(no subject)

[zana16]

Things I will tell my teacher:

When I get stressed out at work (which happens a LOT), sometimes I will put on my headphones and listen to the Avalokiteshvara puja she gave me the CD of, and chant the hundred OM MANE PAME HUMs, and I will almost always feel much calmer and relaxed.

Things I will not tell my teacher:

Sometimes, listening to the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack does the same thing for me.

Comments

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

Chinreizg! I got very good at identifying him in paintings because David used to like to go to The Rubin in NYC a lot. :D

[zana16.livejournal.com]

It took me awhile to get any proficiency at identifying him; several deities have multiple arms, but the crystal mala between the palms is pretty dependable.

At the temple at the New York center I was at last week, there were lifesize statues of about a dozen deities, and I couldn't have told you who 70% of them were.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

Chinreizg is also usually white, which helps. :D There are so many others yeah-totally confusing. And I am afraid of the scary one who dances on skin with skulls hanging off her.

[zana16.livejournal.com]

All the statues were bronze, so I couldn't even tell Tara until it was pointed out to me specifically... Je Tsonkapa and his sons have the hats, and Shakyamuni Buddha is of course front and center. Manjushri has the sword thing going, which always makes me thing of the suicide king in a deck of cards. Dorje Shugdan I can recognize because he scares the crap out of me... There were maybe half a dozen more I couldn't identify.

Vajrayogini, maybe? She's not the only one with skulls, but she's the only one with skulls whose name I know.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

THAT'S HER! D: David has some terrifying pictures of her.

We have Milerepa on our bedroom wall. A friend brought us a tongka painting from Tibet as a wedding present.

[zana16.livejournal.com]

I'm going to England this summer for a Vajrayogini empowerment. I don't know anything about her except that it's a Highest Yoga Tantra empowerment. Most of the pictures I'd seen of her until recently didn't have skulls, so perhaps that's why I'm not freaked out by her. I did have a 'wtf' moment when I first saw a statuette of her with the skulls.

[ambyr.livejournal.com]

This made me giggle.

My meditative soundtrack is "After All" (Dar Williams), "Eight Months" (Thea Gilmore), "Look How Far" (Bruce Cockburn), and "Primitive" (Annie Lennox). No mantras, I'm afraid.

[zana16.livejournal.com]

I will admit that the mantras' calming effect lasts longer than Dr. Frankenfurter's...

[mayhap]

Hee!

This is sort of what I try to explain to my friends about being interested in various religious traditions in spite of being a thoroughgoing atheist. It's all about hacking the human experience!

[zana16.livejournal.com]

:) I was an atheist for years and got bored, wanted to see what this faith thing was all about. So far, not bad. But it does amuse me that my brain is whacked enough that certain things bring me inner peace... like candlelight, music, chanting, and apparently also crossdressers singing.

[mayhap]

Hey, a lot of my best friends in high school had RHPS experiences that I think would be cheapened if they were not described as religious. I'm all about an expansive definition of religion!