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  108 Names of Now

108 Names of now

Mapping the Trikaya

Once Upon a Time...

in June 2017, I co-taught Practicing Art/Practicing Dharma at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Barre, MA with Stephen Batchelor. I was living in a lovely little house on the edge of the woods, not far from a litter of fox kits and their mother. Each day, I made one three by seven foot drawing on tarpaper, using oil pastels, exploring one of the aspects of the Trikaya, or triple-body of the Awakening Ones (basically everyone giving themselves half a chance). These are, roughly: the Nirmanakaya, or body of ancestors and descendants (aka physical body); the Sambhogakaya, or enjoyment body of subtle energy; and the Dharmakaya, or body of unobstructed spacious awareness. There's a fourth body: the unalienable union, fulfillment, and integration of the first three. That's called the Svabhavikakaya. Feeling stumped? Try exclaiming, Svabhavikakaya! three times out loud in your most belly-sure voice. 

Each day, someone from the retreat community would trace the outline of my body onto the tarpaper. Each day, working outdoors on the edge of the woods, I would make my drawing. Community of all beings in the beginning - my body traced by a friend in the morning. Community of all beings in the middle - caterpillars, ticks, and shadows walking on my drawing in the afternoon. Community of all beings in the end - a procession brings the drawing into group practice at the close of day.
​
These drawings also connect with early Buddhist representations of the Buddha's footprints: not the body directly, but a trace of the space around, in, and of it. 
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  • Home
  • About
    • Press
  • Therapy
    • Psychotherapy
    • Art/Dharma Coaching
    • Meditations for Resilience & Resistance
  • Art
    • Everyday Regalia
    • Free/Not-Free Paintings
    • Trumpovers
    • Pilgrimage >
      • Sacred-Ordinary
    • Home / Away from Home
    • Mapping the Trikaya
    • Turtlenosed Snake
  • Meditation
    • Retreats & Facilitation
    • Old Dragons' Club
    • Inner Beauty
    • Treatments
    • Meditations for Resilience & Resistance
    • Guided Meditations >
      • Lovingkindness
      • 5 Directions
      • Compassion
      • Coming Home
  • Writing
    • Stories from the Road
    • Stories from the Now
  • Teaching
    • Upper Valley SoulCollage® for Justice
    • Retreats & Facilitation
    • Murals
  • Contact
  • Shop
  • SoulCollage® for the Interim Times
    • Suits of a SoulCollage® Deck
    • Protectors
    • Transpersonal Cards
    • A Four-Card Reading
    • Greeting New Cards
    • Working with Negative Spaces
    • Companion Cards