Dancing with the Benefactors

The Flower Ornament Sutra is made up of 39 books. Book 39 - Entry into the Realm of Reality -documents the seeker Sudhana's pilgrimage. He received instructions from the Bodhisattva Manjushri who sends him out on his journey. Sudhana encounters 53 spiritual benefactors, each one providing pertinent and unique answers to his unresolved questions regarding the nature of an enlightening being's place in the world. The Flower Ornament Sutra contains vast, rich, and grandiose Buddhist teaching, held in high esteem by all Buddhist schools concerned with universal liberation. It is a work of stunning imagination capable of transforming one's perspective from concept to the immediacy of metaphorical understanding. The function of the sutra is to affirm the infinity of the path, and inspire practitioners to take up the mission of cultivating wisdom and compassion.Renshin Barbara Verkuilen's way of studying the Flower Ornament Sutra is centered within intuitive dialogue. She applied the innovative Enhanced Emergent Knowledge skillful means to produce a verbal depiction of the intuitive engagement with an individual benefactor's teaching. Then, she took that information and the teachings of Visual Journaling to create collages that illustrated her visual intuition. The result is "Dancing with the Benefactors" wherein Renshin invites you to become familiar with and to participate intimately in the joyous teaching of the Flower Ornament Sutra.