Blue Sky, White Clouds

 This is the approximate script, with errors and variations, of the Double Dorje episode at https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-h4ymr-162c0b7 Hello friends and others! You are very welcome to the Double Dorje podcast. You won’t have got this far without noticing the music, if that’s the word, used for this Double Dorje intro and outro. Thousands upon thousands of mantras are used and recited in vajrayana Buddhism, but there is a handful such as the mantra of Guru Rinpoche and the Tara mantra that are particularly well known, and this one, commonly known simply as “the mani”, or as “the six syllable mantra”, is without question the best known of all. Later in this episode will take a look at a couple of tunes used for it, but first let’s take a moment to have a brief look at what it is. Put simply it’s the mantra of Chenrezi, also known under the Sanskrit name of Avalokiteshvara. (A quick reminder that I’ll put some of the words that might be unfamiliar into the description, so you can s...

Below is the approximate script, with possible errors, of the sixth episode in the Double Dorje podcast, released on 06 June 2024 at  the Double Dorje podcast . Hello, and let me begin by extending a very warm welcome to the Double Dorje podcast. The last episode of this podcast, the one about the meanings of “lama”, was a little longer, but I suspect this one will come out relatively short, although it does have two parts: the first part looks at the question of what is a double dorje, while the second one takes a look at what the Double Dorje was. So what is a double dorje? If the concept is completely new to you, the logo for this podcast should clue you in, especially if you note that the picture shows a ritual implement that can be held in one hand. Whereas the one on the logo has four “arms” so to speak, the standard dorje just has two. You can search the Internet easily enough for pictures. There is a sphere in the centre, and two sets of five prongs emerge from opposite sid...

Below is the approximate script of the third episode in the Double Dorje podcast, released on 15 May 2024 at  the Double Dorje podcast . Hello, and first of all a very warm welcome to the Double Dorje podcast. Ngagpa – that’s a kind of lay practitioner, isn’t it? Well, certainly, that’s kind of true, but that’s barely the half of it. First of all, the word: ngagpa is the nearest I can come to the pronunciation, although whether a real Tibetan would recognise the word without enough context is another matter! I won’t trouble you with the actual Tibetan spelling, which is a subject of its own to wrestle with if you want to learn Tibetan, so let’s just say that it’s N G A G P A. That’s two syllables, ngag and pa, and a simple translation is nothing more than “mantra person” or “mantra practitioner”. The female version has M A at the end instead of P A, and I’m happy to say that the number of female practitioners of this type is quite high, especially these days. I think (and somebody ...