EXHIBITION GUIDE
NOBLE CHANGE
TANTRIC ART OF THE HIGH HIMALAYA
INTRODUCING TANTRIC BUDDHAS To those familiar with the historical Shakyamuni Buddha as “The Buddha,” it may come as a surprise that many Buddhas exist within Buddhism—countless Buddhas that have been, that are, and that will be—multiple beyond measure in worlds as numerous as grains of sand in the River Ganges, as endless as there are beings born into existence, and indivisible. Tantric Buddhist art and practice work with phenomena as luminous energies moving in continuous flow. Tantra means continuity. These energies are inherently unrelated to our dualistic conceptions of good-bad, sacred-profane, me-other, etc. but appear to our faculties in rich textures and qualities of experience. It is through these qualities that we can access powers of transformation. To guide awareness, tantra describes fluid energies as five groups of qualities or “Families”: Karma (Action) Family, Padma (Lotus) Family, Vajra (Indestructible) Family, Ratna (Jewel) Family, and Buddha (Awakened) or Tathagata (Thus Such) Family. The Families are arrayed in a mandala, one Family at the center and one in each of the four directions. A Buddha representing an aspect of Wisdom presides over each group, and in each group is also the kind of poison or delusion that the Buddha manifests (as form-body or sambhogakaya) in order to transform. The undivided nature of Buddhahood is expressed as an Adi, or Primordial, Buddha—self-arising, unconditioned Enlightened Mind, underlying all differentiation. The Old Translation School, the Nyingma, places Samantabhadra Buddha in this role. He is depicted naked, symbolic of the formlessness and simplicity of his “unconditioned body” (dharmakaya). For the New Translation Schools, Vajradhara (manifesting in “form-body,” sambhogakaya) holds this place. According to the New Translation School, Shakyamuni, who appeared in an “emanation body” (nirmanakaya) in the phenomenal world, took the form of Vajradhara to teach the tantras. In tantric practice, one identifies with a primary meditation deity (yidam) of a Buddha Family that corresponds to one’s own nature. Images represented in this exhibition are in bold.
The works of art exhibited in Noble Change: Tantric Art from the High Himalaya are from the private collection of Trammell S. Crow. The museum gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Tsering Hayes, Nicholas Douglas, Daniel Mitura, Arthur Mandelbaum, A. T. Mann, Loddie Allison, Warren Kay and Wolf Home, Kim Curry, Tommy Bishop, Mark Kavanagh, and Mark Viehweg.
FRONT COVER: Samantabhadra (Ever-Perfect One) (Tibetan: Kuntuzangpo) in Honored Father–Honored Mother (detail).
Tibet, early 20th century. Copper alloy, gilt, paint. Collection of Trammell S. Crow, L2011.77.
TANTRIC BUDDHA FAMILIES
Karma (Action) Family Buddha: Amoghasiddhi (All-Accomplishing One) Wisdom: All-Encompassing Poison: Jealousy | Envy
Padma (Lotus) Family Buddha: Amitayus (Infinite Life) Wisdom: Discriminating Awareness Poison: Passion | Grasping
Buddha (Awakened) or Tathagata (Thus Such) Family Buddha: Vairocana (Illuminator) Wisdom: All-Pervading Poison: Ignorance | Denial
Vajra (Indestructible) Family Buddha: Akshobhya (Unshakable) Wisdom: Mirror-like Intelligence Poison: Anger
Ratna (Jewel) Family Buddha: Ratnasambhava (Jewel-Born) Wisdom: Equanimity Poison: Pride
Adi (Primordial, Supreme) Buddha Vajradhara (Holder of the Thunderbolt) for New Translation School (Sakya, Kagyu, and Geluk) Samantabhadra (Ever-Perfected) for Old Translation School (Nyingma)
For one presentation of the qualities grouped with each Buddha Family, see Chรถgyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (Berkeley, California: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1973) 221ff.
Noble Change: Tantric Art of the High Himalaya March 31, 2012, through February 10, 2013
THE EXHIBITION
Samantabhadra (Ever-Perfect One) (Tibetan: Kuntuzangpo) in Honored Father–Honored Mother
Perhaps indeed the efforts of the true poets, founders, religions, literatures, all ages, have been and ever will be, our time and times to come. essentially the same— to bring people back from their persistent straying and sickly abstractions, to the costless, average, divine, original concrete. —Walt Whitman, Specimen Days
Tibet, early 20th century Copper alloy, gilt, paint L2011.77
Visitors may wish to consult Robert Beer, The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols (Boston: Shambhala Publications Inc., 2003), for helpful reference to the many interpretive pathways in Tibetan art. All works are from the collection of Trammell S. Crow except where noted.
Samantabhadra is the Adi, or Supreme, Buddha in the Nyingma tradition. From him emanate the five Wisdom Buddhas. He is also the primordial form of Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, and shares with him curls of tonsured hair. Unlike any other Buddhas seen here, Samantabhadra and his consort appear without adornment of any kind, save golden radiance. This form, the “body of truth” (Sanskrit: dharmakaya; dharma = “truth” and kaya = “body”), is rarely configured. The vajra-shaped abstraction of their joined forms is softened by gleaming rounded limbs, slender and smooth. The Adi Buddha’s hands are held dispassionately in his lap in the mudra, or seal of meditation, that both protects and describes their union.
Sarva Buddha Dakini (Dakini of All the Buddhas) (Tibetan: Naro Khandoma) Sino-Tibetan culture, early 19th century Copper alloy, hammered high relief, black and red lacquer, red paint, gilt L2011.63 Naro Khandoma is the Wisdom of all Buddhas in female form. She is both the matrix of space and its limitless expanse. Radiant with emptiness and pervasive compassion, she is supreme among the Sky Travelers (Sanskrit: Dakini). One-faced, three-eyed, and two-armed, she is semi-wrathful in expression. She is crowned and ornamented; her long, black hair streams behind her naked body. On her shoulder, she balances a long staff. With her extended leg, the Dakini pins Ego on her back, and with her forward bent leg, she fixes Ignorance in a helpless squirm. She holds a curved flaying knife in one hand, and with the other raises a skull cup to drink the elixir of all defilements and transform them into enlightened energies. She is wisdom, protection, and home to all beings. Naro Khandoma stands against a ground of finely painted chains of flowers and curling leaves that echo the reticulated curls of flame-like clouds that protect and further intensify her spacious and generous activity. Six identical Buddhas manifest in this productive environment.
Vajradhara (Holder of the Thunderbolt) (Tibetan: Dorje Chang) in Honored Father–Honored Mother Sino-Tibetan culture, early 19th century Copper alloy, black and red lacquer, gilt L2011.64 Vajradhara is the Adi, or Primordial, Buddha of the Sarma, or New Translation, schools (Sakya, Kagyu, and Geluk) that developed in the 11th century during the second “Great Wave” of Buddhism over the Himalayas from India. In these traditions, Vajradhara presides over the Five Buddha Families, who are represented in his crown. Vajradhara’s arms gently enfold his youthful consort, who turns her face upward toward him. She holds a vajra-bell in her right hand and her left palm is upturned, with the fifth finger lifted in a gesture of protection. Vajradhara’s forearms cross at the wrist, right over left, both palms upward toward his heart (humkara mudra). His female “wisdom” left hand holds a vajra, emblematic of “inner” integration of the teachings, and his right male “skillful means” hand holds a bell, emblematic of “outer” communication. Although this sculpture has suffered damage and repairs, the noble intimacy of the supple figures in “One-in-Two” is fresh, infinitely kind, and deeply moving. Traces of fine painting in red and black lacquer and gold link this image to the workshop that created the nearby Sarva Buddha Dakini and Kurukulla.
Vajradhara (Holder of the Thunderbolt) (Tibetan: Dorje Chang) in Honored Father–Honored Mother
Vajrasattva (Indestructible Being or Hero) (Tibetan: Dorje Sempa) in Honored Father–Honored Mother
Tibet, 19th century Copper alloy, gilt, red lacquer, black paint, turquoise L2011.81
Tibet, late 19th century Copper alloy, gilt L2011.83
Vajradhara and his consort are richly ornamented, as if within a net of jewels and rippling scarves that avert intrusion into their privacy. His left female “wisdom” hand holds a vajra, and his right male “method” hand holds a bell. Her arms and legs wrap tightly around her consort. Viewed frontally, her petaled crown ornament guards the third dimension with a seal of protection.
Vajrasattva is an inner aspect of Vajradhara and consequently represents all the Buddha Families. He specifically serves as a preceptor and in rituals of purification. Lively fluttering scarves loop ornamentally around their embrace, adding movement to their inward turning. A plume emerges at Vajrasattva’s crown, as though a joyous and compassionate exhale. The pair are strikingly human as they rest in the stable union of simply being. The two sculptures shown here invite comparisons of quality.
Kurukulla (Dakini of Flowers, or Enchantress)
Banner of Mantras (detail)
Sino-Tibetan culture, early 19th century Copper alloy, black and red lacquer, gilt L2011.65
Sino-Tibetan culture, early 20th century Silk thread couched on silk cloth L2011.130
Kurukulla is an armed and dangerous Dakini, or Sky Traveler, dancing in the expanse of space. She manifests in the idealized body of a sixteen-year-old girl. She is fourarmed. Two arms hold and draw her bow; an arrow is poised in a third arm. Seductive and magnetic, she subdues and pacifies demons and enemies of the faithful. Before they know it, Ego and its servants, Ignorance, Aggression, and Desire, are enchanted and as powerless as the naked body under Kurukulla’s foot. The Dakini of Flowers was incorporated into Buddhism in India in the role occupied in Hinduism by Kamadeva, the Lord of Desire. Her bow, like his, is fashioned from sugar cane and honey-laden; her arrows of passion, like his, are made from flowers.
Inscription: Om Vajra Tara Tuttare Hum Hum Hum Sva Sva Sva Svaha (Tara Mantra)
Kurukulla’s expression is semi-wrathful; her brows are furrowed and her eyes drawn together, but her mouth is closed in a playful if somewhat devilish smile. She wears a garland of severed heads, strung along coiled human intestines. Signs such as these are reminders at any level of awareness of impermanence and death. A spurious inscription in Chinese seal script on her back reads: Xuande nian shi, “made in the reign of [Chinese Emperor] Xuande” (1425–1435).
Om Vajra Satva Hum (Short Vajrasattva Mantra) Om Vajra Radza Dza (Mantra of the Protectors Yamantaka, Mahakala, Vajrabhairava) Vajrayana practice relies heavily on sound, and we are particularly pleased to have this silk image of a mantra for Tara, the embodiment of compassionate action; Vajrasattva, the emblem of purification; and three powerful Protectors. The mantra, like its audible counterpart, is repeated, filling space with vibrations of sound that surround the mind with supplication, homage, and protection from discursive thought. Even without being able to read the Tibetan script, one can discern rhythmic repetitions. This visual incantation and its sounded counterpart engage the mind in a state of suspended, ego-generated thinking and allow for glimpses into the spaciousness of a quiet but awakened mind.
Amitayus (Buddha of Boundless Life) in Honored Father–Honored Mother
Chakrasamvara (Wheel of Becoming) in Honored Father–Honored Mother
Tibet, late 17th–early 18th century Copper alloy with inlay of silver and copper, stones painted in red, white, and turquoise L2011.66
Western Tibet, late 19th century or earlier Copper alloy with copper and silver inlay, and applied gold paint L2011.67
Amitayus, Buddha of the Padma (Lotus) Family, confers long life. His hands, clasped around his consort, hold a Long-life Vase filled with the nectar of immortality. His Wisdom of Discriminating Awareness transforms the poisonous poverty of grasping here and there into recognition that one is already fulfilled and whole. He is the consuming quality of burning fire; his season is early spring, when the icy grip of winter softens, just as relentless desire, driven by want, is transformed by wisdom and compassion into openness, mutual transparency, and communication. In dignified, spine-straight, and loving union, Amitayus and his consort admit no division and present the joyful and undivided ground of being,
Chakrasamvara is an aspect of the Adi Buddha Vajradhara (Holder of the Thunderbolt), manifesting in wrathful aspect. Even the third eye on each of his faces bulges with compassionate energy. His mouth is terrifying, with projecting fangs. His tongue curls in a yogic “hiss,” a technique that cools the breath and releases emotion stored in the chakra (wheel of energy in the subtle body) at the navel. His hair is piled high in the dreadlocks of a yogi. His consort Vajravarahi (Diamond Sow) stands on one foot, supported by one of his. His twelve arms, reaching all corners of space, contrast with her two arms, used to embrace. Chakrasamvara personifies a tantra translated into Tibetan in the 10th century, but identifiable in India in Sanskrit in the late 7th–8th century. Its origins lie outside mainstream monastic Buddhist tradition in a transgressive Shivaite subculture of the charnel ground, where men and women in search of enlightenment engaged in sexual yogas and assumed powers from dead bodies that littered such spaces. Tibetans did not turn away from horrific imagery, particularly body parts, such as garlands of severed heads and skulls. They appear as offerings, as victory emblems, as ornaments—potent reminders of death.
Guhyasamaja (Secret Assembly) (Tibetan: Sangwa-dupa) in Honored Father–Honored Mother Sino-Tibetan culture, 19th century Burnished darkened copper alloy with gold paint L.2011.74 Guhyasamaja, like Chakrasamvara, is a wrathful personification of a tantra used in Vajrayana meditation. The Indic love of classification followed Buddhism into Tibet and was even further extended by Tibetan dedication to logical hierarchy. Guhyasamaja is identified as a descendant of the Primordial Buddha Akshobhya, and the tantra is believed to be one of the first Sanskrit tantras translated into Tibetan. Guhyasamaja is classed by Tibetan schools as a Father, or Method, Tantra, while Chakrasamvara is a Mother, or Wisdom, Tantra. Both tantras belong to the class of practice Anuttarayogatantra (Unexcelled Yoga Tantra), which works with the most subtle understanding of mind and body. The language of the Guhyasamaja Tantra text is explicitly erotic. The practice involves “80 natures,” or unconscious instinctual patterns, that obscure the “three clear lights.” This self-guarded secret language has a rich tradition of commentary dedicated to its interpretation and practice, and many warnings against casual or literal interpretation. The whirling energy of twelve arms and six faces turned in three dimensions displays an arsenal of powers to clear even the most hidden karmic forces. Bodies and faces seem to pass each other at great speed.
Jambhala (Lord of Wealth) in Honored Father–Honored Mother Sino-Tibetan culture, 18th–19th century Cast copper alloy, gilt L2011.71 Jambhala practices are dedicated to gaining wealth for the benefit of all sentient beings. He and his consort are aspects of the Ratnasambhava, or Jewel-Born, Buddha Family, placed in the south with dominion over the element of Earth. Their wisdom is Equanimity, their poison is Pride, and their color is yellow. He wears the regal ornaments of a bodhisattva. His left hand is open, palm upward in the gesture of granting a boon. Jambhala in union with his consort is rarely seen, and the seated posture appears to be an adaptation from a standing form of ease in Indian art associated with royalty (lalitasana). Nearby, Chakrasamvara and his consort are seen standing in this active embrace. With round, ample limbs, short, shapely bodies, and large heads, Jambhala and his consort are lusty and unfettered, befitting the good life. The origins of Jambhala in yakshas, or earth demons, in India some fifteen hundred years earlier may be license for this earthy, sensuous energy.
Yama (Lord of Death) with His Sister Yami Tibet, late 18th–early 19th century Burnished copper alloy, gilt highlights L2011.69 Yama awaits us all, and his image reminds us that living involves dying. Many Vajrayana practices focus on preparing for the passage after death to the next lifetime, a state of “existing in between,” or Bardo. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is one of many Tibetan texts addressing Bardo states. Yama, a two-armed, buffalo-headed demon, skull-club held aloft in one hand, a threatening forefinger raised in the other, stands, like Saint Peter at the Gate in Christendom, at the point of passage determining the next stage of life. The Tibetan conception of the cyclical rebirth into existence (samsara) identifies six realms, each characterized by a particular poison or obscuration of original Buddha-nature: The Realm of the Gods (Pride), The Realm of Asuras (Demons) (Jealousy), The Realm of Humans (Desire), The Realm of Animals (Ignorance), The Realm of Hungry Ghosts (Greed and Miserliness), and The Hell Realm (Anger or Hatred). The powerful image of Yama is an extension of a pre-Aryan (2nd millennium B.C.) buffalo cult in the Indic world. In Buddhism, Yama is detached and compassionate, limited only by karmic truth. He does not judge; he takes account. We make our own way into our futures. Yama’s female companion is his sister, Yami, who always appears in wholly human form.
The Fifth Panchen Lama, Lobzang Yeshe (d. 1737) (detail) Sino-Tibetan culture, c. 1913 Silk tapestry double-ikat weave, natural pigments; part of a set, Portraits of the Lineage of Panchen Lamas Private collection L2012.40 This pictorial rolled document (thangka) was made with great skill and artistry and follows compositions also used in painted portraits of great lamas. The subject, Lobzang Yeshe, the Fifth Panchen Lama, is identifiable by his large size relative to other figures. Panchen means “Great Scholar.” Panchen Lama Lobzang Yeshe left eighteen volumes of hymns and precepts before his death at the age of 75. Panchen Lamas are linked closely to Dalai Lamas by a system of cross-identification of reincarnations, a practice begun in the 17th century. In the thangka, the Fifth Panchen Lama is situated in the landscape of his monastery, Tashilumpo, in Shigatse, Tibet, and in the context of his spiritual path. Above him are images of empowerments and teachings central to his lineage, and below, Protectors. Centrally, he is connected by a rainbow from his heart to his practice of Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. Only a few portraits from this set remain.
NOBLE CHANGE: TANTRIC ART OF THE HIGH HIMALAYA This exhibition of sculptures and textiles is drawn from a collection of tantric art recently acquired by Trammell S. Crow and on loan to the Museum. The exhibition inaugurates a series of presentations and programs that will unfold over the coming years, exploring the rich tradition of tantric art made in the Himalayan regions to serve the practices that developed there as Vajrayana Buddhism (in Sanskrit, vajra means “indestructible” and yana means “vehicle” or “path”). The time is ripe. We are two centuries removed from the early Western fascination with or total rejection of tantra as titillating exotica or stultifying ritual, and almost fifty years removed from the crescendo of the hippie exploitation of tantra to pursue sexual pleasure and free-wheeling states of consciousness, like those offered by mind-altering drugs. In our time, we have a highly visible example of Vajrayana Buddhism in action in Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who is accomplished in the most advanced and subtle practices of tantric Buddhism. His appearance is warm, precise, unshakable, generous, courageous, and firmly grounded in reality—its suffering and its nobility. He offers an invitation to come down to earth. The diaspora of trained tantric lamas after China’s exercise of sovereignty over Tibet in 1959 has expanded awareness of Vajrayana Buddhism around the world. Like the rest of Buddhism, it admits no gods; and it follows that its images, like those seen in this exhibition, do not constitute a pantheon of deities. It is not even a religion, nor at its core a philosophy. It is closer in type to a science of the mind and how it operates to construct reality, along with practices based on experience to shift ordinary perspectives on reality and bring us into a different relationship to our notions of the self, others, and the world. Freed from our delusions and armed with compassion and wisdom, we experience the energies of existence more vividly, fluidly, as they are. Tantric Teachings The teachings of tantra as practiced in Vajrayana Buddhism are rooted firmly in the basic doctrine common to all Buddhists, expounded by Shakyamuni Buddha (563–483 B.C.): THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS: The truth of suffering; the truth of the origin of suffering; the truth of the cessation of suffering; the truth of the path of the cessation of suffering. Different paths to the cessation of suffering are regarded as different stages of spiritual development. The Foundation Vehicle (Hinayana, or “Theravada,” “Path
of the Elders”) is focused on discipline and surrender. Its core texts are the canon of teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha, collated in the Pali language of South India. In simplified conditions of monastic life, practitioners tame the mind by watching the ceaseless rise and fall of thoughts and emotions without acting on them. This practice cultivates detachment from the flailing display of wanting and not wanting, fascination and disappointment, hatred that brings no gain, and, as the mind quiets down, the desire to manufacture entertainments to relieve the boredom. This practice generates awareness of the inherent emptiness of thoughts and emotions (shunyata) and brings into question the solid reality of the perceiver. Who are we other than an accumulation in memory of sensations and thoughts, themselves empty? An appreciation for qualities of emptiness—its texture and openness—begins to develop. The Mahayana further cultivates the spaciousness of the quiet mind to recognize the universality of the delusion that oneself and one’s projections are real and solid. From this awareness, compassion for oneself and for others multiplies, and empathy gives rise to an urge to help. The written texts of Mahayana are the sutras, and in them are instructions for cultivation of perfected actions that can help. The first five are “skillful means” and are represented figuratively as male: generosity, morality, patience, joyful effort, and meditation; the sixth perfection, wisdom (prajna) or discriminating awareness, is viewed as female. The challenge for Mahayana practice is the duality experienced between the constant flow of forms—generated by karmic actions in this life and those that preceded it—and insight into emptiness. For this obstacle, the Prajnaparamita Sutra (or Heart Sutra) contains the instruction to hold in the mind without contradiction: Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. Form is no other than emptiness; emptiness is no other than form. Tantric Practices It is said that this is where the work of Vajrayana begins. It is also a ground on which to approach tantric Buddhist art. Images such as those you see in this exhibition are not representational of “things,” but they remain sensible to feeling, emotions, streams of thought, and memories. What is done with these appearances constitutes a practice, which in a museum might be mindful awareness of what excites our senses, creates skeins of thought, inspires attraction or rejection.Tantra reintroduces form as form, emptiness as emptiness, the realm of ordinary experience as part of practice. The Sanskrit term shunyata (emptiness) is seldom used in tantra. It is replaced by “luminosity,” the quality of things as they are, empty of deluded thought, purified of attachments to emotion, and joyous. Tantric practices were first designated as distinct
from those of other paths by extensive use of mantra; the Vajrayana was sometimes labeled “Mantrayana.” Mantra (a Sanskrit word meaning “protection”) is the repeated vocalization of designated sounds to protect the mind from its ordinary pathways and dedicate awareness to its original nature. Mantra and ritual performance are part of the context for visual imagery seen here. For practitioners, tantric art is a coded set of symbols that guide visualization, identification, and transformation of energies distorted by self-ishness into new fluid realities, incorporating body, speech, and mind. Instructions are mapped onto forms by Vajrayana lineages; as used in practice, art and ritual are a memory palace of teachings. A guru is essential for obtaining instructions and for guidance in accessing the symbolic code. Practices are passed from knowledge-holder to aspirant on an individual basis, and guarded as secret by the guru-student bond. There are texts (the tantras) and commentaries, but these are written in ways that conceal as much as they reveal. Private transmission has always shrouded tantra in secrecy, and left its methods open to the imagination of others. It has also developed distinct lineages of teachings in Tibet now identified as Nyingma (Ancient Ones), Sakya (Grey Earth), Kagyu (Oral Transmission and Practice), and Geluk (Way of Virtue). Tantric Art We museum-goers without initiation to teachings must rely on awareness of our responses and openness— habits of mind that are already part of the pleasure we find in aesthetic experience. Elaborated human shapes and emotional expressions found in these works are familiar to us, even without access to their coded knowledge. Although these sculptures lack the fine finish of many Sino-Tibetan gilt copper sculptures, their round, full volumes are physical presences that resonate in our own bodies and psyches. Their elaborated parts, and in some cases painted details, draw us into careful looking. In access to our senses and disclosure of our conceptual constructs their quality as works of art is measured. Tantra begins with dissolution of the duality of emptiness and form, and extends to all dualities in words, concepts, and experience—inner and outer, self and other, sacred and profane—and provides practices that resolve dualities. Among the most accessible polarities of experience is the duality of male and female. The postures of sexual union that are seen in the tantric sculptures on view in Noble Change are not a reduction of reality to the pleasures of technically enhanced intercourse. They are an enlistment of the human form in all its concrete energies in the process of dissolving dualities into experience of existence as a continuum of constantly transforming energies—fresh, compassionate, open, produced out of wisdom, and devoid of preconception.
Tantric Techniques and Modern Science Tantric practices, unlike other Buddhist vehicles, explicitly use the body as the path, including the female body. Visualization makes use of the power of sight to bring the outside in and the inside out, to dissolve boundaries of our bodies. Breath control, gestures (mudras), and positions of the body (yogic asanas) are tools to stimulate and direct the flow of energy, along with extensive ritual performances that order and purify space, summon and dispel forces. The effects of these practices are currently of great interest to neuroscientists who are investigating how we make our conscious world. Tantric practices observably change patterns and places of activity in our brain, laying down new neural networks and reviving discarded pathways. They work with organs and channels in the body that control temperature, mood, circulation, growth, decay, and energy, all of which are of great interest to modern health sciences as well. And to those who realize the fruits of these practices, they expose a plenum of “what is,” free from delusions of ego-bound strivings and devoid of binding categories of self-reinforcing thought—vivid beyond our dreams, and infinite in compassionate possibilities. This reality is held to be already here, inherent in all existence—its Buddhanature—and available equally to all, if we awaken to it. The art you will see in this exhibition was made to support tantric practice. It is not art made for art’s sake. Nor are the figures representations of deities with any independent existence. They are empty forms. Some are peaceful, some semi-ferocious, and some fierce. All are compassionate. —Caron Smith, Curator, Crow Collection of Asian Art
Wheel of Joy (Sanskrit: ananda chakra, Tibetan: dga’ ‘khyil). This symbol denotes movement, extension, victory, change, and the formation of new ethical and moral order.