January

The Mt Shasta Goddess Temple dedicates January to Prajnaparamita

Artwork of Prajnaparamita Above Mt Shasta by Devanna Wolf

At the start of the calendar year, we honor the perfection of wisdom in the Buddhist tradition. Although thangkas (sacred paintings) and statues depict Prajnaparamita as an embodied goddess, she defies conceptualization.

Prajnaparamita, also known as Yum Chenmo or Great Mother, is the void nature of all phenomena. She is the embodiment of an ephemeral wisdom that teaches us the way of simply being, of surrendering to what is. She reveals to us that NOW is the holy moment.

Ideas for honoring Prajnaparamita, The Perfect Wisdom:

-clean out a closet or drawer meditatively, selecting items that you have loved to be given away to others or to charity

-practice tantric breathwork to release mind and ego

-play singing bowls and become one with the sound

-practice the Heart Sutra aloud each day for the month of January

-build or create a piece of art, then destroy it to challenge a sense of attachment, like monks do with a sand mandala

-gaze at the clear sky and rest your mind's chatter

-chant "Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha" which means, "Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone far beyond, hail enlightenment!"

Praise for Prajnaparamita

Homage and praise to the glorious Queen of space and time, Prajnaparamita.
Homage and praise to she who gives birth to the universe anew each moment, who changes everything in the blink of an eye.
Homage and praise to she who is enlightened emptiness, transcending ordinary spatial habituation and giving rise to the heart-mind of wisdom.
Homage and praise to she who is self-generating, yet unbound by static form, ever dancing the mandala of being and becoming.
Homage and praise to she who rests in the void beyond objects and appearances, who is the very nature of non-dual awareness.
Homage and praise to she who arises as pure magical sentience, to she who is magic itself, personified.
Homage and praise to enlightened speech, Yeshe Tsogyal.
Homage and praise to enlightened courage, Vajrayogini.
Homage and praise to enlightened compassion, White Tara.
Homage and praise to enlightened action, Green Tara.
Homage and praise to she who takes a spectral form among the ancestors, Machig Labdron.
Homage and praise to she who whispers and thunders in the meditative heart of silence.
Homage and praise to she who is passion without lust, desire without clinging, expansive pleasure without ownership.
Homage and praise to she who melts the cold heart of self-centeredness, who warms the heart of the sincere practitioner with boundless love.
Homage and praise to she who takes as much as she gives, and to whom we give willingly.
Homage and praise to she who is equanimity, experiencing reality calmly.
Homage and praise to she who moves mountains and carves valleys, who plants stars in the darkness and reaps the light of the sun and the moon.
Homage and praise to she who is as vast as the heavens, who is tiny enough to fit in your heart, who is everywhere and nowhere.
Homage and praise to the numinous, the ineffable, the Mother of the Buddhas, enlightened and radiant one, Prajnaparamita.

-Composed in Tibet by Mt Shasta Goddess Temple Priestess Yeshe Matthews, 2014

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