Apech

I agree to a certain extent that the relationship of maiden to dragon is possibly ambiguous - although I think in later Romantic art she is always shown in distress and chained to a rock or similar. (Tastes change over time!). Obviously also as in much mythological and religious symbolic art there is a strong sexual element. But if we reduce this to some kind of record of ancient sexual assault (#metoo dragon) then we would have to do the same with all tantric art also. Beauty and art are in the eye of the beholder and if you see rape rather than rescue in this, then so be it. It may say more about your eye than the intent of the artist (?). I see the cave as the doorway to the otherworld which is guarded by the dragon - even though it does look like a canvas mock up stage cave than a real one. Thus I would say that we have three worlds in the picture. The ordered 'fields' or garden - 'the known', the wild wood 'the unknown' and the hidden darkness of the cave 'the unknowable'. I would take the maiden/princess to be the psyche or soul (or subtle body), the dragon to be the appetival primal energy (originally sky born awareness but cast down through greed, lust etc.) and the knight to be the 'hero' - the cultivator on the path who liberates the subtle by pinning the dragon. ?

The cave reminds me of Byzantine cave pictures eg.

There will be no doubt some differences in emphasis and style.

Hope you find it!

The snake god Neheb-kau - to illustrate what I said above:

I think @C T has answered it really but just to give a different perspective. Dzogchen and Mahamudra are two lineages which address the same point which could be called the inherent perfection of Mind. The way of teaching between the two lineages differs - but the result is the 'same'. The two lineages also far from being totally independent of each other have had many interactions through historical masters of each being trained also in the other tradition. But in terms of being transmitted the two paths are kept pure by being transmitted separately and not mixed. I would think that there are some students who respond more readily to mahamudra and others to dzogchen. There have also been disputes through the ages between the two lineages of teachings which mostly centre around criticisms of the other for somehow departing from the path. So it is not so much that say, Sakya Pandita states that mahamudra is wrong but rather towards certain practitioners that you and doing it or teaching it wrong. For instance the great Gampopa introduced 'sutra mahamudra' for ordained monks which did not build on tantric practices. For while neither mahamudra or dzogchen are tantric as such, they are both normally taught with a contextual base of tantric practices. Gampopa said that mahamudra is inherent in and implied by prajnaparamita mahayana texts. I don't know anything about Bon Dzogchen so perhaps @steve will be able to answer this.

I looked up the etymology of dragon: Someone has already mentioned the Egyptian Apep (Apophis) ... and the Egyptians while not having dragons as such had many serpents with legs and also flying serpents. The winged serpent called Neheb-kau was actually benign in nature as was the 'curled' serpent Mehen. So there were both benign and malign serpents. Indeed Apep the great enemy of the Sun God appears in later texts where originally there are a host of inimical beings called collectively Rerek (comprising snakes, scorpions, beetles and so on). The known universe was defined in terms of boundary by the great 'World Encircling Serpent' whose coils defined the boundary between this world and the next ( the hidden Duat or underworld realm). So if the western concept of the dragon is a development of the walking winged serpent it would seem to be fundamental to the way in which the universe is structured. To be benign in the sense that it sets up necessary boundaries for reality to exist ... essentially the distinctions between things and fields ... but to become malign when those boundaries become restrictive or based for instance on the fear of the unknown. In the first picture the knight seems to have ridden out of a forest - a wilderness and there are some strange looking squares of grass or perhaps planted fields on the ground. In the second picture there is a cultivated farm/garden and a building on the left suggesting a structured environment where the maiden/princess lives (?). In the first picture there is a strange cloud formation shown over the trees which could be compared to the coils of a serpent which form a kind of giant eye. Note the original meaning of dragon as to do with light and vision. The cave is the lair of the dragon and also the entrance to the hidden realm. The dragon guards the hidden realm and has captured the maiden/princess - she is shown chained to the dragon in one picture but her position in the second is more enigmatic as she appears to be praying. Any thoughts?

ChatGPT says: "The substitution of St. George for St. Michael in English tradition primarily stems from the prominence of St. George as the patron saint of England. While St. Michael is recognized as a powerful figure in various religious traditions, including Christianity, St. George holds a special significance in English culture. The veneration of St. George in England dates back to the medieval period. According to legend, St. George was a Roman soldier who valiantly fought against a dragon to rescue a princess and save a town. This story became widely popular and eventually became associated with St. George, making him a symbol of bravery and chivalry. Over time, St. George became closely linked with the English identity and was adopted as the patron saint of England. His feast day, April 23rd, is celebrated as St. George's Day in England. The image of St. George slaying the dragon became a popular motif in English art, literature, and heraldry. On the other hand, St. Michael is known for his role as the leader of the heavenly forces in Christian belief, often depicted as an angelic warrior who defeats Satan and evil. While St. Michael has a widespread presence in Christian iconography and is recognized as the patron saint of various professions and places, his association with England is less prominent than that of St. George. The specific reasons for the substitution of St. George for St. Michael in English tradition are not entirely clear, but it likely resulted from a combination of factors, including the popularity of the St. George legend, the emphasis on English national identity, and the cultural significance attributed to St. George as the patron saint of England."

There's a horse in the picture also - and everyone knows horses are not real.

another version ...

We live by concepts There's a fallacy that because the absolute (Dao/Dharmakaya) is non-conceptual we have to throw concepts out in order to realise the true nature of things. Somehow that wiping our minds clean of thoughts or ideas will give us the result (of being enlightened or however you chose to frame it). It is also very noticable that those that speak of the non-conceptual use a lot of concepts to talk about it, when superficial understanding might make us think they should just sit in silence. Concept means something like 'hold together' and they are so called because they are the big ideas which hold our thoughts in a coherent way. As well as thoughts you could add in perceptions and emotions. You might object to emotions being included but then we call certain energy movements 'anger' and so on, and anger is a concept. It's a word we use to group a large number of similar feeling states arising from a variety of causes. Concepts do not arise or belong in the objective world. They are applied to it but they don't arise from it. For instance, imagine that you walk along a pebble beach and choose to gather the most spherical stones you can find. You end up with a collection of more or less round pebbles which you can arrange in order by the closest to a true sphere to the least. What you will not find, and cannot find, is a perfect sphere. Because just like a perfect straight line, triangle or square – none of these things exist or can exist in the objective world. Even artificially produced ones will have tiny flaws and perturbations induced by the complex interaction of forces like gravity and so on in the universe. Despite this, the idea of a sphere where all the points on its surface are equidistant to the centre makes sense to us. We can easily conceive it and also see how actual objects approximate to it – even though no such thing exists. Even more than that we can through geometry use the relationships of lines, right angles, triangles and so on to measure the world and also construct things – sky scrapers, cars, washing machines – all formed through the application of geometric concepts. We use concepts to make sense and order – and also to shape our environment. We use concepts to understand – including understanding ourselves. In Sanskrit the mind that does this is called 'buddhi': Buddhi (Sanskrit: बुद्धि) refers to the intellectual faculty and the power to "form and retain concepts, reason, discern, judge, comprehend, understand". The one who goes beyond this intellect is called Buddha or Tathagata – the 'thus gone one'. He (or She) has gone beyond conceptual understanding to realise the true nature, buddha-nature or the Dharmakaya. The wisdom of the Buddha, prajna, means exactly this – beyond knowing. Where knowing is to correctly assign a category to something. So then – to gain wisdom we should reject concepts and the intellect? No. If that were so the path would be simply an attempt to extinguish all we had learned, experienced and understood. There would be no significance to our thoughts and emotions. No point to love or compassion for instance. What then? On realising the true nature, the absolute nature, the true concepts cohere around it, like the facets of a diamond where the buddha-nature is its core. They cohere when they are coherent, that is they stand together in mutual confirmation. It is a modern attitude to give preference to the material world such that concepts are thought to be 'not real'. But actually in the dynamic between consciousness and substance ideas are active agents. They move people. Sometimes a person will give their life for an idea (a perfect one called an ideal) – so moved are they by the power of this idea to improve life for others. Indeed an 'idea' could best be thought of as a package of formed energy. Some ideas appear in contradiction to other ideas – and if held together in the wrong way will generate an irritant emotional field leading to possible illness and breakdown. If people see you in this kind of state they might say 'you need to get your head together' – meaning that, as the head is considered the centre for thought, that you need to bring together coherent ideas about your experience rather than allowing the ideas to battle on. The battle may tear you to pieces mentally or physically if not worked on. By work here I mean applying oneself to examine what is happening and also enough energy to face into the painful parts of the records of experience you carry. But I think making the disharmony and pain the sole focus could lead to deepen identification with the painful memory. So it is important while engaged in this kind of process first a clear view of the nature of things and with time a growing confidence in the eternal soul/self/nature which is the ultimate goal. If we can clearly say to ourselves the correct relationship between these things then we have a chance of coming to understanding. Through understanding the ideas we have gained through life will then cohere around our true nature as a kind of body of wisdom.

Hi and welcome - let me know when you stumble across some wisdom

The Four Yogas of Mahamudra: Four yogas (Tib. རྣལ་འབྱོར་བཞི་, naljor shyi, Wyl. rnal 'byor bzhi) — four stages of attainment in the meditation practice of Mahamudra. one-pointedness (Tib. རྩེ་གཅིག་, tsé chik, Wyl. rtse gcig), which establishes the state of shamatha simplicity (Tib. སྤྲོས་བྲལ་, trödral, Wyl. spros bral), which is reached through the clear seeing of vipashyana one taste (Tib. རོ་གཅིག་, ro chik, Wyl. ro gcig), when shamatha and vipashyana become one non-meditation (Tib. སྒོམ་མེད་, gom mé. Wyl. sgom med) is reached when one goes beyond the mind, and beyond the concept of a meditator meditating, the level of Dzogchen. https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Four_yogas

https://www.wildmind.org/blogs/quote-of-the-month/kierkegaard-purity-of-heart This, I think, is talking about 'one pointedness'.

From what I understand 'one pointedness' when used in the context of mahamudra does not mean concentration as this would be an effort or activity of the mind. What I understand it to mean is wholeness or unity in awareness, such that whatever seems to arise or not arise the awareness remains constant - it is one of the mahamudra stages - to say more I would have to look it up and as I may have mentioned I have become lazy ... @Mark Foote Again I think the quote from Tilopa is talking about non-meditation. So if from the beginning we think we are going to meditate - which suggests doing something - a path of action - this is not it. Putting effort in at 'advanced' stages obscures the realisation of naked awareness. There is of course a huge paradox in this because although we pursue dharma (as path) through improvement - when it comes to pristine or naked awareness there is no improvement - in fact any effort we make will mess it up. Something very subtle happens about letting go or allowing. The great difficulty is, I think, that our ego might strain to achieve the goal which it cannot achieve (being ego). So how then do we deal with this? One way is through the guru - by displacing all self striving and all perfection onto the guru's mind and abandoning our selves as the source of our own salvation. It is said that Naropa achieved full Buddhahood (some dispute this - but at least a very advanced bhumi stage) not through any practice as we would understand it - but simply by being around Tilopa and doing his bidding. The trials and tribulations he was put through resulted in him completely giving up his ego-mind and realising the naked awareness of buddha-nature. Of the Shakyamuni Buddha also it is said that thousands became arhats simply by being in his presence - just as the sun glints on beads of dew on grass.

Feeling hard up? Get yourself a pair of mongooses (mongeese?)

now of course that makes perfect sense !!!!

@Mark Foote Thanks for posting Karan's comments which are very interesting. From a personal perspective I have found that doing long periods of what I might call procedural practice (like ngondro, sadhanas and so on) which involve repeated prayers, mantras, visualisations and so on, while they do produce certain results as intended, I usually after a certain period have to take a break and just do sitting practice daily for a while. This may have something to do with the need to assimilate what I have done sometimes - but at other times I simply feel that sitting is more genuine and natural. I don't know if it is just me, and I am peculiar (well of course I am!) but the terms shamatha and vipassana are not really desriptive of practice in the way I do it. They are more like descriptors of techniques for practice. Which to me is a very different thing. For me following the breath is a way in. Breath counting the same. By that I mean a method for going from normal waking consciousness to the beginning of sitting. Entering in I would call it. Vipassana just means intense awareness of the moment - which is how it could be translated. Once you are 'in' and your awareness is bright - there is no technique after that. Or that is how I see it. I agree about what Karan observed about Tibetan Buddhism. It's attraction is I suppose the beautiful cultural trappings, funny hats, bells, gongs and trumpets - cos it all looks glorious. But I have always found it kind of 'meh' when it comes to actual progress. I think that the DL and others who came out of Tibet in the 1950's made it their mission to preserve both Dharma itself and the Tibetan culture (who can blame them) - but the two things are not the same. There is no cultural grounding in the symbolism for westerners unless they do some very hard study to accumulate it. For instance who among us can say why otters are shown vomiting up jewels? If you look back historically you can see the Dharma spreading and adapting - particularly from India to China - and also the great care that was taken to translate texts, maintain lineages an also to correct mistakes that crept in. The situation in the West is much worse - where translation terms are various and inconsistent - making the establishment of texts in English for instance on which one can rely very difficult. This has left, as I have remarked elsewhere many western practitioners basically still Christian (or Jewish) with dharma trappings. Personally I don't think this works. I don't agree that the Vajrayana is Tantra with Buddhist trappings or that yoga principles were added in. I think this comes from an anachronistic view that there was something pre-existing called Hinduism which Buddhism took from. Until the Raj there was no Hinduism - just a vast collection of dharmas (paths) within Indian culture. Buddhism was one stream within that with a certain view and using many of the same terms as everyone else. Different ways of practicing became more popular in different periods of history - because the external environment, the changing historical context was asking different things of the teachers. I could talk about Goenka but I find the idea of a rigid forced regime like that completely antithetical. Maybe I'm just lazy and don't like to get up at 4 a.m. to repeat what I did yesterday ... or maybe as I suspect the whole thing produces false results. I think I'll just stay lazy. lol.

of cankers I am the cankerchief

Good to see this thread is maintaining high quality convo.

There is that which is beyond concepts - and I was particularly careful to say 'we live by concepts' not 'everything is just conceptual' and so on. But for me anyway, as we discuss this we use concepts - like the idea of there being sheaths of increasing levels of subtlety starting with our physical bodies. If you wanted to communicate this to someone you would have to describe them using concepts and build a picture so that the other person can understand. Including the idea, that you gave, of moving between levels, or between channels (another concept). At some point I am thinking in the increasingly subtle levels of the koshas there is a level which is fine enough to be basically conceptual in itself. Here ideas are like beings of this realm, dynamic light forms which have their own existence (in a sense). Theists might call this the voice of God for instance. We might call what we receive from them intuitive insights or similar. I believe also, that in going beyond the conceptual level at which these thought forms operate, it is not the case that concepts are simply wiped out or discarded, rather that they cohere around the consciousness that has gone beyond. Conceptualisation would not at this point be any longer a stepping stone on the path but more like an ornament or garment for the enlightened being. If you see what I mean.

Until the Butlerian Jihad.

Yes I was expecting people to say those things. The Dao isn't a set of all sets (IMO) it is beyond categorisation hence mysterious statements like it cannot be named i.e. it is not part of any set. I recall Wang Bi called it the abstruse or mysterious origin and Buddhists shunya. I'm not sure if they are useful. I am wondering if my IQ has dropped below a certain threshold Actuality exceeds any organizing principles .... well these principles would be concepts ... maybe we could use the image of a light with many lesser lights in orbit. Then again that might be too rigid. The 'we' is the problem. If we hold a concept of samadhi or even worse mistake a conceptualized samadhi for the 'real' thing, then we are blocked. If we achieve samadhi ... then what do the concepts then look like to 'us'? Maybe an equivalent would be a meditative absorption in which we no longer perceive our body - but then when we emerge there is our body still ... why is that? Or to use the tantric terms ... on achieving buddhahood our body is the Nirmana Kaya and so on. I think I agree with that last paragraph.

thanks for the spelling correction - I don't know what I was thinking

Been a bit busy last couple of days, well busy for me which is probably restful ease for most. But I see that I got the expected responses to my thoughts on concepts. It's a fallacy, mere concepts, useful things to be disposed of and so on. I don't agree with any of them as I think they are all abstractions from reality. By reality I mean the whole of that which we deal with, which is reducible to the the essential core and also elaborated to whatever degree you might want. Real means that which you can analytically pull to pieces without it losing its essential nature and which you can construct to whatever level you might wish, without it stopping being essentially itself. Essentially I am equating 'real' with Dao or Dharmakaya or brahmen … the absolute. This I am saying is beyond concept, or is not a conceptualised state. It is indestructible because it is never constructed. Unborn because it is not produced by other causes. Ineffable because you cannot say in words, concepts what it is. Then we have ideas or what I have called big ideas which hold together sets of ideas in themselves – these are concepts. As living beings, created beings if you like, we use ideas to orientate ourselves, to describe ourselves and our world, to construct understandings of what is happening to us and so on. Some ideas correspond precisely to the order in life. And there is order in life – an order born of the hierarchical relations between forms, material forms and ideas. Any statement made about ourselves or the world can be understood through the pattern of ideas presented. If we start with Dao, then we have Heaven and Earth – meaning polarised yang and yin realms which interact with each other (as in the image of the great bellows or a drum). Each of the ten thousand things has an image (heavenly originated) and form (earthly) – in Buddhism this is namo/rupa. These 'things' dance to the rhythm of the great bellows of Heaven and Earth. Which is the origin of the changes – the patterns of existence. The images are the ideas – that is finely patterned energy (qi) which interact with substance (earth) to produce the reality in which we have our being. Both our physical and subtle bodies have form produced by the heavenly images giving structure to the earthly substance. In this way we live by concepts.