Leaving the Palace and Miscellaneous

Nirmāṇakāya (Chinese: 應身; pinyin: yīngshēn; Tibetan: སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་, tulku, Wylie: sprul sku) is the third aspect of the trikāya and the physical manifestation of a Buddha in time and space.

Nearly ten years ago I tried to explain to the anaesthetist that because of the very large amount of meditation I had done there might be some anomalies in how I responded to medication – anaesthetic. They completely ignored me and did not take me in any way seriously. A few days subsequent to the operation I had strong recall of being above the operating table watching the “vultures” around my corpse operating. On going into theatre, I was chatting about the clean room conditions of the operating theatre. The same night after ~ six hours of surgery to remove a colon cancer, I stood on my own two feet. Which freaked out the nurse in recovery.

I am pretty sure that something weird transpired during the operation and that it was not spoken about.

There is no way that a modern medical professional would countenance the notion of a nirmāṇakāya or janmanirmāṇakāya; སྐྱེ་བ་སྤྲུལ་སྐུ, skye ba sprul sku. Nor that they might be biologically different to a regular human being.

If one takes the dreaming “evidence” in this blog, then there is a hint of non-standard reincarnations plural stemming back lifetimes. It could be a Soul reincarnating or it could simply be some kind of emanation. In the latter case the emanation body or nirmāṇakāya may not clothe itself in meat in a standard way. I have not read of any different approach to the medical treatment of Tibetan tulkus. But there is a vast amount of stuff which is kept away from prying eyes. My guess is that Tibetan Vajrayana etc. is like an iceberg, with only a tiny bit showing.

The body may be similar but the “mind” very different. Tulkus may be very different to normal people though looking the same. The manifestation, the emanation, need not be that of a full buddha.

On the horizon for me are up to three more major surgeries. In 2019 they put my titanium pin into the left femoral neck/head whist under the influence of a spinal injection and some other drugs. I can remember the bone shaking pneumatic drill. They would not let me watch even though I asked. It was enough to induce PTSD…I was conscious if drugged.

It can be said or observed that I left / renounced the Imperial palace, when I walked out of my job as a senior lecturer at Imperial College in London. I was a strict vegan for a long time, close to nine years. I walked out of a relationship with a wife, a home and a very young female child. I renounced my family later. I meditated extensively away from the madding crowd. I learned science sport and martial arts. There are some of the twelve acts attributed to Siddartha.

At a very long stretch one could say I share these, have them in common.

There is a part of me that wonders if the medical approach to me needs to take other factors into consideration. This adds a little reticence to the notion of drastic orthopaedic surgery. Somehow, I need to understand better…

Hmmn..

The Power of a Buddha or Evolved Bodhisattva

The image of Buddha is very widespread and one can get a statue down the garden centre or a poster to put up on the walls of your home. The vibe associated is often calm tranquillity. Never is it in battle with Mara, Māra. In the west Buddha is often seen as wholly benign and passive. Those fond of smoking joints may have a Buddha statuette or have paraphernalia which is Buddha themed. One can get a vegetarian meal called a Buddha Bowl. Back when I was a vegan and visiting Japan I used to eat “Monk’s Meals” there.

Most of the statues have a Buddha who is not emaciated and with Thai style hair, a bit fat. Rarely is he seen as skinny. He is often depicted with a halo as might be perceived by a quasi-clairvoyant. 

It is not as weird as the blonde, blue eyed Aryan representations of Jesus who was probably semitic, Jewish, in appearance. But Buddha is often not quite as brown as he might have been in real life. He lived alfresco and would have tanned up well.

In the West people do not imagine the power, sometimes magical of a Buddha or evolved Bodhisattva. The imaginations do not extend beyond some dude sitting on a mat cross legged meditating.

“Hey man, that is Zen…”

Tibetan Buddhism is perhaps unique in representing wrathful forms of various Bodhisattvas. They do battle with evil. In Vajrayana there is black and white magic. Force sometimes needs met. There is significant power in a Buddha or evolved Bodhisattva. Power beyond normal ken.

The various canons have a list of special powers attained as a Bodhisattva proceeds along their journey to enlightenment. These supra-mundane powers are not to be found in garden centres. Scientists may quibble as to whether they are real manifestations or not.

As a teenager I was fascinated by the TV series Monkey.

“Monkey eats many of the peaches, which have taken millennia to ripen, becomes immortal and runs amok. Having earned the ire of Heaven and being beaten in a challenge by an omniscient, mighty, but benevolent, cloud-dwelling Buddha (釈迦如来, Shakanyorai), Monkey is imprisoned for 500 years under a mountain in order to learn patience.

Eventually, Monkey is released by the monk Tripitaka (三蔵法師, Sanzōhōshi), who has been tasked by the Boddhisatva Guanyin (観世音菩薩, Kanzeon Bosatsu) to undertake a pilgrimage from China to India to fetch holy scriptures (implied to be the region of Gandhāra in the song over the closing credits).”

Which is about the spread of the threefold Tripitaka to China and hence Japan. Evil tries to stop the dharma from being propagated and many adventures ensue. Here Buddhism is proactive and not passive. There is struggle.

The Buddhist canons have many stories of remarkable miracles carried out both by Siddartha and other Bodhisattvas. Padmasambhava considered a Nirmāṇakāya of Shakyamuni Buddha is attributed with magical powers and miracles. Those steeped in the tradition are less likely to scoff than your common or garden Western scientist. Vajrayana differs from East Enders or Coronation Street and markedly so. Exposure and immersion in its depths is likely to blow the minds of anyone lacking openness and fluidity.

Without direct personal experience there is no way to assess what the power of a Buddha or evolved Bodhisattva might be. Common sense suggests caution and not arrogance.

 A Buddha is not just a garden ornament, statuette or poster…

Living Buddha – Life Trajectories

Following the “Tibet” line of inquiry yesterday I looked for various films about finding tulku reincarnations. We have seen, Little Buddha, Kundun about the Dalai Lama and Tulku by Gesar Mukpo. Each of which had tremendous, guttural, impact on me. I found “Living Buddha” by Clemens Kuby about the search for and enthronement of the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa head of the Kagyu lineage inter alia. Here is the trailer.

In this film the 16th leaves clues as to where to find his reincarnation which is supported by a dream of the Dalai Lama. A party is sent to search and after a ~ ten day trek into deepest darkest Eastern Tibet the son of nomadic famer living in fairly primitive conditions embedded deep in nature is located. The lives of that young man and his family are changed forever. The life trajectory of nomadic existence is replaced by a high lama throne, a famous black hat and being thrust onto the stage of global geo-politics.

In principle, the long Karmapa lineage is of quasi-divine reincarnate awakened beings capable of non-human feats such as wide ranging clairvoyance bordering on a mundane omniscience. They return for the benefit of all sentient beings. Padmasambhava, Guru Rinpoche, prophesises that there will be 21 such incarnations. These beings are held in very high esteem in Tibet, among the diaspora and with followers of Tibetan variety Buddhism.

This film is documentary evidence of how a life trajectory can alter radically and suddenly when viewed from the mundane familial life. It also suggests that the intended trajectory did not in fact change, it simply worked out “as planned”. It was just a matter of time.

Over a decade ago I had a number of dreams suggesting that I would meet the 17th one day.

Our current life trajectory is looking like, maybe, a move back to Wales. It includes the purchase of a disabled enabled bungalow in sensible proximity to a major, preferably university, hospital and with a low price tag. I found a bungalow on Right Move yesterday which apart from distance to hospital looked good. Such a place does therefore exist.

Unless something weird is happening whereby this blog is monitored in some way and thereby has a wider audience. What I write here has a very small readership and is a tiny little ripple in a corner of the vast internet. It is therefore unknown and unheard of. Only the wife, the cat(s) and I have experienced its entirety.

Subsequent and during the film last night, I had strong visual images of the 17th and a few of Akong Rinpoche. It is pretty weird and I had not had any weed, nor had a mushroom omelette.

In “Little Buddha” they are searching for the reincarnation of Lama Dorje. One of the crew has a dream of him in jeans standing near to an architect designed house under construction

They, the Buddhists, start to stalk the family and impinge on their lives. The maths teacher mother is greeted by the mathematical astrologer at the school fence.

The higher lama looking for his teacher then tips up in Seattle with entourage and takes the boy back to Bhutan for assessing. Along the way they encounter two more emanations of the reincarnated teacher making three.

Three Vajras – Speech, Body and Mind.

Our house is architect designed.

We are currently waiting for our large pond to be filled with pink lotus flowers and our house is characterised by emptiness.

We have no idea if any Tibetans geezers are having dreams or visions about us/me.

If one day a Tibetan monk seeker / stalker tipped up, our lives could change and radically so. The trajectory, viewed from one angle would be knocked for six.

The odds of this happening are probably better than for a EuroMillions win which would also alter life trajectory, but perhaps not so substantially.

If I had to switch jeans / combat trousers for robes, that could freak people who may have met me, out.

The family joke is I was aiming for Bhutan but saw the flag of Wales with the dragon and reincarnated in Cardiff by accident…

Cymru am byth…

Termas, Tertöns and Toltec Time Capsules

During the evening before I had my dream with a blue manifestation of Padmasambhava in, we watched “University Challenge” and “The Crying Game” on TV neither of which has much to do with Guru Rinpoche who is fundamental to Tibetan Buddhism. Over a decade ago I participated in a Guru Rinpoche empowerment given by Akong Rinpoche Tulku at the Kagyu Samye Dzong London. It looked mightily shamanic to me as I had been engaged in prior shamanic rituals.  Something happened. I do not know what. Yet I have used the tantric generating mantra “blessings of the diamond master born of lotus” in deep voice chanting on and off since then, but not for a long while. I instinctively knew this to be utmost Vajrayana, tantric vehicle and have always treated it with great respect.

{Note: this has nothing to do with trendy tantra sex practice.}

The hagiography of Guru Rinpoche has him as a second Buddha and leaving treasures, teachings as terma, {gter ma – གཏེར་མ } time capsules of hidden treasures, waiting for discovery when the time was right and ripe. These can be texts often written in Dakini script, or mind-forms waiting for a suitably susceptible recipient {Tertön} to download into conscious thought.  It is all a bit “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and I am a little surprised that Hollywood has not yet cottoned on. It would make a good movie and Richard Gere might produce it.

Way back Théun Mares used to bang on a little about Toltec Time Capsules. These are hidden teachings from the hay-day of the Toltecs {Atlantis?}. They are {allegedly} secreted around the globe waiting to be discovered and opened. They can be a bit of a Pandora’s box.

Needless to say, both ideas are prone to a glamour, excitement and a sense of salacious secrecy. Hidden treasure is “sexy” and promises a quick fix, a kind of magic. Like the Philosopher’s Stone promises immortality and the Alchemist changes base metal into gold. Which would be handy right now given the Trump effect on global gold prices.

People are prone to imagine some kind of physical tangible artefact. Terma play an important role in the evolution of Tibetan Dzogchen and Buddhism. They are an integral part of the canon. This may seem odd to a Western mind, but Christianity has it saints and their divine visions, and Islam The Prophet.

Teachings from “on high” are a part of most religions /philosophies. The structure of benzene was revealed in a serpentine dream!

Quite why I am getting a blue Guru Rinpoche, here, in rural Brittany, is unknown and a bit odd. I have not seen Lara Croft or Indiana Jones hanging out at the local bar or market. There are no time travelling Nazis with Schmeissers or Lugers yet….

Fingers crossed it remains that way…

Buddhist Monastery – Dual Airport – Flight Lieutenant – Dream 27-01-2025

This dream from between 2 and 4 AM.

The dream starts in the refectory area of a Buddhist monastery. I am wearing one of my white collarless shirts which is slightly open in the front. My hair is fresh from a recent buzz cut and I am clean shaven. Everyone is sat on the floor on a cushion with a Tali style platter of Indian food in front of them. We all have roti and a small bowl of rice.

The land around the monastery is very mountainous. There is little vegetation and a glacial melt stream / river. There are rocks strewn widely. It is dry.

The monks are wearing largely maroon colour robes and I know them to be of a Tibetan inspired Vajrayana lineage. I am sat in front of the room facing in. The monks are all asking me questions. The atmosphere is cheerful and light.

Sat next to me is a young woman dressed in a lay robe. She has very short black hair and is of an Indian colouring. Her English is impeccable and I know that she is also a Flight Lieutenant in the Indian Air Force. There is a sense of latent royalty or nobility to her. She is very respectful.

The monks keep asking me questions, they do not want me to go.

Eventually I plead my goodbyes and together with the officer head off in an open top jeep to the airport. The airport has a civilian and a military entrance. We go in via the military one, she gets a salute. The airport has a dual purpose.

We pull up next to a Cessna two seater propeller driven plane. I am to fly us out with her as a co-pilot. The night has started to fall and there is an incoming mist. I say to the woman that I am not confident that I could fly out of there. She agrees that I do not have the experience and that it would be dangerous.

She offers to drive me back to the monastery and I accept. I am welcomed and know that because the weather is closing in, I might be here for a few more days. The monks are happy with this.

The dream ends.

As I come to, I am reminded of Leh airport in Ladakh which on a quick Google search is due a second runway to enhance its military capabilities. The civilian airport is called Leh Kushok Bakula Rinpoche Airport. The online images of which are mostly consistent with the dream

Dream Recall as a Metaphor for Past-life Recall.

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Phowa is a tantric practice found in both Hinduism and Buddhism. It may be described as “transference of consciousness at the time of death”, “mind-stream transference”, “the practice of conscious dying”, or “enlightenment without meditation”. In Tibetan Buddhism phowa is one of the Six yogas of Naropa and also appears in many other lineages and systems of teaching.

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Tibetan Vajrayana Bon and Dzogchen inspired Buddhism is highly complex and rooted deep in tradition and lineage. It has an extensive death practice called Phowa in which one transfers consciousness, consciously, at the transition between corporeal and not. Timing is everything. Lamas and priests can enable others with ritual and there are publications like “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”. To an experimentalist like me these could be seen as recipes or syntheses to attempt in my body laboratory. One aspect is to hold a visual of pure white Amitabha Buddha for another being in transition.

A text might stimulate a memory recall of something done before.

It is common parlance to suggest memory from past lives. I’ll speculate that a lot of this is wishful thinking. Anecdotally many claim “famous” named prior incarnations. Ordinary people claim these. I’ll speculate that a non-ordinary or special being will incarnate in an even less ordinary vehicle next time around. There is a bit of dodgy logic with Joe Bloggs claiming Genghis Khan. Evolution is a planetary principle. Most people will have “normal” “humdrum” lives, over and over.

To develop a train of thought.

If the consciousness leaves the body by sudden jolt or force or with the mental incapacity of age it is unlikely to remember the former abode. With jolt comes trauma which might overarch any memory.  To have sufficient control of mind to consciously withdraw requires a considerable degree of realisation and attainment, which is likely to be rare. Such beings able to exit smoothly and under control are more likely to retain memories of previous lives. They are lucid in the act of death, aware of event and conscious therein. They may have practised this across several lifetimes. They practise lucid dying.  So, if they set their intent on remembering a life learning, they do. Just as one learns to remember and recall dreams. Dream recall is a skill which can be developed. Metaphorically life recall may also be a skill which can be honed.

In this train of thought only the more highly skilled and practiced will have any decent recall. It is likely that they may be able to recall many lives. There will be a first time recall of life.

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From Wikipedia

Enumerations of special knowledges

In the Pali Canon, the higher knowledges are often enumerated in a group of six or of three types of knowledge.

The six types of higher knowledges (chalabhiññā) are:

  • “Higher powers” (iddhi-vidhā), such as walking on water and through walls.
  • “Divine ear” (dibba-sota), that is, clairaudience.
  • “Mind-penetrating knowledge” (ceto-pariya-ñāṇa), that is, telepathy.
  • “Remember one’s former abodes” (pubbe-nivāsanussati), causal memory, that is, recalling one’s own past lives.
  • “Divine eye” (dibba-cakkhu), that is, knowing others’ karmic destinations; and,
  • “Extinction of mental intoxicants” (āsavakkhaya), upon which arahantship follows.

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This suggests that past life recall is not a beginner’s skill.

To extend the metaphor just as one learns to remember and recall dreams night after night one starts to recall former abodes. The knowledge from which advises on karmic effort needed. In order to better recall one needs to die lucidly just as one needs to be lucid and aware of the enactment of the dreaming state of consciousness.

Each life is a new dream for the dreamer.

In the logic of reincarnation lucid dream recall is a metaphor for the putative recall of past life memories. It is internally consistent. The degree of lucidity and extent and detail of recall must vary.

If you start to remember your dreams better you might re-member previous lives.

Dreams and Fate

One of the underlying postulates behind my interaction with both my passive nocturnal fully lucid dreams and my interpretation of waking dreaming symbols / omens is that there is such a thing as fate and that dreaming may help one to evolve that fate.

I suspect that this approach is very uncommon amongst those with my scientific training and background in research / higher education. I’ll hazard a guess that I may be perceived as a whacko, a few cards short of a deck and missing a few marbles.

Unlike many who might seek the credibility of scientific experiment and orthodoxy I am unconcerned by this. Several people have called me a mystic. I live a life aside humanity as a married hermit. We don’t get off the compound all that much, only for shopping, medical appointments and the odd walk by the sea or in the countryside. I personally do not think that fMRI will answer questions of Soul. To look for something like that in big ring of magnets with rf probably won’t work.

I know that I can still speak “science”. I was even awarded a quantum optics UK patent fairly recently.

One could comment that I threw it all away. Someone with my privilege should not be living as I do. I might have contributed a whole lot more to UK plc. Maybe I should have done. In the context of fate, maybe it was always my fate to jack it all in. Or maybe I was forced out. Perhaps I was fated to do a series of renunciations in order to learn that what most people cling to, does not need clinging to. I was fated to attain impermanence.

Perhaps I genuinely am a deluded nutcase.

At the moment we have one chronic problem to solve. How can I generate a very small income stream to help pay for a gardener instead of eating into cash reserves? The housing market is constipated here, one solution is to downsize to a manageable plot.

I do not want to work for more than 1 day a week. That work needs to be sedentary and preferably using my bonce. I don’t think that the kind of work I am looking for exists here. I am handicapped by language.

There is an ancillary question.

Am I basically done in this life time or is there anything of significance left for me to do?

Is there any significant fate / karma left?

I have an inkling of some of the things on the cards, these are internal on the compound things.

I am 99.9% sure that I will be unable to manage extended 5 day a week close contact in a working environment. I just won’t be able to hack it.

I had a dream recently suggesting that I need to “get off the bus” and change direction. It seems to be referring to my “outward” LinkedIn journey.

The other themes in my dreams are “somebody else’s mess / cock up” and that “I will not be believed or listened to.”

In a sense if it is my fate not to be believed or listened to, there is little to no point in trying. It is fated thus.

I can’t work off other people’s karmic mess for them. If I am entangled in that karma all I can do is sit tight and not make any more karmic entanglement.

What I could do is try to dream up some more quantum intellectual property. I have doubts as to whether there is a purpose or point to this. It would take a couple of years to grant and several months to read up, research and write. I doubt there is a buck in it for me, as things stand.

I am going to be having a spell as carer soon and perhaps in autumn.

Another recent dream says that the tantra in the Kālacakra has rotated a quarter turn., something has changed.The wheel of time has part turned. I have been putting off delving perhaps the time is now right, this is a change of direction away from the “bus” of social conditioning. The problem with Vajrayana is that things can get weird quickly.

Maybe I need to take a turn around the pond…

Kālacakratantra – Floor -Dream- 12-08-2024

Here is this morning’s dream.

In the dream I am talking with a tall younger man who is Caucasian with jet black hair in a pudding bowl style. He is wearing a dark suit and tie. He says to me that the Kālacakratantra has rotated one quarter or 90˚.

I see a Kālacakra mandala held in a 3d space. It then rotates a full quarter turn so the side of the square mandala which was “north” is now “east”.

I turn to the young man and say yes it has rotated.

In the dream I know this to be highly significant and a part of the tantra. It is linked to a stage in the human puzzle dream

I come to and then drift off again

I am in a small house with a man and his family. There is a carpet on the floor in the kitchen. I am on my hands and knees feeling for lumps in the floor boards below. I smooth out the lumps but am so far unable to find the indication of anything hidden below the floor.

Dream ends

Only Two people In the World and Some Speculations

I have read a lot of so called New Age books and hardcore science. I did my Ph.D. at the same gaffe Michael Faraday did his research which has the highest per capita Nobel laureate density associated with it in the world. I did my degrees at a world top ten university {UCL} and subsequently taught at this year’s #2 {Imperial} according to QS university rankings. That is a pretty snazzy background.

I have ~60 legit publications in the physical sciences literature.

And yet here I am getting some weird and wonderful dreams. I’ll speculate that if taken as a whole there is no modern accepted psychology / psychiatry which could account for them.

I’ll speculate that these dreams may be unique in scope and in content. Who else dreams of witches and high technology patents?

I have absorbed what might be called four schools of thought, modern science, Toltec Teachings, The Ageless Wisdom {Alice Bailey Djwhal Khul blue books} and elements of Hinayana, Mahayana, Zen and Vajrayana Buddhism.  

I approached this learning with an inquiring open mind, several kilos of salt for pinching but an ideation to practice and not scoff.

Only two people in this world have been exposed to the scope of my dreaming, the wife and me. One of the first things we ask of a morning is, “did you have any dreams?” There have been occasions when our dreams are fairly synchronised.  She has predicted things happening for me. Her dreams pertain more to time, whereas mine are “out there”.

In one school of thought I belong to the south, the place of dreams with a predilection for dreaming. My secondary predilection is philosophy.

I have always had a strong ability to construct abstract and complex visualisations, which I can animate in my consciousness.

I’ll speculate that I am kind of a melting pot, a cauldron if you like, in which these thought streams are synthesised into a whole.

I like using rhetorical questions, what is wrong with that?

Well people often mistake my questions for soul searching angst. I already have the “answers” {to my satisfaction}. The questions are meant to stimulate thought.

I am allergic to adamant assertion; it is a short cut away from thought and is behind much of the polarisation and cleavage in the world today. People die because others assert.

To expect others to be interested in an opus of dreams is likely to result in disappointment. The “not invented here syndrome” dominates the human psyche. And besides people need to make a living somehow.

Life for us is very simple and we live isolated on our compound with little contact to/with the outside world. This is in stark contrast when juxtaposed with the content of my passive nocturnal dreams….

Everyone is busy, caught up in their hectic FOMO dramas.  Only two people in the world are likely to be interested in this exercise of dream study … …

Walther P38 Being Shot at Dream 16-12-22

This is a sample of an attack dream; it was very vivid. Note the Egyptian temple in the second half, there is a cross reference {perhaps} to my putative Egyptian life. Maybe I had a technicolour dream coat and was called Josephine ;-). Perhaps I interpreted dreams for the Pharaoh

This dream has someone I haven’t spoken to for a very long time in it.

The wife says I was wriggling about in bed whilst having it.

I am on the top open deck of a red London tourist bus. There is an external staircase. I am alone on the top deck. My intuition tells me someone is coming up the stairs to get me. It is D. I get to him on the stairs as he is pulling a Walther P38 pistol out of his jacket. The pistol was very clear. I grab the arm with the pistol and point it upwards. The weapon discharges. D then tries to bring the weapon to bear several more times. I sweep his feet and we tumble down the staircase and off the stationery bus. The gun goes off several more times and then the magazine clicks empty. I disarm him and throw the gun away.

I walk off into the distance.

He picks up the gun and changes the magazine. He starts shooting at me again. I hide behind a concrete lamppost. Because he is so angry, he is a lousy shot and he empties the magazine without hitting me.

Dream ends 

Second dream.

I am in a sandstone room a part of an Egyptian temple, my temple, where I work. D arrives. He is absolutely fuming and very angry. I say to him that he is fuming and angry it is easy for anyone to see. He fades away.

There are two metal electrodes in the room. I bring them closer together until there is a very large electrical discharge which makes a huge bang. I know this to be intent and liberation through the power of intent.

Dream ends.

As a protection I chant the mantra for Vajrapani and visualize him in full wrathful manifestation. It is a 16 day. 16 is the jewel for liberation through the power of intent and the tarot card Maison Dieu.