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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:
[5] In
contrast, alongside the four “night signs” mentioned above, Daniel
Cozort mentions the following six “day signs”: (5) destructive fire;
(6) the sun; (7) the moon; (8) the planet Rahu; (9) a stroke of
lightning; and (10) the blue point (Cozort, 1986, p. 125). In the eleventh sign Kalachakra and Vishvamata reveal themselves
in sexual union within the blue drop. The Sekkodesha calls this event
the “universal, clear shining image” and speaks of an epiphany of
the all-knowing Buddha,
who shines “like the sun in water, unbesmirched, of every
color, with all aspects, recognized as an expression of our own
consciousness, without any objectivity” (Naropa, 1994, pp. 229,
254). Other texts
specify still more photisms, but in all cases they concern pure fire
and light meditations which the yogi has to successfully traverse.
Next
Chapter:
8. THE ADI BUDDHA: HIS MYSTIC BODY AND HIS
ASTRAL ASPECTS
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