The Second Buddha Walk

Book excerpt: Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. Buddhism. An Exhibit at the Rubin Museum, New York, on Padamsambhava, also known as Second Buddha hurls Himalayan Poet Yuyutsu Sharma into action. Right there he starts working on a long poem inspired by the life and times of the Buddhist saint who in the 8th century visited Tibet via Nepal and converted 'Red-faced' Tibetans into Buddhists. Thus the Second Buddha motif emerges referring to Padmasambhava as the Second Buddha and represents the way in which past can become present. In another painting, the recognition of one of Padma's disciples, named Tangtong Gyelpo, is drawn as an iron chain in his right hand. By building across the Might Rivers, the disciple is said to have transformed the physical landscape of Tibet. Very much the Vedic hymns, Yuyutsu believes, that the ancient masters wrote and left in the caves for posterity, Padma's shining icons of time and space are treasures to be explored on a daily basis to heal the wounds wrought by nine-eyed demons in our routine lives.