The Double Dorje - itself.

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 sides, a central prong and four more arranged around it and curving towards the central prong. Typically the whole thing would be four or five inches long. You will soon see that the symbolism attached to various parts of the design is quite complex, but let’s leave that aside. When we get into that kind of detail it often turns out that not every explanation is the same, so the details only matter to somebody studying a practice in which these details play a part.

It appears to derive, in part, from a powerful sceptre wielded by the Hindu god Indra, for which reason it is sometimes translated as “thunderbolt”. Generally speaking, it is a symbol of power, but it is the flagship symbol of the mantric branch of Buddhism, is widely used as a kind of signal as the crucifix is in Christianity. Penetrating clarity and indestructibility are strongly associated with the idea of the dorje. The Sanskrit word for it is vajra, and a common name for what I just referred to as the mantric branch of Buddhism is the vajrayana – the vehicle or path of the vajra. It’s another of those cases where in the Anglophone world, people tend to say either dorje or vajra quite interchangeably, without any difference in meaning at all.

In addition to thunderbolt, one of the key meanings of the term is “diamond”, which is the meaning that was taken to create the translation into Tibetan. The two syllables of dorje, taken on their own, mean “stone” and something like “noble”. Put together, they form a new word for diamond, as well as for the ritual implement we are talking about now.

I just mention a couple of common variants of the standard dorje. In certain cases, the side prongs, instead of curving right in to join together with the central prong, curl away just before reaching the central prong so that there really are five individual points on each side. This particular design is known as the wrathful dorje. There are also dorjes with eight side prongs instead of four, so making a nine-pronged dorje, known as a yeshe dorje, or wisdom dorje.

Dorjes with just two side prongs, therefore known as a “three-pronged dorje” are also found, and a crossed version of this, therefore a bit like the one in the podcast logo, sometimes appears, laid flat, as a base upon which things are visualised.

In iconography and in liturgy, the dorje is often paired either with a bell or with a lotus, here representing the fundamental polarity of universal energies, along with pairs such as left and right, red-and-white, wisdom and means, sun and moon, and of course male and female.

The standard double dorje of our podcast logo is the emblem of Amoghasiddhi, the green buddha of the North who embodies the all-accomplishing wisdom and the activity of the awakened buddha.

Getting a feel for the symbolism of Tibetan Buddhism has to be a very slow process, since the symbology is so rich, so complex and so profound, so I won’t go into that any further now. I hope, at least, that you now have enough idea of what it double dorje is that when you next hear the term you will be able to nod wisely and knowingly, rather than merely saying “Wot?”

If we take the translation of “double diamond”, UK listeners of a certain age may well be reminded of a once-popular brand of beer, and its advertisement (sings): “a double Diamond works wonders, works wonders, works wonders, a double Diamond works wonders so drink one today”!

That, of course, is completely irrelevant, but it does provide a link to the hospitality industry and to the second part of this podcast, namely THE Double Dorje. I hear that it has now, sadly, closed permanently, but it was for many years a favourite, small, restaurant, just two corners round and down the back streets from the Great Stupa in Kathmandu. Underlit and occasionally overcrowded, the food was as fresh as you can get. If things were quiet, you might order, say, vegetable momos, and then hear the sound of the vegetables being chopped coming from the kitchen. A beer might take a little longer to arrive because, seeing as how you are a Westerner, they would know that you like your beer cold, so they would go and put one in the fridge. It might be better to simply order THE DRINK. The drink is made from fermented millet, served in something reminiscent of a large mug, together with a drinking straw made from the stem of some plant, together with hot water. As you drink some of the liquid, you top it up with hot water and – for reasons that are a mystery to me – It seems to get stronger as you go along. Maybe it was really, really strong when you started, but you just didn’t notice it – I don’t know. The spent millet would be chucked out into the street at the end of the night and eaten by the cows who wander round. Not the way things are done in a gentrified European city, is it?

And what a place it was to meet people, as though winds in the ether somehow crossed there. Here was Shiv, the old hippie who spends about half of each year in Kathmandu and the other half at his Poetry Ashram in Woodstock; the young, Chinese Christina, with pale bony fingers studying old texts at the University and more than a little bit shocked by some of the contents; Ling, the yoga teacher leading her group of students, fired up my enthusiasm; the young American woman, travelling alone, who told me that she had very little problem with men in the way you might first expect, but that the ones who wanted a relationship were more difficult – they would see that relationship as a stepping stone to a marriage, and then to a ticket out of there; the guy, whose name I have forgotten, who wangled himself a cushy number travelling round the world and making a video blog for some “old folks” in a home back in England; and Mick, who turned out to be the ex-boyfriend of the daughter of people I had known this before in Ireland.

In short, scholars, travellers, and mystics, brought together from across the world, pulled by some remarkable karmic threads.

This podcast isn’t intended as a substitute for thorough ways of studying the dharma, or of practicing it. Rather than a virtual classroom or virtual temple, I want to feel like it’s the virtual eatery round the corner. It is seven years since I was in the real Double Dorje, but that’s why I have named this podcast after it. Who knows who might meet here?

Okay, that’s it! Don’t forget to like, subscribe, share, tell your friends, whatever – and keep up the good work!