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| Dancing Vajravarahi/Vajrayogini, Densatil Monastery, c. 15th century, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. |
Follow-up to Tantric Libertism
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| "Achala with Consort Vishvavajri", Metropolitan Museum of Art |
Let’s call them the God and the Goddess of the Vajra Realm. They are very much like Śiva and Śaktī. Just like Siva, Vajrasattva, through the Goddess of the Vajra Realm, can freely (svatantrya) assume any form in order to convert those to be converted. In the case of this specific tantra, those to be converted are the “insatiable lovers”. Therefore Vajrasattva needs a form, a discourse and means that are totally different from those taught by the form of “the son of Māyādevī”. For this mission, he picks the form of the Fierce Great Angry one, Caṇḍa-mahā-roṣaṇa, or Caṇḍa (tib. gtum po, Fierce One) in short, the narcissist with the Oedipus complex… His female part is Caṇḍī (tib. gtum mo), also a Fierce One. It’s a form that already existed as A-cala (the Immovable One), usually sealed or crowned by Akṣobhya with his female part Māmakī, Acala's spiritual parents so to say, of whose dispassionate influence our Fierce One wants to rid himself from, in order to go where his lust will carry him. All these divine entities are couples where the “male part” has the ultimate agency, or will. Caṇḍa is also called “the Sole Hero” (Ekallavīra). It’s part of the esoteric principle, under which the Caṇḍamahāroṣaṇa Tantra too will remain.
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| "Mandala of Achala, Chandamaharoshana (with consort)", detail HA90915 |
In order to create their brave new world or maṇḍala, Caṇḍa (with Caṇḍī) first will have to "kill his father" and his old fashioned value system. A wonderful scene! When the maṇḍala starts to be created and the Divine parent couple appear, Akṣobhya in union with Māmakī, the following quotes are from the CMT translation by the 84000 Dharmachakra Translation Committee.
4.15 The lord of yogins should enter there,Caṇḍa and Caṇḍī are Caṇḍamahāroṣaṇa (black Acala) and Hatred Vajrī (mother Māmakī) in the center, declined in four directions, colours ("varna") and passions. The goddesses represent the negative passions (considered as such in the "old value system"). Nothing new here, passions are represented by female forms, and most welcome... Black Hatred Vajrī, White Delusion Vajrī, Yellow Calumny Vajrī, Red Passion Vajrī and dark green Envy Vajrī. All embracing Acalas of different colours in four directions, who each in turn appear in the center of the maṇḍala with their respective Vajrī, to be killed as well and replaced by the yogin himself as the Sole Hero. Dispassion goes out, passions are welcomed and recycled through Acala’s maṇḍala. The Vajrīs/Passions ask Acala to abandon the dispassionate nature of emptiness (śūnyatā) and enter into a world of passion.
Through the crown aperture of Akṣobhya,
By the method of a shooting star,
Intent on the bhaga of Māmakī.
4.16 Having then become the essence of semen,
He should fall inside her bhaga.
However, he should subsequently emerge from there
In the complete form of Caṇḍamahāroṣaṇa.
4.17 One should kill Akṣobhya, the father,
With the sword, and later eat him.
One should then visualize him
Being eaten also by Māmakī.
4.18 Then, having seized Māmakī, the mother,
One should make love to her.
One should visualize oneself embraced by her,
In her form of Hatred Vajrī.
4.30 If you consider me, youthful as I am,The different Acalas with their respective Vajrī are placed in the center of the maṇḍala and receive the same treatment as the Divine parent couple: the Acala is killed and the Vajrī embraced. The Vajrī/passions are unbridled and available. Yogins of different colour, complexion, should meditate on the Acala of their colour.
The view of the void is fruitless .
Abandon the nature of void!
Please make love to me!’
4.37 A yogin of white complexionThe same for the women.
Should meditate on White Acala.
A yogin of yellow complexion
Should meditate on Yellow Acala.” etc.
4.39 A woman who is of black complexionDifferent activities (and castes) are associated with these colours (“varṇa”), where some old “values” may shine through.
Should meditate on Hatred Vajrī.
A woman who is of white complexion
Should meditate on Delusion Vajrī.”
4.44 Black color is for killing and hatred;In fact, the setting of the brave new Vajra world has many aspects of the old Brahmanist world with its values, but with some very specific concessions regarding purity in a caryā context[1]. The old world remains present in the very terms of the transformations that are wished for. Male practitioners are yogins, and there are no female practitioners mentioned as such, only women and girls, that serve as their ritual sexual objects. A clay effigy will also do (CMT 25.11). The yogin should not feel any disgust for any of the prescribed actions, body fluids or substances. Will that indeed “liberate” the yogin and from what? All the “woman-friendly” aspects (in effect to preserve the duality...) of the tantra seem to be merely collateral benefits of the yogin’s path as set out by the CMT.
White is for the tranquility of mind.
Yellow is for paralyzing and enriching;
Red is for enthralling and attracting.
The musician is black, the brahmin is white
4.46 “[Yogins] of white nature should make love to a white girl”, etc.
4.47 Or else, whatever girl one finds
To notice the difference between the treatment of men and women, even in a “woman-friendly” text such as the CMT is sometimes said to be, one only needs to look at Chapter 3 where the Empowerment (abhiṣeka) of a male yogin and his queen of the night is described. There is no equivalent “full” version for women. Women/girls, or rather copulation with them and the experience this produces in the yogin, are one of the objects of the empowerment. The Guru is the center, not the Guru and his wife, like in the Divine couple. The full empowerment takes place between the Guru and the yogin. The Crown empowerment of the CMT has a different version for yogins and women. The yogin is visualized as a universal emperor (cakravartin) and a crown is put on his head. At the same stage of the empowerment women receive the Vermillion empowerment and are visualized as “the fierce great goddess” (Hatred Vajrī). A knife is placed in her right hand and a human skull in her left hand. For the Secret empowerment the yogin offers a young and beautiful girl to the Guru.
‘This girl that I offer youThe yogin leaves the room, while the Guru “satiates the wisdom consort”, consecrates the mystical substances, summons the yogin back and places the substances on the yogin’s tongue, who recites “Āḥ, pleasure”. The Guru then offers the girl back to the yogin to serve as his “delightful supporter”. No specifications are given for the empowerment of a female “yogin” apart from being a “delightful supporter”. The yogin probably came with his wife/a concubine and, the woman/girl received the empowerment in that quality. With this in mind, the following passage from Nāropa’s hagiography will no doubt be more clear.
Grants all the pleasures of love;
Accept her for the sake of your pleasure.
Please have compassion, O lord.’ (CMT 3.18)
“Again Tilopa acted [sat silent and motionless] for one year as before. When Nāropa made his maṇḍala and venerated him with folded hands, Tilopa glanced once at him. Nāropa prayed and asked for instruction. 'If you want instruction, give me your girl (shes rab ma)!' When Nāropa did so, the girl turned her back to Tilopa, looked at Nāropa, smiled and cast sidelong glances at him. Tilopa beat her (phyag rgya mo) and said: 'You do not care for me, you only care for Nāropa.' Nāropa did not lose faith in the propriety of his Guru's action, and when he sat there happily without the girl, Tilopa asked him: 'Are you happy, Nāropa?'Within the context of an initiation (including the CMT), a woman/girl can be offered forth and back. She can be beaten by the Guru, when behaving inappropriately, and this is to be taken with good grace.
And Naropa answered:
Bliss is to offer the Mudrā as fee
To the Guru who is Buddha himself, unhesitatingly.
Tilopa said:
You are worthy of bliss eternal, Nāropa,
On the path of infinite Reality.
Look into the mirror of your mind, which is Mahāmudrā,
The mysterious home (gsang ba’i gnas) of the Ḍākinī.”[2]
To come back to the “Vermillion empowerment” for women, to replace the “Crown empowerment” for the male yogin, the Guru places a knife in the right hand of the empowered woman/girl and a human skull in her left hand. The woman/girl is then “invited to assume the goddess’s posture”. Naked and perhaps wearing bone ornaments.
“[The Guru] should recite, ‘Oṁ, blessed Hatred Vajrī, you are an accomplished being ! Hūṁ phaṭ!’ In this way, with the names of the five yoginīs according to the division of colors starting with the black, one should anoint women.”A group of five women/girls seems to be needed here for the initiation (also see Tantric libertism, the passage on Paiṇḍapātika junior from Blue Annals, p. 393-394). Were they invited as mudrās to be offered to the Guru by the to be empowered initiates? Five, because of the number in the maṇḍala? One figuring as the principal goddess and the others as the four other Vajrīs?
Remember the posture assumed by the woman during the “Vermillion empowerment”. There is an interesting passage in The Biographies of Rechungpa[3], where Rechungpa travels to Kathmandu with a group of Tibetans following the Dzogchen master Kyitön (Kyi ston). Rechungpa, in spite of his alleged previous training under Milarepa, seems unaware of the practices he will discover in Nepal. The hagiography was authored by Gyadangpa (13th century). While listening to his new Dzogchen master, Rechungpa meets Bharima and her female servant. Peter Allen Roberts retells the anecdote:
“Kyitön’s presence in the narrative serves as an opportunity for an attack on Dzogchen practice. Kyitön gives some Dzogchen teachings that Rechungpa attends. Rechungpa notices a Newar woman who initially listens respectfully to Kyitön, but becomes displeased and stops listening. She tells Rechungpa that Dzogchen is a practice found only among Tibetan yogins, and is erroneous because it denies the existence of deities or demons, which are the source, respectively, of siddhis and harm.The female servant mimics the pose of Vajrayoginī. She knows, she's been there, done that... Rechungpa will discover through Barima and her Guru Tipupa the Teachings of the Bodiless Ḍākinī (lus med mkha' 'gro skor dgu S. ḍāka-niṣkāya-dharma), that Tilopa/Tillipa is said to have directly received from Vajravarāhī, and will bring them to Tibet.
Rechungpa asks Bharima what her own secret practice is, but she, shocked that he would even ask, refuses to tell. Undeterred, Rechungpa bribes her female servant, who mimics the pose of Vajrayoginī. This apparently inconsequential episode is in fact integral to the narrative structure, for Bharima will turn out to be a pupil of Tipupa, and be of crucial importance to Rechungpa on his return journey.”
Also on the topic of “Equality of Women”, Gedün Chöpel explains the following, from his own experience:
“In Nepal even if a man takes a woman forcibly and acts out his passion, when he finishes she rises, touches her head to his feet, and goes. First, she struggles, saying, "No," and afterwards bows saying, "Thank you." Thinking about it, one bursts out laughing; it is even said those who do so have good behavior.”[4]
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| A Wife Beating her Husband, Bartholomeus Molenaer (photo) |
Diana J. Mukpo writes in Dragon Thunder: my Life with Chogyam Trungpa:
"As much as I appreciated my husband, I wasn't always accepting of his behavior. When we were first married, Rinpoche told me that it was normal for Tibetan men to beat their wives. I told him this was barbaric, but he said that it was just common practice. In the first few months of our marriage, he tried -not very convincingly- to slap me a couple of times when we were arguing. I said to him, "What do you think you're doing?" And he said to me, "This is just what Tibetans do." I felt that this was definitely not okay. I waited until he was asleep one day, and I took his walking stick and began hitting him as hard as I could. He woke up, and he was quite shocked, and he said, "What are you doing?" I said, "This is just what Western women do." He got the message, and it was never an issue again."What to take from all this? It is clear to me that conservative (Brahmanist) class values never disappeared from and/or crept back into (esoteric) Buddhism. Furthermore, antinomianist aspects from Buddhist and non-Buddhists tantras had to be concealed, when practised by the higher classes of society, that at the same time continued to follow mainstream forms of religion in public[5]. Tantric consort practise was conceived for men. There was no “Equality of Women” (see the chapter with this title in Tibetan Arts of Love). The CMT also shows that the split between original Buddhism and its esoteric forms has grown further and is openly referred to (reflected in hierarchies of Buddhist vehicles, please don’t refer to sources from a Neo-Ancient 8th century Padmasambhava...). The Kathmandu valley, rather than Mahāsiddha India, seems to have played a major part in the spread of a development of more “libertine” aspects, followed by a sort of mythological Bovarysm or Quixotism in Tibet, where mortal humans wanted to become like gods or mahāsiddhas through imitating them. Has this sort of treatment of women, or even “ḍākinīs”, somehow, sometimes been carried over to the West by some Tibetan teachers? Not in public teachings, but in more private settings? Do those lamas somehow feel justified in this by tradition? Supported by colleagues, by senior students, by the silence of academics? This is one “transmission” we didn’t need in the West. We already had and still have our own, that we have great trouble getting rid of. If metaphors shape our lives, the way we think and act, we should be careful in choosing the ones we want to hold onto and live or "practise" by.
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[1] Gedün Chöpel said about this :
“The followers of the master Bābhravya say that there is no fault in doing it with another's wife if she is not the wife of a Brahmin or a Guru. This is deception with shameless lies; as most authors of tracts used to be Brahmins, they wrote this way. If an intelligent person challenges the presentations in such deceitful tracts with scriptural quotes, [the truth] will be known. It is clearly said in the Kalachakra Tantra that Brahmins have a black disposition for their wives.” Tibetan Arts of Love, Sex, Orgasm & Spiritual Healing, Jeffrey Hopkins, Snow Lion, p. 53-54
[2] Translation by Herbert v. Guenther. See my blog Dare to know - Sapere aude
[3] The Biographies of Rechungpa, The evolution of a Tibetan hagiography, Peter Alan Roberts, Routledge
[4] Tibetan Arts of Love, Sex, Orgasm & Spiritual Healing, Jeffrey Hopkins, Snow Lion, p. 51
[5] Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, Āgamaḍambara
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