Saturday, 31 October 2009
THE 64 DAKINI ORACLE PROJECT:Cosmicini
Last Thursday I slept outdoors in my backyard. Just me, the ultra-thin backpacking Thermarest, and a down sleeping bag. I was looking forward to the moon but it was not to be. The pregnant nearly full moon and distant stars were totally obscured. It ended up being just us and the black velvet sky.
I am tempted to tell you, tempted to hint at what I discovered contemplating the open sky. But I don't want to deprive you of the real authentic experience of quenching your own hunger rather than living vicariously through a description of my feasts.
In describing a meditation where the focus is upon an enlightened sky dancer, a dakini (female buddhas said to be "clothed in sky"), a "hollow body" meditation is described as:
Dakini "One pays special attention to her empty yet apparent body. As we saw in the last chapter, the yidam [female deity] has shape and form but is insubstantial, like a rainbow, the play of light, or a drawing in space. One visualizes that there is nothing solid inside that body: one could pass one's hand through it. This is who - or what - we essentially are, once our belief in our solid self is removed." - Secret of the Vajra World: The Tantric Buddhism of Tibet, by Reginald Ray
Bonus: My inspiration for the Thursday tryst with sky. Try this at home: "The Vijnanabhairava Tantra enumerates a number of practices... One of the favorite occupations of yoginis and yogis consists of watching the sky, which has a mindlike nature, until the moment wherein union with space takes place. I spent nights shivering, lying on the freezing ground, my body completely abandoned, often at the end of an outlandish race through the woods with Devi. This meditation can be practiced at dawn, at twilight, or in the middle of the night. Abandoned to the stars." - from the most mind-blowing book I've read this century, by Daniel Odier
p.s. There is indeed a method to my madness and apparent obsession with desire. "You are what your deepest desire is." - The Bhavagad-Gita. "The path of mahasukha ("great bliss") is a way of speaking about the Vajrayana in which liberation is attained by means of experiencing the "pleasure" of the five senses." - Secret of the Vajra World: The Tantric Buddhism of Tibet, by Reginald Ray.
From CrossRoads Dispatches
by Evelyn Rodriguez
at http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/
This post: Fifth Avenue Sky Dancers on June 12 2006 at http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/2006/06/fifth_avenue_sk.html
THE 64 DAKINI ORACLE PROJECT:INTRODUCTION
Welcome !
The 64 Dakini Oracle is inspired by the Tantric Yogini temples of India. These temples of inititation are circular roof-less enclosures which housed a cycle of Shaktis- emanations of the Goddess. Based on the 64 rays that emanate from the navel or solar plexus center of the subtle body, they represent the energies of transformation. Many systems understand the significance of the number 64. The I-Ching, the DNA, computer systems, etc. all share the 64 principle. The human cell itself divides this many times before it starts to specialize.
As an accurate reflection of the many aspects of self, the 64 matrix is a point of interface between the personal and the cosmic. It''s template has been constructively utilized to create a lens through which we may view the infinte as it filters into form. The I-Ching's 64 hexagrams act as glyphs of the distribution of elemental energies throughout creation. The Indian Tantrikas manifested 64 forms of the Goddess as the 64 forms of energy that work with & through us for our own transformation, liberation, and enlightenment.
The Dakinis are interdimensional shapeshifters. They are real, spiritual entities who are ready & willing to assist us in self knowledge & evolution. They are often wild, spontaneous, and free for they are free energy itself in it's natural form, unrestrained or constricted by social norms.
The Dakini energy works in mysterious ways. A team of mystic Dakinis have agreed to be part of this project, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Dakinis have called us to create this temple for them. They want to help. As they are capable of manifesting in whatever form is created for them, we have elected to manifest new forms for their energy that are attuned to our current times. Many forms and frequencies of Goddesses and Dakinis that are familiar to us from different cultures and different times are woven into our Dakini manifestation. Their names and qualities are re-channeled for the now.
The 9 Dakinis shown here are an introduction to the Oracle and are being brought forth now to evoke their qualities and empower the project. A sense of their energy fields is to be found on "Dakini Invocation" on the Goddess Juice DVD. The Ecstatic Portals DVD will feature an invocation of the next group of Dakinis. When the full cycle has been manifested, then the 64 Dakini Oracel will be put into operation.
Visitors to the site will be able to consult the Oracle and the portal of the selected Dakini will open. The Dakini will deliver her oracle reading to the questioner, describing her nature, why she has appeared before the questioner and what she means to their life. The person consulting the oracle will receive an audio/visual "download" from the Dakini. Her words, the music of her frequencies and the visual qualities of her being and her energy realm all act upon the nature of self in a direct & personal way, so enhancing the potential for energy communication and transformation. In traditional spiritual circles, the transmission of energy is called "Shaktipat" or "Darshan."
The 64 Dakini Oracle's intention is to bring psycho-spiritual cyber darshan.
As the Oracle exists in cyberspace and is not a tangible pack of cards, we are offering posters and custom prints of the Dakinis. Each is a meditation on a specific energy field. The Dakinis are allies, interdimensional messengers. They are here to help us shift our lives to the next octave.
We hope you enjoy the Dakini experience and the evolutionary potential they represent. May the the Dakinis enrich your incarnation.
From
The 64 Dakini Oracle
at
http://www.64dakinioracle.com/64D_Vision.htm
The 64 Dakini Oracle is inspired by the Tantric Yogini temples of India. These temples of inititation are circular roof-less enclosures which housed a cycle of Shaktis- emanations of the Goddess. Based on the 64 rays that emanate from the navel or solar plexus center of the subtle body, they represent the energies of transformation. Many systems understand the significance of the number 64. The I-Ching, the DNA, computer systems, etc. all share the 64 principle. The human cell itself divides this many times before it starts to specialize.
As an accurate reflection of the many aspects of self, the 64 matrix is a point of interface between the personal and the cosmic. It''s template has been constructively utilized to create a lens through which we may view the infinte as it filters into form. The I-Ching's 64 hexagrams act as glyphs of the distribution of elemental energies throughout creation. The Indian Tantrikas manifested 64 forms of the Goddess as the 64 forms of energy that work with & through us for our own transformation, liberation, and enlightenment.
The Dakinis are interdimensional shapeshifters. They are real, spiritual entities who are ready & willing to assist us in self knowledge & evolution. They are often wild, spontaneous, and free for they are free energy itself in it's natural form, unrestrained or constricted by social norms.
The Dakini energy works in mysterious ways. A team of mystic Dakinis have agreed to be part of this project, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Dakinis have called us to create this temple for them. They want to help. As they are capable of manifesting in whatever form is created for them, we have elected to manifest new forms for their energy that are attuned to our current times. Many forms and frequencies of Goddesses and Dakinis that are familiar to us from different cultures and different times are woven into our Dakini manifestation. Their names and qualities are re-channeled for the now.
The 9 Dakinis shown here are an introduction to the Oracle and are being brought forth now to evoke their qualities and empower the project. A sense of their energy fields is to be found on "Dakini Invocation" on the Goddess Juice DVD. The Ecstatic Portals DVD will feature an invocation of the next group of Dakinis. When the full cycle has been manifested, then the 64 Dakini Oracel will be put into operation.
Visitors to the site will be able to consult the Oracle and the portal of the selected Dakini will open. The Dakini will deliver her oracle reading to the questioner, describing her nature, why she has appeared before the questioner and what she means to their life. The person consulting the oracle will receive an audio/visual "download" from the Dakini. Her words, the music of her frequencies and the visual qualities of her being and her energy realm all act upon the nature of self in a direct & personal way, so enhancing the potential for energy communication and transformation. In traditional spiritual circles, the transmission of energy is called "Shaktipat" or "Darshan."
The 64 Dakini Oracle's intention is to bring psycho-spiritual cyber darshan.
As the Oracle exists in cyberspace and is not a tangible pack of cards, we are offering posters and custom prints of the Dakinis. Each is a meditation on a specific energy field. The Dakinis are allies, interdimensional messengers. They are here to help us shift our lives to the next octave.
We hope you enjoy the Dakini experience and the evolutionary potential they represent. May the the Dakinis enrich your incarnation.
From
The 64 Dakini Oracle
at
http://www.64dakinioracle.com/64D_Vision.htm
Iconographic representations tend to show the dakini as a young, naked figure in a dancing posture, often holding a skull cup filled with menstrual blood or the elixir of life in one hand, and a curved knife in the other. She may wear a garland of human skulls, with a trident staff leaning against her shoulder. Her hair is usually wild and hanging down her back, and her face often wrathful in expression, as she dances on top of a corpse, which represents her complete mastery over ego and ignorance. Practitioners often claim to hear the clacking of her bone adornments as the dakinis indulge in their vigorous movement. Indeed these unrestrained damsels appear to revel in freedom of every kind.
Dakini's wrathful aspect is depicted by the mala of skulls. Her peaceful aspect is depicted by the lotus frond. Like Hindu goddess Kali, her role is to transmute suffering. Her left hand holds high the lamp of liberation. Dakini represent the sky being a womb symbol connoting emptiness, creativity, potentiality.
It is said that the Dakinis have the power to instantly entrap mere mortals with their gaze. The mirror of your mind is the mysterious home of the Dakini - your right brain - your feminine side. The secret Dakinis guard the deeper mysteries of the self. Representing upsurging inspiration and non-conceptual understanding, Dakinis invite you to cut free of all limitations. They are unconventional, unexpected, spontaneous, dancing in great bliss, at one with divine truth. In the eastern tradition, a cycle of 64 Dakinis/Yoginis represents a complete cosmogram for the transformation of the self, embodying the total energy cycle of creation as depicted by the dance of Gnosis, the wisdom and energy of the divine feminine. In representing this complete cycle we have the opportunity of evoking not only the Goddess, but of manifesting the totality of the Great Goddess herself.
Yogini/Dakini temples flourished in India around the 9th through the 12th centuries. Erected in remote places, especially on hilltops, the temples were circular enclosures open to the sky. Around the inner circumference were 64 niches which housed exquisite stone carvings representing various aspects of the Goddess energy, creating a circular mandala around a central image of Shiva, symbol of Cosmic Consciousness and the one-pointedness of yogic discipline.
http://www.crystalinks.com/dakini.html
The Dakini Principle
March 30, 1998
The term Dakini is Sanskrit. It's Tibetan equivalent is Khadro, kha meaning sky and dro meaning to go. Taking it together, Khadro means one who can move through the sky.
...dakinis as the principle of wisdom as the root of all Buddha Activity.
The femininity of a dakini is linked with the symbolism of space. It's the ability to give birth to or actualize the full range of potentialities. It is in the space of becoming, where the full range of the four kinds of enlightened activity occur. The four kinds of activity being: pacifying, enriching, magnetizing and destroying.
In the symbolism of the feminine aspect of a dakini, the ultimate dakini embodies the inseperability of emptiness and wisdom. Only when that dakini takes form in the Five Buddha Families does she represent the differing patterns of experience that are the mental and physical constituents making up human personality.
The Five Buddha Families are the five aspects of a total situation from five different angles. Seeing the universe in these different arrangements is a way the Buddha families are used to transform relative states of consciousness into the understanding of the ultimate mind. In their neurotic expression the Buddha Families are styles of imprisonment. In their enlightened expression they are styles of freedom. A particular neurosis of each family is associated with a particular type of wisdom or enlightened form it can be transmuted into.
All these qualities relate with each other, all of our experiences are colored by these five energies,and have their basis quality as completely vast space. This space (or Akasha) is [a]medium for movement.
To live as a dakini means to be aware of this space. This is the true meaning of a dakini as [a] being one who can move through space. It is a space behind the poisons and thought patterns. Such an awareness, however, is hard to maintain. Our mind is totally unstable and most of us have no real control of it. It flutters from one thing to another. Recognizing and training the mind is the only way to gain stability. If we really had stability, we could maintain recognition of our mind's essence in dharmakaya on a continual basis no matter what was presented to us through our emotions or thoughts.
Yogic practices purify both the male and female principles within the human body. It is through a practice that seeds of the vital force of the five senses, the male aspect represented by the Five Buddhas and the forces of wisdom, the female aspect of the Buddha Nature represented by their Five Consorts are purified. It is through the path of Vajrayana that one is able to attain enlightenment in just one lifetime by making full use of the very poisons and illusions that cause delusion.
Now, sentient beings are constantly operating from these grounds of these Five Buddha Families and manifesting in it's natural manner in any given situation the energies present within themselves with a reference point that can either be confused or enlightened. There are polarities and pulls of all kinds occuring in a pattern. A basic force that relates to this basic patterning is a kind of clarity. It is a space where the two polarities can exist and maintain themselves. This space is a totally awake situation where emotions and thoughts can arise but from an unconditional quality. If we can realize this very fact when our emotions are happening, we can instead of being caught up in the emotion or thought can release it in the midst of this space instead and it will dissolve into its true nature of clarity.
Vajrayana Buddhism uses different methods for developing the mind. In the Development Stage of practice, for example, one imagines an outer world that is perfect in every way, a Buddhafield. With everything in the world being made up of the five elements, visualizing our outer world as a Buddhafield allows us to regard the body, speech and mind in its pure form. In a Completion Stage the wisdom aspect of the Buddha Nature itself is recognized. One of the taming processes used in Vajrayana Buddhism is Samatha and Vipasyana meditation. It is beneficial because the mind must be held down and not left to it's own devices where in it's own natural way it likes to get involved in anger and aversion and other bad things. Such things like this is what the mind is used to and it is with real training and effort, such as through Samatha and Vipasyana meditation, that one can amend the habits of one's mind.
Dakinis can transform energy directly through experiences and for this reason it is the dakini who is associated with Tantric teachings and working with the energies of the body, speech and mind. Meditation on a dakini such as Vajrayogini or the Five Buddha Family Wisdom Dakinis is one way of establishing awareness of dakini energy in all its forms.
Buddha's transcendent qualities are active principles with one type of energy not being separate from all of the other energies. This is the key point. While ego naturally evolves because of its psychologic components, if one is able to dissolves the projections of the mind, one can replace it with the five factors of enlightenment. Thus, if one depends on the Dakinis one can move toward transforming one's mind through the experiences one comes across in one's life.
http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/A%20-%20Tibetan%20Buddhism/Authors/Ani%20Lama%20Lhadon/The%20Dakini%20Principle/Dakini%20Principle.htm
The evocation of flight in both physical and spiritual space as one of the powers of Awon Iya wa,Our Mothers,the Aje,exemplars of the creative and destructive spiritual powers of women, could be correlated with ideas of cognitive flight developed by the Olorisa-Orisa devotee-Susan Wenger,who is influenced by Tibetan Buddhism, in relation to her art,to her relationship with nature as well as with the construction of oracular insight in relation to Ifa. These correlations amplify the relationships of endogenous Yoruba conceptions of the feminine with other cultures.
Wenger transmutes the idea of flight in terms of the flight of consciousness, where the spiritual space the witch is understood to traverse through her avian powers is accessed through an immersion in nature and its occult properties:
Here I am,one with the water;I think and feel like the river,my blood flows like the river,to the rhythm of its waves,otherwise the trees and the animals wouldn't be such allies.I am here in the trees,in the river,in my creative phase not only when I am here physically, but forever-even when I happen to be travelling-hidden beyond time and suffering,in the Spiritual Entities, which,because they are Real in many ways,present ever new features. I feel sheltered with them-in them-because I am so very fond of trees and running water-and all the gods of the world are trees and animals long,long before they entrust their sacrosanct magnificence to a human figure.
(Adunni:A Potrait of Susan Wenger by Ralph Brockman and Gerd Hotter.
The correlation of the female identity of Wenger with the flight associated with the female figure of Awon Iya Mi lends itself to a correlation of the conception of flight in the world of spirit with the Tibetan Buddhist conception of the Dakini, the space travelled by both the Buddhist figure and Wenger being understood as the ground of being.
The image of flight, as expressed in the iconography of birds in flight, evocative of flight in terrestrial as well as in spiritual realms, is also associated with Ifa, as expressive of the oracle’s power to demonstrate a comprehensive grasp achieved through cognition across terrestrial and spiritual dimensions of being, of the queries presented to it . In correlating the image of the bird, as a biological form that is yet expressive of extra-biological powers, with the powers of oracular insight of the prestigious Ifa oracle, Ifa iconography underlines the construction of the feminine in relation to exoteric and esoteric powers in traditional Yoruba thought.
Dakini, Khadroma, Khandro
Skt., dakini
Tib., mKha-'gro-ma
Sky Dancer, Sky Walker, Queen of Space
She Who Moves on the Highest Level of Reality
In Vajrayana, it is a designation for the wrathful and semi-wrathful female deities among the yidam. Although most of the translated literature uses the Sanskrit term - even in Tibetan texts - the Tibetan khadroma (khandro) is much more woman-positive; indicating these deities/women as females who move on the highest level of reality. Their nudity is said to symbolize the diamond-like clarity of the truth they unveil. In the Bardo Thödol, a dakini is defined as the feminine energy principle, associated with knowledge and intelligence, which may be either destructive or creative.
...
We must certainly not be misled by those authors who simply call a dakini an 'emanation' or 'consort' of Buddha So-and-so. Although Buddhist Tantra ascribes a less energetic dynamism to the female pole than does Indian Tantra, the dakinis are certainly equal - if not superior - to the male deities. In the context of the Tantric teaching that enlightenment, wisdom and liberation are achieved through a fusion of method and goal, it is the goal that is seen as the female aspect (the dakini) and the method/path as the male (see Inner Tantras).
from
from The Yoniverse of Christina Camphausen and Rufus C. Camphausen
at
http://yoniversum.nl/dakini/dakini1.html
Dakini Kundalini Mother
Original 16 x 20” Acrylic
Katherine Skaggs ©2004
Passionate, intense, aware, connected, transformative Mother.
I began this painting in a fury of passionate brush strokes, intense colors of reds and blacks, moving the core energy of anger and a deep sense of rage that was burning in a fire deep inside. The energy was ancient, almost frightening to touch so deeply into its presence. Yet as I painted a calm came over me and the presence of my Dakini woman, full of transformative kundalini energy, came full into my awareness.
Dakini is a Sanskrit word that literally means “Sky Dancer.” Symbolically, this is one who is free to be one’s natural self, unencumbered by identification with self-images that are not accurate expressions of one’s true nature. Dakini Kundalini Mother affirms my life’s process, and somehow, the process each one of us travels on a spiritual path.
http://stupaul.net/soul/soul-full-creations/pldakini.htm
Add a caption
Dakini Kundalini Mother Original 16 x 20” Acrylic Katherine Skaggs ©2004 Passionate, intense, aware, connected, transformative Mother. I began this painting in a fury of passionate brush strokes, intense colors of reds and blacks, moving the core energy of anger and a deep sense of rage that was burning in a fire deep inside. The energy was ancient, almost frightening to touch so deeply into its presence. Yet as I painted a calm came over me and the presence of my Dakini woman, full of transformative kundalini energy, came full into my awareness. Dakini is a Sanskrit word that literally means “Sky Dancer.” Symbolically, this is one who is free to be one’s natural self, unencumbered by identification with self-images that are not accurate expressions of one’s true nature. Dakini Kundalini Mother affirms my life’s process, and somehow, the process each one of us travels on a spiritual path. http://stupaul.net/soul/soul-full-creations/pldakini.htm
Last Thursday I slept outdoors in my backyard. Just me, the ultra-thin backpacking Thermarest, and a down sleeping bag. I was looking forward to the moon but it was not to be. The pregnant nearly full moon and distant stars were totally obscured. It ended up being just us and the black velvet sky.
I am tempted to tell you, tempted to hint at what I discovered contemplating the open sky. But I don't want to deprive you of the real authentic experience of quenching your own hunger rather than living vicariously through a description of my feasts.
In describing a meditation where the focus is upon an enlightened sky dancer, a dakini (female buddhas said to be "clothed in sky"), a "hollow body" meditation is described as:
Dakini "One pays special attention to her empty yet apparent body. As we saw in the last chapter, the yidam [female deity] has shape and form but is insubstantial, like a rainbow, the play of light, or a drawing in space. One visualizes that there is nothing solid inside that body: one could pass one's hand through it. This is who - or what - we essentially are, once our belief in our solid self is removed." - Secret of the Vajra World: The Tantric Buddhism of Tibet, by Reginald Ray
Bonus: My inspiration for the Thursday tryst with sky. Try this at home: "The Vijnanabhairava Tantra enumerates a number of practices... One of the favorite occupations of yoginis and yogis consists of watching the sky, which has a mindlike nature, until the moment wherein union with space takes place. I spent nights shivering, lying on the freezing ground, my body completely abandoned, often at the end of an outlandish race through the woods with Devi. This meditation can be practiced at dawn, at twilight, or in the middle of the night. Abandoned to the stars." - from the most mind-blowing book I've read this century, by Daniel Odier
p.s. There is indeed a method to my madness and apparent obsession with desire. "You are what your deepest desire is." - The Bhavagad-Gita. "The path of mahasukha ("great bliss") is a way of speaking about the Vajrayana in which liberation is attained by means of experiencing the "pleasure" of the five senses." - Secret of the Vajra World: The Tantric Buddhism of Tibet, by Reginald Ray.
From CrossRoads Dispatches
by Evelyn Rodriguez
at http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/
This post: Fifth Avenue Sky Dancers on June 12 2006 at http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads
_dispatches/2006/06/fifth_avenue_sk.html
The relationships between female procreative power and associations which emerge in relation to those procreative powers in terms of the imagery of flight,are dramatised in the image,from Tibetan Buddhism,of the Dakini,a name which can be translated as "Traveller in Space".The space traversed by the Dakini is both physical and multidimensional/spiritual since,the Dakini is able to appear and disappear at will across physical space but her being also represents the metaphorically conceived spaces of the ground of being and its conception as consciousness,of which physical space is metaphorical.According to Wikipedia "In this context, the sky or space indicates shunyata, the insubstantiality of all phenomena, which is, at the same time, the pure potentiality for all possible manifestations."
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