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Recently, alongside my readings of sutras and commentaries, I've been trying to learn more about the history of Tibetan Buddhism and some of the most famous figures in it, like Padmasambhava, Milarepa, Naropa, and so on. I got the bright idea to search 'Padmasambhava' on YouTube and see if I could find any interesting Dharma talks about him, but instead I found this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HStACYTbvgA Right from the start they hit you with the 'Guru Rinpoche produces eight quantum energy fields' or some poo poo. But it really starts to come alive when we hear about the universal vibrational power of mantras from the woman with a PhD from someplace called 'Energy Medicine University'. Also, it feels significant that the entire film has Chinese subtitles, and every time the main weirdo goes somewhere new, the on-screen map does not label Tibet but instead calls everything China. So, does anyone have any links to actual good videos/talks/books/etc. about Padmasambhava, rather than... whatever that was?
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Dec 18, 2020 03:22
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Thirteen Orphans posted:Not what you’re looking for, but it reminds me of a bluegrass song about Padmasambhava. The song’s composer is a Tibetan Buddhist and so he is very respectful. Not quite what I was looking for, no, but nevertheless it's nice to hear music inspired by Padmasambhava  Thanks for sharing it.On that note, I'd be interested to hear other recommendations for Tibetan-Buddhist-inspired music too!
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Dec 18, 2020 17:24
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Thirteen Orphans posted:So this Westerner, Lama Surya Das, traveled East and became a Lama. He came back and wrote a book and made a CD of chants set to music. To be honest when he first published all this I was pretty incredulous about it. Oh you go and become a religious leader and the first thing you do is sell books and CDs? I then learned that in his lineage just saying the words of the mantra (even just hearing it) accumulates merit. So by making these catchy melodies for mantras he’s bringing good into the world. The music isn’t my taste, but I still catch myself singing some of the mantras. You can find the whole album it’s called “Chants to Awaken the Buddhist Heart.” Thanks for the recommendation! I'll check out that album too Herstory Begins Now posted:If you want talks, https://dharmaseed.org/teachers/ has a ton of good talks on a huge variety of subjects from basically every tradition under the sun. Idk about good documentaries offhand, you'd have better luck probably just finding one of the biographies and reading that tbh. For pretty much everything else, rigpawiki is another good resource that generally will link you to the definitive works on a given subject or person if you're trying to track down where to even start your reading (eg https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Milarepa#Further_Reading or https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Padmasambhava ). Yeah, I decided to pick up one of the biographies -- specifically, The Lotus-Born: The Life Story of Padmasambhava. Hopefully that'll be a good starting point at least. Thanks for the link to Rigpa Wiki on the subject, I'll pick up the other biographies cited on the Padmasambhava page once I finish this one. There is a Tibetan Buddhist centre here, although it's been closed since March due to Covid-19 so I can't get anything from their Dharma library currently. That's a good idea to reach out to them for recommendations, though, I'll do that too.
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Dec 22, 2020 01:43
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