After Reading you will understand how Shamanic it is đđđ«
Enjoy the feast!
Asya âsameness of flavourâ as being the resulting taste of
possession (samavesa) by Siva in oneâs own body (Flood 1992, 51).
In Tantra as Abhinavagupta advocated a
shift away from an âappetitive style of perceptionâ in which things are seen as existing outside of
your consciousness, to an âaesthetic mode of awarenessâ in which objects are perceived as
existing inside your consciousness. This causes the senses and the body itself to become divininized.
As I have always reminded
The desireless, without object, or objects
[Tantra affirms that God and Goddess go together, support each other, and should be worshiped together. The couple agrees to individually embody the archetypal energies of a male and female deity. According to the tantric world view, we are all male/female by nature]
The erotic sentiment of *spngara rasa*, expressed by Lakrminkaraâs poetry, is transformed
in the space of Buddhist ritual into the nondual Buddhist rasa of samarasa.
âšïž The experience of
samarasa as a form of divine possession (samavesa), in tantric Buddhism, is cultivated in the practice of deity yoga, when one visualizes oneself as having an awakened body, speech and mentality. In an effort to situate the transformation of spngara rasa into samarasa in Buddhist
ritual.
In Anna Katrine Samuelson thesis she analyzes Syed Jamil Ahmed and David N. Gellnerâs studies of the states of
mutual possession (samavesa) which occur in the course of the sexually charged current Newar Buddhist tantric initiation in Nepal. Although the men in this ritual context dance and the women shake, they are both expressing the state of samarasa.
[Samsara~ HINDUISMâąBUDDHISM
the cycle of death and rebirth to which life in the material world is bound.]
The gendered duality of expression in Newar initiation to be due to divergent
levels of sakti,
đ„Sakti [shakti] means âpowerâ; in Hindu philosophy and theology sakti is understood to be the active dimension of the godhead, the divine power that underlies the godhead's ability to create the world and to display itself.
Understood as female power and the capacity of receptivity, within the male and female. While this term is more commonly employed within the Saiva traditions of tantrikas, such as Abhinavagupta, it is also a prominent term in Newar Buddhism for describing power and women.
***Women in tantra convey power like an electrical current, transferring sakti during sexual acts. Although women transfer this energy, as the sources of sakti, they naturally have more of this powerful receptive capacity, leading them to express samarasa in the more overtly
possessed form of shaking.
This introduction serves to introduce the erotic and nondual tastes of spngara/shringara and samarasa.
***Shringara is a rasa
[Rasa= rasa means emotional state of mind. Nine emotions are Shringara (love/beauty), Hasya (laughter), Karuna(sorrow), Raudra (anger), Veera (heroism/courage), Bhayanaka (terror/fear), Bibhatsa (disgust), Adbutha (surprise/wonder), Shantha (peace or tranquility). These nine emotions are proof of our living and some of us have higher emotional quotients react more, and react impulsively. Emotions canât be eradicated but they can be controlled. We need to have control over our emotions, to use the emotions positively, constructively otherwise they will make disasters. Emotional stability gives peace of mind.]
The deity Vajravilasini embodies these sentiments and she is introduced along with her more common manifestation as Vajravarahi, found with or without her consort (In the tantric tradition, a consort is a partner or wife of a lama or tulku who represents the entire phenomenal world) Cakrasamvara.
These sentiments are also found in the lives and works of Vajravarahiâs devotees, most importantly the poet Lakrminkara and the sadhana author Vanaratna as well as her first Tibetan reincarnation Chokyi Dronma.
Once in a state of possession, the ritual participant cannot be said to have his or her own agency, but a modified form of power, which merges the identity of the human and divine together. In Buddhism these merged identities are referred to as the human commitment being
(samayasattva) with the divine wisdom being (jñanasattva). During possession sakti acts as the electrical current making the divine and human beings together receptive to one another and ultimately merge.
Because women naturally possess more sakti, women and menâs possessions are expressed differently. This is seen from the ethnographic findings of Ahmed and Gellner on Newar Buddhism in Nepal. Gellnerâs Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest, explores dance and possession in tantric rites of initiation, and Ahmedâs âCarya Nptya of Nepalâ explores the
aesthetically nondual and sexual components of tantric dance, carya nptya. Newar priests are expected during possession to dance, while their wives should lose more agency and shake with possessed. Where menâs agency is compromised, womenâs is overwhelmed. Men perform as dominant divine males, and women as passive divine females, and through their duality of
genders, and gender roles, are able through their union to show ultimate nonduality.
These performative expectations are also seen in the sexual dance of the buddhas.
Although Vajravilasini and Cakrasamvara have passed beyond dualities such as gender, they embody these dichotomies so that they can through their union show that it is possible to overcome all distinctions. They have transcended all distinctions of self and other. They can be
said to be transsexual in their capacity to identity as much with the gendered experience of the otherâs body as their own.
***The word padma, which is Sanskrit for lotus, symbolizes both the state of awakening and a divine vagina.
***A sadhana literally translates as a âmeans of attainmentâ and is the way that tantric practitioners can become their chosen deities (irtadevata ). Sadhanas provide step-by-step guidelines to imagine oneself as a buddha, inside and out, at both a visual and aesthetic level.
Instructions are given in both prose and poetic form, and the poems are often attributed to highly realized authors and establish the ritual and aesthetic mood through reiterating the goals of practice.
In Vanaratnaâs work the eighth century Indian princess Lakrminkara, one of the eightyfourmahasiddhas (great accomplished ones), is the author of this poem found in the most erotic section of the practice (consort practice):
âThe graceful [deity] possessed of the precious vajra [penis enters] into the tip [of] the
opening [of his] consort,
From binding [the legs] in the cross-legged posture, [he enters] into the padma [vagina]
treasure chest,
As long as there is flavour of the Buddhaâs presence, the moon [nectar] in the drop (bindu)
coming forth,
For that long [one] attains the highest citadel [of] Lord Buddha.â
Lakrminkaraâs poem describes the posture taken by the male and female buddhas in sexual union. The penis, symbolically termed a vajra, meaning diamond or thunderbolt, must enter the tip of the vagina (San. padma, lotus) of the consort and the male must bind this with the mudra (seal) of a cross-legged posture (asana). This position is maintained for as long as the
male partner can control the circulation of semen, called the moon, within his body. The goal of this practice is not only to create an erotic mood, but to experience the âflavour of the Buddhaâs presenceâ that is the taste of nonduality and the possessed state of Vajravilasini and Cakrasamvara within the practitionersâ respective gendered bodies.
When a padma is conjoined with the equivalent male symbol of a vajra
(Tib. rDo rje), it comes to symbolize nondual union.
A vajra is variously understood to mean a diamond, an indestructible royal sceptre, lightening or a penis. The vajra is the defining term of tantric Buddhism, symbolizing both its superiority and speed.
The third overt example of sandhabhara is the moon, which with its white, cool qualities is understood to symbolize a drop of semen, specifically semen that is held within the central channel of the body.
The erotic symbolism in Lakrminkaraâs passage conveys the message of awakening.
Those reborn in pure lands are born from lotuses, the vajra is the emblem of Vajrayana way, granting beings a quick way out of cyclic rebirth, and Buddhist art commonly depicts the Buddha
pointing at the moon as the direction out of samsara. The erotic is recast in spiritual terms.
The language that Lakrminkara employs invites her audience to envision not only sexualized bodies,
genitals and sexual fluids, but also awakening. âNon-intentionalâ terms could have instead been
employed if sex at a conventional level, instead of as a vehicle for Buddhahood, was being
discussed. One enters into a vagina, but through this one is reborn in a lotus in the pure land, one
is possessed of a penis, but one also holds a vajra, which acts as instantaneous lightening-like
awakening, and to control oneâs internal world through the retention of semen cycling within the
body is to become free of the cycle of samsara, as a moon encircles but is beyond this world.
*** Although many take these poems and writings at a lust, desire, simple physical sex and attraction level, they are NOT, they are alchemy. And nothing to do with human sex really except for the bodies being vessels.
The power of these âintentionalâ words rests in their ability to confer simultaneously
what keeps one trapped and what frees one from samsara. Understood this way, Lakrminkaraâs word choice can be understood as clearly intentional, and not vague or secret. This is what is being pointed towards by R.S. Bucknell and Martin Stuart-Fox when they say that intentional language provides the writer with a means for describing supernormal experiences, for which ordinary language would not be adequate.
đ„One must therefore resist the tendency to understand padma only as
a divine vagina, vajra as a deityâs penis, and moon as the semen that is withheld in the male body during this divine union. This warning applies not only to language with sandhabhara but to poetry itself.
As Raniero Gnoli states âa truly poetical word or expression is that which cannot be replaced with other words, without losing its value. Poetry knows no synonymsâ.
Sandhabhara allows awakened vocabulary to be both erotic and spiritual. The linguistic signs of the padma, vajra and moon found in Lakrminkaraâs verse invoke the image of
awakened, but gendered bodies, in yogic-sexual union, creating the bhava (feeling) of rati (love).
The term rasa also has many meanings, including âjuice,â âfluid,â âtaste,â âliking,â âbeauty,â
âfeeling,â âessenceâ and âsemenâ (Apte).
Yet rasa primarily means taste; V. M. Kulkarni
points out that âlike sweetness, there is no knowing of rasa apart from directly experiencing itâ.
Yet the concept of rasa is not meant to convey only the simile of simply Oral taste, but also internal digestion of aesthetic experiences. Just as food goes through a process of digestion to become part of the body, so too are aesthetic experiences digested through layers of cognition to
form a rasa.
Balwant Gargi explains each rasa as having âthe same relation to the bhava as wine has to the grapes, sugar and herbs which compose it and which dissolve and blend completelyâ, to create an intoxicating drink which has a taste unique to any of the ingredients from which it is composed.
A more tantric example is the imagined melting of the five nectars and
five meats together in a skullcap to create mercurial nectar with the rasa of nonduality.
*** As passed on to many before the 5ms of Tantra
In Tantra, the five nectars are semen, blood, flesh, urine, and feces. They are symbolic items that represent the five elements of the body: earth, water, fire, wind, and ether. The five nectars are also stand-ins for the five Buddhist skandhas of mind, which are the building blocks of impure experiences.
In Hindu tantra, a ganachakra typically consists of five elements known as panchamakara or the "five Ms". These are madya (alcohol), mÄáčsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudrÄ (grain), and maithuna (sexual intercourse).
The generation of moods in the arts is thought to rely upon emotions (bhavas), but ultimately create a state that goes beyond them, a rasa. In its capacity to describe a pure experience which goes beyond conventional emotions rasa theory provides a model which is well adaptable to religious arts. Buddhist poets understood that conventional rasas could be transformed within the space of ritual into samarasa, and found the erotic sentiment of spngara rasa well suited to this purpose.
âšïžIn Hindu literature, tantric consorts are often referred to as dutis âfemale messengers.â
They are considered by many to be necessary for tantric practice. Abhinavagupta holds this view
and states in his Tantraloka, that no one is âqualified to practice the Kaula traditions unless he had a female partner (duti , sakti)â (Sanderson 1995).
Jeffrey Masson and M. V. Patwardhan argue that the term *duti was borrowed by Abhinavagupta from love poetry, although it appears in Kaula sources well before his aesthetics.
In Sanskrit love poems, a heroine always has a duti, who acts as her âgo-betweenâ (40-41) (White 2006, 114). Additionally, Abhinavagupta connects sex and taste further, by referring to both sexual intercourse and rasa as abhivyaktikarana (that which manifests or suggests) bliss.
Returning to the lotus, there is almost no part of a goddessâ body which her adoring devotees will not refer to as being lotus-like, and lotuses are a recurring trope in kavya poetry.
Just as bees naturally are drawn to flowers in nature, bees are another prominent poetic theme, as are beautiful women themselves. Vajravilasiniâs eyes are described as being like large black bees which extend right to her lotus ears (verse 7 Vajravilasinistotram, verse 1
VajravilÄsinÄ«sÄdhanÄstavah).
*** a bit more of a definition for you
Cakrasamvara
The Cakrasamvara Tantra is a tantric practice in Vajrayana Buddhism that aims to achieve enlightenment through meditative practices. The name Cakrasamvara, which literally translates to "Wheel of Great Bliss" in Tibetan, is also the name of a tantric meditational deity. The practice focuses on the non-dual union of the deities Chakrasamvara and Vajrayogini, and is said to increase innate wisdom to persevere through difficulties.
The Cakrasamvara mostly comprises rituals and yogic practices which produce mundane siddhis (accomplishments) â such as flight â as well as the supramundane siddhi of awakening. These are achieved through practices such as deity yoga (visualizing oneself as the deity) and the use of mantras.
Cont'd
When her lips are referred to a lotus, the bee that is attracted to
them is Cakrasamvara, conveying the concept of the erotic being something one can taste:
Oh lotus lips! The honeybee Samvara kisses [your mouth],
Oh! Your lotus bosom is embraced by both his arms.
Verse 13 of Vajravilasinistotram
Being a padmini , Vajravilasini has a moon face and this reflects the fact that the moon is another important metaphor in kavya. Although in sandhabhara the moon references the semen in the male body, in kavya the symbolism of the moon is pure beauty and therefore can refer to the female body.
A passage which describes not only Vajravilasiniâs moon face, but also clearly
creates the spngara rasa, is verse 14 of the Vajravilasinistotram :
Oh! Your eyes half closed in the pleasure of ardent love making,
Oh! Your hair let down, and your clothes dishevelled,
Oh! Your moon face is bitten by Heruka as Rahu,
Oh! With a smile you produce the mantra Hum Hum.
*** The four Joys are bliss consciousnesses generated because of the melting of the drop and its movement in the central channel. In order of least to greatest, they are called joy, supreme joy, special joy, and innate joy. There are various other ways of distinguishing the joys. For instance, in the context of physical isolation, the joys generated by the descent of the drop from the top of the head are distinguished from those generated by the ascent of the drop from the secret lace at the base of the spine. The joys generated from the ascent of the drop are much more powerful than those generated from the descent of the drop; all of the joys from the ascent of the drop are considered innate joys, the type with the greatest intensity.***
*** Sahaja means "essence", i.e. innate, primordial, higher nature. The practice of sahaja is the awareness of oneself as Shiva-Shakti yamala (union), without any efforts in the form of techniques or willingness to sustain supporting states, when it is so obvious to you that you are Shiva that you do not need to prove it to yourself. So, for example, how do you not prove to yourself that you are of some nationality. Being in the state of sahaja, you donât think or plan anything, and at the same time everything always develops in the most ideal way.
Cont'd
Sahaja can be an erotic term used to describe the highest degree of the four stages of pleasure reached in tantric practice, that of sahajananda âinnate bliss,â the spiritual experience of
awakened bliss.
âšïž It is in this way the poet Tilopa employs sahaja:
When you know just what utmost ecstasy is,at that very moment,
youâll waken to the innate (Jackson 2004, 138).
This blissful state is to be shared by both sexual partners. Sabaraâs Guhyavajravilasini sadhana devotes twelve verses to the nine kinds of sex play (navapurpi) which are done to induce the
highest innate bliss of sahaja (sahajasaktacetasah ) in order that the female consort, possessed of
the goddess, should tremble from the sex play performed by the yogin (English 92, 360).
Sahaja, like samarasa, is way of describing the awakened
experience and could be examined in aesthetic terms. Sahaja is an aesthetic experience with a definite ambrosial taste.
This sahaja is a familiar taste for the yoginis, as described by Saraha:
Sheâs eaten her husband,
relished the innate
destroyed attachment and detachment;
seated by her husband,
mind destroyed,
the yogini appears before me (Jackson 2004, 101).
Here sahaja is described as the taste of the yoginiâs own consort, her union with him, as the taste
of the dissolution of their duality.
***Bhakti encompasses all forms of love
which a devotee may feel for his or her irtadevata (chosen deity).
For Vairnavas, Bharataâs
rasas are of secondary aesthetic importance. Their five major rasas are the five modes of bhakti:
devotion as peace (santa),
the devotion of a servant towards his or her master (dasya),
devotion as friendship (sakhya),
the affectionate devotion of a parent towards his or her child (vatsalya)
and
erotic love (spngara), called madhura, âsweet,â in Vairnava texts
(Siegel ).
Of these five types,
the peace of santa, where the consciousness of the worshipper is united with the deity, is
considered to be least desirable, because it lacks madhura, sweetest, and emotional intensity
(McDaniel).
Spngara, the union of shared awareness between the devotees with the deity, is
considered to be the highest and finest form of devotion for Vairnava, as well as many Saktas.
***Samarasa: the nondual taste of Buddhist aesthetics
A conception of a blissful taste beyond conventional aesthetic experience is not unique to Buddhism, it is found in other Indian religions that emphasize santa or bhakti.
Tantric Buddhist rasas are formed similar to tastes in classical rasa theory, but utilizes the aesthetic system to transcend the system.
In Buddhist aesthetics, spngara rasa develops in accordance to classical
rasa theory, but the erotic mood of sex becomes a signifier of samarasa.
âšïž Samarasa is produced as the highest, most transcendental taste, which is dependent upon the refinement in of the base flavour, spngara rasa.
When induced with a high intention the erotic sentiment can lead
Buddhists out of samsara instead of deeper into it.
In rasa theory, bhavas give rise to specific rasas. However, within tantric texts, the rasa that is created from the bhava of rati is not a spngara rasa, but that of samarasa. Indeed, all aspects of tantric ritual, whether arousing, as in consort practice, or disgusting, as with the consumption of bodily fluids, are meant to lead to the âšïžultimate flavour of samarasa, and not to
one of the nine conventional rasas.
Inherent within spngara rasa is the taste of samarasa; that to love is to
lose the distinction between self and other.
The desired goal of tantric Buddhist practice is a third level of aesthetic experience, whereby the feeling of pleasure does not end at the creation of an arousing atmosphere, but goes further to
đ„ create a mood of nonduality,
in which all experiences that would normally be perceived as distinct have the same flavour.
This is like the taste of cream that is inherent in all flavours of ice-cream and is the innate flavour of the dessert. This understanding places consort practice within a larger context of ritual practice in which all sorts of bhavas are established to
created distinct rasas, with the specific intention of being transcended.
Tantric ritualâs aesthetic intensity is described by Sanderson as a shift
away from an âappetitive style of perceptionâ in which things are seen as existing outside of your consciousness, to an âaesthetic mode of awarenessâ in which objects are perceived as existing
inside your consciousness.
For Abhinavagupta the âshift from the appetitive to the aesthetic
mode of awareness is ⊠the divinization of the senses themselvesâ (Sanderson 1995, 87).
Sanderson discusses that in Abhinavaguptaâs nondual tradition, the deity was âto be equated with the nondual consciousness which the worshipper seeks to realize as his ultimate identity [âŠ]
[t]he whole text of the ritual was ⊠thereby transformed into a series of variations on the theme of nonduality and the nondualization of awarenessâ (1995, 47).
What Abhinavagupta was proposing was that religious sentiment was an entirely different form of perception, just as the generation of meaning is different in ordinary language and poetic ritual language employing
sandhabhara and imbued with rasa.
The realization of nonduality is a highly blissful and inherent state in tantric Buddhist theology, and the understanding of ananda as the inherent nonduality of all experience for the Saiva tantric theologian Abhinavagupta shows the similarities in aesthetic perceptions within
nondual tantric traditions.
Although tantric sex may be experienced initially as spngara rasa, this perception achieved through conventional understandings of aesthetics must be pushed through and understood to be what it truly is: unreal. This is the realization that the siddha poets were trying to convey through their works which found their way into tantric sadhanas.
đ„According to Benardâs understanding, Abhinavaguptaâs aesthetic theory within ritual means that âthe goddess depicts the actress, the practitioner the spectator, and the feeling of transcendence or holiness is the sentiment evokedâ (56-57). Expressions of possession vary in
the context of erotic practices performed during initiations, but for Newar Buddhists in Nepal they involve the men dancing and the women shaking. Therefore, the practitionersâ maintenance of the taste of samarasa and the presence of the deity within ritual varies according to gender.
While participants of both genders are expected to transform their experience of samarasa into samavesa by the deity, the degree and expression vary based on their capacity to submit to the
penetration of the deity. This receptive capacity is understood in India as a unique power possessed intrinsically only by women, termed sakti, but which could be transferred to men during sexual intercourse.
Men derive their sakti from sexual intercourse with women, (whether as their ritual mudra or their wife) because all women embody this power (Kapadia
426, 428).
Vajravarahiâs practices are prevalent in Newar Buddhism; the initiations of Vajravarahi and Cakrasamvara are the primary tantric initiations (dikra) given (Gellner 268).84
Within Nepal, Vajravarahi and Cakrasamvara initiations, where sexual yogas were originally implemented, tantric dances, carya nptya (Tib. âchams), are now performed.
Because caryanptya, where couples dance, or more specifically, men dance while their wives shake, is overlaid with deep sexual symbolism, their performance shows the gendered expectations also found in
consort practice.
Men perform, in the form of dance, and women dance or shake in response to their partnerâs movement, the music and the force of the deity within them. Newar rites, imbued with sexual symbolism, illuminate what it means to resonate with and actively express samarasa, as the embodiment of the deity. They embody the goals and expectations of the completion
stage level of tantric practice, which consort practice falls under, through the sexually charged empowerment rituals that initiates undergo before they can begin to develop these practices.
In Newar Buddhism, âthe ritual copulation of the texts has been symbolically
reinterpretedâ (Gellner 263).
However, the practices that replace them, dance and other forms
of possession, remain as parallel, private, and powerful performances. This is clear from the view that a priest of the Vajracarya caste cannot give tantric initiation unless his wife, who is
necessary for the ritual, is also a Vajracarya (Gellner 259).
Bhavavesa: feeling possessed
Possession is most commonly referred to as avesa âto enter in.â
Possession is denoted by this term in both the Pgveda and modern Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages (Smith xxii).
Yet, the only definition of avesa is from the Tantraloka, where Abhinavagupta defines it as âthe submerging of the identity of the individual unenlightened mind and the consequent identification with the supreme Sambhu who is inseparable from the primordial Saktiâ.
Smith concludes from Abhinavaguptaâs definition that in tantra, avesa must come to
mean âinterpenetrationâ.
Samavesa, a mutual interpenetration, is an expansion of the
term avesa.
Smith has found this meaning of interpenetration in the Himalayan context also, in AndrĂĄs Höferâs study of possession and shamanism in Nepal, which found that the relation of a possessed Tamang shaman (bá»mbo, Tib. bonpo) to the supernatural being is likened to the relationship between a husband and wife, because there is âan interpenetration, rather than a
fusion of identitiesâ.
Within the context of Tibetan tantric ritual, possession is thought not to occur as an overt âtake overâ by the deity, a full possession in which their identities were supplanted by the
deityâs, as occurs for oracles (Höfer), but as a self-induced state that the practitioners themselves worked to achieve. Practitioners work from the time they receive their daily tantric vows (samayas) to achieve an identity of themselves which is equal to the deity, a samayasattva âpledge being.â
Through visualizing their body as the deityâs they attain the form of their
buddha, through contemplating nonduality they achieve the mind of a buddha, and through reciting the mantras of the deity they obtain the speech of a buddha (Beyer). This sense of self connected to their tantric vows is their samayasattva and it is this identity that becomes possessed by the buddhaâs jñanasattva, the âwisdom beingâ of the buddha, the latent potential of all beings to attain awakening (Samuel 2001)
Although in the case of this state, the human identity is not supplanted by the divine, the merging of the wisdom and commitment beings has similar valid signs to an oracle that the deity
has actually entered the body. Kelsang Gyatso claims that with practice the experience can come to be as powerful as when an oracle is possessed by a buddha. The practitioner should therefore have no doubt that his or her identity has become unified with Vajravarahi (Gyatso 1999).
During possession the identities and mental states of the jñanasattva and samayasattvaare merged.
***Jñanasattva is a Sanskrit word that means "wisdom being". It has multiple meanings in Buddhist teachings, including:
The wisdom deities that bless the deities of a visualized mandala
The deity visualized in the heart center of the samayasattva
The buddhas invited from their buddha fields
The essence of the deities
The true form of a deity as an aspect of enlightenment
***Samayasattva (à€žà€źà€Żà€žà€€à„à€€à„à€”) refers to the âvow beingâ,
Just as in dance, where bhava is the dancerâs expression of emotion and rasa is the mood induced within the viewer, the jñanasattva can be understood as the bhava
(***Sanskrit word bhava (à€à€”) has many meanings, including:
Being
Worldly existence
Becoming
Birth
Be
Production
Origin
Habitual or emotional tendencies
State of being)
which affects the samayasattva and leads them to experience a rasa of the entrance of the deity into them. If one is possessed by an awakened being one will not experience an erotic rasa, even if one is in sexual embrace, but instead the experience the flavour of the Buddhaâs presence.
In Bengali there are three terms that describe such religious ecstasy: bhava, mahabhava, and bhavavesa.
A religious experience may be at the level of a standard or great
feeling (mahabhava), or it can become the possessed state of avesa for advanced devotee performers.
Although bhava is a religious experience that can be experienced
by all devotees as rasa, the experience of rasa does not necessarily lead to possession. Just as the more strongly an audience resonates with a performed bhava, the more intensified it becomes, the more strongly a tantrika experiences samarasa the more complete his or her
union with the deity will be during samavesa.
The aesthetic degree of religious experience depends on the advancement of the devotee.
It is the experience of avesa that Buddhist tantrikas seek, the actualization of the aesthetic state of samarasa, which leads to flavour of the buddhaâs
presence in their own body.
***Just as religious experiences vary in intensity based on the devoteeâs ability to translate
bhavas into rasa, the degrees of avesa, fall along a spectrum of penetration of the deity into the
practitionerâs body. The preceptor judges the degree to which the identity of the neophyte and
the deity have fused during consecration based on the degree of signs that the buddha has entered
the subtle levels of the body. Although an audienceâs ability to correctly respond to a
performance in the arts is important, the ability of neophytes to demonstrate their aesthetic
experience at a physical level to their preceptor is vital, because if the neophytes do not receive
the deityâs presence into their body, they are not qualified to undergo tantric practices. ***
The first time: sexual penetration during tantric consecration
Before a particular tantric buddhaâs sadhana can be practiced, it is necessary for the practitioner to receive abhireka (Tib. dbang), translated as initiation, consecration or empowerment, into the family of that buddha. âThe conferral of initiation serves as an empowerment, which creates a karmic connection between the student, the deities of the
mandalas and the lamaâ (Powers 283). Much like joining the mafia, abhireka allows the practitioner to engage in specific antinomian activities, because they have become part of the family. This idea of keeping it in the family (San. kula) is especially prevalent with the class of
yogini tantras, such as Vajravarahiâs.
The Cakrasamvara Tantra emphasizes the importance of kula (clan), stating that one must engage in sexual intercourse with women of the correct kula, because if one engages âin meditation with the wrong clan, there will be neither success (siddhi) nor one who succeedsâ
(Gray 109 ft. 297).
The importance of kula means that women are necessary as spiritual
mothers, to give their spiritual life force through sexual fluid. Initiation ceremonies are the site at which the neophyte loses his or her spiritual virginity, they are unique in that during these
rites, drops of bodhicitta (male and female sexual fluid) are not only permitted, but required to be ejaculated; red (female) and white (male) sexual fluids are necessary to form a spiritual body.
The consort act as a duti , transmitting the âcodedâ clan fluid (dravya), which is her own sexual fluids and the maleâs that have entered her during the course of sexual union.
This transmission of sexually coded messages by duti s often induces possession. Within the Tantraloka, Abhinavagupta refers to samavesa as âthe mouth of the yoginiâ (yoginivaktra),
because it is through her the spiritual tradition (sampradaya) tradition flows, through which âone obtains true cognition of Sivaâ (Flood 1992, 57).102
The flavour that flows through the nether mouth (vagina) of the yogini is samarasa. The Tantraloka further states that at the level of supreme penetration, the minds of the guru and neophyte should experience samarasi, which Silburn translates as âof the same flavour throughoutâ (Dupuche 172, e.n 301).
Initiation occurs through the penetration of the subtle energy channels of the body by the
divinity, for both men and women neophytes.
David Gordon White discusses yogic initiation
in terms of bodily penetration.
The significance of initiation does not lie in external events,
but in the observation by the guru that the descent of sakti, female energy, (saktipata) has
occurred and therefore also some degree of absorption (Dupuche 154). Saktipata is the cause of samavesa, and this experience is bestowed by the guru, with varying degrees of intensity and significance depending of the degree of attachment that the neophyte has to his or her body.
Because the ability to be penetrated in thought of in terms of female energy, sakti, which is transferred during the course of tantric rites, I propose that women are essential to tantric practice because the more sakti the male neophyte has accumulated from sexual contact with a female
partner the more potential he has to be penetrated fully by the deity during consecration.
It is not only women who are penetrated during consort practice, with the divinely imbibed penis of her partner; both partnersâ subtle bodies are penetrated by Vajravilasini and Cakrasamvara, through the power of their guru. This penetration is made possible through their bodies taking on the unique power of penetrability, sakti, an energy usually only possessed by women, but shared with men in the course of intimate tantric practice. A double penetration occurs for the woman both physically and divinely, so that her performative reaction is different from that of the man during consort practice. Men take on womenâs ability to become
penetrated, sakti, in order to receive divine possession.
There are various levels that divine energy can penetrate the initiandâs body. In his Tantrasara, ( Sanskrit term tantrasÄra (à€€à€šà„à€€à„à€°à€žà€Ÿà€°) means "tantra-essence" or "the essence of the tantras". It is also the name of a compilation by Abhinavagupta), Abhinavagupta explains that if the energy descends to only the level of the external body (bahistanu) the result is reeling or shaking (ghurni), if the energy goes to the internal body (antartanu) loss of consciousness, fainting or swooning (nidra, lit. âsleepâ) will occur, at the level of the subtle breath (pranana) it causes trembling (kampa), within space
(vyoma) lightness (udbhava) will occur, and if it penetrates the mind (citi) bliss (ananda) will arise.
While displaying more subtle signs of yogic penetration shows a deeper spiritual penetration during initiation, some of these signs of
possession are clearly more favourable than others during sexual yogas. Gross shaking or subtle trembling would display a possessed state to oneâs male partner in a way that lightness would not, nor bliss, and loss of consciousness is clearly not the most ideal response during sex,
whether in or out of ritual.
Interpenetration of the deity and disciple is referred to in Tibetan ritual as a âshared blessingâ (Tib. skal mnyam; Skt. sabhagah), it also displays signs that the divinity, in its form as a penetrative wisdom being (jñanasattva), has entered the initiate. The seventh Dalai Lama quotes from Nagabodhi in his auto-commentary on Vajrabhairava abhireka giving signs of
entrance which are similar to Abhinavaguptaâs classification.
These are: shaking, elation
(lightness), fainting, dancing, collapsing or leaping upwards (Smith 391-392). It is uncertain
whether Nagabodhi considered these signs to correlate to increasingly subtle levels of yogic
penetration.
While these six signs match or loosely correspond to Abhinavaguptaâs
classification, dance in no way meets the original qualifications for viewing the descent of a deity into a devotee, yet in the Himalayan context, dance is stated as a viable form for expressing
possession as a voluntary act.
The degrees of penetration of the subtle body show the complexity of the tantric body.
The objective of tantric consecration is to open the pathways of the subtle elements in the body so that the practitioner can, through daily practice, work towards controlling his or her own
subtle anatomical system.
To some degree this is possible to do on oneâs own, but at the most
advanced levels of practice, one must rely on a female consort to correctly seal the pathways of oneâs body so that there energy may all flow within the subtle invisible central channel, the avadhuti, which symbolizes, and leads to, the attainment of nonduality.
Getting to last base: an introduction to the completion stage practice of ritual union
Sadhana practice is the principle form of tantric training and there are two main stages found in these texts:
the generation stage (utpatti krama) and completion stage
(utpanna/nirpanna krama). During generation stage the practitioner imagines his or her body as
Vajravilasiniâs.
It is necessity to self-generate as the deity before worship can fully commence: Devo bhutva devam yajeta, âIn order to worship a deity, one must become a deityâ.
So to engage in sexual union with a buddha, you must yourself become a buddha.
Although generating as Vajravilasini in an outward way is necessary for consort practice, what is of higher importance in sexual yogas is the detailed visualization of psycho-physical constituents of her subtle body which are affected through yogic techniques, making it a completion stage practice.
Regardless of which type of consort is employed, the essential aim
of completion stage yoga is to engage the psychophysical constituents of the body (Gyatso 1998,
258).
The science of constituents of the psycho-physical subtle body in completion stage practices is inherited from Indian Ayurvedic medical understandings of the body. According to this view, the body has seventy-two thousand physical channels (nadi, Tib. rtsa) that are too subtle to be perceived by the human eye. These channels contain vital winds (prana, Tib. rlung) and hormonal drops (bindu, Tib. thig le). At the confluence of these channels are whirlpools of energy called wheels or cakras (Tib. rtsa âkhor). There are three main channels in the body,
Rasana, on the right, lalana on the left and avadhuti in the center.110
The channels of the right, associated with the male, and left, understood as female, are viewed as the two dualities and the central channel is associated with nonduality.
Tantric practice aims at bringing all the winds of the body into the main central channel, the avadhuti, to dissolve into the âindestructible dropâ at the heart. The indestructible drop is believed to be the subtle fusion of the white drop of your father and the red drop of your mother
given to you at the moment of your conception.
This reflects Indian medical views of the body, that people inherit all white components, such as bones and cartilage, from their father,
and red parts, blood and muscles, from their mother. The tantric body is therefore composed of a nondual pair of female and male fluids (Gyatso 1998 ).
The indestructible drop is believed to be just as powerfully tied to death as it is to conception. The indestructible drop is destroyed only at the time of death, but if oneâs winds penetrate and dissolve into it before death, as is possible during consort practice, blissful states of mind arise. Some Buddhist masters, instead of engaging in consort practice, (which may
compromise monastic vows), wait until the time of death, when the channel knots have completely loosened, and the winds naturally dissolve into the indestructible drop, to realize the
clear light of isolated mind and attain the illusory body (Gyatso 2003, 173). Therefore, although completion stage yogas at their most complex level involve sexual union with a consort, some do
not consider it essential (Gyatso 1998, 190).
It is not only because sexual yogas can be viewed as a breach in monastic discipline that their practice is rare. Warnings are often given of the dangers of performing completion stage Practices without the proper preliminary training and continued guidance from a qualified
master, and consort practice is no exception. As opposed to other completion stage practices, such as inner heat (candali, Tib. gtum mo), it is not just your own psycho-physical constituents which you are affecting through the practices, but also your partnerâs.
đŻBecause of its dangers there are only certain rites in which it is considered appropriate by most Buddhists to practice
sexual yogas.
By the end of the tenth century the practice of sexual union seems to have been generally confined to two settings: the consecration of initiation rituals, to authorize âadvanced stages of yogic engagementâ and the practice of sexual yoga itself within practices of the
perfecting stage (utpanna/sampanna/nirpanna-krama).
The power of sexual yogas lies in its ability to affect the psychophysical constituents of the body, balancing all dualities of the two gendered bodies. Within a ritual space, the union of a male and female was regarded as the ârestoration of the primeval Buddha-nature,â and, therefore,
sexual union became a symbol of the internal yoga which abolishes duality (Kvaerne).
However, many contemporary scholars, feminists among them, do not consider this spiritual transformation to be the result of an equal partnership. June Campbell, according to her own
scholarship and experience as a Tibetan lamaâs consort, understands the aim of uniting the male and female in tantric sexual practices to be attempted by the male through the use of a female
partner.
This view is also put forward by Agehananda Bharati, who claims that there is nothing nice or romantic about sex in tantric ritual, that instead tantric sex âis hard-hitting, object-using manipulative ritual without any consideration for the other person involved â
(Urban 40).
The male in ritual practice utilizes the female to balance his own dualities, in this way she is a vehicle for his own awakening. This is seen in the terms applied to female consorts, mudra, which refers to sealing the body to gain control.
*** remember Mudra=seal
A mudra (/muËdrÉË/; Sanskrit: à€źà„à€Šà„à€°à€Ÿ, IAST: mudrÄ, "seal", "mark", or "gesture"; Tibetan: àœàŸ±àœàŒàœąàŸàŸ±àŒ, THL: chakgya) is a symbolic or ritual gesture or pose in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. While some mudras involve the entire body, most are performed with the hands and fingers
Female mudras as seals
Tantric practice relies heavily upon the use of the ritualized recitation of sacred sounds, mantras, which are the phonic presence of the deity. These mantras must be performed in conjunction with the appropriate mudra s âseals,â (Tib. phyag rgya), generally referring to hand gestures, but which also can denote full body postures, an example being the cross-legged
posture the male takes in Lakrminkaraâs poem. The proper execution of the mudra s are rarely discussed in the text, and must therefore be learned through transmission from a teacher.
đ„[Tantric Meditation with sounds, mudras, mantras, bandhas and guided visualization, eye movements and breath available through my buymeacoffee.com/shaktidurga and arranged through DM or contact through here directly]đ„
The term mudra also refers to female consorts in Buddhist texts, implying that they are another means of constrictive bodily action whereby the potency of the rite can be sealed. Just as there are numerous forms of mudra hand gestures, there are various types of mudra s as female
consorts.
There are three major types of mudra s that are listed in varying orders in Buddhist texts.
The first is the karma mudra âaction sealâ a flesh-and-blood woman,
the second, the jñana mudra âgnosis sealâ (also known as the dharma mudra, âdharma sealâ) is a visualization,
and
the third is mahamudra âgreat sealâ defined by Roger R. Jackson as the ânondual contemplation of the nature of realityâ (12).
Mahamudra is not just a type of consort, but a kind of action, a sexual dance, and therefore it will be discussed later.
The Sekoddesatika describes the karma mudra as having breasts and hair and being the cause of bliss in the Desire Realm.
Her karmas, her âactions,â include kissing, embracing,
touching the sexual organ, and rubbing the vajra. She gives proof of herself through her bestowal of fleeting bliss (Kvaerne 35).
Many Buddhists consider the use of a karma mudra
to be superior to a visualization.
*** Karmamudra is a Vajrayana Buddhist practice that involves sexual union with a partner to achieve a state of bliss and insight. The Sanskrit word karmamudrÄ translates to "action seal" or "activity seal". The practice is also known as "The Path of Skillful Means" or "The Path of Great Bliss"
The biography of the famous Tibetan adept Milarepa (1040-
1123) states âthat of all the services the best is karma mudra,â and in Naropaâs writings it states that there is no mahamudra without karma mudra.
*** In Tibetan Buddhism, Mahamudra is a meditation system that explores the mind's conventional and ultimate natures. It is also a collection of teachings that represent the culmination of the New Translation schools of Tibetan Buddhism. These schools believe that Mahamudra is the core message of all their sacred texts. The practice of Mahamudra is also known as "Sahajayoga" or "Co-emergence Yoga".
In Vajrayana (Tantric) Buddhism, Mahamudra is the final goal, or the union of all apparent dualities. In this context, mudra has an esoteric meaning of "female partner," which symbolizes "wisdom".
The Cakrasamvara Tantra states that it is the outer woman, a karma mudra, who has the power to bestow secret consecration (Gray 112, 114). The desirability of employing a women who is beautiful as a consort, ideally who has the features of a padmini, has already been discussed, but beyond beauty it was also ideal that the consort displays a penchant for
possession, showing a high degree of sakti, that could be sexually transferred to her male partner.
Within the Saiva tradition, Jayaratha, the commentator on the Tantraloka, claims that for a rite of sexual union, you must utilize a physical woman who has a higher consciousness, beyond greed and delusion, is beautiful and demonstrates âsigns of possession through trembling, rolling her
eyes and so onâ.
This expectation for female possession during initiation is
also found in Newar Buddhism.
***Newar Buddhism is a form of Vajrayana Buddhism practiced by the Newar people of Nepal's Kathmandu Valley. It has developed unique socio-religious elements, including a non-monastic Buddhist society based on the Newar caste system and patrilineality. Newar Buddhists are known for their skills in Buddhist artwork and monuments, including: Buddhist Baha, Newar version of Stupa, Buddha statues, Buddhist paintings, and Ancient Buddhist sutras.
*** The word "sutra" comes from the Sanskrit word for "thread". This may refer to the thread used to bind together the leaves and bamboo slats used to write the sutras, or to the sutras themselves as the thread that holds the teachings together.
Sexual practices and the penetration of the body at a subtle level is primary, and physical sexual penetration is secondary. For this reason, tantric sex can be performed in a visualized context. The imagined jñana mudra is the necessary means of awakening for those not adept enough for practice with a physical woman, or whose life choices dictate more traditional boundaries of sexual behaviour. Kelsang Gyatso claims that once one is âable to dissolve most of the winds into the indestructible drop through solitary meditationâ one can employ a karma mudra, but until then one should rely upon a visualized jñana mudra.
The visualized jñana mudra is visualized as precisely the central channel of the avadhuti,
which Per Kvaerne describes in musical terms as âa sustained paean of the divine Yogini in the
yoginâs own bodyâ.
***Jnana Mudra is the mudra of knowledge and this mudra is used especially to invoke wisdom, peace and clear communication. This mudra is used during meditation to help us become receptive to the knowledge and wisdom of the Supreme.
Interestingly, avadhutani is an epithet for a female siddha, meaning
in this context one who has âshaken off all worldly attachmentsâ (Denton 226), tying the concept of an inner consort back into physical categories.
The central channel in Tibetan is using called the rtsa dbu ma, literally central (dbu ma) channel (rtsa), but it is also named the ku âdar ma âall
shaking,â which Kongsprul Blogrosmthaâyas (1813-1899) explains is because of the shaking movement of the bodhicittas within the channel, which gives rise to innate bliss (434).
Bodhicittas
***Bodhi means "awakening" or "enlightenment". Citta derives from the Sanskrit root cit, and means "that which is conscious" (i.e., mind or consciousness). Bodhicitta may be translated as "awakening mind" or "mind of enlightenment". It is also sometimes translated as "the thought of enlightenment."
Although the jñana mudra may be a visualization, the employment of this seal is still tied to the somatic experience of the inner body, the choreographed movement of the bodhicittas that leads
to shaking.
*** Soma comes from a word meaning "body" in Greek, so somatic means "of the body"
It is not possible to know whether a consort of flesh or imagination was intended to be utilized in Vanaratnaâs sadhana. Although the author of the poem was a women, Vanaratna compiled her verse into the context of a ritual text and the intended actors of the text, with perhaps the exception of such extraordinary women as Chodron, were men. Initially, it seems
that if Lakrminkara was the original author the main deity is not likely to be male, inferring that Vanaratna changed it. However, it seems that the yab yum practice of male deities was more prestigious and/or powerful than that of their female consorts, so it may be the case that Lakrminkara intended the main practitioner, whether a male or a female, to imagine their subtle
body as a maleâs during the practice.
Geluk Vajravarahi sadhana gives instructions for practitioners who may wish to dissolve their breasts and grow a penis, and turn their vaginal walls into âbell-like testiclesâ in order to visualize themselves as Cakrasamvara
instead of Vajravarahi for the duration of sexual union (Gyatso 1999, 293). This conforms with most cases of yab yum meditation, in âa male is confirmed in his sexual identity, whereas a woman is shaken in hers, being obliged to mentally change her sex".
Darsana, the mutual seeing which occurs between the deity and their devotees, is found throughout Indian religions. The positioning of yab yum deities facing each other in sexual union results in eye contact only being possible between the devotee and one of the deities.
Therefore, one deity, almost always the male, is always more prominent in sadhana practice.
Representations of deities in yab yum posture display the cardinal deity facing the viewing devotee, thereby establishing themselves, and not their consorts who are facing towards them, as the main objects of meditation. Adelheid Herrmann-Pfandt notes that goddesses are sometimes
characterized as being part of, or an attribute of, their partner, such as found in the wording sangs rgyas thod pa yab yum meaning the male deity Buddhakapala is both father and mother.
While Vajravilasini may have originally been the main deity in Lakrminkaraâs practice, this seems to have either been changed by the time of Vanaratna, or been changed by him.
When Vajravarahi is portrayed with Cakrasamvara, in sexual union, yab yum pose, he almost always takes precedence as the main focus of worship, so that she faces him and not the
devotee.
Adelheid Hermann-Pfandt sees this as reflecting the old Buddhist monastic rule:
âequality when separate, female subordination as soon as male-female relationship is concernedâ. She states this because it is not the solitary female tantric deities that seemed to be problematic, but the images and practices of union which placed the female in the dominant
spiritual position (1997, 25).
This conception is transferred onto Vajravilasiniâs female
practitioners, who also must fulfil a complimentary role when positioned with males.
Returning to the concept of mudra as seal, during most forms of Buddhist sexual yogas it is specified that men are supposed to hold in their semen, and thereby maintain celibacy. (Not DO EDGING celibacy means mmmhhhmm exactly).
Indeed, the early Buddhist goal of celibacy is still present and retained in Vajrayana Buddhism, albeit with a modified definition. Whereas the early Vinaya monastic code of the Parajika defines sex as the penis entering a sesame seedâs length in the vagina of a woman, many Buddhists tantrikas redefined sex as the point of ejaculation. For instance, Jagaddarpana
refined celibacy (brahmacarya) as âthe retention of semen in the course of yogic sexual practicesâ.
This extremely difficult retention occurs through the reversal of the
sexual fluids back into the central channel of the subtle body. Janet Gyatso notes that tantric practice involves more, not less discipline, because what is a more challenging renunciation âthan to stop at the brink of orgasm and try to reverse the flow of sexual fluids back up the
central channel?â
Loss of sexual fluids for Buddhist tantrikas is a transgression of vows for both males and
females.
(EXACTLY squirting đ€Łđ€Łđ€Ł ok let me just drain myself for show yeah ok, smh, fun but ehhh think goddess think, you can have a full body orgasm and feel oh so much more MMMMMMHHHHMMMM)
This is clearly stated in Ye shes mtsho rgyalâs biography, where she tells her female disciple, Kalasiddhi, that if seed-essence is actually lost one incurs the karma of slaying a buddha
(Dowman 1996, 156).
However, if ejaculation does occur, during consort practice, various
methods can be employed to recover from this transgression of oneâs tantric vows. Kelsang Gyatso tells his Western disciples that if they accidently ejaculate their drops they should recover them by imagining to taste them (2003, 74), and other teachers likely promote the oral ingestion
of spilled drops as an even more concrete way of re-assimilating the bodhicittas back into the
body.
(Indeed if ya don't trust the cleanliness of the vessel why mess with it?)
Vajroli mudra , originally a hydraulic hatha yoga practice of the Nath siddhis, offers another method to assimilate ejaculated sexual fluids back into the body.
***(For those that do one on one's with me, you know what this is
Vajroli mudra (Sanskrit: à€”à€à„à€°à„à€Čà„ à€źà„à€Šà„à€°à€Ÿ vajrolÄ« mudrÄ), the Vajroli Seal, is a practice in Hatha yoga which requires the yogi to preserve his semen, either by learning not to release it, or if released by drawing it up through his urethra from the vagina of "a woman devoted to the practice of yoga".)
This method works on sexual fluids that were lost by accident, but also may become practiced with such proficiency that drops are released intentionally. Vajroli mudra requires the genitals to act as a vacuum to suck up the double emission ejaculated.
In Buddhism, practitioners of sexual yogas are envisioned to be able to suck up blended bodhicittas as natural as ducks drink water
(Dowman 1996, 249-250).
This mudra , when performed by a male, reverses the normal order
of sexual reception, making the man the possessor of both powerful sexual fluids that would normally be received by the female sexual partner.133
While the most well-known descriptions of vajroli mudra are from the Siva Samhita and the Hathayoga Pradipika, references to this practice are also found in Buddhism.
Viravajra interprets the Cakrasamvara Tantraâs mention of âdrinkingâ the flower water of uterine blood and semen âinto the aperture of the central channel (avadhuti)â to mean that the
sexual fluids should to reabsorbed âvia reverse urethral suctionâ.
Viravajra states further that if during the great worship of the consort the seminal essence goes to the joy of
cessation (ejaculation), âthen in the state of concentration one lays down mantra, i.e. reverses
[the flow of seminal essence]â.
Although Ye shes mtsho rgyalâs advocates that females should control their sexual drops, it is difficult to know to what extent women would have been expected to maintain control during ritual intercourse. Tantric texts are written almost exclusively under the assumption that it is the male practitioner who is seeking to control of his subtle anatomical system, to attain the ultimate siddhi of awakening. For men, orgasm and ejaculation are inseparable, but for women ejaculation of vaginal fluid does not have as direct a connection to orgasm. Furthermore, because orgasm is a less public experience for women it is more difficult to set boundaries
around correct sexual behaviour in ritual. Womenâs biology masks the expectations for womenâs bodies in spiritually charged performative contexts. If female consorts were not expected to retain the same degree of agency which is required to prevent ejaculation or orgasm, this would
allow a more full penetration of the identity of the deity into their body and manifest in a more
obviously possessed performance.
Both partners should enter into a state of trance during ritual intercourse. Although the term mudra usually means seal or consort it can also refer to the possessed state which mudras can induce for both partners. For instance, the eyes of Bhairavaâs consort âare full of wonder
because like him she is immersed in the Bhairava trance (bhairavamudra)â.
This quotation implies that both tantric partners, following the manner of the deities they emulate, are expected to enter a state of possession. Both Abinavagupta and his prolific student Kremaraja describe mudra as âboth an instrument of avesa and a state of possession itselfâ
(Smith 376).
For them, mudra is both a vehicle for the absorption of the individual
consciousness into a possessed (avesa) state, and the state that the individual body absorbs into
itself.
Females, in the form of mudras, are essential for the performance of sexual yogas.
Whether physically or mentally invoked, female energy must be present for the psycho-physical components of the yoginâs subtle body to become sealed with the intention of achieving awakening. Yet, no sexual rituals can be performed without first receiving initiation from oneâs
guru and in this rite also womenâs power is essential to allow the spiritual energy to penetrate the neophyteâs body, so that he can later learn to bind it.
Secret sex, wise women: the second and third consecrations
In Highest Yoga tantric traditions there are four levels of consecration given after the initiate enters the mandala in which the empowerment will be held. These four are the vase consecration (kalasabhireka), the secret consecration (guhyabhireka), the wisdom-knowledge
consecration (prajñajñanabhireka) and the fourth consecration (caturth-abhireka). The secret consecration and wisdom-knowledge consecration are the most sexually explicit, and for this reason are considered to be the lease âBuddhist,â and are often given the most minimal description in texts.
However, abhireka, whether overtly involving sexual performance or
fluids, has sexual connotations, because it comes from the root sic which means ââto pour out, sprinkle, soak,â and, by extension, âimpregnateâ.
Sadhana practice of sexual yogas is a way of reliving the experience of initiation, of being reborn as a buddha through your own power daily.
The periods of the initiation when possession occurs in Newar consecration, expressed by the men as dance, and through the women as shaking, show the dual but inseparable performance that men and women undergo in tantric rites. While the sexual symbolism is still maintained, the
modern consecration rites of Newar Buddhists express the transformation of spngara rasa into samarasa and further into samavesa through the dancing of male performers and the shaking of female ritual participants.
The sixth to ninth days of the initiation ceremony, where the mandala
is established, shown to the ritual participants and the knowledge and secret consecrations are performed, show the gender expectations in sexual charged performative contexts. The women play a complimentary but vital role, expressing their own possession with more sakti, in a more
overt way than is acceptable for their male partners.
Buddhist texts explain that in the secret consecration, a female sexual partner is brought to the guru who then engages in sexual union with her, for the purpose of creating a blend of male and female sexual drops, referred to as red and white bodhicittas (minds of awakening).
The union of the two bodhicittas is ingested by the neophyte, as âbliss-bestowing ambrosia,â which purifies his subtle channels, winds and drops and qualifies him to practice the subtle yogas
of the completion stage.
Through ingestion the disciple inherits âthe genetic
potency of the thought of awakeningâ as semen from his master and partner, thereby becoming a
master himself. Sexuality is experienced by the adept in relation to the deity, so the consequent
ejaculate is considered to have âthe mystical properties of the divinityâ to literally be âthe seed of
divinity,â which allows the neophyte to be reborn into the buddha family of the deity.
The Cakrasamvara Tantra clearly states that the secret consecration occurs in sexual union, the âdeityâs place of the lotus,â and that it is bestowed by the rubbing of the vajra and lotus
(Gray 112).
Mantras are recited over the blindfolded neophyte, and after the neophyte has tasted the bodhicitta, he should be unveiled and shown the mandala, the external womanâs vagina. In Newar ritual an external karma mudra is not used as the site for secret consecration, although the sexual symbolism and gendered roles are maintained; instead of sexual intercourse the men dance and their women shake.
The Newar rite of âheroic conductâ (viryacarya), performed on the seventh day of the initiation, parallels the sexual symbolism of the secret consecration. The order, however, is somewhat divergent; the neophyte is unblindfolded, given the ampta (nectar) to taste and shown
the mandala. The day before viryacarya, the mandala is established (mandalapratirtha) and
male priests dance. The candidates cannot view this private performance so wait in an outer
room.
Before they can enter the main room all neophytes, married or not, are paired off as couples. This prerequisite pairing together of male and females shows the clear sexual connection which is present in the rite. The next day, in pairs, they are permitted to enter, blindfolded, while the main guru again dances. After being shown Cakrasamvaraâs mandala they consume the tantric fivefold nectar (pañcampta) which is likely
to cause many of the women candidates to shake âpossessed by the goddessâ.
Despite this pervasive state of possession, it is only the women who show this possession by shaking. The rasa which is tasted during this rite: samarasa, is explained to the neophytes; they are told there is no duality, no you or me, no purity or impurity.
During the rite of âheroic conductâ the tantric bodies of the advanced ritual practitioners
are penetrated by the deity, shown as dancing and shaking, instead of sexual union. The guru
and his wife dance as Cakrasamvara and Vajravarahi, meaning that this performance is a form of
possession. Although dancing and shaking are the means by which the masters of the ceremony
attain the state of possession, for the neophyteâs possession occurs by an act of mutual tasting.
Instead of drinking the double ejaculate from each otherâs pudendas, as would occur if literal sex
was performed, all participants drink the pañcampta from their own and each otherâs skull-bowls.
This act of tasting the nondual nectar causes the neophytes to be possessed by Cakrasamvara and
Vajravarahi, just as the guru and his wife have already attained through dance performance. The
means by which samarasa can be tasted, and samavesa experienced, seems to vary on the ritual
proficiency of the devotees.
During the wisdom-knowledge consecration, under the guruâs guidance, the neophyte in
turn engages with the female partner in ritual union.145
This consecration further prepares the
neophyte for the completion stage practices that he will engage in during sadhana practice.
Consecration is given before the practitioner can begin to undergo consort practice, therefore,
abhireka is the practitionerâs first encounter with sexual practice, whether performed physically
or mentally. Because the completion stage practice of sexual union is the focus of the third
consecration it is often a euphemism for completion stage practices, especially those involving
sex (Gyatso 1998, 191).
In Newar ritual, the sexual meaning of the knowledge consecration (jñanabhireka) is
maintained, although consort practice is not performed overtly. For this rite, the unmarried
candidates, although ritually paired up, have to leave. This is most likely because the sakti has
not been transferred from the woman to the man if they are not sexual active together. Once they
are gone, the âcouples sit side by side and lean together so that their heads are touchingâ (Gellner
277). They are covered and the manâs right hand is placed in the womanâs left hand. Sexual
union is implied in the symbolically blanketed sexual interaction by the contact of hand holding and the joining of the tops of their bodies under cover. They sit like this while a tantric song is
sung, and then it is explained to them that a couple being together, is the dharma of
householders, termed Sahajayana, understood to mean âthe way of innate blissâ (Gellner 277).146
Sahajayana here seems to be a contraction of sahajanadayana, the purified erotic bliss of spngara
refined into the nondual path of samarasa. Although sexual union is not performed here,
teachings on bliss are given to the couple.147
Although the extent to which the secret and knowledge consecrations can be reinterpreted
is infinite, the erotic sexuality fueling these empowerments cannot be completely hidden.
Whether the nectar shared by the couples in tantric initiation is blood and semen, or alcohol, the
taste that they are sharing is samarasa. This sentiment is conveyed to the other ritual
participants through performance; through the power of the presence of his wife, the preceptor
dances, possessed by the deity, and she herself joins him in this possession, through shaking or
dancing along with him. The study of ritual dance as a substitute for what seems to have
originally been sexual yogas, does not imply tantric dance is a watered down performance of an
original, purer expression of tantric ritual, but that it is a development within a dynamic and
changing ritual culture, which displays gendered expectations, likely similar to their original
Indian context, in different ways.
Degrees of sakti: he dances, she shakes
Examining the degree of agency possessed by ritual participants is essential to
understanding the gendered distinctions the dual performances of samarasa in consort practice, and the joining of the tops of their bodies under cover. They sit like this while a tantric song is
sung, and then it is explained to them that a couple being together, is the dharma of
householders, termed Sahajayana, understood to mean âthe way of innate blissâ (Gellner 277).146
Sahajayana here seems to be a contraction of sahajanadayana, the purified erotic bliss of spngara
refined into the nondual path of samarasa. Although sexual union is not performed here,
teachings on bliss are given to the couple.147
while the devotees are in a state of samavesa. James Laidlaw and Caroline Humphrey note that
ritual participants are never completely in charge of their actions, the intentionality of ritual
action is displaced so that âparticipants both are and are not the authors of their ritual actionsâ
(Diemberger 294).148
This is described in Abhinavaguptaâs Tantraloka:
â[w]here [a practitioner] was required to do anything during the ritual he was to act in a trance,
impelled not by his own will but the power of the deity (rudrasakti)
149 possessing his limbs; and
when the officiant united the initiandâs soul with the deity (yojanika) this state of possession
(avesa) was to manifest itself in ecstasy, convulsions, swooning and the like, the officiant reading
these as evidence of how intense a Descent of Power (saktipata) was taking placeâ (Sanderson
1995, 88-89).150
Abhinavagupta not only relates sakti to avesa, he, as previously stated, defines avesa as the
submerging of the individual identity with the inseparable male (Sambhu) and female Sakti
beings (Smith 372).151
It is not the case that male sadhakas remain in total control while their female partners lose all agency, but that their rituals actions are expected to fall within different areas of a spectrum of possession, dancing showing more agency and shaking displaying less. While for both practitioners of consort practice some loss of agency is expected to show that they are no
longer just themselves, but a divine version of themselves, Gellner found that while controlled possession by a deity is permitted for men, it is required of women.
In most (if not all) societies, women experience a lesser degree of agency over both their own bodies and identities, as do men. This means that their bodies are more permeable, and ripe for possession. The spiritual world aligns with cultural understandings of body and environment; just as women are physically penetrated during sex, so too are they more deeply penetrated during the state of samavesa aroused in consort practice.
There is a range of views on degrees of agency and power put forward in the scholarship on possession in South Asia, and womenâs possessions in particular. Frederick M. Smith has maintained the indigenous term sakti in his study of possession, tantra and aesthetics in South Asia, but other scholars, such as Mary Keller, have sought to create new terms to define
womenâs unique power as conductors of penetrability, such as Kellerâs âinstrumental agency,â a modified form of Catherine Bellâs symbolic agency in ritual (Keller 65). My study draws on material from Fredrick M. Smith, David Gordon White and Gavin D. Floodâs studies of possession in South Asia, to understand the possessed performance that Buddhist men and
woman undergo to varying degrees while divinely penetrated in erotic rituals. The texts which best illuminate this are the eighth century Sarvabuddhasamayogadakinijalasamvara and the tenth
century Tantraloka.
The Sanskrit word sakti continues to be used in Nepal to denote inherent feminine power.
Smith defines sakti as âthe conductor of womenâs permeability or penetrability or, more strongly, that it is a uniquely gendered substance that cultivates womenâs power and (among other things) contributes to the capacity for possessionâ. Although sakti is a powerful force, its power can be interpreted as a power to submit (it is the ONE who chooses, chooses to submit who has the real power, as Margaret Egnor notes (in agreement with Mary E. Hancock), women have more sakti.
đ„However, men can also possess sakti, and therefore also the power to submit to the deity and become possessed, through receiving this power from engaging in sexual intercourse with women. (Note: receiving not draining or any taking because then that be ego and not receiving is it?)
Susan Starr Serad argues that possession is a normal experience for both men and women to undergo. Serad does not conclude that there is something distinct (or abnormal) about women, as in the indigenous understanding of sakti, that makes their bodies more permeable to
possessed states, but instead puts forward the possibility that male socialization âprevents most men from developing the ability to embrace the enriching, exciting, normal experience of spirit
possessionâ.
Smith agrees with Serad that men are not necessarily less capable of
becoming possessed as women; although there are more anthropological findings of women becoming possessed in India, this does not definitively indicate that men are less permeable to possession, that instead their equal level of permeability is expressed in different configurations
(xxvii), such as dance performance. If performance of possession is extending beyond fits of shaking to dance, than sakti, the form of power that is essential for possession, can be seen as a commodity that is transferred from women to men, just as men transfer their sexual organs and
fluids to women.
đŻTantric practice is not an overt âtake-overâ possession by the deity, with no regards for the tantrikaâs agency or identity.
Tantric bodily and mental assumption of divine identity is achieved through the practitioners actively making themselves permeable to nondual union with buddhas, through properly cultivating a samayasattva and inviting the jñanasattva to enter into it. The agency that is formed during tantric possession is a negotiation of the devoteeâs own power as the samayasattva, combined with the deityâs power as the jñanasattva.
Possession is not a spontaneous ecstatic event, but a highly constructed and codified conceptual performance. J. R. Freeman notes that possession is âsocially stipulated and regulated at the level of organisation and recruitment, and ritually effected through practiced,
performative enactmentâ.
Ritual possessions in South Asia are just as formalized as
sacred dances. It is not the case that in ritual settings where men dance and women shake that they are performing under opposing expectations; they both retain enough agency to perform
according to ritualized regulations.
Some practitioners of tantric dance, carya nptya, argue that in earlier times there was no codified system of gestures, body stances, or choreography, that practitioners were free to communicate the meaning of the songs. Although this certainly fits with the siddha culture that tantric song and dance developed in, dances in Tibetan and Newar contexts are now highly structured and choreographed, just as the siddha songs that they express have also been codified and in the process lost much of their original, spontaneous character.
Tibetan sources attribute the origins of some of their dances to the experiences of masters in meditation, who have viewed the dances of their guru with dakinis.
In accordance with this, changes in dances do not occur due to conventional artistic experimentation or improvisation, but only occur if given in visionary experiences to respected lamas (Cantwell). Dancers, within
the modern contexts of South Asian tantric Buddhism, must perform the dances of the deities that they embody according to performative structure of the meditative experiences of great masters, so in this regard they are not able to display their personal religious experience, nor lose
personal control to the point that they cannot fulfil the choreography of the dance.
However, it is their own experience of the deity within them, expressed as the aesthetic sentiment of bhava, that allows the dancers and the audience to experience the rasa of samarasa.
The naturally sensual movements of the body during many forms of dances often causes the bhava of rati (love) to be formed by the dancer, leading to the arousal of spngara rasa for the audience. The arousing state of spngara rasa is most prominent when carya nptya culminates in yab yum posturing.
In these performances, the performerâs embodiment of the deity serves to
convey the bhava of rati (love), which leads to the experience of spngara rasa by his audience in a controlled, systematic way. Within the space of the ritual this erotic sentiment can further be transformed into samarasa. If samarasa is experienced by an advanced devotee, the samavesa
state of dance may occur. In this case the ritual culminates with a divinely imbued dance performance which expresses samarasa, and parallels the dance begun with the bhava of rati that was an initial vehicle towards this state. Dance is considered to be a vital part of the monastic curriculum in Tibet and Nepal.
[In my practice we do mandala dancing]
âChams âdanceâ in Tibet is traced back to Indian master Padmasambhava.
For Newar Buddhists, dance is a more acceptable form of possession than overt shaking for high status males. Many ritual dances are often performed exclusively by male Vajracaryas in Nepal and only celibate men in Tibet (Ahmed).
It is claimed that the Vajrayana priests in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal have been practicing carya nptya, esoteric dance, in their sadhana practice, for over a thousand years.
While towards the end of the first millennium C.E., carya nptya was performed among the Vajrayana Buddhists in Bengal, and
possibly other parts of South Asia, today it is only observable in Nepal. Caryanptya is performed in almost all the monasteries of the Kathmandu Valley. Caryanptya is so essential for many tantric rituals, including empowerments, that if a dance is not performed, the ritual is not believed to be effective.
It is challenging to decipher whether Buddhist dance, endowed with rasa, leads to possession or expresses avesa. Nagabodhiâs autocommentary on Vajrabhairava abhireka gives dance as one of the âsigns of entranceâ of the deity, whereas the Sarvabuddhasamayogadakinijalasamvara
claims that dance endowment with rasa is the vehicle towards âall avesa
statesâ. Additionally, Gray argues that the Sarvabuddhasamayogadakinijalasamvara defines avesa not as a separate state achieved through a
form of dance, but a dance itself. Gray argues that in this Tibetan text, âbebs pa, their translation of avesa, âdoes not refer to spirit possession per se, but rather the employment of dance to invoke the deity, with whom the practitioner seeks some sort of union in order to achieve the magical
siddhis which the deity can bestowâ. The âsome sort of unionâ which Gray refers to is vague; possession itself can be referred to as a kind of union, and therefore his definition of avesa as a dance which invokes a dance and leads to a state of union, does not convincingly negate avesa and dance as separate states, although I agree with him that these states are often
intimately connected.
While it is difficult to conclude which comes first, avesa or carya nptya, what can be concluded is that within current Tibetan and Nepali contexts, dance is a form of moving meditation that allows the dancer to move closer to the represented deity during the performance.
Jamyang Norbu, essentalizes Tibetan dance, âchams, as a âmeditation in movement,â where the dancer, aided by the chanting, costumes and music, conceives himself as the deity he
is representing.
The Tengpoche Rinpoche explains that performing different dances makes the deities closer to the dancer and eventually unite with him.
đŻ Therefore, the aim of all tantric rites: âto have power; liberation through identification with the deity", is found in carya nptya, where during the
dance performance the dancer focuses on visualizing the deity, in order to become one with the god. Madhu Khannaâs study of the Tibetan Hemis festival found that âthere is no concept of a dancer as a person, the dancer is an empowered deity in the body of the humanâ. The dancer is considered to be the deity, while in the performative state of dance which
has induced possession.
Sexual union can be viewed a kind of divine dance, the mahamudra.
Pause
Mudra technique
*** Maha: The word âMahaâ has a Sanskrit origin. It means âGreat.â
Mudra: The word âMudraâ represents âa postural gesture or Kaya Mudra.â
Hence, this Mudra is also known as âThe Great Gestureâ or âThe Great Seal.â
How to Do Maha Mudra?
This Mudra is one of the Kaya Mudras or Postural Mudras, which means it involves assuming bodily Postures.
You can practice it by first sitting into any comfortable posture, then slowly starting to extend both of your legs. Bring them close to each other while maintaining a small gap.
Now, slowly bend one of your legs and bring it close to the perineum so that one of your heels should be slightly touching the perineum.
Take a deep breath in and bring your hands to your knees.
Then, with an Antar Kumbhak (Internal breath retention), apply Moola Bandha (or the Perineum Lock)
Followed by the Abdominal Lock and then finally, the Chin Lock.
You may also assume Nasikagra Drishti (That is, gaze between your eyes brows, the third eye Chakra).
Now, bend forward and try to catch the big toe of the extended leg with your fingers.
Retain the breath for a comfortable period without getting any sense of discomfort. Discontinue the practice when you can no longer hold your breath.
Exhale slowly and relax your stomach and the entire body. Breathe slowly and gently
Make sure to practice it with the opposite leg as well.
Cont'd
Khenpo Konchog Gyaltsen states that to know mahamudra âis to know the true nature of all phenomena, and to actualize it is to become a buddhaâ.
Vajravarahi herself is often envisioned as a dancer. In Chodronâs biography she is describes as âVajravarahi, the female Buddha, [who] took
a human body and enjoyed the magic dance of Mahamudra in this worldâ.
Chodronâs biography claims that if tantric practice is done completely âthe vajra dance (rdo rje gar) is indispensableâ. When Chodron is called Vajravilasini, she is said to perform and enjoy the multiple dance.
Sabaraâs Vajravilasini dances on the penis of her consort Padmanartesvara, whose own name means âLord of the Dance in the Lotusâ. Further, the Cakrasamvara Tantra begins chapter forty-two with: âThen
the hero, having drunk the âflower waterâ (kusumodaka) should recollect this mantra. The adept should thus dance with his consortâ.
The connection between dance performance and sex is clearly drawn in Ahmedâs study.
He plainly states that a dance between a non-celibate male and his female partner may culminate in yab yum, which Ahmed describes as âsexo-yogic union,â but states further that this is done âunder very controlled meditative conditions, so that lust is directly confronted, and crushed, by
transmuting its energy into a form of wisdomâ.
*** Yab-yum (Tibetan: àœĄàœàŒàœĄàœŽàœàŒ literally, "father-mother") is a common symbol in the Tibetan Buddhist art of India, Bhutan, Nepal, and Tibet. It represents the primordial union of wisdom and compassion, depicted as a male deity in union with his female consort through the similar ideas of interpenetration or "coalescence" (Tibetan: àœàœŽàœàŒàœ àœàœŽàœ Wylie: zung-'jug; Sanskrit: yuganaddha), using the concept of Indra's net to illustrate this.[1]
Heruka in Yab-Yum form. On display at Gangaramaya Temple museum
Tibetan book cover depicting PrajñÄpÄramitÄ Devi and MañjuĆrÄ« in yab yum, late 13th centuryThe male figure represents compassion and skillful means, while the female partner represents insight. In yab-yum the female is seated on the male's lap. There is a rare presentation of a similar figure but reversed, with the male sitting on the female's lap, called yum-yab.
The transcendental aesthetic experience that was established during the dance must be maintained during yab yum, if it is done. The taste of samarasa must not be lost or permitted to revert back to the more base flavour of spngara rasa, during either performance.
More than any other sentiment, dance is linked to spngara rasa. Because lust negates the erotic experience of spngara rasa, the viewer must not directly lust for the dancer, or the performative efficacy of the ritual will fail. If the audience fails to comprehend spngara rasa in the dance the erotic becomes embodied at a personal level.
Dance and yogic-sexual ritual union both face the same challenges of
attachment destroying the appropriate aesthetic experience, turning samarasa back to spngara.
This is often referenced in tantric Buddhism, that desire, if not properly channelled, can cause further delusion instead of awakening.
The performances of dance and shaking are intimately linked through their mirrored gendered roles. It is observable in the context of Newar tantric rituals that often when the male agent performs, divinely imbued but remaining more in control than not, the female protagonist
experiences divinity through a loss of control and agency, shown in her tremors. While the possessed states of dance and shaking are both performative actions, the woman assumes a more
passive role, as we can assume she would be expected to in ritual contexts with more overt sexual practices.
Conclusion
Although the maintenance of the taste of samarasa is sought in tantric rituals through the transcendence of spngara rasa the ways that this flavour is expressed is not nondual in any straightforward sense. There are divergent expectations of how practitioners should display their
possessed state of the Buddhaâs presence in their own body. Dance, as an ecstatic, but highly controlled ritual expression is suited to males in Newar Buddhism, and overt possession in the form of shaking is desirable in a ritual context for their wives. Within the highly sexualized symbolic context of Newar Cakrasamvara and Vajravarahi initiation it can be seen that while the flavour of nonduality is sought by all ritual participants it is expressed differently for men and women. This pattern reflects the expectations of sexual yogas, where nonduality is created
through bringing together the distinctly dual gendered behaviour of dancing and shaking, which simultaneously and divergently expresses a nondual state. Through dual performances of duality, men and women can create a flavour of nonduality. In this way duality is utilized for the purpose of its own transcendence into samarasa.
The coming together of Vajravilasini and Cakrasamvara, a female and a male buddha, in nondual union, is not the same as the joining of a male and a female human during sexual intercourse. Buddhahood transcends gender, it is neither male nor female; it is only an upaya (a skillful means) that buddhas appear male or female. Therefore, yab yum figures do not express
the joining of two dual opposites, but the reinforced presence of two nondual beings. However, when unawakened beings enter into states of trance which mimic the roles of yab yum figures they represent two polar dualities coming together to form one nondual union, and therefore act
in exaggerated gendered roles, with women highly passive and men extremely active. Tantrikas, not separately but through their union, mimic the state that the father and mother buddhas possess whether together or separate.
Whereas single humans cannot express samarasa on their own, but only through relation to each other, through possession with Vajravilasini, they can become the nondual state that she
herself is always, whether in union with Cakrasamvara or as a solitary heroine. Vajravilasini may appear to be part of a dual pair, but she unlike humans, is part of a nondual pair. The power of her union with Cakrasamvara lies not in the union of two dual entities, but in the merging of
two beings that together or separate embody nonduality.
The imaging of two dual figures in nondual union provides a powerful means of both comprehending and ritually expressing samarasa. Unlike other metaphors of nonduality which involve dissolution of identity, such as when salt dissolves into water, sexual union allows the
original signs of duality, male and female, to be visible, while simultaneously being overwhelmed by the more powerful sign of nonduality. The yab yum symbolism portrays the capacity to maintain oneâs original dualistic form, while realizing and therefore becoming a nondual being, just as one retains oneâs human form while in the state of samavesa, but becomes
someone so much more divine: a buddha.
Conclusion
Finishing together: thoughts on nondual union
Good sirs, you have all spoken well. Nevertheless, all your explanations are themselves dualistic.
To know no one teaching, to express nothing, to say nothing, to explain nothing, to announce
nothing, to indicate nothing, and to designate nothing â that is the entrance into nonduality.
SaddharmapuáčážarÄ«ka SĆ«tra (Prebish and Keown 102-103)
Ritual sexual union provides a context in which dual ideas of pure and impure, male and female, divine and human, with correct attitude and guidance, can be shattered.
Consort practice brings together male and female bodies to create a nondual symbol of complete union.
Tantric rites aim at a direct aesthetic understanding of nonduality, that everything should be experienced as the same taste, samarasa. The various aesthetic representations, including dance and poetry, employed during ritual, are meant to create a world in line with the nondual tastes of
the deity who is invited to share the place of the practitioner through ritual possession. During tantric ritual, devotees are possessed by both the sentiment of samarasa and the presence of the Buddha.
Although samarasa, nonduality, is the aesthetic taste of consort practice, the arousing circumstances by which practitionersâ bodies come together in ritual union creates a challenge that the nondual flavour of samarasa may convert back to the erotic taste of spngara. Siddha poets, including Lakrminkara, understood this challenge and purposely worked with spngara
rasa instead of against it. The language which Lakrminkara employs to describe Vajravilasini in union with Cakrasamvara is highly erotic, but it does not have only a sexual meaning but points towards the ultimate attainment of awakening: a vajra means both penis and the tantric path, a padma (lotus) is both the vagina that buddhas enter and the form from which they take rebirth, and the moon is both the semen in the body and the a symbol of the possibility of leaving this world behind. This coded, double language, sandhabhara, exemplifies the attitude of the wild, antinomian Buddhist poets towards the necessity of transforming oneâs views, while actively engaging in the world, as beings who have transcended the desire to fit into society, but remains in this world to actively show the way out of samsara.
Buddhist siddhas engaged in socially transgressive behavior with the goal of bringing all their actions onto the Buddhist path. Therefore, sexual union is performed not to maintain the worldly mood of spngara rasa, but go to the higher aesthetic of samarasa. Buddhists seek in
ritual to transmute all nine conventional rasas into samarasa, but especially utilize spngara because the erotic sentiment is considered to be the first, most primary, universal taste.
The sentiment of spngara rasa is developed through the varying levels of visual and physical contact experienced by the ritual practitioners. Through these four stages of contact,
eye-contact, smiles, bodily-contact and sexual embrace, spngara rasa is formed. The contact between the man and the women is aesthetically powerful, it creates the erotic sentiment that can
be transformed into samarasa, but their contact also results in a powerful transference of energy.
During the four states of contact, specifically the last, when padma and vajra merge together,
sakti, the female capacity to be receptive to anotherâs agency, is shared by the women and transferred to the man.
This contact results in a blurring of not only the lines of the gendered
identities, between the sexual partners, but also between the divine and human identities of the devotee and the divine.
Through this descent of sakti (saktipata) a mutual sharing occurs between the human and divine bodies, a symbiotic âshared blessingâ (San. sabhagah), where the human samayasattva(pledge being) merges with the deityâs jñanasattva (wisdom body). Through this samavesa,
mutual co-penetration, the divinity becomes embodied and the human becomes divine through possession. The depth that the possession penetrates the devotee is dependent on the ability of
the tantrika to dissolve the boundaries of the gendered self.
Whereas the performance of poetry shows the nondual goal of tantric practice, the possessed performances of shaking and dance show that this aesthetic goal has been achieved.
Women in Newar ritual show that they are the goddess Vajravarahi through shaking, and men show that they are her partner Cakrasamvara through their performances of carya nptya, highly
codified esoteric dance. Their simultaneous gendered performances both express the sentiment of samarasa, not as a human might through poetry, but how a deity would through bodily performance. The achievement of this entering of the deity is conveyed in divergent gendered performances by the male and female practitioner, returning some of the duality into nonduality,
showing that samarasa encompasses everything, even duality itself.
Aesthetic experience allows humans to identity with emotive contexts beyond the boundaries of themselves, creating an atmosphere where conceptions of self and other disintegrate. Conceptions of self as dual and singular must be modified in order for samarasa to be experienced, and must be dissolved for the performative state of samavesa. This dissolution of duality can be further enhanced within ritual settings where the devoteeâs aim is not only to love the deity, as in the context of bhakti, but to become his or her beloved, in order to never be separated from them. It is only through fully tasting samarasa that the state of nonduality beyond differentiation can be attained.
Vajravilasini and Cakrasamvara, in sexual union, portray the human capacity to merge with another being, thus losing oneâs own limited, singular, dualistic identity, in favor of a nondual realization of self. Although all buddhas are beyond dualities, and therefore beyond
gender, tantric deities appear gendered and sexual active to show that humans are capable of acting in a nondual fashion during sexual intercourse. The goal of tantric practice is to fully taste
samarasa, blur the lines between your unawakened and awakened self during ritual and then bring the flavour of nonduality into all oneâs experiences and actions, beginning with ritual performance. In tantra, buddhas act like they are dualistic, male and female, and humans act as
if they are already awakened buddhas. However, it is not the case that any of the participants are acting inauthentically, that they are faking their aesthetic or bodily states of experience, rather they have expanding their sense of self to encompass all things and all tastes.
Anna Katrine Samuelson
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