--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <vajradh...@...> wrote: > > On Feb 1, 2009, at 6:18 PM, TurquoiseB wrote: > > > > http://www.ramalila.net/RoadTripMind/gallery.html > > Gorgeous, all.
They are displayed about half their actual size in most browsers. Sorry that they can't be expanded on the page. But if you right-click and copy them and paste them into an application that can dis- play them, you can then enlarge them and see more detail. The one labeled Cosmic Buddha and Consort is pretty cool at 3X the size you see it on the Web page and shows a lot of the detail in the original. And, for a *real* trip, do this with the one labeled Pure Land. It's from a series that illustrates the seven planes of existence, and this one shows the earth plane. Now zoom in and look through the two windows in the houses. In the one on the left you see a Tibetan lama shown with children, probably his. Through the window on the right you can see another lama, clearly in the process of getting laid. He has a big smile on his face. Tibetan religious society and art were far more earthy and free of hangups than their Western counterparts, to say the least. :-) Tsakli (sometimes called "initiation cards") are hand-painted images on stiffened canvas, and are about the size of modern playing cards. The images on the initiation cards vary. Some are literally commemorations of an initiation into one of the esoteric practices of Tibetan Buddhism. These cards have a painting of the lama who gave the initiation, usually in a symbolic pose associated with the particular practice or siddhi. Some show lamas levitating, or sitting naked in the snow, or hurling thunderbolts at demons. The true initiation cards are signed on the back in Tibetan script, indicating the place and time of the initiation, and the lineage from which the lama descended. Other tsakli have paintings of the protective deities, and are used for visualization practices. Traditionally, a lama would hold the card up at arm's length in front of the student for a few minutes, and then send the student away to visualize it, until he could recreate the image perfectly in his mind. Still other tsakli are detailed paintings of ritual objects used in pujas, traditional ceremonies in which symbolic offerings are made to one's lineage or to protective deities. Traveling monks, on a Road Trip trying to spread the dharma and not being blessed with the modern convenience of carry-on luggage with wheels, couldn't always bring along the necessary ceremonial objects and offerings themselves, so they would carry tsakli paintings of them, and set the cards up on makeshift altars along the road. There, they would perform their own private pujas, again using visualization to re-create the real objects and offerings in their minds. Having spent a little time on the road myself trying to spread the dharma, I fell deeply in love with the concept of tsakli when I discovered them, and own these and a few others. To me they are the ultimate personal spiritual art form. They are portable power objects, carried close to one's heart. You take them out and gaze at them from time to time to reestablish your connection to your path, to reinspire you and remind you of the cool moments that path has revealed to you.
