Thursday, August 30, 2012

More Regarding Drukpa Kunley

Note: After actually reading some of the more exotic esoteric Tantric sections of English Translations of Drukpa Kunley's poems and songs I realized this really isn't for children. Even High Schoolers should be careful in reading this because to make full sense of this it is important to note you are dealing with a completely different culture than this one you presently are living in if you are in the U.S., Canada, or Europe and reading this. It only can make perfect sense if you understand the context in which it is given. For example, in the U.S. we are one of the most Prudish Countries on earth because of our Puritanical ancestors who were some of the first cultures to come here from Europe to survive and not die out completely. So, it is important to view it in historical cultural context to make sense of it at all. I would say this kind of thinking is very real and rough and even very Zen like in the "Carry Water Chop Wood" kind of thinking. And likely it will be more usefully understood by men and women who have already traveled all over the world and physically and psychologically already survived their journeys.

begin quote from:

Keith Dowman / The Divine Madman


The Tantric Buddhist Master Drukpa Kunley is one of Tibet's foremost saints and yogis and the patron saint of Bhutan. He belongs to the Drukpa (Dragon) school of Tibetan Buddhism established by Tilopa, Naropa, Marpa and Milarepa.

end quote:

When I first heard of Drukpa Kunley it was from Thubten, in Dharamshala, India while I was there with my family in January 1986. The stories he told me were so very funny that I laughed until I cried and then sometimes I fell upon the floor laughing. Thubten, who was then a mountain climbing guide and 30 to 35 years of age was close enough to my age to become buddies with me because I was then 37 years old. He married a lady from Minnesota named Tara and returned there with her about the same time I returned to the U.S. with my family in April 1986. At the time I thought the stories were all fictitious and told to bring people into the dharma (Tibetan Buddhism). The Zen of laughter is an enlightenment tool throughout Buddhist cultures I find. Done in the proper way laughter breaks the mind so enlightenment can enter. And Thubten  was a monk until his parents became old and had to give up his robes to become a mountain climbing guide to support them until they died was a master of Buddhist Laughter. So, in some ways he helped enlighten me through these joke stories about Drukpa Kunley. 15 or more years went by before I discovered to my amazement that Drukpa Kunley was actually a real person. 

But also in January 1986 Thubten arranged for my family to visit Ling Rinpoche above Dharamshala in the Himalayas in India who ran Tibet for the Dalai Lama until the Dalai Lama came of age. Ling Rinpoche is the senior Teacher of the Dalai Lama and Tri jang Rinpoche is the junior teacher of the Dalai Lama. I also met Tri Jang Rinpoche who was then 4 years old because he had recently reincarnated. So, Thubten led us several miles on foot trails above upper Dharamshala to the stone house with a locally gathered slate roof. Inside was His Holiness Ling Rinpoche sitting in the Maitreya Mudra on a table unmoving. The radiation (dharma darshan aura) of the room brought tears to my eyes because my own father had passed away about 6 months before. I was completely unprepared for this outcome. Here was a man, obviously a master who had sat like this for one year already and who was not planning to come back but whose body was not decomposing and who was sending his heaven realms back through his body from the heaven realms he had obviously reached. I had to go outside and cry for about 20 minutes to 1/2 hour as the deep deep meaning here encompased my whole being and life. This man was not dead and yet he was not alive and moving around either and he was not decomposing either. This was an impossible thing for western medicine to cope with. And yet, here it was, a Tibetan Miracle by a Tibetan Buddhist master who once ruled Tibet. Here it was for me to witness by some miracle and now to share it with you as well.

I seem to have an affinity for the Drukpa or Dragon School of Tibetan Buddhism practiced by Tilopa, Naropa, Marpa and Milarepa. I also remember being a student of Milarepa who I experienced also being Saint Francis of Asisi. So, I have memories of studying with both masters in those centuries in different lifetimes. 

Interestingly enough the Dragon School also manifests in the future to create Arcane on New Deva about 1,000,000 years into the future and then after he saves the planets New Deva and Isfahel he returns to Earth in 1987 and is here now and on into the future as a Galactic Time Guard anthropologist studying earth's cultures and how the Galaxy can benefit from all we learn here as beings. Of course whether you believe any or all of what I'm saying is optional to you according to your needs and beliefs as is only polite according to the ways I have been taught.

One of the best things about spiritual politeness and spiritual ethics is that once you have them in place there is no necessity for life to limit anything that comes through you because life has learned to trust you implicitly. So, this is something useful for everyone to attain that wishes to for the betterment of themselves and of all life in the universe. It is in the enlightened self interest of every being in the universe to become compassionate and enlightened as soon as possible.

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