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List of Talks and Writings

What are the Cultural Implications and Authenticity of Celtic Buddhism? - Thom Kilts

Painting the Path - Bill Burns

 

I. Introduction

 

II. Painting the Celtic Buddha

 

III. Why Celtic Buddhism

One Mind, Many Minds, No Mind - Seonaidh Perks

Message to all sentient beings - Peg Junge

What are the Cultural Implications and Authenticity of Celtic Buddhism?

by Thom Kilts (2008)

I have one of those good friends that for some reason can provide great comfort at time and great irritation at others. The particular friend I am referring to is one that basically put my face right into the question of the cultural implications of this whole Celtic Buddhism thing. You have to understand that through many years before I became ordained into this lineage I looked at it from afar with great amounts of skepticism and misinformed judgment. So in that light you could say I was ripe for a good push into the realm of insecurity with little effort.

There I was fresh "off the boat," from a marvelous and at times mysterious trip to Ireland. My wife and I were newly ordained during our Ireland trip and feeling especially confused as to what that all meant and where we were to go from here. My particular friend I am referring to above has been on somewhat of a parallel journey as myself. We both became practicing Tibetan Buddhists and pursued Religious Studies with a shared particular fondness for a professor of the same Buddhist persuasion in undergraduate college. During that time and in some ways it looked as though we were destined to both follow the same academic path of Buddhist Studies when we entered graduate school. I diverged after a near death experience and demanded a more embodied approach to the study of my faith. I went to a graduate program to prepare for certification as a Chaplain and he went into the academic Buddhist world of translation and textual study. I in no way posit that one path was better than the other, but they differed and in that way our engagement of western Buddhism began to differ too in response. So, in having come back from Ireland with a sense of spiritual renewal filling me up, I was in my favorite Irish pub in Berkeley with a warm Guinness (I don't know why American pubs serve Guinness warm) and speaking of our recent trip to my friend. As soon as I mentioned Celtic Buddhism, he began to laugh hysterically and said, "a friend of mine and I the other night were sitting around trying to come up with some new fucked up crazy new age religious groups and Celtic Buddhism was one of them. I can't believe someone has actually come up with that bullshit."

Noticing that I was not following in his amazement of how absolutely absurd the idea of Celtic Buddhism was, there came this strange silence between us. He immediately in all kindness tried to put on a serious face and began asking me questions about the legitimacy of the whole thing but by then I was thoroughly deflated. The rest of the night I remained quite quiet and removed and nursed my Guinness while we moved on to other subjects. It was troubling to me because it had started to become obvious that my dear religious compatriot and I were running into the same beloved territory of most Americans, which is the unspoken acknowledgement that one should not speak about religion with other people. What a horrible and distancing notion that brought, especially since our spiritual journeys were so close and rooted in many ways by the same tree.

This wasn't however the first realization of the change between us and how we could engage each other around religion. We both have a shared cynicism about the seriousness of western Buddhists and have a shared concern for much of the pretension and yuppie dogmatism that seemed to be the prevailing cultural norm of western Buddhists. Just pick up a recent copy of tricycle magazine and see in between the pages where the serene ads for peace, tranquility and escape for the mere cost of selling your children on the black market in Mexico are there for our enjoyment. For two boys who grew up of the more impoverished persuasion, Buddhist groups can seem like royal tea parties where we could be easily mistaken for servers and not participants. I have felt however at some points that my friend's cynicism outmatched my own. Sitting at a station waiting for a BART train I began talking about a retreat I did with Lama Surya Das (I must say by the way due to my income troubles his group provided me with a full scholarship) and my appreciation for his style and wit. Immediately I got the "tisk, tisk," that comes with the attitude that I must have obviously lost my mind and started drinking kool-aid with the Jones' gang or that in some deeply hidden concern, he would soon see me shooting it out in some small Texas town trying to protect my harem from the FBI. He stated, "the only authentic teachings come from Tibetan Lamas and I won't receive teachings from westerners." This exchange probably marked the first strange quietness between us and as I sat by the window in the BART train in the deafening roar that is the trans bay tube, I began to think that maybe we (my friend and I) are really the pretentious ones. If I can't envision a western teacher as having Buddha-Nature, how am I supposed to envision myself as having any? How racist is it of me to mark Tibetans as especially attuned to enlightenment? I began to reflect on how deep down I had somewhat of the same belief as my friend. It was as if any wisdom that Lama Surya Das shared that hit the nail on the head, must have been a lucky break.

I remember having a one on one meeting with Lama Surya Das and as I walked in the room, needing to mask my judgment as I thought to myself in regards to the formalities, "all come on, do you think you are for real or something?" The beauty of that retreat in particular is that it changed my heart and it was like any true teaching, the mentality I presented became a mirror onto myself. The question became, "am I for real?" I began to question if it were actually possible for a westerner to achieve enlightenment or if I had to pray to take rebirth in some Tibetan form and develop a keen liking to maroon and yellow color combinations. I liked Lama Surya Das' teachings, especially the idea of America the 'Buddha-full." I think he made it possible for me to finally begin to take myself seriously as a Buddhist, regardless of the fact that I was a westerner.

That turns me again back to the cultural implications of Celtic Buddhism. It makes me think of you dear reader whether your reading this to find something to laugh at and tear apart, or if in your heart you feel like a Celtic Buddhist but are trying to figure out what the hell that means. To those looking to tear it apart I invite you to please go ahead and do so and for those reading who are certain they are a Celtic Buddhist, I say go ahead and join this other group that wants to tear the thing apart. I think together in the middle of the fascination, wonderment and excitement to be a part of something "Celtic," and in the skeptical and irritated mind of someone ready to tear at the so called authenticity of this whole thing---is the Celtic Buddhist. Now as I look back in reflection and study my own doubting mind, I kind of have a nice chuckle and what in the world made me think that being a "Tibetan" Buddhist was and is somehow more authentic than being a "Celtic" one. I mean first off the obvious thing, is culturally my ancestors are "Celtic," but that doesn't really matter either. As Buddhists in whatever persuasion we have to learn that oh so subtle dance of not clinging to one's identity and not pretending one's identity doesn't exist either.

In chaplaincy work we deal with cross cultural issues on a daily basis. When I speak of culture here, I am talking about a broad sweep. We deal with different religious traditions, ethnicities, races, cultural groups, and so on. The well trained chaplain begins to quickly realize that while cultural competence can include knowledge of other cultures and faiths, it really comes down to meeting the human condition straight on. As Buddhists I think we can understand this as our fundamental connection in that we will all experience birth, old age, sickness and death, like it or not. How we make meaning from that and deal with that reality on a day to day basis is a part of our identity and culture. Culture helps us define aspects of our reality, as does religion and these things get problematic when we try to enforce our own definitions on other people. The wonderful thing about doing chaplaincy work each day is coming into contact with the absolute multiplicity of meaning making going on out there. I could meet four Buddhist patients and experience four different religions, cultures and understandings. The idea of what is authentic and what is not is something that has concerned Buddhists throughout time. Every time Buddhism has spread into a new culture it has changed that culture, but more importantly it has been changed by that culture. There was a time in old Tibet that people thought only the true and real teachings came from India and they sent many translators and teachers over treacherous mountains to bring back teachings and scripture. I think people forget that at some point the preservation of Indian Tantric Buddhism wasn't the focus anymore. At some point the Buddhism became "Tibetan" Buddhism.

There are many scholars who probably have some notion of the exact moment that occurred but it doesn't really matter for the point I am making here. Stories through time have always traditionally become inflated (otherwise they are not very interesting) and I think it is easy to get lost in the tales of great masters of old Tibet and how with their departure all is lost in terms of authentic teachings. All I know from the Tulkus I have met and studied with, is that each and every one of them started out with an "oh shit what do I do now," look on their faces until they kind of get the deal. For those wondering here what the "deal" is; the job of a true teacher/leader is not to lead anyone to enlightenment, just point out to people what's already there. Here is a better story than old tales of great masters. There was once a servant who tended a bridge and basically his only job was to tell each person who crossed to watch their step, because it's really slippery on the first step. Well the day came where he had to pass along this obligation to another. The servant was well known and when it came time to pick a new bridge attendant he had many willing volunteers. He picked one and gave the instruction that the new attendant dreamed was going to be profound. His only teaching was, "basically you tell each person who comes along to watch their step, maybe 5 % listen to you if your lucky, the others just fall flat on their ass and you come over and help to pick them up. Sometimes the worst part is seeing the same person day after day not listen and you just go over and pick them up again and pray one day they will get it."

So I made up that story but that's basically about the extent of what teaching Dharma is and yet we hold it up over our heads and spend more time whining about what is lost and forget that we have an obligation to move things ahead. Some see this moving ahead as an exercise in preserving as much of the past as we can, and I praise these folks because we get to reap the benefits of their translated texts and such, if we want to. Then there are those of us who want more and desire to move ahead even further. The exact dynamic has been the tension mark in all aspects of culture since the first monkey walked on his hind legs and walked off to get a cheeseburger and a Coke. There are those that see the preservation of the past as the most authentic way and those who see finding creative and new forms of practice as the way to move ahead. I think both sides are wrong when they get clingy and attached to their point of view. I have come to understand that all aspects of truth in the Buddha's teachings come from the middle way philosophy. I think Celtic Buddhism conjures up that philosophy in a strong way.

When I first tried to start making meaning out of this whole authentic cultural implication thing I turned to Celtic Christianity. The world of the Celts will forever be mystery (to their happiness I am sure) and many academics have studied the Celtic world through linguistic study, anthropology, archaeology and so on. It shouldn't be surprising that in those fields the scholars too argue about authenticity of the Celtic world. There are many books and books to counter those books about what it means to be a Celt and what exactly was the make up and design of the Celtic viewpoint on the world. There are only a few things that seem to come into agreement. The first thing is that the Celtic world was culturally highly diverse and scattered across many regions. There is a unique flavor to the art that connects these scattered clans and groups but there is no one way in which a group could lay complete and absolute claim to being purely Celtic. The second is that nature was and still is the central point of the cultures as expressed in the art with images of supernatural beings, animals and people interlaced and inter-connected with nature. It seems that no matter the diversity of each different form of Celtic expression there seemed to be a commonality and shared belief in the inter-connectedness of all things. What fascinates so many of us with the Celtic worldview is that it seems so needed in our current day and age. An absolute worship, honoring and respect for nature and a sense of earthiness in ritual and marking the passages of time and seasons. It would be easy to speak of the Celtic peoples and give it a shiny look and view it like many westerners do about Tibetans, and that they are the most pure culture and we should try an emulate all that they stood for. That of course would be ridiculous.

Now to stand back a little, it has been apparent to me that in world history that it has been advised to not make the same mistakes of the past and here is a shared mistake that both Tibetans and Celtic people made. They both, even though both philosophies of these cultures hold up the interconnectedness of all things, existed in relative isolation. In fact I think that just adds to the mystery and fascination that here were these cultures that seemed to deny the rest of the world---for the Celts it was the Romans and for the Tibetans it was the Chinese and anyone else down the mountain for that matter. Both of these cultures were thrust into the world unwillingly and most times brutally. With the Celts the missions of the Catholic Church seemed to take over but in study its hard to tell if the Catholicism changed the Celtic world or if the Celtic influence changed Catholicism in those regions. That was certainly an issue later in time when the Church became more forceful and seemed to drive out the Celtic influence in whatever way it could. The same is still going on for Tibetans, but in their misery came the first mission of Tibetan masters to the outside world. As westerners, especially ripe for wisdom from the east became worthy students, the spread of Tibetan Buddhism began to cross over not only Europe but made its way to America as well. Though the Catholic Church did a thorough job of indoctrinating the peoples of Scotland, Ireland and so on----its hard to go to any of those places and not still hear tales of the little people and see a Catholicism intertwined with Celtic culture.

As Tibetan Buddhism was beginning its journey to the west, one particular figure stands out and that is Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. He in many ways challenged the love affair with anything foreign and out there and sought to teach his students to look "in there." He asked westerners to deal with their own cultures and trust that the truth and heart of the Buddha can live through most anything. I say that for both the heart of Celtic culture and the heart of Buddha's teachings, that they can and have lived though most everything.

So what to say when standing in a bar and your friend laughs hysterically at this funny little thing you're interested in. I don't have any good comebacks for you, but I do request that you hold it with an open mind. Who can really explain why we "feel" connected to anything. How strange would it be to have to explain why I love my wife and daughter and not belittle it so much it makes me look and feel cold and uncaring. We have been integrating aspects of the world around us since we were first born and most times unquestioningly. That's the real crime is that we don't doubt in that healthy way that the Buddha taught. Some say that I am lucky because I have been a Buddhist all my life and so in many ways it is ingrained in me in ways it is not in others. That is rubbish, truly, if I took that to heart too much, because what really makes me Buddhist is that I have always questioned and I was lucky enough to be around and had the choice to grow up in a tradition that encourages a lot of questioning. Just because Buddhism encourages a lot of questioning doesn't mean that we have done a good job at following that advice. As a Chaplain I see and am involved in all different aspects of the religious world and I have to say that sometimes Buddhists can be the most dogmatic and least skeptical religious people out there. This is no attempt to insult but it is a call for more challenge. That is what so intrigued me about Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

The first teaching I read from Trungpa Rinpoche was a copied ditto with the title, "Boredom." Having been a devoted meditation practitioner for many years it was a huge relief to read some teacher talk about how damn boring the whole thing was. He wasn't saying to not meditate but he was being refreshingly honest about what it is. The article grounded things for me but then inevitably I began to learn more about Trungpa and began hearing horrible stories about behavior that I felt was not becoming of a true Tibetan Teacher. So like any true blue western Buddhist stuck on the external formalities, I disregarded anything related to Trungpa Rinpoche and prided myself on my purity.

Years down the road I needed to attend a graduate school to get my credentials straight in order to be a chaplain. Well, Naropa Institute was the only real Buddhist tinged graduate program that entertained seriously the notion of practical chaplaincy practice for Buddhists, so it was off to a university founded by a teacher I simply thought was a freaking mad man. I read more and more of Trungpa's teachings and became just simply enamored with their realistic tone and approach to the subject of Dharma. I was at odds with myself, and I was lucky enough to be able to speak with many of his older students. Some I found to be even crazier than what I thought Trungpa was like and most others I found to be very grounded and serious practitioners. One in particular was instructing one of our meditation classes and he brought out a velvet crown royal bag and set it in front of him. I thought to myself, "great now he is going to ask us all to take a swig of some liquor before we get started." To my surprise he pulled out a bell and a ringer that he kept in the nice crown royal bag. Later in our relationship and after many conversations I talked about my troubles with Trungpa and his behavior and my concern for the proper example and model that a good teacher should give to his students. He laughed as I told story after story of some of Trungpa's more popular exploits as well as some that he was surprised that I even knew of. He complimented me on my research and then asked me a subtle but powerful question, 'how does any of that have to do with your karma?" My first thought and reaction was that it embarrassed me to think that I was following in the lineage of an alcoholic mad man who slept with his students. We then talked about Marpa and his physical abuse, Milarepa and his murdering ways and so on. My response was to insist that they were masters of meditation and their lineages ring true even to this day. My past meditation instructor, clearly amused by my apparent ignorance asked me if I thought it was easy for the generation proceeding Milarepa and Marpa to make sense of it all. I mean didn't Milarepa flash his penis to the gods as an insult and put his head inside a demon's mouth? But those were extraordinary times and we are in modern times. I was challenged to reflect on why here and now were not extraordinary times. Tulku Urgen once said, "the more neurosis, the more enlightenment!"

So why aren't these days we live in extraordinary times? When I was on pilgrimage in Tibet it opened my eyes in many ways. I mean there are Tulkus everywhere and the Tibetan people don't seem too overly concerned with that fact. I met some of these young Tulkus in Nepal and believe me I didn't see much that impressed me, in terms of teaching or behaviors. They were nice and formal and would make Trungpa look like a homeless mad man coming out of a local pub, but their teachings were in my opinion flat and almost repetitive chatter that they regurgitated for my fascinated western mind. I walked away from this whole thing puzzled by the challenge that Trungpa left us. He left us a mess and there are many putting things in order and cleaning house and I say good for them. His influence didn't stop there however. Some of his mess extends to the realm of Shambhala International and Naropa University, all great accomplishments mind you, but his trouble making can't be so quietly contained and put all together so neatly. For me here is where Seonaidh or as others know him, John Perks, enters into the equation.

To read, "Mahasiddha and His Idiot Servant," is like reading the journal of some lunatic who volunteered to partake in one of the greatest freak shows or experiments in the modern Buddhist world. I have to say, I felt lucky that I read this book after and not before I had made arrangements to meet and stay with Seonaidh in Ireland. I mean that old voice kept creeping up inside me, wondering how I was going to deal with this surreal tale and its brutal honesty. I believe it was the honesty part that brought more comfort and was simply the piece that made it so that I could never blow off Trungpa's teachings for good or Seonaidh's either for that matter. I was really excited because right around this time I confirmed through DNA testing that my ancestral origins were primarily from Ireland. You see my family had always lived around Irish neighborhoods and I was always called that nice Irish boy who serves the church (I was working at a Catholic hospital as the only non-catholic Chaplain at one time) and how nice it was that the young ones are still going into the priesthood! I never thought myself to be Irish, though the last name and the facial features always posed a challenge to that notion, but what I am getting at is that in my own cultural exploration I uncovered some of my own self hatred.

I decided as an educator of chaplains and concerned with teaching multi-cultural competency that many Euro-Americans thought of themselves as true Americans and didn't quite get the whole need for people of color to be in touch with their cultural and ethnic roots. I posited that every person had to explore their roots and deal with them because we are all immigrants here. In my own discovery, I found the usual New York (my home state) mix of a little pre-German, English and yes that stinking Irish, from both sides! I grew up luckily in a progressive neighborhood with bi-racial cousins, I mean I'm talking Korean/Euro-American, and African/Euro-American. There was no question in their lives as my siblings and I were the only ones of the "pure" Euro-American set, that my cousins were going to have and have had a lifetime of sorting out their cultural and ethnic connections. There is a great quote from the modern sage Bob Marley that is apt here; 'I am half white and half black but the world, dem only see the black." I saw first hand as we grew up together how even in a progressive neighborhood, I was treated a bit differently. The blond haired, blue eyed white boy wasn't going to steal anything but my relatives with me in each store, well they needed extra watching. It was unfair and later in life I realized the importance of tracking down my cultural and ethnic heritage, so I could be what I believe is someone with true cultural competence, a white person who knows himself to be Euro-American, and not just "American," because I seem to fit some cultural implied "norm" in my whiteness.

Despite being white, I still did grow up poor and I remember one message loud and clear, was that we were not Irish. Even amongst the white folk there are lines drawn, especially in New York. I think one year my mother convinced us we were of Italian heritage. You see I was always a curious sort, asking questions about god and seeing my cousins connecting with the rich stories from their grandmother from Ghana, wondering where the hell I came from. What was my cultural upbringing? I think my mother convinced us we were Italian because we ate spaghetti and lasagna was my favorite dish as a kid. I don't know the motives but learned over time when I lived in Irish neighborhoods that being Irish was not an advantage and by some something to be looked down upon. I spent most of my life living near and around Irish neighborhoods and seemed to blend in just fine but each time I was greeted with that smile that says you are one of us, I secretly snickered to myself a strong, 'yeah right."

So far now I have not only shown you my own racism as it came to seeing Tibetan people as particularly attuned to spiritual enlightenment but am also sharing what was my distaste for what was my Irish heritage. I remember in high school when we each had to share where our ancestors came from and telling the class that we were Italian and the snickering that followed that remark. Even my teacher raised a curious eyebrow, looking at my pale white skin, blue eyes, dark blond hair and a last name like "Kilts," doesn't really spell out rigatoni with my espresso please. Oh what a confused kid I was and this confusion didn't get much attention until later in life.

Later in life to experiment, I started taking my family to Scottish games and became remarkably uncomfortable with the similarities with family reunions I attended when I was really young on my father's side. Drunkenness, throwing big shit and food that consisted of new and exciting ways to eat seasoned meat. It was at one of these events that I began to question the sense of revulsion that crept in. My mother did well to keep us distant from my father's side of the family and instilled in me a desire to shun all alcoholic consumption and drug use, which eventually by the way killed my father. I began to realize that my association with Scottish and Irish culture was drunkenness and a general lack of sophistication. I mean, come on here, I was an almost Buddhist monk at the age of 16, the first in the family to become college educated and one of the first Buddhists in the chaplain world, doing the work and training other chaplains. This rowdy, sunburned, taber tossing, bunch could no way be associated with me in any shape or form. Oh but how life presents us with such magical change and leads us on in mysterious ways.

In my profession as a chaplain trainer I had become notorious for being extremely experiential in my methods and quite confrontational. I was pretty well book educated and damn good in a debate but my particular style of teaching took on a more warrior style of engagement. I called my students out in ways that others thought a little too dramatic and stepped into tension with courage and a keen ability to meet it head on and not back away too easily. After engaging a Catholic student who was much older than me but desired greatly to understand and utilize what I was teaching him about chaplaincy, he connected a lot of what I was teaching (both in style and in content) to a great little book called, "Anam Cara," by John O Donohue (please refer to my chapter on the Anam Cara Principle in Celtic Buddhism). This relationship with an older Irish catholic student and our connection with Celtic teachings that bridged the gap between my Buddhism and his Catholicism, turned my attention to an aspect of my culture I had been blind to.

I feel the need to stop here and bring attention to one important fact and opinion that I share with many Celtic Buddhists, that one need not be "ethnically" Celtic in order to be inspired by and taken with the wisdom of Celtic culture and teachings. I tell parts of my story to poke a little fun at the mind's propensity to establish its view of the world as the "truth." In many studies of the Celtic world there is a vast range of Celtic peoples that stretches along the European frontier. It just so happened that in places like Ireland and Scotland Celtic culture was preserved, primarily by language in those countries. By all accounts the Celtic word was made up of many different peoples whose commonality was less concerned with bloodlines than the preservation of shared values and principles. Celtic people shared alliances with many different cultures and again this continues to make what truly being "Celtic" so perplexing.

How does a culture survive? Many in the past thought it was by becoming isolated and dogmatic in what moves forward and what gets carried on. In reality as we study history we see truly that it is the people that move a culture forward. It doesn't happen in committee or through vote but happens through logic. It happens through what works and what doesn't, it can be and has been as simple as that throughout time. Some of us have a tough time getting with that program but it, like evolution, seems to me to be the prevailing theory that makes the most logical sense.

That brings me back to Buddhism. The Buddha did a special thing on his dying breath when he asked his disciples to work out their own salvation. This final teaching is the one I find for most Buddhists to be the hardest one to follow. I would assume it to be important because what is said on the last dying breath should hold a great amount of weight with anyone. The Buddha was teaching something beyond religion and beyond culture. He was pointing clearly to the paradox of the futility of religion, culture and ego but the necessity as well. The Buddha's teachings like any great teaching was constantly contradicting themselves on many occasions and it became clear that the Buddha taught to circumstance and context. It's hard to define a clear religion out of all that, but the human need to do so, went ahead anyway and thus we have a multiplicity of Buddhist traditions and cultures all over the world. Through time and through testing teachings something continues to prevail in the Buddhist world. There have been leaders throughout the history of Buddhism who have furthered the teachings and helped us continue the search for enlightenment in new, updated and sometimes more effective ways. The fact that the teachings prevail is where our respect must come and our admiration of the lineage and history of the Buddhist religion. Buddhism has not gone away and doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.

This is true for Celtic culture. It has prevailed through the people who continue to pass it on to this very day. It is important to have some understanding and respect for the lineage and origins of the Celtic way, but like Buddhism in order for it to carry on it has to be alive. It is the people who make it come alive. If Buddhism had lost it's touch in terms of helping people make meaning and work directly with the suffering of life it would have faded long ago with self help paperbacks. If the values, customs and principles of Celtic culture didn't have something to contribute to society and our world today, then it would just go away like a teenage fad. It is important to note that as Celtic Buddhists we stand on a long line of tradition from both aspects of what is Celtic and what is Buddhist.

So why Celtic Buddhism? John Riley Perks in his travels with Trungpa Rinpoche and other great masters of the Tibetan tradition was asked, "why not Celtic Buddhism?," and then left to his own devices to figure that one out. Seonaidh had the forsight to see that no one person can dictate what the answer to the question of what Celtic Buddhism should be. It's an understanding that comes from knowing that it is only through people that culture and religion continue and nothing else. If Celtic Buddhism brings people closer to the essence of Buddhist teachings then great something must have gotten through. If it doesn't then it will fade away as it should. The Buddha never asked his disciples to concern themselves with the preservation of traditions and ideas, but wanted the practitioners to further the search for truth and true enlightenment.

Each one of us has our own story as to why we feel connected to Celtic Buddhism and why we feel its important to do our part to further it along. As a lifetime practitioner of Buddhist teachings, I have spent a good portion in the study of texts and luckily in meditation practice. When I decided to not take the monastic path and pursue chaplaincy it was a long journey of self discovery and in that journey I hope I benefited many beings in their suffering. At some point in my journey what was given to me and taught to me was no longer enough. The wisdom teachings of the Buddha always prevailed but it was the limitation of culture that I felt was holding me back. In my day to day work as a chaplain and educator I felt that the lineage I was upholding was pushing me forward while the communities I was a part of made me feel as though I was participating in some sort of historical society exercise in the preservation of Tibetan culture. I never shun nor put down my fellow Sangha members that did this or continue to do this, but it wasn't right for me. For me the cultural elements of what we know to be Celtic culture seem to integrate into my own understanding of how the Buddhist teachings work in chaplaincy and in this modern world. It has asked me to challenge my own sense of self hatred as a westerner, as a Euro-American and made me realize that the continuation of the teachings of Buddha were not meant only for a select culture. I will admit there is something essentially silly about Celtic Buddhism but that silliness is no different than any other type of silliness out there (meaning in my view religion in general). As a chaplain I see the best and the worst of religion in practice. I have seen it devastate a family and I have seen it provide tremendous comfort and guidance during hopeless times. There is something profoundly prophetic in that Celtic Buddhism challenges us to own our own enlightenment as in my belief every Buddhist tradition should. It challenges us to see Buddhas everywhere and not only in golden statues atop massive Asian mountains. Celtic Buddhism asks us to think about how we integrate all the elements of our lives onto the path.

I would hate for there to ever be a war in the name of Celtic Buddhism or a discourse on its supremacy to other forms of western styles of practicing Buddha's teachings. I think it should be taken seriously however and not be considered a joke or some new age attempt to "soften up" the teachings of Buddha either. I always tell my students that if their religion is not challenging them down deep into their core, then they should find something different. I think Celtic Buddhism should pose a challenge to us, not as a "new" tradition and lineage that needs to be defended but one that works to make us more open to inviting enlightened activity into the world.

It is true like my story of being in the pub and being laughed at about the absurdity of Celtic Buddhism that we as Celtic Buddhists will have to take our share of ridicule and at times laughter. I urge you to remember that the Buddha was quite unpopular in his day and that anything prophetic is truly supposed to antagonize and confront accepted "norms." I have had to learn to laugh with those who think this whole thing is inauthentic and just another new age tinkering. I personally would never want to be a part of something that doesn't hold up to scrutiny at all times. For those of us moving ahead with the lineage of Celtic Buddhism, we will impact the "culture" that it will be and will become. While I sat there in the pub not only nursing my Guinness, but nursing my wounds of insecurity I was quickly reminded of the hospitality that was offered to me while spending time with Seonaidh. I remember feeling how much I wish I could be that generous, giving, inviting and open to serving others (and I'm a long time hospital chaplain!). In my time spent with Seonaidh, I was blessed to be served by him as if I were Trungpa himself or as if I was one of many Buddhas out there. I was treated to an immense sense of honesty, humor and ordinariness. When I was in that little cottage out in beautiful Donegal, I felt my spirit lifting and felt as though I could actually be part of something. I don't think in any other Buddhist arena had I experienced the immense importance of community over and above everything else.

In Celtic culture there is pride in one's ability to provide others with great hospitality. There is a desire to be more grounded in the earth and really talk about these Buddhist teachings around a kitchen table with a hot cup of tea and an openness to be skeptical, pissed off or whatever. The core of Celtic culture is that everything is interlaced and interconnected. This is not a teaching that one learns at a retreat or reads in a book about shunyata but a cultural reality that has been preserved for many centuries. Each of us will be drawn to a different aspect of Buddha's teachings and Celtic culture and some things will be of immense importance to some and not to others. There is nothing wrong with questioning over and over again if this is authentic and right, because that process in and of itself is the practice, is the culture of Celtic Buddhism. The Celts as far as we know had an openness to integration that is worthy of dzogchen. Many times in my view throughout history, this openness was used against them, but what stayed true and needed prevailed, because of the people. For some of us those people are our literal ancestors and for others they are our spiritual ancestors.

While I was in Ireland, I had a hard time sleeping at night. I swear that I heard voices constantly and I am not one to speak of these things. We visited many sacred sites with tremendous spiritual power and feeling, like the birthplace of St. Columba. We heard stories from the locals of many fascinating things and tales of people who can commune with the little people. Weird shit to say the least. At night I had felt a restlessness inside and could only confirm through my own experience that I was truly connecting to a holy place. I remember once in a certification committee a member, in a move to challenge my ability to stand firm in my faith, told me about meeting the Dalai Lama and how he seemed like a nice guy but didn't think of him as a spiritual being. My response was not to defend my own experience of my time with His Holiness, but was to confirm her experience, because yeah, he is a nice fellow and one you wouldn't mind meeting on the streets. Ireland can be a cool tourist trip and not wiggle much in terms of the spiritual connection that some feel. As stated above, I say if it doesn't wiggle some spiritual feeling, question that and if it does question that too!

In one of my many restless nights where I envisioned myself being harassed by the little folk, I asked myself for the thirtieth time what this whole Celtic Buddhist thing was about. I had a vision of the Buddha and was instantly reminded of one of the most important mudras in the Buddhist world. When the Buddha achieved enlightenment, it is said that he was challenged by Mara to prove it. Just like our friends out there who laugh at us and say prove that this whole Celtic Buddhist gibberish is authentic. The Buddha simply touched the earth and stated that the earth was his witness. That mudra of the Buddha sitting in enlightenment with his right hand touching the earth about sums up Celtic Buddhism to me. The earth is the witness and the test of authenticity of practice, faith and the power of any spiritual lineage. When studying Celtic Christianity and asking some Celtic Christians what makes it Celtic, the responses all come back as being related to the earth as a way to follow the teachings of Christ in a more grounded way. It's quite beautiful to me really, and don't worry those Celtic Christians get about as much flack if not worse than us Celtic Buddhists. To me, the Buddha confirms the lineage of Celtic Buddhism as a lineage rooted and interlaced with the earth. Everything we do or say must bear witness to the earth and it will give us the feedback we seem to want so bad about how authentic this whole thing is. Tell that to your pub friend, give him another laugh maybe, and be hospitable by buying him a pint, like I did with my friend. The whole thing is hysterical when it comes down to it really. We can either laugh like an asshole with cynicism or laugh like a yogi with the knowledge of shunyata and the heart essence of Buddha wisdom. Your pub friend won't know the difference but you will and that's all that truly matters anyway. Do yourself a favor and don't take yourself too seriously, I have tried it for many years and it is real bother and not worth much time. The earth is my witness and carrying that forward is what I believe is the essence of the cultural implications of Celtic Buddhism.

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I. Introduction to Painting the Path
(Manifesting the Wisdom Mind)

"The path is like a busy, broad highway, complete with roadblocks, accidents, construction work and police."

(The Myth of Freedom - Trungpa Rinpoche p.105)

Celtic Buddhism is not just about being a Buddha in a kilt or finding a Buddha in a kilt, although we have a picture of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche decked out in Scottish military dress on our shrine table. And it's not just about going to some stone circle and blowing conches, beating drums, ringing bells and chanting incantations to elemental gods, local deities, environmental energies and invisible spirit beings, although we have occasion to do that. It is more about embracing the transparencies of our cultural attachments, to see the splendid richness in an exaggerated form.

When Seonaidh first talked about the Crazy Heart Lineage of Celtic Buddhism he was discussing the activity of bowing to a large convex traffic mirror we had in the shrine room. He pointed out that we were bowing to the idea of unoriginated, unborn mind - unconditioned space that is beyond conceptual mind existing. "When the Lineage becomes an organization we should keep it open." The whole situation is kept very open so that it doesn't become a mishmash of superstition or spirituality. We continually explore the openness, which becomes the unconditioned mind. Seonaidh often repeated what his own teacher, Trungpa Rinpoche had said that "cultural attachments are the hardest thing to go through and give up." So why go into this?

Seonaidh explained this in more detail: "You have to go into yourself so that you have some realization of the personal makeup of your acquired mandala. It is not a question of destroying things but a question of recognizing them or seeing them as they are. In this process we are not denying or chopping things off like our mothers and fathers. We are not attempting to disown their particular hang-ups or sufferings, neurosis or joy. But we are recognizing them for what they are and how we are a part of that and how that is a part of our existing mandala as it now exists for us as live human beings. So the combination of the open approach of Buddhism and the existing mandala of Celticism mixed together is Celtic Buddhism. It is just that the actual passion is there rather than someone having an ethnic connection or a dependency on your grandparent's heritage. It's your own particular passion and that is what we work with, is our passion. ...Crazy is more associated with curiosity- having the courage to be somewhat unconventional, impractical or illogical in our approach, a willingness to investigate even though it seems ridiculous." Making a leap into extraordinariness. The "Heart" aspect allows the experience of thinking through the heart. That is, allowing things to come into our particular mandala through the heart chakra and communicating from the heart. Having a quality of basic goodness, of giving out, radiating and receiving.

It is this exaggerated culture or world condition that we feel exploits us that we in turn as practitioners begin to exploit for the purposes of self-liberation. The context that we seem embedded in with the entwined history and mythological, fantastic stories of heroes rising to the level of gods along with the whole parade of tribal raids, prophecies, institutions and oral traditional wisdom is personified through the arts and crafts of its participants.

The defeated tribes in Ireland, who receded right into the fabric of the earth are still acknowledged and communicated with as the beauty and power playing and manifesting through the elements. How do we deal with the elements, with the natural world, the whole vision of that relationship of the collective leaning toward harmony and balance? How we are to accomplish and maintain this task still lingers in our ideals.

All the disparate movements, group impulses, no matter how distorted and flavored with delusion, still arise from the same basic ground, as does wisdom. Call it the ground of being or the creative source or the undefinable, non-material plenum, it still moves in a fluid, ever-changing, phenomenal display that fashions our beingness, while providing the air and the passion that we thrive on. It is this breath traveling through the spirals and feeding an immense evolution of plurality, dimensions and multitudinous forms, too innumerable to fathom in one glance, that grants us our leave… It is this breath coursing untamed as subtle winds through the subtle channels that is the etheric field of our bodies that furnishes the home movie of our life story. A story line filled with a myriad of environments, conditions, mentally configured and imagined constellations of identities playing out in time and space. In this very instance we can remind ourselves to wake up and manifest as a Buddha. In doing so we are reminding others of their true, original nature. Our conventional mind perpetuates itself by nibbling incessantly on the fodder and scrabble dished up by our educational, media and gossip sources. We are free, but do not realize it, to step out of the reactive process and to be receptive to the wisdom of the whole field of the totality that is present in just this moment. The universal guru is none other than this. You are already the Buddha you are seeking. When you sit on your meditation cushion you are acknowledging that, allowing it to express itself. Your true nature expresses itself, is made known as it is, as self-cognizing wisdom or insight. This is what is being realized. This is what the teacher always reminds you.

In Buddhist texts, the perceiver or sense of self may be discussed as an expression of the emptiness aspect of space without definition. The phenomenal world of objects, forms, thoughts and emotions may be discussed as the reflections that appear as expressions of the luminous aspect called clarity. This then is the duality that fuels the further action and reaction of samsaric cyclic existence. The composites or separate aggregates of this relationship that are experienced as identities within their environments and are accompanied by ongoing attitudes, preferences, concepts and interpretations, are not in any way separate from the ground from which they so spontaneously arise. But they are transparent, when seen from the view. The realization of seeing each aggregate as a distinct phenomena and viewed within the context of the arising of a whole unique and integrated moment, seen in relation to the ground of basic space as such, is the development of what Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche called "sacred outlook".

Samsaric life is reinforced by repetition and familiarity while basic space is apprehended as lacking any inherent properties that the mind could hold onto or grasp. Thus the enlightened state of awakened mind is seen as something of a threat with no specific outline of characteristics. And from those who are seeking some kind of enlightenment or spiritual awakening this space is projected by the mind as an object, in the hope of grasping it. For the samsaric mind there will never be enough good food, wealth, power, sex, or recognition for personal accomplishment.

The methods of meditation which are the devices of liberation are only effective in a setting where the practitioner maintains an attitude of continued mindfulness and exertion. In other words, one may lose the initial realization of the view if it has not become familiar in the mind stream. When everything is seen as outside the mind as separate and real, it is easy to get distracted. Our attention gets caught up in attachments of varioussorts and we lose awareness. The whole is displaced by the particular. This has always been a consideration in perennial philosophy. Intellectually, it is difficult to sort out. In Buddhist practice these dualities have always been taken into consideration and the many methods that were proposed by the Buddha in the form of sutra and tantra
teachings have been effective in the past twenty-five hundred years as a path for realizing the basic nature of mind - the original, unique, unchanging nature of primordial purity. And since the time of Shakyamuni Buddha these teachings have been transmitted by
realized teachers. In this way, Celtic Buddhism is no different. It rests firmly on these authentic teachings which serve as a support to gradually dissolve the imprints of delusion which veil the liberated state of simplicity and equanimity.

Today in the Western world we have many excellent and favorable conditions which have evolved in our society which promote the exploration of the spiritual dimension in our lives, and which afford the opportunity to practice meditation. We have a fair chance of being in reasonably good health, with more than an adequate abundance of food, clothing, and living spaces. We have the civil freedoms, educational background and leisure to develop a spiritual path. We have the ability and the capacity to understand subtle metaphysical explanations as well as sophisticated scientific theories like quantum physics. We are well suited to follow the yogic paths from the standpoint of positive karma or merit and to the trends in the present time of a renewed focus on the spiritual to uplift our lives.

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II. Painting the Celtic Buddha

"When are you going to start painting the Celtic Buddha?" John would ask me from time to time.

We had finished printing the prayer flags a few months earlier and there were a few flapping in John's backyard and at our home in Vermont. We were going to attract drala energy and magnetize the environs. John suggested designing the Celtic prayer flags depicting the five buddha families by using celtic iconography. We decided to use different animals to represent the qualities: Heron-Vajra family, Whale-Buddha family, Bear-Ratna family, Wolf-Padma family, and Bee-Karma family. John added some Buddhist phrases and my wife, Peg, arranged them into a format and after printing them on fabric she sewed them and thus we had Celtic Buddhist prayer flags. When John repeated the question of doing a painting of the Celtic Buddha, I would just smile and shrug my shoulders. But the question became more persistent and I believe I had agreed to do a sketch. We had access to books outlining the techniques for painting Tibetan thangkas and we also had books on drawing and constructing the Celtic knots and spiral work that were illuminated in the Book of Kells.

While visiting my late mother and sister in Virginia for a week in October 2002 I had the time to make a rough sketch. Using colored pencils, I blocked out the designs and drew in the Buddha sitting on a lotus in the center (Illus. 1). When I returned to Vermont, I eventually decided on a size (?) and bought some canvas and stretchers. The canvas is first stretched, and prepared with a few coats of gesso and finally sanded smooth. Too much texture from the canvas weave will make it more difficult to draw in the fine details of some the designs, Buddhas and deities. In sketching the design on the canvas, regular soft, lead pencils were used. I found it best to use a pencil type that was easy to erase, because after the inking stage, and before the painting stage, all the pencil lines are erased. There was a great deal of erasing and redrawing, especially with the knotwork.

This segment of the project took about 7 weeks. Many of the areas were measured and worked out and drawn on paper, then they were traced onto transfer paper and finally were again traced and drawn on the canvas. The transfer paper is taped on the canvas to prevent any movement while tracing. The figure of the Buddha was drawn in accordance with the proportions used in traditional thangka paintings. The Tibetan artists have their own measuring sticks and units for drawing their grids and I merely determined units in terms of my own rulers to match theirs. I studied the various thangkas in books and on the Internet to determine some style elements, techniques and materials. In addition, I researched the Book of Kells which was the combined work of the Irish Christian monks in the late 800 AD and the background from which it was created. I remain fascinated and in awe of the skillful and ingenious Celtic artisans and monks who were masters of the spiral, lace and key patterns with their bold arrangements of elemental design. And I was inspired by the playful use of colors and light-hearted flair that demonstrated their relationship or view of the spiritual dimension. This led into many other forays with Celtic mythology and history as well as the designs used by artists and craftsmen.

In selecting the designs I believe some were done out of curiosity to see if I could execute them and some were selected because they seemed to fit into the aesthetic scheme that was developing. Also, my teacher, John, would suggest some figure or personage as for instance, his teacher, Trungpa Rinpoche. Cernunnos and the Flower-faced goddess were also discussed as possibilities.

Ink Buddha-Click to enlargeOn the next phase of the work I purchased an array of water-safe, colored pens (Prismacolor) and then redrew the designs over the pencil. I then erased all the pencil work, which turned out to be a considerable amount of erasing, with two or three different types of erasers being used. This phase also took several weeks and demanded my complete attention to be true to my original lines and also to avoid the possibility of the ink running, which occurred a few times. At this phase, one might have to sacrifice the more subtle and graceful pencil lines. I found that the mind had to be very settled to follow a line. As a practice, I had to be pretty relaxed and have a quiet mind. I couldn't do the ink drawing if anything was going on in my environment or if I was distracted by other concerns. I would recommend to anyone interested in pursuing this type of painting to begin with a period of meditation if possible, and perform some purification of the environment and the canvas, as well, by lighting some incense and any other blessing ceremony one is familiar with. Also, one may want to state one's intention or aspiration to focus or bring one's passion into the project.

I cannot recall at what stage I began doing mantras while I worked. Mantras may be used as a spontaneous device to magnetize the whole situation and thus bringing the mind to focus. I sometimes listened to puja tapes where the mantras would be in the background. At times the mantras were distracting and I just found being quiet a better way to work. I believe there was much trepidation in the beginning of the ink drawing phase. I was aware that I couldn't make any mistakes. There are many junctures in the process where anxiety or concerns may arise and one has to have the courage to begin and the courage to go to the next step. We have to remind ourselves that we have nothing to lose. If we listen to the mundane mind of everyday concerns we would never undertake and finish such a project. After a while, I began to relax and just allow the drawing process to continue. It was this allowing of the process to continue that brought the painting to life. The different colored inks were not only taken up and used spontaneously but there was also the thinking about where they would go, as well as deciding in the Art Supply Store which colors were suitable. As it turned out the colored outlines that were inked in determined the colors that were used in the painting phase. This was a rather interesting outcome and this process of outlining was an important step.

I had never attempted a painting in this style before. Drawing had not been my forte and I tended toward abstraction and textured surfaces, often layering on paints with metal tools, which are used to apply plaster to walls. The drawing and intricate details were a challenge and required much laboring on my part. But for many years I had been involved in and working with the underlying intention to awaken awareness in others through visual art, music, sculpture, theatre, and the environment by creating sacred space architecturally and through the arrangement of stone circle energy, as well. I had touched upon all these areas and I was familiar with the outcomes of these explorations and thangka painting is in this same field of exploration. It evokes this same intention.

In drawing the image of Cernunnos, I did some contemplation and actually came up with three images, which I finally combined as a composite of that experience. One image was a young, innocent looking boy riding on a deer; another was a bit bushy haired and bushy browed; and the third older, darker, sterner, more muscular. Also, in relating to the energy of that archetype, I discovered a very deep dimension, one from which it was not possible to return. And I felt that this archetype connected to the elemental realm, which looks after the natural world. In this realm Cernunnos is the figure-head or guardian of those beings-an aspect of the Lord of the World who directs the deva evolution.

With the feminine image of the flower-faced goddess, I used an interesting photo of a woman as inspiration for the sketch and therefore the sketch had little resemblance to the photo. I did some research into the mythological background of this archetype and her ability to shape-shift into an owl. One of the interesting features was the connection to healing in Europe and the nine plants with their sacred flowers or blossoms. Numerically, there is a relationship to wholeness and completeness and these plants were called the Epiphanies for their healing qualities. And there are other female archetypes that are accompanied by owls, like Athena. There is a very earth connected feel to this deity, much a counterpart of the green man with leaves and vegetation growing out of the faces - a blend of plant world and the human domain. And also this deity came to represent well-being to me. It points to the deva evolution of looking after the plant world that eventually we relate to as health giving or health supporting. She vivifies the budding plants and trees when they are manifesting blossoms and fruit. When we consider the properties of plants and essences made from plants, both as food and medicine as well as the relationship to our senses, this connection and interdependence is often not acknowledged. But it is a factor in our well-being and in our collective evolution.

The other theme that was developing was connected to the tree of life. This element is common to both the Tibetan iconography and the Celts. In the case of the painting, the vase from which the tree or vine grows is a cauldron/chalice shape. The tree serves both the purposes of life giving and the connection underlying everything. There is the hint here of "Buddha nature", the underlying reality present in all phenomena. As Gyalwa Jampa Rinpoche has said, "The very force of matter evolving, geometrically, into life is Buddha nature." It also serves the purpose of acknowledging the spark of the divine life force or the creative love aspect that is inherent in the smallest atom (Anu) as well as the human dimension. So the vine grows and it spirals and it has the potential to become anything. It encircles, upholds and touches and enlivens everything. It evolves or emerges from the ground from which all things proceed.

In this movement there is an elemental influence, the geometric forces, the forces of sound and color, in other words, the elements. And in the painting there is a hierarchical depiction to acknowledge the unconscious realm, the atomic realm, and the mineral, vegetable, animal, human, buddhaic and deity realms. The Buddha and other realized yogis have related stories of having gone through various incarnations of these realms repeatedly. Also, in the painting, there is the feminine side and the masculine and the interplay of the colors to depict or denote this. In the case of the two figures holding hands with their legs entwined there is a reference to the tantric idea that we are both male and female in nature. Thus they are seen as equal in status and a reminder of the union of bliss and emptiness, wisdom and compassion. There is also the presence of the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space. Through these symbols there is the relationship to the five senses and the five Buddha families. Some of the figures and patterns I modified from the Book of Kells with the help of George Bain's book and some I merely designed as originals. The basic format that is most notably present in the Celtic Buddha painting is the folio: 28v, Portrait of St. Matthew.

The Flower-faced goddess, often referred to as Blodwedd in Welsh mythology, was the first to be drawn. It was this feminine influence as starting point and inspiration. Also, both the male and female archetypes, as well as other figures and deities, provided motivation and courage to move forward with the project. Since Trungpa Rinpoche instructed my teacher, John, to develop a Celtic lineage, there is a tribute to his teaching and his relationship to the tiger, lion, garuda and dragon qualities known as the four dignities. These will be found in the thangka and they represent 'meekness', 'perkiness', 'outrageousness' and 'inscrutability'. Trungpa Rinpoche is wearing Scottish military dress, which he actually wore on occasions and it is an example of the Nirmanakaya aspect of the teacher. Trungpa holds a fan with a dot that represents the unconditional dot in space-the dot of basic, primordial goodness or purity, the origin of everything. I happened to take refuge vows from Trungpa Rinpoche in 1974 and this thangka represents an extension of that relationship as well. Our teacher, John, is on the opposite side dressed in robes. He is holding a bow and appears in his hunter or archer aspect. The large double or crossed Vajra resembling a Celtic cross is the Crazy Heart lineage logo. It is encircled by an orange color, which is the same as the Garuda's wings. Vajrayogini, a feminine Budda and a yidam of Tantric practices, is depicted in the circle beside John.

In my research I noted that gouache would be a good medium for the painting. The pigments used in gouache have a luster and brilliance of color. The drawbacks of using this medium are that it dries fast and it is not water permanent. Therefore, I experimented with gouache mixed with acrylic medium and acrylics mixed with different mediums to achieve transparencies with the colors. I decided that the way to go for the particular canvas fabric I was using was to apply a new gouache-acrylic product, which could be mixed with straight acrylic colors. I found this to be adequate and later in the process I added a retardant to the paints, which allowed me to take my time. One of the frustrations of paints drying fast is the challenge to reproduce the same value of color when a new batch is mixed. On some areas I favored just the straight acrylic paints. I used a lot of gold mixed in with the colors. Some of the gold pigments had a glossier finish and some a matte finish. When the paints were first applied there was a wonderful brilliance for about ten to twenty minutes, then there would be a gradual fading of the color. Every new color that was applied would change the balance of the whole painting and I would often look for other areas to apply the color once it had been mixed. But one should avoid applying mixed paint to a canvas in an arbitrary way so as not to waste it. It is not a good habit, and doesn't serve the project. In terms of redoing a color or area that did not seem to fit or work, I believe I only repainted an area on two or three occasions. This condition, of course, had something to do with trying to mix a color to match one used elsewhere and finding once it had dried to be slightly the wrong value. This occurred with a particular yellow. It is interesting to note that when the time came to paint the Buddha's skin I became overly concerned with getting it right, and of course, I got it wrong. This sort of apprehension about it and the way I applied the paint proved to be the only point where I felt the need to panic. I did some adjustment of the color, but this did not seem to improve things. There was also the concern of whether to shade the features to emphasize the form, but that would have been inconsistent with the rest of the painting. Also, I was beginning to lose the clarity of the line drawing. I consulted a friend who is a master portrait painter. I brought the painting into one of her classes and we discussed what might be done. There was a lot of support from her and members of her class. I went home and later applied some new colors to the Buddha and decided to leave it alone. The Buddha didn't seem to be too concerned by the whole affair. Which brings me to various ways of deciding matters concerning the whole process of the artwork, which I find amusing and somewhat shy to disclose. You may ask the Buddha, or any given deity that you are painting, what he or she would like to wear or include as silks, garments, ornaments, jewelry, hair styles, color co-ordinations, etc. Why? Well, why not! It's pertinent to the process.

Interesting phenomenon would occur that made the painting of the thangka take on the qualities of a spiritual practice. There was a notable change in the energy in the painting and in the environment when a particular area was completed. For instance, when I drew or painted the offerings that are traditional in Tibetan thangkas there seemed to an acknowledgement of that action. There is a similar response when doing prostrations or making offerings as part of a visualization practice. The same phenomenon might occur when painting and finishing another design or article of the Buddha's robes. Another similar demonstration of this is found in the way ceremonies magnetize the environment. The painting takes on that capacity. So the whole act of painting the thangka was devotional practice involving body, speech and mind. Often the effect of having finished a particular area would bring about a state of identification with the harmony or wholeness that was being manifested and this would bring about a state of meditative awareness. It is that awareness that is present in the painting despite all its myriad forms and colors. So we could say that the thangka might be used as a meditative support. I mention this as a personal learning experience - that a process was engaged in and allowed to continue and that there was some transformative aspect to that process.

Another level of that transformative process was the relationship that came out of the identification with the feminine archetype in the painting that we call the Flower-faced goddess. In our sangha we had been discussing and also working with archetypal Celtic deities in our deity yoga practice. When I began to explore the relationship of emptiness to Shila-na-gig, Vajrayogini, and the Lion-headed dakini and other feminine archtypes, there developed a series of visualizations that eventually turned up an owl-headed dakini. I later discovered that this dakini is actually a tramen or a guardian/gate keeper of one the directions in the Vajrayogini mandala. It occurred to me that this embodiment was related to the Flower-faced goddess who shape-shifts into an owl. Cailleach is also associated with the owl-faced goddess. I had been somewhat exploring the wrathful or semi-wrathful aspect of the feminine archetype as a vehicle for transcending the idea of self or the tendency of self-grasping. Thus, the emergence of deity or dakini is consistent with or in resonance with the mind of the practitioner, arising, as it were, out of space. This space or emptiness, termed the dharmata, allows a form that may transmit wisdom to express itself. This form may be visualized or seen as male or female or it may be some other symbolic form or appearance, perhaps idealized or horrendous depending upon the conditions in the mind of the meditator.

In many instances, painting the thangkas helped with visualizing the deities in detail. In essence the painting is a crystallized visualization of a mandalic realm. This is why thangkas can be used as supports for meditation. Also, it is my belief that the thangka transmits the teaching of the particular kaya or yana directly, if one knows how to look. This may at least be true for the one who painted it. As with most art, we the viewers look at pictures and paintings through a filter of preference, likes and dislikes, thus making it difficult to see what's there. The thangka may transmit the energy of a particular level of realization - which is represented in the deity - along with the qualities, as well as transcendent insights, directly to the mind. One may indeed realize non-duality while looking at a particular thangka, in the same way one may realize the view while listening to the teacher's oral instructions or during an empowerment. It is the great blessing that the teacher shares with his or her students that flows through lineage, that keeps alive the vibrancy of the Buddha's original teachings of Sutra and Tantra.

The outcome of this exploration was the appearance of the Owl-goddess who proceeded to give a teaching based on the practice of offering the body. This teaching contained elements related to traditional Tibetan Chöd. The practice helps the student in the realization of the identitylessness of self, and identitylessness of other, beyond hope and fear. This is prajnaparamita. As in many sadhanas there are phases where one remains in the view of formless meditation. Also, the unique character of the environment had some semblance of a Celtic nature since there was a cauldron in the visualization. The resulting text was somewhat simplified and presented in English along with some mantras. This process was written up as a sadhana and I then practiced it about once a week for a year. During that period it was presented to some members of our sangha. I found the practice to be efficacious and dynamic.

Signing the thangka with your name in the corner of the canvas will probably imperil the process, so it's not recommended. The painting practice is in the nature of an offering. Like doing one big, long prostration while holding in one's outstretched arms a golden chalice that contains the whole universe. When the painting is near completion, mantras are drawn or painted on the back of the canvas in their appropriate places. Then a ceremony of consecration is performed to bless the painting, and finally the eyes of the main deity are painted in.

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III. Why Celtic Buddhism?

In one's life, there may appear an instance of "auspicious coincidence" which you regard as important or valid to your particular journey.

I had in the years 1965-1969 worked as a teacher/house parent at a private residential school in the Adirondack Mountains, and as a counselor at a summer camp, which were co-directed and founded by John Perks. We worked with children with emotional difficulties and learning problems. Later on, more of our resident students were teenagers with delinquency backgrounds. I enjoyed my years with John, participating in many of his zany shenanigans and mock battles and mountain climbing expeditions with students and staff. And I learned a great deal in the many group meetings that would morph into therapy sessions. John was fond of pageantry and he was always imaginatively creating some activity to bring some rollicking fun into the moment. (In this he has not changed and I suppose it is one the reasons I have walked along with him in this venture of Celtic Buddhism).

I saw John on and off during the 70's and by that time John was Trungpa Rinpoche's student and later became his valet or attendant. I went off and started a family and bought a farm, so there was a period of over twenty years when I did not know the whereabouts of John. My family and I moved to Vermont in 1997 after years of living in the Finger Lakes region of New York. I was quite surprised in 1999 to discover that John was living just five miles north of our house on the same road! I had seen a flier mentioning a teaching on "Celtic Buddhism" and the name of a teacher, Seonaidh Perks. It was the first time I'd seen the name Seonaidh. I was pretty sure who the character might be. When we first met together for lunch and traded life stories, as I recall, I said to John, perhaps we could get together and sit. Thus I began attending John's talks along with my wife, Peg, and we both became John's students and Celtic Buddhists by default, I must presume. I had no prior interest in Celtic lore. I liked Celtic music and had been to Scotland in 1995 to attend my niece's wedding, but had only a passing familiarity with the mythology or historic development of the culture.

Shortly thereafter, I accompanied John to Ireland, where he had been invited to teach in Dublin. We had an enjoyable trip, meeting Buddhist students and socializing in the pubs. It was my first acquaintance with Ireland, one where I experienced a visit to Uisneach, an ancient royal seat in Meath referred to as "the eye of Ireland", and to Glendolough, the location of the monastic center founded by St. Kevin, a hermit mystic of the 4th century AD. I had some powerful experiences in both places. The impulse was present to tune into the land and its energy, to be in resonance with all that took place there. There was a mutual radiatory healing taking place and a recapitulation of former teachings and realizations. The dakini level presented itself, in the people whom we met, along with the different sacred circles and stones, in the lakes and ponds, in the herds of cows and the dogs. Because of our Buddha nature, our relationship to the phenomenal world and our actual union with the source of these energies, we all have the innate ability to bestow our blessings on everything in our life situations. This seems to be spontaneous. Since the late sixties I had been naturally drawn to power centers and sacred sites. I discovered along the way that I could feel and locate precisely where conduits of energy were coursing. These are often referred to as ley lines or the Earth's chi, along with their nodal points or portals where the different dimensions of reality may intersect. It is held that the sacred sites correspond to the acupuncture points of the earth and the land. At these vortices of telluric energy there is the opportunity to bask and be healed by this force. And the ancients, we especially find in Ireland and all around the world from at least the past 4,000 years or so, knew and experienced and valued the properties of these places. It may be said that in some cases the site held these energies like a natural wellspring and in other cases for ritual purposes those sites were created and became magnetized by their ritual significance. But both of these alternatives were exploited by the mound builders, the pre-Celts and later, the Celts and Christian Church, in directing, focusing and utilizing the telluric forces that streamed into these areas. They became places with the potential to shift consciousness into another register.

It was also during this trip to Ireland that John presented publicly for the first time a sadhana he had written employing Celtic and traditional Indo-Tibetan deities. This was our first introduction to the Celtic mandala and to a more sophisticated visualization practice. In practicing the sadhana, I found it to be a dynamic venture into the involvement with archetypes and their utilization in transforming psychological energies. When John presented this material in Ireland those who had some familiarity with Buddhist doctrine and practice were generally unsettled by this material and more resistant to embracing this form. Some people in the United Kingdom and Ireland are more protective of and sensitive to the Celtic heritage, as would be supposed, and many more are eager to transcend and abandon this heritage, which is also understandable from some point of view.

Already, when one hears the term Celtic Buddhism, one wonders, "How will I fit into this paradigm?" Moreover, "how will I apply it in life?" Which leads us to the task of conveying some quality, from our perspective, of this dilemma, being that one need not fit oneself into any paradigm at all and one need not wrap some neat and proper paradigm around Celtic Buddhism. Some people laugh when you mention the term to them as if there is a joke planted there. Actually, we find that those who feel an affinity with things Celtic and those who feel an affinity with some aspect of Buddhist philosophy and meditative practice may be drawn to investigate Celtic Buddhism. But there are many who cannot bring themselves to mix these streams for concern that one will distort or dilute the other. There is a fear of blending. Bodhidharma didn't go directly to Japan and start Zen Buddhism. He was originally from India, under another name, and he was sort of vacationing at the Shou-Lin monastery in China, where he decided to sit down and meditate in front of a wall for a decade or so. Then from that action, the Dharma was enlivened, and it engendered realization and inspiration in others. We thus have the beginnings of the Chan or Zen teachings.

Some of our heritage is in fact Celtic, genetically, biologically, but only partially. We are not trying to make a case for our family geneology. It is that our Western culture and collective consciousness derives some structure from the Indo-European influences, of which some are definitely Celtic. Whether some item with a Celtic flavor is found in mythology, children's stories, songs, dance, food, plaid shirts and scarves, or in a leaning toward a belief in fairies, leprechaun fetishes, one finds some affiliation or connection with one's ancestral past. We are impressed by the sacred art and knot-work of the monks of ancient Iona and by the miraculous tales of the Irish saints. The popularity and appeal of the stories of King Arthur, Merlin and the like, who undertake fantastic quests and challenges resonate with us. We are still mystified by the history of the powerful druids and the fabled Tuatha de Danaan. All of these threads, along with the whole pantheon of gods and goddesses of Europe and the British Isles, some of whom may have Sanskrit or Sumerian origins, are attributed to some Celtic affinity. We may honestly say that none are exclusively Celtic, but they ride on the long and sweeping dragon's tail of what has been known in the coursing development of "Celtic".

We are told that the Celts favored a view close to a nature mysticism that sees God or some sacred essence in nature. Still, here we are in the 21st century, all fishing for the salmon of knowledge, either sticking our hands into the swirling waters and hoping to come up with "the fish" or casting about in the still pools and estuaries waiting for a bite. A wonderful vision to imagine is catching a wonderful vision. Celtic Buddhism is an intermingling of the open-heartedness of Buddhism and the open-endedness of the spiritual quest with the integration of living the mythic journey. There is a possibility of encountering the goddesses that we imagine as external forces. In Buddhism, these things are no longer separate, they are actual contrivances employed in the transformation of psycho-spiritual energies.

I don't ask that anybody join or suddenly jump on the bandwagon as a new movement. It is, for me, a continuation of my earlier philosophical studies, esoteric practices and contacts with yogis, theosophists, J.Krishnamurti, and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. I can not stress enough, as other teachers have done in various lineages, the need for a teacher who points out the view and also cautions one in a sometime painful way of misusing the teachings. It is most important that we find some teachings that resonate with our own spiritual temperament. One should look for a teacher who empowers his or her students to explore further, and at the same time to keep it humorous, light, and free of too much self-importance. I've been fortunate to find such a teacher in Venerable Seonaidh. (In Ireland, John's students call him, Seonaidh, almost rhymes with Johnny).

The title of Venerable is used out of respect. We respect John as our teacher, and as such he is someone to be venerated. We value the ceremonies we've shared with him, as well all the meals we've shared that he has cooked for us, and the many glasses of wine we've toasted to our mutual well being. John's approach to ceremony has always been creative, spontaneous and respectful of all the energies participating in the situation.

John's teachings emphasize and revolve around the essence of Prajnaparamita; he's always teaching the view, properly and traditionally. Also, we have many practices that are unique to the Celtic Buddhist lineage. John has been very careful in the timing of his teachings and at the same time, very generous. As someone whom I entrust to call my teacher, I have found John to be bold, yet also extremely careful in the way he transmits the Dharma. And he has not allowed his students to worship him as someone on a higher plane. He walks next to them as a spiritual friend and at the same time, a few steps ahead to entice them to go further. In his inspiration or suggestions over the years he has been peerless in his role as pointing the way, suggesting that I paint the Celtic Buddha. Out of that came the Mandala, then Vajradhara and finally Vajrayogini.

John had the courage to establish a new lineage, and John's aspiration is to serve, to help mankind awaken. He's more patient than I am in this endeavor and responsibility, and he continues to be creative and open in his approach to interested students and in the way the teachings evolve. John has a natural gift for encouraging one to take one's experiences as the path. This integration is unique and not formulaic. Again, it's John's natural gift and insight. It is even a bit of luck for a teacher to find even one worthy vessel to pour the teaching into. We hope Venerable Perks is fortunate to find many students who will benefit supremely from his compassionate energy.

Many meditative minds have the capacity to be imitative, but few have developed insight or intuition. It is not that such individuals lack diligence or devotion, but perhaps spontaneity and the willingness to be unknowing: to be without certainty. Such people rely on knowledge and demonstrate their knowledge of the practice but not the realization. They become experts and gather round them many bedazzled students, but it is no guarantee that these students will receive any genuine transmission. A true teacher transmits wisdom from the wisdom mind. It is therefore enlightening and unattached to any outcome. It holds the seeds of true liberation, which may or may not be recognized by another. In most cases, it is not felt or detected and the teacher is treated as ordinary. This scenario has repeated itself throughout the development of lineage in the wisdom traditions. Those who rise up in the ranks of organizations often become dogmatic and become rule makers and enforcers. Occasionally, one of their ranks will experience genuine, authentic realization and may pass it on to one or several students. This case has been more rare than common. We often find some authentic, independent teachers being discredited by those who consider themselves to be the organizational knowledge holders. They make proclamations and deem that another teacher has no abilities to transmit the Dharma. They do this by some manner of authority, which they extend to themselves and that other people take to heart. They make those who might have a heart connection to the authentic teacher feel frightened or condemned. Excommunicated comes to mind. It is only natural to feel that the teachings will be corrupted and distorted, and one can understand the inclination to be protective of the teachings. When all has been said and argued, one has to consider it good fortune to fine a genuine teacher in this world of confusion and misconception.

We have and always will be manifesting our most heartfelt aspirations, the ones we repeat to ourselves automatically. Our commitments to what we want to manifest and realize become refined over time. That seems to be part of the journey aspect. The objectives and focus that we may foster on behalf of our heart's desire is tied to the way our passion moves and operates in the world. With the presence and blessing of the Teacher there is a sense of lineage with the Buddhas, enlightened beings in an unboken lineage back to the historical Buddha and with the league of awakened ones who compassionately aid mankind and those who seek liberation from the cycle of samsara. These spiritual allies include the Bodhisattvas, who endeavor to practice and teach for the purpose of benefiting others. In the path of the Bodhisattvas there is the renewal of aspiration from lifetime to lifetime, and the recapitulation of abilities, merits and realizations that have accumulated as part of the journey.

The influence of the teacher, as antagonist, as encourager, guide, one who suggests what to address as a path, is important because this person has walked on the path and has an accessibility to and familiarity with its features. When people work on themselves, they may address their emotions, life interests, habits, at an intensifying and ridiculous level. Side by side, this investigation includes the mundane flatness, dullness, or solidity of everyday situations, which we often find unbearably heavy and monotonous. We may remind ourselves that the blessing of the teacher is foremost in all of this. The transmission or empowerment from the teacher brings one around to a state of meditation. This crossing over may happen in intimate or casual everyday relationships or in more formal ceremonial settings, as well as during practice.

The notion of incarnation may be believed or not believed. Some repository of consciousness, the seed instincts of the skandha process, transmigrates and then ripens under the right conditions. The potency of these seed instincts is underestimated, (tiny specks, the residue of unlimited mind, expand into mandalas of world situations). These karmic accumulations increase and as seeds, given the right conditions, mature and create life experiences. And more importantly, so does the merit derived from good works and good intentions, meditation, service to others, and the representation of our virtue. Also, out of this is produced the situations where we meet teachers, hear the dharma, have enough leisure to meditate, have good health, education, etc.

The propensity of past merit flowers or is triggered when one reads a line in a book, watches a movie, or sees a teacher, icon, enters a sacred site, power center, stone circle, pyramid, mound tomb, monastery, or perhaps just by meditating. One begins to recapitulate the initiations and teachings that have been the stepping stones of one's spiritual path and unfoldment. When this begins to occur, it follows that various influences come into play and one's life may be shifted. Virtue opens up and common sense manifests. If one had spent time in a former life meditating in a cave, one may have an urge to do so. One may feel impulsed to venture into new territory, like go to a different section in a bookstore and buy an occult book, or one on mysticism. Common sense allows one to step through the bars of one's personal and collective self-imposed imprisonment and limitations and to see how to change life. One could just put down his rifle and walk away from the battle; one sees the absurdity and suddenly the stupidity of the actions of men in the world. This is dangerous ground; it is innocent ground, with the implication of a world shattering action, greater than any missile launched in the name of peace keeping.

Inherent in the recapitulation process one may find latent stories, initiations, undertakings, vows and heroic adventures, which have been moving humanity to create an environment where Buddhas may be born. That is to say, when a being takes form here on Earth, that being is a Buddha. He or she doesn't have to seek out a path to attain this, one is a Buddha to begin with and thus dwells in this sphere in some form which is experienced by another Buddha. This created environment in this dimension which may sound like an ideal, however, it is as actual as any other ongoing reality we may be experiencing.

In talking about recapitulation, we are reminded of the notion that when we go to certain places around the world -the Hill of Tara, Maeve's Cairn, Lough Crew, Glendolough (St. Kevin's monastery), Iona (St. Columba's monastery). Jerusalem, Bodh Gaya, caves in Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet - we recapitulate certain teachings and initiations that took place there. That's basically what the Tulku does when he or she is discovered as a little kid living among nomadic people in the high plateaus. The child is brought to the monastery, he recapitulates, he has his belongings there, amongst them various ritual things he liked and used. He recapitulates merit - his ability to heal, to transmit Dharma to awaken others. So everybody has that. When we go to the pyramids, or Delphi in Greece, to Stonehenge, a Kiva in the southwest - we reinstitute, we reignite the blessings and realizations of another time. This occurs when we read a text or practice a sadhana. In the case of Tusim Khyenpa, the first Karmapa and first recognized tulku, it is said it took him a short time to realize the attainments of Naropa's twelve years with Tilopa.

We already have the ability to heal oneself and others. These abilities are triggered by meeting someone, going to a particular place, meditating in a holy cave, reading an idea in a book or intuit in meditation. Virtue begins to express itself and old habits of body and mind fall away. We renew the wish to help others, to heal others, to create an atmosphere in which everyone on the planet, all beings everywhere for that matter, begin to share in the awakened state. The karmic accumulations in the system experienced as afflictive emotional states obscure the natural radiance of mind as the source of compassion. These are not permanent or unchangeable. The psychic imprints of these karmic instincts can be dissolved and liberated. This is certainly possible, and the imprints may accurately be called illusion. In meditation practice, one develops the insight that brings about the transformation of all the processes of Consciousness and makes clear the underlying mechanism of karma-creating activity. When this process is seen clearly, one is relieved of the continual self-imprisonment by self-delusion. The particular is still regarded as precious but it seen from a more spacious and unfettered state. Liberation does not happen according to what the mind knows or has read about liberation, so hitch your wagon to shunyata. If we are lucky, from lifetime to lifetime we are reminded of our aspiration. When we wish for all beings to be awakened completely, to realize their Buddha nature, we are creating an environment where all beings may be born as Buddhas. If you want to include war and pestilence in your aspiration, then so be it, but who or what is making this assessment?

Some minds look at Celtic Buddhism and feel there's a need to fit two disparate systems into a neat interlocking whole. However, consciousness is already a moving continuum- a whole. This larger sphere of knowingness accommodates many collective and individual changing states of consciousness. Celtic Buddhism is just one of these movements that acknowledges and reminds beings of the wholeness aspect or the complete openness aspect. Many people are just interested in finding an historic link between Celtism and Buddhism. Although one may find information to derive and establish such a conclusion, for me, this is not the crux of the attraction to the path. Those who are only fascinated with historical validations will probably not be inclined to look deeper or from another perspective. Karmic associations already abound and one may spend too much time in speculation considering if a viable spiritual path indeed exists. Although it is good advice to be skeptical and consider these ideas carefully, it resembles scientific parties convening to determine whether there is global warming or not. One has to decide sooner than later, because the phenomenal world is rearranging itself. WHEN ONE CONSIDERS ONE'S LIFE AND THE CURRENT WORLD CONDITION, THERE IS AN URGENCY TO AWAKEN. One already has this Indo-European cultural background so it need not be manufactured. One just has to immerse oneself in the Buddha's teachings and purify or transmute the kleshas and attachments and allow the awakened state to manifest. There is basically nothing new in that. By virtue of skillful means, out of the mandala of the teacher, will arise teachings that will effectively address the different spiritual instructions or approaches that will inspire and liberate the minds of the students. That is the theme of this discussion.

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One Mind, Many Minds, No Mind and the Union of Nirvana and Samsara

Talk given by Seonaidh Perks - 3/7/2004

This morning I wanted to talk about the practice of non-duality and how to practice that in your everyday life, which is the union of nirvana and samsara. According to the dictionary when that has taken root in your mindstream, then you are a realized person. We could say enlightened but that is somewhat pretentious because it comes and goes. Realization is a better word, until it eventually gets there and won't go away. Then we could call it enlightenment, I suppose.

The prerequisite of union of nirvana and samsara is the realization of the illusionary self, that the self is illusion. The practice is that one sees everything as dream, both in the sleeping and waking state. The reason we do this is that illusions of all kinds are predominant in our minds, from fantasies to illusions, more fantasies and more illusions. If one went to the movies for four days straight, from movie to movie, one would get kind of an idea of what the illusionary nature is. What would happen is you would see a happy comedy and you would laugh, then you would see a tragedy and you would cry, then you would see an inspiring movie and you would be inspired, and all the way down the line. Well we know all that. What is in our minds, what comes into our minds is, at the best, not too permanent and not reality. Reality seems to be very simple. River is river, grass is green, leaves are leaves. That is the point of view of the union of samsara and nirvana. They just are. For instance, I am now, for the benefit of this talk, holding up an item. What is this?

Student -That's "that".
Seonaidh - (laughingly) No one wants to say!
Student - I'll call it an "onion".
Seonaidh - Aha! She fell for it. Okay, what's this?
Student - That's also an onion (it was a sweet potato).

Well, the thing is of course, if you say onion then you box it in the onion box. Or if you say sweet potato you put it in the sweet potato box. So at some point the "illusionary-ness" of the boxes and their separateness meets the quality of one mind, or many minds, or no mind. There are three aspects. One mind, many minds or no mind. This is the transition. First of all there is one mind concentrated, then the onion starts to peel, kind of like peeling away the layers of the onion. It is interesting that when you peel onions people cry because of the nature of impermanence. The nature of impermanence makes one cry because one would really like to hold on to things, oneself and others. And as you peel further then maybe the crying starts to stop. Anyhow we don't really know what it is (referring to the onion). And the same with this person (the sweet potato) we don't really know what it is.

For realization of the illusionary self one actually has to practice, and we have talked about this a lot. We've talked about regular shamatha vipashyana, doing tonglen and doing deity yoga. Implicit in deity yoga is that you become the onion and then you don't become the onion. And then you become the onion and you don't become the onion. So it goes back and forth, back and forth into the quality aspect of the Buddha (which is the onion) and the aspect of your self, which is also Buddha, but unrealized. So somewhere in between the two, the realization of the illusion of the whole thing occurs to you. You just get it. You may get it slowly over a period of time or you may get it in a rush while you are sitting on the toilet, or something like that. The reason that people get realized sitting on the toilet is because you ingest the deity and it goes through your system and then you are eliminating it. So you actually have the feeling of the whole thing occurring and you feel that just maybe you are not you, but just a tube that breathes in, breathes out, eliminates, and has all these funny little things that go off in its activity center.

This talk is what we call an atmospheric talk. So from some point of view it doesn't make any sense at all!

The practice for the union of nirvana and samsara could also be based on the very simple practice of seeing everything as Buddha. One sees everything as an aspect of Buddha. So the practice is one of not making a judgment between this and this. (Again holding up the vegies). So you eat this onion and this sweet potato and it's just the flavor of this person and it's just the flavor of that person. But in the beginning you don't say, "Oh I really do like this" or "Oh, I really don't like that." So you actually start to be introduced to the real world, you actually experience the total quality of this person. Like if you were to eat it raw you would cry, but you would get some kind of real feeling for it. The "it-ness" of it. So at that point it doesn't become onion, it becomes "it". You experience a relationship, even beyond relationship, because relationship means having a situation with it. There is nothing with it. It is just "it". It is the experience. I don't like this word but we have to use something, so we say experiencing "it-ness." The it-ness of "it". Then we bite this (the sweet potato) and we experience the quality of "it". And we don't say this is better than this. But we experience continually the quality of the it-ness of it.

So how do we do that if we are really lazy and we don't practice and we don't do what the teacher says? Well, we could still do it somehow in our daily lives. If we are driving in our motorcar and things are coming into our minds and they are going from goody to baddy, goody, baddy, goody, baddy, goody, baddy. We could stop and come back to some reference point of non-duality. We could actually bring our minds back and have the small realization that there is no goody and there is no baddy, but the illusionary self has proclaimed it as such. So we unseat the illusionary quality that continually does that and undermine it in any way that we can. We know that purification practices can help as well. You could actually see things as they are. This is all it is. This is it. So you get to be introduced to the quality of that, that, that, that, that, that.

The quality of the illusionary self is extremely painful and is extremely difficult to give up. Even when you think you have seen through some aspect, another aspect arises to fascinate you. There is always the fascination of "you-ness". So all these particular levels, like this person (holding the onion) have to be peeled back and exposed, somehow. We are afraid because it could create real tension in our lives and real upset in our lives because we have to give up something. It's like a river going over lots of little rocks, but eventually the rocks get smoothed down and the river goes on out into the sea, which is the sea of the universe.

If you want a reference point you could use one of being a tube worm on a particular plane somewhere in the universe. The quality of the tube worm is that it doesn't hold onto anything, things just go through it. In some sense it's eating and breathing the universe, so it's not separate from it, but it also has not identified itself as being a tube worm. It is just "it". The tube thing is interesting because the tube has to experience just the 'tubeness' and no quality of liking this or that, but everything just going through. So you send your mind out and you bring it back, you send it out and you bring it back, but without any quality of "you-ness". That's a purification ceremony. It's also good to have a sense of humor.

Student - I was working through your statement in your book (referring to The Mahasiddha and His Idiot Servant) about taking refuge in confusion and trying to understand it.

Seonaidh -Well, basically what happened was that Trungpa Rinpoche continually presented me with situations in which there were possibilities to cut through whatever fantasies I had accumulated. As is obvious from the beginning of the book, those fantasies were based on being British, being a male, being self-sufficient, being un-self-sufficient, being a hunter, being a non-hunter. So every time the illusory quality of self was shown, one took refuge in self because of the real reality of sunyata (empty of self). The real reality of that is extremely "panic-attacking". Not only does one feel cutoff from one's conception of self, but even worse, that one has made the whole thing up. It was more comfortable to go back and take refuge in the confusion of oneself than to be in the situation where there is no reference point.

When we first read "form is emptiness and emptiness is no other than form" it is somewhat puzzling. But the real reality of this in our visceral life is extremely anxiety producing. Even if we try to fabricate the idea that we know what it means, then it's the idea that we run back to and try to rest in. We say, "Oh I get it", but actually you don't get it. As soon as you have said "I've got it" you haven't got it because somewhere in between that is a state that is "ungotten"-completely, which is very difficult in the beginning. One has small experiences of it and then larger experiences. Some of the arhats, for instance, had heart attacks when they saw it. They had heart attacks because they saw the ordinariness of it and the illusion of self come together at the same time, which created fireworks, an explosion.

Student - When you were talking about one mind, many minds, no mind I don't think I quite understood what this meant.

Seonaidh -Well, one mind is the quality of believing you have one mind; that you know what to do, you know how to do it, and you know how to arrange your life. You also know about your relationships and you know what makes you happy and sad and you know how to make choices. And from that point of view how to strategize, what to say to get what you want.

Then it might occur to you, "Where is mind?" So you may notice: "When I am anxious the people around me are anxious. When airplanes go into the two towers, lots of people get anxious."

So is there one mind or are there many minds? And the quality of the fishes that all turn at the same time. Where is mind? So that becomes the question. "Is the mind in the heart? Maybe we should think through the heart as in tonglen." You try to shift the quality of your reality. In deity yoga you become the onion and you become un-onion. You become one, you become two, you become the deity, then you become you. Then at some point you get the illusory quality of the self. Generally it is talked about as ego. So that is the quality of many minds-in action.

The quality of no-mind is the union of samsara and nirvana. Because the illusionary nature of self has been seen through, we also see that the self has created good things and bad things and we are confused about that. But then it is possible actually to experience or have reality about the non-quality of mind attaching itself to that. So when that happens, when there is no quality that 'this is this', then 'this' can be experienced as 'that'. Whew! (laughs) We are talking about "form is emptiness and emptiness is form" and you can always come back to that if you get confused.


There is an interesting line in The Heart Sutra that we have been saying for some time:

"Since the Bodhisattvas have no attainment, they abide by means of Prajnaparamita."

The mythology and the figures of her (indicating the deities on the shrine table) are reference points that show it. At the same time they don't show it. In deity yoga you take on the nature of the deity and then you become the deity, but if one were to hang on to it, or become the deity as a solid thing, you would be missing the point. All these deities, on some level, exist as that kind of energy, like a dust devil in the desert, but it is in the quality of "form is emptiness". That is why Padmasambhava was able to go to Tibet and subjugate all the local demons and deities. He was able to show them as form is emptiness, emptiness is no other than form.

Added by Seonaidh after reviewing this printed transcript:

Please remember to quote Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche from his book As It Is.
Referring to training in realizing the essence of mind Tulku Urgyen reminds us, "Short moments repeated many times".

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Message to all sentient beings

written by Peg Junge

We are not alone in our attempts to see the unknown, to feel what has not yet been felt, to help where we have never thought to venture. Seeing this we could all group together to move further on our intentions. The veils separating us from 'all that is' are very thin and we all have had glimpses of the unspeakable infinite. What is to say those glimpses could not turn into stabilized circumstance?

The quick twist that moves open awareness to rejection or grasping strikes faster than an adder. Let us all use our patience, will and discipline to slow that routine. Let us breathe space and 'no time' into every every situation so that we can crane our necks in all directions with curiousity and wonder. See the tentacles go out and watch them retract in disgust or glue on needfully. We sentient beings are all the same and we can remind each other to do this. We can encourage each other to restrain the reaction long enough to see it happening. In this way we can enjoy the pulling toward and pushing away as motions of the universe.

There is nothing outside and nothing inside. Knowing this we can flow or remain stationary without doubt and hesitation. Thoughts of "this is not enough" or "this is too much" will cease to arise. The freedom of this state is unimaginable to the conditioned mind.

Our Buddha ancestors through the ages have explained well and completely the incremental steps sentient beings take in walling themselves in. It sounds completely natural, even like an unavoidable evolution. Knowing this we can unravel the snarl and return to the unfettered, uncontrived state. It is not unimaginable that we sentient beings could do this, even though we don't know how. If we knew how it wouldn't be how. If we knew what to do, in which order, it wouldn't be that either. We need only to relax into our natural state. The unraveling is as manifest as the enwrapping. Because of this we can be unreasonably, even irrationally optimistic about our complete enlightenment. Let those who think it impossible speak all they want. We can hear their voice as our voice and let our enlightenment be their enlightenment.

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