Precedents for Proper Siting
At a true site … there is a touch of magic and light. How so magic? It can be understood intuitively, but not conveyed in words. The hills are fair, the waters fine; the sun handsome, the breeze mild, and the sky has a new light - another world. There is peace amid confusion, a festive air amid peace. One's eyes are opened upon coming into its presence. If one sits or lies, ones heart is joyful. Here the breath gathers and the essence collects. Light shines in the middle and magic goes out on all sides, while above or below, to the right or left, it is not there. Try to understand!! It is hard to describe. These are words of an ancient Chinese practitioner cited by Andrew March
Seeking a place for spiritual renewal, find where to tap into life forces of earth - water - sky, where they collect and make appearance in an auspicious site. The life forces of the land are like the life forces of the body, with pronounced levels of nourishing, nurturing and sustaining; most beneficial for meditation.
Look carefully, for they may be transactional grounds, where Buddhas and bodhisattvas meet practitioners, having the Six Characteristics, or Signs, of the Sacred Landscape: of favourable context - it is contained - coherent - composed - with clarity - a physical expression of contemplation.
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are to be found everywhere; because Buddha pervades all things, all of nature is an expression of Buddha's body - speech - mind, perfectly pure. Indistinguishable from our core Buddha-nature, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas design and choose particular places to greet us, using our Buddha-nature core as a medium in which to converse, making particular places conducive for practitioners to greet them as ourself (or non-self).
According to geomantic principles, an auspicious site is a place of refuge, nestling in the embrace of the landscape. The atmosphere is open and bright. It faces directions offering beneficial gifts from qualities and characteristics of physical phenomena and surrounding landforms. Protected from harsh cold winds of winter by rising hills behind and on either side, the site is open to cool moist winds of summer. Like a comfortable armchair, its energies are prevented from blowing away. Soils are well drained and high in nutrients.
An auspicious site integrates the human life cycle with the greater cosmic process of which humans are a functioning part. A site is one's locus in the vast diversity of nature. It is more than just a physical dwelling. It is a configuration in space, a cosmos in miniature following the same patterns of constancy and change that determines the larger cosmic process. --- Steven Bennett
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A classic form of siting an American Buddhist centre is on the lands of Milarepa Center in Vermont, a prime example of analyzing the landscape. Oriented towards the South over a broad slightly sloping open meadow, the centre overlooks the meandering Connecticut River Valley, the river's “glancing over its shoulder with wishes to remain;” in the distance, the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Barnet Mountain sits behind, from whom the centre receives vital life forces. Embraced by hills on East and West, the house sits on a level terrace where the North ridge meets the South, and life forces condense, or collect, behind two streams - one flowing from the northeast and the other from north to northwest - merging, to hold the vital energies in place.
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The siting of Samye Monastery, the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery, is an expression of the highest order of perfection. Padmasambhava oversaw construction at the request of King Trisong Detsan. Devouring the setting upon Hepori Mountain on the southeast, you see why the king, born in the nearby village of Drakmar, chose this valley. A geomantic wonder - an exquisite magnificent jewel-like setting: rarely would you witness a setting as powerful and charged ---
Surrounded by Four Holy Mountains, lush green fields cover the valley floor, nourished by waters of melting snows, springs and rainfall; the valley extends from the South, where the Yarlung Tsangpo widens like a lake holding earth's water-based life forces at bay before flowing off, to the protecting mountains of the North, from here a four day walk to Ganden Monastery. On the West, the dissected meandering ridge of Yamalos Mountain embraces the valley with high ridges descending to midlevels, mediating between peak and valley, containing without overwhelming. Between Chimbu Mountain on the northeast, a low hill at its feet, and Hepori Mountain on the southeast, my overlook, the site of Trisong Detsen's palace, the valley opens to the East, a gateway to the morning sun.
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All dwellings are very honourable which have on the left flowing water, which is the Azure Dragon; on the right a long path, which is the White Tiger; in the front a pool, which is the Red Bird; and behind the hillocks, which are the Black Warrior.
--- Yang Chai cited by Steven Feuchtwang
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Sacred Ground by Ngawang Zangpo translation of Jamgon Kongtrul's Pilgrimage Guide to the Sublime Sacred Ground of the Heart of Enlightenment cites characteristics of places for meditation according to traditions of Mantra:
… Slopes toward the East and mounded in the South, rises in the West and peaks in the North; streams flow from the direction of power; a park of flowers in front; spiritual heroes and dakinis gather … a thick forest in which to develop mental tranquility and high areas where one's awareness is clear … The mountain behind resembles a mediator; the lower meadow crossed legs.
… Beyond ear-shot from a village, a gentle land with no canyons nor precipices, few stones and thorns (as smooth as a plate of grass), far from potential harm by inhuman spirits and fierce animals, no snakes, moderate altitude, no extremes in temperature, clear air all year, beautiful mountains covered in flowers, medicinal plants, an open wall of mountains indistinctly connecting with the lands, cool clear waters from left and right meet at its centre.
A form representing eight petals of the channel at the heart, the land shaped like a human heart … surrounded by hills like a jewel in the centre of a lotus … self-arisen linga and clefts resembling male and female sexual organs …
Exceptions in the book are to be found: photos of Kalu Rinpoche's birthplace between two ravines upon gentle hills facing North overlooking a broad valley to the northwest; the author Jamgon Kongtrul's own retreat centre facing West …
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In The Sacred Life of Tibet, Keith Dowman reflects on the Power Place of Labchi in the northeast Himalayas, where the male phallic mountain above and triangular female vulvic plain below ride the site, and mountain palaces dominate in the Southeast, South and Southwest, a cave at the front point of a triangular plain or meadow.
Tsari Crystal Mountain of Supreme Bliss, where the Yarlang Tsangpo penetrates the Himalayas before flowing south, is called tantric place par excellence. A self-manifest chorten: central mountain surrounded by lesser peaks in four directions, palaces of male and female Buddhas in union, four passes, four rivers, four stone thrones, four caves, four spirit lakes containing life forces of deities and protectors, all surrounded by a wall of dorjes.
Kongpo Bonri, the great Bon mountain in Tibet: in front to the South terraces of grass and flowers fall away slowly into space, terraces on East and West end in precipices dropping to rivers meeting at a confluence in front out of sight, then snake through a low ridge where snow-peaked East and West seem to converge.
The importance of a wide spatial vista for the yogi's meditation can't be exaggerated. The sense of living in a vast space of brightness, clarity, light provides freedom and enormous potential in the mind. Awareness of external space is transferred to awareness of internal space. --- Keith Dowman
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The keynote expression of the landscape for Buddhist meditation is the Bodhimanda - the firm indestructible Diamond Throne, where Buddha Shakyamuni sat and performed the Attaining of Enlightenment: Surrounded by a terrace of very fine grass, as fine as a layer of smoothly spread sand, as brilliant as a silver plate, the Bodhi Tree cast a luminous radiant light all colours of the rainbow. Behind the Tree on the west, a four-meter ridge, the spine of the land, rose just high enough to protect the base of the Tree from hot westerly winds. A tributary of the river left a pool to the south.
Siddhartha Gautama walked around the Tree in a clock-wise direction and stopped at each of the cardinal directions. Standing to the North, South and West of the Tree, he felt the earth tremble. Signs that they certainly were not the directions in which to sit and face. He walked to the East side of the Tree and all remained still. Circling the Tree three times in honour of the three previous Buddhas, he spread a bundle of kusa grass at the base and slowly let himself down, facing the East and the long vista through an avenue of Sal trees that led to the glistening beach of the crystal river.
This is the place where all the Buddhas have overcome all obstacles to complete enlightenment, and beyond this none can pass. --- Kalinga-Bodhi Jataka
4: 2006