Human Development
Potala-island awareness
Description:
This state of awareness is characterized as a consciousness of ancestral and racial heritage and a search for origins. It is represented to Tibetans as an island south of the Indian sub-continent where the Tibetan progenitors, the compassion deities Avalokitesvara and Tara, dwell. By going to this island one recognizes the innate compassion buried deeply in human character. One ascends Potala Mountain to the lake of the "god-who-looks-down" (Avalokitesvara) and his stone image. Evoking the real forceful presence of the divinities, however, is said to be possible only by intense meditation. The Lhasa mountain palace has been named after Potala.[[Context]] In Tibetan Sakya Buddhism this is one of the states in the "Ascension Stages Game". In some sets it is numbered 60 on the board.