Ken's Collection: Thangkas

TILOPA

Size: L * B

77.5cm * 49.5 cm

30.5” * 19.4” inches

Plus approx. 3cm of painted border

plus 1 inch of painted border

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Attribute to an artist at the Monkey Temple(Swayambhunath), Kathmandu.

Definition:

TILOPA: Tilopa was one of the eighty-four Mahasiddhas or meditation masters of India, some Buddhist, some Hindu and some both. Tilopa was an important conduit of the Mahamudra, or Great Symbol teachings preserved in the Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The narrative below is a distillation of those teachings adapted from “Mahamudra on the Ganges.” These are Tilopa’s heart instructions to his principal student, Naropa, which tradition holds were delivered on the banks of the Ganga.

•Although Mahamudra cannot be taught, intelligent and patient Naropa, fortunate one, be devoted to your guru, do this with your mind.

Let go of what has passed.

Let go of what may come.

Let go of what is happening now.

Don't try to figure anything out.

Don't try to make anything happen.

•Consider, for example, that in space, what is resting on what? In one’s mind, Mahamudra, there is nothing to be shown. Rest relaxed without trying to alter anything.

• Consider that, looking in the middle of the sky, you don’t see anything. When your mind looks at your mind, thoughts stop and you attain the unattainable.

• The luminous clarity that is the essence of the mind has never, from the beginning, been obscured by anything. And, from the beginning, it has been like space. There are no Dharmas (realities) that are not contained there.

• Abandoning all else, the practitioner should rest at ease.

No thought.

No reflection.

No analysis.

No cultivation.

No intention.

Let it settle itself

NAROPA