I had the good fortune to see the excellent new exhibit at the Rubin Museum, "The Dragons Gift: Sacred Art from the Kingdom of Bhutan."
Me and a few others were given a tour on wrathful dieties, iconography used in Himalayan Buddhist art to represent various mindstates and mental projection that need to be overcome by serious practicioners of the Path. They are enlightened beings which take on these forms to lead others to enlightenment. The detail and aura of these works of art is truly stunning; each piece will require years of dedicated work, and most are perfectly preserved from the mid 1400's. This is the first time the sacred art of Bhutan has ever left the remote Kingdom, and it is certainly worth seeing.
"The Vajrayana Buddhist pantheon comprises a wide variety of divine figures. Many of these are the focus of practices such as meditation, visualization, mantra recitation, sacred dances, and elaborate rituals. In this context, yoga means the technique or method of employing deity practices for spiritual development. One of the most frequent is the generation of the personal deity by the practitioner via meditation. In such cases, the practitioner follows specific techniques to embody the deity him- or herself. From one perspective, these divine beings can be understood as expressions of one’s own enlightened mind. The visual elements with which these deities are portrayed are richly symbolic, and to the initiated these images convey important aspects of the Buddhist teachings."
-from The Rubin Museum
