James (Yasha) Marshall
Buddhist Monk and Mystic
Aka Yogi Yasha
Refuge name - Jigmed Sonom, 1970 (Tibetan)Precept name - Upasaka Kalayana Bodhi, 1980 (Thai)
Current precept name, Samaneim Jim 2010 (Thai)
This biographical profile of my traditional western educational experiences also includes a synopsis of my spiritual practices. Many times the explanation of these mystical disciplines can be both categorically technical as well as intellectually obscure. For me it is culturally polite to use the correct terms and descriptions when ever possible. This is also helpful to those people who have to make critical decisions concerning these matters.
Curriculum Vitae
1942 Born 2, April Buffalo, New York
1954 First vision of Chortin Style Stupa, Sebastopol, California, age 12.
1957-1960 Montgomery High School Santa Rosa, California.
1961-1966 US Navy, Honorably Discharged E-5, Electronics Technician.
1966-1970 BS Physics, University of Sonoma, Rohnert Park, California, with minors in Astronomy, Chemistry, Mathematics and English.
1968-1971 Larry Ward Construction Vallejo, California, painting government housing.
1970-1973 Padma Ling Monastery, Tarthang Tolku Rimpoche Berkley, California.
1971-1973 Springfield Co., a Dharma Co. keeping monks busy doing home repairs.
1972 Yogi Chen Berkeley, California
1973 Chan Center, Master Scwan Wa, Mission District, San Francisco.
1973-1976 First western Student Ven. DudrupChen Rimpoche, Maha Siddha Nying Ma Center North Hampton, Massachusetts.
1975 Korean Zen, Master Sung Sang Neim, Providence Zen Center, Road Island.
1975 Tested on the Longchen Nyingtik Refuge Tree by Gyaltrul Rimpoche
!976 Constructed first traditional Stupa made in the west, Wailo, Maui with Gyaltrul
1976 Yamentaka Mantra initiation Lama Jigtse Providence, Road Island.
1977 Hidden lines of the Mandala, Kempo Tubten, Providence, Road Island.
1977 Tested as a Terton by Gyaltrul Rimpoche.
1977 Constructed first Celestial Mansion, Gyaltrul Rimpoche, Oakland, California.
1977-1980 Director of Monolulu-o-lili Cultural Center, Lahaina Maui.
1980-1982 Director Camp PECUSA, Olowalu, Maui.
1980 Designed and constructed second Stupa Canio, Maui for the Honolulu
Dharma Center.
1980 Upasaka Vows Bodhi-Gaya, India.
1980 Tested by Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, first western to pass insight test.
1982-1985 Unraveling the Lineage Visualization and Bava Chakra, Seattle, Washington.
1985-1992 Bill Torvond, Sanctuary of the ON (Christian Mystical Center) Seattle Washington.
1985-1992 Bob Archie and Associates, Organizational Development training seminars for the government.
1990-1998 Adam Lake Construction, high end remodeling.
1985-1996 Bardo yoga practices of Lama Jigtse, Yamentaka Mantra
1987-1988 Math-Sciences NW – Plasma stability interventions, Low pressure manifolds.
1993 NIH grant Pain Management Swedish Hospital.
1998-2002 Out of town and into the wilderness, isolated desert and mountain retreats.
2002 Dharma Center Stupa, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bardo test.
2002-2004 Complete Bardo Practices.
2002-2004 The Handy-Handy Man, self-employed fix-it man. Phoenix, Santa Fe and Sedona.
2005-2007 4th Avenue Center, Phoenix, researching non-compliance in social decision making.
2008 Recognized Buddhist Mystic by Ven. Phra Maha Lompon Buton Ranong, Thailand
2008-2009 Meditation Master Viharnthum Buddhist Temple Ranong, Thailand
2009 Advisor to Ven. Phra Maha Somphong Santacitto, Wat Arun Bangkok, Thailand
2009 Buddhist Humor BSYT Publishing, Bangkok, Thailand
2009-2010 Resident yogi at Galapita Healing Garden
2010 Meditation Master Wat Sachaom, Phra Puttapat, Sara Buri, Thailand
2011 Buddhist monk as samanine vowed
2012 Glorium contracted for the intellectual rights to The Tambolian project
2012 Glorium Documentary the Map
2012 Hip replaces Bosie, Idaho
2013 Translating the Tambolian Map series into Russian
Memorable events that have made a difference in my life
1962 First place South Eastern Junior Nationals spring board Diving Champion,
and South Eastern US Junior Olympics Diving Champion.
1971 First runner up for a full scholarship to San Francisco Ballet.
1970-1972 Lead male dancer Russian Center San Francisco, Natasha Borisova Dance Company.
1976-1982 Lead Male dancers, Katherine Seim Dance Company, Maui, HI.
1977-1980 President of the Valley Isle Players a Lahaina, Maui theater group
1979 My fastest Marathon, three and one half hours, out of four Maui Marathons.
1984 Consultant to the Mt. Everest climbing expedition, Seattle Washington.
1987-1993 Consultant to Math Science NW, Seattle WA. Non-traditional interventions in fusion plasma stability experiments, Dr. Stan Byron lead scientists.
1993 Co-authored Truth Management Training with Bob Archie, Kindle-Hunt
1994 Highest Mountain Climbed, Cotopaxi, Equator 20,000 ft.
1993 Nontraditional interventions in pain management, NIH grant for the Medical Center Pain Clinic Seattle, WA.
2002 First National Ranking in Masters Spring Board Diving Championships, Austin, Texas.
Author of;
1994 Truth Management Training with Bob Archie
2009 Buddhist Humor (Abridged)
2010 The Bodhicariyan Paradox, Book 1, The Voyage of the Dream Maker
2011 The Bodhicariyan Paradox, Book 2, Exploring the Gaps
Synopsis of formal meditation practices
During my last semester at the University of Sonoma, in the spring of 1970 my advisor, Dr. Green asked me to propose a masters thesis. I thought about it for a while and suggested – Where do the Solutions come from? He reached for a book of letters by Albert Einstein and showed me that Einstein had asked the same question almost exactly fifty years earlier. Einstein’s conclusion was the question was not physics buy meta-physics and that the best way to explore this topic was to study a mystical tradition, proposing Buddhism! So I did, moving into Padma Ling Monastery in the spring of 1971.
It turned out that Einstein’s speculation was absolutely correct, although it took me another four years to believe it. The answer was in the form of a Refuge Tree Lineage visualization that is at least twelve hundred years old.
Padma Ling Monastery 1971-1973
My participation at this first Tibetan Monastery in the west was augmented by the fact that I was the only person with professional construction experience out of more than sixty students. It is also helpful to remember that if you want to be somewhere it’s important to make yourself indispensable.
I’m going to use numbers to identify completed practices. To complete a single practice you must be able to explain its lineage, complete the practice, pass a test at the end of the practice, and be able to explain the practice to others, if ask.
1. The Refuge Mantra is the first practice of the Nyingma tradition. This practice is typically recited one hundred thousand times and is intended to open the multi-colored doorways to formal spiritual insights and values of the Buddha, Lama, Dharma, and Sanga.
2. (One-hundred thousand Prostration’s. This practice gives you meditational stamina; because it is easy to be in the prescience of enlighten people it’s the stupid one that are difficult.
3. One-hundred thousand Vajra Guru Mantra provides a meditational focus process encouraging mystical experiences. It is important to appreciate that almost everything in more interesting than you are.
4. One-hundred thousand Vajra Sattva long mantras help you to appreciate the depth of your confusions and the magnitude of your personal Mt. Stupid.
5. One-hundred thousand Mandala Offerings. There are appropriate places to do your formal practices. The Mandala offers different colored walls for protection. White walls to protect you from frenzied distractions, black colored walls to protect others from you.
6. One-hundred thousand White Tara mantras are suppose to integrate the masculine and feminism qualities, difficult even when it works. Most people are unable to include the Yab-um postures. If you know them they are very helpful.
7. Advanced Yoga room basement of the Padma Ling Monastery, a mystical retreat environment to address difficult practices including the hidden insight posture of Vajra-asana.
These practices were completed under the direction of Tarthang Tolku Rimpoche. He introduced me the three other Lamas, DudrupChen Rimpoche curator of the Lama Library in Gantook Sikkim; I became his first American student, Gyaltrul Rimpoche Director of Western Buddhism in the United States, and Lama Jigtse a Siddha Yogi.
Maha Siddha Nyingma Center, Massachusetts 1973-1975
Being the first western student to an esteemed lama – Venerable DudrupChen Rimpoche the fourth has complicated outcomes. No one expects you to know anything but you had better have the right answers. There was also Venerable Gyaltrul Rimpoche who ultimately became head of the Tibetan Dharma in the west as well as Lama Jigtse who was a Siddha yogi but pretended to be an ordinary monk. All of us went to Northampton, Massachusetts to establish the Maha Siddha Nyingmapa Dharma center.
8. Phowa practices are a tantric state of liberation from attachments to the frenzy. If you can penetrate this doorway no earthly confusion can distract you.
9. Remote viewing, Gyaltrul Rimpoche and I called this practice Upstairs Telephone, and laughed. He also used it to keep us from getting too comfortable.
10. The Tibetan lineage visualization is a map of the human condition but you have to look closely. Drawn by Tinzin Rongau in Kam Tibet about 1958 - 2549 Buddhist calendar.
11. The Nondro practices. These are the first series of practices that are completed before doing the actual practices. These meditations actually began at Padma Ling Monastery. Gyaltrul Rimpoche gave me a test separate from the actual practices. I have a suspicion that in many respect you never finish the Nondro practices.
12. The Yamentaka practices are the wrathful aspect of Manjusri the holder of the wisdom sword, were introduced to me by Lama Jigtse. They are the sixteen doorways to death. Not very many people choose to do this practice. You will remember that compared to death all life is short.
13. The Mystical Buddha. Gyaltrul Rimpoche tested me on this visualization. In the darkness between here and the next place is a monk sitting in a throne. He is looking beyond you at something you cannot imagine; waiting there is a kind thing to do. The monk is black and he is a vehicle into the vast arena of subjective awareness. What is on the other side of the monk is the unknowable, not a good place for people to go, unless of course you are fearless. My precept name is Jigmed Sonam meaning fearless and fortunate; a good combination according to Gyaltrul Rimpoche.
14. Kaon practice. Tested by Master Sung Sang Neim, Providence Zen Center. I didn’t like Koans until I figured them out, now I like then.
Maui Stupa 1976-1982
The Stupa and Mandala practices are taught to very few novices I was one of the fortunate adepts.
15. The Wailo Stupa, The Stupa is the oldest continuously build spiritual structure in the world today and this one was the first Stupa built in the west by a westerner under the direction of Gyaltrul Rimpoche. He told me not to get in shadow of the Stupa at certain times. I told him that I had to actually go into the Stupa at that time. He said that it was bad luck. As far as I know he was probably right.
16. The hidden lines of the Peaceful/Wrathful Mandala, Kempo Tubten. I was the only westerner to receive this practice before he died. He was a very good man and shared his knowledge generously to the very end.
17. The Celestial Mansion. This structure is a metaphysical rendering of a meditational domain. When I built this under the direction of Gyaltrul Rimpoche there were three Lamas’ and two Tibetan artists in Oakland, about half the Tibetan talent in the USA at the time. Only one of them had ever seen a completed Celestial Mansion in their lives. Three years later, when I visited Sarnath, India, I saw an exact replica of what we built in a fifth century marble structure. We actually did quite well although it took me three months to complete.
18. The Canio Stupa, Honolulu Dharma center. This was the first Stupa designed and built by westerners.
19. Upasaka Vows Bodhi-Gaya India 1980. I can put on the robes although I have chosen the color black, for the color of the Boddhi Tree at night. Black makes the Tibetans nervous. Only a few Buddhist orders ware any black at all. Black makes most Buddhist nervous because of the mysteries.
20. I was tested by the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand. I was the first western to pass the insight test in the five hundred years westerns have been traveling to Asia.
Seattle Washington 1982-1998
Dr. Eyer and his family initially sponsored me in Seattle - for the first three years. The reason they did this was that I was able to cure his daughter from a difficult psychological problem his professional colleagues couldn’t figure out. We had many wonderful times and I appreciated their encouragement and support.
21. Translated the Lineage visualization into a more understandable pictographic process I named The Tambolian Map. To finish this process took another fifteen years.
22. The Bardo Practices. These practices help you in the gap between life and death. There are many types of Bardo practices. One is the balance between here and there. Within that balance is the River of Forgetfulness. It took me about twenty years to figure out how to get across without touching it. For me I had to wait for some one to invite me across, and then it was easy. I also think it is a good idea to forget where you have been. There are not very many things you need to remember about your visit to the Earth.
23. By about 1976 I figures out my Siddha Yoga idiogram. This is similar to the structural symbolism of the
Refuge Tree pictograph. Mine began with the Medicine bowl of the Medicine Buddha, from that bowl grew a Lotus flower on top of which lay the text of the Dharma that was penetrated by the wooden staff of Yamentaka with a skull on top wrapped in a banner of victory, on the wooden staff was the wheel of life, the Bavasharaka. I asked Neudrup Rongau, a Tibetan Artist, to draw it for me but he refused suggesting he didn’t have the initiation to do such things. Figuring out this idiogram requires that you have explored all the pathways in relationship to the pictograph or you simply won’t know any thing about it. It’s an example of a self-secret practice.
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| Office Wat Subchaom 2010 |
The Terton Practices
24. Being recognized as a Terton, a finder of hidden treasures, Ter – meaning hidden, and ton – meaning treasures in Sanskrit, is highly valued by any Tibetan student. This recognition also suggests that you have been a Tibetan in a past life, a Lama and a Yogi as well, all pretty exciting realizations. I had asked Gyaltrul Rimpoche if I was a Terton because of all the practices, mostly Buddhist philosophical structures, I was able to discover and build. He prevaricated. Alter a couple of years of trying to get someone else to test me I returned to Gyaltrul Rimpoche. I asked what the problem was. He said, “If you had met these other Rimpoche Lamas they would have to pass you as a Terton, but you don’t want to be one.” At least Tibetan Terton presumably. Figuring out Gyaltrul answers are always fun when I eventually remembered that Hindu’s also have Tertons and is a much older tradition than Buddhism by a few thousand years.
A Terton is a person who can discover hidden treasures. Mostly people think treasures are something external, valuable or rare. This is only true on some occasions. All of the really interesting treasures are found on the inside, hidden in your mind. What my experiences have been is that I can wonder through the mind, with permission, and am not frightened by the darkness or anything else that might be there. I am not distracted by the traditional barriers that people build to defend themselves nor am I interested in listening to the argument you have created to explain yourself. I’m mostly interested in who or what you are truly, and what we might do together. To do this practice it is important to know remote viewing as well as remote intervention. Sometimes I have to move things out of the way; it’s polite to do this gently if I can and confidently if I have to.
There are two other conditions that have to be considered when finding treasures. The mystical conditions of - The mark of emptiness, which is appreciating that the human condition is undecidable and Self Secret in such a way that we can only be perceived reality in the present; this is essential and problematical, as you might imagine. If this is a bit metaphysical don’t worry I’m never asked about any of this. By the way, being able to wonder about in the darkness of the mind is unusual ever for Tertons so I describe myself a Black-Monk-Terton; which usually makes the Buddhist and everyone else very nervous for complicated reasons.
From 1998 to 2004 I traveled mostly in the southwest enjoying the planet while I’m still here. The last time I made this list there were thirty some practices. I left out all the temples I helped build for other Lamas from Hawaii and California to Massachusetts and Belleview, Canada. Some healing techniques that are beyond the scope of this presentation as well as tests I have not yet passed.
There are only a few applications of my meditational experiences that dealt with the public. My early practices augmented my ability to help people with their medical problems. My first effort was to intervene with their symptomatology using the four-element mantra (Tinzin Rongau) as well as healing energy generated by the three psychic veins (Yogi Chen). By 1976 Tarthang as well as the Berkeley Psychic Institute encourages me to use visualization at a distance as well as remote interference. This went rather well until I transcribed the Tambolian Map of the human condition (The Bava Chakra and Refuge Tree Lineage visualization) 1982, which exposed the underlying causes of peoples attachments. I used this technique until 1993 where I was able to participate in a clinical trial at the Seattle, Swedish Pain Clinic using an NIH grant. This trial went quite well for me but the clinic lost two clients because they felt good enough to get married and move away. All together 75% of the participants had significant improvement. This clinic was getting 2% per year improvement. They didn’t appreciate my numbers and asked me to go away. So I did.
In 2007 I again traveled to Asia for further testing. I was recognized as a Buddhist Mystic by Lompon Buton from Wat Rachakrut (a forest monk retreat center mostly for Myanmar Monks) near Ranong, Thailand. After several months there I was invited to be Meditation Master at Viharnthum Buddhist Temple near Ranong, Thailand, and eventually advisor to Ven. Phra Maha Somphong Santacitto, Wat Arun Bangkok, and Thailand.
I hope you have found this synopsis as interesting as I have living it.
Thank You,
Yasha