How do empowerments actually work?

Should we read our texts in Tibetan? In English? Using phonetics? Does it make any sense to read phonetics without understanding the Tibetan?

Questions, questions...

Confession is a big thing in Buddhist practice. But there is no priest to forgive your sins on God's behalf. It is more nuanced than that. 

Shop like a Buddhist! Majnu Ka Tilla is the wellspring of Buddhist art for the Tibetan world.

Horror, violence and disgusting soup in Tibetan-style Buddhism. Why don't they get as much attention as sex? Why is it obvious that these things are not for performance "as written", but some people assume that the sexual aspects are? Something to think about!

#Buddhism #Tibet #Vajrayana #Horror

If you do Vajrayana, you will say these syllables again and again. And again. What do they look like? What do they mean? Why does it matter?

Dos, don'ts, and who cares (some do) about wearing the red-and-white striped "Ngagpa shawl".

A crucial text for the mahamudra tradition of, in particular, the Kagyu traditions descended from Marpa the Translator

Season 2 is coming soon

Final episode of Season One!

Groping towards the dharma in the midlands of England in the 1960s.

Bookworm paradise: Birmingham Central Library as it was then:

Words or phrases you might want to look up (in no particular order, and some best forgotten!):

Man, Myth and Magic (magazine)

Gurdjieff

PD Ouspensky

Paul Brunton

Anagarika Govinda

Edward Conze

Alexandra David-Neel

Evans-Wentz

Christmas Humphreys

Marco Pallis

Waddel’s “Lamaism: Buddhism of Tibet”

Lobsang Rampa

H P Blavatsky

#Buddhism #Vajrayana #DoubleDorje #Dzogchen #Nyingma