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The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Part I – 7.
Kalachakra: The inner processes
© Victor & Victoria
Trimondi
7. KALACHAKRA: THE INNER PROCESSES
So far we have only described what
takes place in the external world of the rituals.
But the perceivable tantric stage has its correspondences
in the “inside” of the yogi, that is, in his consciousness
and what is called his mystic body. We now wish
to examine this “internal theater” more closely.
It runs in parallel to the external events.
An anatomically trained person
from the twenty-first century requires a godly
portion of tolerance to gain a familiarity with
the concepts of tantric physiology, then for the
tantras the body consists of a network of numerous
larger or smaller channels through which the life
energies flow. These are also known as “veins”
or “rivers” (nadi, rtsa). This dynamic
body structure is no discovery of Vajrayana, rather it was adopted
from pre-Buddhist times. For example, we can already
find it in the Upanishads
(ninth century B.C.E.).
Three main channels are considered
to be the central axis within the subtle-physical
system of a person; these run from the lower spine
to the head. They are, like everything in the
tantras, assigned a gender. The left channel is
called lalana
(or ida, kyangma, da-wa), is masculine, its
symbol is the moon and its element water. The
right, “feminine” channel with the name pingala (or roma, nyi-ama) is linked to
fire and the sun, since both are also seen as
feminine in the Buddhist tantras. We can provisionally
describe the central channel (avadhuti
or susumna, ooma, ) as being androgynous.
It represents among other things the element of
space. All of the life energies are moved through
the channels with the help of winds — by which
the Tantric means various forms of breathing.
In a simplified depiction (such
as is to be found in most commentaries), the left,
masculine channel (lalana)
is filled with white, watery semen, the right-hand,
feminine channel (rasana) with red, fiery menstrual
blood. The main channel in the middle, in contrast,
is originally empty. Via sacred, in part extremely
painful, techniques the yogi succeeds in pressing
the substances from both side channels into the
avadhuti
, the main channel. The mixture (sukra) thus created now flows
through his entire body as enlightenment energy
body and transforms him into an androgynous “diamond
being”, who unites within himself the primary
energies of the masculine and the feminine.
The
three inner channels (see
footnote 1)
All three channels pass through
five energy centers which are to be found in the
body of the yogi, which are known as chakras (wheels) or “lotus
circles”. In Tibetan Buddhism, the count begins
with the navel chakra and leads via the heart,
throat, and forehead chakras to the highest thousandfold
lotus at the crown of the skull. Of great importance
for the tantric initiation is the equation of
the individual “energy wheels” with the five elements:
navel = earth; heart = water; throat = fire; forehead
= air (wind); highest lotus (crown of skull) =
space (ether). Likewise, the chakras are apportioned
to the various senses and sense objects. In addition
to this there are numerous further assignments
of the lotus centers (chakra), as long as these
can be divided into groups of five: the five “blisses”
similarly count among these, likewise the five
meditation Buddhas with their wisdom consorts,
and the five directions.
Fine energy channels extend from
the “wheels” and, like the physiological nervous
system, branch through the entire human body.
The tantras describe an impressive total of 72,000
fine channels, which together with the lotus centers
and the three main channels form the “subtle”
body of the yogi. In an “ordinary mortal” this
network is blocked. The energies cannot flow freely,
the chakras are “dead”, the “wheels” are motionless,
the perception of spiritual phenomena limited.
One also speaks of a “knotting”.
Now it is the first task of the
yogi to untie these knots in himself or in his
pupil, to free and to clean the blocked channels
in all directions so as to fill the whole body
with divine powers. The untying of the “knots”
is achieved in the Guhyasamaja
Tantra through the blocking off of the two
side channels (lalana and pingala), in which the energies
divided according to their sexual features normally
flow up and down, and the introduction of the
masculine and feminine substances into the avadhuti (the middle channel)
(Dasgupta, 1974, p. 155). In the original Kalachakra texts (see footnote)
the anatomy of the channels is much more complicated.
[1]
The tantric dramaturgy is thus
played out between three protagonists within the
yogi — the masculine, the feminine, and the androgynous
principle. Correspondingly, the three main energy
channels reflect the tantric sexual pattern with
the lalana as the man, the pingala as the woman, and
the avadhuti
as the androgyne. The lotus centers (chakras) are the individual
stage sets in which the plot unfolds around the
relationship between this trinity. Thus, if the
microcosmic, “inner” world of events of the tantra
master is supposed to square with the external,
already described ritual actions, then we must
rediscover the climaxes of the external performance
in his “internal” one: for example, the tantric
female sacrifice, the absorption of gynergy, the creation of androgyny,
the destruction and the resurrection of all body
parts, and so forth. Let us thus inspect these
“internal” procedures more closely.
The Candali
The Kalachakra Tantra displays
many parallels with the Hindu Kundalini yoga. Both secret
doctrines require that the yogi’s energy body,
that is, his mysto-magical channels and chakras,
be destroyed through a self-initiated internal
fire. The alchemic law of solve et coagole ("dissolve
and rebuild”) is likewise a maxim here. We also
know of such phoenix-from-the-ashes scenarios
among the occidental mystics. For our study it
is, however, of especial interest that this “inner
fire” carries the name of a woman in the Time
Tantra. The candali — as it is called
— refers firstly to a girl from the lowest caste,
but the Sanskrit word also etymologically bears
the meaning of ‘fierce woman’ (Cozort, 1986, p.
71). The Tibetans translate “candali” as ‘the hot one’
(Tum-mo)
and take this to mean a fiery source of power
in the body of a tantra adept.
The candali thus reveals itself
to be the Buddhist sister of the Hindu fire-snake
(kundalini), which likewise
lies dormant in the lowest chakra of a yogi and
leaps up in flames once it is unchained. But in
Buddhism the destructive aspect of the inner “fire
woman” is far more emphasized than her creative
side. It is true that the Hindu kundalini is also destructive,
but she is also most highly venerated as the creative
principle (shakti):
“She is a world mother, who is eternally pregnant
with the world. ... The world woman and Kundalini
are the macrocosmic and microcosmic aspects of
the same greatness: Shakti,
who god-like weaves and bears all forms” (Zimmer,
1973, p. 146).
With regard to the bodily techniques
which are needed to arouse the kundalini, these
vary between the cultural traditions. The Buddhist
yogi, for example, unleashes the inner fire in
the navel and not between the anus and the root
of the penis like his Hindu colleagues. The candali flares up in his belly
and, dancing wildly, ascends the middle energy
channel (avadhuti). One text describes
her as “lightning-fire”, another as the “daughter
of death” (Snellgrove, 1959, p. 49). Then, level
for level, the “hot one” burns out all the adept’s
chakras. The five elements equated with the energy
centers are destroyed in blazing heat. Starting
from below, firstly the earth is burned up in
the region of the navel and transforms itself
into water in the heart chakra. Then the water
is burnt out and disintegrates in fire in the
throat. In the forehead, with the help of the
candali the air consumes the
fire, and at the crown of the skull all the elements
vanish into empty space. At the same time the
five senses and the five sense objects which correspond
to the respective lotus centers are destroyed.
Since a meditation Buddha and his partner inhabit
each chakra, these also succumb to the flames.
The Kalachakra Tantra speaks of
a “dematerialization of the form aggregate” (Cozort,
1986, p. 130).
Lastly the candali devours the entire
old energy body of the adept, including the gods
who, in the microcosmic scheme of things, inhabit
him. We must never forget that the tantric universe
consists of an endless chain of analogies and
homologies and links between all levels of being.
Hence the yogi believes that by staging the destruction
of his imperfect human body he simultaneously
destroys the imperfect world, and that usually
with the best intentions. Thus, Lama Govinda describes
with ecstatic enthusiasm the five stages of this
fascinating micro-macrocosmic apocalypse: “In
the first, the susumna (the middle channel)
with the flame ascending within it is imagined
as a capillary thin as a hair; in the second,
with the thickness of a little finger; in the
third, with the thickness of an arm; in the fourth,
as broad as the whole body: as if the body itself
had become the susumna (avadhuti), a single fiery
vessel. In the fifth stage the unfolding scenario
reaches its climax: the body ceases to exist for
the meditater. The entire world becomes a fiery
susumna,
an endless storm-whipped ocean of fire” (Govinda,
1991, 186).
But what happens to the candali, once she has completed
her pyrotechnical opus? Does she now participate
as an equal partner with the yogi in the creation
of a new universe? No — the opposite is true!
She disappears from the tantric stage, just like
the elements which were destroyed with her help.
Once she has vaporized all the lotus centers (chakras)
up to the roof of the skull, she melts the bodhicitta (male seed) stored
there. This, on account of its “watery” character, possesses
the power to extinguish the “fire woman”. She
is, like the human karma
mudra on the level of visible reality, dismissed
by the yogi.
In the face of this spectacular
volcanic eruption in the inner bodily landscape
of the tantra master we must ask what the magic
means might be which grant him the power to ignite
the candali
and make her serve his purpose. Several tantras
nominate sexual greed, which brings her to the
boil. The Hevajra Tantra speaks of the
“fire of passion” (Farrow and Menon, 1992, p.
xxix). In another text “kamic
fire” is explicitly mentioned (Avalon, 1975, p.
140). The term refers to the Hindu god Kama,
who represents sexual pleasure. Correspondingly,
direct reference is made to the act of love in
a further tantric manual, where it can be read
that “during sexual intercourse the Candali vibrates
a little and great heat arises” (Hopkins, 1982,
p. 177).
The equation of the sexual act
with a fire ritual can be traced to the Vedas, and was later adopted
by Tantric Buddhism. There the woman is referred
to as the “sacrificial fire, her lower portion
as the sacrificial wood, the genital region as
the flame, the penetration as the carbon and the
copulation as the spark” (Bhattacharyya, 1982,
p. 124). From a Vedic viewpoint the world cannot
continue to exist without a fire sacrifice. But
we can also read that “the fire offering comes
from union with the female messengers [dakinis]"
— this from Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Tibetan
Yellow Hat school (Shaw, 1994, p. 254).
In his classic, Yoga and the Geheimlehren Tibets
[Yoga and the Secret Teachings of Tibet],
Evans-Wentz described an especially impressive
scene concerning the “kindling” of the candali. Here the “fire woman”
is set aflame through a meditation upon the sun.
After the master has required of his pupil that
he visualize the three main channels, the chakras,
and the “empty form” of a yogini, the exercise
should continue as follows: “At this point in
the performance you should imagine a sun in the
middle of each palm and the sole of each foot.
Then see these suns placed opposite one other.
Then imagine a sun at the meeting of the three
main psychic nerves [the main channels] at the
lower end of the reproductive organ. Through the
influence upon one another of the suns at your
hands and feet, a flame is kindled. This fire
ignites the sun beneath the navel. ... The whole
body catches fire. Then when breathing out imagine
the whole world to be pervaded by the fire in
its true nature” (Evans-Wentz, 1937, p. 154).
The inner unleashing of the candali
in the body of the yogi is so unique that it raises
many still unanswered questions which we can only
consider step by step in the course of the following
chapter: Why must it be a woman and not a man
who flames up in the belly of the tantra master?
Why is the woman, who is linked with the element
water in most cultures, equated with fire here?
Why is the candali
so aggressive and destructive, so enraged and
wild instead of mild, constructive, and well-balanced?
But above all we must ask ourselves why the adept
needs to use a real girl in order to ignite the
“inner woman” in his own body? Is there perhaps
a connection between the external woman and the
inner woman, the karma mudra and the candali?
We shall only address these questions
briefly here, pointwise as it were, in order to
treat them in more detail in the course of the
text. As we have already said, the origin of the
candali
lies in the Hindu kundalini snake, of which
Heinrich Zimmer says: “The snake embodies the
world- and body-developing life force, it is a
form of the divine world-effecting force [shakti].” (Zimmer, 1973, p.
141). Life, creation, world, power: kundalini or candali are manifestations
of the one and the same energy, and this is seen
in both Hinduism and Buddhism as female. Zimmer
therefore explicitly refers to the mystic snake
as the “world woman” (Zimmer, 1973, p. 146). Corresponding
descriptions of the candali are likewise known.
The Buddhist yogi, whose attitude towards the
world of appearances is extremely hostile, makes
woman and the act of birth responsible for the
terrible burden of life. For him, “world” and
“woman” are synonymous. When, in his imagination,
he burns up a woman within himself, then he is
with this pyromaniacal act of violence symbolically
casting the “world woman” upon the pyre. But this
world likewise includes his old bodily and sensory
aggregates, his psychological moods, and his human
structures of awareness. They all become victims
of the flames. Only once he has destroyed the
existing universe, which suffers under the law
of a woman, in an inferno, can he raise himself
up to be a divine ruler of the universe.
Thus the assignation of the feminine
to the fiery element imputed by Tantrism proves
itself upon closer examination to be a symbolic
manipulation. Everything indicates that in Indian
culture too, woman was and is fundamentally associated
with water and the moon rather than with fire
and the sun as is claimed in the tantras. In non-tantric
Indian cults (Vedic, Vishnuite) the classic assignments
of the sexes have completely retained their validity.
Hence, the ignition of the “fire woman” concerns
an “artificial” experiment which runs contrary
to the cultural norms; what the European alchemists
referred to as the “production of burning water”.
Water — originally feminine — is set on fire by
the masculine potency of the flame and then becomes
destructive. We shall have to show later that
the candali is also to be symbolically
understood as no more than such an ignited water
energy. The water serves in this instance as a
type of fuel and “explodes” as the ignited feminine
principle in the service of androcentric strategies
of destruction. Such a clever idea can only be
derived from the tantric law of inversion which
teaches us that a thing arises from its opposite.
As the Candamaharosana Tantra thus
says, “Women are the supreme fire of transformation”
(Shaw, 1994, p. 39).
If one assumes that the feminine
catches fire against its will in the Kalachakra ritual, then one
can understand why the candali reacts so aggressively
and destructively. Perhaps, once she has flared
up, she instinctively detects that the entire
procedure concerns her systematic destruction?
Perhaps she also has an inkling of the perfidious
intentions of the yogi and like a wild animal
begins to destroy the elementary and sensory aggregates
of her tormentor in the hope of thus exterminating
him and freeing herself? Confronted with her obvious
success in the bodily destruction of the patriarchal
archenemy, she becomes maddened by power, unaware
that she thereby only serves her enemy as a tool.
For precisely what the tantric adept wants is
to attain a state in which he still exists only
as pure consciousness. His first goal is therefore
the complete dematerialization of his human body,
down to the last atom. For this he needs the fiery
rage of the candali, who represents nothing
other than the hate of a goddess incapacitated
by patriarchy.
But it could also be the opposite,
that the candali falls into the grip
of the “consuming fire”, that mystic fire of love
which burns women up when they celebrate the “sacred
wedding” with their god. Christian nuns often
describe the unio mystica with Christ,
their heavenly husband,
with metaphors of fire. In the case of
Theresa of Avila, the flames of love are linked
with an unequivocally sexual symbolism. The words
with which she depicted the divine penetration
of her love have become famous: “I saw Him with
a long lance of gold, and its tip was as if made
of fire, it seemed to me as if he repeatedly thrust
it into my heart and it penetrated to my very
entrails! .... The pain was so great that I had
to groan, and yet the sweetness of this excessive
pain was such that I could not wish to be freed
of it” (quoted by Bataille, 1974, p. 220). A woman,
who completely and totally surrenders herself
to her yogi with her whole being, who opens to
him the love of her entire heart, she too can
burst into flames. Hate and mystic love are both
highly explosive substances.
Regardless of what sets the feminine
on fire, the pyromaniacal drama which is played
out on this inner stage is from start to finish
under the control of the yogi as the “master of
the fire”. He never surrenders this position as
“director”. Two beings are always sacrificed at
the end of the tantric theater: the old energy
body of the vajra masters and the ignited
candali
herself. She is the tragic inner symbol of the
“tantric female sacrifice”, which — as we have
explained above — was in the outside world originally
executed upon a fire altar.
But here too the already often-repeated
warning applies: Woe betide the adept who loses
control over the kundalini or candali. For then she becomes
a “terrible vampire, like an electric shock”,
the “pure potency of death”, which exterminates
him (Evola, 1926, p. 232).
The “drop theory” as an expression
of androgyny
Let us now following the act of
destruction examine the inner act of creation
in the mystic body of the yogi as it is described
in the various tantras, especially the Kalachakra
Tantra. We have already considered the event
where the “fire woman” (candali) reaches the inner
roof of the yogi’s skull and melts the bodhicitta (semen) there.
This latter is symbolically linked with water
and the moon. Its descent is therefore also known
as the “way of the moon”, whilst the ascent of
the candali
goes by the name of the “sun way”. The bodhicitta is also called
bindu, which means ‘point’,
‘nil’, ‘zero’, or ‘drop’. According to the doctrine,
all the forces of pure consciousness are collected
and condensed into this “drop”, in it the “nuclear
energy of the microcosm” is concentrated (Grönbold,
Asiatische
Studien, p. 33).
After the channels and chakras
have been cleansed by the fire of the candali, the bodhicitta can flow down the
avadhuti
(the middle channel) unrestricted. At the same
time this extinguishes the fire set by the “fire
woman”. Since she is assigned the sun and the
“drops of semen” the masculine moon, the lunar
forces now destroy the solar ones. But nevertheless
at the heart of the matter nothing has been changed
through this, since the descent of the “drop”,
even though it involves a reversal of the traditional
symbolic correspondence, is, as always in the
Buddhist tantras, a matter of a victory of the
god over the goddess.
Step by step the semen flows down
the central channel, pausing briefly in the various
lotus centers and producing a feeling of bliss
there, until it comes to rest in the tip of the
aroused penis. The ecstatic sensations which this
progress evokes have been cataloged as “the four
joys”. [2]
This descending joy gradually increases
and culminates at the end in an indescribable
pleasure: “millions upon millions of times more
than the normal emission [of semen]" (Naropa,
1994, p. 74). In the Kalachakra Tantra the fixation
of orgiastic pleasure which can be attributed
to the retention of semen is termed the “unspilled
joy” or the “highest immovable” (Naropa, 1994,
p. 304, 351).
This “happiness in the fixed” is
in stark opposition to the “turbulent” and sometimes
“wild” sex which the yogi performs for erotic
stimulation at the beginning of the ritual with
his partner. It is an element of tantric doctrine
that the “fixed” controls the “turbulent”. For
this reason, no thangka can fail to feature a
Buddha or Bodhisattva who as a non-involved observer
emotionlessly regards the animated yab–yum scenes (of sexual
union) depicted or impassively lets these pass
him by, no matter how turbulent and racy they
may be. We also do not know of a single illustration
of a sexually aroused couple in the tantric iconography
which is not counterbalanced by a third figure
who sits in the lotus posture and observes the
copulation in total calm. This is usually a small
Buddha above the erotic scene. He is, despite
his inconspicuousness the actual controlling instance
in the sexual magic play — the cold, indifferent,
serene, calculating, and mysteriously smiling
voyeur of hot loving passions.
The orgiastic ecstasy must at any
price be fixed in the mystic body of the adept,
he may never squander his masculine force, otherwise
the terrible punishments of hell await him. “There
exists no greater sin than the loss of pleasure”,
we can read in the Kalachakra commentary by Naropa
(Naropa, 1994, p. 73, verse 135). Pundarika also
treats the delicate topic in detail in his commentary
upon the Time Tantra: “The sin arises from the
destruction of pleasure, ... a dimming then follows
and from this the fall of the own vajra [phallus], then a state
of spiritual confusion and an exclusive and unmediated
concern with petty things like eating, drinking
and so on” (Naropa, 1994, p. 73). That is, to
put it more clearly, if the yogi experiences orgasm
and ejaculation in the course of the sexual act
then he loses his spiritual powers.
Since the drops of semen symbolize
the “moon liquid”, its staged descent through
the various energy centers of the yogi is linked
to each of the phases of the moon. Beneath the
roof of the skull it begins as a “new moon”, and grows
in falling from level to level, to then reach
its brightest radiance during its sixteenth phase
in the penis. In his imagination the yogi fixates
it there as a shining “full moon” (Naropa, 1994,
p. 72, 306).
Logically, in the second, counterposed
sequence the “ascent of the full moon” is staged.
For the adept there is no longer a waning moon.
Since he has not spilled his seed, the full shining
abundance of the nightly satellite remains his.
This ascendant triumphal procession of the lunar
drop up through the middle channel is logically
connected to an even more intensive pleasure than
the descent, since “the unspilled joy” starts
out in the penis as a “full moon” and no longer
loses its full splendor.
During its ascent it pauses in
every chakra
so as to conjure up anew the “highest bliss” there.
Through this stepwise ecstatic lingering in the
lotus centers the yogi forms his new divine body,
which he now refers to as the “body of creation”
(Naropa, 1994, p. 311). This is first completed
when the “full-moon drop” reaches the lotus in
the forehead.
Sometimes, even if not all the
time, in wandering through the four pleasure centers
the “drop” encounters various goddesses who greet
it with “diamond” song. They are young, tender,
very beautiful, friendly, and ready to serve.
The hissing wildness and the red wrath of the
candali is no more!” May you,”
the beauties call, “the diamond body, the revolving
wheel that delights many beings, the revealer
of the benefit of the Buddha aim and the supreme-enlightenment
aim, love me with passion at the time of passion,
if you, the mild lord wish that I live” (Wayman,
1977, p. 300). Such erotic enticements lead in
some cases to an imaginary union with one of the
goddesses. But even if it doesn’t come to this,
the yogi must in any case keep his member in an
erect state during the “ascent of the full moon”
(Naropa, 1994, p. 75).
In several Kalachakra commentaries the
ecstatic model of the rise and fall of the white
moon-drops within the mystic body of the adept
is determined by the triumph of the male bodhicitta
alone. In the first, falling phase it destroys
the fiery candali and leads her into
emptiness, so to speak, since the bindu (drop) also means “nothing”,
and has control over the power of dissolution.
In the second phase the drop forms the sole cosmic
building block with which the new body of the
yogi will subsequently be constructed. In this
view there is thus now talk of the male seed alone
and not of a mixture of the semen
virile and semen
feminile. In his Kalachakra commentary Naropa
writes explicitly that it is the masculine moon
which produces the creation and the feminine sun
which brings about the dissolution (Naropa, 1994,
p. 281). One must thus be under the impression
that after the extinguishing of the candali there are no further
feminine elements existing in the body of the
yogi, or, to put it in the words of the popular
belief which we have already cited, that perm
rather than blood flows in his veins. But there
are other models as well.
Daniel Cozort, for example, in
his contemporary study of the Highest Yoga Tantra,
speaks of two fundamental drops. The one is white,
masculine, lunar, and watery, and is located beneath
the roof of the skull; the other is red, feminine,
solar, and fiery, and located in the region of
the genitals(Cozort, 1986, p. 77). The “four joys
from above” are evoked when the white drop flows
from the forehead via the throat, heart, and navel
to the tip of the penis. The “four joys from below”
arise in reverse, when the red drop streams upwards
from the base of the spine and through the lotus
centers. There are a total of 21,600 masculine
and the same number of feminine drops stored in
the body of the yogi. The adept who gets them
to flow thus experiences 21,600 moments of bliss
and dissolves 21,600 “components of his physical
body”, since the drops effect not just pleasure
but also emptiness (Mullin, 1991, p. 184).
The process is first completed
when two “columns of drops” have been formed in
the energy body of the adept, the one beginning
above, the other from below, and both having been
built up stepwise. At the end of this migration
of drops, “a broad empty
body, embellished with all the markings and distinguishing
features of enlightenment, a body which corresponds
to the element of space [is formed]. It is 'clear
and shining', because it is untouchable and immaterial,
emptied of the earthly atomic structure”, as the
first Dalai Lama already wrote (Dalai Lama I,
1985, p. 46).
A further version (which also applies
to the Time Tantra) introduces us to “four” drops
of the size of a sesame seed which may be found
at various locations in the energy body and are
able to wander from one location to another. [3]
Through complicated exercises the yogi brings
these four principle drops to a standstill, and
by fixating them at certain places in the body
creates a mystic body.
The anatomy of the energy body
becomes even more complicated in the Kalachakra commentary by Lharampa
Ngawang Dhargyey when he introduces another “indestructible
drop” in the heart of the yogi in addition to
the four drop mentioned above. This androgynous bindu is composed of the “white
seed of the father” in its lower half together
with the “red seed of the mother” in the upper.
It is the size of a sesame seed and consists of
a mixture of “extremely fine energies”. The other
lotus centers also have such “bisexual” drops,
with mixtures of varying proportions, however.
In the navel, for example, the bindu contains more red seed
than white, in the forehead the reverse is true.
One of the meditation exercises consists in dissolving
all the drops into the “indestructible heart drop”.
Luckily it is neither our task,
nor is it important for our analysis, to bring
the various drop theories of tantric physiology
into accord with one another. We have nonetheless
made an effort to do so, but because of the terminological
confusion and hairsplitting in the accessible
texts, were left with numerous insoluble contradictions.
In general, we can nevertheless say that we are
dealing with two basic models.
In the first the divine energy
body is constructed solely with the help of the
white, masculine bodhicitta. The feminine energy
in the form of the candali assists only with
the destruction
of the old human body.
In the second model the yogi constructs
an androgynous body from both red and white, feminine
and masculine bodhicitta
elements.
The textual passages available
to us all presume that the masculine-feminine
drops can already be found in the energy system
of the adept before the initiation. He is thus
regarded from the outset as a bisexual being.
But why does he then need an external or even
an imagined woman with whom to perform the tantric
ritual? Would it in this case not be possible
to activate the androgyny (and the corresponding
drops) apparently already present in his own body
without any female presence? Probably not! A passage
in the Sekkodesha, which speaks of
the man (khagamukha)
possessing a channel filled with semen virile and the woman
(sankhini)
a channel filled with semen
feminile, leads us to suspect that the yogi
first draws the red bodhicitta
or the red drop off from the karma
mudra (the real woman), and that his androgyny
is therefore the result of this praxis and not
a naturally occurring starting point.
This view is also supported by
another passage in the Kalachakra Tantra, in which
the sankhini
is mentioned as the middle channel in the mystic
body of the yogi (Grönbold, 1969, p. 84). Normally,
the menstrual blood flows through the sankhini and it may be found
in the lower right channel of the woman (Naropa,
1994, p. 72). In contrast, in the body of the
yogi before the sexual magic initiation no “menstrual
channel” whatever exists. Now when this text refers
to the avadhuti
(the middle channel) of the tantra master as sankhini, that can only mean
that he has “absorbed” the mudra’s red seed following
union with her.
We must thus assume that before
the sexual magic ritual the red bodhicitta is either completely
absent from the adept’s body or, if present, then
only in small quantities. He is forced to steal
the red elixir from the woman. The extraction
technique described above also lends support to
this interpretation.
Regardless of whether the Tibetan
Lamas are convinced of the overwhelming superiority
of their theories and practices, there is in principle
no fundamental difference between Hindu and Buddhist
techniques(Snellgrove, 1987, vol. 1, 294). Both
systems concern the absorption of gynergy and the production
of a microcosmic/masculine/androgyne/divine body
by the yogi. There are, however, numerous differences
in the details. But this is also true when one
compares the individual Buddhist tantras with
one another. The sole teaching contrary to both
schools which one could nominate would be total
“Shaktism”, “which elevates the goddess above
all gods” (von Glasenapp, 1936, p.125).
Excursus: The mystic female
body
But is it at all possible to apply
the mystic physiology described in the Buddhist
tantras to a woman? Or is the female energy body
subject to other laws? Does the kundalini
also slumber in the perineum of a woman? Does
a woman carry her red drop in her forehead? Where
can the white bodhicitta be found in her
and what are its movements? Are the two side channels
within her arranged just like those in a man or
are they reversed? Why does she also work with
fire in her body and not with water?
There are only very few reports
about the mystic body of the woman, and even fewer
instructions. The books on praxis which we have
been able to consult are all drawn from the Chinese
cultural sphere. The Frenchwoman, Catherine Despeux,
has collected some of these in a historical portrait
(Immortelles de la Chine Ancienne).
A practical handbook by Mantak and Maneewan Chia
is available; it is subtitled The Secret Way to Female Love
Energy.
Generally, these texts allow us
to say that the spiritual energy experiences undergone
by women within their mystic bodies follow a different
course to those for men described above. The two
poles between which the “tantric” scenario is
played out in the woman are not the genitals and
the brain as in the case of a man, but rather
the heart and the womb. Whilst for the yogi the
highest pleasure is first concentrated in the
tip of the penis, from where it is drawn up to
the roof of the skull, the woman experiences pleasure
in the womb and then a “mystic orgasm” in the
heart, or the energy emerges from the heart, sinks
down to the womb and then rises up once more into
the heart. “The sudden opening
of the heart, chakra, causes an ecstatic
experience of illumination; the heart of the woman
becomes the heart of the universe” (Thompson,
1981, p. 19).
According to Chinese texts, for
example, the red seed of the woman arises between
her breasts, and from there flows out into the
vagina and is, unlike the male seed in Vajrayana,
not to be sought under the roof of the skull (Despeux,
1990, p. 206). The techniques for manipulation
of the energy body which result from this are
therefore completely different for men and women
in Taoism.
Without further examining the inner
processes in the female body, what has been said
in just a few sentences already indicates that
an undifferentiated transferal of Vajrayana
techniques to the female energy body must have
fateful consequences. It thus amounts to a sort
of rape of the feminine bodily pattern by the
masculine physique. It is precisely this which
the Fourteenth Dalai Lama encourages when he —
as in the following quotation — equates the internal
processes of a woman with those of a man. “Some
people have confirmed that the white element is
also present in women, although the red element
is stronger in them. Therefore the praxis in the
previously described tantric meditation is the
same for women; the white element sinks in exactly
the same manner and is then drawn back up” (Varela
1997, p. 154).
Should a woman adopt androcentric
yoga techniques then her sexual distinctiveness
disappears and she is transformed in energy terms
into a man. In so doing she thus fulfills the
sex change requirement of Mahayana Buddhism which is
supposed to make it possible for a women to already
in this lifetime be reincarnated as men — at least
in regard to their mystic bodies.
Spiritual feminists (and there
are a number of these) who believe they can overcome
their female impotence by copying the male yoga
techniques of Tantrism become caught in the most
insidious and cynical trap which the patriarchy
was able to set. In the delusion that by unchaining
the candali within their own body
they can shake off the androcentric yoke, they
unwittingly employ sexual magic manipulations
which effect their own dissolution as gendered
beings. They perform the “tantric female sacrifice
“ upon themselves without knowing, and set fire
to the stake at which they themselves are burned
as a candali or a witch (dakini).
The method or the manipulation
of the divine
But let us return again to the
male tantra techniques. The “method” which the
adept employs to produce his androgynous body
is referred to as the “Yoga with Six Limbs” (Sadanga
yoga). This system of teaching is valid for
both the Kalachakra Tantra and the
Guhyasamaja Tantra. It has
been referred to as the highest of all techniques
in Vajrayana Buddhism. Fundamentally,
sexual intercourse with a woman and the retention
of semen are necessary in performing this yoga.
Of course, if a partner cannot be found, masturbation
can also be employed (Grönbold, Asiatische Studien, p. 34).
[4]
The six stages of Sadanga yoga are called (1)
Individual retreat (pratyahara); (2) Contemplation
(dhyana);
(3) Breath control (pranayama); (4) Fixation or
retention (dharana);
(5) Remembering (anusmrti);
and (6) Unfolding or enlightenment (samadhi). We shall briefly
present and interpret the six levels.
1.
Pratyahara (individual retreat): The yogi withdraws from all
sensory abilities and sense objects back into
himself; he thus completely isolates himself from
the external world. It is also said that he locks
the doors of the senses and draws the outside
winds into himself so as to concentrate them into
a drop (Cozort, 1986, p. 124). The meditation
begins at night and must be conducted in complete
darkness. The American tantra interpreter, Daniel
Cozort, recommends the construction of a “light-proof
cabin” as an aid. The yogi rolls back his eyes,
concentrates on the highest point of his middle
energy channel and envisions a small blue drop
there. During this exercise the ten photisms (light
and fire signs) arise in the following order before
his inner eye as forebodings of the highest enlightenment,
the infinite clear light. (1) Smoke; (2) a ray
of light; (3) glow worms; (4) the light of a lamp
— these are the first four phenomena which are
also assigned to the four elements and which Sadanga
yoga describes as “night signs, since one
still lives in darkness so to speak, as in a house
without windows” (Grönbold, Asiatische Studien, p. 36).
The remaining six phenomena are called the “day
signs”, because one now, “as it were, looks into
a cloudless sky” (Grönbold, Asiatische Studien, p. 35).
They begin with (5) the steadfast light, followed
by (6) fire, which is considered to be the shine
of emptiness, (7) moonlight and sunshine, (8)
the shine of the planet Rahu, which is compared to
a black jewel. Then, in (9) an atom radiates like
a bright bolt of lightning, and lastly (10) the
great drop appears, which is perceived as “a shining
of the black orb of the moon” (Grönbold, Asiatische Studien, p. 35).
Grönbold interprets the fact that a “dark light”
is seen at the end as an effect of bedazzlement,
since the light phenomena are now no longer comprehensible
for the yogi (Grönbold, Asiatische Studien, p. 35).
[5]
2.
Dhyana (contemplation): On the second level of Sadanga yoga the adept through
contemplation fixes beneath the roof of the skull
his thoughts and the ten day and night signs.
This contemplation is characterized by five states
of awareness: (1) wisdom; (2) logic; (3) reflection;
(4) pleasure; and (5) imperturbable happiness.
All five serve to grant insight into the emptiness
of being (Grönbold, Asiatische
Studien, p. 32). When he has stabilized the
signs, the yogi has attained the purity necessary
to ascend to the next level. He now possesses
the “divine eye” (Naropa, 1994, p. 219).
3.
Pranayama (wind or breath control): Breath, air, and wind are
synonymous in every form of yoga. The energies
internal to the body which flow through the subtle
channels are called winds. A trained adept can
control them with his breathing and thus has the
ability to reach and to influence all 72,000 channels
in his body by inhaling and exhaling. The energy
wind generally bears the name prana, that is, pure life
force. In the Kalachakra
school the opinion is held that prana is the primordial wind
from which the nine main winds are derived (Banerjee,
1959, p. 27). Time is also conceived of as a coming
and going of breath. Accordingly one who has his
breathing under control also has mastery over
time. He becomes a superhuman being, that “knows
[about] the three times”: about the future by
inhaling, about the past by exhaling, and about
the eternal present by holding his breath (Grönbold,
Asiatische
Studien, p. 29).The wind, as the yogi’s highest
instrument of control, dominates the entire scenario,
sometimes propelling the mystic indestructible
drops through the channels, sometimes pushing
through the knots in the chakras so that the energies
can flow freely, sometimes burning up the yogi’s
bad karma via breathing exercises. There are numerous
catalogs of the various types of wind. Coarse
and subtle, secondary and primary, ascending and
descending winds all waft through the body. In
the Kalachakra Tantra a total
of ten principle types of breath wind are distinguished.
The high point in pranayama
yoga consists in the bringing of the winds found
in the right and left side channels into the central
channel (avadhuti). In an ordinary
person, prana
pulses in both outer channels, of which one
is masculine and the other feminine. Therefore,
from a tantric point of view he still lives in
a world of opposites. Through the activation of
his middle, androgynous channel the yogi now believes
he can recreate the original bisexual unity.
4.
The fourth exercise is called dharana (fixation). The breath wind
is fixated or retained firstly within the middle
channel, then in the individual chakras. The emotions,
thoughts, and visions of particular deities are
also fixed through this. Throughout this exercise
the yogi’s penis must remain constantly erect.
He is now the “lord of the winds” and can let
the energies wander through his body at will in
order to then fix them in particular locations.
This also applies to the entry of the breath into
the drops, wherever these are to be found. Although
the adept now controls the ten main winds, at
this stage his body is not yet purified. Therefore
he concentrates the energy in the navel chakra
and combines it with “the drop of sexual ecstasy”.
It is this procedure which first results in the
ignition of the candali.
5.
The entrance of the “fire woman” (candali) dominates the scenario
of the fifth yoga, known as anusmriti. Oddly, this has the meaning
of ‘recollection’ (Grönbold, 1969, p. 89). Why
is the catching sight of the candali
“in the body and in the sky” linked to a mystic
reminiscence? What is it that the yogi remembers?
Probably the “original unity”, the union of god
and goddess.
6.
In the last stages of Sadanga yoga the adept reaches
samadhi (enlightenment or unfolding),
the “indestructible bliss”. This state is also
equated with the “vision of emptiness” (Wayman,
1983, p. 39). All winds, and thus all manifestations
of existence as well, are now brought to a standstill
— peace reigns among the peaks. For a night and
a day the yogi suspends the 21,600 breaths, that
is, he no longer needs to breathe. His material
bodily aggregates are dissolved. Complete immobility
occurs, all sexual passions vanish and are replaced
by the “motionless pleasure” (Naropa, 1994, p.
219).
Since the flow of time depicts
nothing other than the currents of the energy
winds in the body, the adept has, by stilling
these, elevated himself beyond the cycle of time
and become its absolute master. Back at the third
level of the exercises, during pranayama, he had already
won control over the flow of time, but he only
halts it when he attains the state of samadhi.
It is astonishing that all six
stages of Sandanga
yoga should be performed during sexual union
with a karma mudra (a real woman).
But until it comes to this, many hours of preparation
are needed. The inner photisms described also
arise in the course of the sexual act.
For example, to press the masculine
and feminine energy currents into the middle channel
in pranayama, the adept employs
drastic Hatha
yoga practices, which are known as “the joining
of the sun and moon breaths” (Evans-Wentz, 1937,
p. 33). In translation ha means ‘sun’, and tha ‘moon’. Hatha, the combination of
ha and tha, significantly means ‘violence’
or ‘violent exertion’ and thereby announces the
element of violence in the sexual magic act (Eliade,
1985, p. 238). This consists of a sudden, jerking
leap up during sexual intercourse accompanied
by simultaneous pressure on the perineum with
the hand or the heel. That such “methods” (upaya) are especially enticing
and erotic for a “wisdom consort” (prajna) is something we would
like to doubt. The lack of feeling, the coldness,
the cunning, and the deep misogyny which lies
behind these yoga techniques actually ought to
hit the karma mudra in the eye at
once. Yet in the arms of a godlike Lama she would
only seldom dare to take her skeptical impressions
seriously or even articulate them.
Sadanga yoga describes the Kalachakra Tantra “method”
(upaya)
to be employed during the higher and highest initiations.
We are dealing here with an emotionless, “rational”,
purely technical set of instructions for the manipulation
of energies which are profoundly emotional, arousing,
and instinctive — like love, eroticism, and sexuality.
In the classic tantric polarity of “wisdom” (prajna) and “method” it is
the latter which is covered by these yoga techniques.
The yogi does not need to bother about anything
else — wisdom, knowledge, or feelings. They are
already to be found in the “prajna”, the feminine
elixir which he can snatch from the woman by properly
practicing Sandanga yoga. Now what is
the result of this calculating and sophisticated
sexual magic?
Footnotes
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