Nude Yoga, Kundalini, Massage? (9/18)

Mark D. (Nude Meetup); Jen B. (Dharma B Meditation); Crystal Q.* (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

[Costly] "Free Spirited Optional Nude Kundalini and Acro Yoga with Crystal Massage"

Mark D., working class yoga guy

Come relax, stretch, just be yourself [among the naked]. Mingle in a safe and clean space.

It's a great way to [pretend to] learn yoga, try something new while being free. Led by [Mark D., alleged] Energy Guide, Tantra Educator, Healer of Mind and Body [and long time Swinger].

• Sunday, September 18, 2022
• 6:00 PM–9:00 PM PDT
• Location: Release Stress & Ignite Your Core Radiance with Tantra Yoga & Meditation Public Studio Lounge
• Long Beach, California 90804

Health, happiness, harmony, and joy to all!

Rachael Rains, Mark D.'s partner in...

All levels are welcome, no experience or partner are necessary. This event is for those who have come with an interest in maybe taking the class. Now is a chance to give it a shot. There will be three types of yoga exercises offered to experience. The three parts of the class are:

• Nude Kundalini Yoga
• Acro Yoga
• Hot Thi Rock and Crystal Massage body work

The yoga poses are easy for any level. The class will go for three hours. Afterwards everyone can hang out by the indoor fire pit to relax muscles, kick back, mingle, and munch on light, healthy snacks, and chat away with whoever is left.

This is a way to do some yoga, try something new, while meeting other members of the group in an intimate and soft setting [wink wink] that encourages freedom of mind, body, and spirit. [Mark will be there to guide it all.]

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring and kindness, all of which have the potential to turn a life around for the better.

You don't have to be alone, for you'll have a group of people who will honor, care, respect, and love you, Mark explains, "in the most highest purest form genuinely possible!!"

This class will help promote self-awareness in a relaxing, calming, mindset of body and spirit, where [Mark can help] you shed any fear, shame, guilt, doubt, or insecurities about yourself and about your body. This is just a [slightly creepy event that claims to be] safe, calm, peaceful place to be yourself.

"As a society, we’re conditioned to fear being nude around our peers or strangers, but there is a special kind of power that comes from the vulnerability of being exposed nakedly!?" Mark [who may be new to English] adds:

"By allowing ourselves to step out of our clothing and be seen exactly as we are, in all our naked glory! It's an exercise in taking back our power and becoming comfortable in our own nude skin. Nude Tantra Yoga above all else is the highest form of ANY yoga. It's about learning to love, honor, respect, cherish, and accept ourselves just as we are!

Mark breaks down the myths of nudity and yoga and shares the breakthroughs and benefits of it

• if you desire to feel free in your body, mind, spirit, skin, and soul...
• if you desire heartfelt and deep connections and good intentions with like-minded beings...
• if you desire to all the way to your edges in a well-held, safe gathering...
• if you desire a place to express, connect, explore, be yourself, open up, fulfill some need and just be...

then this is the place to be. If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep being what you've always been.

This is a small gathering (8-15 people). Partners can be opposite, same, a friend, lover, or husband/wife, boy, friend. Bring someone you want to have fun, learn, and enjoy an evening with mindful presence.

Open to both single men, women, and couples. If you have a partner, bring him/her. If you have a friend, bring him/her. If you are solo, just bring yourself with an open mind and heart. People come solo all the time.

What to bring: Love, kindness, joy, an open heart and open mind. Any pillows, a blanket, towel, a yoga mat for a cozy space, some prayer beads, sound bowl, crystals of healing. Open mind and heart, willingness to learn to bask in the radiance, ANYTHING to enhance your experience (do NOT bring any drugs or alcohol!!!) water and some light snacks and refreshments, etc.

• Sunday, Sept. 18th, 2022
• Doors open at 5:50 pm-9:00 pm
• Welcome Circle at 6:15pm
• (Give yourself some time to find parking)
• COST: $40-$85, female ticket: $40, male ticket: $75, couples or two people: $85 (saves $$$)

Singles and couples are welcome. This is a fully unclothed (optional) "Rated R" experience.

Must be 18 or older to attend this event. This will be a non-sexual type of gathering, for all to participate in. Seating is limited to 18 (max) participants. 15 spots are left so please do not delay in saving a spot. RSVP on Meetup, too.

• Bare Nipple Yoga Tantra Meetup
• Tantra Love Sacred Sexuality Intimacy-n-Touch Meetup

Sacred Sexuality doesn’t only MATTER. It alone expresses the total alchemist design and mystery of the universe’s YIN and YANG, Shakti and Shiva, Ebb n Flow, the Sacred Feminine and Masculine of our energetic beings.

Feel more alive in your body. Communicate love without using words. Learn practices that will improve your sex life. Become more receptive to touch by the use of your five senses.

We are all but waves, so let us wave together in the cosmic waves, an ocean of blissful waving sensations locked in an eternal embrace, in the "unboundlessness" of joy, respect, peace, warmth, and love.

"There are no strangers here, only friends you haven't yet met," says William Butler Yeats. Come join us. Hope to see you [naked] soon. If you have any questions about this event, please either make a comment down below or private message us!

Light and Love to you, many blessings, Namaste`

The Organizers of T.A.O. [Mark D. and Gang]

🧘‍♀️ Free Spirited Optional Nude Kundalini & Acro Yoga w/ Crystal Massage!🙏, Sun, Sep 18, 2022, 6:00 PM | Meetup

Free Spirited Optional Nude Kundalini & Acro Yoga w/ Crystal Massage! Tickets, Sun, Sep 18, 2022 at 6:00 PM | Eventbrite

*The more longwinded, redundant, and poorly this has been written, Jen, the more people are likely to know something is fishy, so maybe we shouldn't edit it at all but just spread it out as Mark wrote it? JEN: But it's so poorly written, as all their activities are, with nonsensical combinations of "!?" at the end of every other incomplete or run-on sentence! Maybe too much sex on the brain makes a person dumb?

Sacred Sexuality? Tantric meditation (live)

Dhr. Seven, Ananda M., Jen B. (DMI/PasaDharma/Dharma Punx), Wisdom Quarterly; Hariprem

I have never felt so much blissful intimacy.

At its essence, tantra combines meditation, breath, movement, and sound to assist the body's chakra energy system to open.

(Never mind that; what about the sacred sexuality?)

This opening allows dormant energy to move up from the pelvis, along the spine. The movement of this life-force energy can help heal us by loosening constrictions in the body that have developed over time.

The expansion of the energy body increases sensitivity, empathy, and the ability to connect with others.
 

Partners bow to one another as goddess and god in union, as in video below (SheKnows).

• Tantrism is a contested concept, according to The Origins of Yoga and Tantra by Geoffrey Samuel, who says that Tantra Yoga may be described as practices in 9th to 10th century Buddhist and Hindu (Saiva, Shakti) texts that included yogic practices with elaborate deity visualizations using geometrical arrays and drawings (mandala), fierce male and particularly female deities, transgressive life-stage related rituals, extensive use of chakras and mantras, and sexual techniques, all aimed to help one's health, long life, and liberation. 
• VIDEO: How sacred sex heals shame and trauma

The expanded ability to connect with an intimate partner draws many to tantra. Aside from improving communication and intimacy, tantric practices can expand the energy body toward a higher purpose — meditative absorption, cosmic union, merging [consciousness] with the breath called prana or chi.

There are ecstatic benefits to tantra in an of itself. And it feels good to practice it for its side benefits with a partner. But how can we be open and intimate with anyone else when we have yet to be that way with ourselves?

Los Angeles, Dec. 21, 2017

Partner yoga twist (Kelly Bailey/SheKnows)

Everyone will have the chance to find out as Dharma Meditation Initiative (by Disclosure Project), Dharma Punx, and PasaDharma lead a two-hour tantric meditation and yoga workshop that includes Partner Yoga led by Neptune, Tantric meditation, guided visualization, potluck and desserts (vegan).

• Tantric Meditation Workshop and Potluck
• RSVP: Dharma Meditation Initiative
• FREE (donations accepted)
• Thursday, Dec. 21, 2017, 6:45-8:30 PM
• 301 N. Orange Grove Bl., Pasadena, CA 91103

(Hariprem) Lesson 1, a simple tantric meditation for couples

Tantric SEX Guide with Gwen (video)

Amber Larson, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; Goop.com; Racked.com

(NMB) Can an electric device be sexy? Fiat tries to prove that there's something better than saving gas, the climate, and the planet by driving a plug in automobile. This woman agrees.

Uncoupling can be complicated after merging.

Goop has dimmed the lights and set the scene for romance in the latest post on tantric sex. The Gwyneth Paltrow-approved guide will help couples and non-couples achieve "deep intimacy," without forcing seven hours of straight intercourse. In true goop fashion, there are bundles of irresistible lines. Here are the very goop-iest:

Exactly:
"In reality, only a small portion of tantra has anything to do with sex, and only as a way to merge with the divine."

Oh, rly?:

We are all masculine-feminine, Sun/Moon.

"Each human has both masculine and feminine in them. We usually tend to enjoy one aspect more than the other -- that's what is called the essence."

Hobbies:
"Sexually speaking, the partner with a feminine essence enjoys the aspects of surrender, dissolution, and being ravished."

I don't think that word means what you think it means:

"This becomes a source of disconnect and dissonance: As she 'downloads' him on her day, he is craving silence -- neither one of them is getting what they want or need."

Fully charged, like your iPhone:
"There needs to be that separation -- getting full and getting empty -- before they can come together again fully charged." 

Swirls: 

Beware if kundalini awakes!

"As a feminine essence you relax into the ever changing swirls of emotion and texture, movement, and sound. You practice experiencing pleasure in your body and showing that pleasure to your chosen partner. You cultivate ways to move energy through your body and learn how to become responsive and give instant feedback."

Staring, as good as sex:
"Practice looking at each other, while staying relaxed, breathing, and simply noticing when you have reached a threshold where it's just a bit too intimate. Hang out there for a bit and you will find that this can be as good as sex!"

Everybody's got a dark side:

Now there's more of me to couple with.

"Mix it up, risk something new, or unpack an old and almost forgotten favorite. Learn some new techniques and have fun and humor experimenting again.
 And finally, make friends with your 'dark side.' Nothing enlivens intimacy more." More (Goop)

Mention tantra, and you’ll probably get the response that having sex for seven hours sounds really unappealing -- as mythologized by an off-hand Sting quote from 1990 that still dominates the...

• An introduction to Tantra

TANTRA to tansmute the base to the sublime

Dhr. Seven and Yogini Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

If only tantric sex could lead to more than a momentary epiphany. Yogic union and Oneness are not Buddhist enlightenment, which is final liberation (cartoonstock.com).

Sex is nice. Sex is soothing. Sex is sexy. But sex is not the way to enlightenment (bodhi). So can it help?
  

There was an entire movement in Vedic India that came to be known as tantra -- sublimating a base practice into something worthy of a temple or monastic (disciplined self-development) complex.
  

Indian temple depicts tantric sex (uglypeople.se)

When we approach any ordinary activity -- sitting, walking, eating, answering the call of nature -- with mindfulness, we begin to imbue it with a higher purpose.

Any beneficial action becomes a parami (a perfection, super profitable karma, high merit, punya) when the motivation behind it is gaining nirvana. So we can eat to indulge our desire to enjoy sweets and savories. Or one can do it to survive and energetically persist in support of gaining enlightenment (bodhi) and complete freedom (nirvana).

Enlightenment and nirvana happen when the causes and conditions for their realization are present. They will not come into being by themselves. But they can be "brought into being" (bhavana). It takes serenity, mindfulness, purification, focus, persistence, and insight. All we learn about meditating -- that is, bringing things into being -- may not do it if the foundation is not established.

Try practicing vipassana ("insight" meditation) without sufficient samadhi (absorption or jhana), and it will not produce the promised results. That can be so frustrating that one abandons the Path as ineffective. What can we expect when we pick and choose what we like about Buddhism as if it were a buffet table? The Buddha's teachings are actually a gradual path of development that lead us up to and into the final goal.

A yantra (instrument) is a meditation tool, a kind of visual-mantra (wiki).

  
Enlightenment is not the ultimate goal; nirvana is. They are very related but not the same. The stages of enlightenment lead from stream-entry, which glimpses nirvana, to arhatship, final liberation, safety, the release from all bonds, utter emancipation here and now in this very life.

NOT the Buddha: Tantrika on yogi.

Sex binds us to thirst (tanha) or sensual craving. We want more and more until our senses are fried. But tantric sex tries to use this dangerous fire to avoid the pit, the abyss of craving, and make it useful -- leading to a sense of union with the breath, with each other, with the world(s) we inhabit.

Of course, most people fool themselves and attempt to fool other, looking for the first in the guise of the second. What can be done? The fire turns around and certainly burns one. Let go. There is a better approach to sex, to eating, to "striving," to meditating.

Greek worshiped Eros (Kama)

The bliss available to the Buddhist shamatha-meditator goes from serene to sublime, from unfamiliar joy (piti) to happiness/bliss (sukha).
  
It is certainly better than sensual enjoyment, but it is not the goal. For the sake of it or the freedom beyond, one withdraws the senses, secludes and guards the mind/heart, pulls the body away from distractions and debasements.
  
This is very natural, for one wishes to preserve this very subtle pleasure that suffuses the body and gladdens the heart.

 

Make Love Not War (Spookychild/Deviantart)

What is the body's greatest distraction? Of all the five strands of sense pleasure, sex tends to be the strongest for most people. Of course, some stuff themselves with food/tastes, others with sounds, sights, and even cerebral pleasures. But the draw of sex is very powerful. It is most amenable to sublimation, a psychological term that means transmuting or transforming from dense to subtle, from base to elevated.

We can hit it, hit it, and quit it. Or another possibility is romance and a denouement, a skillful build up to a crescendo. Sex with someone for the sake of love (closeness, caring, recognizing) can actually be more fulfilling than sex for the sake of impulsive lust (objectifying, avoiding intimacy and vulnerability).

As men we say, LUST all the way! As women we smile and wink but feel we must speak up for LOVE. We all experience lust, males and females; we can all come to enjoy love. And we can even go beyond that! Sex is not the way to enlightenment. But sex can be better than the way we usually treat it.

The Green Tara Mantra (video)

Buddhist Light

   

Om Tare Tuttare Ture Svaha

  

Green Tara (Leighton Cooke)

OM represents Tara's sanctified body, speech, and mind.

TARE means liberating from suffering, the disappointment and pain of samsara, the Five Aggregates of Clinging (skandhas, heaps, groups, constituent factors) under the control of delusion and karma.

TUTTARE means liberating from the eight fears, the external and internal dangers, delusion, and karma.

TURE means liberating from the ignorance of the true nature for the ego, self, soul. It shows the way to the real cessation of suffering.

SVAHA means "May the meaning of this mantra take root in my mind."

Feeding on Joy in a Heaven (video)

Wisdom Quarterly edit of Abhassara, Dictionary of Pali Proper Names (palikanon.com)

(Journeyman Pictures) Watch the full film Bhutan: The Height of Happiness.

Long thought of as a secluded paradise -- the last Himalayan Buddhist kingdom -- hidden in the clouds, shrouded in myth, and renowned for its pursuit of happiness over economic prosperity, Bhutan now struggles to accommodate the invasion of tourists, new media, and Western materialism in the 21st century. As Buddhist monks play with condoms, clowns offer advice on AIDS, and farmers feed cannabis to pigs (because the seeds are super nutritious), we hear the thoughts of government officials, Buddhist monks, tourists, and ordinary Bhutanese themselves, who are facing up to the challenge. The underlying spiritualism of this mystical mountainous country, racist in its treatment of its Nepalese minority, is being buffeted by rapidly changing circumstances as its identity is being warped by an Internet-shrinking world. Of course, the real "heavens" are not on Earth but high in space. More

• Bhutan seeks more tourists to boost economy
  

The stained glass heavens (sagga) in Buddhist cosmology, a part of the world-system above Earth (Stewie1980/Flickr.com).

ABHASSARA, Heaven - There is a celestial brahma-world inhabited by radiant devas ("shining ones") whose bodies emit rays of light. They feed on joy (piti).

It is one of the 31 Planes of Existence, which are divided into three spheres (the sensual, fine-material, and immaterial). This light world belongs to the fine-material (rūpaloka) corresponding to the second absorption (jhāna, Abhs. v.3; Compendium 138, n.4).

That the devas living there subsist on joy (pītibhakkha) is recorded by the Buddha and verifiable by anyone who masters the second meditative absorption and emerges in consciousness on that plane (S.i.114.; DhA.iii.258; J.vi.55).

The average lifespan there is two aeons (kalpas). Of course, as with all planes of existence -- excluding the Pure Abodes inhabited by noble individuals in various stages of enlightenment short of full liberation -- there is no guarantee that one reborn there will not later fall from it when the profitable karma (merit) sustaining one is exhausted. Then one may well be reborn in a lesser world, the human plane, or an unfortunate destination (A.ii.127; but see Abhs. v.6, where the lifespan is given as eight aeons).

From time to time these devas utter shouts of joy saying, "Aho sukham, aho sukham!" This sound is the best of sounds. And these devas are said to be completely enveloped in ease (sukhena abhisaññā parisaññā), a rare condition in the Sensual Sphere (A.iii.202; D. iii.219).

Their world forms the third station of consciousness (viññānatthiti), and they are of uniform bodily appearance, but their perceptions are diverse (A.iv.40, 401; D.ii.69; D.iii.253). [Earth, by contrast, one of the human worlds, is diverse in appearance with diverse perceptions.]

During the periods of the expansion of a world-system, many beings are born in the ābhassara world. They are then called the highest of devas, yet even they change their condition (A.v.60).

In lists of devas (e.g., M.i.289) they are ranked above the Appamānābhā ("devas of unbounded radiance") and below the subhā ("devas of limited glory"). (See chart at left).

Buddhas-to-be are sometimes born in the ābhassara world (AA.i.73; J.i.406, 473; M.i.329; MA.i.553; SA.i.162), but they are never born in Immaterial (arūpa) Sphere worlds even when they have developed the corresponding formless attainments (arūpa-jhānas).

Baka Brahmā was born in ābhassara after having passed through vehapphala ("very fruitful devas") and subhakinna ("devas of radiant glory"), and it was then that he conceived the belief or pernicious of being "eternal." (The Buddha, perceiving this misconception, traveled out of compassion to correct. The Buddha visited Baka and dissuaded the brahma from the error of this belief (J.iii.359). Baka is featured in the Baka Brahma Sutra and the Brahmanimantanika Sutra).

• Buddhism and the God-Idea (Ven. Nyanaponika)
  

It is said that when the universe dissolves -- after the lapse of a great aeon and before it again evolves after a long period of chaos -- beings are mostly reborn in the ābhassara world.

When the world begins to re-evolve (vivattati), the Brahma-vimāna (the supreme's vehicle, mansion, platform, or spacecraft) appears by force of previous karma. But it is empty. Then some being or other, either because it has finished its life there or because its merit is exhausted, leaves the ābhassara world and is reborn in that Brahma-vimāna.

Others follow this example, and it is then that the first to be reborn in the Brahma-world generally comes under a pernicious wrong-view such as, "I AM THAT I AM" or "I am [eternal] Brahmā, Great Brahmā, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Lord, the Maker and Creator, the Ruler, Appointer and Orderer, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be." (See D.iii.29).

When inhabitants of the ābhassara world are reborn as humans, their existence continues to be like the one they fell from in the brahma-world. As time goes on, however, they lose their qualities and develop the characteristics, both physical and mental, of human beings. (For details see D.iii.84ff., PsA.253).

The great Buddhist commentator Buddhaghosa (DA.iii.865) states that their birth on Earth is by spontaneous regeneration (opapātika), that is, not mediated by parents; they are mind-born (manomaya). These seemingly miraculous events, while very rare, are neither unique nor supernatural.

When the world is destroyed by fire [tejo-dhatu, the temperature element], that fire spreads up to the ābhassara world; when by water [apo-dhatu, the fluid element], the water rises to the subhakinna world; when by wind [vayo-dhatu], the wind reaches to the vehapphala (CypA.9).

According to Buddhaghosa (MA.i.29; VibhA.520; cp. DA.ii.510), the ābhassara devas get their name from the radiance that spreads from their bodies in all directions, like flames from a torch.

According to the scholiast of the Candābha Jātaka, beings who meditate on the Sun and Moon are born in this world. The Moon appears at the wish of the ābhassara brahmās. (See Candimā). This would seem to mean that the Earth was terraformed and the Moon, its main satellite, was placed just so to make the seasons, the tides, the tilt (procession), and the marking of time, much as Judeo-Christian lore vaguely records with great misunderstanding.

• There is no ultimate creator-god. That is, brahmas do not really "create" the world, the galaxy, or the universe. But they may well contribute to them in significant ways that can be loosely termed a kind of "creation." Religious lore, dismissed as fanciful mythology, is rooted in a common understanding of Vedic and Sumerian information from otherworldly visitors.
  

Why Tibetan monks create sand mandalas

Michael Louis Vinson (Post-Crescent)

This mandala was created in 2007 out of colored sand and destroyed just after it was completed. The process not the final destination is the point.

GRAND CHUTE, Wisconsin — The strange hum of pencil-thin rods rhythmically sawing grooved metal drew Thomas Kraft nearer.

"I just got done with class and I heard the noise," said the 22-year-old, who's studying culinary arts and hospitality management at Fox Valley Technical College. As he approached, the source of the sound became visible, but the scene remained a mystery.

Four Tibetan monks draped in traditional crimson and gold robes were crouched over a square black table where they painstakingly rubbed grains of crushed white marble out of metal funnels into an elaborate design known as a mandala.

"I never knew anything about this," Kraft said in wonder, unable to divert his eyes for even a moment. "It definitely looks very tedious."

For more than 2,500 years, practitioners of Tantric Buddhism have used this sand painting ritual to generate peaceful energy.

"The purpose of creating mandala is to bring peace, harmony, and healing to this area and the people living around here," said Nawang Khenrab, a spokesman for the monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery based in India. More>>

• Buddhism in Wisconsin: madcitysangha.com

Spiritual Sexuality? (video)

WARNING: Although not graphic, this video may contain content inappropriate for some!

(WQ) The bottom line on sex is that nearly everyone is interested. It is the defining characteristic of this realm. The Kama-loka or "Sense Sphere" includes the lowest celestial worlds (beneath the Brahma worlds), the human and animal planes, and the very miserable planes.

Craving for sensual pleasures is what binds beings to this realm with its instability and attendant degrees of suffering. It is likened to a charioteer who can either control the five powerful horses of the senses or be completely at their mercy.

In order to gain liberation from Samsara, or at least from the Sense Realm (Kama-loka), it is necessary to withdraw mind and body from it completely. This withdrawal need only be temporary -- while the mind settles, concentrates, becomes blissful and bright, allowing one to successfully practice towards the gaining of liberating insight.

Thereafter, one can again indulge if one wishes: While a person has not yet attained the third stage of enlightenment (non-returning), one will still be interested in sense pleasures and sex when the mind turns to delightful sensual objects, images, and thoughts.

Given our incessant interest in this distraction and obstacle to peace and wisdom, Can there be any spiritual use for sex? Yes. For example, it can sensitize one to others and their co-development, help one gain a sense of merging and "oneness," intimacy, vulnerability, and empathy. But our society (like most societies) has so many hang ups about sex, good luck.

When sex cannot be set aside even for a few months to meditate intensively, as for example at a retreat, tantra and similar practices may be good to explore. What is the alternative -- porn, selfishness, compulsive indulgence, unresolved issues, shame, hypocrisy, and acting out? Better that one might try to transmute sensual desire into something spiritually beneficial.

• Study: Larger dating pool linked to less thoughtful choices
• What is Tantra?

Brief History of Tibetan Buddhism (film)

(Golden Guru) This film is a brief history of the "lightning vehicle" (Vajrayana) explaining the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism: Nyingma, Kadampa Sakya, Kagyu, and Gelug. It is a well-rounded Dharma lecture on how Buddhism influenced Tibet from its indigenous black magic Bon tradition to the introduction of a world religion.

"The Life of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche" (film)

(Fayuyang) May all beings be happy. This film, "The Life of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche," is an authentic portrait of one of Tibet's great contemporary teachers, considered a "master of masters" among the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana).

He is renowned as a great meditator, guru, poet, scholar, and as one of the main teachers of the Dalai Lama. Nyingma Lama Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche died in 1991. Ten years in the making, this film began in 1989 when translator Matthieu Ricard and Vivian Kurz began taping extensive footage of their teacher.

Shot in rarely filmed Kham, Eastern Tibet, as well as Nepal, Bhutan, India, and France, this film shows the rich and intricate tapestry of the Vajrayana tradition. It is a witness to the strength, wisdom, and depth of this Himalayan culture. Narrated by Richard Gere, music by Philip Glass. Part II

Christians want to trouble Buddhist Bhutan

Bhutan’s Royalists fear Christianity will Create Tension
Anugrah Kumar (pro-Christian "Compass Direct News")

THIMPHU, Bhutan — Bars, pubs, and discos have become legal in Bhutan -- a cause of concern for the older generation. But construction of worship buildings other than Buddhist or Hindu temples is still prohibited. The prohibition remains in force even though Christians [who make up less than half of one percent of Bhutan's tiny total population] abide by Bhutan's codes of conduct, speaking the Dzongkha language as well as the Nepali language at church gatherings and wearing the national dress.

• Christians create tension in Pakistan
• Catholic church screening of Jesus film attacked by Muslims
• Radio delivers Christian leadership training to North Korea

The National Assembly of Bhutan banned the practice of non-Buddhist and non-Hindu religions through edicts in 1969 and in 1979. But Christians do meet for Sunday worship [nevertheless].

• Bhutan invited Christian teachers
  Bhutan, which promoted Buddhism and Hinduism and detered Christianity in the past, allegedly sought support from the mission of Bibles of the World to provide 500 teachers to teach English, maths, and science, according to Christian news group MNonline.org.

Why are Christians seen as a greater threat to the culture of the nation than the "democracy disco culture," as one government official described the emerging subculture among the Bhutanese youth? It is believed that Christianity will create religious tensions in the country. More>>

"Prayer File" on Bhutan: Bhutan is the only country in the world to have adopted Mahayana Buddhism in its Tantric form as its official religion. The word "Tantrism" comes from Tantras, the name of a body of esoteric Indian texts divided into four groups: tantras of action, behavior, yoga, and tantras without any superiors. Tantric Buddhism came to Bhutan in the 8th century. Today Bhutan's population of about 600,000 is over 70% Buddhist. Hindus constitute 24%. Protestant Christians make up only 0.3%. Christian worship in public and evangelism are prohibited.

Kama Sutra Love Sounds

Sexual Healing: Tantric Sacred-Spot Massage
Examiner.com, 9/3/09) As a teacher of tantra and a sexual healer, I am often surprised at how many women have lingering sexual wounds. These may be from sexual abuse…

Vishuddah: The 5th Chakra

Luminessa Enjara (SF Tantra Examiner)

Have you ever noticed that when you allow yourself to let go and to become vocal while making love, it seems to feel even better? I can remember the first time I did this. It made quite an impact on me. I gave myself full permission to really be loud and make a lot of noise. I felt ecstatic.

It was a wonderfully freeing experience. Making sounds during lovemaking can sometimes be difficult for women. We often cut ourselves off at the throat. We may have been told that it was unladylike or "slutty." Religious standards, shyness, insecurity, all may contribute to being silent in bed.

Men, too, may have difficulty vocalizing during lovemaking. Even if they have been given permission regarding sex in general, most find making sounds unacceptable. More>>

Buddhism's Evolution during Tang Dynasty

Text: excerpts from the second in a series of six articles on religions in Life Magazine, reprinted in Doctrines of Buddhism (Vol. 1); edited, expanded, and updated by WQ.


A model presents a creation inspired by the court dress of ancient China's Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.C.E.), during a show at the 2009 Qingdao Fashion Week in Qingdao, a coastal city in east China's Shandong province, 6/15/09 (Xinhua/Li Ziheng).

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From the islands of Sri Lanka to Japan and throughout large sections of the Asian mainland, hundreds of millions of people -- perhaps as many as half a billion (in the 1950's) -- believe in a gentle and peaceable religion called Buddhism.

Many Western thinkers, who have come to know its yellow-robed monastics and have investigated the vast libraries of their quiet nunneries and monasteries, consider it one of the noblest edifices of thought ever erected by the human spirit. It is, as a whole, one of the most rational of the world's great religions [along with Christianity, which has striking parallels to Mahayana Buddhism, and Islam], for the system of human conduct that it preaches relies very little on the supernatural.

In its history, which stretches back for 2,500 years, Buddhism has bee one of the greatest civilizing forces the Far East has ever known, stimulating art and contributing profound ideas to the great Tang Dynasty culture of China in the 7th to 10th Centuries, A.C.E., and bringing civilization to Japan.

Today it is the state religion of Thailand, Tibet, Burma, Cambodia, and Laos, the dominant religion of China, Taiwan, and Sri Lanka, and a faith to which vast numbers of non-religious Chinese and Japanese turn for spiritual purpose....

Stripped of the accretions of poetic Oriental legend with which centuries of Asian imagination have surrounded it, the life of Siddhartha Gautama, or the Buddha as he was later called, is one of the great and elegant biographies of religious literature.

Mahayana Buddhism

For a while Buddhism was dominant over Hinduism. In time travelers from northern Asia, following the mountain trade routes across the Himalayas, learned something about the new religion of enlightenment and brought back reports to the cities of China.

About 65 A.C.E. a Chinese emperor, according to a legend, dreamed that a golden image of the Buddha appeared from out of the west and dispatched messengers beyond the Himalayas to find out about the mysterious source of this dream.

Indian Buddhist wandering-monks gradually made their way northward across the mountain passes as missionaries, and Chinese pilgrims traveled in the opposite direction seeking information and opportunities to worship at the shrines where Gautama had lived and taught. Two of these pilgrims became as spectacular figures in the annals of travel as Marco Polo. One of them, Fa-Hsien, left China in 399 A.C.E. and after incredible hardships in central Asia spent 15 years in India compiling an eyewitness account of that country, which is still studied by historians.

The other traveling monk, Hsuan-Tsang, left China in 629 A.C.E., crossed the Gobi desert, Sinkiang and what is now Afghanistan, spent 16 years in India and returned laden with books and manuscripts. Hsuan-Tsang subsequently translated Buddhist literature so extensively that what is ascribed to him and his pupils in Chinese amounts to more than a thousand volumes.

The court of the great Tang Dynasty, during which he lived, became filled with converts to Buddhism. Some of the greatest artists in Chinese history were devoting themselves to Buddhist subjects, and in the streets of the old Tang capital of Changan (modern Sian), Buddhist scholars could be found discussing their doctrines with Confucianists, Taoists, Zoroastrians, Manichaeans, and even Nestorian Christian missionaries from the Near East. Buddhism itself proved to be one of the hardiest of them all, and its teaching ramified into many different sects, some of which exist down to the present day.

Tang in Japan

Meanwhile, in the 7th Century, A.C.E. the great Japanese Prince Shotoku Taishi became converted to Buddhism, which had reached Japan through the sea routes from Korea, and established it as a national religion. The Japanese, who had heretofore been largely a nation of illiterate and primitive fishermen and farmers, accepted the new doctrines along with the whole culture of Tang Dynasty China.

Tantrism in Tibet

Shortly afterward, about 750 A.C.E., an Indian Buddhism monk named Padma-Sambhava crossed the mountains into Tibet, where Buddhism had already existed in scattered monasteries, and preached there a different and peculiar form of the doctrine known as Tantrism. Tantrism was a mixture of Mahayana Buddhism and certain magical and mystical doctrines derived from Hinduism. This together with the age-old sorcery and demonolatry practiced in Tibet made up Tibetan Lamaism. In its popular aspects it involved prayers, ritual dances, and the exorcism of devils. Out of it, in Tibet, grew a theocratic state dominated by the Dalai and Panchen Lamas, who are believed to be the living incarnations of Buddhist holy beings of the past.

Buddhist Art

Wherever it penetrated, Buddhism brought with it high ethical concepts such as:

• tolerance
• nonviolence
• respect for the individual
• love of animals and nature
• a fundamental belief in spiritual equality.

It also stimulated most of the great art Asia has known. The superlative art of India (Gupta period) was predominantly Buddhist in inspiration. So was the art of the Tang Dynasty, the golden age of Chinese civilization, and much of the tradition of literature and art that Japan learned front he Chinese and finally made part of its own culture. In the south of Asia, helped by vigorous Indian trade, these concepts of ethics and art spread to Indonesia and to what are now Burma and Thailand. In the two latter countries Buddhism became so firmly rooted that these can be described today as, along with Sri Lanka, Tibet, and Cambodia, probably the most devout of all the Buddhist nations of the world.

Then after having helped spread its high culture to eastern Asia, Buddhism was displaced in India, the country of its origin. The brahmins, proprietors of the ancient and orthodox Vedic religions now collectively and loosely called "Hinduism," which Gautama had broken away from, succeeded in absorbing it. Then Muslim conquest wiped out its last vestiges in successive crusades in the north of India down to Buddhist [present-day] Bangladesh, leaving the Himalayan Buddhist kingdoms of Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, and Sikkim largely Buddhist and isolated. Curiously, India, which gave Buddhism to the world, has contained relatively few Buddhists since the 12th Century A.C.E.

From early times the type of Buddhism practiced in China, Japan, and Tibet differed from that o f the south Asian Buddhists. This difference was due to some extent to variations in national temperament, but it can be traced back to about 100 years after Gautama's passing, when a group of disciples disagreed on the interpretation of his teaching and preached a doctrine which was less rigours and more easily adapted to the needs of the ordinary person.

• Next: Is "Mahayana" a Different Religion?