[Buddha-l] Re: Angels

[Rob Hogendoorn]

     Van:       rmh at xs4all.nl
     Onderwerp:     Antw.: [Buddha-l] angels
     Datum:     24 mei 2005 20:37:52 GMT+02:00
     Aan:       buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com

In "The Garden: A Parable" (ISBN: 038549789X) contemporary Tibetan  
Buddhist scholar-practitioner Michael Roach introduces 'a golden  
Angel' thus:

"It came into my mind to tell her something of my studies, some ideas  
from the books I had been with, and to impress her with my schoolboy  
learning, and to tell her of my growing fame in the school. I opened  
my mouth to speak... She gazed up, with luxurious doe brown eyes,  
eyelids half closed, as if experiencing some pleasure I could not  
see; and I could not speak. I understood only with those languid eyes  
that my real lesson lay not in the studies, but in mastering myself  
and my own pride. This I learned at the age of sixteen, from this  
young girl of younger years, and as if by reward she rubbed her cheek  
against my chest, and the luxuriant golden hair poured over me, like  
a waterfall. I was moved, in a way new for me, and this was the first  
moment that I knew lust, who would become from that moment on a great  
and worthy foe throughout my life. I reached my hands up to touch her  
small breasts, and again the eyes came up to me, open slightly wider,  
this time with a slight glint of sternness, and I found I could not  
move my hands. And from these eyes in that moment I learned a second  
lesson, and felt my heart enter a second place, a kind of goodness.

And she turned, and took my hand, and bade me leave the garden with  
her, still not having spoken a single word. With that there welled up  
within me some kind of disappointment, and a hurt; and the moment  
these feelings made themselves known to me she stopped, and wheeled  
around, and looked a third time. I cannot describe what I saw, but I  
can give some hints; a golden Angel, standing fully erect, arms  
slightly raised from Her side, palms out toward me, and the golden  
hair glowing down, framing Her face like a halo, and the face itself  
glowing in the light of the moon coming from above the carob tree  
behind us, and soft silken blouse and skirt flowing slightly in the  
desert wind, and--again the eyes, asking me what right I had to  
anger, now, or ever again; with Her, or with any living being at all;  
and was it not my reason for being in this life, at the beginning of  
this life, at that moment, and from that moment on, only to learn to  
defeat the darkness of my own mind, and to give life, never-ending  
life, to the golden light within it. With this She began my life, as  
I will tell it here, and as we parted said only, "Go touch the Sun;  
She will not harm you.""

Ever since, Michael Roach has frequently referred to 'angels' within  
a Tibetan Buddhist context as if they are a given reality.

Best wishes,

Rob Hogendoorn
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