DAMARUWORKS BLOG

Tantric Origins In the early decades of the fourth century tantric teachings exploded across the Indian subcontinent, erupting almost simultaneously in the Eastern, Southern and Northern regions of India. In Bihar, Kashmir, Uddiyana, and the Deccan plain, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, a mixture of Hindu and Mahayana Buddhist practitioners were magnetized by the outrageous, non-conformist […]

Something from nothing Like any religion, Vajrayana developed a codified set of rules, systems, behaviors, philosophies, and practices intended to guide the seeker sequentially along the stages of the path, directing them toward enlightenment, realization, moksha, the godhead, illumination, or a thousand other names that hint at our ultimate human potential. Some of these systems […]

The Two Functions You live within an amazing transformative machine. It’s called the body. It has two very different functions. I would guess that ninety-nine percent of people use it for only for the first, which is to eat, sleep, excrete, reproduce, have a variety of pleasant, painful and interesting experiences, and die. The second […]

he greatest obstacle to spiritual development is—not what you might think. Various religious and spiritual pathways talk about our disturbed emotions, our anger, our anxiety, our past actions. Others dwell on the persistent clinging or attachment to various aspects of our outer world and inner experience. Still others site our self-centeredness, our  grasping at a […]

Life on planet earth, within the Sol solar system, on the outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy, itself made up of 100 thousand million stars, has never been particularly easy. But the challenges we share globally, and the problems we face individually, have reached a whole new level of difficult. Yet for those who follow the spiritual path, not as an avocation, but as an inner imperative, it is a unique opportunity to deepen realization and expand one’s compassionate heart. Still, while we decrease grasping and abandon the false narrative of both narcissism and self-hatred, we need protection

Purity is not a word you hear once a week, or even once a month—except in a commercial for a new laundry detergent. Yet every culture is based on specific ideas about pure and impure. Socially, these concepts determine status, reputation, and trustworthiness. On a personal level, they inform our morality and ethics, as well as motivation and life goals. While we don’t tend to use the word in relation to health, its equivalent—detoxification—is a major theme in the healing world.

There are good reasons why we should want to know our Buddha-Elemental family connection, organically and inherently. It directs us towards the deities, protectors, meditations and mantras that are aligned with our nature. Since the five Buddha families are also expressed as the five Elements, this orientation can be a roadmap to one’s entire life trajectory. We expect a strong correspondence between spiritual typology, psychological type, and body type, giving guidance towards our career, lifestyle, diet, activities and more.

The Elemental Conundrum The five Elements are the very bedrock of Vajrayana. Which makes it all the more extraordinary that, to date, there has been no attempt to define more precisely what these phenomena are, and how they exist as principles that structure our entire world. Those master yogins and yoginis that have achieved an […]

Five Becomes Three I am obsessed with the five element model, certain at my core that it is a fundamental formative principle of body, mind, world, life. But it is not the only operant system that still alludes modern science. The Law of Three also pervades our experience, and knowledge of its workings is a […]

Getting Rainbow We have spoken about the biophysical and conceptual aspects of Rainbow Body formation from various angles. But how do we proceed in the actual process? Of course, the whole of the Vajrayana moves in that direction, but certain crucial pieces are missing from the description and application of tantric methods. This may explain […]

The Road Beyond this Life An individual who achieves a fully perfected Light Body or Rainbow Body in this very life is like a hologram, a gossamer web of photons, a powerful electromagnetic field that holds to human form until that allotted moment when it is time to leave the bubble of flesh behind. In […]

In the vast garden of Vajrayana Buddhism, with its riotous profusion of fragrances and textures, its fantastic hues of greens, golds and red, one flower stands out. The shimmering foliage seems to branch endlessly, expressing itself now as diaphanous petals, now as thorny stems, now as plump and luscious fruits. This unique plant is both […]