The title of tonight's talk is Amoga City, "The Lord of the Midnight Sun." So imagine it's midnight in the middle of winter. A gathering wind is blowing in a clear, dark blue sky. Looking to the northern realm, your eyes catch some movement high in the stars. Something glowing green is moving fast towards you, obscuring more and more stars. What seem to be gigantic eagles are towing something behind them. Gradually as they feel more and more of the night sky, you realize what you are seeing are two shan-shan creatures, half-man, half-bird. With the talons and wings of eagles, but the torso and hands of humans, they each hold a huge pair of symbols, which they clash together as they fly. They are pulling a chariot. And in the chariot, seated on a green lotus throne, sits the Buddha Amoga City. His body, a dark green color, clad in scarlet robes. He illuminates the whole night sky. His right hand is raised in a powerful gesture, which banishes the dark fears of the night. In his left hand sits a mysterious double vajra, two diamond thunderbolts crossed and fused together. This vision of Amoga City, whose name means unobstructed success, and whose wisdom is all accomplishing. A vision of fearless energy and compassion seems to fill the whole night sky until, like a storm carried on a rushing wind, a Amoga City and the shan-shan birds move away and eventually disappear. So that's the arrival of Amoga City, a powerful entry. But Amoga City is perhaps the most mysterious and ungraspable of the Buddha figures. His attributes and his emblems are redolent of power and energy. Yet his activity can be subtle and hidden. Amoga City is a fusion of opposites, which gives him his mysterious qualities. Some say that it is only really possible to speak of him in the language of paradox and contradiction. Be that as it may. What I would like to do tonight is to explore some of the characteristics of Amoga City, as they have connected with me personally, to explore with you what Amoga City awakes in me. So first of all, Amoga City is the Buddha of the Northern realm, and that's where I would like to start. With the North, I've always been attracted to the North. And whatever some of you might think, the North is a lot more than a sign on the M1. It's a lot more than old mills and terraced houses and coronation street. It's a lot more even than Thixton's old peculiar beer, important and interesting, though that is. The North, for me, evokes an image of the mountain wilderness of the Scottish Highlands. It evokes a wild, cold wind, blowing around ancient dolmen and standing stones. It evokes northern Scandinavia and the land of the Midnight Sun, where at the height of summer the sun never sets, and in the depths of winter the sun never rises. It evokes the North Pole with its howling gales and vast expanses of snow and frozen seas. The North is all these and more. The North is a sense of pitting oneself alone against some of the harshest forces in nature. The North is purifying, blasting away the external and internal pollutants of urban life. It's primeval. It's scary and it's attractive at the same time. In my mind, the Northern realm is vividly alive. In another sense, the North figures dramatically in the history of exploration of our planet. The North Star guided marinars for centuries, and more recently, the magnetic North Pole has provided a vital sense of direction for all travellers with the magnetic compass. Whenever I travel, whether it's through mountains or through cities, wherever it is in Europe, I never feel totally comfortable until I have established which direction is north. And then, there are the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis, which leads me nicely into a discussion of a Mulga City's colour, dark green. I've personally seen one or two pale showings of the Northern Lights, but I'm told by friends that at their best, they pulse green light across the sky. There's something magical and mysterious about the Northern Lights. And for those of you who like myths, there is, of course, Philip Pullman's recent trilogy of books, very much based on the Aurora Borealis, the first volume of which is actually called the Northern Lights. In that trilogy, the first great and dangerous journey is to the North Pole and the Northern Lights. The journey, which incidentally opens up to the travellers, the possibilities of travel to other dimensions and other universes. But to return to the colour green, I have to admit that when I stop and I think of green, my first thought is of Glasgow Celtic Football Club. My second thought is of Irish Republicanism. And my third thought, my third thought is of traffic lights. This would be absolutely honest when I sit and think about green, that's what comes to mind. But other things of course come to mind. Green is, of course, the colour of leaves, the colour of grass and growing crops. It's the colour of vigorous growth and fertility. And this idea is embodied in the image of the green man, medieval representations of which you can see all over England and Europe. Even in Norwich Cathedral, if you walk around Norwich Cathedral, particularly the cloister there, you see loads of representations of the green man and you'll see him all over many other churches in England. I think of the green man. But the green colour of leaves and grass also hints at something different. It hints at something subtle, more delicate forces. If you think about how do leaves get green, how do we get growth? It comes about through the slow, persistent chemical action of the integration of sun and air. I think it's illustrative of one of the attributes of a local city, that green growth comes about through some sort of mysterious workings of chemistry. And green, as you're reminded today, is also the colour of the mysterious night in the Middle English poem "Sergouane and the Green Night". It's a story which is particularly relevant at this time of the year. So I'm just going to read a very brief version of this story of "Gouane and the Green Night". Interking Arthur's Camelot, one New Year's Day, strode a green clad, green skin giant, in one hand holding a holly branch, in the other a razor sharp battle axe. He offered his head to any night who would accept a return blow one year hence. Only Gouane agreed, but beheading the giant with one blow. Picking up his head, the giant turned it to Gouane. Its mouth told him to be at the green chapel, a year hence, then the giant left. A year later, Gouane rode north through a wintry land on his other world warhorse, Gringleay. On Christmas Eve, he came to a castle in a wild wood. The Lord, Sir Bursilak, told him the green chapel was near, and invited him to stay until New Year's Day. Also here lived Bursilak's lovely wife, and an old hag, her companion. Bursilak went hunting each day, while Gouane stayed indoors. Bursilak agreed to give Gouane whatever he caught in the hunt, and Gouane agreed to give Bursilak whatever he received in the castle. Each day, Bursilak's wife tried to seduce Gouane, kissing him fervently. Each evening when Bursilak returned, Gouane kissed him. But the lady had also given Gouane a magical green girdle, saying it would protect him at the green chapel. This, fearing for his life, he kept secret. On New Year's Day, he rode to the green chapel, a hollow mound in a valley by a waterfall. Every night appeared. Gouane bowed his head, but flinched. Rebuked the second time he kept still. Down came the axe, just nicking his neck. Then the giant revealed himself as Bursilak, saying he was spellbound by the old hag. In fact, the enchantress Morgan Le Fay, who had devised the entire test to discredit the round table. Gouane was spared for honorably denying Lady Bursilak's advances, but his neck had been nicked for concealing the girdle. Free to leave, Gouane felt disgraced. He returned to Camelot, wearing the girdle tied round his arm as a badge of shame. But then every night also agreed to wear a green boldric in his honor, for he had brought renown to the round table. It was very strange and mysterious story, and has lots of echoes for me of Amoga City. It's a very strong story. There's something there to think about. But the green colour of Amoga City also marks him out in one sense from Akshopia, Ratna Samba and Amitabha. They are blue, yellow and red, primary colours. Whereas Amoga City's green is a secondary colour, made up of a mixture of the blue of Akshopia and the yellow of Ratna Samba. Lama Gavinda makes great play of this, saying that Amoga City represents what you might call the sun at midnight. You could even say that Amoga City is the lord of the midnight sun. Gavinda talks of the yellow light of an inner sun, invisible to human eyes, interwoven with the deep blue of the night sky, to form the serene mystic green of Amoga City. For him, the sun at midnight represents the mysterious activity of spiritual forces, which work removed from the senses, invisible and imperceptible, which guide the individual towards the maturity of knowledge and liberation. So green is a serene mystic colour, but there's another side to green, which doesn't on the face of it have any spiritual or mystical implications on the face of it at least. And this is reflected in the common phrase, I was green with envy. Now this is very interesting, I don't know whether Indians or Tibetans say I was green with envy, I don't know whether they have an equivalent phrase like that. But there is of course a spiritual connection between green and envy, and specifically that is the green Buddha Amoga City transforms the poison envy. And then the Amoga City presides over the realm of the titans, the jealous gods, to which we find on the Tibetan wheel of life. So there is a spiritual connection between green and envy. On the wheel of life, the titans are powerful jealous beings, always in contention with the gods. And I guess if we were to look around in our culture, we could see titans, we can see them amongst politicians, we can see them amongst some business executives, some gang leaders. You can probably think of examples of people who are titans, they're energetic, they're powerful, they despise weakness. The only things they respect are power, energy, money and success. It's no good giving titans sermons on gentleness and humility. They will assume that you are someone trying to trick them into giving up their superiority, most probably they won't even give you the time of day, they wouldn't stop to listen to you. To convert the titans to the Dharma, they need to see that you have something that they do not. Only if you can match their energy and resourcefulness will you even get a hearing. And for dealing with the titans, Amoga City is sometimes depicted as brandishing the flaming sword of wisdom or knowledge. Otherwise, see Amoga City with the crossed vagirals, he has all the energy of total action at his command. Titans worship success and Amoga City's success is unobstructed and infallible, he does not have a weakness to be exploited. And so the titans are prepared to listen to Amoga City, and from that they can gain wisdom. Now to me at first sight this seems extraordinary that you can have this abrupt transition apparently from a world of envy and hatred to a world of wisdom. However, although the titans are dominated by envy and hatred, hatred does have an affinity to wisdom. And this is because the characteristic of hatred is to want to destroy the object of hatred and the characteristic of wisdom or insight is to destroy everything that is unreal. To destroy our illusions about the world and universe we see around us and thus to see things as they really are. Banti says that wisdom has the function of reducing to dust everything which is not reality. Titans have a great deal of energy locked up in their envy and hatred and the task is to divert that energy into the discovery and realization of truth. This city achieves that task by his energy, his wisdom, his compassion and by his feellessness, which brings me to the next characteristic of Amoga City I want to look at, his feellessness. There's a story which some of you might be familiar with told about Hakuin, the great 18th century Japanese Zen master, which illustrates the importance of feellessness and its effect upon the strongest of phones. The story goes like this, Hakuin was meditating when he was approached by a fearsome samurai warrior who demanded of Hakuin, where is heaven, where is hell. Hakuin didn't budge an inch from his meditation posture, he opened his eyes a little bit and very briefly to take in the samurai, he continued sitting there and then he spoke mockingly to the samurai. What's the matter, you frightened of hell, a sniveling coward like you is not worth teaching, an incensed by Hakuin's insult, the samurai in his fury draws his sword and is about to strike Hakuin when Hakuin simply says, now you're in hell. And the samurai sinks to his knees and begs for forgiveness to which Hakuin softly replied, now you're in heaven. Now that's what I call feellessness, that's feellessness. But in the Buddha's life, there are several examples of his feellessness, but perhaps the most famous example is his encounter with Angulimala. This is worth looking at because it not only displays the Buddha's feellessness, but also illustrates the subtle and mysterious ways in which enlightened beings can work. The name Angulimala means garland of fingers. Angulimala had taken a vow to kill 100 people, and from each victim he hacked a finger and added it to a gruesome necklace. At the time of the Buddha's arrival in the neighborhood, Angulimala's finger total had almost reached 100. The whole area was in terror, no one could withstand him. The Buddha was warned against travelling into the domain of Angulimala. He ignored the advice and headed straight for the assassin's lair. Angulimala saw the figure of the Buddha walking quietly along the road, sized him up as an easy victim, drew his sword and rushed after him. However, although Angulimala was fit and strong and was running full pelt, whilst the Buddha was just mindfully walking along, Angulimala could not catch him up. However hard he tried, he simply couldn't make up any ground on the Buddha. Eventually, exhausted and baffled, Angulimala cried out, "Stop Monk, stop!" The Buddha's calm reply was, "I have stopped Angulimal." The Buddha then explained to Angulimala that his mind had stopped dealing with greed, hatred and delusion, and had arrived at a place which Angulimala could not reach with his sword. Angulimala was so impressed with the Buddha that he went for refuge and became a disciple of the Buddha, and not long afterwards, gained enlightenment. I like this story, it's a very familiar story, but I like it because it highlights the qualities of the enlightened being that we see encapsulated in Amorga City. There is the fearlessness of the Buddha, there is this active approach in going directly to find Angulimala, and there is the mystery and paradox of how the walking Buddha always managed to out distance the headlong cutthroat. Ultimately however, true fearlessness can only be attained by insight into reality. When we see the way things really are, we realize the illusoryness of the ego, which we seek to protect, and which we fearful. With a complete letting goal of agitistical concerns, the fear of dying, the primary fear of which all other fears are reflections, disappears. We realize that there is no one to die. I'm talking of the ego brings me to the Shang-Shang creatures. You might think, what the heck is the connection between the ego and the Shang-Shang creatures, but bear with me, there is, I think. It brings me in particular to the symbols that the Shang-Shang creatures crash together as they fly through the sky. The Shang-Shang creatures are half man, half bird, and what they stand for is man in transition towards a new dimension of consciousness. It's what they stand for, man in transition towards a new dimension of consciousness. The symbols, well, they're clashed together, we're told, to quote "forcefully unite all the poles of existence" to "forcefully unite all the poles of existence". To be honest, I can't get me head around that very easily to "forcefully unite all the poles of existence". But there's another interpretation of the clashing of the symbols that I like, and that is that they are simply ego bashers. Every time an ego raises its head, the symbols are crashed together, shaking the ego to its foundations. Just imagine, if every time our ego asserted itself, a watchful Shang-Shang clashed together two mighty symbols around our head. I think we see a lot of very shaky people dodgering around the retreat centre, but that might seem a bit light-hearted in terms of what they mean. But another set of thoughts was put in train by thinking about the Shang-Shang creatures and their symbols. And that was related to sound, because they make a lot of sound, so it's when we press them together, a lot of sound. And the element associated with Amorga City is air, and associated with air and Amorga City also is sound, which moves out in all directions through the medium of the air. So Amorga City is very much associated with air and sound. And I got to wondering about what the entrance of Amorga City and his Shang-Shang creatures would be like when they entered the Titan Realm. How would Amorga City and the Shang-Shangs approach the Titan Realm? How would they get the attention of the Titans? And then I remembered whilst I was thinking about this, that in the sutra of Golden Light, which some of you may have read, in the Northern Realm, it isn't Amorga City. It's a forerunner, if you like, of Amorga City, a Buddha called Dundu Bismar. The Lord of the Drum, the Lord of the Drum. So here we have, I thought, three elements associated with Amorga City. Symbols, drum, air, sound, if you like, wind instruments. And what I want to do now is to play for you a piece of music which very strongly features symbols, drum and wind instruments. And this is how I think the dramatic entrance of Amorga City and his Shang-Shang creatures would sound like as they enter the Realm of the Titans. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Quite an entry. Any guesses into that? Some of you might know that piece of music, but any guesses where it's actually from? The North. The North. Well, it's from the north of a particular country. It's from the, this is actually going to really shock you. It's from the north of Portugal on the border with Spain. And what it actually is, is a 13th century piece of Spanish processional music in honor of the Virgin Mary. [Laughter] That shakes you up, doesn't it? Well, that is an amazing, that's played by a group called the Dufay Collective. But when I heard that for the first time, I thought that's what I want to hear at the start of a Puja. You know, entering the Puja, that's what I want to hear. I want to hear something like that. It's very Tibetan in sound. But it's, I think it sums up. There is an important element here, which is sound, because we often forget about things like that, but I think that does represent the kind of sound that Amorga City and the Shang-Shangs would make to get the attention of the Titans. So before moving into the conclusion of the talk, I just want to look briefly at the symbolism of the crossed or the double Vadras, which Amorga City holds in his left hand. And again, sometimes when I read interpretation of this symbol, or that symbol, my, you know, my eyes glaze over. Usually I think it's because I find the interpretation sometimes too intellectual. There's little or no emotional content in it. It's simply that maybe sometimes that I can't see it. It doesn't come alive for me sometimes when I read interpretations of symbols. And when you read about the meanings or the symbolism of the double Vadras, it can be a bit mind-boggling. That's how I find it. And yet there is something there. And I want to just talk you through some of the interpretation of the double Vadras, and then lead you to something much simpler in the way of an interpretation, which I think does connect. So what we're told is the double Vadras is the symbol of the total psychic integration of the unfoldment of all potential of perfect harmony, balance, and equilibrium. So I get something there that is difficult. Then we're also told that the double Vadras is according to Indian Buddhist cosmology, the support on which the whole universe rests. If you've ever seen pictures or interpretations of Indian Buddhist cosmology, that's what's at the base, the double Vadras. And then we're told, thus the fundamental matrix of both the universe and of the individual consciousness is the same. And it seems a bit dry somehow, but it seems a bit technical and dry. And yet something is going on there. Something does echo in my mind. And then you read, simply put, it all comes down to something very straightforward, but very important. To understand yourself in your deepest nature is to understand the nature of the universe. To understand yourself in your deepest nature is to understand the nature of the universe. The answer to the mystery of the universe lies in our own minds. Penetrate through the veils of illusion that clog up our minds and we can gain insight into the true nature of the universe. Now that's something really worth working for. It's really, really worth working for, saying that the answer to the mystery of existence lies in our own minds. It's up to us to find it. But how do we find that answer? How do we find enlightenment? Well simply put, I think it's by taking on the vows of a Bodhisattva. An Amogus city exemplifies the activity of a Bodhisattva. Amogus city is a Buddha of action, but his action is spontaneous and altruistic. He acts with the totality of his being and so he is unstoppable. His name Amogus city, unobstructed success evokes the inevitable outcome of total action. His compassionate activity is spontaneous, born of the wisdom of Amogus city, which is all accomplishing. And to quote Lama Govinda, "All accomplishing wisdom consists in the sensitivity of heart and mind. With the union of all embracing love and of deepest knowledge, in the complete self-surrender to the highest ideals of human striving, which finds the force for its realization and the fearless acceptance of life's sufferings." He, who inspired by this attitude, takes upon himself the Bodhisattva vow at the feet of the Buddha, in the eternal presence of all the enlightened ones, may remember Rabindranath Tagore's deep felt words and then he quotes, who a poem of Tagore's, which I'll now read. Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it. Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield, but to my own strength. Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved, but hope for patience to win my freedom. But finally, to end the talk, I want to play you another piece of music, the final piece of music. This is by a composer from a northern role. It's by Sibelius from Finland. Now there's no symbols in this piece of music. The ego has been well and truly crushed. But the drums of Don Düvisvara are very present, and the wind instruments powered by air are well to the fore. So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to finish it now by playing this piece of music. So again, I suggest you close your eyes and just listen as this fills the shrine room. This is the music of the Buddha, Amoga City, unobstructed success, as he moves freely and joyously across the land. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC]
