Off to a good start

[stevencaldwell]

Today I lazily rose after last night's firework's spectacular and set about preparing for a long puja to Green Tara; thinking to myself that I need to get off to a good start with my practice in the hopes that it continues thorughout the year.

The devotional text is relatively short but with all the cleaning and setting up of the space, meditation

Comments

[ngakmafaery]

...sounds good...I have never seen a Buddha Tarot deck...are there photos online anywhere...? I am completely tired of tarot lately, because all it says is, in essence, "things will go up and down and down and up forever"...yawn...that's the first few noble truths, basically, which is rather old news! To me, having good view is a thousand times more important, and valuable, than knowing which vague area of life might go up tomorrow, and which down next week...!

[perruche_verte]

That's why I don't do divination at all, really. So often it's like reading a weather report that just says "look out your window".

[ngakmafaery]

...I was really disappointed in two readings I actually paid money for this year, to try them out and see if they had any benefit...one was mostly to help out some girl on lj who was broke, and who was reputedly excellent, doing it for decades, yawn ywan, and really, I wanted plain stuff like: 'what is best for me to focus on to make the most of my abilities?' sort of thing, and she just gave me stuff like 'a man and a woman who are more like friends than partners part ways, and it is not painful as expected', but...*shrug*...I am not those characters, and don't have those characters, so maybe it's just that people I repeat it to get the message in some helpful way...! She also sai 'whoa, are you broke, and unhelped by people consistently: I had no idea'...yanno, I could have told her that, and indeed whined about it now and again in my lj, so it didn't take a candy scientist to figure that one out...and the second reading was in person, from alady in my town whom I used to go to, who disappeared for a few years and then came back,

[stevencaldwell]

What's curious about the Buddha Tarot is the way it blends the life story of the Buddha and the Major Arcana - some striking similarities arise. The Buddha's story is the archetypal spiritual quest that in some way or other we walk. The four suits become four of the Dhyani Buddha families and, again, fit rather well.

Alas, there are some errors with the elements ascribed to each Buddha/suit and some misconceptions about karma and buddha-nature. Aside from these, it is best, in my experience, to not take it all terribly seriously but to make a reading something playful and meditative.

[peacewind]

I don't really do divination either. Though not Buddhist, I have found the Tao Oracle deck by Ma Deva Padma to be a wonderful daily meditation, drawing a card each day to reflect on. The reflections in the book with the deck are very insightful from a Taoist perspective. They've become an important part of my daily sadhana. (There are techniques for using it for divination in the book as well, for it's based on the I Ching.)