Doing It Again and Doing It Different

Good Friday, and a sudden insight comes to me that at the heart of different forms of spiritual practice is a re-enactment of a pivotal moment that is charged with numinous power within the narrative of the tradition. This of course within Christianity is the moment of the Last Supper. Jesus gathers his disciples together for the traditional Passover feast that celebrates the escape of the Jewish people from their slavery in Egypt. During this, taking the Passover bread and wine, he says, “This is my body eat. This is my blood drink”. And by doing so unites his own being with that of his disciples and in the sense that they are now one, they are able to accompany him on his journey of descent into the hell of his crucifixion and his resurrection into light. A journey that is re-enacted each year by Christians at Easter, and on a personal level during moments of choice between drawing back in fear or fully embracing God in the way Jesus did during his Passion.

Within Buddhism this archetypal pattern is also found. The first instance is the narrative of the Buddha’s enlightenment. Seating himself beneath the Tree of Awakening he vows not to move until he is enlightened. Seeing this, Mara the brutish embodiment of mindless violence and compulsive sensual desire, makes his assaults in an attempt to prevent him reaching his goal. We are told that Mara assails the Buddha with various weapons but these he turns to flowers and when Mara sends his sexy daughters to seduce the Buddha these are similarly unsuccessful. Here our re-enactment as Buddhists is exactly the same as for Christians. All of us struggle with the three root poisons of ignorance, aversion and grasping - Mara, his forces and daughters - and are continually confronted with the choice of how best to be with them.

A second instance is found within the meditation practice of Vajrakilaya - an extremely wrathful deity found within Buddhist Tantrism. Looking like a monster with rolling eyes and wreathed in flame, Vajrakilaya is an expression of the extreme power of awakening and is symbolised brandishing a three sided dagger. Here the narrative is that Rudra, the embodiment of evil, was so impermeable to the usual style of Buddhist teachings that the Buddhas of the three times manifested themselves in the terrible form of Vajrakilaya, who matching Rudra in his horror, was able to kill him and then resurrect him in the form of one who guards the Dharma and those that practice it. This myth is re-enacted by the yogi when in meditation they visualise themselves as Vajrakilaya and then with their ritual dagger stab and kill an object that represents Rudra, effecting his transformation from the ultimate embodiment of the three poisons to an expression of transcendental wisdom. Essentially the yogi is transforming their own inner Rudra into their buddha-nature.

Finally I have a third example. Tibetan Buddhism believes that a yogi and sorcerer called Guru Rinpoche - the precious teacher - came to Tibet in the late 700’s and helped establish the Dharma by subjugating the local spirits who were resistant to its presence. Very like the Rudra myth, he used magical means to first overcome them and then bind them with promises to guard over the new religion and those that wished to practice it. This pivotal moment is re-enacted each time Buddhist practitioners perform a ‘Guru Yoga’ during which they first become inseparable from the awakened mind of Guru Rinpoche and then, visualising themselves in one of his wrathful forms, command the Dharma Guardians to do as they wish - which essentially is create the conditions in which all sentient beings will no longer experience suffering.

What I find inspiring in all of these instances is that they each bring us back to something equally simple and profound. Experience continually brings us to a choice point: What am I to follow in myself? Those reactions which are generated by fear and which cause me to contract and strike out. Or responses that enable me stand back, to create a pause and some space in which kindness and compassion - the better parts of ourselves - may find expression. We all have our own devils /maras/ rudras but we also have a spacious, clear and compassionate awakened nature. It’s our choice and this Good Friday celebrates it.

N.W. April 18 Good Friday 2025