Mahamudra, The Great Seal – Samsara’s Seven Flavors #3/12

Etymologically, Mahamudra is a combination of two Sanskrit words: maha, or great, and mudra, translated in this context as seal. In ancient times, minus the ease of communication that we take for granted, seals were the only way to confirm the authenticity of, say, a royal command. If an old world monarch sent an order to an outlying province to execute a corrupt minister before sundown, that message would have to bear his personal seal in order for it to be obeyed. And in the context of samsara or relative reality, Mahamudra is that seal of authenticity, for its characteristics are ubiquitous even in the tiniest aspect of samsara.

Samsara, our guru defined as the condition of being forced by the power of one’s own karma to repeatedly take on an impure body and mind; in other words, the minds and bodies we currently wear are the sole creation of our personal karma created over thousands of lifetimes. It’s okay to have a mind-body system, he’d say with a laconic grin, but not one that is forced on you.

Absolute & Relative Reality – Samsara’s Seven Flavors #2/12

Angelica and I rode the subway into downtown Manhattan, then walked to a packed hall near 8^th street in the simmering east village to hear this lama speak. And she was right — he was brilliant and magnetic. In hindsight, it is easy to see how his unique methods of teaching eastern wisdom gave my own life rich meaning, and forever changed its course.

The next few years flashed by as I studied with him, absorbing every nugget he dropped. I saw his ego grow monstrous as his flock swelled, but I stayed on, convinced that his teachings were authentic, culled directly as they were from the ancient scriptures. In fact I was so enraptured by his efforts to spread the dharma among the lost tribes of Manhattan that I offered to transcribe his teachings on Mahamudra — a word that has many connotations in the Buddhist world, but which he introduced to us as an ancient teaching on the nature of samsara, or relative reality.