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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.
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Next Chapter:
8. THE ADI BUDDHA: HIS MYSTIC BODY AND HIS ASTRAL
ASPECTS
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