Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
More Annotations
A complete backup of ldsgenealogy.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
A complete backup of mackenziehoran.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
A complete backup of jacksonskratom.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
A complete backup of diamondground.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
A complete backup of giveawayradar.weebly.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
Favourite Annotations
A complete backup of www.jeuneafrique.com/897328/politique/rwanda-kizito-mihigo-retrouve-mort-dans-sa-cellule-la-fin-tragique-du
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
A complete backup of www.libertatea.ro/stiri/violeta-alexandru-audiata-in-comisiile-din-parlament-pentru-ministerul-muncii-scand
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
A complete backup of tamil.samayam.com/education/board-exams/ssc-cgl-tier-1-admit-card-2020-to-release-on-its-zonal-website-chec
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
A complete backup of www.ziare.com/violeta-alexandru/ministrul-muncii/audierea-violetei-alexandru-s-a-lasat-cu-circ-si-insulte-l
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
Text
25 VAMPIRE STORIES
25 vampire stories. Illustration of the vetala from the 25 Tales of the Vampire. “Tell me a story,” I demanded. It was the first evening of one of my uncle’s rare visits, after my mother was killed. “It’s late, Surya,” he said. “I have come a long way today, and I am tired.”.BUDDHISTS WHO KILL
Submachine guns are nifty, but Tantra is largely concerned with magical transformations. Its scriptures contain extensive recipes for using magic to injure, sicken, enslave, or kill people. These were weapons of mass destruction. Some Western historians believe that royal funding for military magic was a main reason tantric Buddhismgot started.
LORD BUDDHA
Lord Buddha. After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her own sake, and on behalf of her own two sons. Perhaps she wasright.
BLACK MAGIC, TRANSFORMATION, AND POWER The positive transformation that black magic can sometimes produce should take at most a few years. People who practice black magic seriously for longer generally become increasingly pathetic, weak, narrow, unpleasant, and miserable. (Uncle Andrew in C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew is an insightful portrait of this type. BLACK MAGIC AND MEANINGNESS Black magic is a way to seize the power to end your victimization by an oppressive ethical culture, internalized as a tyrannical morality. All power is finite, however, and you can alter reality only to a limited extent. Eventually you need to develop a realistic understanding of what you can and cannot do; in what ways you are, andare not
DARK CULTURE AND TANTRIC TRANSFORMATION 1.The excellent TV Tropes article on the Dark Arts lists “artificial intelligence research” as an example. This delighted me when I first read it, since I spent my twenties as an AI researcher.While writing this page, by coincidence, I watched Terminator 2 for the first time. Now I am feeling distinctly queasy, because the line of research I and a few others initiated, around the time the DEATH THREATS FROM OFFENDED BUDDHISTS Death threats from offended Buddhists. The picture above is an illustration from a chapter of my Buddhist novel, titled “ Lord Buddha .”. Apparently, some people who think they are Buddhists want to find it offensive. In fact, some have explained in detail how they will torture, rape, mutilate, and murder me 1 if I don’t take itdown.
LOVECRAFT, SPECULATIVE REALISM, AND SILLY NIHILISM On and off, I have been working on this essay for many years. I am able, finally, to finish it after reading Graham Harman’s new Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy. 3 Performing eldritch deconstructive rituals, Harman comes to conclusions that are unspeakably obtuse, but behave as if they were acute. 4. Harman is a member of the movement called “Speculative Realism,” which aims to COMMENTS ON “WE ARE ALL MONSTERS” Optional, but required if you want follow-up notifications. Used to show your Gravatar if you have one. Address will not be shownpublicly.
ABOUT “BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES” Vampires, ambiguity, and paradox. Buddhism, at root, is a method for facing the paradoxes of life and death with curiosity, appreciation, generosity, and joy. Its starting point is the experience of ambiguity. The natural tendency is to polarize: to say “this is this and that is that; I love this and hate that.”.25 VAMPIRE STORIES
25 vampire stories. Illustration of the vetala from the 25 Tales of the Vampire. “Tell me a story,” I demanded. It was the first evening of one of my uncle’s rare visits, after my mother was killed. “It’s late, Surya,” he said. “I have come a long way today, and I am tired.”.BUDDHISTS WHO KILL
Submachine guns are nifty, but Tantra is largely concerned with magical transformations. Its scriptures contain extensive recipes for using magic to injure, sicken, enslave, or kill people. These were weapons of mass destruction. Some Western historians believe that royal funding for military magic was a main reason tantric Buddhismgot started.
LORD BUDDHA
Lord Buddha. After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her own sake, and on behalf of her own two sons. Perhaps she wasright.
BLACK MAGIC, TRANSFORMATION, AND POWER The positive transformation that black magic can sometimes produce should take at most a few years. People who practice black magic seriously for longer generally become increasingly pathetic, weak, narrow, unpleasant, and miserable. (Uncle Andrew in C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew is an insightful portrait of this type. BLACK MAGIC AND MEANINGNESS Black magic is a way to seize the power to end your victimization by an oppressive ethical culture, internalized as a tyrannical morality. All power is finite, however, and you can alter reality only to a limited extent. Eventually you need to develop a realistic understanding of what you can and cannot do; in what ways you are, andare not
DARK CULTURE AND TANTRIC TRANSFORMATION 1.The excellent TV Tropes article on the Dark Arts lists “artificial intelligence research” as an example. This delighted me when I first read it, since I spent my twenties as an AI researcher.While writing this page, by coincidence, I watched Terminator 2 for the first time. Now I am feeling distinctly queasy, because the line of research I and a few others initiated, around the time the DEATH THREATS FROM OFFENDED BUDDHISTS Death threats from offended Buddhists. The picture above is an illustration from a chapter of my Buddhist novel, titled “ Lord Buddha .”. Apparently, some people who think they are Buddhists want to find it offensive. In fact, some have explained in detail how they will torture, rape, mutilate, and murder me 1 if I don’t take itdown.
LOVECRAFT, SPECULATIVE REALISM, AND SILLY NIHILISM On and off, I have been working on this essay for many years. I am able, finally, to finish it after reading Graham Harman’s new Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy. 3 Performing eldritch deconstructive rituals, Harman comes to conclusions that are unspeakably obtuse, but behave as if they were acute. 4. Harman is a member of the movement called “Speculative Realism,” which aims to COMMENTS ON “WE ARE ALL MONSTERS” Optional, but required if you want follow-up notifications. Used to show your Gravatar if you have one. Address will not be shownpublicly.
ESSAYS | BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES Stephen T. Asma's book On Monsters is a project parallel in some ways to Buddhism for Vampires. A brief review. June 12th, 2010. THE TELLING OF THE TALE I learned that from the vetali. Almost everything I know about life and death I learned from the vetali. So what I will tell you is how I came to be on the Quest of Life and Death; and how I met the vetali; and what I learned from her. Now, you know, I must begin at thebeginning,
DRINKING THE SUN
I now think this was a little over-dramatic; I let the rhetoric run away with me a bit.However, practicing a martial art is a good way of exploring shadow energies of aggression, dominance, violence, pain, and injury, in a playful and reasonably safe social context.. A final gift: shadow as creative fuel Frogs in Amplexus It takes a lot of energy to un-see patterns, to maintain the membrane MAKING A KANGLING FOR CHÖD A revised version of this essay was published as “The Radiant Gift” in Sacred Hoop Magazine, issue 79.. Abstract. A kangling is a trumpet made from a human thigh-bone. You play a kangling in tantric Buddhist rituals, particularly chöd.. The function of chöd is to cut your emotional attachment to your body. Putting a dead person’s leg bone to your mouth—to blow the kangling while ROMANCING THE SHADOW Romancing the shadow. We can embrace our monstrosity while cultivating our human nobility. We can allow each to transform the other, so we become cheerful, kind, useful monsters who are also overpowering, unpredictable, and dangerous heroes. BLACK MAGIC, TRANSFORMATION, AND POWER The positive transformation that black magic can sometimes produce should take at most a few years. People who practice black magic seriously for longer generally become increasingly pathetic, weak, narrow, unpleasant, and miserable. (Uncle Andrew in C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew is an insightful portrait of this type.THE NO DIE LIST
A delok is a Tibetan who has died, gone to hell, and returned to life, a few days later, in the same body. (Or so goes the story.) After dying, a delok passes through the bardos, or “intermediate states,” before reaching Hell. In Hell, the delok witnesses the horrifying suffering of souls tortured for eons by demons as punishment for their THE BUDDHA AND THE NECROPHILIAC WITCH Gautama Buddha was hardly immune to a sexy witch ogling him. By now, his neck tendons had rotted away, and his skull fell off and landed on the ground, thud. What with having just died, and being seriously hot for her, he wasn’t feeling completely coherent, but his skull managed to spit out a mantra:ABSORB YOUR SHADOW
Absorb your shadow. We can embrace our monstrosity while cultivating our human nobility. We can allow each to transform the other, so we become cheerful, kind, useful monsters who are also overpowering, unpredictable, and dangerous heroes. A PHILOSOPHICAL ZOMBIE A philosophical zombie. The title character in The Vetali’s Gift is a philosophical zombie. She gives philosophy lectures at times you wish she wouldn’t, and sometimes rots all over you, which you’d probably prefer to avoid altogether. This is a ghastly pun. “ Philosophical zombies ” are a major topic in current academicphilosophy.
ABOUT “BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES” Vampires, ambiguity, and paradox. Buddhism, at root, is a method for facing the paradoxes of life and death with curiosity, appreciation, generosity, and joy. Its starting point is the experience of ambiguity. The natural tendency is to polarize: to say “this is this and that is that; I love this and hate that.”. ESSAYS | BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES Stephen T. Asma's book On Monsters is a project parallel in some ways to Buddhism for Vampires. A brief review. June 12th, 2010.25 VAMPIRE STORIES
25 vampire stories. Illustration of the vetala from the 25 Tales of the Vampire. “Tell me a story,” I demanded. It was the first evening of one of my uncle’s rare visits, after my mother was killed. “It’s late, Surya,” he said. “I have come a long way today, and I am tired.”.BUDDHISTS WHO KILL
Submachine guns are nifty, but Tantra is largely concerned with magical transformations. Its scriptures contain extensive recipes for using magic to injure, sicken, enslave, or kill people. These were weapons of mass destruction. Some Western historians believe that royal funding for military magic was a main reason tantric Buddhismgot started.
LORD BUDDHA
Lord Buddha. After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her own sake, and on behalf of her own two sons. Perhaps she wasright.
MAKING A KANGLING FOR CHÖD A revised version of this essay was published as “The Radiant Gift” in Sacred Hoop Magazine, issue 79.. Abstract. A kangling is a trumpet made from a human thigh-bone. You play a kangling in tantric Buddhist rituals, particularly chöd.. The function of chöd is to cut your emotional attachment to your body. Putting a dead person’s leg bone to your mouth—to blow the kangling while BLACK MAGIC, TRANSFORMATION, AND POWER The positive transformation that black magic can sometimes produce should take at most a few years. People who practice black magic seriously for longer generally become increasingly pathetic, weak, narrow, unpleasant, and miserable. (Uncle Andrew in C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew is an insightful portrait of this type.THE VETALI’S GIFT
The Vetali’s Gift. A serial, philosophical, tantric Buddhist vampireromance.
DISGUST AS BUDDHIST PRACTICE Disgust as Buddhist practice. Wrathful offering, from the Aro Dorje Phurba thangka. “It tastes like an embalmed corpse,” announced Ngakpa Trögyal, uncorking the bottle. Ngakpa Trögyal is a specialist in the wrathful practice of Dorje Phurba —and also a hospital emergency doctor. The bottle was Ardbeg 10-Year —a Scotch whiskey Ihad
LOVECRAFT, SPECULATIVE REALISM, AND SILLY NIHILISM On and off, I have been working on this essay for many years. I am able, finally, to finish it after reading Graham Harman’s new Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy. 3 Performing eldritch deconstructive rituals, Harman comes to conclusions that are unspeakably obtuse, but behave as if they were acute. 4. Harman is a member of the movement called “Speculative Realism,” which aims to ABOUT “BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES” Vampires, ambiguity, and paradox. Buddhism, at root, is a method for facing the paradoxes of life and death with curiosity, appreciation, generosity, and joy. Its starting point is the experience of ambiguity. The natural tendency is to polarize: to say “this is this and that is that; I love this and hate that.”. ESSAYS | BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES Stephen T. Asma's book On Monsters is a project parallel in some ways to Buddhism for Vampires. A brief review. June 12th, 2010.25 VAMPIRE STORIES
25 vampire stories. Illustration of the vetala from the 25 Tales of the Vampire. “Tell me a story,” I demanded. It was the first evening of one of my uncle’s rare visits, after my mother was killed. “It’s late, Surya,” he said. “I have come a long way today, and I am tired.”.BUDDHISTS WHO KILL
Submachine guns are nifty, but Tantra is largely concerned with magical transformations. Its scriptures contain extensive recipes for using magic to injure, sicken, enslave, or kill people. These were weapons of mass destruction. Some Western historians believe that royal funding for military magic was a main reason tantric Buddhismgot started.
LORD BUDDHA
Lord Buddha. After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her own sake, and on behalf of her own two sons. Perhaps she wasright.
MAKING A KANGLING FOR CHÖD A revised version of this essay was published as “The Radiant Gift” in Sacred Hoop Magazine, issue 79.. Abstract. A kangling is a trumpet made from a human thigh-bone. You play a kangling in tantric Buddhist rituals, particularly chöd.. The function of chöd is to cut your emotional attachment to your body. Putting a dead person’s leg bone to your mouth—to blow the kangling while BLACK MAGIC, TRANSFORMATION, AND POWER The positive transformation that black magic can sometimes produce should take at most a few years. People who practice black magic seriously for longer generally become increasingly pathetic, weak, narrow, unpleasant, and miserable. (Uncle Andrew in C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew is an insightful portrait of this type.THE VETALI’S GIFT
The Vetali’s Gift. A serial, philosophical, tantric Buddhist vampireromance.
DISGUST AS BUDDHIST PRACTICE Disgust as Buddhist practice. Wrathful offering, from the Aro Dorje Phurba thangka. “It tastes like an embalmed corpse,” announced Ngakpa Trögyal, uncorking the bottle. Ngakpa Trögyal is a specialist in the wrathful practice of Dorje Phurba —and also a hospital emergency doctor. The bottle was Ardbeg 10-Year —a Scotch whiskey Ihad
LOVECRAFT, SPECULATIVE REALISM, AND SILLY NIHILISM On and off, I have been working on this essay for many years. I am able, finally, to finish it after reading Graham Harman’s new Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy. 3 Performing eldritch deconstructive rituals, Harman comes to conclusions that are unspeakably obtuse, but behave as if they were acute. 4. Harman is a member of the movement called “Speculative Realism,” which aims toABOUT THE METABLOG
About the metablog. This “metablog” is a blog about Buddhism for Vampires. Mainly I will comment on The Vetali’s Gift. I would like it to stand alone as a novel—one that can be read simply for entertainment, by people with no particular interest in Buddhism. But the novel touches on many unusual aspects of Buddhism, and Indianhistory
LORD BUDDHA
Lord Buddha. After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her own sake, and on behalf of her own two sons. Perhaps she wasright.
MAKING A KANGLING FOR CHÖD A revised version of this essay was published as “The Radiant Gift” in Sacred Hoop Magazine, issue 79.. Abstract. A kangling is a trumpet made from a human thigh-bone. You play a kangling in tantric Buddhist rituals, particularly chöd.. The function of chöd is to cut your emotional attachment to your body. Putting a dead person’s leg bone to your mouth—to blow the kangling whileDRINKING THE SUN
I now think this was a little over-dramatic; I let the rhetoric run away with me a bit.However, practicing a martial art is a good way of exploring shadow energies of aggression, dominance, violence, pain, and injury, in a playful and reasonably safe social context.. A final gift: shadow as creative fuel Frogs in Amplexus It takes a lot of energy to un-see patterns, to maintain the membrane DAKINIS | BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES According to this theory, the dakinis were shamanic priestesses of a non-Buddhist, non-Hindu “tribal” people of Bengal (the region just east of Magadha, where Surya was born). They belonged to an ethnic group—perhaps Munda—with darker skin than the Buddhists and Hindus of the time.. The dakinis practiced sex magic (“karma mudra”) anddeath magic.
THE RAT | BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES I poured into it all my rage, the black hatred, the searing loss; self-loathing, horror, and my implacable lust for vengeance. I cut the tip of my finger with the kartika. The twisting letters on it shimmered and shifted in the half-light. I let a drop of blood fall into the rat’s mouth, to give it life.THE VETALI’S GIFT
The Vetali’s Gift. A serial, philosophical, tantric Buddhist vampireromance.
THE NO DIE LIST
A delok is a Tibetan who has died, gone to hell, and returned to life, a few days later, in the same body. (Or so goes the story.) After dying, a delok passes through the bardos, or “intermediate states,” before reaching Hell. In Hell, the delok witnesses the horrifying suffering of souls tortured for eons by demons as punishment for their TANTRA, SEX, AND ROMANCE NOVELS Tantra, sex, and romance novels. The Vetali’s Gift is a novel of Tantric Buddhism. It has some sex in it. Since there are many strong, confusing opinions about the role of sex in Tantra, I think I had better say something. For more than a thousand years, most people have considered Tantra, and Buddhist sexual practice, too hot to handle. DEATH THREATS FROM OFFENDED BUDDHISTS Death threats from offended Buddhists. The picture above is an illustration from a chapter of my Buddhist novel, titled “ Lord Buddha .”. Apparently, some people who think they are Buddhists want to find it offensive. In fact, some have explained in detail how they will torture, rape, mutilate, and murder me 1 if I don’t take itdown.
ABOUT “BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES” Vampires, ambiguity, and paradox. Buddhism, at root, is a method for facing the paradoxes of life and death with curiosity, appreciation, generosity, and joy. Its starting point is the experience of ambiguity. The natural tendency is to polarize: to say “this is this and that is that; I love this and hate that.”.25 VAMPIRE STORIES
25 vampire stories. Illustration of the vetala from the 25 Tales of the Vampire. “Tell me a story,” I demanded. It was the first evening of one of my uncle’s rare visits, after my mother was killed. “It’s late, Surya,” he said. “I have come a long way today, and I am tired.”.BUDDHISTS WHO KILL
Submachine guns are nifty, but Tantra is largely concerned with magical transformations. Its scriptures contain extensive recipes for using magic to injure, sicken, enslave, or kill people. These were weapons of mass destruction. Some Western historians believe that royal funding for military magic was a main reason tantric Buddhismgot started.
THE TELLING OF THE TALE I learned that from the vetali. Almost everything I know about life and death I learned from the vetali. So what I will tell you is how I came to be on the Quest of Life and Death; and how I met the vetali; and what I learned from her. Now, you know, I must begin at thebeginning,
LORD BUDDHA
Lord Buddha. After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her own sake, and on behalf of her own two sons. Perhaps she wasright.
BLACK MAGIC AND MEANINGNESS Black magic is a way to seize the power to end your victimization by an oppressive ethical culture, internalized as a tyrannical morality. All power is finite, however, and you can alter reality only to a limited extent. Eventually you need to develop a realistic understanding of what you can and cannot do; in what ways you are, andare not
MAKING A KANGLING FOR CHÖD A revised version of this essay was published as “The Radiant Gift” in Sacred Hoop Magazine, issue 79.. Abstract. A kangling is a trumpet made from a human thigh-bone. You play a kangling in tantric Buddhist rituals, particularly chöd.. The function of chöd is to cut your emotional attachment to your body. Putting a dead person’s leg bone to your mouth—to blow the kangling while BLACK MAGIC, TRANSFORMATION, AND POWER The positive transformation that black magic can sometimes produce should take at most a few years. People who practice black magic seriously for longer generally become increasingly pathetic, weak, narrow, unpleasant, and miserable. (Uncle Andrew in C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew is an insightful portrait of this type. DEATH THREATS FROM OFFENDED BUDDHISTS Death threats from offended Buddhists. The picture above is an illustration from a chapter of my Buddhist novel, titled “ Lord Buddha .”. Apparently, some people who think they are Buddhists want to find it offensive. In fact, some have explained in detail how they will torture, rape, mutilate, and murder me 1 if I don’t take itdown.
COMMENTS ON “WE ARE ALL MONSTERS” Optional, but required if you want follow-up notifications. Used to show your Gravatar if you have one. Address will not be shownpublicly.
ABOUT “BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES” Vampires, ambiguity, and paradox. Buddhism, at root, is a method for facing the paradoxes of life and death with curiosity, appreciation, generosity, and joy. Its starting point is the experience of ambiguity. The natural tendency is to polarize: to say “this is this and that is that; I love this and hate that.”.25 VAMPIRE STORIES
25 vampire stories. Illustration of the vetala from the 25 Tales of the Vampire. “Tell me a story,” I demanded. It was the first evening of one of my uncle’s rare visits, after my mother was killed. “It’s late, Surya,” he said. “I have come a long way today, and I am tired.”.BUDDHISTS WHO KILL
Submachine guns are nifty, but Tantra is largely concerned with magical transformations. Its scriptures contain extensive recipes for using magic to injure, sicken, enslave, or kill people. These were weapons of mass destruction. Some Western historians believe that royal funding for military magic was a main reason tantric Buddhismgot started.
THE TELLING OF THE TALE I learned that from the vetali. Almost everything I know about life and death I learned from the vetali. So what I will tell you is how I came to be on the Quest of Life and Death; and how I met the vetali; and what I learned from her. Now, you know, I must begin at thebeginning,
LORD BUDDHA
Lord Buddha. After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her own sake, and on behalf of her own two sons. Perhaps she wasright.
BLACK MAGIC AND MEANINGNESS Black magic is a way to seize the power to end your victimization by an oppressive ethical culture, internalized as a tyrannical morality. All power is finite, however, and you can alter reality only to a limited extent. Eventually you need to develop a realistic understanding of what you can and cannot do; in what ways you are, andare not
MAKING A KANGLING FOR CHÖD A revised version of this essay was published as “The Radiant Gift” in Sacred Hoop Magazine, issue 79.. Abstract. A kangling is a trumpet made from a human thigh-bone. You play a kangling in tantric Buddhist rituals, particularly chöd.. The function of chöd is to cut your emotional attachment to your body. Putting a dead person’s leg bone to your mouth—to blow the kangling while BLACK MAGIC, TRANSFORMATION, AND POWER The positive transformation that black magic can sometimes produce should take at most a few years. People who practice black magic seriously for longer generally become increasingly pathetic, weak, narrow, unpleasant, and miserable. (Uncle Andrew in C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew is an insightful portrait of this type. DEATH THREATS FROM OFFENDED BUDDHISTS Death threats from offended Buddhists. The picture above is an illustration from a chapter of my Buddhist novel, titled “ Lord Buddha .”. Apparently, some people who think they are Buddhists want to find it offensive. In fact, some have explained in detail how they will torture, rape, mutilate, and murder me 1 if I don’t take itdown.
COMMENTS ON “WE ARE ALL MONSTERS” Optional, but required if you want follow-up notifications. Used to show your Gravatar if you have one. Address will not be shownpublicly.
ESSAYS | BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES Stephen T. Asma's book On Monsters is a project parallel in some ways to Buddhism for Vampires. A brief review. June 12th, 2010. THE TELLING OF THE TALE I learned that from the vetali. Almost everything I know about life and death I learned from the vetali. So what I will tell you is how I came to be on the Quest of Life and Death; and how I met the vetali; and what I learned from her. Now, you know, I must begin at thebeginning,
LORD BUDDHA
Lord Buddha. After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her own sake, and on behalf of her own two sons. Perhaps she wasright.
THE TALE THE VAMPIRE TOLD The tale the vampire told. “ ‘One day when they were of age, the two remaining brothers determined to set out on a Quest, to seek their fortune in the wide world. For they were brave and handsome and clever—or at least the older brother was—and their village seemed too small for them. Their father pleaded with them not to go, forthere
MAKING A KANGLING FOR CHÖD A revised version of this essay was published as “The Radiant Gift” in Sacred Hoop Magazine, issue 79.. Abstract. A kangling is a trumpet made from a human thigh-bone. You play a kangling in tantric Buddhist rituals, particularly chöd.. The function of chöd is to cut your emotional attachment to your body. Putting a dead person’s leg bone to your mouth—to blow the kangling while BLACK MAGIC, TRANSFORMATION, AND POWER The positive transformation that black magic can sometimes produce should take at most a few years. People who practice black magic seriously for longer generally become increasingly pathetic, weak, narrow, unpleasant, and miserable. (Uncle Andrew in C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew is an insightful portrait of this type.DRINKING THE SUN
I now think this was a little over-dramatic; I let the rhetoric run away with me a bit.However, practicing a martial art is a good way of exploring shadow energies of aggression, dominance, violence, pain, and injury, in a playful and reasonably safe social context.. A final gift: shadow as creative fuel Frogs in Amplexus It takes a lot of energy to un-see patterns, to maintain the membraneTHE NO DIE LIST
A delok is a Tibetan who has died, gone to hell, and returned to life, a few days later, in the same body. (Or so goes the story.) After dying, a delok passes through the bardos, or “intermediate states,” before reaching Hell. In Hell, the delok witnesses the horrifying suffering of souls tortured for eons by demons as punishment for their VISIONS IN THE CHARNEL GROUND Visions in the charnel ground. “It shows things that were, and things that are, things that yet may be,” the dakini said. I fell into the sky. I hurtled, ever-faster, toward the stars. Screaming, tumbling, twisting, kicking: desperate to find something to hold onto. Cold night air howled past, tearing at my face.THE VETALI’S GIFT
The Vetali’s Gift. A serial, philosophical, tantric Buddhist vampireromance.
ABOUT “BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES” Buddhism For Vampires is a brutal yet cheerful take on the grislier aspects of reality. The paradox of undeath takes us to the beatingheart of Buddhism.
BUDDHISTS WHO KILL
1.Buddhism seems to have become more and more willing to admit exceptions as time passed. Mahayana tends to accept the need for killing to prevent worse outcomes; and as we shall see, this is a major theme in Vajrayana.LORD BUDDHA
After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father.. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her THE TELLING OF THE TALE The young monk found his way up to the cave, a day’s walk from Nalanda University.He stopped at the entrance—curious, and apprehensive. He pulled aside the blanket BLACK MAGIC AND MEANINGNESS Dark culture and nihilism. Dark culture, and “black magic,” are ways of working through the emotional implications of nihilism. Nihilism starts with your discovery, usually in your teens, that the universe is monstrous. There is no God, no Cosmic Plan, no inherent moral order, no guarantee that everything will come out OK in the end.There is no wellspring for ethics, no iron-clad rules to MAKING A KANGLING FOR CHÖD A revised version of this essay was published as “The Radiant Gift” in Sacred Hoop Magazine, issue 79.. Abstract. A kangling is a trumpet made from a human thigh-bone. You play a kangling in tantric Buddhist rituals, particularly chöd.. The function of chöd is to cut your emotional attachment to your body. Putting a dead person’s leg bone to your mouth—to blow the kangling while DARK CULTURE AND TANTRIC TRANSFORMATION 1.The excellent TV Tropes article on the Dark Arts lists “artificial intelligence research” as an example. This delighted me when I first read it, since I spent my twenties as an AI researcher.While writing this page, by coincidence, I watched Terminator 2 for the first time. Now I am feeling distinctly queasy, because the line of research I and a few others initiated, around the time the DEATH THREATS FROM OFFENDED BUDDHISTS The picture above is an illustration from a chapter of my Buddhist novel, titled “Lord Buddha.”Apparently, some people who think they are Buddhists want to find it offensive. In fact, some have explained in detail how they will torture, rape, mutilate, and murder me 1 if I don’t take it down. This is quite interesting. BLACK MAGIC, TRANSFORMATION, AND POWER The Vetali’s Gift is set in the early days of Mahayoga, a branch of Buddhist Tantra that’s partly based on black magic. Mahayoga texts include grimoires of lethal spells, demonic invocations, and systematic moral inversion.Creepy bits in my novel—details of necromancy and horror—draw on COMMENTS ON “WE ARE ALL MONSTERS” Optional, but required if you want follow-up notifications. Used to show your Gravatar if you have one. Address will not be shownpublicly.
ABOUT “BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES” Buddhism For Vampires is a brutal yet cheerful take on the grislier aspects of reality. The paradox of undeath takes us to the beatingheart of Buddhism.
BUDDHISTS WHO KILL
1.Buddhism seems to have become more and more willing to admit exceptions as time passed. Mahayana tends to accept the need for killing to prevent worse outcomes; and as we shall see, this is a major theme in Vajrayana.LORD BUDDHA
After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father.. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her THE TELLING OF THE TALE The young monk found his way up to the cave, a day’s walk from Nalanda University.He stopped at the entrance—curious, and apprehensive. He pulled aside the blanket BLACK MAGIC AND MEANINGNESS Dark culture and nihilism. Dark culture, and “black magic,” are ways of working through the emotional implications of nihilism. Nihilism starts with your discovery, usually in your teens, that the universe is monstrous. There is no God, no Cosmic Plan, no inherent moral order, no guarantee that everything will come out OK in the end.There is no wellspring for ethics, no iron-clad rules to MAKING A KANGLING FOR CHÖD A revised version of this essay was published as “The Radiant Gift” in Sacred Hoop Magazine, issue 79.. Abstract. A kangling is a trumpet made from a human thigh-bone. You play a kangling in tantric Buddhist rituals, particularly chöd.. The function of chöd is to cut your emotional attachment to your body. Putting a dead person’s leg bone to your mouth—to blow the kangling while DARK CULTURE AND TANTRIC TRANSFORMATION 1.The excellent TV Tropes article on the Dark Arts lists “artificial intelligence research” as an example. This delighted me when I first read it, since I spent my twenties as an AI researcher.While writing this page, by coincidence, I watched Terminator 2 for the first time. Now I am feeling distinctly queasy, because the line of research I and a few others initiated, around the time the DEATH THREATS FROM OFFENDED BUDDHISTS The picture above is an illustration from a chapter of my Buddhist novel, titled “Lord Buddha.”Apparently, some people who think they are Buddhists want to find it offensive. In fact, some have explained in detail how they will torture, rape, mutilate, and murder me 1 if I don’t take it down. This is quite interesting. BLACK MAGIC, TRANSFORMATION, AND POWER The Vetali’s Gift is set in the early days of Mahayoga, a branch of Buddhist Tantra that’s partly based on black magic. Mahayoga texts include grimoires of lethal spells, demonic invocations, and systematic moral inversion.Creepy bits in my novel—details of necromancy and horror—draw on COMMENTS ON “WE ARE ALL MONSTERS” Optional, but required if you want follow-up notifications. Used to show your Gravatar if you have one. Address will not be shownpublicly.
ABOUT THE METABLOG
essays; metablog; about; About the metablog. This “metablog” is a blog about Buddhism for Vampires.. Mainly I will comment on The Vetali’s Gift.I would like it to stand alone as a novel—one that can be read simply for entertainment, by people with no particular interest in Buddhism. ESSAYS | BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES Disgust as Buddhist practice. Buddhist tantra transforms negative emotions into wisdom. Disgust is the easiest and safest to work with.May 13th, 2010
LORD BUDDHA
After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father.. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her MAKING A KANGLING FOR CHÖD A revised version of this essay was published as “The Radiant Gift” in Sacred Hoop Magazine, issue 79.. Abstract. A kangling is a trumpet made from a human thigh-bone. You play a kangling in tantric Buddhist rituals, particularly chöd.. The function of chöd is to cut your emotional attachment to your body. Putting a dead person’s leg bone to your mouth—to blow the kangling while BLACK MAGIC, TRANSFORMATION, AND POWER The Vetali’s Gift is set in the early days of Mahayoga, a branch of Buddhist Tantra that’s partly based on black magic. Mahayoga texts include grimoires of lethal spells, demonic invocations, and systematic moral inversion.Creepy bits in my novel—details of necromancy and horror—draw on THE TALE THE VAMPIRE TOLD essays; metablog; about; The tale the vampire told “ ‘One day when they were of age, the two remaining brothers determined to set out on a Quest, to seek their fortune in the wide world.DRINKING THE SUN
I now think this was a little over-dramatic; I let the rhetoric run away with me a bit.However, practicing a martial art is a good way of exploring shadow energies of aggression, dominance, violence, pain, and injury, in a playful and reasonably safe social context.. A final gift: shadow as creative fuel Frogs in Amplexus It takes a lot of energy to un-see patterns, to maintain the membrane ROMANCING THE SHADOW This reminded me of my unfulfilled promise to explain how one can eat the shadow. So I spent several days trying to fix the remainder of the series—and failed again. Persevering, with another week’s work, I have developed a version I’m willing to post. However, I have had to go meta, to explain why the 2010 draft was unfixable. VISIONS IN THE CHARNEL GROUND A couple—a man and a woman—sat on the bank, looking out over a lake. The man wore a loose white robe. But it was the woman’s that caught my eye, though neither garment looked like any I had seen, nor heard of in stories.THE VETALI’S GIFT
The Vetali’s Gift: a serial, Tantric Buddhist vampire romance ABOUT “BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES” Vampires, ambiguity, and paradox. Buddhism, at root, is a method for facing the paradoxes of life and death with curiosity, appreciation, generosity, and joy. Its starting point is the experience of ambiguity. The natural tendency is to polarize: to say “this is this and that is that; I love this and hate that.”. ESSAYS | BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES Stephen T. Asma's book On Monsters is a project parallel in some ways to Buddhism for Vampires. A brief review. June 12th, 2010.LORD BUDDHA
Lord Buddha. After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her own sake, and on behalf of her own two sons. Perhaps she wasright.
BUDDHISTS WHO KILL
Submachine guns are nifty, but Tantra is largely concerned with magical transformations. Its scriptures contain extensive recipes for using magic to injure, sicken, enslave, or kill people. These were weapons of mass destruction. Some Western historians believe that royal funding for military magic was a main reason tantric Buddhismgot started.
MAKING A KANGLING FOR CHÖD A revised version of this essay was published as “The Radiant Gift” in Sacred Hoop Magazine, issue 79.. Abstract. A kangling is a trumpet made from a human thigh-bone. You play a kangling in tantric Buddhist rituals, particularly chöd.. The function of chöd is to cut your emotional attachment to your body. Putting a dead person’s leg bone to your mouth—to blow the kangling while DARK CULTURE AND TANTRIC TRANSFORMATION 1.The excellent TV Tropes article on the Dark Arts lists “artificial intelligence research” as an example. This delighted me when I first read it, since I spent my twenties as an AI researcher.While writing this page, by coincidence, I watched Terminator 2 for the first time. Now I am feeling distinctly queasy, because the line of research I and a few others initiated, around the time the BLACK MAGIC, TRANSFORMATION, AND POWER The positive transformation that black magic can sometimes produce should take at most a few years. People who practice black magic seriously for longer generally become increasingly pathetic, weak, narrow, unpleasant, and miserable. (Uncle Andrew in C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew is an insightful portrait of this type.THE VETALI’S GIFT
The Vetali’s Gift. A serial, philosophical, tantric Buddhist vampireromance.
A PHILOSOPHICAL ZOMBIE A philosophical zombie. The title character in The Vetali’s Gift is a philosophical zombie. She gives philosophy lectures at times you wish she wouldn’t, and sometimes rots all over you, which you’d probably prefer to avoid altogether. This is a ghastly pun. “ Philosophical zombies ” are a major topic in current academicphilosophy.
DISGUST AS BUDDHIST PRACTICE Disgust as Buddhist practice. Wrathful offering, from the Aro Dorje Phurba thangka. “It tastes like an embalmed corpse,” announced Ngakpa Trögyal, uncorking the bottle. Ngakpa Trögyal is a specialist in the wrathful practice of Dorje Phurba —and also a hospital emergency doctor. The bottle was Ardbeg 10-Year —a Scotch whiskey Ihad
ABOUT “BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES” Vampires, ambiguity, and paradox. Buddhism, at root, is a method for facing the paradoxes of life and death with curiosity, appreciation, generosity, and joy. Its starting point is the experience of ambiguity. The natural tendency is to polarize: to say “this is this and that is that; I love this and hate that.”. ESSAYS | BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES Stephen T. Asma's book On Monsters is a project parallel in some ways to Buddhism for Vampires. A brief review. June 12th, 2010.LORD BUDDHA
Lord Buddha. After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her own sake, and on behalf of her own two sons. Perhaps she wasright.
BUDDHISTS WHO KILL
Submachine guns are nifty, but Tantra is largely concerned with magical transformations. Its scriptures contain extensive recipes for using magic to injure, sicken, enslave, or kill people. These were weapons of mass destruction. Some Western historians believe that royal funding for military magic was a main reason tantric Buddhismgot started.
MAKING A KANGLING FOR CHÖD A revised version of this essay was published as “The Radiant Gift” in Sacred Hoop Magazine, issue 79.. Abstract. A kangling is a trumpet made from a human thigh-bone. You play a kangling in tantric Buddhist rituals, particularly chöd.. The function of chöd is to cut your emotional attachment to your body. Putting a dead person’s leg bone to your mouth—to blow the kangling while DARK CULTURE AND TANTRIC TRANSFORMATION 1.The excellent TV Tropes article on the Dark Arts lists “artificial intelligence research” as an example. This delighted me when I first read it, since I spent my twenties as an AI researcher.While writing this page, by coincidence, I watched Terminator 2 for the first time. Now I am feeling distinctly queasy, because the line of research I and a few others initiated, around the time the BLACK MAGIC, TRANSFORMATION, AND POWER The positive transformation that black magic can sometimes produce should take at most a few years. People who practice black magic seriously for longer generally become increasingly pathetic, weak, narrow, unpleasant, and miserable. (Uncle Andrew in C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew is an insightful portrait of this type.THE VETALI’S GIFT
The Vetali’s Gift. A serial, philosophical, tantric Buddhist vampireromance.
A PHILOSOPHICAL ZOMBIE A philosophical zombie. The title character in The Vetali’s Gift is a philosophical zombie. She gives philosophy lectures at times you wish she wouldn’t, and sometimes rots all over you, which you’d probably prefer to avoid altogether. This is a ghastly pun. “ Philosophical zombies ” are a major topic in current academicphilosophy.
DISGUST AS BUDDHIST PRACTICE Disgust as Buddhist practice. Wrathful offering, from the Aro Dorje Phurba thangka. “It tastes like an embalmed corpse,” announced Ngakpa Trögyal, uncorking the bottle. Ngakpa Trögyal is a specialist in the wrathful practice of Dorje Phurba —and also a hospital emergency doctor. The bottle was Ardbeg 10-Year —a Scotch whiskey Ihad
THE TELLING OF THE TALE I learned that from the vetali. Almost everything I know about life and death I learned from the vetali. So what I will tell you is how I came to be on the Quest of Life and Death; and how I met the vetali; and what I learned from her. Now, you know, I must begin at thebeginning,
LORD BUDDHA
Lord Buddha. After my mother was murdered, my uncle arranged for me to be reared by one of the village women. She was a Buddhist, and her husband had died valiantly in the same battle that killed my father. My foster-mother did not love me. I think now that she feared me, for her own sake, and on behalf of her own two sons. Perhaps she wasright.
THE TALE THE VAMPIRE TOLD The tale the vampire told. “ ‘One day when they were of age, the two remaining brothers determined to set out on a Quest, to seek their fortune in the wide world. For they were brave and handsome and clever—or at least the older brother was—and their village seemed too small for them. Their father pleaded with them not to go, forthere
DRINKING THE SUN
I now think this was a little over-dramatic; I let the rhetoric run away with me a bit.However, practicing a martial art is a good way of exploring shadow energies of aggression, dominance, violence, pain, and injury, in a playful and reasonably safe social context.. A final gift: shadow as creative fuel Frogs in Amplexus It takes a lot of energy to un-see patterns, to maintain the membraneTHE NO DIE LIST
A delok is a Tibetan who has died, gone to hell, and returned to life, a few days later, in the same body. (Or so goes the story.) After dying, a delok passes through the bardos, or “intermediate states,” before reaching Hell. In Hell, the delok witnesses the horrifying suffering of souls tortured for eons by demons as punishment for their ROMANCING THE SHADOW Romancing the shadow. We can embrace our monstrosity while cultivating our human nobility. We can allow each to transform the other, so we become cheerful, kind, useful monsters who are also overpowering, unpredictable, and dangerous heroes. BLACK MAGIC AND MEANINGNESS Black magic is a way to seize the power to end your victimization by an oppressive ethical culture, internalized as a tyrannical morality. All power is finite, however, and you can alter reality only to a limited extent. Eventually you need to develop a realistic understanding of what you can and cannot do; in what ways you are, andare not
DEATH THREATS FROM OFFENDED BUDDHISTS Death threats from offended Buddhists. The picture above is an illustration from a chapter of my Buddhist novel, titled “ Lord Buddha .”. Apparently, some people who think they are Buddhists want to find it offensive. In fact, some have explained in detail how they will torture, rape, mutilate, and murder me 1 if I don’t take itdown.
“TAKE ME TO THE VETALI!” The time for stalling has passed. Take me to the vetali!”. I’d been stuck for a month in a cave with an insane ogress and a broken ankle. The ankle still ached, but at last I could walk on it. “So you still think you want to go on this ‘quest’ of yours?” theogress asked.
COMMENTS ON “WE ARE ALL MONSTERS” Optional, but required if you want follow-up notifications. Used to show your Gravatar if you have one. Address will not be shownpublicly.
Skip to main content BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRESMAIN MENU
* the novel
* essays
* metablog
* about
ABOUT “BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES” > “Buddhism for _vampires_? That’s silly. Buddhism and vampires > don’t have anything to do with each other—do they?” Surprisingly, vampires have played a significant role in Buddhism, in Asia, for centuries. They are not a Western invention. And, contemporary vampire fiction—“preternatural romance”—provides tools for presenting aspects of Buddhism that are otherwise difficult to communicate. VAMPIRES IN BUDDHIST HISTORY There is extensive vampire lore within traditional Buddhism. I have summarized this in “The Tibetan Book of the Undead .” Apart from its intrinsic interest, this history makes it clear that one cannot dismiss “Buddhism for vampires” as inherently bogus. According to mainstream tradition, vampires _have_ practiced Buddhism, and some have even attained Buddhahood. No one can say this is an illegitimate topic, or some kind of Western commercial distortion. One could combine Buddhism and vampires in a cheap gimmick—but I believe it is possible to explain Buddhism accurately in the language of the undead. In fact, I believe some aspects of Buddhism are _best_ explained thatway.
VAMPIRES, AMBIGUITY, AND PARADOX Buddhism, at root, is a method for facing the paradoxes of life and death with curiosity, appreciation, generosity, and joy. Its starting point is the experience of ambiguity . The natural tendency is to polarize: to say “this is this and that is that; I love this and hate that.” But experience is unavoidably undefinable. Reality refuses to fit into categories; it is always in flux. When “this” inexplicably turns into “that,” and you love or hate the “wrong” thing: that is paradox. Rejecting ambiguity is, according to Buddhism, the primordial error, and source of all unhappiness. Paradox is resolved through non-duality: allowing
the horns of a dilemma to co-exist. What has this to do with vampires? Consider the basic paradox of the undead. To paraphrase the great Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna , they are not alive, nor dead, norboth, nor neither
. The undead
are, as contemporary Buddhist philosopher Stephen T. Asma puts it, “liminal
beings.” “Liminal” means “on the threshold”; a defining feature of monsters is that they are neither one thing nor another. This is just the fundamental Buddhist paradox of emptiness and form,
reflected in a pool of blood. In Buddhist tradition, and in contemporary fiction, the paradox of undeath extends into a network of metaphors for ambiguities that are otherwise difficult to talk about. These aspects of existence must be approached with sensitivity and indirection: both because they can raise violent emotions, and due to the subtlety of their resolutions. This discussion is not for the faint-hearted. It is for those willing to walk the razor edge of life and death, monstrosity
and nobility
, horror
and beauty
,
disgust and delight , romanceand madness
, and the
eternal moment where all these converge, in non-duality.
These are main themes of Buddhist Tantra—and of vampire fiction.THE VETALI’S GIFT
_The Vetali’s Gift_ —running as a serial on this site—is a Tantric Buddhist vampire romance novel. A young man, devastated by the gruesome deaths of everyone he loves, desperate for answers to life and death, sets out on a quest. He is diverted from his journey when he meets a woman who turns his reality inside-out. Terrifying, compelling, and incomprehensible, she teaches him far more about life, love, and death than he bargained for. The tale is set in northern India, 1300 years ago—the time and place of the birth of Buddhist Tantra. Tantric Buddhist lore is woven all through the story. This is a Buddhism not of serene monks, but of zombies and demons, sorcerers and witches. It is a Buddhism of violence, horror, and erotic love. It is a Buddhism that may seem unrecognizable—but that echoes ancient texts, and may in some ways be especially relevant for our own time. GENESIS OF THIS SITE _Buddhism for Vampires_ began as a joke, over on my Approaching Aro site. I was writing about the hijacking of Buddhismby New
Age space cadets, psychotherapists, politically-correct self-righteous bigots, and “nice” people who fear the real world and want to play make-believe instead. I was inspired by Brad Warner . He presents orthodox Zen Buddhism in the language of punk rock. That makes it accessible to a new audience: people who hate holiness, moral hypocrisy, and healing crystals. Of course, there are many people who don’t like either crystals or punk rock. Buddhism needs to be presented in as many ways as possible, to reach as many people as possible. I suggested “Buddhism for vampires” as another possible presentation. Vampires are wildly popular now, and vampire fans probably don’t yet overlap much with Buddhists. I wasn’t really serious. But the more I thought about it, the more connections I made between the undead and aspects of Buddhism I find important, but that are minimized in the modern “nice” presentation. Then when I did some research, I was surprised by the extensive connections in traditional Buddhist scripture and folklore too. BEYOND “BUDDHISM FOR VAMPIRES” I hope that if you find what you read here interesting, you will want to learn more. I try to link any unfamiliar concepts to pages that explain them. If anything is unclear, please leave a question in acomment.
At the same time I am writing this site, I am presenting the same themes, quite differently, over at meaningness.com . That site looks at various “stances” everyone takes in relationship to ambiguities of meaning. The presentation there is in terms of mainstream Western thought, not Buddhism, and is for a general audience. You might like that presentation better, or this one—or you may find them strangelycomplementary.
If you prefer your Buddhism without vampires, you might like to look at Approaching Aro . It is a personal introduction to contemporary Tibetan Buddhism, in the non-monasticstyle I practice.
UPDATES AND SHARING
If you like what you read here, you can sign up to get updates either by email or by RSS feed . Or, you can follow me on Twitter , where I post links to new pages on all my sites, plus occasional links and retweets readers may find interesting, and (rarely) updates about my writingprocess.
If you like _Buddhism for Vampires_, please share it. There is a “share/save” button at the bottom of each page that makes it easy to share on sites like Facebook and Twitter, or to email a friend.SITE AUTHOR
My name is David Chapman. I have a sort of brief biography over on Approaching Aro. I am a student in the Aro lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. I am influenced by what I have learned from that tradition. If you learn anything valuable here, my teachers are to thank. However, what I write may often differ from the Aro tradition, and should not be taken as representing it. Here I am presenting a mixture of early Buddhist history and frank fantasy. Also, my understanding of Buddhism is imperfect. I have no relevant qualifications to write this site. People sometimes get all bent out of shape about Buddhist teaching credentials. To avoid
misunderstanding: I have none. Whatever I say about Buddhism may be wrong; if it matters, you should check it with someone who knows what they are talking about. As it happens, I also have no credentials when it comes to vampires. I don’t like scary movies, and I haven't really read much vampirefiction.
Given that, how I came to be writing a Buddhist vampire romance is one of those inexplicable confluences. Nevertheless, I find the intersection of Buddhism and vampires emotionally gripping and intellectually fascinating. I hope you will too.*
* Tweet
GET UPDATES
* More email options & info* By RSS feed
* Follow me on TwitterRECENT PAGES
*
Drinking the sun
*
Absorb your shadow
*
Hunting the shadow
*
Romancing the shadow*
Death threats from offended Buddhists*
Lovecraft, Speculative Realism, and silly nihilism*
RSS users: please re-subscribe*
Dark culture: black magic as art and play*
Black magic and meaningness*
Black magic, transformation, and powerRECENT COMMENTS
*
Curious fact
*
On a first instance, I argue*
Ardbeg tastes like an embalmed corpse??????????*
Please do not criticize Buddhism or Lord Buddha*
Qualified to write novels*
Opt Out
*
I wouldn't fret over the*
Tibetan post of the undead*
Tibetan book of the undeadmore comments . . .
FROM MY OTHER SITES
* Some preliminaries: ngöndro * Buddhism and cognitivism: a ramble * Reinventing Buddhist Tantra: Annotated Table of Contents Copyright © 2010–2019 David ChapmanDetails
Copyright © 2024 ArchiveBay.com. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | DMCA | 2021 | Feedback | Advertising | RSS 2.0