Three Great Adepts

In orthodox Indian Buddhism, eons of disciplined meditation and scholarship produced enlightenment. The Great Adept perspective, on the other hand, centered on a key meditative premise: the idea that every being is already enlightened. This viewpoint enabled a path to instant enlightenment that challenged orthodox monastic precepts, but it was eventually absorbed into the mainstream of Tantric practice.
Virupa, the Great Adept who appears at the summit of this painting, resigned his monastic position, literally put flowers in his hair, and became a traveling teacher of the rapid, dangerous Tantric path, with its meditations on sexuality and violence. The Sakya Order of Tibetan Buddhism traces its meditative systems to him.