The Rainbow Body: Tibetan Dzogchen

Garab Dorje

(Buddha's Wisdom) Dzogchen Buddhism: Garab Dorje and the Nature of Reality

• History of Dzogchen (/zog-chen/)
• The Rainbow Body of Light: Tibetan photographs, evidence, and anecdotes – 21 grams of the "soul," light body, transmutation, transfiguration: Padmasambhava, Ati Yoga, Dzogchen Path, more
• Tibetan Buddhist (Vajrayana) Nyingma Sect
• Samantabhadra (Bodhisattva)

The Rainbow Body of Light: What it is and how it's achieved

Padmasambhava: Astral Realm Yogi

Padmasambhava: The Yogi from the Astral Realm

(Asangoham) In Tibet, Guru Padmasambhava is generally referred to as Guru Rinpoche, which means “precious master.” Guru Rinpoche is a totally enlightened being, a fully awakened one, a buddha, Tibetans believe.

He did not become enlightened gradually or start practicing the teachings of the Buddha Shakyamuni and eventually achieve enlightenment. Guru Rinpoche incarnated as a fully enlightened being.

• [This is odd as the signal feature of a buddha or any arhat (fully enlightened being) in Buddhism is the end of all rebirths and therefore of all further suffering.]

“Through his form, primordial wisdom manifests in the world to benefit all sentient beings,” explains the Padmasambhava Buddhist Center.

His appearance was said to be predicted by the Buddha Shakyamuni through 19 different [apocryphal Mahayana] sutras and tantras that contain clear information about his arrival and activities.

The Buddha Shakyamuni [who is a supremely enlightened samma-sam-buddha or "perfectly enlightened one" with all of the attributes necessary for establishing the Dharma and a monastic Sangha to keep alive the Teaching in the world for a long time] is said to have even said that Padmasambhava would be more enlightened than himself. [lol]

According to the Padmasambhava Buddhist Center, the Buddha said: “Eight years after my mahaparinirvana [complete freedom, final nirvana, release from samsara], a remarkable being with the name Padmasambhava will appear in the center of a lotus and reveal the highest teaching concerning the ultimate state of the true nature, bringing great benefit to all sentient beings.” [That sounds like something a perfectly enlightened being would say, doesn't it? Nothing sketchy about it.]

But who exactly was Padmasambhava, really? Padmasambhava was an Indian tantric master who played a major role in bringing [esoteric] Vajrayana Buddhism from India to Tibet during the eighth century.

Though he has been the subject of many legends and myths, little is known about his life from a historical perspective.

One of the things we know is that he helped establish Tibet’s first Buddhist monastery, located in Samye.

He is also considered the founder of the Nyingma school, the oldest of the four major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.

In this lineage, and particularly in the Dzogchen teachings (which focus on discovering the ultimate ground of existence), he is considered an important symbol of enlightenment and an object of meditation.

“The word padma is Sanskrit. It was preserved as a Tibetan word and means ‘lotus flower.’ Sambbava means ‘born from.’ Padmasambhava’s usual name in Tibetan is Perna Jungney, translated from the Sanskrit name Padmakara, which means “originated from a lotus.”

When Padmakara was born from a lotus flower and, also, while being led back by King lndrabhuti [his adoptive father], wherever he was set down, a lotus spontaneously sprung up.

The king [would then exclaim], “This child is truly a lotus-born one!” Therefore, he became renowned as Padmakara.... Later, when he became learned in the fields of knowledge and presided as the head of five hundred great panditas [eminent scholars and masters in Tibetan Buddhism], he was known as Padmasambhava, the Lotus-Born. Thus, he is indeed named after his manner of birth.”

This explanation was given by Yeshe Tsogyal, who lived in the 8th century CE and was considered the mother of Tibetan Buddhism. #Padmasambhava #tibetanbuddhism #gururinpoche

• Script: Talia Jimenez
• Edit: Aakash
• Voiceover: Karan Nambiar
• Original score: The Green Tara Mantra | The Frequency
• VIDEO: Earth in danger! During an excavation, humans accidentally find the Creator asleep (msn.com)

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• Asangoham,  YouTube, 8/19/24; CC Liu, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Atheist "denominations" explained (video)

Matt Baker (Useful Charts, 2/23/24); Religion for Breakfast; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Atheist "denominations" explained

Is there freedom from religion in America?

(UsefulCharts) Feb. 23, 2024: There are no "denominations" of any religion or nonreligion other than Christians, who have over 200 in the U.S. alone, with many more sects and offshoots ("splitters"). But for the purposes here, the term is being used to signify schools and groups in general. So there are the Humanist Atheists and the megachurch of the Scientist Atheists, Nontheists (aka some Buddhists) and Anti-Theists (Secularists but not Satanists, who all believe in God or else what's the point of opposing and following the prophesized Antichrist?), Materialist Atheists and Nihilist Atheists (who believe we exist by chance and will all cease to exist and enter oblivion at death), those darn Snarky Standup Comedian Atheists and the lowly Spiritual Atheists who don't believe in God because they heard the XTC song "Dear God" and really liked it. 

• Types of Atheists: • Types of Atheists (Psychology of Atheism)...
• Download Matt Baker's full doctoral thesis so his Ph.D. will have been worth something: wrap.warwick.ac.uk/76588
• Sponsor: sign up for a 14-day FREE trial of MyHeritage now: UsefulChartsFeb24

CREDITS: Chart and narration by Matt Baker. Guest narration by @ReligionForBreakfast Animation by Syawish Rehman. Audio editing by Ali Shahwaiz Theme music: "Lord of the Land" by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution license 4.0. Available from incompetech.com.

• Go Jewish: Kill for Zionist-Israel: Israeli militants heading into Gaza's Rafah City to steal more land and continue war crime of ethnic cleansing in their genocide, Warlord Netanyahu tells CBS Joe Biden is behind us, so who can be against us?

Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol)

BuddhistChannel.TV; Wisdom Quarterly version with explanatory comments
(Jenny-H-Edwards/flickr.com)

The Tibetan Book of the Dead, or Bardo Thodol ("The Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Intermediate State") is traditionally believed to be the work of the legendary Padma Sambhava in the 8th century ACE.

The book acts as a guide for the dying during the state that intervenes death and the next rebirth.

[NOTE: Rebirth is instantaneous and without intermission. But the post-human rebirth as a subtle body being is here being mistaken for an "immortal soul" that survives death. In this simplified view, the radically impermanent and impersonal "person" (gandhabba, Five Aggregate combination) is judged. That is, some karma conditions the rebirth-linking consciousness. One then "enters" another relatively long-term existence in one of the six realms of the Sensual Sphere described by Mahayana as if that sphere were an exhaustive description of Buddhist cosmology's Three Spheres and 31 Planes of Existence.]

Padma Sambhava is considered to be one of the first persons to bring Buddhism to Tibet. The Bardo Thodol is a guide that is read aloud to the dead while they are in the state between death and rebirth in order for them to recognize the nature of their mind and attain liberation from the cycle of rebirth.

The Bardo Thodol teaches that once awareness is freed from the body, it creates its own reality as one would experience in a dream. This dream occurs in various phases (bardos) in ways both wonderful and terrifying.

Overwhelmingly peaceful and wrathful visions and deities [spirits with the power of transformation] appear. Since the deceased’s awareness is in confusion of no longer being connected to its former gross physical body, it needs help and guidance in order that enlightenment and liberation may occur.

The Bardo Thodol teaches how we can attain nirvana by recognizing the heavenly realms [lower deva realms of the Sensual Sphere] instead of entering into the lower realms where the cycle of birth and rebirth continue.

The following is a description of the bardo realms that one travels through [or envisions traveling through] after death.

The First Bardo

The first bardo comes at the very moment of death, when there dawns the Clear Light of the Ultimate Reality [as conceived of in Brahmanism and Hinduism and apparently borrowed into this shamanistic description]. This is the very content and substance of the state of liberation, if only the "soul" [ego, personality, stream-of-conscious clung to as an identity or persisting "self"] can recognize it and act in a way to remain in that state.

The instructions intended to be read at the moment of the person’s death are designed to help the person do this. One is told, first of all, to embrace this supreme experience not in a selfish and egoistic way but rather with love and compassion for all sentient beings. This will aid in the second step, which is to realize that mind and self is identical with the Clear Light, implying that one IS the Ultimate Reality [Brahman], "the All-good Buddha," transcending time, eternity, and all creation.

If one can recognize this while in this supreme state at the moment of death, one will attain liberation -- that is, one will remain in the Clear Light forever. [It is amazing that all of this Brahmanistic teaching went unquestioned by Mahayana Buddhists.] This condition is called the "Dharmakaya" [Dharma-body], the highest spiritual body of the Buddha.

Most "souls," however, will fail to do this. They will be pulled down by the weight of their karma into the second stage of the first bardo, called the Secondary Clear Light seen immediately after death. At this point, there are separate instructions to be read according to the spiritual condition of the person while in life.

For an individual advanced in meditation and other spiritual practices, there is repeated over and over the same instructions as at the moment of death, enjoining one to recognize oneself as the Dharmakaya. For a person who was still at a student-level on the spiritual path, there is the injunction to meditate on one's "tutelary deity," that is, the particular [manifestation of] god for whom one performed devotional practices while alive.

Finally, "if the deceased be of the common folk," unpracticed in any spiritual disciplines, the instruction is to "meditate upon the Great Compassionate Lord," which is to say an "avatar" [incarnation of God] worshiped by the multitude, equivalent to Jesus [St. Issa] as conceived of by the average Christian.

The Second Bardo

If the "soul" is still not "liberated" [if one imagines that the Buddha taught nothing higher than Vedic Brahmanism] at this stage, it will descend into the second bardo, which is said to last for two weeks.

The second bardo is also divided into two parts. In the first, the "soul" of the deceased encounters what are referred to as "the Peaceful Deities." On each of the seven days, a particular Buddha-being will appear in radiance and glory, with a bevy of angelic attendants. [These descriptions do not stray very far from Hinduism.]

At the same time, on each day in turn there will shine a light from one of the six worlds of the [Sensual Sphere in the] Buddhist universe, called lokas (basically meaning "place" since our English words "location" and "locale" are derived from the same Sanskrit root).

On the first day of the second bardo, there appears to the "soul" the divine Father-Mother -- that is, the supreme deity of the universe, transcending all dualities, including the division into sexes. [This is what the Buddha, speaking to brahmins, would refer to as Brahma or Maha Brahma, any of the divinities superior to the Sensual Sphere devas ("shining ones").

The next step in the destiny of the "soul" is determined by one's reaction to this God. If one's life on Earth was well lived, one will now be in a state [referred to by Hindus, brahmins, or Christians as one] of purity and grace, and one will enter into the joy of the God and attain liberation [moksha to modern Hindus and ancient brahmins].

If on the other hand one has lived an ignoble and impious life, the effects of his bad karma will cause the intense radiant presence of the God to strike fear and terror in one's heart, and one will be drawn instead to the softer light of the Deva-Loka, or [lesser] "Angelic World," which has dawned along with this deity.

This is still a fairly attractive fate, for the Devas are the Gods (or angels), and their lokla is equivalent to the Christian heaven; however, the Buddhist teaching is that even heaven is not the highest spiritual objective, because it is still only a temporary state in the manifest universe.

Liberation is believed to be the only final and permanent resting-place for the "soul," an un-manifest state beyond all [31 general planes of] existence.

On the second day, there appears the second-highest God in the Buddhist pantheon [Buddhist pantheon?] In fact, he is actually the Second Person in the literal Buddhist Holy Trinity [Buddhist Holy Trinity? That is another Vedic Brahminical and later Hindu conception, borrowed by Catholicism].

At the same time, there dawns a smoky light from hell. And here we note that, just as the Buddhist heaven is not a permanent, eternal state, neither [are] its hell[s].

Even the most wretched "souls" will eventually work their way out of even the deepest pit of hell, just as even the highest and purest "souls" will eventually lose their footing in heaven and descend again into the cycle of death and rebirth.

[Actually these states are well within the cycle and are in no way outside of it unless the Sensual Sphere is regarded as the entire "world."] MORE pre-biblical messianic Judeo-Christian Vedic Brahmanism in the guise of "Buddhism"

Why we argue (Parable of the Blind Men)

John D. Ireland (translator), Wisdom Quarterly edit, Inspired Utterances (Ud. 6.4)

Buddhist novice meditating above the tangled canopy (Mattravel/Flickr.com)

Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Savatthi in the Jeta Wood at the multi-millionaire's monastery.

At that time there were a number of recluses and brahmins, wanderers of various sects, living around Savatthi. They were of various views, of various beliefs, of various opinions. And they relied for their support [by reasoning] based on their various views.

• There were some recluses and brahmins who asserted and held this view: "The world is eternal; only this is true, any other (view) is false."
• There were some recluses and brahmins who asserted: "The world is not eternal; only this is true, any other (view) is false."
• There were some who asserted: "The world is finite...
• The world is infinite...
• The life-principle and the body are the same...
• The life-principle and the body are different...
• The Tathagata [person who has attained liberation from samsara, such as the Buddha] exists beyond death [of the body]...
• The Tathagata does not exist beyond death...
• The Tathagata both exists and does not exist beyond death...
• The Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist beyond death; only this is true, any other (view) is false."

And they lived quarrelsome, disputing, and wrangling, wounding one another with verbal darts, saying:

• "Dharma [liberating truth] is like this
• Dharma is not like that!
• Dharma is not like this
• Dharma is like that!"

Then a number of Buddhist monastics, having put on their robes in the forenoon and taken their bowls and outer cloaks, entered Savatthi for almsfood. Having walked in Savatthi for almsfood and returned after the meal, they approached the Buddha, prostrated themselves, sat down to one side, and said:

"At present, venerable sir, there are a number of recluses and brahmins, wanderers of various sects, living around Savatthi. They are of various views... saying: 'Dharma is like this!... Dharma is like that!'"

[The Buddha replied:] "The wanderers of other sects, disciples, are blind, not seeing. They do not know what is [karmically] beneficial [in terms of practice now and future results from profitable and unprofitable actions willed, performed, and accumulated]; they do not know what is harmful. They do not know what is Dharma; they do not know what is non-Dharma.

"Not knowing what is beneficial and what is harmful, not knowing what is Dharma and what is non-Dharma, they are quarrelsome... saying: 'Dharma is like this!... Dharma is like that!'

"Formerly, disciples, there was a certain king in this very city of Savatthi. And that king addressed a man: 'Come now, my good man, bring together all those persons in Savatthi who have been blind from birth.'

"'Yes, your majesty,' that man replied, and after detaining all the blind people in Savatthi, he approached the king and said, 'All the blind people in Savatthi have been brought together, your majesty.'

"'Now, my good man, show the blind people an elephant.'

"'Very well, your majesty,' the man replied to the king, and he presented an elephant to the blind people, saying, 'This, blind people, is an elephant.'

The blind men examine an elephant (jainworld.com)

"To some of the blind people he presented the head of the elephant, saying, 'This is an elephant.' To some he presented an ear of the elephant, saying, 'This is an elephant.' To some he presented a tusk... the trunk... the body... the foot... the hindquarters... the tail... the tuft at the end of the tail, saying, 'This is an elephant.'

"Then, disciples, the man, having shown the elephant to the blind people, went to the king and said, 'The blind people have been shown the elephant, your majesty. Now do as you see fit.' Then the king approached those blind people and said, 'Have you been shown the elephant?'

"'Yes, your majesty, we have been shown the elephant.'

"'Tell me, blind people, what is an elephant like?'

"Those blind people who had been shown the head of the elephant replied, 'An elephant, your majesty, is just like a water jar.'

"Those blind people who had been shown the ear of the elephant replied. 'An elephant, your majesty, is just like a winnowing basket.'

"Those blind people who had been shown the tusk of the elephant replied, 'An elephant, your majesty, is just like a ploughshare.'

"Those blind people who had been shown the trunk replied, 'An elephant, your majesty, is just like a plough pole.'

"Those blind people who had been shown the body replied, 'An elephant, your majesty, is just like a storeroom.'

"Those blind people who had been shown the foot replied, 'An elephant, your majesty, is just like a post.'

"Those blind people who had been shown the hindquarters replied, 'An elephant, your majesty, is just like a mortar.'

"Those blind people who had been shown the tail replied, 'An elephant, your majesty, is just like a pestle.'

"Those blind people who had been shown the tuft at the end of the tail replied, 'An elephant, your majesty, is just like a broom.'

"Saying 'An elephant is like this, an elephant is not like that! An elephant is not like this, an elephant is like that!' they fought each other with their fists. And the king was delighted (with the spectacle).

"Even so, disciples, are those wanderers of various sects blind, not seeing... saying, "Dharma is like this!... Dharma is like that!'"

Then, on realizing the significance, the Buddha made this inspired utterance on this occasion:

Some recluses and brahmins, so called,
Are deeply attached to their own views;
People who only see one side of things
Engage in quarrels and disputes.

Source: ATI - For free distribution only, as a gift of Dharma (dhamma-dana).

Karmapa Lama's 24th birthday

Tibetans celebrate Karmapa Lama's 24th birthday in Dharamshala
(SifyNews.com, 6/26/09)

The Karmapa and the Dalai Lama (karmakagyu.org.au)

Tibetans living in exile in Dharamshala, India celebrated the 24th birthday of Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the 17th Karmapa on Friday.

Born on June 26, 1985 in Kham region of eastern Tibet, Ogyen Trinley Dorje is heir to the Tibetan's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. He is considered the third most important leader after the Dalai Lama, and his authority is recognized by both Beijing and the renowned 14th Dalai Lama.

Buddhist monks and nuns assembled at the Gyuto monastery in Dharamsala to pray for the well-being and long life of the Karmapa. However, this year, no singing and dancing program were organized because of the demise of Penor Rinpoche, head of the Nyingma sect, and also due to the mass killings of Tibetans in Tibet last year.

"It is because of the demise of the head of the Nyingma sect, Penor Rinpoche and so many Tibetans have lost their lives in Tibet, so they didn't perform any sort of cultural events and they don't have big ceremony. Just to mark the birthday celebration, we have this prayer and puja [i.e., devotional] ceremony only," said Tashi Wangchuk, a Tibetan youth. Followers of Karmpa from far-flung places also came to take part in the celebration. More>>