Commitment to Nemeta
Pectoral of the Egyptian vulture goddess Nekhbet in coloissone, found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, 1332-1323 BCE, 18th Dynasty
Cloisonné is an ancient lapidary technique for creating decorative objects by laying enamel paste, or precious stones and jewels, into a metallic frame. The Dragonfly Sutra is a work of cloisonne constructed in language of lapidary precision. It is not a terma, it is the jewel ornament of the Terma.
§ the anecdote of events surrounding the recording of the two tracks below:
Part 1: the first audio of 44 minutes, up to where I just finished talking about Dudjom Rinpoche, ready to proceed to Trungpa, but the system failed and I could not continue to record the track, or even play it back. The vertical cursor raced off the screen.
Dudjom Rinpoche more or less as he looked when I met him, a couple of years before his death in 1987. He was born in 1904 so he was in his early eighties when we met, looking older than the photo here. Looking rugged and worn, somewhat weather-beaten, he sat on my right, wearing the robes of that color but a shade darker, a dull purple, perhaps of rough linen or raw silk. I was struck by the roundness of his face which looked oddly large, oversize, and the way he was huddled into his robe, sitting in the chair, made me think somehow of a buffalo with its huge humped back. He emitted a massive presence.
At one moment, I had the odd notion that he was actually a buffalo in human form, or had turned into one to meet me. After I told the joke, we sat in total silence for 25 minutes.
Typical cloud motifs used in the wall and ceiling decor of Tibetan stupas. Sitting with Dudjom Rinpoche I had the impression that painted clouds like these were rotating past the small arched window toward which we gazed together, as if with a single gaze; or that the room was slowly rotating like a stupa on an axis, and the sky outside was frozen in a painted display. I have described this impression on several occasions and included it in the poem, The Mahamudra Sky (Yeats Conversions, II, Tantra Outbound).
The first talk, broken off by recoding glitch
The following talk
This recording begins with what I said about Trungpa that I failed to record on the previous, longer recording, right after the malfunction at the words “raspberry vanilla ice cream.” I don’t know how those words about Trungpa turn up on this recording. I mean, I don’t know how they got there.
Trungpa (1939 – 1987) in his teens, when he was already an accomplished teacher and terton, having been identified by the tulku-finders and taken from his family at eighteen months. When he looked like this and even younger, he presided over huge conferences and ritual gatherings as a requirement of his presumed status of advanced master. In time, he objected to this role, the elaborate ritual and costumes, and all the responsibilities placed upon him so early. At the age of twenty in 1959 he had to flee Tibet to escape from the Chinese invasion. The trek through the mountains to India took four months.
Forthcoming: Tribute to Trungpa: The Blue Pancake Teaching
jll 3 December 2019