Purple flower Mandala

Purple flower Mandala
Acrylic on paper


"You can go on changing the outer for lives and you will never be satisfied; something or other will remain to be changed. Unless the inner changes, the outer can never be perfect."
"When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised."

Osho

One natural Mandala

Beautiful natural flower Mandala 

Blue flower Mandala

Blue flower Mandala

"Intelligence is a natural phenomenon -- just as breathing is, just as seeing is. Intelligence is the inner seeing; it is intuitive. It has nothing to do with intellect. Never confuse intellect with intelligence, they are polar opposites. Intellect is of the head; it is taught by others, it is imposed on you. You have to cultivate it. It is borrowed, it is something foreign, it is not inborn. But intelligence is inborn. It is your very being, your very nature."

Osho 

Traditional Mandala

Traditional Mandala

"You can go on changing the outer for lives and you will never be satisfied; something or other will remain to be changed. Unless the inner changes, the outer can never be perfect."

"When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised."

Osho 

Pink wheel Mandala

Pink wheel Mandala

Acrylic on paper

"All the Buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be -- don't try to become. Within these two words, be and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance."

"If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinion for or against."

"To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it."

Osho 

Yellow Moon

Yellow Moon 

Acrylic on paper

"Mind can accept any boundary anywhere. But the reality is that, by its very nature, existence cannot have any boundary, because what will be beyond the boundary - again another sky. That's why I'm saying skies upon skies are available for your flight. Don't be content easily. Those who remain content easily remain small: small are their joys, small are their ecstasies, small are their silences, small is their being. But there is no need! This smallness is your own imposition upon your freedom, upon your unlimited possibilities, upon your unlimited potential."

Osho 

Chakras in Buddhist Tantra

Chakras

Chakras play an important role in the main surviving branch of Indian Vajrayana, Tibetan Buddhism. They play a pivotal role in completion stage practices, where an attempt is made to bring the subtle winds of the body into the central channel, to realise the clear light of bliss and emptiness, and to attain Buddhahood.
 
The Vajrayana system states that the central channel (avadhūtī) begins at the point of the third eye, curves up to the crown of the head, and then goes straight down to the lower body. There are two side channels, the rasanā and lalanā, which start at their respective nostrils and then travel down to the lower body. The apāna vāyu governs the lower terminations of the three channels. The lower end of the central channel ends in the rectum. The lower end of the lalanā ends in the urinary tract. The lower end of the rasanā channel emits semen.
 
The side channels run parallel to the center channel, except at locations such as the navel, heart, throat and crown where the two side channels twist around the central channel. At the navel, throat and crown, there is a twofold knot caused by each side channel twisting once around the central channel. At the heart wheel there is a sixfold knot, where each side channel twists around three times. An important part of completion stage practice involves loosening and undoing these knots.
 
Within the chakras exist the 'subtle drops'. The white drop exists in the crown, the red drop exists in the navel, and at the heart exists the indestructible red and white drop, which leaves the body at the time of death. In addition, each chakra has a number of 'spokes' or 'petals', which branch off into thousands of subtle channels running to every part of the body, and each contains a Sanskrit syllable.
 
By focusing on a specific chakra (while often holding the breath) the subtle winds enter the central channel. The chakra at which they enter is important in order to realise specific practices. For example, focusing on the subnavel area is important for the practice of tummo, or inner fire. Meditating on the heart chakra is important for realizing clear light. Meditating on the throat chakra is important for lucid dreaming and the practices of dream yoga. And meditating on the crown chakra is important for consciousness projection, either to another world, or into another body.
 
A result of energetic imbalance among the chakras is an almost continuous feeling of dissatisfaction. When the heart chakra is agitated, people lose touch with feelings and sensations, and that breeds the sense of dissatisfaction. That leads to looking outside for fulfillment. When people live in their heads, feelings are secondary; they are interpretations of mental images that are fed back to the individual. When awareness is focused on memories of past experiences and mental verbalisations, the energy flow to the head chakra increases and the energy flow to the heart chakra lessens. Without nurturing feelings of the heart a subtle form of anxiety arises which results in the self reaching out for experience. 

When the throat chakra settles and energy is distributed evenly between the head and the heart chakras, one is able to truly contact one's senses and touch real feelings.

Gautama Buddha

Gautama Buddha

Gautama Buddha or Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha ( Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent , on whose teachings Buddhism was founded.
The word Buddha is a title for the first awakened being in an era. In most Buddhist traditions, Siddhartha Gautama is regarded as the Supreme Buddha (P. sammāsambuddha, S. samyaksaṃbuddha) of our age, "Buddha" meaning "awakened one" or "the enlightened one." Gautama Buddha may also be referred to as Śākyamuni. Gautama taught a Middle Way compared to the severe asceticism found in the Sramana (renunciation) movement  common in his region. He later taught throughout regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kośala.
The time of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain: most early-20th-century historians dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE, but more recent opinion dates his death to between 486 and 483 BCE or, according to some, between 411 and 400 BCE.
Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism, and accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition, and first committed to writing about 400 years later.

Flower of life Mandala

Flower of life Mandala

Watercolors on paper

  

God's poet is silence!  His song is unspoken
And yet so profound, and so loud, and so far,
That it thrills you and fills you in measures unbroken—
The unceasing song of the first morning star....
~Joaquin Miller

 

Blue dream Mandala

Blue dream Mandala

Acrylic on paper

Mandala

Mandala

Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning "circle." In the Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point. Each gate is in the shape of a T. Mandalas often exhibit radial balance.
TheThese se mandalas, concentric diagrams, have spiritual and ritual significance in both Buddhism and Hinduism. The . The term is of term is of Hindu origin and appears in the Rig Veda as the name of the sections of the work, but is also used in other Indian religions, particularly Buddhism. In the Tibetan branch of Vajrayana Buddhism, mandalas have been developed into sandpainting. They are also a key part of anuttarayoga tantra meditation practices.
In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of aspirants and adepts, as a spiritual teaching tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation and trance induction. According to the psychologist David Fontana, its symbolic nature can help one "to access progressively deeper levels of the unconscious, ultimately assisting the meditator to experience a mystical sense of oneness with the ultimate unity from which the cosmos in all its manifold forms arises." The psychoanalyst Carl Jung saw the mandala as "a representation of the unconscious self," and believed his paintings of mandalas enabled him to identify emotional disorders and work towards wholeness in personality.
In common use, mandala has become a generic term for any plan, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically, a microcosm of the universe from the human perspective.

Mandala 

Second Chakra Mandala

Second Chakra Mandala

Acrylic on paper



Swadhisthana, Svadisthana or Adhishthana is symbolised by a white lotus within which is a crescent moon, with six vermillion, or orange petals. The seed mantra is Vam, and the presiding deity is Brahma, with the Shakti being Rakini (or Chakini). The animal associated is the crocodile of Varuna.

The Sacral Chakra is located in the sacrum (hence the name) and is considered to correspond to the testes or the ovaries that produce the various sex hormones involved in the reproductive cycle. Swadisthana is also considered to be related to, more generally, the genitourinary system and the adrenals. The key issues involving Swadisthana are relationships, violence, addictions, basic emotional needs, and pleasure. Physically, Swadisthana governs reproduction, mentally it governs creativity, emotionally it governs joy, and spiritually it governs enthusiasm.

Mantrayana and Vajrayana

Mantrayana and Vajrayana

Although the Vajrayana claims to be as ancient and authentic as any other Buddhist school, it may have grown up gradually such as the mahasannipata and the ratnaketudharani. The . The basic positionbasic position of Vajrayana is still the same as the early Buddhist position of not-self: there is nothing which is eternal. The re is nothing which is eternal. The changes that took place reflectedchanges that took place reflected the changing society of medieval India: the presentation changed, the techniques of the way to enlightenment changed, and the outward appearance of Buddhism came to be dominated by ritualism, and the array of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and gods and goddesses.
There are differing views as to where in the Indian sub-continent that Vajrayana began. There are assumptions about the origin of Vajrayana in Bengal, Uddiyana, located at Orissa, or in the modern day Swat Valley in Pakistan.
 Nalanda University in eastern India became a center for the development of Vajrayana theory, although it is likely that the university followed, rather than led, the early Tantric movement.
Only from the 7th or the beginning of the 8th century, tantric techniques and approaches increasingly dominated Buddhist practice in India. From the 7th century onwards many popular religious elements of a heterogeneous nature were incorporated into Mahayana Buddhism, which finally resulted in the appearance of Vajrayana, Kalachakrayana, and Sahajayana Tantric Buddhism. These new Tantric cults of Buddhism introduced Mantra, Mudra and Mandala, along with six tantric Abhicharas (practices) such as Marana (Death), Stambhana, Sammohana, Vidvesan, Uchchatana and Vajikarana. These cults revived primitive beliefs and practices, a simpler and less formal approach to the personal god, a liberal and respectful attitude towards women, and denial of the caste system.
India would continue as the source of leading-edge Vajrayana practices up until the 11th century, producing many renowned Mahasiddha.
(Vajrayana) Buddhism had mostly died out in India by the 13th century, and tantric versions of Buddhism and Hinduism were also experiencing pressure from invading Islamic armies. By that time, the vast majority of the practices were also manifest in Tibet, where they were preserved until recently.
In the second half of the 20th century a sizable number of Tibetan exiles fled the oppressive, anti-religious rule of the Communist Chinese to establish Tibetan Buddhist communities in northern India, particularly around Dharamsala.

First Chakra Mandala

First Chakra Mandala

Acrylic on paper 

 
Muladhara or root chakra is symbolised by a lotus with four petals and the color red. This center is located at the base of the spine in thecoccygeal region. It is said to relate to the gonads and the adrenal medulla, responsible for the fight-or-flight response when survival is under threat.

Muladhara is related to instinct, security, survival and also to basic human potentiality. Physically, Muladhara governs sexuality, mentally it governs stability, emotionally it governs sensuality, and spiritually it governs a sense of security. Muladhara has a relation to the sense of smell.

This chakra is where the three main nadis separate and begin their upward movement. Dormant Kundalini rests here, wrapped three and a half times around the black Svayambhu linga, the lowest of three obstructions to her full rising (also known as knots or granthis). It is the seat of the red bindu, the female drop (which in Tibetan vajrayana is located at the navel chakra).

The seed syllable is Lam (pronounced lum), the deity is Ganesh, and the Shakti is Dakini. The associated animal is the elephant.

Tibetan Buddhism

Tibetan Buddhism

Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan, and India (particularly in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Dharamsala, Lahaul and Spiti in Himachal Pradesh, and Sikkim). It is the state religion of Bhutan. It is also practiced in Mongolia and parts of Russia (Kalmykia, Buryatia, and Tuva) and Northeast China. Texts recognized as scripture and commentary are contained in the Tibetan Buddhist canon, such that Tibetan is a spiritual language of these areas.
A Tibetan diaspora has spread Tibetan Buddhism to many Western countries, where the tradition has gained popularity. Among its prominent exponents is the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. The number of its adherents is estimated to be between ten and twenty million.
Tibetan Buddhism comprises the teachings of the three vehicles of Buddhism: the Foundational Vehicle, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna. The Mahāyāna goal of spiritual development is to achieve the enlightenment of Buddhahood in order to most efficiently help all other sentient beings attain this state. The motivation in it is the bodhicitta mind of enlightenment — an altruistic intention to become enlightened for the sake of all sentient beings. Bodhisattvas are revered beings who have conceived the will and vow to dedicate their lives with bodhicitta for the sake of all beings. Tibetan Buddhism teaches methods for achieving Buddhahood more quickly by including the Vajrayāna path in Mahāyāna.
Buddhahood is defined as a state free of the obstructions to liberation as well as those to omniscience. When, in Buddhahood, one is freed from all mental obscurations, one is said to attain a state of continuous bliss mixed with a simultaneous cognition of emptiness, the true nature of reality. In this state, all limitations on one's ability to help other living beings are removed.
It is said that there are countless beings who have attained Buddhahood. Buddhas spontaneously, naturally and continuously perform activities to benefit all sentient beings. However it is believed that one's karma could limit the ability of the Buddhas to help them. Thus, although Buddhas possess no limitation from their side on their ability to help others, sentient beings continue to experience suffering as a result of the limitations of their own former negative actions.