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| Thangka No. 6 - Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara |
Inspiration:
to this thangka came from a magnificent ancient Taiwanese painting of Kuan-Yin of a Thousand Eyes and Arms - from which I adopted the central composition elements, improvising my own dream of the 1000-armed Bodhisattva around them.
Material: Cotton Canvas, framed in original antique Tibetan silk brocade
Colours: Watercolours, and 24-carat Gold
Size: 58.5 x 30 cm
Creation Period:
around 450 hrs - sketched in Nepal in 2012, continued in South India and the French Pyrenees, completed in Berlin in Mid-May 2013.
Availability: available.
Please send your email enquiry to ariyanandi[at]gmail[dot]com if you are interested in this original. For prints, posters etc. please see under the About Thangkas and How to Order Prints section (sidebar) and visit my online shop Ariya's Thangkas .
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| detail: 11 heads of the bodhisattva |
Bodhicitta is a sudden and lasting compassion for all beings, accompanied by a falling away of the attachment to the illusion of an inherently-existing self.
This intention to benefit all beings,
Which does not arise in others even for their own sake,
Is an extraordinary jewel of the mind,
And its birth is an unprecedented wonder.
How can I fathom the depths
Of the goodness of this jewel of the mind,
The panacea that relieves the world of pain
And is the source of all its joy?
If merely a benevolent intention
Excels venerating the Buddhas,
Then what need to mention striving to make
All beings without exception happy?
I bow down to the body of him
In whom the sacred precious mind is born.
I seek refuge in that source of joy
Who brings to happiness even those who harm him.
Shantideva
One for whom bodhicitta is the prime motivation for all actions is called a Bodhisattva.
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara is venerated as the ideal of Karuna - his compassion for the world and his willingness to bear the pain of others.
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| detail: hands |
One prominent Buddhist story tells of Avalokiteshvara vowing never to rest until he had freed all sentient beings from Samsara. Despite strenuous effort, he realizes that still many unhappy beings were yet to be saved. After struggling to comprehend the needs of so many, his head splits into eleven pieces. Amithaba Buddha, his teacher (who represents mercy and wisdom) seeing his plight, gives him eleven heads with which to hear the cries of the suffering. Upon hearing these cries and comprehending them, Avalokiteshvara attempts to reach out to all those who needed aid, but found that his two arms shattered into pieces. Once more, Amitabha Buddha comes to his aid and invests him with a thousand arms with which to aid the suffering multitudes.
Do not think of the bodhisattva
as a being separate from yourself.
When we see and hear the suffering of others
and respond to that suffering,
we are the heads and arms of the bodhisattva.
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| hand-stitched brocade frame |
The little space within the heart
is as great as the vast universe.
The heavens and earth are there,
the sun, the moon and the stars.
Fire and lightning are there,
and all that is now and all that is not.
The Upanishads
Above Avalokiteshvara, wisdom bodhisattva Manjushri (left) and Dharma protector Mahakala (right) are depicted. In the centre, floating on a lotus is Amitabha, Buddha of the lotus family of the 5 Dhyani (wisdom) Buddhas. He is red and represents discriminating awareness-wisdom and its transmuted opposites, passion and grasping. The Padma (lotus) Buddha family is associated with the element of fire. Below Avalokiteshvara, his emanations Green Tara (left) and White Tara (right).
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| detail: White Tara |
The vow of the Bodhisattva is that he or she will not go into
Nirvana until every single suffering being has entered Nirvana. One has
to understand what this means. Our awakening is not a personal triumph.
We do not have to win a spiritual sprint. We are one mind. Awakening is
to penetrate more and more deeply into this truth. The world is alive.
And as long as there is suffering then this living whole is shattered.
Whether it is my suffering or the suffering of another, when seen from
the perspective of the Bodhisattva makes no difference, because, seen
from this perspective there is no ‘me’ or ‘another.’
Albert Low
Come, come whoever you are!
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan
of despair.
Come,
come even if you have
broken your vows
a thousand times.
Come,
come yet again,
come!
inscribed on Rumi's tomb
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