Month: February 2014

Pilgrimage to the Womb World

Cate Kodo Juno 1 Comment
Mountain Pilgrimage - entering the Womb World

Mountain Pilgrimage – entering the Womb World

2014 Pilgrimage – Journey into the Womb World of the Divine Feminine

For this year’s pilgrimage, I will be undertaking mountain ascetic practices at sacred sites associated with the Divine Feminine in Japan. Undertaking a pilgrimage, especially in mountains, is a physically demanding meditation that takes the pilgrim into a transcendent liminal space that is between life and death, drawing in the inherent power of these sacred spaces wherein spiritual transformation is possible, which then culminates in being reborn into this world. This is why pilgrims in Japan always wear white clothing: white is the colour of death. The journey itself is an act of entering into a sacred space that is a three-dimensional mandala, beyond and yet contained in this world. The Esoteric Buddhist practices that I will undertake in this year’s journey will be focussed on entering the Womb World Mandala, which represents the principles of the Divine Feminine, such as compassion, nurturing and unconditional love; it also represents the source and the reality that we experience in our everyday lives, in all its organic messiness, but which is imbued nonetheless with Enlightenment. Undertaking this journey is a meditation on our own innate enlightened being.

dalai_lamaMy journey this year will culminate in a unique initiation into the Womb World Mandala by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who is being hosted by my own guru and home temple in the sacred precincts of Mt Koya, Japan, for four days of teaching and initiation. This is an event of great karmic significance and I feel overwhelmingly blessed to be participating in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

As always, in my role designated by my guru as “The Prayer Vessel,” at the various sacred sites along the way, I will be offering the prayers, wishes, intentions and hopes of anyone who wants me to offer a prayer on their behalf. In the past 20 years, I have offered thousands of prayers for people of all spiritual paths, from all over the world, and I have witnessed many miraculous events as a result of offering these prayers. It would be a great privilege for me to carry your prayer on this special journey as well. Please don’t hesitate to ask for what you feel you need in your life right now, or offer a prayer of hope for those you love.

Because this year’s journey is dedicated to the Divine Feminine and its manifestation in the Womb World, I will be especially focussing on blessings related to women’s issues, such as women’s health, conception, safe pregnancy and birth, pregnancy loss (miscarriage or abortion), relationship happiness, looking for a partner, looking for love, peaceful family life, success for children’s school life, success for children finding jobs, etc.

Womb World Mandala

Womb World Mandala

How to write a prayer

A prayer is simply a written account of whatever it is that you wish for or hope for; it is a statement of your intention for change in your life. I believe that when you write down your innermost hopes and wishes and desires and intentions, then you are activating that energy into the world: you are actively participating in creating your own desired destiny. My role, in offering your prayer at these sacred sites that are so powerful and ancient, is to magnify your intention – to ripple it out into the cosmos and help that energy to grow. So it is a combination of the energy of your own intention, which is made manifest by writing it down, then amplified by my offering your written prayer in places that are focal points of great spiritual energy, where transformation is made possible. Prayer is a very powerful tool in creating your destiny, and I have witnessed many miracles that have resulted from prayer – even though these miracles may not always be what the person had envisioned for themselves! You may be very surprised at the blessings that enter your life!

The most spiritually beneficial way of offering your prayer is to write in on the back of a sacred text called The Heart of Wisdom Sutra, which is an ancient text succinctly describing the nature of Reality. Because each Chinese/Japanese character is a pictograph – a symbolic picture of an idea – when you trace over its letters, you are creating an abstract painting of that Reality. Even if you don’t understand these words, there is a great spiritual satisfaction in ‘painting’ it as a writing meditation. So, first you can trace over the letters of the sutra, and then when you’ve finished, you write your prayer on the back and then send it to me. I recite your prayer at the sacred sites, offer it at the temple, and then it is ritually burned by the priests at the temple, which completes the offering of the prayer. You can find a copy of The Heart of Wisdom Sutra and more information about sacred calligraphy in the section “Sacred Calligraphy” on my website www.catekodojuno.com

Please contact me at catekodo@gmail.com and I will be happy to help you with your prayer. Or, once completed, send it to Wabi’an, 8 Bouvard Drive, Bouvard WA 6211, Australia by March 31st. I do not charge anything for this service, however, it is appropriate to send a monetary offering to be made at the sacred sites as a sign of your commitment and intention. And any donations towards the pilgrimage are gratefully appreciated 🙂

Offerings/donations can be made by cash, money order or direct bank deposit (please contact Cate for details)

Rose-coloured Glasses

Cate Kodo Juno 8 Comments

2014.02.04_rosy copyTo look at life through “rose-coloured glasses” means to see things as better than they really are, or to think that things are more pleasant than they actually are. It has a negative connotation, as if the person with the rose-coloured glasses is avoiding an unpleasant reality. However, I actually think that we all need a bit more rose-tinting in our outlook on life.

At dawn this morning I took my dogs for a walk, relishing the cool morning air, bracing for another scorcher of a day. And as the sun rose, everything was suddenly bathed with deep pink light – the trees glowed pink, the black fur of the dogs reflected pink highlights, the leaves on the hot dry earth shone pink, my skin had a rosy glow. Everything was awash in warm surreal pink. It was as if I was looking at the whole world through rose-coloured glasses – and it was just so intensely beautiful. Yet it was real; there wasn’t anything unpleasant that was being avoided or a reality that was being ignored. Instead, I was bearing witness to a spectacular show put on by Nature and I was fully immersed in a world of ‘pinkness’. Not only was I seeing everything as rosy, I felt that I could smell, taste, feel and hear PINK. And I just laughed because it made me feel so happy! I laughed in the way that child spontaneously laughs – with joyful delight in a sudden magical moment.

The pink light, though, was fleeting. As quickly as it appeared, it disappeared and the world of familiar green trees, black dogs and grey sand returned. But what didn’t disappear was the sense of awe and euphoria I felt, which stayed with me. I remained in a rosy glow, as I continued with the humdrum of doing my daily chores, still seeing the world not as actually bathed in pink, but as being imbued with some new quality. After experiencing the intense sensual immersion of the dawn, I became aware of the colours of everything I was engaging with – everything seemed edged with a radiant glow. Of course, my everyday world was in no way changed in itself; instead, it was the keen awareness I now seemed to have of the way light reflected off the surface of things and into my eye. In the aftermath of the pinkness, everything seemed more vibrant and alive.

I believe that a spiritual path is an engagement with beauty; spiritual practice is an awakening to beauty. In our media-driven bracing-for-the-next-crisis world it becomes harder to connect to the profound and awe-filled beauty that is all around us, waiting to be experienced at any moment. After all, I think it is significant that the Buddha experienced his awakening whilst outside, sitting under a beautiful tree. As well as encouraging you to take a walk at dawn and experience this awakening of the day in its glorious light and birdsong, I think we should all try wearing rose-coloured glasses more often, not to escape the unpleasant realities of life, but to see into its beauty and hold that in our hearts so that as we do confront head-on the difficulties of living, we can do so with images of beauty in our minds. Even in the midst of the fray, we can experience joy by simply remembering to ‘see’ what is also present that is uplifting. So, today I am sending you all blessings bathed in pink and a wish for you to awaken to beauty and to see the rosy glow in the world around you – look up from the computer, look out the window – what do you see?