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Posts tagged ‘Practice’

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1. 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

   Leave a comment »

2. 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

   Continue reading »

   

   August 8th 2013

   Posted by Phil Hine in tantra

   Tags: Practice, sex, text, transgression

   2 comments »

3. 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)

   Continue reading »

   

   July 29th 2013

   Posted by Phil Hine in Gender, Queer, tantra

   Tags: Ardhanarishvara, Practice, reflections, Vaisnava

   2 comments »

4. 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

   1 comment »

5. Practice notes: On lingering

   There are times when I languidly linger and times when I awaken and hurry in search of my goal; but cruelly thou hidest thyself from before me.
   Rabindranath Tagore Gitanjali Poem #14

   lin-ger

   1. to remain or stay in a place longer than is usual or expected, as if from reluctance to leave
   2. to remain alive; continue or persist, although gradually dying, ceasing, disappearing, etc.
   3. to dwell in contemplation, thought, or enjoyment.
   4. to be tardy in action; delay; dawdle
   5. to walk slowly; saunter along

   dictionary.com

   Last year, on my birthday, we went to the Whitechapel Gallery in London, where we experienced Zarina Bhimji’s haunting film – Yellow Patch. There was one sequence – where the camera zooms slowly towards the crumbling facade of an old Indian palace, revealing a world of untold richness and depth. Afterwards, I was struck by the thought that it is when we slow down – even momentarily – that the world – in particularly the everyday or mundane world that so much of contemporary magical writing tends to disdain – becomes wondrous. Continue reading »

   

   February 1st 2013

   Posted by Phil Hine in tantra

   Tags: intensities, Practice, reflections

   2 comments »

6. Dialogue III: On the pleasures of initiation

   “Initiation is of three kinds: Initiation by touch (Sparsa), Initiation by sight (Drksamjna) and Initiation by thought (Manasa) – all these three are done without Rituals and without exertions. O My Beloved! Initiation and instruction by touch is likened to the slow nourishing of its young with the warmth of its wings. O Paramesvari! Initiation and instruction by sight is like the nourishing of its young by the fish through its seeing alone. Initiation and instruction by thought is like the nourishing of its young by the tortoise by only thinking of them.”
   Kulanarva Tantra, transl. R.K Rai

   “Now I am going to reveal to you this devotion to the Guru, give me your undivided attention. Just as the river Ganges joins the sea with its wealth of water, or the Vedas enter the abode of the Supreme or a chaste wife dedicates her life with its good and bad points to her husband, so he dedicates his heart along with his senses to the family of his Guru and becomes verily the temple of devotion to him. Just as a wife keeps on thinking of her absent husband, the thoughts of the place where his Guru dwells crowd his mind….”
   Jnaneshvari (13, 371-375) transl.M.R. Yardi

   Continue reading »

   

   December 11th 2012

   Posted by Phil Hine in Occult, Pagan, tantra

   Tags: Dialogue, initiation, Practice

   2 comments »

7. Heart Practice II: the goddess dwelling in the heart

   The Heart is the subtle vibration of the triangle which consists of the incessant expansion and contraction of the three powers, and it is the place of repose, the place of supreme bliss. This very Heart is the Self of Bhairava, of that which is the essence of Bhairava, and of the blessed supreme Goddess who is inseperable and nondifferent from him.
   Abhinavagupta, commentary on Paratrisika-laghuvritti, transl. Paul Muller-Ortega

   So, Mind, call out “Kali! Kali”;
   meditate on the Mother’s form.
   In this way, that cloud-coloured Syama
   will dance, always
   dance, in your heart.
   Kalyankumar Mukhopadhyay (transl. Rachel Fell McDermott)

   Placing one’s chosen deity in the heart is a core element of tantra practice (see, for example Reading the Saundarya Lahari – III-2 for some related discussion and an example from the Todala Tantra.) I have been doing this now (as the beginning phase of formal puja, as formal meditation, and, increasingly, as a day-to-day, moment-by-moment rememberance) for nigh on twenty-five years, so it’s probably high time for me to make some reflections on this particular aspect of sadhana. Continue reading »

   

   October 30th 2012

   Posted by Phil Hine in tantra

   Tags: Embodied, goddesses, Heart Practice, Practice, reflections

   6 comments »

8. Book review: The Wanton Green

   A key feature of contemporary Paganism is our relationship to place. Curiously though, there seems to be little in the way of in-depth exploration from within the Pagan community of how we make and sustain our relationships with places, nor of place-making as a social or political practice. There are some excellent scholarly books examining place-making – such as Corinne G. Dempsy’s Bringing the Sacred Down to Earth: Adventures in Comparative Religion (which I reviewed
   back in July) and Adrian Ivakhiv’s Claiming Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona which argues that “sacred spaces” are heterotopic – where meaning is created, contested, and negotiated by different groups. Hopefully, The Wanton Green (Mandrake Books, Oxford, 2011, 222pp, p/bk) – an anthology of contemporary Pagan writing on our relationships with places – will inspire further explorations of Pagan approaches to place-making. Continue reading »

   

   October 28th 2012

   Posted by Phil Hine in Book reviews, Occult, Pagan

   Tags: Place, Practice

   1 comment »

9. Heart Practice – I

   “The emissional energy of Sambhu thus abides everywhere. Out of it [arises] the ensemble of motions of the liquid bliss of joy. So indeed, when a sweet [song] is sung, when [there is] touching, or when [there is the smelling of] sandalwood and so on, when the state of standing in the middle [the state of indifference] ceases, [there arises] the state of vibrating in the heart, which is called precisely “the energy of bliss,” because of which a human being is with-heart.”
   Abhinavagupta, Tantraloka

   “A heartfelt practice requires attentiveness to the stillness and movement of experience – to the multiple tightenings, contractions, fluidities and expansions of immediate somatic experience. Attentiveness is the doorway to a new curriculum of breath, silence, and listening – listening in the body, listening to feeling, listening to the ordinary experiences of life – hearing [and seeing] with the heart. It is in the ordinary, disregarded or forgotten phenomena of the everyday that we discover insight and freedom. From the ordinary we distill the essence of human/heart experience.”
   Diana Denton, The Heart’s Geography: Compassion as Practice

   Continue reading »

   

   August 24th 2012

   Posted by Phil Hine in tantra

   Tags: Heart Practice, intensities, Practice, reflections

   4 comments »

10. Practice Notes: Wot, no circle?

    “Infinite and endless creations are threaded on me as pearls on a string. I myself am the lord that resides in the causal and subtle bodies of the jivas. I am Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. I am the sun, moon, and stars. I am the beasts and birds, the Brahmin and the untouchable. I am the noble soul as well as the hunter and the thief. I am male, female, and hermaphrodite. Whenever there is anything to be seen or heard, I am found there, within and without. There is nothing moving or unmoving that can exist without me.” Devi Gita

    Pretty much all of the Pagan public rituals I have participated in over the last decade or so have shared a common feature – some kind of circle – which does not feature in my own practice of tantra puja. Whenever I facilitate open pujas, some of the commonest questions that arise are related to the differences between contemporary Pagan ritual processes and tantra puja as I practice it, so this post is an attempt to reflect on these very basic distinctions and how they are underwritten by very different ritual ontologies. Continue reading »

    

    April 13th 2012

    Posted by Phil Hine in Pagan, tantra

    Tags: intensities, Lalita, Practice, puja, reflections, Sri Vidya

    2 comments »

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