-Funkahuatl

Tantra: “Where sex is transformed into love and love is transformed into the higher self.” -Osho

“When connected in sacred, conscious sex, our human bodies – mirrors of the cosmos – rejoin the wholeness of essential reality.” Tantra Demystified by Vikas Malkin

Taoism: A variety of related philosophical and religious traditions and concepts that have influenced East Asia for over two millennium and the West for over two centuries^. Taoist propriety and ethics emphasize the Three Jewels of the Tao: compassion, moderation, and humility.

Sufism: A science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God, the Beloved.

Pachukismo: “A Pachuk@ is a rebel who does not care to make something beautiful in his/her life but rather, to make of ones life, a work of art.” Alurista, Chicano poet.

The Sixth Dalai ["Lover"] Lama: “Tsangyang Gyatso (1682-1706), who was enthroned with grand ceremony as the Sixth Dalai Lama on the golden throne in the Potala palace in 1697, was a special Dalai Lama. He brought to holy Lhasa and Shol taverns some of the purest and most beautiful lyrics of all times.

Extraordinary as a lover of wine and women, melodious as a singer of love songs and above all, tragic as a national hero of the status of a Dalai Lama, reduced to become a heroic pawn at the hands of the Qosot Lhazang Khan, the Sixth Dalai Lama became a legend within his short lifetime. Worshiped and loved by Tibetan people with stainless faith, Tsangyang Gyatso’s songs became famous in every corner of Tibet receiving once again the fascination of simple folk poetry.

“White crane!
Lend me your wings
I will not fly far
From Lithang, I shall return”

So wrote a desolate and lonely Tsangyang Gyatso (whose name means ‘Ocean of Melodious Songs’), the Sixth Dalai Lama of Tibet, wrote to a lady-friend of his in Shol town in 1706, when he was being forcibly taken away to China by the Mongol soldiers of Qosot Lhazang Khan — away from his people and the Potala palace. [Other stories have it that he went to Mongolia and lived a long life as a revered spiritual teacher]. No one understood the hidden meaning contained in the song nor did anyone suspect that the young Dalai Lama had decided to end his earthly manifestation and yield the Tibetan spiritual and temporal realm to the care of the next Dalai Lama. But when that very year the sad and shocking news of the ‘disappearance’ or more probably the ‘murder’ of Tsangyang Gyatso at Gunga-Nor lake spread across Tibetan landscape, the secret meaning of the last of his many songs dawned on the grief-stricken and bewildered Tibetan masses who dearly longed for his presence during a turbulent turn of history, and anxiously looked towards Lithang for the next incarnation.

It may be correct and safe to state that some of the verses indirectly show his deep knowledge and practice of tantra, as it is clear from the one song in which he has claimed:

“Never have I slept without a sweetheart
Nor have I spent a single drop of sperm”

“The claim of control over his flow of sperm openly declared his grasp and mastery of tantric practices.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Over the eastern hills rises
The smiling face of the moon;
In my mind forms
The smiling face of my beloved’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘If only I could wed
The one whom I love,
Joys of gaining the choicest gem
From the ocean’s deepest bed would be mine’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘She smells sweet of body
My sweetheart, the highway queen;
Like the worthless white turquoise
She was found, to be thrown away’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘Longing for the landlord’s daughter
Blossoming in youthful beauty
Is like pining for peaches
Ripening on the high peach trees’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘Sleepless I am
Because I am in love;
Fatigue and frustration overwhelm
When day brings not my beloved to me’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘I incline myself
To the teachings of my lama
But my heart secretly escapes
To the thoughts of my sweetheart’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘Even if meditated upon,
The face of my lama comes not to me,
But again and again comes to me
The smiling face of my beloved’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘If I could meditate upon the dharma
As intensely as I muse on my beloved
I would certainly attain enlightenment
Surely, in this one lifetime’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘When the gem was mine
I cared not, and ignored its value.
Now that the gem is lost to others,
Melancholy overwhelms me
As its pure worth dawns on me’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘My sweetheart who truly loved me
Has been stolen to wed another.
I am sick with longing sorrow
And frustration emaciates my frail body’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘If the maiden will live forever
The wine will flow evermore.
The tavern is my haven;
With wine I am content’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘Even the stars in the sky
Can be measured by astrology.
Her body can be caressed,
But not so fathomed
Her deep inner longing’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘Sweetheart awaiting me in my bed
Yielding tenderly her sweet soft body,
Has she come to cheat me
And disrobe me of my virtues?’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘People gossip about me.
I am sorry for what I have done;
I have taken three thin steps
And landed myself in the tavern of my mistress’

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

‘In the short walk of this life
We have had our share of joy.
Let us hope to meet again
In the youth of our next life’

“Of exceptional interest is the tale of three sandalwood trees Tsangyang Gyatso planted close to each other before leaving Tawang. He prophesied that the trees would grow identical to each other on the day he would once again visit Tawang. In 1959, the local people noticed to their amazement that the three sandalwood trees were growing equal to each other in size and had become identical in shape. Unfortunately, the trees caught fire which plunged the local people into anxiety and dismay. Soon afterwards they heard of the unrest in Tibet caused by the Chinese invasion, and after a week-long spectacle of crowds of foreign and Indian pressmen, security personnel and unusual suspense, they saw that the Dalai Lama had indeed come to Tawang once again, this time as the Great Fourteenth, on his way to exile in India.”

From “Songs of the 6th Dalai Lama: The Rebel Dalai Lama”. Translated by K. Dhondup, Dharamshala

Altar de Luz blesses Funkahuatl after he reads her the Sixth Dalai "Lover" Lama's last poem to his 18th century Llhasa barmaid girlfriend. Photo by Vicente Mercado. At Eastside Luv, 10/17/08.

Song list after the jump.

1.) SACRED HEARTS (Poem)

2.) WHEN I WAS YOUNG

3.) AT THE EASTSIDE LUV

4.) LA VIRGENCITA DE BOYLE HEIGHTS (Poem)

5.) CRAWLIN’ IN LUST, LOVE & LIGHT

6.) FLESH & BONE

7.) EYES OF GOD

8.) TAO OF FUNKAHUATL

Funkahuatl & the Eastside Luvers

October 15, 2009 – 8PM Doors – 10PM Show No Cover
Eastside Luv Wine Bar – 1835 E. 1st Street, Boyle Heights, LA 90033 (map)

Ruben Funkahuatl Guevara/vocals (Frank Zappa); Steve Alaniz/Tenor sax (Stanley Clarke); John Avila/bass (Oingo Boingo); Ramon Banda/drums (Banda Brothers); Bob Robles/guitar (Thee Midniters).