Wisdom

The Vultures Peak
Where the Buddha sat
And brought forth Wisdom

A page of Perfect Wisdom
Tibetan - Gold ink

What Wisdom looks like in Tibet

What Wisdom looks like in Japan

Chinese Hui Neng rips up Wisdom
Japan

Hommage to the Perfection of Wisdom

namo arya prajnaparamita

This is the oldest printed book.
It's called the Diamond Cutter and is about Prajnaparamita.

China 868 CE

The Heart Sutra, another book on Perfect Wisdom

worlds within
Prajnaparamita portrayed in a Prajnaparamita palm leaf text.

Thank you Edward Conze.
The man who translated the entire Prajanparamita litrature.

Eberhart (Edward) Julius Dietrich Conze (1904 - 1979) was born in London of mixed German, French, and NetherlandsDutch ancestry.

Prajnaparamita

Mother of Awakening
Prajnaparamita

Prajnaparamita means Transdental Wisdom

Once upon a time they worshiped Wisdom in Afghanistan

Transendental Wisdom

Dharmachari Sagaravajra, photographer, sculptor, wanderer, Kiwi, friend and renaissance man, beside the image of Prajnaparamita he created at Rivendel.

Eighty Yesterday - Twenty Five Today

Namo Kyabje Rinpoche Urgyen Sangharakshita

Eighty years ago yesterday Bhante was born.
Twenty five years ago today Bhante gave me, and us, the sadhana of Prajnaparamita.

White Tara blessing Bhante

om tare tutare ture bhante ayur punya jnana pustim kuru svaha

Nepalese
Prajnaparamita with Svayambhu and Naga

Prajnaparamita

Bhante speaking in Patan, Nepal, during the visit of the sacred relics of the Buddha's two chief disciples, and the transition from the Rana to the Royal rule. Nepal is the main place where Prajnaparamita is worshiped.

Happy Birthday Bhante

Tooting Rinpoche
80 Today

It seems amazing that someone can live so long. And such a life, so good, so kind, and so conscious. And so much of it. Thank you very much indeed. May we be forever inseparable. And may you live a long and healthy life.

PILGRIMAGE

The Buddha

We are going on pilgrimage...

...to worship the ground he walked on...

... because we have glimpsed the truth he upheld....

The Beginning of Something Big

The Buddha was not always a big strong man...

Once he was a little baby.


Your Blogger warns you.
"Beware lots of baby photos follow"

Mayadevi and Her Son

From Ajanta

Mayadevi; the mother of the Buddha

Tibetan
Mayadevi gave birth under a tree

Thai
Brahma holds the baby Buddha.

Tibetan

The Buddha appears as a white elephant at the moment of conception.

Gandaravan
The Buddha was born from the side of Mayadevi, who died shortly after.

The Little Buddha

Not exactly High Art

The Buddha's First Steps

Thai

Modern Indian

Chinese

Indian

Mayadevi's Dream

The Buddha's mother Mayadevi dreamt of a white elephant entering her womb on the night that she concieved the bodhisattva.

Here are some images I found on the web.

Sankissa

Sakyamuni
with
Brahma and Indra

Sankissa

The descent of the Buddha
Portayed on the Bharut Stupa

Sankissa

It was 1999...

...I also had a marvellous time, on pilgrimage, on retreat and visiting friends. For pilgrimage I visited Sankissa, Sravasti, Pharphing and Sikim. Sankissa is one of the eight great pilgrimage places associated with Shakyamuni Buddha. It is here that the Lord descended from heaven after teaching his mother shortly after his enlightenment (some say it was the seventh rains season). It's in the middle of Uttar Pradesh and indeed in the middle of nowhere-I think I am the only member of the Western Buddhist Order ever to visit it, so far. I felt strangely drawn to the place.

Before I left for India I was unable to locate Sankissa on any map and noticing that the Lonely Planet guide has withdrawn their reference to it in recent editions began to have second thoughts about going. That is until I went to the February National Order Weekend. There I discovered in a book on Hsuan sTsang that he also had felt strangely drawn to visit the site, even though it was out of his way.

Once in India I had a further couple of nudges in Sankissa's direction. On my first day, I met through a series of bizarre chances a man who knew most of the eight great pilgrimage sites, he assured me that I could get there and reinforced my resolve to go. A day or so later on a bus in Delhi I found myself standing besides a man reading a magazine, he turned the page and there was a photo and an article about Sankissa! Oh how I love India, magical, mystical, Buddhist India!

So, out I set into the unknown, and after some culturally shocking experiences arrived at Sankissa. It's a very beautiful place, (mind you I find most of India very beautiful). Even the road that leads to the site is lovely. It's a simple lane that runs straight towards the Stupa from the main road for a couple of miles, fields and ponds either side. It is a strange fortune that the anti-Buddhist landowners that refuse to sell land to Buddhists have preserved the peace and tranquillity of this place.

The road runs past an old village devoid of electricity that rises above the plain on its own mound of ancient ruins, and ends beneath a great gnarled tree at the Stupa's foot. All around the site of the descent is nothing but fields and feathery leafed trees. It was evening when I arrived. A golden sun was setting in a red Western Hemisphere, peacocks' meowing as it went down. At the base of the mound near the huge old tree is an Ashokan column, this one unusually sporting an elephant capital.

Out of the of fields rises the remains of what once must have been a very big stupa, now a mound-not unlike Sillbury hill, but with what looks like, and probably once was, a brick castle on top. The castle or fort is now filled in or levelled off so that assenting the stairs up through the old portal one arrives on a terrace on which sit a couple of basic Hindu shrines. The Devi who inhabits the shrine here looks so similar to Avaloketeshvara one wonders if this isn't an instance of a farmer digging up a Buddhist rupa and beginning to worship him in the only way he knows how. The only image of the Buddha here is tucked away in a tiny temple at some distance before the Stupa. It is an ancient black stone image of the descent. On either side of the Lord are Indra and Brahma who accompanied Shakyamuni back to earth, each on their own stairs. Indra's was Blue; Brahma's was Silver, while between them the supreme Lord descended on stairs of gold. I preferred to imagine the stairs in more modern terms, seeing them descend through rays of light.

I learnt that the event that occurred here was called a Prattihara. Apparently a Prattihara is a very rare moment when the barrier between the Kammaloka (our realm of desire) and the Rupaloka (the realm of beauty, inhabited by gods) is removed, when the gods could see the world and the world could see the gods.

It must have been a very very beautiful moment.

The Buddha Was Here

Sankassya

Here the Buddha
Descended,
Now all thats left
Are his feet.

Buddha Pada
Bodhgaya

At Boudha's Foot

Darren, Robin, Cheeky Monkey

Nepal Mandala Pilgrimage