For. So welcome everybody, and this is our third meeting of the third series of the Oxford Treaties seminar,
so it's I'm really delighted to be able to introduce David Grey today.
David Grey is the Bernard J.
Henley, professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University in California, where he teaches a wide range of Asian religions.
And his research explores the development of tantric Buddhist traditions in South Asia and the dissemination in Tibetan East Asia,
with a focus on the Ugadi countries, a genre of Buddhist country that focussed on female deities and yogic practises involving a subtle body.
His publications include numerous journal articles and book chapters, an edited volume, as well as the Chuck Rosenberg Tantra,
a study annotated translation published with the American Institute of Buddhist Studies in 2007.
So, Chuck assemble 10 editions of the inscription Tibetan Texts with the same publisher, 2012.
Illuminations of the hidden meaning chapters one to 24 Mandala mentioned the cult of the Ugandans again
with this theme published in 2017 and Illumination of the Hidden Meaning Part two chapters 25 to 50 one.
You'll get close contacts and ritual practise with wisdom publications in Twenty Nineteen.
So, David, I'm really, really grateful you could come and speak to us today and over to you.
Thank you so much, Rob, and I'm really it's really a great pleasure to join you all.
I've long had a great love and interest in the treasure, you know, term phenomenon.
Probably none of you know this, but or maybe a couple of people do, but I actually translated a treasure text.
The holiday Qatar from the Qatar getting a collection back when I was an undergraduate.
There's an interesting story there, just really, really quickly.
I went on the Wisconsin to Year Abroad in Nepal programme in 1991 and 92 because I was a nerdy, you know,
student who studied too hard over the summer, learning Tibetan language in Madison, Wisconsin, and got A's and the class they put me.
They placed me with the one Tibetan family and Bowdoin us who didn't speak any English at all.
So I had three weeks of linguistic [INAUDIBLE], you know, learning, you know, quickly, you know, how to speak Tibetan, at least,
you know, stuck tongue eating and drinking language, which came pretty quick, you know, in that crucible of necessity.
But it just so happened that, you know, before I arrived shortly before I arrived in Nepal,
Dogo Kenzi Rinpoche had passed away in his funerary ceremonies, which basically took over a year.
We're beginning in Nepal, so pretty much every, you know, Nygma Lama in Jumbo-Visma and beyond were pouring into boat enough.
So it was really an amazing time to be there.
I I went to go study first with one Lama who spoke English well talking ima empeché because he was already overflowing with English speakers.
He sent me on to stronger and stronger Empeché, who didn't speak English at all.
I guess he figured my Tibetan was good enough. I went to Tharanga Empeché explaining how I really wanted to translate a number.
I had read the life of military power, you know, as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, and I really wanted to translate something like that.
So he suggested I work on the bloody cattle, which I said, OK, I went and got a copy, started working on it.
I later wondered if this was all a cruel joke, because it turns out it's an incredibly difficult,
obscure text written in a very archaic form of Tibetan.
But I worked my way through it, and by the end of the year, I produced a translation,
never published it because I still don't feel like I understand the text anywhere near the level of sufficiency to publish something like that.
But I've at least had the experience of working through a term of text and, you know, attempting to understand it.
That particular term I was, you know, discovered by organ, by supposedly, you know,
he discovered a single sheet of gold parchment, which contained the text.
What does that mean? Clearly, it's not the full text, obviously, right?
You know, was it a single sheet with duck, any scraps, perhaps, which he later decoded?
But anyway, I bring this up because, you know, the term a tradition has,
the Nygma tradition has such a rich kind of lore concerning textual discovery and the ways in which textual discovery can occur.
And I'm sure we're all familiar with the two main types of terma mind and Earth, you know, terma, the different types of discovery that entails.
While this interested me a great deal when I was younger, I, you know,
ended up when I went to grad school at Columbia University being sidetracked by, you know, Bob Thurman to work on Samah materials.
You ended up working on Chuck with some borrowed time. Sure, I don't have any regrets about that.
But you know, my initial love of the term, a genre, you know, kind of was put on the back burner, you know, more or less permanently.
Although, you know, I find myself drawn back again, back to it again and again, both because of that rich lore about textual discovery.
But another thing I love about the Tibetan tradition is the rich, biographical and autobiographical literature.
You know, the num num Tajura. It's so amazing.
What I wanted to talk about today were these kind of myths or lore concerning textual discovery in the Indian, you know, tantric literature.
Unfortunately, it's much sparser. We don't have that kind of rich kind of biographical or autobiographical lore,
nor do we have kind of in-depth kind of nitty gritty descriptions of exactly how do you discover a text in spite of this,
you know, there is some scraps of information here or there.
And you know, I recently completed a. Book manuscript on the Tantaros,
looking at some of these myths and origin story isn't so what I'll bring to your
attention today are just a very small number of passages that I found to be of interest.
Now, as for my thesis, looking at the Indian materials, you can see you can see hints of both the both types of discovery.
Let's say, you know, discovery of actual texts, you know, like the Sauter Earth tremor versus, you know, the Mayan term,
a discovery happening through some sort of visionary revelatory process dreams, waking visions and the like.
But you see both kinds of phenomena, I think, in these materials as well as the Tibetan.
But I would also suggest, at least based on my reading of these passages,
that both types also entail what we might call visionary types of experiences.
Even even in the cases where someone discovers, quote unquote, an actual physical text.
There's visionary stuff going on and going a bit further, drawing on the work of the anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann.
You know, I would argue, and I'll get to this the end that, you know,
Luhrmann argues in her works that the practise of visualisation actually leads certain types of susceptible individuals to have visionary experiences.
And where else do we find such a focus on visualisation practises and in tantric Buddhist traditions?
Right? So, so much of the practise focuses on visualisation.
And if you visualise a lot and some of us here may have done that in our own personal experience,
I have may I may find that they've had visionary experiences as well, perhaps triggered by these visualisation practises.
I myself had these sorts of experiences as well again, while an undergraduate studying intensively in Nepal,
doing intensive meditation practise in visualisation practise,
I had a series of dreams as well as visions, including a dream in which Padma Sambora came and talked to me.
Unfortunately, I woke up and couldn't remember what he said.
Being malama I was studying with at the time told me this was because I wasn't yet a suitable vessel for the teaching.
Right? You know, my mind wasn't clear enough, pure enough.
My concentration wasn't firm enough. Hence, I couldn't recall in vivid details required to recover the visionary text.
So I sometimes joke I'm a failed mother. Of course I'm not really.
But anyway.
But for certain susceptible individuals of which I apparently am one, if you visualise a lot, you may find yourself having visionary experiences.
And I my suggestion is that if you look at the mythology, certainly in the Indian tradition, and I think in the Tibetan tradition too,
you'll see these these visionaries who who have encountered deities and dreams, visions, recover texts and the like.
Of course, we're doing intensive meditation practise, so there very well may be a connexion there.
So that's basically what I'm going to argue. But I drew I I called up a couple of interesting texts that I just wanted to bring to your attention.
These are things that I've come across while working on my book.
This is the text I wanted to bring to your attention.
This is, you know, from a mug of address account of Vajra Beauty's story about the origin of these the so-called wanding.
I mean, Jhingan Jinjiang being genuinely adamant in pinnacle scripture, which according to the tradition that Vajra Booty recorded Nagarjuna.
You know, of course, our famed bodhisattva for recovering lost text discovered this text in a Ayan Sutra.
Now I'm not going to read this text, but I just wanted to bring to your attention a few details that I thought really interesting.
On the one hand, this was the the so-called, you know, or text, the massive version of the text 100000 stanzas long.
Those of us who read these myths, you know, we'll come across the number 100000 again and again because, you know,
of course, there actually was a scripture that reached this this this length 100000 verse pragnell parameter sutra.
But in tantric literature, we often read these reports one hundred thousand verse scriptures.
And it's I just found very funny the description how it was broad and long, like a bed four or five feet thick with innumerable verses.
So there's massive masses or tantra.
It must have been written in very large. Because if you look at the, you know, shutters, the Hazarika pregnant parameter and the Tibetan translation,
I think it's eight or nine volumes long and to conjure.
So a pretty big text, but not quite this vast.
But of course, if you used a large enough font, large enough script, you could reach any size.
So it was enclosed in Iron Stupa South India.
No one was able to open it because of its iron gate and locks.
So in this in this country, there was the so-called great worthy who we later learnt as Nagarjuna, who though is not mentioned by name in this text.
So he, you know, found the Stupa, but he couldn't get in.
So he recited the mantra of Maha the Rukhsana, who manifested his body in a multitude of bodily forms in mid-air.
So what is this? Seems to be a vision, right?
You know, reciting Maharaj and his mantra Maha Baratunde on a kind of, you know, bewildering kind of many bodily manifestation appears in the air.
Expound of the teachings, along with its textual passages and lines, it told the Great Worthy to write it down.
And then and then it was when it was finished, he vanished.
And this this, in a way, is the origin story for one tantric text.
The essential rights for religion.
The short or abridged version of the Adamantine Pinnacle Sutra, which Vajra Booty translated and presented to the Chinese emperor.
The long version 100000 version of the collection we learnt later was lost in a typhoon as he was travelling back from India to China.
But that's that's a whole nother story.
So I wanted to bring this to your attention because I found interesting both the idea of there being this massive or text,
but also the idea that even even when discovering the massive physical text right, there's a visionary experience that accompanies it.
He couldn't get into the stupor, but he had a vision of China who gave him the instructions essential rights.
And with these instructions, he was able to perform the ritual that enabled him to kind of magically opened the locks, so to speak on the Stupa.
And got it. Now, what did he do when he got it? Apparently, he didn't read the book.
He chanted Praises for this, you know, sovereign tantra or, you know, Tantra Raja Scripture King is or is a translator.
And then he attained the obstructions of all the Buddhism Buddhism offers,
and these he remembered and did not forget that he was commanded to go forth from stupor and close the gate.
So in other words, he sat in front of the scripture, apparently reciting praises of it,
and then apparently had another visionary experience in which he was taught by awaken beings.
What isn't Buddhist was doesn't tell us who maybe Mahavir of China again,
along with perhaps other figures from his, from his, from his mandala, perhaps.
And so again, there's no taking of this of the physical text.
He doesn't even touch it as far as the myth tells us. He he sits in front of it.
He champs. He has another vision, apparently, and then he goes for having memorised the teachings, whatever they may be.
Apparently, the teachings on the hundred thousand verse scripture, because according to Djibouti, at least,
you know, Nagarjuna was the first person to kind of reveal this, you know, put it down in the writing, so to speak.
Vajra butI claims that he actually acquired a copy of the 400000 verse scripture in Sri Lanka, but then lost it, you know,
en route back to China being left only with the short, you know,
the short practise text that was the initial revelation coming to coming to Nagarjuna.
So this is, you know, one case in this case, the disclosure of a of a yoga tantra, right?
The discovery of a yoga tantra, apparently involving the discovery of an actual text.
At least, you know, that's how the story seems to go.
At first glance, but if you look closely, you see these visionary, these visions, you know,
surrounding the whole revelatory process, you know, an initial vision allowing him entry to gain access to the text.
And then again, a later series of visionary teachings, which lead to him securing the teaching in memory, apparently.
And then, you know, moving off, leaving the bedside scripture in place.
Because as far as we know, Nagarjuna didn't have super strength, although who knows, maybe he did, but apparently he didn't touch that big scripture.
Or if he did, he myth doesn't tell us so.
So that's one story that I wanted to bring to your attention. And here's another one.
This is from Jana Mitra, as you know, commentary on the method of the perfection of wisdom and 150 stanzas.
Very, very interesting text. You know.
As you as I'm sure many of you know, Ron Davidson translated a portion of this in his, you know, in his book on Indian Esoteric Buddhism,
it's one of the probably the earliest kind of Indic or to discuss the whole 18 the collection of 18 major yoga Tantaros,
you know, again, in the Tibetan collection,
it's almost identical to the 18 texts badminton Pinnacle Collection that the Moga Vajra wrote about which Djibouti partially,
you know, brought back to China with him. So these early, you know, eighth century, you know, collections of 18 countries.
Jana Mitra was writing, I think, late 8th century, so a bit later than LaGuardia.
But here again, a similar collection including, you know, the sort of a of summer yoga Ducati,
Jealous and Vargas, a major tantra, you know, a few others.
Shri Pramod Yeah. Now this text tells us that supposedly king in Djibouti in Zahara, which, as Davidson points out, was was likely,
you know, Diana, you know, SWAT Valley, you know, Northwest India, not Bengal, as you know, some people have hypothesised.
That this scriptural collection manifested first to king in Djibouti and members of his court because they were deemed to be suitable vessels,
so again, they had the proper background and training to enable them to understand them.
In theory, the texts appeared. Ganymede sure doesn't tell us exactly how they came to King in Djibouti.
He was unable to understand them, so he requested the help of Master Cucaracha, who asked that the text be sent to him.
The king obliged. And here's a direct quote from the text.
This is my translation. The scriptures arrived as he read them from beginning to end.
They were unlike anything he had ever read, an account of which he collapsed without recourse, exclaiming, I'm without refuge.
Shreveport results appeared and asked him what he desired. He said he wished he could understand the scriptures just by reading them.
Don't we? All right. Particularly when reading Tantaros.
Thus, it shall be granted there upon the meaning of these unopened texts of the starving,
but summer yoga and so forth became directly apparent in his mind.
I love that detail that the text has unopened tax rate, so he I guess he'd gotten his tax,
started reading them, couldn't make heads or tails of them, had a vision of such the who granted his wish.
You know, the wish of all students, right to be able to understand text without even reading them without even opening in the text.
But he was able to do so. So again, this is another myth of the kind of textual discovery of texts appearing right.
We don't know exactly how he's got a metre, doesn't tell us, but text appearing, people being unable to understand them.
But then through, in this case, the grace of such. Poggi, who Cora Gaines kind of directs an immediate knowledge of the text within his mind.
So again, this kind of strong visionary dimension to a in a myth which is ostensibly about the discovery of physical tax rate,
physical tax being discovered or appearing and being revealed to the world.
So this is yet another example of this sort of discovery.
Now there's one other passage I wanted to bring to your attention of this sort of text,
and this is from what I what I suspect might be the earliest account of a of a kind of tantric or bordering on a kind of origin story in print.
And that's from your Jeong's, you know, records of eminent monks, the great tong sought the dharma and the western regions.
And in this book, he recounts the stories of various Chinese monks who travelled to India prior to Eugene's journey to India.
He journeyed there and arrived in 671.
I think he spent about 15 years in India, if I remember correctly.
Now he tells the story of one Chinese monk named Darlene, who while in India encountered a text called the video dropped the car,
which I kind of loosely translate as wizardry collection.
You know, taking video diaries, wizards unite these immortal, immortal kind of magical beings of tantric myth and lore, right?
Who you know who? What are they most akin to? An English language?
Perhaps the wizards of, you know, of English folklore, you know, here have in mind, like,
you know, Tolkien's Gandalf the mortal capable of great feats, you know, so on, so forth.
Maybe it's a bad idea. I'm I'm open to criticism, but this.
This a this is an interesting account of the text vigilant Pittock, I should point out, was actually, you know,
Matsunaga tells us, was actually the name of a of a force basket, you know, the three baskets of Buddhist cannon?
Well, apparently the Dharma Gutta tradition proposed a fourth canon.
The Vijayendra put together the the the the basket or collection of spells as the kind of place where the magical lure, you know, the rock shelter,
the Durrani is mantra collections that were growing within some you know, Mahayana traditions or say, around fifth, sixth, seventh centuries of.
As a place for them in the canon, and so this is the origin story of a text that has that name,
but the name is a kind of generic name that could also be for we might say,
you know, the the conjurer or the the tiger bomb or Nygma Jubaland, the kind of tantra section of the canon, so to speak.
So again, this wizardry collection provided our picture.
What is it? Eugene tells us that in Sanskrit, it consists of 100 thousand stanzas.
Here we go. You know, 100000 appearing again. And where did it come from?
It does. The text doesn't say, but it says after the death of the great sage, Nagarjuna mastered them.
So the implication here, I think, is that maybe, you know, Schottky money taught them and then but then who did he pass it on to?
Who kind of received this law? Well, of course it was Nagarjuna, and he happened to have a disciple named Nanda, who was steeped in this text.
So Nagarjuna, you know, passed on the law to his disciple, named Nanda.
He spent 12 years practising the spells where party experience supernormal effects.
So in other words, he achieved the city is right whenever his meal time food descended from space.
You know, we read accounts like this in the stories of many, you know, great add ups and bougie Indian, Tibetan and Chinese, you know, lure.
Also, one source saying spells he prayed for wish fulfilling bass,
which he attained after a little while within a jar, he found the scripture which delighted him.
But since he failed to bind the bass with a spell, it disappeared. OK, another failed Turton here, right?
You know, you gain access to some magically appearing text, but if you don't follow the right procedure, you might lose it.
So he if he lost it, then perhaps fearing that all this great lore he got from Nagarjuna might be scattered and lost.
He gathered them together, formed a single compilation of 12000 stanzas, so a more reasonably lengthy scripture.
And that supposedly is what Dowling studied when he was in India.
So again, an origin myth for a for a tantric collection in this case, the Vijay DA a picture which I don't think survives.
I don't think this was ever translated into Chinese or Tibetan. Maybe I'm wrong.
Tibetans sometimes use that same phrase of, you know,
50 did Pittock to refer generically to the kind of collection of tantra is at least some early Tibetan authors did.
But I've I've never encountered a reference to this text.
Oh, I've encountered some references to it, would you go yet another eighth century offer, but Agya Rafiq refers to it.
He actually listed as one of the creators, but to my knowledge, it wasn't translated, though maybe I'm missing something.
So anyway, we have these stories of people discovering texts.
Sometimes successfully, sometimes, you know, failing to successfully kind of capture them.
But the visionary element, I think, is prominent and in many of these accounts.
But of course, you know, so far we're only really talking about, you know,
Earth terms sort of discoveries, you know, discoveries of actual physical text.
What about discoveries that entail, you know, other kinds of.
Other kinds of. Of Revelation. Let me.
One more I wanted to bring to your attention was contas discovery of the Kuta to look at tantra.
This is, you know, according to Tara Natas hagiography here, I'm not going to translate anything but just just briefly go over it.
This is a case of, you know, undertaking a physical journey to pray, to pray somewhere on the Tibetan plateau.
In this case, you know, Joel Dripper, you know, sent her off to recover some putative liquor from Eugeni,
from the Duchesne Badree told her she lived in pray to.
Eventually found a derelict shack on a cliff overlooking a grey desert.
You didn't recognise her at first, but eventually he did and discovered he was at the right place.
She kind of magically transformed her shack into a mansion.
And granted him the texts and the teachings. So this is kind of another, I guess, short term sort of discovery.
But one involving a journey that could a pilgrimage to a sacred site, you know, pray to Puri is one of the 24 sacred sites and be,
you know, Chuck Sambora, you know, Mandalore, at least Chuck Chuck or some of our pilgrimage route.
But, you know, recovering a tax from a from a Ducati.
And of course, we all know the doctrine is play a big role in in the revelation of Tantaros,
you know, huge, huge role in the Nygma tradition, as I'm sure everyone here knows.
But they also play a role in the, you know, Indian tradition as well.
They are a celestial paradise. Harry Potter sometimes portrayed as a repository of esoteric lore.
So again, we have accounts, you know? Again, in this case, you know, Villa Saavedra again reported by Tara Natur.
Tells us that the loss of our dear, troubled Odierno or the doctor news gave him temporary access to a treasury of Tantaros,
permitting him to withdraw as many tests as he could memorise in seven days.
He was able to memorise during this time, you know, Chris Imari, tantra and several other texts.
So again, this idea of a kind of special treasury of tantrums overseen by the Dokken, his they'll give you access to it,
but you can't actually take any physical tax rate you have to memorise, just like Nagarjuna had to memorise.
So apparently 100000 verse,
you know about adamant in Pinnacle Collection loss of our was given seven days to memorise as many texts as he could from the doc in his Treasury.
So. A final kind of count I wanted to bring to your attention is the story of a teacher's pride,
which again features this idea of the dock in East Treasury, so this is in his target extensive biography the biography lists at one point.
An astounding list of all of the Tantaros that a teacher knew.
Now, T-shirt, as I'm sure some of you guys, some of you all know,
had his own kind of unique classification or toxic graphical scheme of organising Tantaros into seven categories Action,
Performance, Precept, Dual Yoga, Tantra, Maha Yoga, Tantaros and Unexcelled Yoga Tartarus.
And the biography gives us a long list of all the Tantaros know all the countries he knew, and all of these classes and all these classes.
Here is what it says he knew about the unexcelled yoga tantrums.
He knew an uncountable number, but if you actually count them, you know, 12000 tantrums of five hundred thousand stanzas and so forth.
The Sri customer, the great hundred thousand stanza Chuck Lorre chatters Peter Muhammad to serve a bit of summer yoga,
but a cappella drum and so forth, right? So huge number of texts, twelve thousand of them, and not the simple,
abridged versions like Lago Savara that we have the colour yoga need, but the the massive, you know, or text versions of these texts.
So he knew these tantrums. But, you know, one night, he added, had a dream.
Well, he had a dream, but before he had a dream, he once offered to buy gifts for a handful of gold to to receive top interest from him,
and he received ten thousand four hundred fifty five Tantaros in one session.
So I mean, one hundred and forty five countries. I find that number so interesting as we get one hundred thousand again.
But added to it is a number that's very close to the number of countries that are actually in Tibetan conjure collections.
But the paltry number of countries that ordinary people now 455 plus 100000 on top of that, so again, astounding number and a pride rose in his mind.
He thought no one is more learnt in the Mahayana or Anantara than I there.
Upon one night, many darkened years presented many volumes of tantrums, asking him if he knew them.
Of course, he didn't know any of them. There are a few little measly volumes off to the side, you know, he asked what they were.
They said, these are the ones, you know. So in other words, again, the Dokken is, you know,
playing the role that's often given to them of breaking down the pride of arrogance dollars, much like, you know, Naropa and life on Europa.
You know, the doctor who challenged his understanding of the text that he was studying here to a teacher,
you know, gets challenged by the darkened years and they demonstrate to him the the paucity of his knowledge.
The message from this, of course, is that, you know, the top the the the tantrums are, you know, uncountable.
There are countless of them that have been taught countless Buddhas and all the
various Buddha realms have taught them and are teaching them again and again,
you know, in the moment, so to speak.
And all you need to be able to access them is the ability to travel to those celestial realms to, you know, to visit them.
How do we do that? Well, here's Chapter 39 of the charter for some maritime terror,
which actually gives a description of of going to how you go to catch a reporter, right?
And this is the chapter that introduces the Eat Field mantra, which is the laughter mantra ha ha hee hee who I forget.
But a series of ha, you know, syllables which, you know, emulates laughter.
So the yogi of great powers lay down the eightfold mantra should have no doubt vision is imparted to him through that and bearable Dokken.
And he's terrified with many kinds of awesome sounds. That hero is frightened.
He trembles and runs away. But if that hero is not frightened and held by the left hand,
[INAUDIBLE] be led by them to their abode together with the darkness through devotion and desire for Sri Haruka once connected,
the Ariel state always delighting them when we'll go to the land of a blessed cavity for the add up to as a mantra body,
nowhere is there old age and death. So how do we get to catch Harry Potter?
This is a very short little text, right? But it's it's very suggestive in many ways.
Lesson number one, I suppose, is right. You know, when the Dokken is come, don't freak out, you know?
Don't be scared and run away. If you do, they'll devour you.
So you know you don't want to do that. Instead, you have to, you know, the law, right?
Know how to deal with the dark and use. If you were, you know, steeped in kind of your any tantra law, you would know the the secret signs,
the the code, so to speak, that you would need to communicate with them.
The the gestures, the the the symbolic language,
so on and so forth to get on their good side and then through devotion and desire to she Haruka, you can be conducted to the Ariel state.
Now I wonder, Alisa, I wonder what devotion and desire for Sri Haruka might mean.
And my my suggestion is it probably means here, you know, diva to yoga or Buddha yoga, you know,
creation stage practise meditation on Sri Haruka, you know, visualising yourself as Shri Haruka doing that sort of visualisation practise.
What else do you need a mantra body, right, you need to have developed that kind of training contemplative training through creation,
stage perfection, stage practise to, you know, you know, dissolve yourself into emptiness.
You know, we arise in the form of a deity. Do the body mandala practise, you know, laying down the mantras in the in the inner body mandala, right?
So so that you generate the body mandala.
Only then can you ascend through visionary journeys to places like Kitsch, Harry Potter, Meet the Dark Ages, Meet the Buddha and,
you know, directly receive the teachings of one of the commentators on this passage, Veera Vadra, he'd recite.
He interprets all of this interpreted in terms of the perfection stage practised.
So being conducted to the aerial state, you know, and for him,
is a reference to the perfection stage process of unifying your psychic energy within your
central channel and having that the energy ascend the channel up to the point of the cavity,
which is the jailendra point within the the the cerebral cavity.
So in other words, you know,
the so-called journey to the place of the Dokken is is a kind of visualised imagined journey taking place within one's mind.
But if you do it properly, it may very well result in, you know, ascending to celestial realms and possibly receiving revel revelatory teachings.
I think at least that's what what is promised now.
Unfortunately, we don't have that much detail within these in these Indian tantric traditions,
or at least if they're if the details are there, I haven't found them.
We we don't have the kind of rich kind of lore, biographical autobiographical lore.
We get stuff like, you know, in the blue annals, the lineage less like, say, or Savara was taught by Lord Trapani to SA or by Vajra Bharati to Luther.
But how exactly did they teach this? You know, how did these masters gain access to the scriptures?
We don't know. I wish we had that kind of information, but my guess is that it's likely much more of a visionary practise.
You know, doing your meditation and having gaining a vision of, say, budgetary he or thud Trapani in a dream or in a kind of meditative state.
Again, I mentioned Tanya Luhrmann, you know, in her first book, Persuasions The Witches Craft, which was on ritual magic in contemporary England.
She talks about her own experience.
She she was studying with kind of contemporary kind of neo pagan practitioners in England, learning, you know, witches, craft and what this entailed.
She describes, was basically the practise of intensive visualisation.
She learnt a series of kind of contemplations involving visualisation that were taught to him by her, taught to her,
by her teachers, and she was doing these practises pretty intensively as part of her kind of anthropological fieldwork.
And she started having visions. One night she had a she was sitting in her apartment in London, she describes,
and she had a vision of a group of druids, you know, flying through the air, you know, outside her window and.
She writes about this both in that book as well as in her 2006 book When God's Talk Back,
and one of the things she she mentions is how visualisation practise in particular can lead susceptible people to spontaneous,
visionary experiences and by susceptible, susceptible individuals.
She means people who score high on the on the Nordics susceptibility scale, which is a kind of test worked out by psych,
by a psychologist, basically as a test to see how vivid your imagination ends and the more vivid it is,
the more suggestible or susceptible you are, the more likely you are apparently to have spontaneous visions if you engage in these sorts of practises.
So again, you know what I was doing when I was an undergraduate in Nepal, doing every day,
you know, practise focussing on payments and other contracts to do sadhana,
the on a basic side of now where you visualised Padma symbol that is the unification of all of the Concho goal of the refuges doing that,
you know, intensively, I started having dreams. Padma Zimbardo, for example, vivid dreams in which she would come to me.
Was I a Turton? I don't think so. I I certainly wasn't a successful one.
But were I properly prepared? Maybe I I might have had a chance.
I don't know. So in other words, you know, I can't prove this, but my suspicion is that, you know,
doing the sorts of intensive, contemplative practises that tantric traditions call for will lead some people,
maybe not necessarily everyone, but some people to have powerful,
visionary experiences that may just lead to experiences of revelation, but not necessarily.
Another book to take into account. Here is done.
Gun will be Seeker's book 2012 book the The Awakened Ones, a phenomenology of visionary experience and one of the points he makes in this book.
Looking comparatively at that visionary kind of figure is including the Buddha is that the easy step is having divisions?
The hard part that comes later is communicating your visions, you know, form that are meaningful to others, right?
And certainly that was my experience. You know, much, much harder to do that, right?
So my my suspicion is and I can't prove that my suspicion is if you look very carefully at this law about revelation of texts and Buddhist traditions,
you'll you'll find, I think again and again that visionary experiences play a key role in these in these revelatory moments.
And I guess that's it for now.
Yes, thank you. That was very, very interesting.
I remember a kind of seminar series that Tanya Luhrmann did in Oxford just before the lockdown, I guess.
And she was a fascinating character. Her work is very interesting, I corresponded with her a bit afterwards.
I'm very glad you brought her up, you know? Yes.
And I'm very grateful as well for your mixture of anthropological and textual scholarship, which is really what we need in this subject.
You know, neither one on its own can really address our problems.
So if anyone's got any questions?