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art
April 2009 
Tibetan Tantric Art links
Posted on Oct 27th, 2007
by 
dev
dev
........the Western relation to art, in which the viewer stands outside the painting, analyzes and perhaps admires it--an essentially passive and appreciative stance. The Tibetan Buddhist, like Alice in Wonderland, steps through the picture plane and, through a process in which he/she must actively participate, requiring utmost concentration and mental stamina, becomes that of which the center is the symbol. That transformation does not fall spontaneously, as grace, upon the viewer: the practitioner must engage in the process. The mystical experience is achieved, not bestowed.
Bodhisattvas
Except for the Buddhas in their multiple forms and appearances, Tibetan art is dominated by its greatest deities, the Bodhisattvas. If the Buddhas seem remote in
the state of nirvana, the Bodhisattvas represent a type of active Buddha-being, tireless, ceaseless and watchful, who care about and exert themselves on behalf of mortal beings....... A Bodhisattva is one who has reached the threshold of nirvana, meriting the final step into liberation, but who halts, choosing instead to remain in the worldly cycle of samsara, of birth, death, and suffering, in order to help all other beings achieve enlightenment. This is a core Mahayana concept and ideal; the arhat achieves liberation for himself, but the Bodhisattva defers eternal bliss in order to save all other beings. The path of the Bodhisattva is open to human beings, requiring a great vow of dedication, a supremely difficult yet attainable goal. .............
Yab Yum
...enlightenment is obtained through the union of wisdom and compassion. The figures in a yab-yum image are thus symbolic, the male deity representing compassion, the female representing wisdom (insight), and their embrace is a visual metaphor for the rapture of union. Dualism, the illusory perception of independent existence and origination, is the source of egoism, ignorance, and suffering; union, the goal of the mystic, the fundamental objective of yoga, transcends polarity and leads to bliss. This is bodhicitta, the nonpolarized state, the recognition of indivisible, indestructible truth--enlightenment.
www.brown.edu/Research/BuddhistTempleArt
image:Dakini
Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York 2007
Access: Public
Perhaps it is my computer (as per usual!) BUT I can not seem to fall the above link with any success!
I like the extracts though. Real nice.
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you!
i think it is working now ;)