THE SUN’S LUMINOUS HEART: A Work in Progress
Close to twenty years ago, I started writing what I thought would be a kind of modernist poem about the life of Tilopa, an Indian Buddhist tantric master, of the miraculous variety. Quickly, though, I got rather intimidated by the idea of taking creative liberties with the stories and found myself rewriting individual stories in a fairly straightforward way (inasmuch as Tilopa’s world can be called “straightforward”), but arranging the lines in a modernist poetic form.
But I couldn’t seem to leave it at that, and soon I was collecting every Tilopa story I could find, plus writing notes on the material in each one. I also thought I might do an essay on his life and world, but before I knew it, I was writing historical material on the emergence of Buddhist tantra in India, the underpinnings of tantra in the development of Buddhist teachings over time, and then summarizing its view and practice….
To make a long story longer, I just kept including more and more information until what had started as one poem, then one volume, became four still far from finished volumes, under the title The Sun’s Luminous Heart:
I. Tales of Tilopa: A collection of stories about Tilopa’s magical life.
II. The History, View, and Practice of the Buddhist Siddhas: A survey of the development of Buddhist tantra (aka, vajrayana) in India, its spiritual view, and many remarkable methods.
III. The Tantras of Tilopa: Summaries of all the tantras associated with Tilopa, their iconography, lineage, and many practices.
IV. Adamantine Liberation: An examination of the guru-student relationship and yogic conduct.
Included here are some excerpts from the first three volumes. Will I ever reach the end of this epic project? Well, it’s that or die. Stay tuned.