Vajrayana

Padmasambhava Refuge Field

In Vajrayana Buddhism, the ultimate reality - emptiness - non-dualism - is portrayed by a vajra, a bolt of lightning. A vajra is a ritual object, but originally, in early Hinduism, the vajra was a weapon belonging to Indra, the god of rain, thunder, and lightning. So the vajra is a thunder-dagger or thunder-wedge, which Zeus, or the Germanic Thor also wielded. However, considering thunder is difficult to visualize, and thunder and lightning form a unit, the vajra acquired the form of a lightning bolt, an infallible, all-cleaving weapon.

The vajra's lightning aspect in Vajrayana Buddhism evolved into another object that possesses great clarity, a diamond. A diamond is capable of cleaving and destroying without being destroyed itself, just like lightning. Because a diamond is so intensely hard and crystal clear, the mental leap to see the vajra as a symbol of the Absolute, or shunyata, is easy to make (46).

Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava

In Vajrayana Buddhism, one meditates and concentrates on a portrait, a realistic or abstract image, or a painting. The believer identifies with the divinity who is symbolically present in the portrait. The essence of the divinity, or the divinity's strength, flows into the believer. Through concentration on and union with the divinity in this image, one will attain the formless and expressionless state of nirvana.

Double Vajra - concretized symbol of the Diamond/Thunderbolt Body

Vajrayana Buddhism provides a bridge between the sensually perceptible world and the higher world of the pure, absolute truth that possesses neither form nor matter (47-48).

58 Wrathful Deities of the Bardo

What is striking about Vajrayana Buddhism are the numerous demonic figures with their multiple heads/various limbs, and their bloodthirsty expressions brimming with murderous intent, that are sometimes standing or dancing in intense sexual fusion. The yab-yum portrayal is, technically viewed, a sexual position, but actually concerns a non-orgasmic action that is meant to express the elimination of duality.

Chakrasamvara

In a ritual sense, duality is also eliminated by two of the most important attributes that believers can hold in their hands and that a divinity will also often hold. They are the vajra (thunder-dagger) and the ghanta (ritual prayer bell). The vajra represents the male aspect and the ghanta the female aspect as well as method and knowledge respectively. In order to attain understanding, knowledge (prajna) is necessary and, armed with knowledge, the proper method (upaya) is needed to allow this knowledge to operate so that benefit can be derived from it. In Tantric Buddhism the pairing of these two is portrayed by bringing vajra and ghanta together, as can be seen int he hands of the major male divinity. This is a symbol for eliminating duality in the same way as the yab-yum portrayal.

Hevajra

 In general terms, it is often said that these savage types protect Buddhism from enemies that threaten the faith in all manner of guises and from all directions. In their function as yidam, they protect the individual believer. Many will have a special place in the monastery close to the holiest part of the comlex or near the main altar. Others will reside in a separate temple space, the gonkhang, and guard the entire monastery complex from there (75-6).

Guru Dragkila - Wrathful Padmasambhava

Theraveda Buddhism with its pratyeka buddhas and arhats is said to be more "ego-oriented" than Mahayuna Buddhism, with its altruistic bodhisattvas. However, in Vajrayana Buddhism, which derives from Mahayuna Buddhism, the believer is working in an extremely self-oriented fashion in order to attain personal union with the all.

Since the practice of Vajrayana Buddhism is prominent in Tibet, it is also referred to as Tibetan Buddhism (47-8).

Rainbow body of Padmasambhava

...regarding the Thangkas...

A thangka is a scroll painting. The Tibetan word thangka means "something that can be rolled up." On annual market days and at celebrations, in villages and pilgrimage sites, traveling monks and lamas unrolled thangkas and told stories about saints and deities as they pointed out elements in the painted tableaux. For protection and liturgical reasons, pilgrims and travelers would take a rolled-up thangka on their perilous journeys. Bot uses are still in practice, but to a lesser degree than several generations ago.

Guru Drakpo - Wrathful Padmasambhava

The most important function of a thank is as a religious aid in ritual actions, or as a guideline and a help in meditation. By seeing the figures depicted, concentrating on them, and identifying with the central deity or personage, the believer strives for "liberation through beholding." This identification is simplified for the concentrated believer if he or she can become immersed in and completely identify with all the details of the main and secondary figures. Thangkas thus provide, in visual form, precise iconographic information that the meditator can utilize.

The 25 disciples of Padmasambhava

But thangkas are more than religious visual aids. They are also commissioned when problems such as illness, death, or abstract obstacles - in personal or social matters - arise in a family. The painting is then hung up with the expectation that a protective that a protective or positive force will radiate from it, and the thank thereby gains the function of a "lucky charm" or amulet (xi).

other representative thangkas...

Hayagriva

Vajrakila

Guhyasamaja

text from Buddhist Symbolism in Tibetan Thangkas, by Ben Meulenbeld
art from The Art of Thangka - Guru Rinpoche - Padmasambhava