Yamantaka, the Documentary is Here!

At long last, I’ve finished editing this documentary! You can see it here below, but for best quality, go here where Yamantaka is uploaded on my Vimeo page.

 

Yamantaka, what an esoteric and complex practice. This candid view of a Tibetan Buddhist highest yoga tantra was filmed over the course of ten days at Namgyal Monastery in Dharamsala, India. You will see monks create an elaborate sand mandala, ritual cakes, and other sacred arts, offer prayers, chant, play ritual instruments, purify and meditate. On the last day, the sand mandala is swept into a vase and released into the world as a blessing for all. This is always the breathtaking but cringe-worthy part, for those of us who treasure and want to hold onto the beauty of a meticulously created mandala.

I would like to say I am grateful to the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Namgyal Monastery for the opportunity to document this event. This feature length video was also made possible in part by the support of Fulbright-Nehru Research Program, Council for the International Exchange of Scholars, and United States-India Education Foundation.

Ideally, I would have liked to complete and release this documentary last year, but I’ve learned that one simply cannot rush certain things. Especially when careful viewing and understanding of the footage is at stake. Add to this the required post-production magic of removing flickering segments, compensating for low lighting conditions, color adjustments, fixing sound challenges, and so forth, and you have an enduring, long workflow at hand.

But, hey, slack must be cut for the fact that the intervening mini-documentaries on Tabo, Lamayuru, Lhalung, and Mangyu Monasteries were also in simultaneous production. See the interiors of these rare, medieval Buddhist temples here, said to be founded by The Great Translator Rinchen Zangpo and King Yeshe O’d of Guge, Western Tibet, circa late 10th to 11th century, located in Spiti and Ladakh regions of the Western Himalayas, India. Read more about them here.

Incidentally, many viewers have asked me about what is happening at around 42:14 in the Yamantaka video, where a young Caucasian man is in the Main Temple talking loudly and animatedly to a gathering of monks. This was a debate exam in session for students of the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics (which adjoins Namgyal Monastery), characterized by dramatic and distinctive hand clapping, body motions, and rhetoric. It was an event unrelated to Yamantaka, but which coincided with it.Tibetan Buddhists have a long and famed tradition of continuing the ancient Indian Buddhist practice of philosophical debate.

New Video Documentaries: Interior Views of Indo-Tibetan Temples at Tabo, Lamayuru, Lhalung and Mangyu Monasteries

Tabo Monastery Tsug Lhakhang, Spiti, India

At long last, I have completed four short video documentaries of the interiors of Indo-Tibetan monasteries that flourished during the 10th to 12th centuries. I feel so very honored to have had the opportunity to visit, research, and document these incredible temples.

The temples are:

• Tabo Monastery’s Tsug Lhakhang, the Main Assembly Hall, renowned as the oldest continually functioning Tibetan Buddhist monastery, the art of which the Dalai Lama said “delightfully expresses the vigor of the transmission of Buddhism from India to Tibet and the dynamic mingling of cultures.” Established in 996 C.E. in ancient Western Tibet, now Spiti, India

• Lamayuru Monastery’s Senge Lhakhang, or Lion Temple, established in the 11th century on a plateau in what is now Ladakh, India. Ca. 11th century, the oldest temple at Yamayuru Monastery. Contains well-preserved and rare Indo-Tibetan clay sculptures of Vairocana, Dhyani (Supreme) Buddhas, and Vajradhatu mandalas, including Gonkhang with protector deities, Ladakh, India

• Lhalung Monastery’s Serkhang, the Golden Hall, founded in the early 11th century and located in present-day Spiti, India.

• Mangyu Monastery’s Nambarnangze,  its Vairocana Temple, built circa 11th century and located in modern Ladakh, India.

All four sites are among the rare Indo-Tibetan temples still found today with extant, fairly well-preserved, poly-chromed clay sculptures which depict the Five Supreme or Dhyani Buddhas, along with their associated 32 deities. These sculptures form a distinctive sacred art of this period.

After viewing these videos, which show the visual expression of Buddhism, I hope you will find inspiration to learn more about the philosophy and practice of Buddhism.

The wealth of empirical knowledge gathered through millenia by Buddhist meditation practitioners not only benefits those seeking spiritual development, but also those looking for less stress and more happiness. Who wouldn’t want that?

I believe this tradition offers a tremendously positive impact on contemporary society.

Look further, and see for yourself how psychology, health, and medical fields have made advances in treatments based on meditation. For example, neuroscientists in their research on the human brain have garnered great insights in studies on meditation and its effects on cognition and emotional regulation. A pioneer on this Dr. Richard Davidson of The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds. One result is the development of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) pioneered by Dr. John Kabat-Zinn which has been applied with great success as a non-pharmaceutical approach to coping with pain and emotional challenges.

Less stress, more happiness. Again, who wouldn’t want that?

I wish you all the best in your curiosity, and your journey towards learning about mind and well-being, hallmarks of Buddhist practice.

Ajanta Caves called “The Greatest Ancient Picture Gallery” by William Dalrymple

A statue of the Buddha in one of the Ajanta Caves, India

Excerpt from “The Greatest Picture Gallery” Read this captivating article  by the excellent writer and historian William Dalrymple here at The New York Review of Books.

“[I]n 1819, a British hunting party in the jungles of the Western Ghats had followed a tiger into a remote river valley and stumbled onto what was soon recognized as one of the great wonders of India: the painted caves of Ajanta. On the walls of a line of thirty-one caves dug into an amphitheater of solid rock lay the most beautiful and ancient paintings in Buddhist art, the oldest of which dated from the second century BC—an otherwise lost golden age of Indian painting. In time it became clear that Ajanta contained probably the greatest picture gallery to survive from the ancient world, and along with the frescoes of Pompeii, the fabulous murals of Livia’s Garden House outside Rome, and the encaustic wax portraits of the Egyptian Fayyum, Ajanta’s walls represented perhaps the most comprehensive depiction of civilized life to survive from antiquity.”

This article brought back wonderful memories of visiting Ajanta Caves during my 2013-2014 Fulbright research and travels!

Read about Ajanta Caves here in this post.

Read also this related post about the nearby Ellora Caves.