Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Can wrath be enlightened?
zenguitar
Bad BuddhistNew England Veteran
Greetings again, esteemed Sangha. I am just full of questions these days. I have a query for the Vajrayana folks who may know a thing or two about wrathful deities. I understand the idea of a placid deity (I think), but I find the concept of wrathful deities both fascinating and puzzling. How can a being be both wrathful and enlightened at the same time? And why do they look so startling, with their skull cups, flayed skins, toothy grins, etc.? (The sister of a friend of mine practically ran away from a display of their statues in a museum; she was a devout Christian.) Any insight you might provide into this intriguing subject will be most appreciated.
0
Comments
I once had this aroma lamp in my shrine along with a painting I did. It was like the dharma was getting mixed up with my aroma therapy you could say but I didn't think of it that way. The rooster painting I crafted while thinking of my Lama and my aunt and mother because they were away.
Once when meditating I had a surge of clarity that I had outgrown the two pieces on my shrine and I had a vision of destroying the aroma lamp in the wastebasket of course not while it was lit.
I replaced the pieces with a plate and votive candles and a Buddha figurine instead of the painting. Literally I had outgrown those elements of my shrine. In vajrayana the shrine can be very important. Some people in my sangha even say that things move in thier shrine! (I don't currently believe that) There is a whole book I have from my sangha about meanings of what you can place in the shrine. It can be very powerful.
But the clarity of my response in my meditation envisioning destroying the painting and lamp were totally clear and my mind felt buoyant. Actually I didn't destroy them I just put my painting away with the others and sort of let go of attaching meaning to it. The aroma lamp I still have but not in my shrine.
So I think a wrathful deity can destroy things that are obstacles to Buddhists. Simple as that. Osho said in one of his teachings to just let old things die and be reborn. You change in your life. I would say it is perilous to yourself act as a wrathful being because you presumably are consumed by the taint of ego clinging.
You're not alone.
A wrathful diety, or wrathful aspect of a Bodhisattva or Buddha, forcefully cut at the root of ignorance or protect the container of practice or lineage and so on. It kinda varies.
Wrathful deity practices tend to be reserved for certain occaisions and at times for select practitioners.
I don't really connect with wrathful diety, so my knowledge is scant at best.
That gets really complicated, but if your really interested in Tibetan iconography, there are several books that go into this in depth. I'd recommend Robert Beer's "The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs". I find it kinda facinating. Really appeals to my anthropology training. One of my favorite books. Very complete.
I once had the privilege of speaking to a Lama in France. He was giving a talk on bardos and explaining their significance, and the room in which he held his audience, was decorated with posters and images of Buddhas, Bhodisattvas and Wrathful Deities.
After the talk had finished, someone asked him a similar question, and he explained that a Wrathful Deity is an image representing a two-edged sword:
On one hand, it is something akin to 'tough love'. A kick in the ass but with Compassion.
On the other hand, life is not always kind, so sometimes we have to face such suffering with a bit of Dhammic force, a bit of considered stubbornness, a bit of "Right Defiance".
The Wrathful Deities denote both a 'slap up de head' TO us, and an attitude it may be necessary for us to adopt, in some given situations.
I luvs them demonic dhammic forces, farces, feces and faces.
Quite natural to our biology is being attracted to that which is attractive, benevolent and smiling.
I would suggest that most of us put in a temple or using imagery with unpleasant associations could be overwhelmed or unhinged. It is why in vajrayana, the benevolent is open and the 'malevolent' or potentially faster or more powerful is legislated. The two edged sword that @federica mentions, can cut through our delusions or slice us up all the way to the funny farm.
It is why vajrayana is dangerous to those uninitiated, ignorant or prone to unbalance. Stability can quickly be lost . . .
:rarr: . or would you prefer :wave: .
Thanks, everyone. @federica, that's good, "a kick in the ass but with Compassion."
@zenguitar
you should go meet an authentic vajra guru. wrath is the sharpness of prajna. anger in its pure form is a clear cut sword.
to meet someone so fierce. someone who only cares for your liberation. such a being may seem very threatening. and yet something is so compelling about them. they are impossible to pin down. they aren't your father, mother, friend, human, this or that. all your expectations, hopes, fears, desires just meet the fire of such a being. and just by being near such a being you melt down, your edges get sanded down, and then you recognize your inherent brightness that shines prior to and as the display of what we call this or that.
such fierce chaos if ever met is true auspiciousness.
much love.
When I first met Trungpa Rinpoche I looked him in the eye and realised with a sense of awe that he was absolutely, completely, free of fear...it was like looking into a bottomless well.
He cared about nothing other than his students liberation.
Some people have angry face , but they have good heart. While others have smiley face, but not so good heart. Personality is apparent, but character is not.
During my holiday in Italy, I read Chögyam Trungpa's "The Truth of Suffering and the Path of Liberation," his analysis of the 4NT and the N8P.
There is so much energy and freedom about his writing, I am extremely happy those of us who did not have the fortune to meet him can still benefit from his teaching through the written word.
These craggy characters with a chiaroscuro edge seem to convey the truth much more clearly than other goody-two-shoes teachers.
We can shine the light of compassion on wrath, yes. Is this not what Buddha did with Mara?
If Mara was to awaken, it would be none other than Buddha. This has a way of confounding me however because I believe that deities only exist in the mind that has called them.
It's confounding because thinking that, I still call some of them every now and then.
Thanks again everyone, this is enlightening.
Cool - so Mara awakens to find that buddha is real and buddha awakens to find Mara is an illusion... Just trying to get my head around that one!
I thought Mara is no other than reflection of ones own mind.
So Mara is the illusion of awakened mind? That's a cool thought too!
I think of Mara as that which steals spiritual victories and just increases ego.
That's an original take on Mara, @Jeffrey.
That's how I see it too but I guess in a sense everything is...
In naming we make Mara our prisoner though it feels it's the other way around. By freeing our mind, we free all the deities we have conceptualized and they have no more sway over us.
That's just my own opinion though.
I think Buddha wasn't enlightened when Mara came in his mind. He defeated Mara with his wisdom. After that he achieved enlightenment. Mara was his last little left over mental imprint. This is my understanding.
Pretty much but he still paid homage to deities that exist in the minds of his brethren.
Buddha often detected Mara lurking and slinking at the perimeter after he became enlightened. He named him a la Rumplestiltskin and though the suttas get hazy for me here, taught his monks to 'invite Mara in'.