Inspecting Budda Relics Dream – 22-01-2026

January 22, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is last night’s dream which finished around 3 AM but which was subsequently revisited on going back to sleep.

The dream starts in a brightly lit room. There is a sense of subterranean of basement and of vault. The overhead light is bright like a fluorescent light but there is no hum. I am sat at a very large lab-bench like table but which is large boardroom size. I am on the only chair in the room. The table is a work table for inspection of artefacts. It feels forensic and museum like. The air is treated for humidity and is slightly warm but dry.

The door opens and in walks a man and woman. They are younger than me and wearing a dark olive green curators uniform with trousers and short sleeve shirts. The uniforms have been immaculately pressed. They are both wearing white jeweller’s gloves. The woman has curly blonde hair held back in a clip and the man is dark haired. The man places an object in front of me. I know this to be a reliquary containing pieces of Buddha’s body or so the narrative goes. The box is the size of a tissue box. It is on four curved ornate legs which have an animal {query lion} foot finish. The whole thing is made out of an exquisite light yellow gold carved in a motif of India query Sri Lanka. The pattern is exquisite, fine. The box is surprisingly light. I know that it has a mechanism whereby the lid can be rotated to reveal two compartments. One of these is smaller than the other. Without opening the box I know that the compartments have a red “felt” lining. I inspect the box from the outside. The workmanship is impressive. The woman looks at me for permission and then picks the box up and together they leave the room.

They return. This time the woman is carrying a small cloth bundle. It is square shaped with a depth of a couple of inches. The cloth is folded over and over to make a parcel. She handles it with reverence. The cloths are heavy and exquisitely woven with a fine shiny silken thread running through it. There are layers of a purple-ish base fabric cloth and a rich red-magenta cloth. The cloth is luxury. She places the bundle in font of me on the table. I know that it is Tibetan-Himalayan in origin and that it too contains a relic of the Buddha. I pick the bundle up and inspect it from all sides, paying particular attention to the bottom. I am holding it in both hands just above my head inspecting.

{This relic is “privately” owned and on loan.}

As I do this I see a “wall” to a room or cave. The wall is made of a grey sandy granular sedimentary rock. In my mind’s eye I touch the rock and it starts to crumble and flow away leaving a couple of small pillars about 20 cm tall. There is an opening in the wall about 40 cm wide and 20 cm tall with pillars of a few centimetres thickness and a void or opening behind. There is a sense of a store or a cache behind the wall. In the dream I know that in this space are other relics pertaining to Buddha and his corporeal. I can see that the cache extends to both the left and the right of the opening in the wall.

I return from the vision and place the unwrapped bundle back on the table. The man signals to me and I nod. He picks the bundle up and they leave the room.

They return and this time the man is carrying a clear plastic sample storage drawer. It is around 10 by 10 cm on the front face and has a depth of about 30 cm. There is a catalogue card with number and content written in German. There is an acquisition date and I understand it to be a museum piece kept under preserving conditions and attributed as a Buddha relic considered by some a part of Buddha. They place it on the table in front of me and nestled on a bed of tissue paper and with a moisture absorbing paper silica sack is a small bundle of jet black felt cloth held together with a thin golden drawstring. It is a small bundle.

The man and the woman, the curators, stand back behind me one on either side of me and against the wall.

The dream ends.

Mandala – Kālacakra and Tarot

January 20, 2026January 20, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Mandala can be thought of as models or re-presentations of a reality. They are a way of arranging and making partial sense of observed phenomenon. They can be a short-form to a much wider corpus of thought forms and images. Having been a scientist I have used models to convey scientific knowledge to students. I have often wondered if the traditional setting of image collections of mandala is culture specific.

If one was bilingual one might see more commonality than difference.

The Kālacakra mandala is famous in Tibetan buddhism.

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The kabbalists have the tree of life-

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And the Jewels of Awareness or Tarot can be arranged according to a compass of N E S W.

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These have a very mandala-like flavour.

The Not Invented Here Syndrome

January 16, 2026January 16, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I’ll kick this off with a statement

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People are evangelical about the comprehensive nature of their self-diagnosed omniscience.

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They are convinced that they know best and seek to promote and otherwise sell their approach(es). After all education is a business and bums on seats keep the pennies flowing into coffers. Religion too is a business and the treasuries must be kept full. Politics too is a business. In all of these cash flow is important. Self-marketing is important for livelihood. One must strive for supremacy and market domination.

I have encountered and been repulsed by the not invented here syndrome many times which can be paraphrased,

“We know best, fuck off with your strange and foreign ideas!! We love Status Quo.”

I once met a young man who tried to persuade me that Vajrayana practice was very difficult, like scaling a cliff. It was very hard but promised high gain yet the risks of falling and getting very badly hurt were high. He was showing off a little. I thought to myself, “try the warrior’s path sunshine and that might change your attitude…”

It is all a bit cock wavy. “My path is harder and more macho than yours!”

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If you read and consider deeply the aphorism from the rule of the three pronged nagal above you can see that it is not facile or shallow. This insight comes from direct experiential contact with The VOID. It is a part of the inner subjective teachings of the Toltec schema. Perhaps akin by extrapolation to inner Kalachakra.

I have joked that I am a quantum yogi, in a geek-yogi superposition state. As such I am suspected by scientists and suspected by yogis because I not one thing or the other. I am not pure. Like the driven snow I am tainted by other thought forms. Yuk!!

I probably am quite well placed to do a balanced compare and contrast for many different ways of thinking.

Sometimes one needs more than verbatim translation to carry across meaning. People can argue when in fact they are in agreement.

They are just not willing to listen with an open mind and a willingness to find common ground…

The call of the soap box can be irresistible…

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Cockney have name like Treey, Arthur and Del-boy
We have name like Winston, Lloyd and Leroy
We bawl out YOW! While cockneys say OI!
What cockney call a Jack’s we call a Blue Bwoy
Say cockney have mates while we have spar
Cockney live in a drum while we live in a yard
Say we nyam while cockney get capture
Cockney say guv’nor. We say Big Bout ya
In a de Cockney Translation!
In a de Cockney Translation!

Smiley Culture

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Some Texts Attributed to Karma Lingpa

January 15, 2026January 15, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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Excerpted from Bardo Thödol

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“As elsewhere noted, our manuscript is arranged as one work in two parts or books, with thirteen folios of texts of Bardo prayers as an appendix at the end. The Block—Print is arranged as two distinct books and lacks the appendix of prayers. But at the end of the first book of the Block—Print there comes a very important account of the origin of the Bardo Thödol, which is not contained in our manuscript, and this is given in translation in the following Section.

XIV. THE ORIGIN OF THE BARDO THÖDOL

Thus, from the Block—Print, and also from other Tibetan sources, we learn that the Bardo Thödol text originated, or, what is perhaps more correct, was first committed to writing in the time of Padma Sambhava, in the eighth century A. D.; was subsequently hidden away, and then, when the time came for it to be given to the world, was brought to light by Rigzin Karma Ling—pa. The Block—Print account is as follows:

‘This has been brought from the Hill of Gampodar (Tib. Gatnpo—dar), on the bank of the Serdan (Tib. Gser—ldan, meaning ‘Possessing Gold’ or ‘Golden’) River, by Rigzin Karma Ling—pa (Tib. Rigs—hdzin Kar—ma Gling—pa).

Rigzin, as herein given, is a personal title, and Karma Ling—pa the name of a place in Tibet meaning ‘Karma Land’. The translator has pointed out that Rigs is an erroneous spelling of Rig; for, if Rigs were correct, the name Rigzin would mean (Rigs + hZin). That Rig is intended—thus making the name mean Knowledge—Holder (Rig+ hdzin), a caste or class designation—was confirmed by a small section of a Bardo Thödol manuscript in the possession of the translator, in which Rigzin Karma Ling—pa is otherwise called Tertön (Tib. Gter—bston) , or ‘Taker—Out of Treasures’. The Bardo Thödol is, therefore, one of the Tibetan Lost Books recovered by Rigzin of Karma Ling—pa, who is held to be an emanation or incarnation of Padma Sambhava, the Founder of Lāmaism.

It was in the eighth century A. D. that Lāmaism, which we may define as Tantric Buddhism, took firm root in Tibet. A century earlier, under the first king to rule over a united Tibet, King Srong—Tsan—Gampo (who died in A.D. 650), Buddhism itself entered Tibet from two sources: from Nepal, the land of the Buddha’s ancestors, through the Tibetan King’s marriage with a daughter of the royal family of Nepal; and from China, through his marriage—in the year 641— with a princess of the Chinese Imperial Family. The King had been nurtured in the old Bön faith of Tibet, which, with its primitive doctrine of rebirth, was quite capable of serving as an approach to Buddhism ; and under the influence of his two Buddhist wives he accepted Buddhism, making it the state religion; but it made little headway in Tibet until a century later, when his powerful successor, ThI—Srong—Detsan, held the throne from A.D. 740 to 786. It was Thl—Srong—Detsan who invited Padma Sambhava (Tib. Pednia Jungue, i.e.’ The Lotus—Born’), better known to the Tibetans as Guru Rin—po—che, ‘The Precious Guru ’ to come to Tibet. The famous Guru was at that time a Professor of Yoga in the great Buddhist University of Nālanda, India, and far—famed for expert knowledge of the Occult Sciences. He was a native of Udyāna or Swat, in what is now a part of Afghanistan.

The Great Guru saw the wonderful opportunity which the King’s invitation offered, and promptly accepted the call, passing through Nepal and arriving at Saniye (Sam—yas) Tibet, in the year 747. It was to Samye that the King had invited him, in order to have exorcized the demons of the locality; for as soon as the walls of a monastery which the King was having erected there were raised they were overthrown by local earthquakes, which the demons opposing Buddhism were believed to have caused. When the Great Guru had driven out the demons, all the local earthquakes ceased, much to the wonder of the people; and he himself supervised the completion of the royal monastery, and established therein the first community of Tibetan Buddhist lāmas, in the year .749.

During his sojourn in Tibet at that time, and during subsequent visits, Padma Sambhava had many Tantric books translated into Tibetan out of Indian Sanskrit originals— some of which have been preserved in the monasteries of Tibet—and hidden away with appropriate mystic ceremonies in various secret places. He also endowed certain of his disciples with the yogic power of reincarnating at the proper time, as determined by astrology, in order to take them out, along with the treasures hidden away with them and the requisites needed for properly performing the rites described in the texts. This is the generally accepted tradition; but according to another tradition the Tertons are to be regarded as various incarnations of the Great Guru. According to a rough estimate, the religious texts already taken out by such Tertons, from century to century, would form an encyclopaedia of about sixty—five volumes of block—prints, each, on an average, consisting of about four hundred ordinary—sized folios

Our text, the Bardo Thödol being one of these recovered apocryphal books, should, therefore, be regarded as having been compiled (for the internal evidence suggests that it was a Tibetan compilation rather than a direct translation from some unknown Sanskrit original) during the first centuries of Lāmaism, either—as it purports to have been—in the time of Padma Sambhava or soon afterwards. Its present general use all over Tibet as a funeral ritual and its acceptance by the different sects, in varying versions, could not have been the outcome of a few generations; it testifies rather convincingly to its antiquity, bears out the pre—Buddhistic and at least partially Bön origin which we attribute to it, and suggests some validity in the claims made for the Tertöns.

We are well aware of the adverse criticisms passed by European critics on the Tertön tradition. There is not lacking, nevertheless, sound reason for suspecting that the European critics are not altogether right. Therefore, it seems to us that the only sound attitude to assume towards the problem is to keep an open mind until sufficient data accumulate to pronounce judgement. Though the Tertön claim be proven false, the fact that the Bardo Thödol is now accepted as a sacred book in Tibet and has for some considerable time been used by the lāmas for reading over the dead would, of course, not be affected; only the theory concerning the textual compilation of what, in its essentials, is apparently a prehistoric ritual would be subject to revision.

As for Padma Sambhava’s own sources, apart from such congenial traditional teachings as no doubt he incorporated in some of his Tibetan treatises, we are told, by oral tradition now current among the lāmas, that he had eight gurus in India, each representing one of the eight chief Tantric doctrines.

In a Tibetan block—print, which belonged to the translator, purporting to record the history, but much mixed with myth, of the Great Guru entitled Orgyan—Padmas—mzad—paJti—bkah—thang—bsdüd—pa (pronounced Ugyan Padtnay—zad—pai—ba—thang—du—pa) , meaning’ The Abridged Testament made by Ugyan Padma’ (or ‘by the Lotus-Born Ugyan’—Padma Sambhava), consisting of but seventeen folios, there is recorded on the twelfth folio, sixteenth section, the following passage, confirming the historical tradition touching the origin of the Bardo Thödol text:

Behold! the Sixteenth Section, showing the Eight Ling—pas, the Leaders of Religion, is thus:

‘The Eight Incarnations of the Great Bodhisattvas are:

Ugyan—ling—pa, in the centre;

Dorje—ling—pa, in the east;

Rinchen—ling—pa, in the south;

Padma—ling—pa, in the west;

Karma—ling—pa, in the north;

Samten—ling—pa

And Nyinda—ling,

And Shig—po—ling (or Terdag—ling).

These Eight Great Tertöns shall come; ‘Mine own incarnations alone are they.’

Padma Sambhava himself is herein represented as declaring that the Tertöns , or “Takers—out’” of the hidden books, are to be his own incarnations. According to this account, the Tertön of our own book, the Bardo Thödol , is the fifth, named after the place called Karma Land, thus confirming the Block—Print of the Bardo Th’ódol* and Karma Land is in the northern quarter of Tibet. We have been unable to ascertain the exact time in which this Tertön lived, although he is a popular figure in the traditional history of Tibet. The name Rigzin, given to him in the Block Print first above quoted, meaning ‘Knowledge—Holder’, refers to his character as a religious devotee or lāma; Karma ling—pa, as given in both accounts, refers also to an ancient Tibetan monastery of primitive Lāmaism in the Kams Province, northern Tibet.

According to our view, the best attitude to take touching the uncertain history and origin of the Bardo Thödol is that of a critical truth—seeker who recognizes the anthropological significance of the passing of time, and of the almost inevitable reshaping of ancient teachings handed down at first orally and then, after having crystallized, being recorded in writing. As in the case of the Egyptian Bardo Thödol, popularly known as ‘The Egyptian Book of the Dead’, so in ‘The Tibetan Book of the Dead’, there is, no doubt, the record of the belief of innumerable generations in a state of existence after death. No one scribe could have been its author and no one generation its creator; its history as a book, if completely known, could only be the history of its compilation and recording; and the question, Whether this compilation and recording were done within comparatively recent times, or in the time of Padma Sambhava or earlier? could not fundamentally affect the ancient teachings upon which it is based.

Although it is remarkably scientific in its essentials, there is no need to consider it as being accurate in all its details; for, undoubtedly, considerable corruption has crept into the text. In its broad outlines, however, it seems to convey a sublime truth, heretofore veiled to many students of religion, a philosophy as subtle as that of Plato, and a psychical science far in advance of that, still in its infancy, which forms the study of the Society for Psychical Research. And, as such, it deserves the serious attention of the Western World, now awakening to a New Age, freed, in large measure, from the incrustations of medievalism, and eager to garner wisdom from all the Sacred Books of mankind, be they of one Faith or of another.”

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From Lotsawa House web Site

Source: https://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/karma-lingpa/benefits-vajra-guru-mantra

The Benefits of the Vajra Guru Mantra

And an Explanation of Its Syllables

A Treasure Text Revealed by Tulku Karma Lingpa

I prostrate to the Guru, the Yidam and the Ḍākinī.

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“At best, practitioners will attain the rainbow body; failing that, at the time of death, mother and child luminosities will meet; and at the very least, they will see me in the bardo and all their perceptions having been liberated into their essential nature, they will be reborn in Ngayab Ling and accomplish immeasurable benefit for sentient beings.”

Thus she spoke.

“Great Master, thank you for telling us about such infinite benefits and powers. You have been immensely kind. Although the explanation of the benefits and powers of the syllables of Guru Padma’s mantra is unfathomable, for the sake of sentient beings in the future, I humbly ask you to give us a brief description,” she asked.

Then the Great Master spoke thus:

“O, Noble Daughter, the Vajra Guru mantra is not only my essential mantra, it is the life-essence of the deities of the four classes of tantra, the nine vehicles, the 84,000 aspects of the Dharma, and so on. The heart essence of all the Buddhas of the three times, the lamas, deities, ḍākinīs, Dharma protectors, and the like is encompassed by this mantra. The reason for this is as follows. Listen well and hold this in your heart. Recite the mantra. Write it. Tell it to sentient beings in the future.