Polarity in Vajrayana

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>From _Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism_ by Lama Anagarika Govinda

 

Part Three. Padma: The Path of Creative Vision

 

4

THE POLARITY OF MALE AND

FEMALE PRINCIPLES IN THE SYMBOLIC

LANGUAGE OF THE VAJRAYANA

 

By confusing Buddhist Tantrism with the Saktism of the Hindu Tantras an

enormous confusion has been created, which until now has prevented a clear

understanding of the Vajrayana and its symbolism, in iconography as well as

in literature, especially in that of the Siddhas. The latter used, as we

have mentioned already, a kind of secret language, in which very often the

highest was clothed in the form of the lowest, the most sacred in the form

of the most ordinary, the transcendent in the form of the most earthly, and

the deepest knowledge in the form of the most grotesque paradoxes. It was

not only a language for initiates, but a kind of shock-therapy, which had

become necessary on account of the over-intellectualization of the

religious and philosophical life of those times.

Just as the Buddha was a revolutionary against the narrow dogmatism

of a privileged priestly class, so the Siddhas were revolutionaries against

the self-complacency of a sheltered monastic existence, that had lost all

contact with the realities of life. Their language was as unconventional as

were their lives, and those who took their words literally, were either

misled into striving after magic powers and worldly happiness or were

repelled by what appeared to them to be blasphemy. It is therefore not

surprising that, after the disappearance of Buddhist tradition in India,

this literature fell into oblivion or degenerated into the crude erotic

cults of popular Tantrism.

Nothing could be more misleading than to draw inferences about the

spiritual attitude of the Buddhist Tantras (or of genuine Hindu Tantras)

from these degenerated forms of Tantrism. The former cannot be fathomed

theoretically, neither through comparisons nor through the study of ancient

literature, but only through practical experience in contact with the still

existing Tantric traditions and their contemplative methods, as practised

in Tibet and Mongolia, as well as in certain Schools of Japan, like Shingon

and Tendai. With regard to the latter two, Glasenapp remarks: 'The female

Bodhisattvas figuring in the Mandalas, like Prajnaparamita and Cundi, are

sexless beings, from whom, quite in accordance with the ancient tradition,

associations of a sexual nature are strictly excluded. In this point these

Schools differ from those known to us from Bengal, Nepal, and Tibet, which

emphasize the polarity of the male and female principles.'1

 

[1 H. von Glasenapp: Die Entstehung des Vajrayana, Zeitschr. d.

Deutsch. Morgenland. Gesellschaft, Vol. 90, p. 560. Leipzig, 1936.]

 

The fact that Bengal, Nepal, and Tibet are mentioned here side by

side, shows that the Tantrism of Bengal and Nepal is regarded to be of the

same nature as that of Tibet, and that the author, though seeing the

necessity of distinguishing between Tantrism and Saktism has not yet drawn

the last conclusion - namely, that even those Buddhist Tantras which build

their symbolism upon the polarity of the male and female, never represent

the female principle as sakti, but always as its contrary, namely prajna

(wisdom), vidya (knowledge), or mudra (the spiritual attitude of

unification, the realization of sunyata). Herewith they reject the basic

idea of Saktism and its world-creating eroticism.

Though the polarity of male and female principles is recognized in the

Tantras of the Vajrayana and is an important feature of its symbolism, it

is raised upon a plane which is as far away from the sphere of mere

sexuality as the mathematical juxtaposition of positive and negative signs,

which is as valid in the realm of irrational values as in that of rational

or concrete concepts.

In Tibet, the male and female Dhyani-Buddhas and -Bodhisattvas are

regarded as little as 'sexual beings' as in the above-mentioned Schools of

Japan; and to the Tibetan, even their aspect of union (Skt.: yuganaddha;

Tib.: yab-yum) is indissolubly associated with the highest spiritual

reality in the process of enlightenment, so that associations with the

realm of physical sexuality are completely ignored.

We must not forget that the figural representations of these symbols

are not looked upon as portraying human beings, but as embodying the

experiences and visions of meditation. In such a state, however, there is

nothing more that could be called 'sexual'; there is only the

superindividual polarity of all life, which rules all mental and physical

activities, and which is transcended only in the ultimate state of

integration, in the realization of sunyata. This is the state which is

called Mahamudra (Tib.: phyag-rgya-chen-po), the 'Great Attitude' or the

'Great Symbol', which has given its name to one of the most important

systems of meditation in Tibet.

In the earlier forms of Indian Buddhist Tantrism, Mahamudra was

represented as the 'eternal female' principle, as may be seen from

Advayavajra's definition: 'The words "great" and "mudra" together form the

term "mahamudra". She is not a something (nihsvabhava); she is free from

the veils which cover the cognizable object and so on; she shines forth

like the serene sky at noon during autumn; she is the support of all

success; she is the identity of samsara and nirvana; her body is Compassion

(karuna) which is not restricted to a single object; she is the uniqueness

of Great Bliss (mahasukhaikarupa).'1

 

[1 Advayavajra, Caturmudra, p. 34, quoted in Yuganaddha, p. 116.]

 

If in one of the most controversial passages of Anangavajra's

Prajnopayaviniscayasiddhi2 it is said that all women should be enjoyed by

the Sadhaka in order to experience the Mahamudra, it is clear that this

cannot be understood in the physical sense, but that it can only be applied

to that higher form of love which is not restricted to a single object and

which is able to see all 'female' qualities, whether in ourselves or in

others, as those of the 'Divine Mother' (Prajnaparamita: 'Transcendental

Wisdom').

 

[2 In Two Vajrayana Works, G.O.S., No. XLIV, p. 22 f.]

 

Another passage, which by its very grotesqueness proves that it is

meant to be a paradox and not to be taken literally, states that 'the

Sadhaka who has sexual intercourse with his mother, his sister, his

daughter, and his sister's daughter, will easily succeed in his striving

for the ultimate goal (tattvayoga)'.3

 

[3 Anangavajra: 'Prajnopayaviniscayasiddhi', V, 25, quoted in

'Yuganaddha', p. 106. A similar passage is found in the Guhyasamaja-Tantra,

from where Anangavajra took this quotation.]

 

To take expressions like 'mother','sister', 'daughter' or 'sister's

daughter' literally in this connexion is as senseless as taking the

well-known Dhammapada verse (No. 294) Iiterally, which says that, after

having killed father and mother, two Ksattriya kings, and having destroyed

a kingdom with all its inhabitants, the Brahmin remains free from sin. Here

'father and mother' stands for 'egoism and craving' (Pali: asmimana and

tanha), the 'two kings' for the erroneous 'views of annihilation or eternal

existence' (uccheda va sassata ditthi), the 'kingdom and its inhabitants'

for 'the tweIve spheres of consciousness' (dvadasayatanani) and the Brahmin

for the 'liberated monk' (bhikkhu).

It is a strange coincidence, if not a conscious allusion to this

famous simile of the Dhammapada, that 'the destruction of a kingdom with

its king and all its inhabitants' is also ascribed to Padmasambhava, the

great scholar and saint, who brought Buddhism to Tibet in the middle of the

eighth century A.D. and founded the first monastery there. In his

symbolical biography (about which we shall hear more later on), written in

Sandhyabhasa, it is said, that Padmasambhava, in the guise of a terrible

deity, destroyed a king and his subjects, who were enemies of the religion,

and that he took all their women to himself in order to purify them and to

make them mothers of religious-minded children. It is obvious that this

cannot be taken in the sense that Padmasambhava killed the population of a

whole country and violated all codes of sex-morality. This would be in

blatant contradiction to the works attributed to him, which are of the

highest moral and ethical standard and of profound spiritual insight, based

on the strictest sense-control. It is one of the characteristics of the

Sandhyabhasa, as of many ancient religious texts, to represent experiences

of meditation (like the Buddha's struggle with Mara and his hosts of

demons) in the form of outer events. The remark, that Padmasambhava took

the form of a wrathful deity, shows that the fight with the forces of evil

took place within himself and that the 'recognition' of the female

principles in the process of inner integration consisted in the unification

of the two sides of his nature, namely, the male principle of activity

(upaya) and the female principle of wisdom (prajna), as we shall see in the

following paragraphs.

To maintain that Tantric Buddhists actually encouraged incest and

licentiousness is as ridiculous as accusing the Theravadins of condoning

matricide and patricide and similar heinous crimes. If we only take the

trouble to investigate the still living traditions of the Tantras in their

genuine, unadulterated forms, as they exist up to the present day in

thousands of monasteries and hermitages of Tibet, where the ideals of

sense-control and renunciation are held in highest esteem, then only can we

realize how ill-founded and worthless are the current theories, which try

to drag the Tantras into the realm of sensuality.

From the point of view of Tibetan Tantric tradition, the

above-mentioned passages can only have meaning in the context of

yoga-terminology: 'All women in the world' signifies all the elements which

make up the female principles of our psycho-physical personality which, as

the Buddha says, represents what is called 'the world'. To these principles

correspond on the opposite side an equal number of male principles. Four of

the female principles form a special group, representing the vital forces

(prana) of the Great Elements (mahabhuta) 'Earth','Water', 'Fire','Air',

and their corresponding psychic centres (cakra) or planes of consciousness

within the human body. In each of them the union of male and female

principles must take place, before the fifth and highest stage is reached.

If the expressions 'mother', 'sister', 'daughter', etc., are applied to

these forces of these fundamental qualities of the mahabhutas, the meaning

of the symbolism becomes clear.

In other words, instead of seeking union with a woman outside

ourselves, we have to seek it within ourselves ('in our own family') by the

union of our male and female nature in the process of meditation. This is

clearly stated in Naropa's famous 'Six Doctrines' (Tib.: chos-drug

bsdus-pahihzin-bris), upon which the most important yoga-method of the

Kargyutpa School is based, a method which was practised by Milarepa, the

most saintly and austere of all the great masters of meditation (whom,

certainly, nobody could accuse of 'sexual practices'!). Though we need not

go here into the details of this yoga, a short quotation may suffice to

prove our point:

'The vital-force (prana; Tib.: sugs, rlun) of the Five Aggregates

(skandha; Tib.: phun-po) in its real nature, pertaineth to the masculine

aspect of the Buddha-principle manifesting through the left psychic nerve

(ida-nadi; Tib.: rkyan-ma rtsa). The vital force of the Five Elements

(dhatu; Tib.: hbyun-ba) in its real nature, pertaineth to the feminine

aspect of the Buddha-principle manifesting through the right psychic nerve

(pingala-nadi; Tib.: ro-ma rtsa). As the vital force, with these two

aspects of it in union, descendeth into the median nerve (susumna; Tib.:

dbu-ma rtsa) gradually there cometh the realization . . .' and one attains

'the transcendental boon of the Great Symbol (mahamudra; Tib.:

phyag-rgya-chen-po)1, ' the union of male and female principles (as upaya

and prajna) in the highest state of Buddhahood.

 

[1 W. Y. Evans-Wentz: Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrine, p. 200 ff

(Oxford University Press, London, 1935).]

 

Thus sexual polarity becomes a mere incident of universal polarity,

which has to be recognized on all levels and has to be overcome through

knowledge: from the biblical 'knowing of the woman' to the knowledge of the

'Eternal Feminine', Mahamudra or Sunyata, in the realization of highest

wisdom.

Only if we are able to see the relationship of body and mind, of

physical and spiritual interaction in a universal perspective, and if in

this way we overcome the 'I' and 'mine' and the whole structure of

egocentric feelings, opinions, and prejudices, which produce the illusion

of our separate individuality, then only can we rise into the sphere of

Buddhahood.

The Tantras brought religious experience from the abstract regions of

the speculating intellect again down to earth, and clothed it with flesh

and blood; not, however, with the intention of secularizing it, but to

realize it: to make religious experience an active force. The authors of

the Tantras knew that knowledge based on vision is stronger than the power

of subconscious drives and urges, that prajna is stronger than sakti. For

sakti is the blind world-creating power (maya), which leads deeper and

deeper into the realm of becoming, of matter and differentiation. Its

effect can only be polarized or reversed by its opposite: inner vision,

which transforms the power of becoming into that of liberation.