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Himalayan Art 101: Protector Deities of Tibetan Origin
Buddhist practice and Buddhist art have been inseparable in the Himalayas ever since Buddhism arrived to the region in the eighth century. But for the casual observer it can be difficult to make sense of the complex iconography. Not to worry—Himalayan art scholar Jeff Watt is here to help. In this "Himalayan Buddhist Art 101" series, Jeff is making sense of this rich artistic tradition by presenting weekly images from the Himalayan Art Resources archives and explaining their roles in the Buddhist tradition.
This week Jeff explores two images found in the newest Tricycle Gallery, "Wrathful Deities." Visit the gallery and send images to your friends.
Protector Deities of Tibetan Origin
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Tricycle Trolls
Internet troll (from Urban Dictionary):
1. Noun. One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.
2. Noun. A person whose sole purpose in life is to seek out people to argue with on the Internet over extrememly trivial issues. Such arguments can happen on blogs, Facebook, Myspace, and a host of others. The best thing you can do to fight an Internet troll is to not answer. (My addendum: this is also known as "Don't feed the trolls!")
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The BuddhaFest Dharma Talks are right around the corner...
The Tricycle | BuddhaFest Online Film Festival is happy to present the dharma talks for this year's online festival. Featured speakers include: Congressman Tim Ryan, Tara Brach, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Sharon Salzberg, Krishna Das, and more. Below you will find descriptions for all six of the talks as well as a schedule for when they will appear on Tricycle. The talks will be posted on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the remaining three weeks of the Online Festival.Want to watch all of these dharma talks? Get your Online Festival Pass. Tara Brach and Congressman Tim Ryan The Alchemy of Transformation: Awakening Our Hearts, Healing Our World June 19
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Tricycle Talk: Congressman Tim Ryan stumps for mindfulness in Washington, DC and beyond
The 2012 Presidential election is the most fractious in memory—just another example of the partisan rancor ruling national politics today. (“Washington is broken,” stated Republican senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, a noted moderate, as she announced her decision not to run for a fourth term.) Contributing to the problem, insiders suggest, is that bipartisan socializing—a Washington tradition—has all but ceased, as pols spend their free time drumming up support back in their home districts. But if Congressman Tim Ryan, a five-term Democrat from Ohio, has anything to say about it, cultivating mindfulness not only can help us reconnect with our kindness and compassion individually and collectively but also could trickle up and help Congress reconnect, leading to more cooperation at the top.
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Every Meow and Zen...
The Tricycle team found this floating around on Facebook...it's originally from George Takei's page. Takei is an actor and gay rights activist. Or you might know him as that guy from Star Trek.
Every meow and zen, I feel silly.
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Tricycle Talk: Mark Verkerk, director of Buddha's Lost Children
Last week I spoke with Mark Verkerk, the Dutch filmmaker and the director of Buddha's Lost Children, this week's BuddhaFest film (you can read about the film and watch the trailer here). Mark shot Buddha's Lost Children over the course of a year in the remote regions of Thailand. The documentary, released in 2006, won many awards, including Best Spiritual Film in the European Spiritual Film Fest, the City of Rome Prize, and the Grand Jury Prize AFI in Los Angeles.
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BuddhaFest: A Festival for Heart & Mind
We've all been enjoying the great Buddhist cinema at the Tricycle | BuddhaFest Online Film Festival. But did you know that the live BuddhaFest festival starts this Thursday?! Enjoy the short video below to learn a little bit more about the event.
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Buddha's Lost Children (And A Tough-Love Monk)
We have a new film at the Tricycle | Buddhafest Online Film Festival: Buddha's Lost Children, directed by Mark Verkerk. The Tricycle team watched it together yesterday afternoon, and let me tell you, this one's a good one. The film follows Thai boxer turned Buddhist monk Phra Khru Bah Neua Chai Kositto (Khru Bah, for short), as he takes young children from the fringes of Thai society into his monastery, saving them from a life of impoverishment or drug abuse. Focusing on three boys at the monastery, the film shows their transformation throughout a year under Khru Bah's care.
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Watch: Dynamics of the Mind
Imagine that you're blindfolded, sitting on a bench next to a busy road. You can hear the noise and commotion, but you can't see what's causing the noise. Meditation, says Andy Puddicombe, is all about taking the blindfold off.Have a question about meditation? Check out Andy's "Introduction to Mindfulness," where today's post accompanies the animation below.
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Now Announcing the Short Films Showcase Winners...
Two months ago, we launched the Short Films Showcase competition with a simple and serious question: "What does it mean to be Awake in the World?"
Twenty-five dared to respond. With original, five-minute videos that range in content from beekeeping in Virginia to skateboarding in East Harlem, these filmmakers answered with visual stories of meditation, mindful awareness, compassion, and service to the world.
You came. You watched. You voted.
And now it's time to announce the winners.
Without further ado...
AUDIENCE CHOICE, FIRST PLACE goes to Chad Scheifele's "Who Am I?"
Congratulations, Chad! With a healthy 1220 votes and average rating of 4.7 stars, you've won $1,000, two All-Festival passes to Buddhafest, and the screening of your film there. Watch Chad's winning video below.
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Taking a devotional approach to the Buddha
Last week, Bhikkhu Bodhi led us through a meditation called "Recollection of the Buddha," in which he asked us to reflect on three of nine traditional qualities ascribed to the Buddha. These three are:araham: one free from all mental defilements and thereby liberated from the round of rebirthssamma sambuddha: one who has penetrated the truth and taught others about the true nature of things and the path to its realizationbhagava: the one endowed with numerous excellent qualities who compassionately takes on the role of teacher
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Buddha Buzz: To Hell in a Handbasket
I suppose it was only a matter of time until the news of Ian Thorson's death and the circumstances surrounding it were picked up by mainstream media. It's the sort of story that editors love, engrossing in both its tragedy and its bizarreness. After being broken by Elephant Journal, the story appeared on the Huffington Post Weird News blog in late May.
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Why do we really criticize others?
For the better part of the last year, Ken McLeod has been offering video teachings on the 37 Practices of the Bodhisattva, the classical Tibetan text by Gyalse Tokme Zanpo (1297-1371). The text offers practical advice on how to follow the bodhisattva path, and Ken's concise teachings on the verses each week are compellingly relevant to the life of the contempoary practitioner. Ken offers wisdom that we can contemplate and apply through the course of our day.
This week, he comments on verse 32:
You undermine yourself when you react emotionally and Grumble about the imperfections of other bodhisattvas. Of the imperfections of those who have entered the Great Way, Don’t say anything — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.
"When we criticize someone else," Ken begins, "almost always people listening form a negative impression of you. Even if they agree, you are reinforcing a critical attitude in them."
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Himalayan Buddhist Art 101: Protector Deities - Mahakala & Shri Devi
Buddhist practice and Buddhist art have been inseparable in the Himalayas ever since Buddhism arrived to the region in the eighth century. But for the casual observer it can be difficult to make sense of the complex iconography. Not to worry—Himalayan art scholar Jeff Watt is here to help. In this "Himalayan Buddhist Art 101" series, Jeff is making sense of this rich artistic tradition by presenting weekly images from the Himalayan Art Resources archives and explaining their roles in the Buddhist tradition. Two weeks ago we explored Meditational Deities, and this week we will move the discussion onward to Protector Deities.
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Short Films Showcase: Spotlight on "In SHAPE"
On his entry form, short film showcase contestant SeungAh Lee described his motivation for making the film "In SHAPE" like this:
One day while I was walking down a busy city street, it suddenly seemed that everyone around me was controlled by the shape of squares. It was as though the shape of squares had cast a lengthening shadow on everyone's existence, obscuring people's bright and open-ended awareness with the dreary repetitiveness of day-to-day living, and in a way that no one even noticed.
Lee's got a point. Right now I'm typing away at a square keyboard with square keys, staring at a square computer monitor that is sitting on a square desk. I'm surrounded by square-shaped books, notepads, and post-its. Thank goodness my chair is circular, or I'd be starting to get really alarmed.
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Short Films Showcase: Spotlight on "Who Am I?"
For those just tuning in, tomorrow is the last day to vote for your favorite short film at the short films showcase. But unless you can convince a couple hundred of your friends to vote, too, then it's probably not going to affect the outcome (the $1,000 winner will be determined by multiplying the total number of votes by the average star rating, highest number wins… so really it's a popularity contest).* If the contest ended today, the winner would be "Anicca Sanpaku" by Zarko Mladenovic and Nenad Simic.
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What does it mean to have a spiritual practice in the contemporary world?
Robert Bellah, who is widely considered to be North America's foremost sociologist of religion, has been featured previously in Tricycle. In the current issue of the magazine, contributing editor Linda Heuman reviews his long-anticipated magnum opus, Religion in Human Evolution. The book has generated high praise and enthusiastic endorsements from reviewers and scholars, including such intellectual heavyweights as Charles Taylor and Jurgen Habermas, and in scope and importance is being compared to the work of the greatest thinkers in the field, most notably that of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim. To give just one example, Hans Joas of the University of Chicago writes:
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Short Films Showcase: Spotlight on "The Original Face"
I've been having a lot of fun watching the short-films showcase and competition. I really didn't know what to expect when we first called for entries. Would there be enough of them? Would they be any good? The good news is that the answers to these questions are yes and yes. There are plenty of shorts—25 in all—and plenty that make for good viewing. And don't worry—if one doesn't please, they're all under 5 minutes!
The bad news? Well, there is none, except that only one filmmaker can take home the $1,000 prize. Also, the two-week run ends on Friday.
My latest viewing: "The Original Face," inspired by the famous Zen koan, What did your face look like before your parents were born?, or often, Show me your original face.
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Short Films Showcase: Spotlight on "Buddha in the Bee Yard"
Counting today, there's only three days left to decide who our Short Films Showcase winner is going to be. I hate to sound like a politician, but (I'm putting on my stern face now) your votes count. This is your chance to alter Short Films Showcase history.
All right, the politico-speech is over now.
Let's talk short films.
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Tricycle Talk with Alan Swyer, Director of Spiritual Revolution
The second feature in this year's Tricycle | BuddhaFest Online Film Festival is Alan Swyer's Spiritual Revolution, an interview bonanza with spiritual leaders, scientists, psychotherapists, and scholars. This means new, original content from many familiar Tricycle faces: Bob Thurman, Jack Kornfield, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Shinzen Young, and John Makransky, not to mention a host of other spiritually-oriented and fascinating people. Speaking about the convergence of Eastern traditions and Western culture, these people—and their ideas—form the backbone of the spiritual revolution sweeping through the West.
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