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Posts tagged ‘Practice’

Practice Notes: Joy in meeting

“On the occasion of a great delight being obtained, or on the occasion of delight arising from seeing a friend or a relative after a long time, one should meditate on the delight itself and become absorbed in it, then his mind will become identified with it”.
Vijnanabhairava (transl. Jaideva Singh) v71

In the previous post for this month I gave some short reflections on an “opportunistic practice” – grounded in verse 92 of the Vijnanabhairava. I’ve been reflecting on the possible consequences of this kind of approach to practice – and I think it is less about achieving – temporarily – a particular state, condition, or even a “result”; but rather, a process of habituating oneself to a general “stance” or attitude – that any moment of engagement can (potentially) unfold into an intensification of wonder, joy, delight (see Tantra keywords: Relational for some earlier reflections).

Verse 71 of Vijnanabhairava roots this unfolding of delight in everyday, human encounters and the recollection of of those moments of feeling: on the occasion of delight arising from seeing a friend or a relative after a long time, one should meditate on the delight itself.

i don’t think this requires any further comment.

May 30th 2014

Posted by Phil Hine in tantra

Tags: intensities, Practice, reflections, Vijnanabhairava

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Practice Notes: Opening to sky

“When one concentrates on one’s self in the form of a vast firmament, unlimited in any direction whatsoever, then the citi śakti freed of all props reveals herself”.
Vijnanabhairava (transl. Jaideva Singh) v92

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May 16th 2014

Posted by Phil Hine in tantra

Tags: Practice, reflections, Vijnanabhairava

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Heart practice: On the Adoration of the Senses – II

The worship of oneself must be done with elements that are pleasing to the senses.
Yoginīhṛdaya, 3.8a

Let my idle chatter be the muttering of prayer, my every manual movement the execution of ritual gesture, my walking a ceremonial circumambulation, my eating and other acts the rite of sacrifice, my lying down, prostration in worship, my every pleasure enjoyed with dedication of myself, let whatever activity of mine be some form of worship of you.
Saundaryalahari, 27

In the previous post in this series I gave a brief discussion on what could be thought of as a ‘tantric’ perspective on the senses. Now I will move onto describing the “short form” of this practice, which takes the form of a short puja sequence. Continue reading »

January 24th 2014

Posted by Phil Hine in tantra

Tags: Heart Practice, Practice, reflections, senses, Sri Vidya

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Heart practice: On the Adoration of the Senses – I

“Just as one who sees something out of the ordinary experiences a feeling of amazement, so the feeling of amazement in enjoying contact with the various manifestations of knowable reality is continually produced in this great yogin with the whole wheel of the senses increasingly revealed, motionless, disclosed, by virtue of penetrating into its most intimate nature, the compact union of ever-renewed consciousness and wonder, extreme, extraordinary.”
Ksemaraja, commentary on Śivasutra, 1.12, quoted from Torella, 2012

“All wisdoms have celebrated the instant, the wise man leaves aside memory; he has few projects, makes himself at home in the present, inhabits its differential.”
Michel Serres, The Five Senses

I’ve been taking this foray into “heart practice” slowly, beginning with a central theme in tantra practice – that of the goddess dwelling in the heart. I’m now going to progress things slightly, with a look at a practice I tend to refer to as the “adoration of the senses”. But first, some thoughts on the senses themselves. Continue reading »

November 1st 2013

Posted by Phil Hine in tantra

Tags: Abhinavagupta, Heart Practice, Practice, reflections, senses, Sri Vidya

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Book review: Women’s Lives, Women’s Rituals in the Hindu Tradition

The anthology Women’s Lives, Women’s Rituals in the Hindu Tradition edited by Tracy Pintchman (Oxford University Press, 2007) explores the ways that Hindu women’s engagement in ritual holds agentive and transformative capacity beyond the immediate ritual context, and complicates the limited idea of “domestic” space as an analytic category. As Tracy Pintchman points out in her introduction “In many cultural and historical contexts, including contemporary India, women’s everyday lives tend to revolve heavily around domestic and interpersonal concerns, especially care for children, the home, husbands, and other relatives; hence women’s religiosity also tends to emphasize the domestic realm, and the relationships most central to women. … the domestic religious activities that Hindu women perform may not merely replicate or affirm traditionally formulated domestic ideals; rather these activities may function strategically to reconfigure, reinterpret, criticize, or even reject such ideals.” (p6) Continue reading »

September 14th 2013

Posted by Phil Hine in Book reviews, Gender, tantra

Tags: ethnography, Practice, ritual, women

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Some reflections on Heart Practice

“Salutations to Sri Mata
Salutations to Sri Maharajni
Salulations to the Queen seated upon the lion-throne
Salutations to She who resides in the fire of consciousness
Salutations to She who shines with the red brilliance of a thousand rising suns
Salutations to She who bears the noose, the goad, the sugarcane bow; the five sense-arrows
Salutations to She whose red brilliance engulfs the universe.
Lalitasahasramana

One of the ways in which I have, for some years now, approached tantra sadhana is to start with something (relatively) simple, and then extend it with other practices as time, circumstances, and insights allow. There’s a tendency in western occulture to make a distinction between “basic” and “advanced” practices – where “basic” practices constitute something that you do for a set period and then never bother with again, and the “advanced” practices which are really, where the action is. In terms of my approach to tantra practice, I tend to think instead of “core” practices – which can be deepened and enriched over time. Continue reading »

September 4th 2013

Posted by Phil Hine in tantra

Tags: Heart Practice, Lalita, Practice, reflections, Sri Vidya

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Reading the Saundarya Lahari – VI

There are many “origin stories” for Saundaryalahari. As I noted in a previous post, the text is traditionally ascribed to Sankaracarya. One of the origin stories has Sankara visiting Siva’s home on Mount Kailasa, where he notices a divine book lying on Siva’s throne – a treasured possession of Parvati. Sankara picks up the book and hastens towards the exit, but is prevented from leaving by Siva’s doorkeeper – Nandikesvara. He and Sankara fight over the book, and Sankara manages to get away with the first portion of the book – the Anandalahari – to which he later adds another 59 stanzas of his own. In another version, Sankara finds the entirety of Saundaryalahari inscribed in stone on Mount Kailasa (having been carved by Nandikesvara who overheard Siva eulogising the goddess with them) but the goddess erases the words, so that Sankara (again) – only memorises the Anandalahari section. These origin stories make a clear distinction between the Anandalahari and the remainder of the poem. Continue reading »

August 24th 2013

Posted by Phil Hine in tantra

Tags: Lalita, Practice, Saundaryalahari, Sri Vidya, text

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Tantra, sex, and the transgressive imagination – I

“Like the concept of the primitive or the shaman, Tantra is a profoundly Janus-faced category: attacked in some historical periods as uncivilised or subhuman, and celebrated in other periods (particularly our own) as a precivilised unsullied original state, a sort of Eden before the Fall when harmony prevailed, when sex was free and unrepressed, when the body had not been subjected to modern western prudishness and hypocrisy.”
Hugh Urban, Tantra: Sex, Secrecy Politics and Power in the Study of Religion

Sometimes You Gotta Break the Rules
Burger King

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August 8th 2013

Posted by Phil Hine in tantra

Tags: Practice, sex, text, transgression

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On Queering deity: Ardhanarishvara and other conundrums of gender

“Her body is dance preparing for the creation of differentiation,
his is the dance of destruction that destroys everything.
I bow to Śivā, mother of the universe.
I bow to Śiva, father of the universe.
Her ear ornaments are radiant precious stones giving light,
his adornments are hissing snakes.
He is embracing her, and she is embracing him.
I bow to Śivā and I bow to Śiva.
Ardhanarinatesvara stotra (Ellen Campbell, 2002, p105)

If they see
breasts and long hair coming
they call it woman,
if beard and whiskers
they call it man:
But, look, the self that hovers
in between
is neither man nor woman
O Ramanatha.
Dasimayya(10th century Virasiva poet)

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July 29th 2013

Posted by Phil Hine in Gender, Queer, tantra

Tags: Ardhanarishvara, Practice, reflections, Vaisnava

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Heart Practice: Tantra as ethical practice – I

“Using the plow of truth,
sowing the seeds of love,
plucking the weeds of falsehood,
pouring the waters of patience;
they look directly into themselves
and build fences of virtue.
If they remain rooted in their good ways,
The Bliss of Siva will grow.”
Appar (seventh-century Tamil poet-saint, from Pandian, 2009, p21)

“Ethical encounters are jubilant, joyous encounters of both affectivity and liberty.”
Patricia MacCormack, Posthuman Ethics

A great deal has been written about tantra as a transgressive practice and the perceived necessity of moving beyond normative values in order to discover “freedom”. However, the idea of tantra as an ethical practice seems to me to be relatively unthought. For this post then, I want to make some preliminary reflections on the possible ethical dimensions of contemporary tantra practice. Continue reading »

July 18th 2013

Posted by Phil Hine in tantra

Tags: ethics, Heart Practice, intensities, Practice, reflections

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