Meditation

I am currently taking a moment for meditation. I spent much of my day tweaking the blog and getting it ready for international guests. Welcome international guests!

Perhaps you would like to meditate with me.

An explanation of this Thangka:
In the center the yellow Buddha is at the moment of enlightenment where Buddha asks the earth to be his witness. He is surrounded by the other 'Pancha' Buddha as the Nepalese say. Each of the 5 positions of Buddha represents a different teaching.

The white Buddha with his hands up in interlocking circles demonstrating teaching...what goes around comes around.
The red Medicine Buddha at the top has his hands in the meditation pose. The green Buddha with his hand up and facing forward represents protection. The blue Buddha at the bottom has his hand facing forward in a gesture of giving and demonstrates compassion. Each color has meaning and each is associated with the expression, "Om Ma Ne Pad Me Hum," or "A jewel in a lotus."

Yellow - pride into wisdom of sameness (NI : yellow = the wisdom born of itself, patience)
White - delusion of ignorance into wisdom of reality (OM : white= wisdom of equanimity generosity)
Red - delusion of attachment into the wisdom of discernment (ME : red= discriminating wisdom, concentration)
Green - jealousy into the wisdom of accomplishment (MA : green= wisdom of activity, ethics)
Blue - anger into mirror-like wisdom (PAD : blue= the wisdom of dharmadhatu, diligence)
Black - hate into compassion (HUM : black= mirror-like wisdom, wisdom)

*This is my summary of things I have learned over the last 16 years. There are different ways that Buddhists express these ideas so go to a better source than myself for quoting.

The thangka itself is something that I used to sell. I found very few people who appreciated them here in the US. The thangka is a painting that often takes days or weeks to paint. 5 men worked together on this thangka. They prepared the canvass with a jesso made from boiled yak hide. The master painter drew the outline of the images. Other assistants painted in the color. One man was responsible for applying the silver and gold. (This is real silver and gold. I have heard very few people in Kathmandu know how to make it into paint. You don't want to spill it!) The last assistant polishes the gold or silver right on the canvass very carefully so it gleams. Other colors are also often made of crushed stone, lapis, turquoise and coral. As you can imagine they are hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars.

You need to go back to the beginning to understand these posts. I hope to hear from you again.

Peace.