René Magritte. Meditation. 1937.
The Hermit Hui Jiang (隐士回疆), Late Ming dynasty, China, c. 1635.
Karma Pa Initiation Card. Tibet. 1700s.
Kalachakra, Wheel of Time. Tibet. 1400s.
The painting depicts the mandala of the Buddha Kalachakra, with the multi-colored semi-wrathful god in union with his prajña Vishvamata, Mother of the Universe. The deities represent one of the most complex practices of the Unexcelled Yoga Tantras in Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism.
Kalachakra is depicted with four heads and twenty-four arms, with his principal head and upper body in blue symbolising great wisdom. His red face represents passion, the white purity, and the yellow head facing rewards, single-mindedness in meditation. One leg is white and the other red, denoting two separate halves of the yearly cycle. In union with his golden eight-armed prajña with four heads in white, blue, red and gold, the couple represent the embodiment of wisdom and compassion, the goal of Tibetan meditational practice leading to enlightenment and salvation of sentient beings.
Milarepa (often referred to as Jetsun Milarepa, meaning Milarepa the Revered One)
is the central figure of early Tibetan Buddhism. He was a Buddhist saint, a yogi, a sorceror, a trickster, a wanderer, and a poet. He is both folk hero and cultural preceptor, the embodiment of the ideal in Tibetan Buddhism.
The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, an extensive collection of stories and poetry from the life of Milarepa, is a central text of popular Tibetan Buddhism, in some ways comparable to the Bhagavad Gita in Hinduism and the New Testament within Christianity. His life stories and poetry are read devoutly even today to inspire determination in meditation and spiritual practice.
Milarepa’s father died when he was still a boy, and the land that should have passed to him was seized by relatives who treated the young Milarepa and his mother and sister as slaves. After several years of this cruelty and hard labor, Milarepa’s mother convinced the teenaged boy to study magic with a local sorceror in order to take revenge on their relatives. Milarepa was so successful in this purpose that, it is said, a great hailstorm occurred, destroying the house during a wedding ceremony, killing several members of the family. In the aftermath of this incident, Milarepa felt such guilt for his actions that he vowed to cleanse himself of the evil karma he had accumulated.
In his search for a pure spiritual teacher, Milarepa eventually met his guru, the Buddhist yogi and translator, Marpa, who was himself a disciple of the famous Indian Buddhist master Naropa. Marpa, seeing Milarepa’s great potential mixed with dark karma, put Milarepa through many years of severe trials and tests before he would formally accept Milarepa as a student.
Milarepa then spent several years meditating in seclusion in remote mountain caves, struggling, at times, against the demonic forces of the mind, until he achieved the ultimate enlightenment.
Rejecting the formalism of religious position and the endless squabbles of theological discourse, he adopted the life of a mendicant, traveling from village to village, speaking directly with the people he met, singing spontaneous songs of enlightenment and wisdom.
The Dalai Lama’s Secret Temple in Lukhang
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marqués de Dalí de Pubol; Meditative Rose (oil on canvas), 1958.
Buddha Jakata Painting. Tibet. 1500s.
Jiafu Zuo Buddha in his silent phase, side door complete, at the top of the screen. The scenes are divided into five layers from the top down in comic-like composition, painted figures of the Sakyamuni Buddha Jataka stories which describe the Buddha's colorful experiences. The number of characters found in any of the five scenes determine different magical elements.
Vajrayogini Mandala. Tibet. 18th century.
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'The state of complete calmness (neutralization of restless thoughts) is attained by the continuous practice of meditation and by keeping the attention fixed at the point between the eyebrows'. - Paramahansa Yogananda
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18th century tantra diagram, used for meditation.
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The Lords of the Cemetary, said to represent one of seventy-five forms of Mahakala. According to Buddhist legend, the Citipati were originally a pair of ascetics who became so lost in profound meditation they failed to notice a thief cutting off heir heads.
L'Alchymiste en Meditation, Victor Texier (1777-1864)