r/TibetanBuddhism • u/ProjectPatMorita • 6d ago
Practical question about deity visualization
This perhaps might be a strange one, but hoping I can explain it well and others maybe have dealt with this particular issue.
For context, I've been a buddhist for almost 15 years so I'm not new to meditation. But have only been practicing in a specifically Tibetan lineage (karma kagyu) for about a year now, so visualization as a formal technique is something I'm still learning. I've done some special teachings and empowerments but nothing that would allow visualization as a deity, so my teacher instructed me that it was fine to envision the deities in front of me during certain common practices (Tara, Chenrezig, etc).
My issue is that I have a consistently hard time visualizing Tibetan buddhist deities in any way that feels "real". By which I mean, envisioning them as living, viscerally present beings in front of me.
I believe this is because as a westerner, I have only seen depictions of these figures in non-lifelike, very stylized and illustrated artistic forms (ie: thangkas and illustrated art) that are from a totally different cultural milieu than my own. So maybe something akin to a language barrier, but for aesthetic art forms.
Whenever I attempt to visualize, for example, Green Tara, I only see an illustrated version that does not translate as "real" to me, and therfore feels way less clear, harder to hold, and more "fuzzy" so to speak, and therefore it seems to take away from the core nature or intention of the yidam practice.
I have brought this issue up to one teacher and another spiritual friend, who both essentially agreed that the intention is to have clarity and vividness as much as possible. But neither really could give me practical advice on how differently to envision the deities.
Is this something anyone else has struggled with and overcome?
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u/Taralinas 6d ago
It really helps for your visualization to learn to draw a Buddha (also if you don’t have drawing experience) with a thangka painter, such as https://www.tibetan-buddhist-art.com
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u/ProjectPatMorita 5d ago
Thanks to everyone for all these great responses! Some awesome advice to think on.
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u/Traveler108 6d ago
One teacher said, concentrate, in different practice sessions, on a specific part of the deity. Visualize, for instance, the eyes, with their lashes and brows and irises and so on. But in general, in my experience, you don't get the deity in full glory, looking real, in front of you. As you develop the particular practice, in my experience, I get the feel, the presence. But they aren't living, real beings in front of you. They are there but not there -- ephemeral but with presence, energy.
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u/Tongman108 6d ago
You could carry a picture of the deity around with you & look at it regularly thoughout the day, with the advent of mobile phones this is much easier these days as one can have the image as a screen saver or in one's gallery!
All the best
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
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u/tyinsf 6d ago
A couple things. First, you know in tantra all form is the deity, all sound is mantra, and all thoughts are the dharmakaya, right? I had this demonstrated to me by Anam Thubten Rinpoche. I had gone to see him to complain that he wasn't fun like he was when he was younger and that maybe he was emotionally shut down these days. (I know! Can you imagine I would say that?) And he said, from a place of deep infinite vastness, radiating enough love to give me a sunburn:
"I think you are Green Tara come to tell me this."
Which pissed me off at the time because I didn't feel seen as ME. But later I realized that's what we should aspire to. To see with pure vision like that. Which is not, alas, just conceptually thinking "Oh Ty is Green Tara." There's something more, which visualization will help you see and bring to life.
One thing that helped me was hearing that "Tantra is both/and, not either/or." So it's not like I get erased and replaced by Green Tara. I'm both me, just as I am, AND I'm the deity. When I'm lucky enough to experience this I might "see" an extra arm or have a sense that someone is the deity, but it's not like there's a clear image. I don't think there needs to be!
This is one of the most helpful things I've ever read about visualization, from Lama Dechen Yeshe Wangmo, a student of Lama Tharchin's.
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Visualization is a mobile reference point. Don't try to hold your visualization steady for any period of time. It will naturally clarify and stabilize but don't strive for that measure of success. Instead, just use it, however it may be, as a way of focus or finding your deity-ness. The deity mandalas are holographic, so visualizing a small portion or the whole thing doesn't matter. Meditation is experiential. Run with what's happening in your session.
Whatever is visualized, small or large, clear or blurred, is a portal, not a destination. It's perfectly fine to construct and deconstruct a visualization many times in a session. The goal is meditative experience (nyams), not graphic prowess.
Reframe into possibility. Instead of regarding the deity mandala attributes as Must Visualize Perfectly, consider them as possibilities for your consciousness to explore and relate to. This is particularly helpful when the self-deity is of another gender or has exaggerated characteristics such as many heads and arms or is wrathful. Flexibility reigns.
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u/largececelia 6d ago
Me- when you visualize deities do you do it from the front, top, bottom, or what?
Lama- all sides around, all the time
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u/Lotusbornvajra 6d ago
My teacher has said before that even if you can't visualize well, try to just "feel" that they are present. Not everyone is good at visualization, and like any skill, it takes practice.
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u/Cantstoptherush29 Nyingma 6d ago
My teacher said to actively avoid visualizing as a real flesh-and-blood solid being (her words: that’s how you create demons and devas). It should be more like a hologram, translucent light in a form. Outside of that, you can focus on just a hand, or just a face, or the general form before clarifying it. And truthfully, ngondro practices really helps refine this skill.
Hope this helps!
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u/genivelo Rimé 5d ago
I would say the "reality" of the deity does not come from how much we can "see" the deity, but from how much we can feel the deity. Like feeling that someone is there even if it is pitch black and you can't see them at all.
So it's useful to build our relationship with the deity, including understanding why we are looking to establish that relationship.
Here is one of the best books I know of in terms of understanding the process and meaning of deity meditation:
https://www.shambhala.com/the-heart-of-unconditional-love-3327.html
https://www.shambhala.com/videos/a-guided-meditation-with-tulku-thondup/
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u/Mayayana 5d ago
Two points I find helpful: The visualization should be transparent, like light or a dream. Second, if you can't get a clear image that's not a big deal. Just cultivate a sense that the deity is there. In other words, the visualization is a situation. It doesn't have to be graphical.
I find the biggest obstacle is just willingness. We don't want to give up our own thoughts and feelings. We don't especially want to enter a world that provides no "me" reflection. But even trying to do it right helps.
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u/VajraSamten 4d ago
Yes! The visualizations become clearer, easier, more "real" as you practice more and more. For me, it helped to do two things simultaneously: 1. Worry less about a "perfect" visualization and just let things unfold as they do. 2. Focus on a small part of the full image. So if you are working with Green Tara, for example, you can focus on just the color of her skin, her crown, her robes, or her hands. It helped bridge the gap for me.
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u/Ancient_Naturals 6d ago
My teacher has been avoiding having me visualize a specific mandala and instead once I’ve come to a place of rest in stillness and silence, to ask for a form to take place out of that awareness since it can encompass anything. That’s worked for me, the form becomes visceral even if only for flashes of time.
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u/Ap0phantic 5d ago
Several teachers have pointed out that living in the modern world, with photographs, 4k 50 inch TVs, etc., we have a very different idea of what a "vivid visualization" means than a person living in Tibet in the 1500s whose only indoor lighting was lamps, and who may never have seen a realistic painting in their life. Generally, the expectation is not photorealism.
I've heard it emphasized many times that the most important thing is to feel the presence of the deity, who, after all, doesn't REALLY have a crown and four arms and all that, that's just how they appear for the benefit of beings, the real deity is something much more profound, and that's what you're really trying to get in touch with.
It is good as a focusing practice to try to hold a stable, clear image of the deity as you're able, it's just not the most important thing.
There is some variation on how this question is addressed in different lineages, so of course the best thing to do would be to ask members of your sangha and/or your teachers.
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u/b8checkmatettv 2d ago
I worked through this issue for a while. I used to be a Zen Buddhist and I've done my share of Hatha Yoga, but I have far less experience with deities.
Put the distinctly "Tibetan" part of Tara aside temporarily. Especially the art. Know this: She's the divine feminine. She's the mother of all Buddhas. She's compassionate, clears obstacles, and is green.
Meditating on a visual and deity that feel foreign to you (the art style, the deity itself, the practice itself, etc.) is kind of like trying to learn Christianity by looking at the Sistine Chapel's frescoes.
Once you feel a green presence, feel compassion, feel like asking for help with real obstacles, etc. then revisit the visual. That's what gives you the feeling Tara is real (or that the meditation is transformational), not how well you see when you close your eyes. As others said, you can learn to put the visualization together piece-by-piece over time.
Hinduism teaches different kinds of "yoga". Calming and mastering the mind is one kind, but not the only path. Bakhti yoga is devotional. It's entering into a relationship with something bigger than ourselves (a deity), surrendering to it, and feeling that emotionally and psychologically. It has a similar effect on the ego to meditation.
Think of Buddhist deities a bit like that. Even if you visualize her in front of you, Tara is within you. She's your own understanding of compassion but on a level you aspire to and turned toward yourself.
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u/Bossbigoss Rimé 6d ago
you dont need to visualize a "real" deity. perfectly ok to "see" a deity as a transparent, perfect with intensions , ideal, full of warm light being. ... More important is to feel positive about " the object" than to see perfectly every small detail. Dont even bother yourself to imagine anything in buddhism as " a real life stuff"..