June 11, 2012

This appeared earlier here but somehow disappeared. I apologize for any misunderstandings.

-DJP.

Long Bibliography for Journey of the North Star- You really may not want to look

BIBLIOGRAPHY
A
1)Sarah Allen: The Shape of the Turtle;NYUP1991
2)Roget T. Ames: The Art of Rulership; SUNY1994
3)Roger T. Ames&David L.Hall: Focusing on the Familiar; Hawaii UP 2001
4)Poul Anderson: The Method of Holding the Three Ones; Curzon Press 1980
B
1)Gina L. Barnes The Rise of Civilization in East Asia; Thames and Hudson 1999
2)Richard M.Barnhart: Peach Blossom Spring; Metropolitan Museum1985
3)Tony Barnstone& Chou P’ing: The Art of Writing; Shambhala 1996
4)Anne D. Birdwhistell: Transition to Neo Confucianism; Stanford UP 1985
5)Gilles Beguin&Dominique Morel: The Forbidden City; Abrams 1997
6)Cyril Birch, tr.: Anthology of Chinese Literature; Columbia UP
7)Cyril Birch, tr.: Stories from a Ming Collection ;Grove Press 1958
8)Anne Birrell:Popular Songs and Ballads of Han China; Hawaii Up,1988
9)Anne Birrell: Chinese Mythology; John Hopkins UP 1993
10)Anne Birrell: The Classic of Mountains and Seas; Penguin Books1999
11)Susan Blader, tr.:Tales of Magistrate Bao; Chinese UP 1998
12)John Blofeld: Taoism; Shambhala1978
13)John Blofeld: City of Lingering Spelndour; Shambhala 1989
14)Derk Bodde: Festivals in Classical China; Princeton UP1975
15)Stephen R. Bokenkamp: Early Daoist Scriptures; U Cal. Press 1997
16) Stephen R. Bokenkamp;adapted from DaoistCulture and Information Center WebSite, Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Department of East Asian Languages & Culture, The Indiana University
17)Peter Bol: This Culture of Ours; Stanford UP 1992
18)Joseph Bosco &PP Ho: Temples of the Empress of Heaven; Oxford UP 1999
19)Timothy Brook: The Confusions of Pleasure California UP 1998
20)Marianne Bujard: Le Sacrifice au Ciel Dans La Chine Ancienne; Ecole francaise d’Extreme Orient, Monographies#187 2000
C
1)Cao Lei: The Palace Museum; Foreign Language Press Beijing 1997
2)Victoria Cass: Dangerous Women; Rowan and Littlefield 1999
3)John Chaffee: The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China; SUNY Press 1995
4)Ch’u Chai&Winberg Chai: The Sacred Books of Confucius; University Books1965
5)John Chamberain: Chinese Gods; Pelandul Publications 1987
6)Charis Chan: Imperial China;Penguin Books 1992
*7)David B. Chan: The Usurpation of the Prince of Yen 1398-1402; Chinese Material Center Inc. 1976
8)Wing-Tsit Chan: A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy; Princeton UP 1963
9)K.C.Chang Art Myth and Ritual; Harvard UP 1983
10)K.C.Chang: Shang Civilization; Yale UP 1980
11)Kenneth Ch’en: Buddhism in China; Princeton UP1964
12) Joseph CY Cheh)Ringing Thunder;San Diego Museum of Art1999
13)Man-jan Cheng: Lao Tzu: My Words are Very Easy to Understand; North Atlantic Books1981
14)Chen Man-Ch’ing, D.Wile ed. Advanced T’ai Chi Form Instruction; Sweet Chi Press 1985
15)Jean Chesneaux, ed.: Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China 1840-1950; Stanford UP, 1972
16)Chi-Hsu Ou-I, Thos. Cleary,tr.: The Buddhist I Ching; Shambhala 1987
17)Chi Hsi &Lu Tsu-ch’ien, Wing-tsit Chan, tr.: Reflections on Things at Hand ; Colimbia UP 1967
18)Chi Yun, tr. Donald Keenan: Shadows in a Chinese Landscape;M.E.Sharpe 1996
19)Juia Ching: Mysticism and Kingship in China;Cambridge UP 1997
20)Kai-Wing Chow et al.: Imagining Boundaries; SUNY UP1999
21)J.C.Cleary, tr.: Worldly Wisdom; Shambhala 1991
22)Thomas Cleary:Classics of Strategy and Counsel; Shambhala 2000
23)Thomas Cleary, tr.: Mastering the Art of War; Shambhala; 1989
24)Thomas Cleary, tr.:The Tao of Politics; Shambhala 1990
25)Thomas Cleary: Thunder in the Sky; Shambhala1993
26)Craig Clunas: Art In China;Oxford UP 1997
27)Confucius, D.C.Lau,tr: The Analects :Penguin Books1979
28)Confucius, Simon Leys, tr.: The Analects; W.W.Norton 1997
29)Confucius, Lin YuTang, tr.: The Wisdom of Confucius; Modern Library1994
30)J.C.Cooper: Chinese Alchemy; Sterling Publishing 1990
31)Arthur Cotterell: The First Emperor of China; Penguin Books 1981
32)Diana Cousens: The Wise and The Great; unpublished thesis La Trobe University 1993
33)Herlee Creel: Chinese Thought; Chicago UP 1953
34)J.I.Crumb: Chinese Theater in the days of Kublai Khan; U.Michigan Press 1990
35) CHUNG Yoon-Ngan. chungyn@mozart.collective.com.au
D
1)Edward L. Davis: Society and the Supernatural in Song China; U of Hawaii Press 1991
2)Clarence B. Day: The Philosophers of China; Citadel Press 1992
3)Kenneth Dean: DaoistRitual and Popular Cults of South East China; Princeton UP1993
4)Wm. Theodore De Bary et al.:Sources of Chinese Tradition; Vol.I; Columbia UP 1960
5)Theodore De Bary: Neo Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Heart-and-Mind; Columbia UP 1981
6)Pierre-Henryde Bruyn: Wudang Shan:Origins, in Religions in Chinese Society; China University Presspp.555-90
7)Carine Defoort: The Phaesant Cap Master; State University of NY Press 1997
8)Dodgen, Randall A.: Controlling the Dragon; Hawaii UP,2001
9)William Dolby: A History of Chinese Drama; Barnes and Noble Books
10)Edward L. Dreyer: Early Ming China; Stanford UP 1982
E
1)Patricia Buckley Ebrey: Chinese Civilization; Free Press 1993
2)Patricia Buckley Ebrey: Confucianism and Family Rituals in Imperial China; Princeton UP 1991
3)Patricia Buckley Ebrey: The Inner Quarters; U. Cal. Press 1993
4)Ronald C. Egan: Word, Image and Deed in the Life of Su Shi;Harvard UP,1994
F
*1)John K.Fairbank: Cambridge History of China; Ming Dynasty vol.8; Cambridge UP 1998
2)John K. Fairbank(ed) :Chinese Thought and Institutions : U.Chicago Press 1957
*3)EdwardL.Farmer:Early Ming Government; Harvard UP 1976
4)Herbert Fingarette: Confucius: The Secular as Sacred; Harpere&Row 1972
5)Wen Fong,ed: The Great Bronze Age of China; Metropolitan Museum/Knopf 1980
6)Wen Fong: Sung and Yuan Paintings; Metropolitan Museum1973
7)Wen Fong: Beyond Representation; Metropolitan Museum 1992
8)Wen Fong&Judith Smith (ed) Issues of Authenticity in Chinese Painting; Metropolitan Mueseum, 1999, pp 221-259
9)Wen Fong& James C.Wyatt: Possessing the Past; Metropolitan Museum1997
10)Marylin & Shen Fu: Studies in Conoisseurship;Princeton Art Museum 1974
11)Charlotte Furth: A Flourishing Yin; U. Cal. Press 1999
G
1)Jacques Gernet: Buddhism in Chinese Society; Columbia UP 1995
*2)Jacques Gernet: A History of Chinese Civilization; Cambridge UP 1972
3)Jacques Gernet: Daily Life In China; Stanford UP 1962
4)Herbert A. Giles: Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio;Dover Pubs. 1959
5)Rene Girard: Violence and the Sacred; Johns Hopkins UP 1972
6)Paul R. Goldin: The Culture of Sex In Ancient China ;U.of Hawaii Press, 2002
7)Luis Gomez: The Land of Bliss;Hawaii UP,1996
8)John A. Goodall: Heaven and Earth; Lund Humphrires1979
98)L.Carrington Goodrich: A short History of the Chinese People; Harper&Row 1969
*10)L.Carrington Goodrich&Chaoying Fang: Dictionary of Ming Biography; Columbia UP 1976
11)A.C.Graham: Poems of the Late T’ang; Penguin Books1977
12)Beata Grant: Mount Lu Revisted ; U.Hawaii Press, 1994
*13)Rene Grousset: The Rise and Splendour of the Chinese Empire ;California UP 1962
14)Gu Zhizhong,tr.: The Creation of the Gods; New World Press1992
H
1)JaHyun Kim Haboush: A Heritage of Kings;Columbia UP 1988
2)Han Fei Tzu, Burton Watson, tr.: Basic Writings; Columbia UP 19674
3)David Hawkes: Ch’u Tz’u; Oxford UP 1969
4)Maxwell Hearn&Wen Fong: Along the Riverbank; Metropolitan Museum of Art 1999
5)James L. Hevia: Cherishing Men From Afar; Duke UP 1995
6)James R. Hightower: Han Shih Wai Chuan; Harvard UP 1952
7)Bret Hinsch: Women in Early Imperial China; Bowman and Littlefield 2002
8)David Hinton, tr.:Mountain Home;Counterpoint 2002
9)Chuimei Ho &Bennet Bronson: The Forbidden City; The Field Musuem,Merrell, 2004
10)R.L.Hobson&A.L.Hetherington: The Art of the Chinese Potter; Dover 1982
11)Donald Holzman: Poetry and Politics; Cambridge UP,1976
12)Constance Hoog, tr.: Prince Jin-Gim’s Textbook of Tibetan Buddhism; E.J.Brill, 1983
13)Ciao-min Hsie: Atlas of China; McGraw Hill 1973
14)Hsun Tzu, Burton Watson, tr.: Basic Writings; ColumbiaUP 1963
*15)Charles O. Hucker China’s Imperial Past; Stanford UP 1975
*16)Charles O. Hucker: The Traditional Chinese State in Ming Times;U.Arizona Press 1961
17)Josephine Huang Hung: Ming Drama; Heritage Press, Taipei 1972
18)Cho-Yun Hsu: Ancient China in Transition; Stanford UP 1965
19)Sung-Peng Hsu: A Buddhist Leader in Ming China; PennState UP1970
20)Tao-Ching Hsu: The Chinese Conception of the Theater; U.Washington Press, 1985
21)Ray Huang: 1587, A year of No Significance: Yale UP,1981
22)Hung Sheng, Yangs, tr.:The Palace of Eternal Youth; Foreign Language Press, Peking1955
I
Inoue Yasuchi:Journey Beyond Samarkand; Kodansha International, 1971
J
1)Esther Jacobson: The Structure of Narrative in Early Chinese Pictorial Vessels in Representation 8; California UP Fall 1984
2)Maria Jaschok: Concubines and Bondservants; Zed Books 1998
3)Christian Joachim: Chinese Religions; Prentice Hall 1986
4)Francois Jullien: The Propensity of Things; Zone Books 1999
K
1)Harold L. Kanh: Monarchy in the Emperor’s Eyes; Harvard UP1971
2)Karma Thinley: The History of the Sixteen Karmapas, Prajna Press 1980
3)Heather Karmay:Early Sino-Tibetan Art; Aris and Phillips 1975
4)George Kao, ed.: The Translation of Things Past Chinese UP, Hong Kong1982
5)Karl S. Kao: Classical Chinese Tales; Indiana UP1985
6)Mao Ming, J.Mulligan tr,:The Lute; Columbia UP 1980
7)Thomas Kasulis ed.:Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice; Suny Press 1993
8)Paul R. Katz: Demon Hordes and Burning Boats; SUNY UP 1995
9)Yuan Ke: Dragons and Dynasties; Penguin Books 1993
10)David N. Keightly;Archaeology and Mentality in Representations 18;U Cal Press.1987
11)Adam Kessler, ed.:Empires Beyond the Great Wall; Nat. Hist. Museum L.A. Co.1994
12)Maggie Keswick: The Chinese Garden; HarvardUP 2003
13)K.L. Kiu: 100 Judicial Cases from Ancient China; Hong Kong 1988
14)Terry F. Kleeman: A God’s Own Tale; SUNY Press 1994
15)Livia Kohn: Early Chinese Mysticism; Princeton UP1992
16)Livia Kohn&Michael La Fargue, ed.: Lao-Tzu; SUNY UP 1998
17)Livia Kohn, ed.:The DaoistExperience; SUNY UP 1993
18)Philip Kuhn: Soulstealers; Harvard UP1990
19)George Kumayama,ed.:Ancient Mortuary Traditions of China; U Hawaii Press1991
20)George Kumayama,ed.:New Perspectives on the Art of Ceramics in China; U Hawaii Press1992
21)Kwan Sahn Mei, tr.: The Heroine;Federal Publications1990
L
1)JOHN LAGERWAY: DAOISTRITUAL IN CHINESE SOCIETY AND HISTORY; MACMILLAN PUBLISHING 1987
2)JOSEPH S.C. LAM: STATE SACRIFICES AND MUSIC IN MING CHINA; STATE UNIVERSITY OF NY PRESS1998
3)LAO-TZU, THOS. CLEARY,TR.: WEN TZU; SHAMBHALA1992
4)LAOTZU,D.C.LAU, TR.: LAO TZU; PENGUIN BOOKS1963
5)LAO TZU, ROBERT HENDRICKS TR.: LAO TZU TE TAO CHING; BALLANTINE BOOKS 1989
6)THEODORA LAU; CHINESE HOROSCOPES; HARPER&ROW 1979
7)JAMES LEGGE, CHAI&CHAI,EDS. LI CHI; UNIVERSITY BOOKS 1967
8)JAMES LEGGE,TR CLAES WALTHAM ED.: SHU CHING; GATEWAY EDITIONS1971
9)JAMES LEGGE, TR.: TAO THE KING AND THE WRRITINGS OF KWANG-SZE; MOTILAL BANARSIDAS1988
10)JAMES LEGGE, TR.: THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-SZE AND THE THAI SHANG; MOTILAL BANARSIDAS1988
11)JAMES LEGGE,TR.SHU KING SACRED BOOKS OF CHINA VOL3 MOTILAL BANARSIDAS 1988
*12)LOUISE LEVATHES: WHEN CHINA RULED THE SEAS; SIMON AND SHUSTER 1994
13)C. LEVENSON, BAUER&FRANKE, TR.:THE GOLDEN CASKET; KNOPF 1964
14)JEAN LEVI: CHINESE EMPEROR; VINTAGE BOOKS 1987
15)JEAN LEVI: THE DREAM OF CONFUCIUS; HARCOURT BRACE 1992
16)MARK EDWARD LEWIS: SANCTIONED VIOLENCE IN EARLY CHINA; SUNY PRESS,1990
17)MARK EDWARD LEWIS: WRITING AND AUTHORITY IN EARLY CHINA; STATE UNIVERSITY OF NY PRESS 1999
18) Li Chien-Nung. Tr. Su&Francis,: Price Control and Paper Currency- Chinese Social History, Octagon Books 1966
19)LI CH’ING-CHAO; COMPLETE POEMS; REXROTH&CHUNG TR. :NEW DIRECTIONS BOOKS 1979
*20)DUNJ.LI: THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA CHARLES SCRIBNER 1975
21)LI GUISHEN,TR.: FRESCOES AND FABLES; NE WORLD PRESS1998
22)LI HE, J.D. FRODSHAM,TR.; GODDESSES, GHOSTS AND DEMONS ; NORTHPOINT PRESS1983
23)LI PO AND TU FU,TR. ARTHUR COOPER: LI PO AND TU FU;PENGUIN BOOKS 1973
24)LI PO, DAVID HINTON, TR.: THE SELECTED POEMS OF ; NEW DIRECTIONS, 1996
25)LING MENGCHU, WEN JINGEN,TR.: AMAZING TALES ; PANDA BOOKS1998
26)LI YU,N.MAO TR.:TWELVE TOWERS; CHINESE UP 1975
27)LI YU, P. HANAN TR.:THE CARNAL PRAYER MAT; BALLANTINE BOOKS 1990
28)LI YU, P. HANAN TR.:A TOWER FOR THE SUMMER HEAT; BALLANTINE BOOKS 1992
30)LI ZHIYAN&CHENG WEN: CHINESE POTTERY AND PORCELAIN; FOREIGN LANGUAGES PRESS1989
31)SSU-CH’ENG LIANG: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF CHINESE ARCHITECTURE; MIT PRESS 1984
32)EVELYN LIP: FENG SHUI; ACADEMY EDITIONS1995
33)STEPHEN LITTLE: SPIRIT STONES OF CHINA; ART INSITUTE OF CHICAG,1999
34)STEPHEN LITTLE: TAOISM AND THE ARTS OF CHINA; ART INST CHICAGO/U.CAL.PRESS2000
35)JAMES T.C.LIU: OU-YANG HSIU:STANFORD UP 1967
36)LIU JINGCHUAN: THE FORBIDDEN CITY; MORNINGGLORY PUBLISHERS 1994
37)LIU JUNG EN,TR. SIX YUAN PLAYS; PENGUIN BOOKS 1972
38)WU-CHI LIU& I.Y LO ED.: SUNFLOWER SPLENDOR ; INDIANA UP 1975
39)MICHAEL LOEWE: EVERYDAY LIFE IN IMPERIAL CHINA; HARPER AND ROW1968
40)DONALD S. LOPEZ, ED: RELIGIONS OF CHINA; PRINCETON UP1996
41)WOLFE LOWENTHAL: THERE ARE NO SECRETS; NORTH ATLANTIC BOOKS 1991
42)WOLFE LOWENTHAL: GATEWAY TO THE MIRACULOUS; FROG LTD. 1994
43)LUO GUANZHONG, MOSS ROBERTS, TR: THREE KINGDOMS ; FOREIGN LANGUAGE PRESS/CAL. UP 1991
M
1)Y.W.Ma&J.S.M.Lau,tr.: Traditional Chinese Stories; Columbia UP 1978
2)Roderick MacFarquhar: The Forbidden City; Newsweek1972
3)Colin MacKerras, ed.:Chinese Theater; U.Hawaii Press 1983
4)Victor H. Mair: Painting and Performance; U.Hawaii Press 1988
5)Victor H. Mair: Wandering on the Way; Hawaii UP1994
6)John S. Major: Heaven and Earth in Early Chinese Thought; SUNY1993
7)Susan Mann&YY Cheng eds.: Under Confucian Eyes; California UP 2001
8)S.J.Marshall: The Mandate of Heaven;Columbia UP 2001
9)McKnight and Liu, tr.: Enlightened Judgments; SUNY Press1999
10)Amy McNair: The Upright Brush: University of Hawaii Press 1990
11)Margaret Medley: The Chinese Potter; Phaidon 1998
12)Mencius, David Hinton,tr.: Mencius; Couterpoint 1998
13)Mencius, D.C.Lau,tr.:Mencius; Penguin Books1970
14)John Meskill ed.: Wang An-Shih; D.C. Heath 1963
15)Jeffery F.Meyer: The Dragons of Tianmen; U.S.Carolina Press
16)The Ming Tombs; China Travel and Tourism Press 1993
17)Mo Tzu, Burton Watson, tr.: Basic Writings; Columbia UP1963
18)Stephen Moore: The Trigrams of Han; The Aquarian Press 1989
*19)F.W Mote and Dennis Twitchett eds: The Cambridge History of China vol.7 Ming Dynasty Pt. 1 Cambridge UP 1988
*20)F.W.Mote: Imperial China Harvard UP 1999
21)F.W.Mote: Intellectual Foundations of China ; Knopf1971
22)F.W.Mote: in Food in Chinese Culture, Sung and Ming; Yale UP1977
*23) F.W.Mote: The Poet Kao Ch’I; Princeton UP 1962
24)Donald J. Munro: The Concept of Man in Early China; Michigan UP;1969
25)Museum Boymans-vanBeuningen-Rotterdam- The Forbidden City, 1990
N
1) Susan Naquin: Peking; U Cap Press, 2000
2)Joseph Needham (Colin Ronan ed.) The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China : Cambridge UP 1986
O
1)Stuart Alve Olson: The Jade Emperor’s Mind Seal Classic; Dragon Door 1992
2)Stephen Owen: Readings in Chinese Literary Thought; Harvard UP 1992
P
1)Martin Palmer ed.: T’ung Shu; Shambhala 1986
2)Martin Palmer et al: Three Lives; Century Books 1995
3)Pan Xiafeng: The Stagecraft of Peking Opera ;New World Press1995
4)Jordan Paper: The Spirits Are Drunk; SUNY UP 1995
5)Pan Ku,tr. Burton Watson-Courtier and Commoner in Ancient China;Columbia UP 1974
6) Pilnyak, Boris, Reck&Green tr: Chinese Story; Oklahoma UP,1988
7)Ping-Ti Ho: The Ladder of Success in Imperial China; Columbia UP 1962
8)Wang Ping: Aching for Beauty; Random House 2000
9)Andrew Plaks: The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel; Princeton UP 1987
10)Po Chu-I: Selected Poems of, tr. David Hinton; New Directions, 1999
11)David Pollard: The Chinese Essay; Columbia UP 2000
12)Ezra Pound: Confucius; New Directions 1951
13)Ezra Pound: Shih-ching; Harvard UP 1954
14)Michael J. Puett: To Become A God; Harvard UP 2002
Q
R
1)Rashi Al-Din, John A Boyle, tr.: The Successors of Ghenghis Khan; Columbia UP 1971
2)Ren Mei’e, Yang Renzhang& Bao Haosheng: An Outline of China’s Physical Geography; Foreign Language Press, Beijing 1985
3)Hugh Richardson: High Peaks, Pure Earth; Serinidia Publiucations 1998
4)Jo Riley: Chinese Theater; Cambridge UP1997
5)GeorgeN.Roerich, tr. The Blue Annals; Motilal Banarsidas 1976
6)Howard Rogers,ed.: China 5,000 Years;Guggenbheim/Abrams 1998
7)Mary Ann Rogers:In Pursuit of the Dragon;Seattle Art Museum 1988
8)Robt. Rorex&Wen Fong: 18 Songs of A Nomad Lute; Metropolitan Museum1974
8)Morris Rossabi: Khubilai Khan, U Cal. Press 1988
10)David Tod Roy, tr.: The Plum in the Golden Vase; Princeton UP1993
S
1)Michael Sasso: Blue Dragon White Tiger; The DaoistCenter 1990
2)Ralph Sawyer: The Art of the Warrior; Shambhala1996
3)Ralph Sawyer, tr.: The Six Secret Teachings; Shambhala 1997
4)Ralph Sawyer: The Tao of War; Westview Press 1999
5)Ralph Sawyer&MLSawter,tr.:Ling Ch’I Ching: Barnes&Noble 1995
6)Gary Seaman: Journey to the North; California UP 1987
7)Edward Schafer: The Divine Woman; Northpoint Press, 1980
8)Edward Schafer : The Vermiion Bird; U. Cal. Press, Berkeley 1967
9)Benjamin I. Schwartz: The World of Chinese Thought; Harvard UP 1985
10)A.C. Scott: Actors are Madmen; U Wisconsin Press 1981
11)A.C.Scott: An Introduction to the Chinese Theater; Hong Kong1962
12)A.C.Scott: Traditional Chinese Plays vols 1&2; Wisconsin UP 1969
13)Edward L. Shaughnessy: Before Confucius; SUNY1997
14)Shi Yukan&Yu Yue, Song Shouquantr.:The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants; Panda Books1997
15)C.C. Shih: Notes on a Phrase in the Tso Chuan
16)Shih Nai-An, JH Jackson,tr: Water Margin; Paragon Books, 1968
17)L.Sickman&A.Soper: A Pelican History of Art- The Art and Architecture of China; Penguin Books 1978
18)Sima Qian (B. Watson tr.): Records of the Grand Historian, Qin Dynasty; Columbia UP 1993
19)Sima Qian (B. Watson tr.): Records of the Grand Historian, Han Dynasty I; Columbia UP 1961
20)Sima Qian (B. Watson tr.): Records of the Grand Historian, Han DynastyII; Columbia UP 1961
21) Jenny F. So (ed): Music in the Age of Confucius; Freer Gallery/Washington UP ,2000
22)Smith, Caron&Sun Yu: Ringing Thunder; San Diego Museum of Art, 1999
23)Kidder Smith: “Zhouyi Divination from accounts in the Zuochuan” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 49.2 (1989)
24)Jonathan Spence: Chinese Roundabout;WW Norton, 1992
25)Jonathan Spence: Emperor of China; Vintage Books, 1975
26)Jonathan Spence: Ts’ao Yin and the K’ang-hsi Emperor; Yale UP,1966
27)Rolf Stein: Le Monde en Petit; Flammarion 1987
28)Keith Stevens: Chinese Gods; Collins and Brown 1997
29)Richard E. Strassberg: Inscribed Landscapes; California UP 1994
30)Lynn A. Struve: Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm; Yale UP,1993
31)Su T’ung-p’o, B. Watson, tr.: Selected Poems; Copper Canyon Press, 1994
32)Michael Sullivan: The Arts of China; U.Cal Press 1977
33a)E-Tu Sun&J.De Francis eds: Chinese Social History; Octagon Books 1966
33)Sun Hai-chen: The Wiles of War;Foreign Language Press Beijing 1991
34)Sun Tzu, Thos. Cleary tr.: The Art of War; Shambhala1988
35)Sun Tzu, Denma Translation Group tr.: The Art of War; Shambhala 2001
36)Sun Tzu, Samuel B. Griffith tr.: The Art of War; Oxford UP 1963
37)Sung Ying-Hsing: Chinese Technology in the 17th Century; Dover Publications, 1966
38) SYL Wushu Newsletter vol.4#6Mingshi Fangizhuan in Shou-Yu Liang:Tai Chi Chuan:
T
1)T’ao-Chi, Wen Fong tr.: Returning Home; Braziller 1976
2)T’ao Ch’ien, Wm. Acker, tr.: T’ao the Hermit; Thames&Hudson 1952
3)Rodney Taylor: The Way of Heaven; E.J.Brill 1986
4)Stephen F. Teiser: The Ghost Festival I Medieval China; Princeton UP1988
5)Robert L. Thorp: Son of Heaven; Son of Heaven Press1988
6)Tjan Tjoe So, tr.:Po Hu T’ung :E.J.Brill 1952
*7)Shi Chan Henry Tsai: Perpetual Happiness; University of Washington Press 2001
8)Shi Shan Henry Tsai: The Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty; State University of NY Press 1991
9)Tu Fu, David Hinton, tr.: Selected Poems of ; New Directions1988
*10)Tun Li-Ch’en, Derek Bode, tr.: Annual Customs and Festivals in Peking; Hong Kong UP 1965
11)Tung Chi’eh Yuan, LL Ch’en tr: Master Tung’s Western Chamber Romance; Columbia UP1994
12)Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche: Transcripts of Kalapa Assemblies (mss.)
U
V
1)Griet Vankenberghen: The Huainanzo&Liu An’s Claim to Moral Authority; SUNY 2001
2)Ilza Veith: The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine;U Cal Press 1949
W
1)Arthur Waley: The Book of Songs; Grove Press, 1960
2)Arthur Waley: Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China; Stanford UP 1956
3)Georges Walter, tr.: Dispute sur le Sel et le Fer; Seghers 1991
4)C.H.Wang: The Bell and the Drum; U California Press 1974
5)Wang Congren, Yu,Chi&Zhang re.: Dragon; Hai Feng Publishing Co. 1996
6)Wang Shihfu, S.West&W.Idema tr.: The Story of the West Wing; U Cal.Press 1995
7)Geofffrey Waters: Three Elegies of Ch’u; Wisconsin UP,1985
8)Burton Watson: Chinese Rhyme-Prose; Columbia UP 1971
9)Burton Watson: Early Chinese Literature; Columbia UP 1962
10)Burton Watson, tr.: Tso Chuan; Columbia UP1989
11)James Warson&Evelyl Rawski,ed.: Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China; Cal.UP 1988
12)William Watson: Early Civilization in China; McGraw-Hill, 1966
13)William Watson: The Arts of China to 900; Yale UP1995
14)Holmes Welch&Anna Seidel, ed.: Facets of Taoism; Yale UP 1979
15)E.T.C. Werner: Myths and Legends of China; Dover Books 1994
16)Roderick Whitfoeld: In Pursuit of Antiquity;Princeton UP 1969
17)Elizabeth Wichmann: Listening to Threater; U.Hawaii Press 1991
18)Douglas Wile: The Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics; SUNY Press 1992
19)Helmut&Richard Wilhelm: Understanding the I Ching; Bollinger Series, Princeton UP 1995
20)Richard Wilhem/Carey Baynes: The I Ching; Bollingen Series, Princeton UP 1950
21)C.A.S Williams: Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives; Dover1976
*22)John E. Willis: Mountain of Fame; Princeton UP 1994
23)Eva Wong: Cultivating the Energy of Life; Shambhala 1998
24)Eva Wong : Feng-Shui ; Shambhala1996
25)Eva Wong: Harmonizing Yin and Yang; Shambhala 1997
26)Eva Wong: Seven DaoistMasters; Shambhala 1990
27)Eva Wong:The Tao of Health, Longevity&Immortality; Shambhala 2000
28)Arthur F.Wright: Buddhism in Chinese History; Stanford UP 1959
29)Arthur F. Wright,ed.: Confucian Persoanlities; Stanford UP 1962
30)Arthur F. Wright,ed.: The Confucian Persuasion; Stanford UP 1960
31)Arthur F. Wright, ed.: Confucianism in Action; Stanfofrd UP 1959
32)Arthur F. Wright: The Sui Dynasty; Knopf 1978
33)Wu Cheng’en,W.J.F.Jenner, tr.: Journey to the West ; Foreign Language Press Beijing1993
34)Wu-chi Lu &I.Y.Lo: Sunflower Splendor; Indiana UP 1975
35)Wu Ching-tzu,Yangs tr.:The Scholars; Foreign Languages Press1991
36)Wu Hung: The Transparent Stone in Representations 46: U Cal Press,1994
37)Pei-Yi Wu: The Confucian’s Progress; Princeton UP1990
38)Wu Zuguang, Huang Zuolin&Mei Shaowu: Peking Opera and Mei Lanfang; New World Press 1981
39) Boudewijn Walrave; Songs of the Shaman- Korean Ritual Chants; Kegan Paul International 1994;
40) James C.Y.Watt& D.P.Leidy: Defining Yong Le; Yale UP ,,2005
X
1)Xiao Tong, David Knechtes,tr.:Wen Xuan (3 vols) Princeton UP, 1982,8796
2)Xie Huang:, Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden (scroll painting in the collection of the Metropolitan Musueum, New York.
2)Xing-ai Liu: Tiantan- The Temple of Heaven; China Travel and Tourism Press 1993
3)Xue Tao, Jeanne Larson,tr.:Brocade River Poems; PrincetonUP 1987
Y
1)Lien-Shang Yang: Money and Credit in China; Harvard Yenching Monograph 12 1952
2)Yang Ye: Vignettes from the Late Ming; U. Washingtom Press 1999
3)Chiang Yee: Chinese Calligraphy; Harvard UP 1973
4)Robin Yates, tr.:Five Lost Classics; Ballantine Books, 1997
5)Wai-Lim Yip: Chinese Poetry; Duke UP, 1977
6)Pauline Yu, Peter Bol, Stephen Owen, W. Peterson: Ways With Words : Cal.UP2000
7)Yuan Hung-Tao: Pilgrim of the Clouds; Chaves tr.: Weatherhill 1987
8)Yuan Mei, Kam Louie&L.Edwards,tr.:Censored by Confucius; M.E.Sharpe 1996
9)Tung Yueh, Lin&Schulz,tr.: Tower of Myraid Mirrors;Asian Humanities Press1978
Z
1)James H. Zimmerman; ‘Time in Chinese Historiography’, unpublished paper for Yale University 1970
1)Angela Zito: Of Body and Brush; Chicago UP 1997
2)Wang Zongshu: Han Civilization; Yale UP 1982

PIECES THAT HAVE APPEARED IN THE LAST YEAR

1) ONE WAY OR THE OTHER - 

(An article about new possibilities in publishing)

PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/soapbox/article/50015-one-way-or-the-other.html

2) BY THE RIVER

(A contemplative fable)

  ANNAK SASTRA

http://anaksastraarchive.wordpress.com/issue-7-april-2012/

3) An article about JOURNEY OF THE NORTH STAR

HISTORICAL TAPESTRY

historicaltapestry.blogspot.com

4)An interview about JOURNEY OF THE NORTH STAR

hockgtjoa.blogspot.com

5) TAKASAGO

(A poem about Kami) 

BUDDHIST POETRY REVIEW

http://www.buddhistpoetryreview.com/archives/issue-six/douglas-penick

6) A DISTORTION IN TRANSMISSION

(A story about an accidental gender switch during re-incarnation)

KALKION

http://www.kalkion.com/fiction/1855/distortion-transmission

7) TWILIGHT HISTORY

(A monologue about decline and fall in old age)

CONTRARARY

http://contrarymagazine.com/2012/twilight-histories-a-monologue/

8) THREE MOONS -

 (3 poems)

PASSIONATE TRANSITORY

http://thepassionatetransitory.yolasite.com/current-issue.php

9) FLOWER PLAY

(a play/ poem with Noh origins about extinction and beauty's continuance)

BODY

http://bodyliterature.com/category/performance-text/

http://bodyliterature.com/douglas-penick/

10 YOU DIED, AND

(A very short story of air travel and transition)

http://www.marcopoloartsmag.com/You-Died-And

11) CONTINUING WITH: ARAKAWA

(A post mortem conversation with reminiscence)

EMBODIED EFFIGIES

http://effigiesmag.com/archives/issue-two/

pp. 22-31

12) ELYSIUM -

(On the life and sorrows of cattle)

DANSE MACABRE

http://www.dansemacabreonline.com/#!__dm-65-oceans/fictions/vstc13=elysium

_____________________________________________________________________

PERFORMANCES - 2012

1) TIME'S UNENDING -

DENVER ECLECTIC CONCERTS - 1/12/2012

http://www.eclecticconcerts.com/events/2011-2012/120112.php#hd_musicsamples

2) FOR SCHEHERAZADE-

EASTERN CAPE ORCHESTRA CARPETOWN S.A. (GILLIAN BARNETT)

3)

L'HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT- 

SOPHIA VASTEK- MANHATTAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC

AN INTRODUCTION TO

JOURNEY OF THE NORTH STAR

For more than four thousand years, Chinese society has been bound by two contradictory but coexistent theories of government. Confucius held that the ruler’s authority derives from his own moral example, the moral cultivation of those who act in his name, and the moral obligation of each person to place the well-being of the society above her or his own self-interest. The second theory, often called Legalism, is almost equally ancient and advocated that the Emperor direct a wholly totalitarian state based on enforcing harsh laws by means of extreme punishments. The state apparatus here consisted of vast networks of informers, secret police, military personnel, and officials empowered to make swift summary judgments, all enforcing the Emperor’s slightest whim. The first Emperor of China unified the nation by employing these violent means, and no Emperor thereafter, regardless of his intentions, was able to dispense with them.

The Yong Le Emperor, who lived from 1360 to 1424, was one of the exemplary figures in China’s five thousand year history and transformed a society in a state of chaos and depletion into a great and enduring empire. In so doing, he reformed the institutions of China in ways that prevailed until the beginning of the 20^th century. The slave-narrator of this transition, is a fictional character who witnesses and records the Emperor’s life as he seizes the throne, forms his government, initiates his policies, sees them through to fulfillment and suffers his personal decline. The narrator witnesses the Emperor’s life from the point of view of a high-ranking slave whose existence in every aspect is dependent on his complete identification with the Emperor and his intentions even as his experience of the world to which he must accommodate himself is both unique and traditional.

This book is then concerned with the living interplay of two kinds of thinking and how social changes were carried out in such a circumstance. For in reality, the Yong Le Emperor was not simply a well-intentioned man forced to be cruel nor just a cruel and ambitious man forced to cloak his intentions in moral rhetoric.  His way of being involved a far more complex synthesis rooted in an overarching view of time and of the natural world. This view in a general way also becomes that of the eunuch slave who writes down the story of his life.

                                                                        2

Journey of the North Star is a  novel about the twenty-one year reign of Chu Ti, the Yong Le Emperor and third ruler in the Ming Dynasty. When the future Emperor was born, his father, Chu Yuan Chang was still one of a number of warlords vying for the throne of China. And even when he succeeded in becoming the first native born Chinese Emperor in almost four hundred years (The preceding Yuan Dynasty was Mongol.), the country, after a hundred years of increasingly misrule and years of internecine war, was in chaos. The first Ming Emperor brought order by brutal means and left a country whose governmental practices were still unstable to his inexperienced grandson, the Chien Wen Emperor. Though the Founding Emperor may have preferred the vigorous and talented Chu Ti, it was more important to him to ensure the new dynasty’s stability by establishing succession by primogeniture. Chien Wen’s brief reign was marked by humane goals, uncertain administration and inept efforts to eliminate the founding Emperor’s surviving sons.

The eldest surviving son, Chu Ti, who had been given the northeastern fief of Yen with its capital, Beiping, was an experienced general, tireless administrator, and devoted student of the classics. Seeing many of his father’s reforms being overturned and being threatened himself with extinction, the Prince of Yen rebelled and after three years of grueling warfare, defeated Chien Wen.

When, in 1403, Chu Ti ascended the Throne of Heaven as the Yong Le Emperor, China was in a state of almost anarchic depletion. Accordingly, the new Emperor applied himself to realizing his father’s intentions that Chinese culture return to its historical roots, that its governance attend to the people’s security and that it resume the scope of influence it had enjoyed in earlier dynasties. He ordered the repair of the extensive system of canals and roads, expanded the country’s agricultural and manufacturing base. He stabilized government institutions, restored the educational system, produced standard editions of all the major Chinese Classics, and ordered the creation of the largest encyclopedia of all Chinese learning and arts ever made. He strengthened the military and re-enforced the Empire’s defenses. He fostered extensive trade relations with all neighboring states, and he dispatched the largest maritime mission in the world to extend China’s influence to Indian coastal states and kingdoms on the west coast of Africa. The Yong Le Emperor also rebuilt the Imperial city of Beijing and moved his capital there. In his twenty-one year reign, the Yong Le Emperor re-shaped the nation and its institutions in a way that determined the pattern for all future Ming rulers as well as providing a model of governance for the Ching Dynasty that followed. The methods by which he did so are no strangers in the China of today.

QUESTION:

What I learned from the Dorje Dradul
Is fading daily from my mind.
Like my father’s face, I remember his face.
Like my mother’s voice I remember him say:
“The phenomenal world becomes the guru.”


All the words:
Buddha, Dharma, Sangha;
Body, Speech, Mind;
Are the echoes of craving permanence.
There is no practice.

Immersed in phenomena.
Moment follows moment, rises, falls
Unlinked
Surrendering.

Gone
In a vast, all-engulfing night-bright flow
That has no name or substance, method, goal, origin or end
Edge or core.

If this needs a name,
Time would seem the least misleading word,
And, of course, True Love.

Carrying us away,
Moment to moment, carrying us and all. away,
Not moving.

INTRODUCTION to THE BRILLIANCE OF NAKED MIND

There is a powerful strand in European thinking that ties knowledge to loss. There is an unbridgeable divide between the physical world, the world of the senses and knowledge. According to this view, understanding, knowledge, wisdom only come into being when the object of that understanding is disappearing or has disappeared.

In this outlook, words come into existence only to signify the absence of their referent. After all, when Itard set out to teach language to the mute wild boy of Aveyron, he taught him the word for milk by taking it away from him. Little wonder then that the child did not learn to speak. He did not wish to be deprived of more. The only other words he learned were “Oh God”!

Theology is a study that arose when God no longer walked with Abraham in the cool of the evening. Petrarch’s sonnets arose from the absence of Laura. Dante’s divine cosmos radiated from the absence of Beatrice. Folk songs and tales were collected and studied when folk singers and storytellers began to disappear. Anthropology came to exist when the people who were the objects of its study were becoming extinct. The various studies related to ecology now arise as the balance of the natural world appears irretrievably out of kilter.

Our knowledge, both in a scientific and poetic way, seems contingent on loss and absence, and our relationship to the experience of knowing is impoverished and constricted accordingly. We are only prepared for the kind of knowing that emerges when, as Hegel famously put it, “Athena’s owl only flies at dusk.”

In what follows, knowledge, understanding and wisdom pervade the total range of phenomena, arise in the simplicity of the present moment, and expand in continuous and uncontrolled profusion; here wisdom and utter wakefulness have never been separate and remain an endless terrain of ardent exploration. Only a lack of courage and a failure of love can make the world otherwise.

MEDITATION FOR...

This year, The Museum of Jurassic Technology sent a Christmas card that has a 3-D picture (with red and green glasses) of someone looking into a cave. Inside is a fable that concludes:

"Our seeking is without end and the object of our search ever elusive; yet the memory of light draws us on. Please join with us in our never ending efforts as we seek, perhaps without understanding that the search itself is creating the very light after which we are seeking."

1)
Perhaps you’ve seen, and maybe even read, books and articles assuring you that Buddhist meditation can increase your clarity, kindness, peace of mind, happiness, etc., while reducing your tension, anger, discursiveness, all-around self-centeredness and other negative characteristics.

No doubt there are buried deep within you, as there are within us all, secret sources of pain you would like to mitigate, just as there are deep inner longings that call out to be realized. Meditation, if what you read is to be believed, is the path whereby such aims can be achieved. Perhaps, even that grand but elusive goal called enlightenment, the awakened state may be within our reach.

2)
Enlightenment, as is said, is awakeness without reference to sleep or dream and not subject to life or death. It is light without reference to darkness. It is not subject to causes, conditions, characteristics, creation, destruction or limitations of any kind; it is continuous, inalterable and all-pervasive. It cannot be increased or diminished by any means. It is not a thing, state or entity of any kind. Though not subject to the infinite range of contingent circumstances, it cannot be separated from them. This being so, the only thing we can say truly about enlightenment is that it is a word.
But because the awakened state is universally and uniformly intrinsic in all that is known, unknown, experienced and not experienced, it cannot be abstracted. Thus it is called ‘the natural state’. Since it is intrinsic, it is vain to say it is attained. Since it is the natural state, it is absurd to believe it can be realized by one method only.
Further, it follows that realizing enlightenment does not bring any normal kind of happiness, comfort, or personally satisfying quality, nor does it necessarily decrease painful experiences.

Late in life, Trungpa Rinpoche said: “There is no problem with dying… except it’s so FUCKING painful. ”The 16th Karmapa, though riddled with excruciating cancer, greeted his visitors with smiles, apparently experiencing no discomfort.
Is there any meaningful conclusion to be drawn here?

3)
In books and magazine articles you may read or at least glimpse, you may encounter words like empty, transcendent, non-dual, primordial and some of those used above. Sonorous, impressive, self-evidently arcane, such language may simply embody the hope that enlightenment can be grasped. Only the fact that such words verge on the meaningless lends them any usefulness in the practice of meditation.
At the end of a talk, Suzuki Roshi sometimes said: “I hope you don’t understand too much.”

4)
You may hear that one can meditate in such a way as to achieve any of the large-sounding words and notions mentioned above. If the words mean what they seem to, this is obviously not possible. Nonetheless, we must admit that all of us try. We hear a particularly attractive term, let’s say: Non-duality.

If we analyze the process of perception carefully or read about such an analysis in a text like the Surangama Sutra, we can see how the faculty of smell and an odor are interdependent. One can not take place without the other. Thus we could say that what seems to us as dual – nose and smell, is innately non-dual. We could then familiarize ourselves with this notion in meditation, either using some kinds of mental exercises or simply investigating our perception to see whether this assertion is in fact true. We may then feel we have some kind of direct experience of non-duality. Based on our new realization, can we then explain why a rose would not spontaneously produce a nose, or a nose produce the dreaded durian?

Be that as it may, the use of large words in meditation most often leads to what is called Target Shooting Meditation. Here we form a mental construct of something we believe we should experience. By analysis, we create a construct, a mental shape of that experience, and we aim our mind at having this experience. Because mind moves even while it is shapeless, it will, at least momentarily believe itself existing on the ground to which we have directed it. We will think we are actually having a real meditation experience when in fact we have been simply fabricated it out of words and longing.

To try and make a path by putting one aspect of oneself in opposition to another aspect is inescapably to create a world of frantic anguish. The result is like a crazy person trying to realize his or her own conception of sanity. So as Francisco de Quevedo observed in a slightly different context: “The soup was lost between the hand and the mouth: pass on to other things.”

There is a profound opening in the first moment of meditation: we recognize that we do not have to take our thoughts as completely real; we are not compelled to act on them. This is a small, ordinary experience, but one with profound implications. Nonetheless, during a period of practice or at its conclusion, if we think that our meditation has gone well or poorly, this is an infallible sign that our meditation has drifted into reliance on some concept or other, even if this concept is merely the memory of our first sense of openness. How else could we make such a judgment? Similarly, if we feel we have encountered definite obstacles in our practice, such as physical discomfort, discursive thought, obsessions and so forth, it is important to understand that those experiences are obstacles only as a function of whatever concept we have of our aim in meditation. In the absence of aims, there are no such obstacles.

5)
You may read that meditation enables you to tame your mind and bring it to a state of stability and peace. Despite meditating as a Buddhist for more than 40 years, I have not achieved even a glimpse of this, nor have I ever seen anyone else achieve it. Admittedly, I am not much of a practitioner, but there may also be a more general reason why this is so.

Mind itself is intrinsically unstable. Traditionally, mind has been described as ‘that which seeks an object’. In other words, it is in the nature of mind to be on the move between a subject (you or me) and an object (whatever we fear, desire, or believe will bring an end to such uncomfortable states). This process is continuous, and our minds constantly bounce between whether we should make changes in ourselves, our attitudes, outlooks and so forth, or whether we should move more decisively obtain what we want from the world. Beyond that, our sense of what we are changes, our intellectual and emotional frameworks change, our desires change, and the outer world is also in continuous change.

Looking closely at our own circumstances as well as reading texts makes this self-evident.

6)
You may hear meditation described as practice. Practice generally means a kind of preparatory exercise you do in order to be able to do ‘the real thing’. Hence practicing the piano, the guitar, ice-skating, geometry, French. You practice until you’ve mastered it and can actually do it. Practice then, means not quite doing it for real.

Why not do it for real? Why not enter practice as both preparation and realization simultaneously?

On the other hand, perhaps it is good to refer to meditation as practice since there is no attainment.

7)
The Buddha’s enlightenment is both no different and different from the many ways the Buddha formatted the awakened state in order to teach the path.

Hence Ikkyu says:
No beginning, no end, this one mind of ours.
The Original Mind cannot become Buddha-nature.
Original Buddhahood is Buddha’s mischievous talk;
The Original Mind of sentient beings is nothing but delusion.
(tr. Stevens, Shambhala Pub 1995;p.27)

8)
Orgyen Kusum Lingpa stated: “The essence of all Buddhist meditation is not following thoughts.”

This does not mean rejecting thoughts; not following thoughts means that as thoughts arise with their innumerable attractions, suggestions, warnings, seductions, questions, terrors, one does not follow the path onto which they invite us. We see them appear, but do not follow. Obviously, this includes practice, instruction, wisdom, and any other concepts about the path of enlightenment.

Thus the path of enlightenment is not the path TO enlightenment, a way to get to this so-called awakened state. The path of enlightenment is what is underneath our feet.

If one meditates simply in this way, each time one sits to meditate, one enters the unknown, the uncertain, the purposeless. Continuing, one repeatedly experiences uncertainty on the spot. One enters a great expanse that is unknowable, ordinary, alive and secret. One enters into the timeless and unbiased continuum of all being.

9)
Mostly when we sit down to meditate, we bring with us our motivation. This comprises the aspects of our past that we wish to overcome, combined with inspirations from aspects of the past that promise to produce our hoped-for future where we are finally the person we would like others to think we are. We sit down in a moving train of thought and follow its momentum. We are moved along from feeling to feeling, thought to thought, even if this thought is the end of thoughts or the stability of mind. We cannot bear to leave the familiar dynamism of thinking and knowing. We cannot bear to diverge for very long from the familiarity of our problems, our longings, our shortcomings, our aspirations, from the busy mind that ceaselessly produces such things.

Learning about meditation, learning to meditate, practicing meditation, we think perhaps we could leave the tensions of thinking and the anxieties of the world of the known behind. We could enter the free and unconstrained expanse beyond thought, free of causes and conditions, hope and fear. Thus, desperately we press in our meditation practice to leave, control or finally end the world of thought.

But in the path of meditation, relating to thoughts is the unfolding of compassion, relating to what is beyond thoughts allows the spontaneous presence of wisdom to bloom. The two are inseparable. For instance George Gershwin said: “ I frequently hear music in the heart of noise.”

Meditation then is not a matter of developing mastery or control. Enlightenment expands, speaking to us. The rich world of complete wakefulness is always vibrant regardless of the qualities that appear in our experience. It is singing in silence and chaos.

Meditation establishes the equality of the known and unknown in our journey and our living.

10)
But the appearances of insight, the experience of bliss or clarity of wisdom, elements which once articulated have such authority, followed with such intensity, how do they figure in our journey? It is perhaps as Proust puts it:

“Perhaps it is not-being that is the true state, and all our dream of life is inexistent, but if so, we feel that these phrases of music, these conceptions which exist in relation to our dream must be nothing either. We shall perish, but we have as hostages these divine captives who will follow and share our fate. And death, in their company is somehow less bitter, less inglorious, perhaps even less probable.” (Swann’s Way p.381 Vintage 1981)

11)
In early summer evenings, beneath the mulberry tree at the foot of our garden, fireflies flickered neon green in the humid lavender dark. I was five, and on one special night I, my brother and sisters were allowed to go out and catch fireflies. Our mother gave us jars with holes poked in the top, and we ran barefoot beneath the trees catching the small fluorescent creatures as berries fallen in the grass squelched beneath our feet.

By morning light, we could see that many fireflies in the jar had died and that those living were shabby grayish bugs. But now we saw our feet were dyed a wonderful shade of purple-blue.

Moment

All Buddhas, infinite and bright as oceans of stars,
Dwell in all realms in all of whatever is called space,
Manifest in all eons in whatever is called time.
Infinite in form, they dance: they share in a single act.

Each produces illusion on illusion on illusion:
Rainbows within rainbows within rainbows
Shining in an illusory sky,
Opening in the eyes and hearts of beings
In a living moment of self-liberated awake.

THE RADIANT SUCCESSION OF SHAMBHALA: THE FIFTH DHARMA RAJAH SURESVARA

1

Now the fifth Dharma Raja of Shambhala,
The second to be named, Suresvara, Lord of Asuras,
The Destroyer of the Cities of Delusion,
Rules from the Crystal Palace of the Kalapa Court.

Dharma Raja Suresvara enters this world as an emanation
Of the self-born lord of ceaseless wrath, The Vajrakumara Vajrakilaya.

Vajrakilaya’s towering body is radiant black,
He has three heads and six arms.
In his two central hands, he rolls a kila of meteoric iron
Whose top pierces the summit of the sky
And whose point penetrates the depth of existence.
In his embrace he holds his consort, pale blue as snow in moonlight.
Together, they blaze with all consuming-bliss.
This is the utter inseparability of space and awareness,
The primordial freedom that cuts through liberation.

2

The Dharma Lord Suresvara appears in the center of a field of flowers
Where he sits on the earth amid fragrant blossoms, beside a treasure vase.
His face is pale gold and his expression is still and thoughtful
As if he is looking into the ebb and flow of time.
His hair and mustache are black and cool.
He wears the gold crown of a Dharma King
Surmounted by an emerald which radiates black light.

He wears a gold brocade robe adorned with springing tigers .
His sash is dark blue as a clear autumn sky.
He wears the gold necklaces, earrings and bracelets of an earth-protector.

In his right hand, he holds a golden arrow with red garuda feathers and an obsidian tip.
Which pierces space and opens the display of the sense fields.
In his left hand, he holds a bow made from the leg of a black antelope,
The power of yearning that projects all the realms of life and death.

Without concern, he fingers these great weapons as playthings,
And one feels paralyzed in his presence,
Full to the brim and completely empty.

3

In his unchanging secret form, the Dharma Raja Suresvara
Is glowing red like the all-consuming fire of time,
Youthful, radiant, naked to the waist.
He smiles, but his gaze is unmoving and fearless.
Because all aspects of the world are inseparable from his being,
He wears a crown of unconditioned love made from pink utpala flowers.

He wears swirling red silk pants and a skirt of blue brocade
Adorned with gold blazing clouds of flame.
His body is adorned with golden necklaces,
And his arms with gold bracelets, and a scarf the color of laurel leaves.
He sits before his fiery palace
On a burning throne surmounted by the three jewels.

With his raised right hand, he plays an ivory damaru,
From which emerge the vowels and consonants of creation and destruction
Filling the whole of space.
In his left hand he holds a lotus the color of dawn
On which stands the blue jewel of the Buddha-nature itself,
Glowing amid the gold flames of totality.

His consort, still and white a cloudless noon sky,
Sits next to him holding the sun-disc
In which all the myriad displays of mind unfold and fade.

THE RADIANT SUCCESSION OF SHAMBHALA: DHARMA RAJAH SOMADATTA

1

Somadatta, Gift of the Amrita Moon, The Lord of Speech
Now enters the Crystal Palace of the Kalapa Court.
He is the fourth Dharma Raja of Shambhala,

Dharma Raja Somadatta enters this world as an emanation
Of the transcendent Bodhisattva
Sarvanivaranavikrambhin, the Conqueror of All Hindrances .

Sarvanivaranavikrambhin is pale blue like a summer moon
He is very young and his smile is inviting.
He holds in his right hand a white lotus.
On it, as if floating in the sky, the full moon of compassion shines.
His left hand makes the gesture that overcomes all fear
And opens the moonlit path of self-existing fulfillment.

2

The Dharma Lord Somadatta sits on a throne on a high mountain peak.
His face is the color of pearl. His gaze is passionate.
His hair and mustache are fine and black.
He wears the gold crown of a dharma king surmounted by a moonstone
Whose soft luster fills the sky at evening.

He wears a robe of pale orange brocade marked with mating tigers.
His silk sash is turquoise like a summer sea.
He wears the gold necklaces, earrings, and bracelets of an earth-protector.

In his right hand he holds the iron mace, the power of time
Which intoxicates and stupefies the mind, and breaks all who oppose it.
In his left hand he holds the diamond chains that bind the three worlds to nowness.
Thus he floods the world with a moon ocean of bliss, luminosity and complete non-thought.

To stand before him is to feel shy and eager like a passionate virgin
Meeting a lover for the very first time.

3

In his unchanging secret form, the Dharma Raja Somadatta
Is the all pervasive blue-black color of midnight.
His teeth are clenched in a fierce smile,
And his three eyes gaze passionately into all phenomena.
He is the lord who exhausts all hunger and fulfills all thirsts.
He wears the crown of the five families of thataghatas.
And a halo of ruby light shines all around him.

He wears a heavy crimson robe embroidered in gold with coils of joy.
Beneath that he wears a white under-robe covered with silver clouds.
He sits on a red throne, and his left foot rests on a lotus and moon disc.

He holds in his raised right hand the flaming vajra sword
Cutting through the obsessions of all-consuming need.
In his left hand, he holds the golden shield,
The self-existing satiety of the mind of nowness.

His golden consort holds a fan adorned with blue peacock's feathers,
The sign of endless and uninterrupted offering,
The love that ends the tortured cravings of beings.

THE RADIANT SUCCESSION OF SHAMBHALA: DHARMA RAJAH TEJIN

1
Now the third Dharma Raja of Shambhala
Takes his seat within the Crystal Palace of the Kalapa Court:
He is Tejin, Glowing with the Splendor and Dignity of Unconditional Confidence,
The bearer of the dharma wheel and auspicious conch.

The Dharma Raja Tejin enters this world as an emanation
Of the terrifying Conqueror and Lord of Death, Yamantaka.

Yamanataka is Dark blue in color with thirty-four arms, sixteen legs, and nine heads,
His principal face is that of enraged buffalo.
His three blood-shot eyes wheel madly,
And below his burning snout his pointed iron teeth gnash.
He is adorned by serpents and garlands of human heads.
Because he sees to the core of all the cycles of time,
The empty radiance of reality itself.

2

The Dharma Lord Tejin sits erect near a fresh stream in a forest glade.
His face is dark brown and stern. His gaze is uncompromising.
His hair and mustache are black and cool.
He wears the gold crown of a dharma king, surmounted by a yellow diamond
Which shines like the sun appearing through the smoke of a battle-field.

He wears a glistening white robe embroidered with golden lions.
His sash is orange like an early sun.
He wears the gold necklaces, earrings and bracelets of an earth-protector.

In his right hand, he holds a golden eight-spoked dharma-chakra,
And in his left he holds a conch shell.
Thus he proclaims the unceasing path of liberation
And the truth which is not limited by words.

To see him is to experience a terror that cuts to the marrow,
As all one's self absorption, one's schemes for self-satisfied happiness
Are revealed as cowardly vain, and finally fatal self- deceptions.

3

In his unchanging secret form, the Dharma Raja Tejin
Is the color of a lake of molten gold,
And he is youthful, naked to the waist.
His teeth are clenched,
And his three eyes stare implacably into the depths of space.
He wears the crown of the five families of Thatagathas,
And his red hair, the color of fire is bound into a top-knot.

As the lord who is unaltered by time's endless cycles
And is never confused by changing reference points,
Blue serpents twine around his neck, wrists and ankles as ornaments.
His legs are covered by a silk rainbow and he wears a tiger-skin skirt.

In his raised right hand he upholds that which never changes,
The golden eight spoked dharma cakra;
In his left hand he holds a pure white conch
Whose turnings shape the elements in ever shifting forms
And whose sound is the birth-cry of all creation.

His throne is a black and red jeweled palace
Floating amid clouds and a halo of time-ending fire,
And supported from below by three blue and two bronze water buffalo.

His consort, on his right, is the color of pure lapis,
She holds the kapala of amrita which overcomes death
By dissolving belief in the permanence of individual existence
And the hooked knife which returns all thoughts to the essence.

THE RADIANT SUCCESSION OF SHAMBHALA: DHARMA RAJAH SURESVARA

1

Now the second Dharma Rajah enters the Crystal Hall of the Kalapa Court.
He is Dharma Raja Suresvara, Lord of Asuras,
Binding All Beings by Love in Union with Pure Nowness.

The great Dharma King Suresvara enters this world
As an emanation of Bodhisattva Kshitigharbha,
Who, because he loves all living beings as if he were their mother,
Is called :The 'Womb of Earth'.

Kshitigharbha appears as a simple monk.
The mark of perfection shines on his forehead.
He holds the wish-fulfilling gem in his right hand.
Because his love supports all beings in the six realms,
He holds in his left hand, a staff with six rings.
Determined that none who are born shall linger in the bonds of suffering,
He is the protector of all children
And carries a child in the crook of his right arm.
He is the compassion of the Buddha,
Inseparable from every form of life,
The final liberator of all who suffer all the tortures of hell.

2

Ruling from within the Crystal Palace, the Dharma Lord Suresvara
Sits at ease beside the wish-fulfilling tree
In a garden filled with fragrant trees.

His face is ruddy and his expression is determined and loving.
His hair and mustache are black and oiled.
He wears the gold crown of a dharma king
Surmounted by a ruby that glows like a dawn sun.

He wears a vermilion brocade robe adorned with gold garudas.
His sash is white as winter ocean spray.
He wears the gold necklaces, earrings and bracelets of an earth-protector.

In his right hand, he holds the gold Vajra prod
Which guides the mad elephant of mind
Through the jungles of claustrophobia and aggression,
In his left hand, he holds a rope of iron
Which draws all beings out of hell
With the ring of faith and hook of longing.

The sight of him overcomes all chaos, uncertainty, and anger
And one experiences complete confidence in the power unconditional love.

4

In his unchanging secret form, the Dharma Raja Suresvara
Is dark red in color like heart's blood.
Youthful, naked to the waist,
He smiles and the sweetness of his expression pervades all space
Like the scent of honey-suckle on a summer night.

He wears a crown of pink utpala flowers
And a scarf the color of laurel leaves.
He wears red pants and a skirt of blue brocade
Adorned with golden swirling clouds.
Because all aspects of the world are dear to him,
His body is adorned with golden necklaces.
And his arms with gold bracelets.
He sits on a throne before the coral and crystal gold-roofed palace of Kalapa
On a throne surmounted by the three jewels.

With his raised right hand, he plays an ivory damaru,
From which emerge all the vowels and consonants.
Thus all the senses vibrate in pure nowness.
In his left hand he holds a lotus the color of dawn
On which stands the blue jewel of the Buddha-nature itself,
Glowing amid the gold flames of all consuming compassion.

His consort, gentle and white a noon-day cloud,
Sits next to him holding the sun-disc of the complete power of mind.

THE RADIANT SUCCESSION OF SHAMBHALA: DHARMA RAJAH SUCANDRA

The Earth Protector Kings
Who ruled the land called Shambhala,
Which means "Held by the Source of Happiness",
Were all descended from Shambhaka of the Sakya clan,

Emerging from this immemorial lineage,
Sucandra, Auspicious Moon, the Lord of Secrets
Is the first to be called a Dharma King.
Now he enters the Crystal Hall of the Kalapa Court.

This great Dharma Raja enters this world as an emanation of Vajrapani,
The All-Conquering Lord of Secrets
Who brings the blazing light of wisdom
Into the fickle realities of the human realm.
Vajrapani is the master of Buddha Activity
Beyond the waxing and waning of life and death.

Out of Vajrapani’s heart, the Dharma King Sucandra takes birth
As the first son of King Suryaprabha and Queen Vijaya.
Thus he enters the Kalapa Court and takes his seat on the Lion Throne.

His pale face is serene and his dark gaze fathomless.
His hair and mustache are black and smooth.
He wears the Gold Crown of Reality Beyond the Limit of Knowledge
Which is surmounted by a white diamond free of any flaw.

As the lord of heart and mind,
He wears gold earrings shaped like sea-dragons.
His dragon-patterned brocade robe is turquoise.
His sash is pale red like an early winter moon.

In his right hand he holds a white lotus
On which stands a crystal Vajra;
In his left a silver bell.
He sits on a glowing golden throne
Beneath the rainbow colored parasol of complete fearlessness
Which is vast as the sky and supported by a golden pole high as Mount Meru.

Encountering him is overwhelming
As if one had emerged in the night from a narrow mountain pass
And found oneself suddenly on an immense plain bathed in full moonlight.


2

In his unchanging secret form, the Great Dharma King Sucandra
Is ever youthful and his body is white as a conch.
His face is inviting and completely peaceful.

Because he has attained the summit of dharma,
His top-knot is surmounted by the three jewels
Blazing with their own radiance.

He wears the flower garland crown of the five senses
And a necklace of the five elements displayed as five kinds of gem-stones.
He wears a red and gold brocade shawl as radiant as the splendor of love.
His golden bracelets are the four aims of life.
He wears the Jewel Treasure of the Ocean on a gold chain at his heart.

In his right hand, he holds the Wish Fulfilling Tree,
And in his left a red lotus,
On which stands the golden eight spoked wheel of unobstructed truth
Surmounted by the three jewels.

His consort on his right, gold as the dawn sun,
Makes the gesture of timeless offering,
Extending the gold vase of eternal life surmounted by the flaming three jewels.

The Dharma King Sucandra is surrounded
By all the offerings of the phenomenal world.
In the peace of his radiance, there is no room for doubt or discursiveness.

3

The Great Dharma Raja Sucandra journeyed to the stupa of Dhyanakataka,
Accompanied by a great retinue of Nagas, Dralas,
And a vast number of his own subjects.

There the Great Lord prostrated to the Enlightened One,
Sage of the Sakyas, the Gautama Buddha,
The conqueror of the three worlds and light of this age.

The Dharma Raja requested the teachings for one who remains a King,
Remains in the embrace of the senses, and seeks the well being of all.
He requested the teachings that unfold outer life as an inner path.
He requested the teachings that open the gate of the seventh consciousness, And purify the full display of the ayatanas.

He requested the teachings that show the world of Basic Goodness
Glowing and fertile in the light of the Great Eastern Sun.

According to the text of The Supreme First Buddha,
The way in which he made his request is told as follows:

To eliminate the kleshas of sentient beings
By the union of body, speech and mind,
He supplicated the Bhagavan by offerings
Of jewel flowers strewn at his lotus feet.

He supplicated with the petals of precious flowers,
With prostrations made on bended knee.
With right knee to the floor
And with palms joined at the forehead,
The Lord of Shambhala requested:

"The Unsurpassed Highest Tantra, The First Buddha
Gathers all siddhis, possesses the vowels and consonants,
The Glorious Yoga of Kalachakra
Instantly manifests perfect Buddhahood.

“Possessing the four times
By its 60 divisions,
It holds the four bindus:
The emptiness and wisdom bindu,
The great supreme Vajra Holder,
The great emptiness of five words,
The empty bindu of six letters.

“Outer, body, Buddha, god, and non-god, 25 classes of beings,
All are within the nature
With bodies of various scale
Which are the cause of the three worlds' arising,
The enjoyment of gods and non-gods;
All these without exception
I ask the teacher to explain."
(2)

Then interior of the stupa became transformed into an immeasurable skull cup,
The inconceivable expanse of the dharmadhatu.
There, in the infinite expanse without beginning or end,
The Buddha arose in the form Vajrasattva
And opened the mandala of Kalachakra, The Lord of Time.
In the great dance of Vajra compassion,
He opened the immeasurable palace:
Below, he displayed the twelve blissful aspects
Of the Lord of Vajradhatu Speech;
Above, he displayed the sixteen mandalas of stars.
All this had not been seen, heard or known
Since the eon of Buddha Dipankara.

In this way, the Buddha himself gave the initiation
Into the great Mandala of Vajradhatu
And conveyed the root text of the Tantra of Glorious Kalachakra.

The Root Tantra explains the essence:

Ka is pacification of cause.
La is dissolving.
Cha is the motion of mind.
Kra is being bound to the stages.

And the Great Commentary expands this:

Whoever has neither cause nor characteristics,
Is without movement and free from stages:
This is the meaning of Kalachakra.
To that non-duality, I make homage.
(3)

So upon returning to Shambhala, Dharma Raja Sucandra
Recorded all this in writing, the "Paramadibuddha" in 12,000 verses,
With commentary five times that length.

Upon returning to Kalapa,
Dharma King Sucandra manifested his pure perception
As a great pleasure garden
To the south of the Palace of Kalapa and to the West of the "Near Lake".

In the midst of that vast park called Malaya,
From liquid gold, rubies, sapphires, emeralds,
Crystal, coral, and turquoise, and silver,
The Dharma Lord built the great Body Mandala of the Lord of Time,
A perfect square with four gates, four arches, and eight charnel grounds
With five surrounding fences,
And beyond them the mandala of the elements adorned with vajra chains.

Near it he built the Speech Mandala of Kalachakra, alike in form,
And close to that, he built the Mind Mandala of Kalachakra,
Alike in form but with three surrounding fences.
Closer still, he placed the Wisdom Mandala of Kalachakra
Surrounded by sixteen jeweled towers.
Again nearest yet to the Kalapa Court, the Dharma King Sucandra
Created a vast eight-petalled lotus
Whose golden anthers sway on breezes of delight and brush the sky,
Radiating like a hundred suns.

Placed in the timeless expanse of pure perception
The Mandalas of the Lord of Time are utterly complete
In every aspect and characteristic, and power.

From this moment on, time is marked with the names of the Kings of Kalapa.
It is from this time that the names of the Lords of Kalapa are known to all.
It is from this time that the teachings of Shambhala flourish,
Blazing through all the human realm and in every human heart.

from THE MIRROR OF NOWNESS- THE KINGDOM OF SHAMBHALA AND THE KALAPA COURT

THE RADIANT SUCCESSION OF THE LORDS OF KALAPA:
THE KINGDOM OF SHAMBHALA


1

Floating on the radiance of nowness
In the infinite circle of the cosmic mirror,
The Kingdom of Shambhala appears as a pure realm.
The Kingdom of Shambhala appears on the face of this earth.
The Kingdom of Shambhala appears as the secret form of the human heart.

Because Shambhala is nowness,
It is all pervasive as basic goodness.
Because Shambhala does not rely on confirmation,
It expands as the vastness of the ayatanas.
Because Shambhala vaults over the apparent opposition of phenomena,
It rises as the power of wind horse.
Because Shambhala is timeless
It is always appropriate,
Because Shambhala is self-fulfilling,
It is awake in the primordial stroke.
It posses the spontaneous confidence of Lion, Tiger, Garuda, Dragon.


2


Luminous, immense, verdant, stately and eternal,
The Kingdom of Shambhala is hidden.
A towering range of impenetrable, glistening snow-mountains,
Formed from time
Frozen by the anger, lust and ignorance of egoistic fixation,
Completely surrounds it.

Within this circular ice mountain wall,
The Kingdom of Shambhala, "Held by the Source of Happiness", opens
In the shape of vast lotus with eight petals.

The melting waters of Shambhala’s mountains
Form eight cold blue racing streams
Which enrich its fields and forests
And mark the boundaries of the Kingdom’s eight provinces.

In each province, farms, forests, lakes and towns
Adorn the land, as dew in sunlight
Sparkles on a lotus' outstretched petals.

This is the land where the intrinsic sacredness
Of humanity has never been lost,
And is always whole.

The births of all who dwell here are free of pain.
Following the ways of their ancestors and the guidance of elders,
They are raised according to the inner path of meditation,
And cultivate the outer paths of art and warrior discipline.
Their manner is dignified, direct and considerate,
And their lives are untouched by sickness, hunger, unhappiness or poverty.
Both men and women are true warriors,
But live the lives of ordinary householders.
Their life spans last a hundred years,
And they view their deaths with equanimity
As no different from the transitions of life.
(1&2)
Their confidence and kindness
Appear in the ordinary human realm
As galaxies of stars in the dark of night.

In each province, as on the apex of a lotus petal’s gentle curve,
Sits a glittering capital city.
In the east is The Proud One; in the southeast, The Vast Field;
In the south, the Secret; in the west, The Flexible One;
In the northwest, The Happy One; in the north, The Originating One;
And in the northeast, The Radiant One.

In the gleaming inner courts of these capitals
Reside the Lords of Shambhala,
The father and mother lineages of dralas.
Their minds do not stray from nowness.
They are gentle and fearless.
By speech and symbol,
They expand the luminous, vast perception of nowness
Unrestricted by the limits of conventional thought.
Their brilliance blazes through the realm of human time
As protectors, as mountain gods and goddesses of lakes,
As non-dual sudden wakefulness.

THE MIRROR OF NOWNESS: THE LEGACY OF THE RIGDEN KINGS OF SHAMBHALA

FOREWORD

The core of what follows is an account of the thirty-two rulers of the legendary Kingdom of Shambhala. The first eight were titled Dharma Kings and the latter twenty-five titled Rigdens or ‘Caste Holders’. The eighth Dharma King, Manjusrikirti-Yasas was responsible for the change of social arrangements resulting in the change of title.

The Kingdom of Shambhala is said to have three aspects first as a pure realm, secondly as a real though seldom seen place on the earth, and thirdly as an essential part of human nature. Thus Shambhala is the fruition, path and ground of the social manifestation of enlightened mind.

Only four of its rulers are spoken of as having manifested directly in human historical time: Sucandra, Pundarika, Manjusrikirti-Yasas, and the future twenty-fifth Rigden, Raudracakrin. The rest are known only by the description of their outer appearance in the Kingdom of Shambhala and by the description of their inner manifestation in Sambhogakaya form.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of those who dwell in pure realms is that their compassion can manifest anywhere, uncircumscribed by the concepts of space and time. Thus the inner descriptions of the rulers of Shambhala portray the aspects of enlightenment which they display and which radiate during their reign throughout the human world. Through their complex forms, colors, attributes and atmospheres, the rulers of Shambhala manifest the mind of timelessness in the world of time and move in the hearts of all human beings.



THE RADIANT SUCCESSION OF THE LORDS OF KALAPA:
THE COSMIC MIRROR

1

In the all-pervasive pure immensity of primordial space,
The limitless, the timeless;
Space before stillness, time before occurrence,
The signless, the directionless, the gateless;
In this realm which neither appears nor disappears;
Space without other, ground without path, the primordial mandala
Is pure presence, is pure reality itself.

Now
Without beginning,
Now
Without end,
The cosmic mirror
Is the spontaneous expanse of infinite space.

The first moment without the second,
The cosmic mirror is primordial nowness.


2

Now,
Radiating within the space beyond space and the time beyond time,
Everywhere and simultaneously

Now,
Light before illumination and shadow;
Luminosity inseparable from bliss,
The radiance of all, bliss of all:
The self-luminous blazes as gates of light.

Now
Without logic or consequence,
Sight, sound smell, taste and touch
Shine
Free from the limits of perceiver, perception or consciousness.

This is the all-encompassing radiance
Of the cosmic mirror.


3

Now,
As a bolt of lightning, as a sharp cry
All the wisdom of the cosmic mirror
Condenses.

A sudden dot,
Vibrant, alive, awake,
Pulses in the infinite expanse of luminous space.

Now is the all pervasive life
Of vision, tenderness and courage.

The Kingdom of Shambhala
Rises beyond time
Complete, Brilliant and all pervasive
In every instant.



THE RADIANT SUCCESSION OF THE LORDS OF KALAPA:
THE KINGDOM OF SHAMBHALA


1

Floating on the radiance of nowness
In the infinite circle of the cosmic mirror,
The Kingdom of Shambhala appears as a pure realm.
The Kingdom of Shambhala appears on the face of this earth.
The Kingdom of Shambhala appears as the secret form of the human heart.

Because Shambhala is nowness,
It is all pervasive as basic goodness.
Because Shambhala does not rely on confirmation,
It expands as the vastness of the ayatanas.
Because Shambhala vaults over the apparent opposition of phenomena,
It rises as the power of wind horse.
Because Shambhala is timeless
It is always appropriate,
Because Shambhala is self-fulfilling,
It is awake in the primordial stroke.
It posses the spontaneous confidence of Lion, Tiger, Garuda, Dragon.


2


Luminous, immense, verdant, stately and eternal,
The Kingdom of Shambhala is hidden.
A towering range of impenetrable, glistening snow-mountains,
Formed from time
Frozen by the anger, lust and ignorance of egoistic fixation,
Completely surrounds it.

Within this circular ice mountain wall,
The Kingdom of Shambhala, "Held by the Source of Happiness", opens
In the shape of vast lotus with eight petals.

The melting waters of Shambhala’s mountains
Form eight cold blue racing streams
Which enrich its fields and forests
And mark the boundaries of the Kingdom’s eight provinces.

In each province, farms, forests, lakes and towns
Adorn the land, as dew in sunlight
Sparkles on a lotus' outstretched petals.

This is the land where the intrinsic sacredness
Of humanity has never been lost,
And is always whole.

The births of all who dwell here are free of pain.
Following the ways of their ancestors and the guidance of elders,
They are raised according to the inner path of meditation,
And cultivate the outer paths of art and warrior discipline.
Their manner is dignified, direct and considerate,
And their lives are untouched by sickness, hunger, unhappiness or poverty.
Both men and women are true warriors,
But live the lives of ordinary householders.
Their life spans last a hundred years,
And they view their deaths with equanimity
As no different from the transitions of life.
(1&2)
Their confidence and kindness
Appear in the ordinary human realm
As galaxies of stars in the dark of night.

In each province, as on the apex of a lotus petal’s gentle curve,
Sits a glittering capital city.
In the east is The Proud One; in the southeast, The Vast Field;
In the south, the Secret; in the west, The Flexible One;
In the northwest, The Happy One; in the north, The Originating One;
And in the northeast, The Radiant One.

In the gleaming inner courts of these capitals
Reside the Lords of Shambhala,
The father and mother lineages of dralas.
Their minds do not stray from nowness.
They are gentle and fearless.
By speech and symbol,
They expand the luminous, vast perception of nowness
Unrestricted by the limits of conventional thought.
Their brilliance blazes through the realm of human time
As protectors, as mountain gods and goddesses of lakes,
As non-dual sudden wakefulness.


THE RADIANT SUCCESSION OF THE LORDS OF KALAPA:
THE KALAPA COURT

1


At the center of the Kingdom of Shambhala,
Like silver anthers rising amid golden lotus petals,
A towering ring of crystal mountains rises
Formed from time frozen by concepts of eternalism and nihilism.

Theses glittering peaks surround a lofty circular green plateau,
The great park of Malaya, adorned with turquoise lakes and crystal streams.
Glades of juniper, tamarisk, bamboo, and rhododendron perfume the air.
Here stands the mandala of Kalachakra,
Surrounded by the mandalas of the eight gods, the eight Naga kings,
The protectors of the ten directions,
The nine great destroyers, the gods of the eight planets,
The twenty-eight stars, and innumerable other protector deities.

At the center of Malaya, arising in the spontaneous heart of nowness,
Is the ultimate court of primordial time,
Kalapa, "The Timely”, the capital of Shambhala,
Glowing with an intense radiance that fills the whole of space.

Here dwell the Earth Protectors and Rigdens
Who rule over all Shambhala
And radiate the heart of all true human law.

Kalapa is a vast square with high bright ruby walls
Surmounted by golden balustrades.
Its four gates are made from sapphire, yellow diamond, ruby and emerald.
Within the walls are the inner gates and courtyards paved with white opal.
In the center, on a platform of pearl, is a great palace, the Kalapa Court.
It is made of gold and looms nine stories high
With pillars and beams made of cinnabar, silver, coral and gzi.
Its floors are ebony, sandalwood and cedar.
It's moldings are made of silver and liquid gold,
And its roof and the floor of its throne room
Are made from crystal plates that radiate heat.
Its roof is surmounted by victory banners and a gold dharmachakra.
Garlands of gold and pearl hang from its eaves.
The luster of the palace is so great that it dims the sun and moon,
And the sky above the palace shines like a sparkling sea.

Also within the ruby walls of Kalapa, surrounding the central palace
Are thirty-one smaller pavilions built in the same way.
Each is surrounded by gardens and streams.
The sound of chimes and the scent of flowers fill the air.

Here dwell of the Rulers of Shambhala,
The seven Earth Protector Dharma Rajahs and twenty-five Rigdens.

The Rulers of Shambhala appear directly from the heart of the cosmic mirror
As nowness pervades the endless succession of time.
As timelessness pierces the endless stream of cause and effect,
The rulers of Shambhala follow one after another
Just as the sun moves across the sky.
Thus primordial time radiates within the realm of time
As ruler, as guide, as sustenance, as vision.

2

Inseparable from the fabric of the vast and minute cycles of time itself,
The thirty-two Lords of Kalapa
Move slowly across the luminous court yard.
Each in turn dwells in each of the thirty-two pavilions of Kalapa.
Each in succession appears in rulership,
Resolving, one into the other,
As the many rays and aspects resolve into a single blazing sun.
The True Law of the human realm
Resounds with their foot-fall.
Time unfolds as the vowels and consonants
Weave the binding of the senses and elements
To the pervasive unwavering blue light of Samantabhadra.

Thus the mind of the rulers shines in light.
The mood of their command colors the sky.
Their deeds are the dance of the elements.

The sun and moon are their wisdom display,
The stars and planets show their path,
The four seasons are their law
In order that confidence blaze like a prairie fire
In the hearts of all men, women and children.

In order to show the law inherent in the movements of the human,
The Lords of Kalapa, the Rulers of Shambhala
Appear in the Kalapa Court,
One after the other;
Appear in slow procession
And the whole of time resounds from their footsteps.

So
Through the blessings of the elements and ayatanas,
The Kingdom of Shambhala appears
As living reality on the very face of this earth,
Alive in every breath, sound, mood, season, hour and instant.

INTRODUCTION to CROSSINGS ON A BRIDGE OF LIGHT

The Gesar epic is a vast body of literature that recounts the struggles of Gesar Norbu Dradul, the legendary 12th century King of Ling in Eastern Tibet. Gesar was renowned for the many battles and quests he undertook to secure the wellbeing, prosperity and peace of his embattled kingdom, and he came to be regarded as the embodiment of continuous cultural and spiritual renewal.

In all his endeavors, Gesar is inspired by fearless compassion. Unafraid of chaos, he is able to uncover a path of wakefulness and harmony even in the most perilous and compromising situations. His unconditional commitment to others gives birth to the confidence that always uncovers spontaneous, precise and vital expressions of enlightened mind. Thus, he is revered throughout central Asia in Buddhist, Shambhala and shamanic teachings as the perfect warrior.

The Spirit of Renewal

Gesar's character in all his journeys is somewhat unique in Asian folklore. He is, even from before his birth, an enlightened being. However he is also a classic epic hero, prey to a range of flaws. Unlike the Buddha who, having once realized enlightenment, was invulnerable to worldly sorrows and blandishments, Gesar is repeatedly caught in nets of outer and inner conflict. And he repeatedly engages his torment and confusion in order to uncover the freedom of fundamental wakefulness.

The deepest impulse in the Gesar tradition is the constant renewal of enlightenment in the world. It is this dynamic—the constant rediscovery of wakefulness and compassion within the most horrific, grotesque, and frightening situations—that accounts for the Gesar epic's continued vitality and its many elaborations.

A Living Tradition

One of the world’s most extensive bodies of epic lore, the Gesar songs and stories have long focused the social and spiritual aspirations of Eastern Tibet, Western China, Mongolia, Buryatsia, and the Kalmuk Republic. This epic tradition is still alive, in a wide variety of forms, today.

Itinerant Gesar singers perpetuate the saga’s basic episodes and characters in improvised songs and chants, with some illiterate singers pretending to recite from written texts, and others unfurling scrolls that depict the tales of their songs. In eastern Tibet and elsewhere, an elaborate theatrical tradition boasts distinctive dances, costumes, and backdrops.

The epic has also been composed in written form, most famously in the early 20th century at the behest of Mipham Rinpoche, the great Nyingma lama and scholar. This written tradition includes many liturgies invoking Gesar as a deity, protector, and spiritual guide. Of the written versions now available to us from Tibet, Mongolia, and Ladakh, many were adapted in whole or in part from the songs and performances of one or more singers. Meanwhile new episodes arise in response to the inspiration and needs of the time. One lama, for example, hearing of the horrors of World War Two, composed an episode in which Gesar goes to Germany to conquer Hitler.

The Gesar epic is unlike the Mahabharata, which exists in one definitive written form, or the Ramayana which exists in two. Throughout India and South East Asia, the many theatrical and spiritual variations of these two great Indian epics assume the stability of the root texts. By contrast, there is no “definitive” Gesar epic, which is constantly evolving—as are its modes of presentation (with some songs and performances containing only selected episodes). In this sense, it is very much a living, improvisatory tradition. Because its message continues to inspire people in many cultures to find courage and hope in the hardships they encounter daily, new renditions of the Gesar epic have often arisen in times of special uncertainty and danger.

The Heart of the Story

The Gesar Epic has a core repertoire of episodes. These include Gesar's celestial origin and miraculous birth, his childhood and accession to the throne, his four great campaigns against the demonic lords of the four directions, and his departure from this earth. Other episodes tell of his battles in foreign lands, undertaken to procure various spiritual and material riches for the people of Ling. (These can be found in Alexandra David Neel’s Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling, Douglas Penick’s Warrior Song of King Gesar, and Robin Kornman forthcoming translation, among others.)

The episode recounted here is also part of the traditional canon, but less well known and tells of Gesar’s journey to rescue his mother from hell. To do so, Gesar, after encountering the great protectors Vajrasadhu and Vetali, enters the kingdom of Yama, Lord of Death (part 1) he then travels through the six realms of existence and the interim states or bardos (part2). And afterwards, he visits the Kingdom of Shambhala, where he meets four great warrior rulers who frame this journey in a worldly societal context (part 3). Finally, (in part 4), King Gesar makes his last return to Ling.

This episode is in some ways the epitome of all Gesar’s other endeavors. Here he experiences of the six realms of being: hell, the realm of hungry ghosts, animals, humans, jealous gods, and gods. These realms are traditional in Tibetan, Indian and other central Asian cosmologies, but even as they may be considered ‘real’ places, they also represent the kinds of worlds that evolve from our own states of mind. Thus, when our anger becomes completely solid, our world becomes a constant source of pain; when our craving becomes incessant, we inhabit a world of utter deprivation; willful ignorance makes a world of endless apprehension; clinging to stability accentuates a world of constant change; envy produces a world where what is most desired is the possession of others; and the hallucinations of self-absorption flourish in complete indifference. From this point of view, we may find that all these realms not just resonate but even exist in our human world.

At the same time, the actual experiences of anger, craving, ignoring and so forth are all intensely, even unsparingly alive. We try to harness them to our narrative of a solid self achieving goals in a solid world, but, letting go of such reference points, the energy of the passions themselves becomes a path of enlightenment. Passions wake us up to what is real in the world, in ourselves, in life, in dying. Thus, Gesar’s experience of each realm leads him to realize the immediate enlightenment within it.

Although in this rendition, the six realms and the Buddhas within them are represented traditionally, this story lives beyond its original cultural framework. The inner truth of Gesar’s journey is not ultimately confined to any specific imagery. The demonic figures are expressions of our own inner terrors; the Buddhas ( literally: ‘awakened ones’) refer to the intrinsic clarity and vividness of our own minds. Beyond any specific cultural or spiritual tradition, Gesar continues to provoke and inspire because we continually feel that there is an intensity, a truthfulness beyond our own limitations, and we continue to dare to seek it, even beyond the limits of life and death.

*

As this entire episode has never been translated into English, I have relied on the Gesar tradition as transmitted to me by the Vidyadhara, the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, the Dorje Dradul of Mukpo Dong. I have also been given unstinting and generous assistance from the teachings of His Holiness Orgyen Kusum Lingpa, the Venerable Tulku Thondup, the Venerable Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, the Venerable Yangthang Tulku, and the Venerable Namkhai Drimed Rinpoche. I am also deeply indebted to Ives Waldo, the late Robin Kornman, Blake Thomson, and the works of R.A. Stein, Alexandra David Neel, Ida Zeitlin, and Geoffrey Samuels.