to as self, and how this corruption, this misapprehension, this forming of wrong view, this distorted seeing can be overcome by progressive training of the heart/mind, culminating in progressive insight, which can be remembered as the Seven Stages of Insight.

This begins by moral restraint (virtuous conduct, sila), which makes meditation (the absorptions, jhanas) possible, which makes mindfulness into the four foundations (body, feelings, mind, and mind-objects) possible.

This brings us back to the basics, the foundational summary, of what we need to penetrate -- not memorize, recite, "believe," argue about), the Teaching of the Four Ennobling Truths. What's "noble" about them or about suffering? They are not noble in the English sense of the word. The Buddhist sense of noble is arya or Aryan, which means "enlightened" or "enlightening."

The list is not a formula but a very general outline of the reflections that bring about what the historical Buddha called "enlightenment" (bodhi, "awakening"). We would rather stay asleep and perchance dream a pleasant fantasy full of pleasure and sensual experiences, delights, happiness in all its forms, of which there are many.

But this dreaming is very prone to nightmares, for in pursuit of pleasure, we ill-conduct ourselves and those karmic deeds come to fruition and ripen in great suffering, unimaginable suffering. We already taste that now, when we would dream and be full of pleasure and happiness all the time or, at least, at will. But that doesn't happen. We can't make that happen. We think we can so, like a donkey after that carrot, which is just right there in front of us, we keep going, pulling a heavy load of a cart laden with more and more karma (all our actions).

Buddhist sutras, or discourses, show the broad meaning of "suffering," from the slightest agitation to the greatest agony, coming in three categories:
  • dukkha-dukkha, aversion to physical pain – which includes physical and mental suffering, such as rebirth, aging, illness, dying, distress due to the undesirable.
  • viparinama-dukkha, the frustration of disappearing happiness – which is the suffering of pleasurable, pleasant, and happy experiences changing to painful, unpleasant, and miserable ones when the causes and conditions that produced the pleasurable are exhausted or lost.
  • sankhara-dukkha, the disappointment and unsatisfactoriness of transient, changing, impermanent "things" – the inability of [conditioned] things to give us constant, lasting pleasure and happiness.
So there is an END to all this suffering, now?
This includes a fundamental, inescapable unsatisfactoriness that pervades all things in and states of existence, all situations and future lives in any world (of which there are countless), any plane (of which there are 31), and any sphere (of which there are three), because all things all the time are incapable of fulfilling us and are always changing, hurtling towards destruction, and are ultimately impersonal, not ours, not under our absolute control.

At this level, the term dukkha, "suffering," indicates a lack of any lasting satisfaction, any ultimate fulfillment, any that things can ever measure up to our expectations. More

What is the point of all this talking about or even mentioning "suffering"? Yeah, yeah, we get it; we know we suffer, duh! Can't we just talk about nice things -- bliss, lights, expanded meditative states, magical powers, insights into all physical and mental phenomena, joy unending, nirvana-fication, quenching thirst, dousing the flames of greed, hatred, and smoldering delusion, stuff like that? Suffering is the problem that pleads for a final solution, a state and trait, a condition in need of a cure, an unbearable thing that we at some point have to deal with and bring to a final end.

Four truths to freedom
There's much to do to be free.
The first ennobling truth is the recognition that there is suffering, not because there is but because we don't even recognize it. We think we do. As soon as it pops up, we turn away, move on to something else, jump for distractions. We have next to no idea what it really is or what is causing it.

That is the second ennobling truth: What is causing it? The ROOT cause, the fundamental cause, the ultimate cause is? It is not craving (desire, wanting). It is ignorance (avijja), manifesting as wrong views (miccha-ditthi) and delusion (moha), confusion about reality.

The solution is? Awakening to the Truth, the ultimate truth (paramattha), enlightenment right now -- through realizing the causal links of Dependent Origination, the process by which this suffering is arising. Among those 12 links, of which ignorance is the ultimate cause, is one the Buddha singled as the one we can actually do something about right here and right now directly, and that is craving (tanha). Why do we crave? Ignorance, which is the same reason we have aversion and why we are deluded. The Buddha singles out craving to work on undoing the causes and conditions bringing about suffering. Why?

That is the third ennobling truth: What is not-suffering? Nirvana. Nirvana is the end of all suffering. How do we realize nirvana, directly perceive and experience it here and now?

That is the fourth ennobling truth: There is a Path to the end of suffering. What is it? It is outlined in general in the Ennobling Eightfold Path. However, to be more specific and less general, the Buddha spoke of 37 "things pertaining to enlightenment," the bodhipakkhiya-dhamma, for immediate development to know-and-see nirvana.
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Saturday, September 5, 2026

Deadly? Diary of a Buddhist Yogi: retreat


Diary of a Buddhist Yogi: Vipassana Meditation Retreat
Diary of a Buddhist Yogi (Kindle Edition)
Author Dhammaloka ("Dharma-world" or "Dharma-light or white") Viriya ("energy") knows that liberation (vimutti, moksha, vimokkha) from the cycle of rebirth (samsara) comes from the Awakening (bodhi-ification) of the (ennobling = enlightening) Truths.

To be awakened, one needs to practice mindfulness-meditation (satipatthana) by relinquishing attachment to the six senses, which will eradicate the clinging to all [of their attendant] phenomena, before the Dhamma (Truth, Teaching, Doctrine) eventually reveals itself to the practitioner.

Once the practitioner catches a glimpse of the Dhamma, the Ultimate Truth, through direct knowing-and-seeing, the practitioner will know there is no more falling back into the mire of this mundane world.

The Buddha pointed out the way to end of all suffering through mindfulness (sati) practice, and many practitioners since the Buddha’s time have reached that bliss and release from practicing in accordance with it.

However, in the author’s observation, although practitioners in this age find the practice fulfilling, they do not experience the awakening moment and therefore do not see the fruition as they hope to.
Find out in this book, which is the first-hand experience of a yogi ("practitioner") who went through the trials and tribulations of a vipassana ("insight") meditation retreat at a forest monastery to see for himself the ultimate truths of
  1. non-self (that all phenomena are impersonal),
  2. disappointment (that all phenomena are unsatisfactory and unable to fulfill),
  3. impermanence (that all phenomena are constantly hurtling toward destruction).
Directly knowing-and-seeing these Three Universal Truths produces a life-changing experience.
  • NOTE: Not all vipassana meditation retreats are affiliated with Indian S. N. Goenka (dhamma.org). Burmese monk U Ba Khin's star student and businessman just popularized it worldwide with a free, volunteer-based, 10-day structure.
You can do "mindfulness" wrong? - Yes.
WISDOM QUARTERLY COMMENTARY
There are dangers in this Wheel?
The Buddha in the usual list we call the Noble (Ennobling = Enlightening) Eightfold Path called one of those factors samma-sati not sati. What's the difference? One might think one is being mindful, but is it what the Buddha or the noble ones call "right" mindfulness? (If there's a right, that implies there's a wrong way to go about it or fool oneself that one is doing it at all). If "mindfulness" only meant awareness, then I'm being "aware" (conscious) right now, right? Yes! Am I being mindful? Probably not. There's a difference, a big difference. Retreat leaders and personal teachers should talk about it more and stop taking it for granted that one will just figure it out or that it is so patently obvious that it needs no defining or delimiting. It does, at least for over-thinkers. Sure, there are some people who will just take to it like guppies or ducklets to water. (They've likely extensively and successfully practiced in past lives).
We don't know what we're doing, but we got a groupon
Therefore, the most important thing before embarking on a vipassana retreat (whether it's Goenka-based or not), know that it is being defined as satipatthana. That means the fourfold setting up of mindfulness, which is explained in great detail in two sutras (Pali canon discourses or suttas). However, and this is the maddening part, almost nothing is said to define mindfulness (Buddhist sati). That is the most important thing to know, but it gets taken for granted. Or very weak definitions are offered, such as defining it as "awareness." We are aware right now, and more than 99% of us are not being mindful about it. For an extensive definition, see the academic work of Western Theravada professor-monk Ven. Analayo.

The Buddhist version of "mindfulness" called sati, as we understand it, is "bare awareness" with detachment, looking on, dispassionate watching. Sounds easy, but it is very hard because it goes against our deeply ingrained habits and traits. Usually when we are aware of anything, we taint that awareness with the Three Poisons of the heart/mind: liking, disliking, indifference (from the roots of all bad karma poorly translated as "greed, hatred, and delusion."

Three Poisons mutually supported wheel hub
Look up lobha, dosa, and moha. And what becomes apparent is that Pali and Sanskrit terms have wide valence, a range of meaning for a single word. "Greed" or lobha does not mean our idea of greediness. It means liking, preferring, welcoming, grasping, attaching, and getting clingy about pleasant phenomena. "Hatred" or dosa does not mean intense fury or anger; it means disliking, having an aversion to, fearing, avoiding, repressing... It is our customary reaction to any and everything we find unpleasant.

Then there's "delusion" or moha, the worst one, the most embedded one, the hardest one to see. It refers to all the wrong views we hold, consciously and unconsciously, distortions of reality, perversions (seeing what is unpleasant as pleasant, what is repulsive as attractive, what is transient as lasting), confusion, not knowing, not understanding, not fathoming, not knowing, not seeing. This is practically our whole existence, if we think about it, but it might be summarized as failing to notice the Three Characteristics of Existence in all things -- that they are ultimately radically impermanent, eventually disappointing (unable to ever fulfill us), and (no matter how impossible it is to conceive, believe, fathom, or accept) altogether impersonal.


I think I get it, Lisa. - Beginner's luck, Bart!
So to be mindful (to see clearly, which is to practice vipassana) is to look on, watch everything without giving in to the unconscious pull of these old habits. Just watch. Just notice. Just maintain attention. Note how when something is pleasing, greed for it arises. When something is displeasing, aversion with regard to it arises. When something is neutral, dull, confusing, hard to grasp, or boring, delusion arises, which is to say we space out, fall asleep, wander to something more interesting, even if it is a very unpleasant memory. Better than boredom. We do everything but be here now when this is the only real place there is to be. There's only now. The past is done. The future will take care of itself. But all our power is here, now. Let's attend to it. Let's finally see it for what it has always been so as to be liberated by the truth. The truth will set us free. What truth? The Truth, sometimes summarized as the Four Noble (Ennobling = Enlightening) Truths, the ultimate (paramattha) Truth, the true nature of existence (personally penetrating the Three Marks of Existence already mentioned). Need a list? There are the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment (the bodhipakkhiyādhammā). That Truth sets one free here and now, immediately.

But there's something every and anyone who embarks on Buddhist meditation needs to know beyond a good grasp of the meaning of "mindfulness" (sati). And that is that one will meet Five Hindrances whenever one tries to sit still or rest the mind or walk and move about with constant attention to the here and now, which does not involve "thinking" about the here-and-now, just watching it dispassionately.


The Five Hindrances one will meet in meditation (and their antidotes)
This is stupid! It doesn't work! Buddha was wrong!
The historical Buddha taught that there are Five Hindrances (pañca nīvaraṇa, Pali pañca nīvaraṇāni), mental factors that hinder, obstruct, derail progress in meditation and ruin daily life [1].

The Theravada Buddhist tradition identifies these factors as specific obstacles to "meditation," which is defined as jhāna (eight stages of stillness, unification, samadhi, concentration, coherence, superconsciousness) in practice.

Contemporary insight meditation teachers identify the Five Hindrances as obstacles to mindfulness meditation and obstacles to samma-samadhi ("right concentration," though "concentration" is problematic because we have many assumptions about what that means). "Stillness" is better, when the heart/mind has settled out, is silent, lucid, observant, directly knowing-and-seeing. But concentration is sometimes useful because ekaggata (singlepointedness or one-pointedness) is a factor of jhana.

The Five Hindrance are part of two types of obstructions (Sanskrit āvaraṇa, i.e., obstacles to insight, realization, awakening, buddhahood), afflictive obstructions (Sanskrit kleśā-avaraṇa, which include the Five Hindrances) and cognitive obstructions (jñeyā-avaraṇa, which bodhisattvas are trying to uproot) [2].

The classic list of Five Hindrances is [3, 4, 5, 6]
  1. craving, desire, lust (kāmacchanda): seeking pleasure through the five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and tactile sensation
  2. aversion, ill-will, annoyance, anger (vyāpāda, byāpāda): feelings of hostility, resentment, hate, bitterness
  3. sloth-and-torpor (thīna-middha): mental-and-bodily lassitude, laziness, weakness, lack of energy to strive, half-hearted action with little or no effort, attention, concentration
  4. restlessness-and-worry (uddhacca-kukkucca): the inability to allow the mind/heart to calm down, relax, become tranquil (passaddhi), serene, unflappable, steady, restful, undistracted, attentive, and focused, diligent, vigilant, energetic
  5. Skeptical doubt (vicikiccha): lack of confidence, conviction, faith, trust that one has understood the instructions, the path, or one's abilities to successfully proceed. More
The antidotes are called the Five Factors of Absorptions, the jhana-anga (limbs or factors). By the way, right mindfulness immediately dispels delusion instantaneously.

Or psycho girlfriend might try something crazy like (pushing it off cliff to convert to ad campaign)
  • Dhammaloka Viriya (diary); Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson (commentary), Ashley Wells (editor) and Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) selection of video shorts, Wisdom Quarterly
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Tuesday, September 1, 2026

The worst ways to get "enlightened"

I did my yoga, and I'm starting to see not-self and that I am One. What's for lunch?

Rites and rituals for samadhi in India

(dakota of earth) India's worst way to reach "enlightenment," usually defined in Hinduism as mere samadhi, which is a stage to understanding not the final goal itself in Buddhism.

I think I'm starting to lose my grip on reality.
When one becomes a "saint" (a NOBLE ONE) in Buddhism, having entered at least the first stage of enlightenment (of seven stages usually condensed and described as four main stages), one is immediately rid of four things.

Of these is the wrong view that clinging to rites and rituals could ever lead to enlightenment (bodhi, awakening to the ultimate truth).
  • Dhutanga of living under a tree
    Attachment to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāso) is one of the subtle fetters binding beings (who are constantly becoming and never actually being) to samsara, the Wheel of Life and Death. Śīla refers to "virtue" or "moral conduct" + vata (bata) to "religious duty, observance, rite, practice, custom" [25] + parāmāsa to "being attached to" or "a contagion" (clinging, upādāna) and has the connotation of "mishandling" the Dhamma [26], Buddha's Teachings. Together sīlabbata-parāmāso translates as "the contagion of [adhering to] mere rule and ritual, the infatuation of good works, the delusion that they suffice" [27] or, more simply, "fall[ing] back on attachment [clinging] to precepts and rules" [28]. Whereas the fetter of "doubt" (vicikiccha) can be seen as pertaining to the dharmas of competing wandering ascetics (samanas) during the time of the Buddha, the fetter regarding clinging to rites and rituals likely refers to some practices of contemporary Brahmanical authorities [29]. More
  • I punished the body (Erika Tanith)
    The former prince Siddhartha Gautama (the future historical Buddha), as a wandering ascetic on a quest for enlightenment, practiced these futile things -- particularly extreme fasting -- for years until he finally stopped blaming the body for the mind's defilements and accepted the blissful meditative absorptions (jhanas) as the real path of purification and path of freedom to seeing things as they really are and thereby finally being able to let go of lust, clinging, attachment, and all that binds us to interminable rebirth and suffering in samsara.
  • The 13 Sane Ascetic Practices (dhutangas)
Then I realized I was that One God incarnate
Until then, a person might do any useless thing -- particularly engaging in the extremes of severe austerities and bodily mortifications (tapas, penances, extreme austerities, attempts at purification) to purify oneself or hedonism, debauchery, and excess with the excuse that "anything can be used in the service of liberation, including the very poisons -- alcohol, drugs ("Crazy Wisdom"), sanctified or twisted sexuality (tantric sex), meat eating and cannibalism (as in Aghori holyman practices), fasting and self-starvation (inedia), self-mummification (sokushinbutsu)...
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Worship the Goddess of Youth for Juice?


Hebe giving drink to Jupiter's eagle (Gavin Hamilton, 1767)

First, what is "Juice"? - That is explained below as the sort of nectar that gives the goddess her power to bestow youth on those whom she serves or those who win her favor. So we ask...

QUESTION: How shall we worship Youth?
ANSWER: Maybe the ancient Greek way? First, what is "worship"? We need to petition her for more youth of our own. Oh, please, Great Goddess, make us young! Make us healthy! Make us pretty and long-lived!

Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity or God. For many, worship is not about an emotion, it is more about a recognition of a God. An act of worship may be performed individually, in an informal or formal group, or by a designated leader. Such acts may involve honoring [1, 2, 3].

ETYMOLOGY: The word is derived from the Old English weorþscipe, meaning to venerate "worship, honor shown to an object or deity [4]," which has been etymologized as "worthiness" or "worth-ship" — at its simplest, to give worth to something.

The Eastern ideal of devas (gods, lit. "shining ones")


I'm the Western version of Sakka/Indra: Zeus
Hebe, the daughter of Zeus [deus] and Hera, served ambrosia (amrita) and nectar to the gods of the Olympian pantheon. She later married Heracles, with whom she had two children, Alexiares and Anicetus.

Her name comes from the Greek word for youth because it she has the power to restore youth (by serving someone ambrosia).

Iolaus (left), the Love God Eros (center), Heracles (right), 4th century Etruscan ritual vessel
.
"Juice"? What is this deathless drink of the gods?
Hebe on garuda mount (Carolus-Duran)
Sanskrit amrita (Hindi amrit, Pali amata, "deathless," also sudha, amiy, and ami) is the word for "immortality," a central concept in Dharmic religions, often referred to in ancient Indian texts as an elixir [1]. Its first occurrence is in the Rig Veda, where it is considered one of several synonyms for soma, the drink of the celestial devas [2]. Amrita plays a significant role in the Samudra Manthana and is the cause of the conflict between devas (gods) and asuras (anti-gods), each competing for it to obtain longevity or immortality [3]. It has varying significance in different Indian religions. In Buddhism, it is a synonym for nirvana ("the deathless").

The Goddess of Justice Themis
.
The masculine word Amrit, feminine Amritā, is also a common first name for Hindus and Sikhs [4]. It is cognate to and shares many similarities with Greek ambrosia, both originating from a common Proto-Indo-European source [5, 6].

Hebe by Jean Coulon, circa 1886 (David Monniaux)
ETYMOLOGY: Amrita is composed of the negative prefix a- (अ, Sanskrit for "not") + mṛtyu (Sanskrit for "death"), therefore "not death," "deathless," or "immortal." The concept of a drink for immortality is attested in at least two Indo-European languages, Ancient Greek and Sanskrit. The Greek ἀμβροσία (ambrosia, from ἀ- “not” + βροτός “mortal”) is semantically linked to the Sanskrit अमृत (amṛta), both denoting a drink or food that "gods" (devas) use to achieve longevity and immortality. The two words appear to be derived from the same Indo-European form *ṇ-mṛ-tós, "un-dying" [7] (n-: negative prefix from which the prefix a- in both Greek and Sanskrit are derived + mṛ: zero grade of *mer-, "to die" + -to-: adjectival suffix). A semantically similar etymology exists for Greek (νέκταρ, néktar) "nectar," the beverage of the gods, a compound of the PIE roots *nek-, "death," and -*tar, "overcoming." More

Alabaster Shiva in white marble, triune God of India

Heracles, father of Hebe
.
Hebe in Dijon (Francois Rude)
When Heracles' nephew and charioteer Iolaus was about to fight Eurystheus, he asked Hebe to make him young again for one day.

Hebe was initially reluctant, but the Goddess of Justice Themis told her it was a fair and just thing to do. Hebe granted Iolaus' wish, and he emerged victorious in battle.

Eventually Hebe lost her job as a cupbearer of the gods (a nectar server) when she tripped and her dress came undone, exposing her breasts.

Apollo dismissed her, and she was replaced by Prince Ganymede, Zeus' pederastic homosexual lover and protege (sugar baby).

The Buddhist Goddess of Youth: Kwan Yin

Avalokita transformed into a female
If Early (pre-sectarian) Buddhism had gods and goddesses (personifications) for everything, there would surely be one for youth, vitality, health, and beauty. The Buddha was not out to found a "religion" and therefore had no need to personify and mythologize everything like a pantheistic or polytheistic tradition might. But so powerful was the influence of Hinduism (Vedic Brahmanism) on Chinese Mahayana and Tibetan Vajrayana that these later Buddhist traditions did just that, with the all-lovable Goddess of Compassion Guanyin (Chenrezig) Bodhisattva becoming the ever youthful, ever-beautiful, ever delightful "Mother Mary" and "Mary Magdalene" of Buddhism. Theravada loves her, too, as ancient Sri Lankan statuary reveals that she was venerated far and wide.

Youthful Buddhist fairy Kwan Yin rides a dragon

Prajnaparamita of Java
Of course, we at Wisdom Quarterly prefer the personification of Perfect Wisdom (Prajnaparamita of Java), but that's just our silliness. The historical Buddha could not turn the attention of the monastics of his day from lovable Ananda to wise Sariputra, try as he might. Ananda just had that sort of Scythian (Indo-Sakan) charm, friendliness (metta), and warm, nonjudgmental nature. What is the root of "friendship," of agape given to others? Is it loving-kindness, compassion, happiness in the happiness of others, or unbiased looking on (the Four Divine Abidings)? Or is the core of the kalayana-mitta ideal, the ability to announce the path-of-practice that leads to spiritual liberation, the Dhamma? What is so great about wisdom (panna, prajna) anyway, and why isn't this publication called Compassion Quarterly?

What is the ideal of beauty?
That's a good question. Karuna is great. We love it and need more of it. But all the compassion in the world would not lead one to vimutti, moksha, liberation-by-wisdom. What a friend can do for one in the utmost is share the Dharma, the Dhamma, that which the historical Buddha himself taught to a benighted world hungry for light and the alleviation of suffering, disappointment, and samsara.

The Bhutanese, Nepalese, Tibetans, Russians, and Mongolians have many Vajrayana goddesses, like the multihued Taras and personifications for all kinds of popular desires -- riches, powers, magic...love and lust deities.
SOURCES
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