Blueprint to Vajradhara; A Visual Guru Yoga by Townsend Studio | Luke B Townsend

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Townsend Studio | Luke B Townsend

Blueprint to Vajradhara; A Visual Guru Yoga

Cyanotype

30 x 22 in (76.2 x 55.88 cm)

Signature: Signed and Sealed by artist

In Storage

༄།། སྐྱེ་བ་ཀུན་ཏུ་ཡང་དག་བླ་མ་དང་།
འབྲལ་མེད་ཆོས་ཀྱིས་དཔལ་ལ་ལོངས་སྤྱོད་ཅིང་།
ས་དང་ལམ་གྱི་ཡོན་ཏན་རབ་རྫོགས་ནས།
རྡོ་རྗེ་འཆང་གི་གོ་འཕང་མྱུར་ཐོབ་ཤོག། །

Through all my births, may I never be separated from the perfect lama,
And bask in the glory of the Dharma.
May the qualities of the paths and stages be perfected,
And may I quickly attain the state of Vajradhara!

The four preliminaries create the framework for the entire path and stages of the higher practices. One-by-one, the practitioner navigates through these four foundational practices by generating refuge and bodhicitta, accumulating merit, purifying obstacles and lastly, the blessing of guru yoga. These instructions serve the practitioner much in the same way a construction contractor relies on a set of detailed plans and blueprints in order to know how a building should be built. As I’ve been exploring working in different mediums, this artwork is a culmination of both Tibetan calligraphy and traditional, photographic portraiture through the use of cyanotype printmaking to create a visual blueprint for training the mind.

Scribed in cyanotype chemistry, this four line supplication from the Dorje Chang Tungma details the quintessence of guru yoga, the practice of merging one's mind with the wisdom mind of the guru in order to discover the very same wisdom mind - inseparable emptiness and knowing - in ourselves. Prince Siddhartha’s achievement of enlightenment, the realization, or wisdom of enlightenment itself, is called the Dharmakaya, the body of truth. Synonymous with Vajradhara Buddha (Dorje Chang), the Dharmakaya is the source of all the manifestations of enlightenment.

When exposed to UV light, the cyanotype chemistry transforms into a rich, Prussian blue colour, mimicking the Vajradhara Buddha’s appearance depicted as a rich, dark blue colour. Like a mirage within the letters, my root guru - His Holiness Tashi Gyaltsan Rinpoche, emanates as the form of Dorje Chang, aiding the practitioner in the visualization of the guru yoga practice. As taught by my teacher, Lama Tashi Mannox, the reason we visualize the guru as Dorje Chang is to have the purest regard and relationship with the guru, which is no other than Buddha in this form named Dorje Chang. Since the guru is the manifestation of our mind’s true nature appearing externally in all kinds of guises, pure and impure, we have never been apart in any of our lives throughout beginningless time.

It’s in this way, like a guru yoga, the melding of traditional Buddhist practices and artistic mediums becomes a contemporary visual aid, inspiring the practitioner and setting the right tone for the fruition of our practice.

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