Learning Dakini Dance
This wonderful group picture of the Dakini Dance group was taken earlier tonight in Kechara Care Lounge next to Kechara Gompa. We have a wonderful hall that we have many get togethers and parties here
(By Tsem Rinpoche)
In the evening after Gen Losang taught how to do pujas to consecrate mantras for insertion, he taught our Kecharians how to do Dakini Dance for long life pujas. I decided to give a surprise visit and see how they were doing and also to give an explanation of Dakinis along with long life pujas. I stayed a while to watch them practice. They really want to learn. Take a look at the video. This happened earlier tonight.
Tsem Rinpoche
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I have learnt and benefitted so much from this article. Not just more about the Dakinis, but also on the knowledge to play the instruments like the Damaru and Bell. I have never thought that just to play the instruments there are so much knowledge and technics behind it.
Rinpoche has allowed me to know better about the Dakinis, and why are there Dakini dances. I believe no student would want their teachers to leave them no matter what happens.
I would sincerely request Rinpoche to live long, teaching and benefitting all around this region.
Hello. My name is Tierza. I live in Sedona Arizona across from the Amitabha stupa and meditation park. I am VERY interested in learning Dakini dance and am wondering if you know of anyone near me that may be able to teach it. Sedona is another place of copper colored mountains and a spiritual community. I wish to dance the blessings of Yeshe Tsogyal around that stupa for the benefit of beings.
Thank you for your time.
Tashe dalek!
Greatest regard
Tierza
I’m confident the Super 8 will perfect this holy and sacred Dakini dance movements. Some of the people in this group have already been performing in other dance routines but this is different. It’s not just any dance. And as always, Margaret is at the helm to steer them through.
Dear Rinpoche
Thank you for this teaching.
A very very beautiful and touching video…..speechless And the sound of the bell ..is……wow, no words for it Thank you so much
Margaret,
Appreciate the effort u have taken to benefit others by summarising learnings from Rinpoche’s talk on Dakini Dancing. Keep dancing!
Thank you Rinpoche for visiting us last night during our practice and gave us such a powerful teaching on Dakini dance.
Learning the real meaning of the dakini dance, why we do it, how to do it and where it came from help us to generate the right motivation and meditation during our practice, only then the dakinis will come to life. And when we understand this, from beginning to end, from practice and to the actual ritual dance, it is a dharma practice, creating merits and powerful energy to be offered up to our lama’s long life and also the increased activities of the lama and the center.
From the dharma talk, I have learnt that :
1) About the ritual instruments
The whole point of decorating the instruments is not for ourselves. It is an instrument used to offer the beautiful sound to the buddhas. Since the sound of the ritual comes from the instruments so even the objects where the sounds come from should be ornate and beautiful.
The 5 colors, blue, white, red, yellow and green represent our 5 aggregates, touch, sight, smell, taste, hearing. Through the 5 aggregates we perceive everything. If we understand wrongly, we create more negative karma, if we understand correctly, we create positive karma. We offer our negative aggregates up to the buddhas so that whatever comes through our body, speech and mind will be positive.
Traditionally a damaru is made of skull. The lama will bless the skull so the person using it collects merits. The person who died will also collect the merits as long as the instrument is being used.
A damaru represents compassion and great bliss and the bell represents emptiness.
2)About the Ritual dance and how Dakinis bless us
An ancient, powerful and blessed dance. During the middle of the ritual, the abbot will invite the dakinis from the 5 buddha families to come, the dakinis come with thousands n thousands of their entourage, they offer songs, sound, sight, taste, feelings and they generate merits for the lama to go with them. In the ritual, as we danced as the dakinis, we represent all the members and thus the negativities entail.
The abbot will make offerings to the dakinis and respectfully request the dakinis to accept these offerings and leave. When the ritual master cuts the khatas, the dakinis dance out and leave very quickly and fast, showing no hard feeling and would not look back to the lama.
When the dakinis leaves, they can take away our negative energy. They also bless our channels, people and the environment. As we are representing the sangha, we do have a lot of negative karma manifested as not listening to the lama’s instruction, or giving lots of excuses of “cannot”. When one is distant from the lama, one is distant from the dharma.
Bell represent emptiness, and damaru represents compassion and great bliss. So when we ring the bell and play the damaru during the dance ritual, by the power of great bliss and emptiness and the dakinis will take away all the obstacles from here that we may continue to practice.
The sign of blessings from Dakinis is that our minds will be geared towards dharma practice, and our faith in our guru will be strong and firm, we will also have strong faith in practices and positive thoughts and that when we do these positive things, we are happy.
(When the lama starts to agree to go, then the lama will show signs of sickness and their health will degenerate. If the lama agrees to stay, his health will increase dramatically, the ritual dance is particularly powerful to be offered to the lama when the lama is very sick)
3) Benefits of Tantric practice
In our body, we have 72000 psychic channels converging into 6 main nerve centers. When our nerve centers become blocked, we can be depressed, sick, and even crazy. In tantric practice, we learn to move our energy or wind along these channels, to gain control of our consciousness as along side the wind arises the consciousness.
When we can control our consciousness, we can leave any time we want and thus will be able to control our next rebirth.
Dear Margaret, thank you for sharing what you have learnt. Now i understand the significance of the ritual instruments we use for Pujas. Looking forward to see the performance, am sure we will be wowed by it 🙂
Beautiful, thanks!
Rinpoche
Thank you for sharing the insight into the sacred Dakini Dance as their offerings to the Buddhas. The explanation was clear and has a purpose so instead of dancing mindlessly, they do it with good motivation for the dance to be meaningful and very blessed.
I can’t wait to see them dressed in full and perform the Dakini Dance at the Gompa, hopefully soon.