TRANSCENDENTAL ROCKET is a larger-than-life acrylic painting in which I have employed traditional structures and techniques learned at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, the Dalai Lama’s official school in Dharamsala, India.  This twelve by nine-foot icon is an example of how I fuse traditional structures with contemporary concepts.

The eleven-headed, thousand-armed central figure of this black thangka is based on Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of infinite compassion. As a bodhisattva, or enlightened being, Avalokiteshvara leads the way to nirvana and is a guide for beings that are suffering from delusion.

Avalokiteshvara, who has different forms with different names, is the most popular deity in the Mahayana Buddhist Pantheon. In this form, he is also known as Samantamukha or the “All sided one”, i.e. the god who looks in every direction to help and save all of his devotees.

One thousand arms radiate from the figure of the deity to form an aura. It is said that the thousand arms extend his helping hands toward all beings. Within each of his thousand outstretched hands, he has an eye that sees into the suffering of the world. The two main hands are clasped in prayer in the “blessing” mudra; and the uppermost hands carry effigies of the sun and the moon.

The deity has eleven heads, a traditional number, and the heads are divided into three main groups.  The principle head is surmounted by three rows of three heads, which are stacked in a pyramid.  Ten of his heads indicate his attainment of the ten Bodhisattva stages, the tenth being that of Mahakala.  Mahakala is the wrathful manifestation of Avalokiteshvara, created to fight against the negative forces with compassion, and to destroy obstacles in the path toward righteousness, thereby helping all sentient beings reach enlightenment. 

At the apex of the pyramid is the head of the spiritual god of Avalokitesvara, the Buddha Amitabha, indicating that he is the incarnation of the universal compassion of all Buddhas. Moreover the ten heads may also stand for his looking after beings throughout the ten directions of space, the eleventh head representing the all-encompassing Buddha wisdom.

I have included particular symbolic changes in my painting in order to update the image and to make it more autobiographical.  Most obvious is the interpretation of Avalokiteshvara as manifested in celestial spacecraft form.  The eight main arms, which hold the major symbols, have in addition to the traditional lotus, a switchblade that opens like a Chinese fan, two worlds symbolizing the fusion of east and west, and a metal rocket that stands in for the wish-fulfilling jewel.  From the mouth of the largest central head projects a razor-blade tongue, the wrathful tenth head of Mahakala has been replaced with an alien’s, and the topmost head is crowned with a futuristic space-pilot’s helmet.

Black thangkas like this one are very significant because they form a special category of contemplative painting. They are a highly mystical and esoteric type, and they are used for terrific ritual actions, the radical conquest of evil in all its forms – conquest not by annihilating, but by turning evil into good.

When I made this painting, I was facing a great deal of adversity in my life (for more information on this, see notes on my painting “The Straight Path”) and I believe that creating this massive work helped me to overcome destructive, negative forces by evoking the embodiment of compassion.