Dakini in Meditation

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>From _Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism_ by Lama Anagarika Govinda

 

Part Four: The Path of Integration

 

13

 

THE SEED-SYLLABLE HUM AND THE

IMPORTANCE OF THE DAKINI IN THE

PROCESS OF MEDITATION

(DAKINI VERSUS KUNDALINI)

 

If we want fully to understand the profound significance of the

seed-syllable HUM in the mantric and meditative practice of the Vajrayana,

we must devote ourselves to an aspect of this system, which is particularly

foreign to Western thought and feeling, and which therefore is

misunderstood even more than all the other features of Tantric Buddhism. We

allude here to a class of beings, forces, or symbols, whose nature is

closely related to the seed-syllable HUM, and who appear to the outsider

more or less demoniacal. These beings seem to embody all that we cannot fit

into our well-ordered thought-world and which for this reason appears to us

threatening, dangerous, and terrifying.

It is that aspect of knowledge which is expressed in the

incommensurable, undefinable quality of HUM, which can only be experienced

if we transcend the boundaries of thought, as in the ecstatic moment of a

flashlike direct insight into the true nature of things or of ourselves,

breaking through the tension of our inner being and forcing us to leap into

the unknown.

The paradox of Vajrasattva consists in the simultaneousness, the

interpenetration of the whole and the part, of the timeless and the

temporal, of emptiness and form, of the individual and the universal, of

being and non-being. The path towards the realization of this paradox leads

to the leap across the chasm that yawns between the two polar opposites.

To find the courage for such a leap, we must be stimulated by powerful

impulses and experiences. These are symbolized in the secret doctrines of

the Tantras as Dakinis, as female embodiments of knowledge and magic power

who - either in human or super-human form - played an important role in the

lives of the Siddhas.

In the biography of Padmasambhava, written exclusively in the

symbolical language characteristic of Siddha literature, we find the

description of his initiation into the secrets of the Buddhist Cakra-Yoga

by a Dakini.1

 

[1 U-rgyan gu-ru pa-dma-hbyun-gnas-gyi rnam-thar,' translated (in

extracts) by S. W. Laden La, edited by W. Y. Evans-Wentz in The Tibetan

Book of the Great Liberation (Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 131 f.]

 

She dwelt, as the text tells us, in a sandal-wood garden, in the midst

of a cemetery, in a palace of human skulls. When Padmasambhava arrived at

the door of the palace, he found it closed. Thereupon a servant-woman

appeared, carrying water into the palace; and Padma sat in meditation so

that her water-carrying was halted by his yogic power.1

 

[1 This is a motive found already in the Lalitarvistara, where it is

described how the young Siddhartha fell into a state of deep trance while

sitting under a rose-apple tree, and how five ascetics, gifted with

supernatural powers, were flying through the air over that very spot and

were stopped by the power of Siddhartha's concentration. They were able to

continue their journey only after having paid obeisance to the future

Buddha.]

 

Thereupon, producing a knife of crystal, she cut open her breast, and

exhibited in the upper portion of it the forty-two Peaceful and in the

lower portion of it the fifty-eight Wrathful Deities. Addressing Padma, she

said: 'I observe that thou art a wonderful mendicant, possessed of great

power. But look at me; hast thou not faith in me?' Padma bowed down before

her, made apology, and requested the teachings he sought. She replied: 'I

am only a maidservant. Come inside.'

Upon entering the palace, Padma beheld the Dakini enthroned on a sun

and moon throne, holding in her hands a double drum and a human-skull cup,

and surrounded by thirty-two Dakinis making sacrificial offerings to her.

Padma made obeisance to the enthroned Dakini and offerings, and begged her

to teach him both esoterically and exoterically. The one hundred Peaceful

and Wrathful Deities then appeared overhead. 'Behold,' said the Dakini,

'the deities. Now take initiation.' And Padma responded,'Inasmuch as all

the Buddhas throughout the aeons have had gurus, accept me as thy

disciple.'

Then the Dakini absorbed all the deities into her body. She

transformed Padma into the syllable HUM. The HUM rested on her lips, and

she conferred upon it the Buddha Amitabha blessing. Then she swallowed the

HUM, and inside her stomach Padma received the secret Avalokitesvara

initiation. When the HUM reached the region of the Root Centre, she

conferred upon him initiation of Body, Speech, and Mind.

This story contains much valuable information, but in order to

understand its meaning, we have first to clarify the position of the

Dakinis in the Tibetan system of meditation. In the classical Sanskrit

Dakinis were mainly conceived as demoniacal beings hostile to humans and

haunting cremation grounds and similar lonely and uncanny places, where

unknown dangers lurked.

But just these places, which were shunned by common men, were

preferred by Yogis as being most suitable for solitary contemplation and

religious ecstasy. These were hallowed places to them, where they listened

to the voice of the silence and of the liberation from worldly fears and

hopes. What caused fear to the worldly-minded, filled the Yogi with

tranquillity and determination, and became a source of strength and an

incentive to proceed on the path of realization.

Thus Dakinis became the genii of meditation, spiritual helpers, who

inspired the Sadhaka and roused him from the illusion of worldly

contentment. They were the forces that awakened the dormant qualities of

mind and soul.

This change in the conception of Dakinis under the influence of

Buddhist schools of meditation (especially those of the sixth and seventh

century A.D.) is reflected in the Tibetan rendering of the word Dakini as

'Khadoma' (mkhah-hgro-ma): 'mkhah' means 'space' as well as 'ether' (Skt.:

akasa), the fifth element, according to Buddhist definition; in other

words, that which makes movement possible (Symbol: 'Wind', Tib.: rlun) and

makes forms appear (Tib.: snan-ba), without being itself movement or

appearance. Its numerical symbol is zero, its philosophical and

metaphysical equivalent is sunyata (Tib.: ston-pa-nid), the 'Great Void',

its psychological equivalent the highest spiritual consciousness or Mind

(Tib.: sems), of which it is said that one should conceive it as equal to

the space of heaven (Tib.: nam-mkhah) .

'Hgro' (pronounced 'do') means 'to go','to move about'. According to

popular conception a Khadoma is therefore a heavenly being of female

appearance (as indicated by the suffix 'ma'), who partakes of the luminous

nature of space or ether, in which she moves. She is gifted with higher

knowledge and appears to the earnest seeker, especially to the practising

Yogi, in human or divine, demoniacal or fairy-like, heroic or lovely,

terrifying or peaceful form, in order to lead him on the way of higher

knowledge and conscious realization.

In the sense of meditation and in the language of Yoga, however,

they are not 'beings' existing outside ourselves, but spiritual impulses

and realization of all those forces and conformations, which until then

were dormant and hidden in the darkness of the subconsciousness. The

impetus, dwelling behind this process of increasing awareness and

consciousness, grows in proportion to its progress; it urges on

irresistibly until the hidden light of knowledge reveals its secrets. This

knowledge is frightening for those who are still slaves to the world of

things, but liberating for those who are strong enough to face the highest

truth.

The Khadomas of the highest order are therefore represented as being

naked: they are the embodiment of the knowledge of unveiled reality; and in

order to express the fearlessness which is required for facing the naked

truth, they are conceived as heroic in character and attitude. They are not

blind forces of nature, but the faculties which make use of them and direct

them. They combine the forces of nature, of primordial spontaneity, with

conscious awareness and perfect knowledge. They are the flashes of

inspiration, which transform the power of nature into the creative

consciousness of the genius.

Thus, in the Buddhist Yoga the emphasis is not on the power-aspect,

the 'sakti', but on the knowledge-aspect, the prajna; and for this reason

the Sakti Kundalini is not even mentioned in the Buddhist system - still

less is she made the subject of meditation. The attempt to trace the

Buddhist system of meditation to the Kundalini Yoga of Tantric Hinduism, is

therefore as misleading as calling it Kundalini Yoga. In the 'Yoga of the

Six Doctrines of Naropa' the seat of the Kundalini is excluded from the

path of visualization, and the Sadhaka is advised: 'Meditate on the four

cakras, of which each is formed like an umbrella or the wheel of a

chariot.'1

 

[1 The classical definition of a cakra is found in the Mundaka

Upanisad: 'Ara iva rathanabhau samhata yatra nadyah'. 'Where the nadis

meet like the spokes in the nave of a chariot-wheel.' (2, 2, 6.) One

hundred subsidiary nadis meet in the Heart Centre while the susumna runs

perpendicularly through the centre of the cakra.]

 

The four cakras, however, which form the wheels of the fiery chariot of the

spirit (which reminds one of the fiery chariot in which the prophet Elias

went to heaven!) are: the Crown and Throat Centres, as the front, the Heart

and Navel Centres, as the rear pairs.

In place of the Kundalini Sakti the opposite principle occupies the

centre of the meditation, namely that of the Dakini: in this case the

Khadoma Dorje Naljorma (rdo-rje rnal-hbyor-ma ; Skt.: Vajra-Yogini). This

does not mean that the Buddhist Tantrics denied or underrated the

importance or the reality of the forces connected with the Kundalini, but

only that their methods were different, and that the use which they made of

these forces was different. They did not use them in their natural state,

but through the influence of another medium.

Water-power, which in a waterfall appears in its crude, untamed

form, can be tamed, directed, distributed and utilized on different levels.

In a similar way in the Buddhist Tantra Yoga concentration is not directed

upon the Kundalini or the Root Centre, but on the channels, the main

power-currents whose tension (or 'gravitational' force) is regulated

through a temporal damming-up and modification of the energy-content in the

upper Centres.

Instead of the natural power of the Kundalini, the inspirational

impulse of consciousness (prajna) in form of the Khadoma and her mantric

equivalents is made the leading principle, which opens the entrance into

the susumna by removing the obstructions and by directing the inflowing

forces.

Khadomas, like all female embodiments of 'vidya', or knowledge,

have the property of intensifying, concentrating, and integrating the

forces of which they make use, until they are focused in one incandescent

point and ignite the holy flame of inspiration, which leads to perfect

enlightenment. The Khadomas, who appear as visions or as consciously

produced inner images in the course of meditation, are therefore

represented with an aura of flames and called up with the seed-syllable

HUM, the mantric symbol of integration. They are the embodiment of the

'Inner Fire', which in Milarepa's biography has been called 'the warming

breath of Khadomas', which surrounds and protects the saint like a 'pure,

soft mantle'.1

 

[1 In Lama Kazi Dawa Samdup's and Evan-Wentz's poetical rendering:

'The warming breath of angels wear

As thy raiment pure and soft.'

(W. Y. Evans-Wentz: Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa, Oxford University

Press, 1928, p. 170.)]

 

Just as knowledge has many degrees and forms, so the Khadomas assume

many shapes, from those of the human Jigten Khadomas (hjig-rten, the world

of sense-perception) to the female forms of Dhyani-Buddhas, who as

'Prajnas' are united with the latter in the aspect of 'Yab-Yum'.

In the process of meditation, Khadomas may correspond to such

preliminary experiences as the becoming conscious of the body in the first

stage of the four fundamental exercises of mindfulness (in the Pali

Scriptures known as 'Satipatthana'). The Demchog Tantra2 therefore says

that one should regard the Khadoma as the mindfulness with regard to the

body (mkhah-hgro-ma ni lus-rjes-su dran-paho), and that all divine forms of

appearance are to be understood as the experiences which constitute the

path of meditation (Iha-rnams lam-gyi no-bor dran-par byaho).

 

[2 Cf. A. Avalon, Tantric Texts, London, 1919, Vol. VII. All

quotations from 'dpal-hkhor-lo bde-mchog' are derived from a hand-written

copy of the Tibetan Text. The text edited by Avalon has long been out of

print.]

 

The reality of Khadomas, like that of 'demons' and 'deities', rests

on such experiences, and not on some external facts or data. It is a

reality which from the Buddhist point of view is far greater than that of

the so-called material objects, because it is a reality, which springs

directly from spiritual awareness and not from the roundabout way of

peripherical senses and their organs.

The highest, i.e., the most perfect, form of a Khadoma is she who

embodies the synthesis of all Buddha Wisdoms in the adamantine sphere of

sunyata, like the various aspects of the Vajra-Dakini, especially

Vajra-Yogini (rdo-rje rnal-hbyor-ma), in whom the meditative experience

reaches its culmination. Such a Dakini forms the centre of Padmasambhava's

initiation.

[Guest guest]

, Dharma <deva@L...> wrote:

> From _Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism_ by Lama Anagarika Govinda

>

> Part Four: The Path of Integration

>

> 13

>

> THE SEED-SYLLABLE HUM AND THE

> IMPORTANCE OF THE DAKINI IN THE

> PROCESS OF MEDITATION

> (DAKINI VERSUS KUNDALINI)

 

Namaste All, From the teachings of Buddhaghosa.

 

As the meditator progresses he/she eventually reaches a high degree of

concentration where the object of meditation becomes a counterpart

sign. An image created by the mind on its own accord, a perception of

the object somewhat different from the original.This happens at the

neural level because the image created by the mind becomes steadier an

d more concrete so it can be seen eyes open or shut. This new image is

created independently of the lower consciousness and is a more perfect

image than the original.

 

Om Namah Sivaya....Tony.