Thursday, January 20, 2011

Omari

This is more of just a footnote on my favorite chant "Om Namo Amida Buddha Hreeh". In the deeper practice of this mantra, you visualize something that I have been calling the "Omari". This is (1) visualizing "Om" in Tibetan script in white at the 3rd eye, (2) "Ah" in Tibetan script in silvery blue at the Heart Chakra (center of the chest) with golden rays also, and (3) "Hreeh" in Tibetan script at the sacrum in neon luminous fiery red. When I looked up, "Omari" online, I found it was Swahili for "God the highest". This is the second association of Amida Buddha with an alternative line of tradition. The first one is "Amita" meaning "standing" in Hebrew and it is some phase of a ritual prayer service ("the amita"). I could not decode more than this. It was on a cassette that I brought that had some Hebrew chanting. I did find it curious that Amida Buddha is usually depicted in the Pure Land Sects as standing and sending golden rays of compassion on the world (on the altar). There is also Amida Buddha sitting in the "mudra of perfect peace" or "cosmic mudra" in serene meditation or in yabyum with Pandaravasini (technically the pair is Amitayus and Pandaravasini aka "Queen of Fire" with the two combined to become the yin and yang aspects of Amida Buddha who is beyond gender polarity [I have not yet worked out how to express this in totally gender equal expression while referring to a history where male dominant language was used, so right now I am naming my challenge and stating my intention to honor both genders as best I can, I am reworking some of the symbolism to match this ideal more closely, but it is tricky when I refer back to source material which is not structured that way]).

The Omari is the visualization part of the chant to Amida Buddha, where "Om" and "Hreeh" are done first and like Tumo meditation represent the male (Om) essence as a cool white liquid and the female (Hreeh) essence as fire moving up the spine. The white drops go down the spine to mix with the fire rising up the spine to mix in the Heart Chakra and produce silvery blue radiant energy which is then pumped to all the cells (orgone life fore energy, Mahavairocana Buddha) as we breathe (slow rebirthing breathing does well, deep, slow, and full on the inhale and soft, slow, and long on the exhale with no pauses between inhale and exhale or between exhale and inhale forming one smooth rhythmic circle of breathing). I sometimes call it Amida Buddha Tumo Meditation. It is a fusion of nearly every meditation practice that I have studied in this lifetime.

One caution is that this meditation starts to restructure the internal channels and evolves the energy body to a new level of functioning which starts to happen automatically and unconsciously. The practice transmutes sexual energy. Some Tantric Buddhist Lamas share that such a practice is necessary especially when we are in a celibate phase of our journey or when we are celibate period. I have found this to be true. I was celibate for 34 years and did find that the L4-L5 juncture got tight and locked without my knowing. When I did a forward bend in Hatha Yoga, it would take a lot of effort to open this spot up and the stretching took a long time to do. I was only able to touch the back of my feet after stretching 90 minutes a day for 30 days. When I got initiated into Tantra sexual practice and ordinary loving sexual communion, I was able to touch the soles of my feet easily even without the support of Hatha Yoga in a manner that very much surprised me. By running the bindus in the Omari, sexual energy is completed and fulfilled so that the unconscious instinctive sex drive is transmuting to a new functioning. One can still have sex after the Omari initiation, but it changes. The body may superheat during love making in a manner which a tantric partner might notice (like sleeping above the covers where it is cooler, even on a winter night). A person might experience a temporary lack of sexual desire as the inner circuits reorganize. None of these things really poses a problem, but I thought I would just caveat that these changes might happen and to be ready for them. The celibate lack of sexual desire lasted for a few months and then the system reset and sexual desire came back. It has felt different since then. One result is that sometimes if I am feeling some low level attraction/arousal, it is felt as a tingling energy for about a minute or two, and then I can feel the circuit kick in and turn it into a heat sensation, then I feel the cool drops mixing with it, and everything calms down again. Sometimes the desire energy fades out again. It is like the energy can still get stimulated by the external senses, but it gets routed into the circuitry and transmuted.

This Omari meditation level leads to other changes. You become more sensitive to another level of the 4th behavioral precept of the Eightfold path "not to misuse sexual energy". You become sensitive to how sexual energy can be wasted in sexual pleasurable indulgence and do not wish to do this. You wish to conserve and circulate the energy in the inner meridian flows, the microcosmic orbit of Taoism (the fusion of the central and governor channels that join by visualizing "Hreeh" in white on the roof of the mouth or by teeth lightly touching each other, I prefer the Tibetan white Hreeh method because it is a more permanent activation). The Tantric level of the fourth behavioral precept is to conserve sexual energy either through celibate internal circulation via this kind of meditation or to circulate within a dual vehicle with a Tantric partner doing "yab yum" or an equivalent mudra union. I do feel that the right activation of the heart chakra during sexual union automatically regulates how energies circulate during love making. It means making sure that sexual communion does not fall into bonding-security-possessiveness of a partner with jealousy-fear-anger appearing (false yin) or addiction-lust-pleasure-arrogance (false yang) appearing toward a partner.

Just to complete the picture, I think it is important to visualize a triple force field of three bubbles around the body. The outermost is the "hreeh fire ring" which burns away anything that is not love from entering the bubble. The middle ring is the "ah heart transmuting ring" which transmutes the unloving energy that penetrates and passes through the fire ring, it converts the negativity into compassion, appreciation, and gratitude and sends it back to the other. If the energy is so negative that it penetrates and passes through this ring, then there is the "om karma bounce back ring" that sends the negative energy back to the creator so that the creator experiences the reverse polarity of his or her own energy. It seems that this triple ring of protection is what is needed to protect our aura fully. This is the alchemical container that we need to set up before activating the Tumo circuit of the Omari.

Blessings.