Boat of Three and Eight Maidens in Emptiness

The mystic poems of the Charyapada are a collection of esoteric verse by the Mahasiddhas of tantric Buddhism, dating to 8th-12th century eastern India. This series of poetry from the masters of yore is laden with insight on the interplay of the microcosm, the macrocosm, and the great void beyond. Poems of the genre are grasped and tasted in a heart of primal symbolic awareness; read not the surface tale, taste the flow underneath!

With the heart of the mystery in the mid-stream that reveals the nature of the opposites, the tantric tradition employs rich imagery of the male-female interplay to reveal the principles of the sun, the moon, and the central pillar of fire as energetic and ontological beacons in the ocean of existence. Here's a fresh translation of the 13th poem by Kanhapada, a beautiful gloss on the enlightened human situation.

It's not the eight maidens in this painting; yet the ocean and the means are the same.

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ti-śaraṇa nābī ki'a aṭha-kumārī | ni'a deha karuṇā-śūṇame herī || 1

tarittā bhava-jaladhi jima kari mā'a suinā | majha beṇī taraṅgama muni'ā || 2

pañca tathāgata ki'a keḏuāla | bāha'a kā'a kāhni la mā'ājāla || 3

gandha parasa rasa ja̮isoɱ ta̮isoɱ | niṁda bihune suinā ja̮iso || 4

ci'a-kaṇṇahāra śūṇata-māṅge | calila kāhna mahā-suha-sāṅge || 5

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"In a three-refuge boat I captured eight maidens;

In my body, I behold compassion and emptiness.

Crossing the ocean of being as a phantom dream;

The mid-stream led me to understand the waves...

Deploying the five Tathagatas as the oars;

Kanha rows the outer form in a wire-net of magic.

Smelling, touching, tasting, as they are;

Like a dream without sleeping!

Awareness as helmsman in the blessed void;

Kanha sojourns in union's highest bliss..."

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In Siddha Kanhapada's song, a three-refuge boat is the vehicle for the journey. We have three perennial refuges (in general and Buddhist terms): [-] Negative (Dharma: Unifying Awareness), [±] Middle (Sangha: Mirror Awareness) and [+] Positive (Buddha: Specifying Awareness). Compassion (Karuna) and Wisdom (Prajna), or Compassion (Karuna) and Emptiness (Sunya), create the two flanks of [±] transparent yoga-balance. Three refuges give shelter to eight phenomenal maidens: [---] Earth, [--+] Mountain, [-+-] Stream, [-++] Wind, [+--] Thunder, [+-+] Fire, [++-] Lake and [+++] Heaven — the fundamental building blocks of the luminous eightfold path of human resolution.

The bipolar waves of the phantom dream are only witnessed in the ☯ Middle-Golden-Stream. Five Tathagatas ("thus-gone-ones") are the oars for the five pure lights, the five faculties, the four cardinals with a center — the sacred pentad of primal awareness. Here are the five Dhyani-Buddhas: 1) Buddha Mahāvairocana ["super-luminous-sphere"]: Tathatā-jñāna, "Awareness of Suchness", 2) Buddha Akṣobhya ["non-disturbable"]: Ādarśa-jñāna, "Mirrorlike Awareness"; 3) Buddha Amitāyus ["immeasurable-lifecycle"]: Pratyavekṣaṇa-jñāna, "Investigative Awareness"; 4) Buddha Ratnasambhava ["jewel-potential"]: Samatā-jñāna, "Unifying Awareness"; and 5) Buddha Amoghasiddhi ["successful-accomplishment"]: Kṛty-anuṣṭhāna-jñāna = "Accomplishing Awareness".

The ocean of existence is likened to a wire-net of phantasmagoria. The objects of the senses and the sense-faculties are exactly what they are. When left in their own nature without craving or projection, the shackles of bondage unravel, severing the steel-ropes of the material anchor with the sword of transcombinatory awareness. For the remainder of the journey, now in a state of transparent seedlessness, the phenomenal world transforms into a waking dream that holds no sway over the conscious dreamer. In effect, the world is beheld from behind a primal mirror; touched, but not touched; smelled, but not smelled; and tasted, but not tasted.

Luminosity of primal awareness is the helmsman of the boat of the body in the blessed void; and the object-streams shape the countless waves of the ocean. A journey to the highest bliss of union is fulfilled when above and below are joined in the middle without friction, reconciling and uniting the inner with the outer, reaching the pinnacle of conscious equilibrium, and ultimately, unbinding the thread of patternation altogether. That is the fullness of the bliss of union in the blessed void.

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You can download a translation of Charyapada at the SySpir Central ArcHive in PDF format (98 KB) — archived from an expired website. Translator unknown. It's a fair rendering, albeit missing a good deal of nuance; as can only be expected in working through an archaic mixture of Bangla, Oriya and Assamese! Art base: "Jesus walks on water" by Ivan Aivazovsky (1888).

Buddha Blast: Conquering the Cosmic Winds

The following text originates in Maharatnakuta-sutra, an excerpt from the legend of Magician Bhadra's attainment of buddhahood. It holds interest in a number of ways, perhaps the most intriguing the highly superlative description of the Buddha's powers. The description is particularly fascinating in the light of the fact that neither the Buddha nor his followers ever declared him to be anything equivalent to a creator-god or other cosmic godheads or avatars, but rather depicted him as a man who worked his way up the cosmic ladder over eons and eons of time.

Extracted from Garma C.C. Chang's translation under the title "A Treasury of Mahayana Sutras", Motilal Banarsidass, 1991 (online). Subheadings mine. In contrast to the Pali scriptures, the Mahayana canon is decidedly more juicy and abundant in its descriptions of the Buddha, even if it causes the scene of the narratives to switch from a more history-flavored one into a world of magic and mysteries.

aṇor aṇīyān mahato mahīyān

ātmāsya jantor nihito guhāyām /
tama-kratuḥ paśyati vīta-śoko

dhātu-prasādān mahimānam ātman //

"Smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest,
the self is hidden in the creature's heart.
Crosser of darkness, conqueror of pleasure and pain,
In elemental tranquility, he perceives the majesty of the self."

The anatman-doctrine (teaching of no permanent self) of the Buddhists notwithstanding, the narration that follows is almost a perfect commentary as if it were on this classic aphorism of Katha-upanishad (2.20), an early philosophical work seminal to the teachings of later Hindu philosophers. The exposition of ten cosmic wind wheels reflects the elemental principles of derivative causation found in both Buddhist and Taoist schools of metaphysical and analytical thought.

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Powers of the Tathagata

When the magician saw that the World-Honored One had accepted his invitation, he thought, "Gautama does not know my intention; he is definitely not an All-Knowing One." Then he bowed and took his leave.

The Venerable Maudgalyayana was in the asembly at that time and saw what had happened. He approached the Buddha and said to him, "Bhadra intends to deceive the Tathagata and the monks. May the World-Honored One decline his invitation!"

The Buddha told Maudgalyayana, "Do not think in this way. Only those who have desire, hatred, and ignorance can be deceived, but I eradicated those defilements long ago, for I realized that not a single dharma ever arises. I have been firmly abiding in right action for many kalpas. How can anyone deceive me?

"Now, you should know that the magician does not perform real magic, but the Tathagata does. Why? Because the Tathagata realizes here and now that all dharmas are illusory. Even if all the sentient beings were as skilled in magic as Bhadra, all their magical powers combined could not compare with those of the Tathagata, even if their powers were multiplied by a hundred, a thousand, or any amount, numerical or figurative."

Producing Billion-world Universes

The Buddha asked Maudgalyayana, "What do you think? Can the magician magically produce a billion-world universe and magnificently adorn all of it?"

Maudgalyayana answered, "No."

The Buddha said, "Maudgalyayana, you should know that I can magically produce magnificently adorned worlds, as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, inside a hair's tip, and even this does not exhaust the Tathagata's miraculous powers.

The Great Cosmic Wind Wheels

"Maudgalyayana, you should know that there is a great wind-wheel called Breaker that can break a billion-world universe to pieces.
   "There is another wind wheel called Great Hurricane that can ruin worlds and then rebuild them.
   "There is another wind wheel called Propeller that can revolve worlds.
   "There is another wind wheel called Secure Abiding that can blow as high as the Akanistha Heaven.
   "There is another wind wheel called Scatterer that can whirl away and scatter Mount Sumeru, the Black Mountain, and other mountains.
   "There is another wind wheel called Fierce Flame that can blow fierce flames up to the Brahma Heaven during the raging conflagration at the end of a kalpa.
   "There is another wind wheel called Quencher that can quench the raging conflagration at the end of a kalpa.
   "There is another wind wheel called Cool that can cause a cloud to cover a billion-world universe.
   "There is another wind wheel called Universal Downpour that can pour down heavy rains on the worlds during the raging conflagration at the end of a kalpa.
   "There is another wind wheel called Drying Up that can dry up the spreading flood at the end of a kalpa. There are so many wind wheels that I could not finish enumerating them even if I spoke until the end of this kalpa. All this, Maudgalyayana, you should know.

Conquering the Great Wind Wheels

"What do you think? Can the magician dwell securely in any of these wind wheels for a moment?"

Maudgalyayana answered, "No."

The Buddha told Maudgalyayana: "The Tathagata can walk, stand, sit, and lie undisturbed in the wind wheels.  The Tathagata can also put those wind wheels into a mustard seed and display their motions without the mustard seed either expanding or contracting, and without the wind wheels in the seed obstructing each other. Maudgalyayana, you should know that the feats of magic accomplished by the Tathagata have no limit."

When the Venerable Maudgalyayana and the assembly heard the Tathagata's words, they were all overwhelmed by wonder and awe. They all bowed down before the Buddha and exclaimed in unison, "Because we have now met the great Teacher who has these awe-inspiring miraculous powers, we are greatly blessed. One who has the opportunity to hear of the wonderful miraculous powers of the Tathagata, the World-Honored One, and generates profound faith and understanding will certainly gain great blessings adn bring forth a vow to attain supreme enlightenment."

Magic Potion

love in motion, magic potion
tender care and saturation

love is light and love is wonder
does it last — i often wonder

love is hell and love is heaven
why is love always uneven?

love is when i see you dancing
divine way of necromancing

love is when i feel you smiling
we have brought an end to wailing

love creates the wings of angels
leaves of birches, blessed strangers

i'm in love with love in motion
healed by the magic potion

love is emptiness — emptiness is love...

A Magic Box

a magic box of fantasies
an eerie land of lucid dreams
a jasmine orchid indiscreet
in sleep...

a silent arbour in the sea
an island made of ecstasy
a pixie house inside a tree
in me...

a flight to venus, silver wings
ambrosia in golden rings
alone a fairy princess sings
for me...

i make a garden in my heart
i plant the twilights in the dark
i light the heavens with a spark
of you...

a magic box of fantasies for you...

i made a beautiful
magic box of fantasies
for you...