It Takes Two to Tango

                Tantra’s esoteric use of language and the ambiguity between visualization and physical practice, combined with the prominence of the male pronoun in tantric texts, may yield a rather one-sided image of tantric soteriology. Miranda Shaw sees a different picture though, stating that “men are not portrayed as dominators of women but as supplicants, lovers, and spiritual sons and brothers.” The “mutually liberative” nature of the “relationships between women and men” in tantric texts is most definitely “an ideal” given the non-dual means and goals of tantric practice, and its actuality was likely a factor of the ‘cooperation’ between the tantrikas more than anything. In this paper i’ll examine the first third of the Caṇḍamahāroṣanatantra (CMRT) as translated by Christopher George and  chapters eight and nine of Serinity Young’s book Courtesans and Tantric Consorts: Sexualities in Buddhist Narrative, Iconography, and Ritual in order to look at the gender dynamics of the tantric relationship and show that Shaw’s conclusion is consistent with these texts.

                First off let’s examine the gender polarity from a less physical perspective, since, as the Lord Vajrasattva states in the opening stanza of the CMRT, it is being taught with “form free from involvement.” As initially introduced at the end of chapter three, and made explicit in the conclusion of chapter seven, one of the many names given to The Lady Vajrayogini is “Wisdom” as she takes on the presence of “the superior goddess, prajñāpāramitā” (pg. 80). This introduces “the belief that women inherently posses something men do not: prajñā,” or wisdom. Less specifically introduced by The Lord’s mandala blueprints presented in chapter two is the dialectical pole, which is that “for female practitioners, men are the source of upāya” or skillful means (Young, 178). Sex, then, intellectualized as the union of these two gender principles, namely: prajñā and upāya, represents the coming together of the two necessary components of enlightenment (Young, 136). This union needs be realized because skillful means exercised without an understanding of natural conditions is apt to be as dangerous as it is useful “even though [one] may be protected by the Buddhas” (pg. 47). And an understanding of natural conditions without skillful means is moot. This is supported by the first chapter warnings against uninformed practice of “this great tantra, the highest master of kings of tantras” and by The Lady’s initial role as student.

Chapter three of the CMRT instructs its students to “practice devotion to women until [they] realize the essence of Enlightenment” (pg. 56) supporting Shaw’s description of men as ‘supplicants.’  Also, The Lady’s participation in the early chapters is far from that of a ‘dominated partner’ and anything but “passive… [as] the enjoyed, not the enjoyer” (Young, 142). Her presence is in the form of questions posed to the Lord, providing evidence of the cooperation between The Two in the form of conversational back and forth, and, as Oliver Holmes wrote, ‘it is the privilege of Wisdom to listen.’ As she concludes her opening question for the sixth chapter, The Lady makes it clear that the CMRT is indeed intended to benefit members of both gender embodiments with the statement: “for the sake of the benefit to yoginis, please fulfill my request.” Whereupon The Lord explains that “the yogi… situated in the yoga of the Stage of Completion… should meditate… on my form with one pointed mind… [and] ardently consider his wife to have your form, until… it accordingly becomes perfectly clear… [as] Each… [gazes] steadily at the other, with mutual desire” (pg. 65-67).

                In chapter six of the CMRT, The Lord declares: “Woman alone is the birth giver, the giver of true pleasure to the Three Worlds” (pg. 70). This seems to indicate the female principle as the dominant force influencing beings’ development. This is supported as chapter eight begins, when the conversation between The Lord & Lady undergoes a shift that further supports Shaw’s claims while simultaneously debunking ideas of “tantric consorts as vehicles for men’s development and not as accomplished practitioners in their own right” (Young, 142). At that point the gender roles reverse, and we’re shown ‘man as lover’ as “The Lord paid homage with five mandalas to The Lady and said: How, my dear, must your form be known… How will The Lady be honored by the yogi?” The Lady’s answer is revealing of why men are instructed towards devotion to women, and supports Shaw’s familial metaphor. She declares: “Wherever in the Three Worlds a womanly form is seen, that is said to be my form, whether she belongs to a low family or not low… and all other caste relations. When… honored, they give Success instantly to those who desire the welfare of all beings… Women are heaven; women are Dharma; and women are the highest penance. Women are Buddha;… the Samgha… the Perfection of Wisdom. [The yogi] should always worship Vajrayogini with flowers and incense… prose and poetry… He should look, touch, and remember, while acting in accordance with his words” (pg. 80-83). Devotion of this kind directs both practitioners to the five chakra identities by which “beings situated in all directions” (pg. 77) come to “know [vajrasattva] as embodied in all men…[and vajrayogini] as embodied in all women” (pg. 45) and whereby practitioners join the three bodies of Buddhahood.

                Serinity Young, in chapter eight of her book ‘Courtesans and Tantric Consorts’ concludes that “except for very rare images of the female as the dominant partner, in all other cases the females are unnaturally small compared to the male figure, indicating their subordination… Regardless, all the yab/yum images do allow for the female to be in the weighted if not dominant position,” where ‘weighted’ refers to the female’s ‘position’ as co-supplier/achiever of perfection if not the sole supplier/achiever. A place where our ‘modern mind’ may find evidence of relationships inconsistent with Shaw’s conclusion is in Young’s summary of the Eighty Four Mahasiddha biographies when she notes: “the tantras usually recommend that the female consort be young… between the ages of twelve and twenty… [which] promotes the idea that female tantric consorts are inexperienced… and not accomplished practitioners in their own right” (Young, 140-141). This may be true, except in the following chapter, as she is discussing Padmasambhava’s partners, Yeshe Tsogyel and Madarava, she mentions that Yeshe Tsogyel’s practice was so advanced that solitary practice became dangerous, to the point that “King Trisong Detsan had to intervene by taking her as one of his wives in order to prevent her contending suitors going to war over her.” Even though she “is said to be have been either twelve or sixteen years old at the time” Yeshe Tsogyel, along with Mandrava, “were both serious practitioners of Buddhism before they met Padmasambhava, and after receiving teachings from him they continued their practice… were sought by disciples… achieved enlightenment, and are said to have vanished directly into the sky” (Young, 150-151).

There is, obviously, variation amongst the Tantras, but my reading of George’s translation of the Caṇḍamahāroṣanatantra leaves me to conclude that the picture described by Shaw is consistent with the practices it contains. From its outset there is the tone of conversational cooperation, and evidence of both partner’s advanced practice is present in the form of the ease with which they enter their respective trances. Even though The Lord’s responses to The Lady’s questions concerning ‘the person practicing’ often contains the male pronoun, i consider “the instructions” far from “completely phallocentric” (Young, 140) as it extols the worship of all things female. When The Lady becomes the more active instructor it becomes even less “phollocentric” to the point where it swings slightly over the line of neutrality and could almost be described as ‘Lotuscentric.’ Serinity Young presents as much evidence as she can towards the male dominance of women attempting to show its overflow into the religious realms including Tantra, while simultaneously presenting evidence of the two sided soteriological scene through the biographies of Successful female practitioner; thereby adding to the confusion, but generally supporting (or at least, i think, wanting to support) Shaw’s claims of mutual advancement. Young’s greatest hang-up seems to be the “contrasts [between] the exploitation of mundane sexuality with [the] liberating sexuality of Tantra” (Young, 153). Personally, i’m consoled by the passage in chapter six of the CMRT that states: “Those chattering fools engaged in evil action, who now disparage [women] out of hostility, will, by their action, remain constantly tortured for three eons in the fathomless Rudra Hell, wailing as their bodies burn in many fires” (pg. 70). Generally speaking, the kinds of practice described in the CMRT “only begin after vigorous training in the lower yogas under the supervision of a qualified guru and at the completion stage of the highest tantras” (Young, 137), but in the end one practitioner’s practice will never be enough to overcome another’s lack of practice. So one seeking advancement needs to take an active role in their development, even if that activity transcends convention.

 

Bibliography

George, Christopher. "The Candamaharosana Tantra: Chapters I-VIII A Critical Edition and English Translation". American Oriental Series Vol. 56 1974: 45-85.

Young, Serinity. Courtesans and Tantric Consorts: Sexualities in Buddhist Narrative, Iconography, and Ritual. New York: Routledge, 2004.

 

z summa shedule ill be sticking 2

Eng-L 357{20TH CENTURY AMERICAN POETRY}Mon-Fri 2:35p-3:50 (1st summa sesion)

Eng-W 103{Intro. to creative writing}  Mon-Fri  11:30a-12:20p (2nd summa session)


+ working working in the lab to button up mera paper and keep the place in clean glassware&pots

sounds like fun, eh?
 

:~)

                Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking is a masterful example of freeverse lyricism reminiscent of the great epics in fluidity and visually stimulating potential. The first twenty two lines capture the sentiments on which Whitman later expands and somewhat acts as an invocation to the muse, except that for Whitman the muse was already present in “the stars shining, the winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuously echoing, with… the fierce old mother incessantly moaning, on the sands of Paumanok’s shore,” so it’s more like a celebration of the muse. Once the story of Paumanok begins, we’re at first kept aware of the piece’s memorial nature by the use of past tense verbs, but as the
“man, yet by these tears a little boy again” begins ‘translating the cautiously peered and absorbed’ notes of Mockingbird love Whitman is “Singing all time, minding no time” and “[uniting the] here and hereafter.” This poem illustrates well why Whitman adopted the dynamic freeverse repetition that exemplifies his contribution to the art, for, as the “child, the wind wafting [his] hair, Listen’d long and long. Listen’d to keep, to sing… those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist” the man “never more shall… cease to perpetuate” the song of the “lone singer wonderful.”

                Whitman’s use of language is very playful yet lacks no refinement and doesn’t hide his well versed exploration of its depths, heights, and breadths. Out of the Cradle’s diction maintains a sort of stutter-step rhythm that mimics the mockingbird, and many other song birds’, calls while the lines divorce themselves from the regular meters of his predecessors. The bulk of the poem reads like a fairy tale, if not Spencerian Walt Disneyish, but the bookend realizations of personal destiny  and cyclical impermanence pierce the surface and shows that it rained “down from [Whitman’s] shower’d halo” and the “mystic play” that makes it so vivid to him after many years and us so many more.

"write a one page (25 line) single spaced imitation [of Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking]"

 

 Hawthorn Park lake shone that day
with late summer sun setting long,
chrome yellow and orange burned my unexpectant eyes cast high
Amogst the honeysuckle bushes and briars, not far upon shore,
the silent sphere within the city limits called to my young heart
bowed low, to the tender, terrible feet of Gaia.
Trembling leaves rustle sounds like waves,
and waves lap up the sun, the Father of here,
and here and here,
and waves lap up the shore, and the hills bring more,
and the hills bring more.

To the sky i cried, i cried a dry cry:
within me resides a song not sung!
Sun, Shine! Shine shine,
show the within the without, for without the within will wither.
Whither shall i look to find, to find, to find; the mind?
but to bring it out? a shout, SHOUT, A SHOUT!?
Send a sign and show, shine and show!

When the wind came the cries fled, filled with light,
and light and light and like light within shone bright,
bursting forth songs of souls entwined, and stand true timbers, and tears,
and tears and tears not shed in vain but tears like waves
that wash the sore shore, that shine with the sun,
and time melting, and time, and time coming together, together forever.
And hence and forever, within each song sung resides that shine;
not mine to find or keep hid, but to collect and share.

                Anneberg’s Voices and Visions on Emily Dickenson is illuminating of her poetry, and is as inspiring as any written work, for it instills in me a sense of identification with her. I find her seeming ‘lack of faith’ interesting, because, as her most telling schism with conventional society, it’s her greatest misunderstanding and strength. The video describes Dickenson as one with greater faith, as far as i’m concerned, as she continued to function despite the ‘extremities’ of her mental states. It portrays her as somewhat of a monastic and true initiate into religious esoterism that was also an example of modernization through the sciences. I’m intrigued by her death perspective poems and the video explained her propensity towards the subject with the description of her window view, that of an ever increasing population of corpses 'consumed' by TB. Even though it’s always a present reality, our ‘modern mind’ might be insulated from it’s inevitability by a conviction of longevity through medicine, but the video made clear that , at least for Dickenson, death was an impending certainty. That makes her focus on the Moment to the exclusion of social interaction seem much more reasonable, for in her life “with Will to choose, or to reject… [she chose], just a Crown-“

                I enjoy the discussion of her use of the hymn meter. It described it as a ‘violation of the hymn's integrity’ which combined with the image of her as a monastic in “her own Society,” brings about an image of a tantric adept reshaping the philosophical and theological landscape. Her use of enjambment in the hymn form is like her jamming of the church’s finger of blind faith.

                The Anneberg Voices and Visions on Walt Whitman paints a portrait so much more complex than the simple yet confident image opening Leaves of Grass, and it paints that image with hues as variegated as any Indian spice market. The title ‘Leaves of Grass’ and his most prominent poem ‘Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking’ color the image with green and brown and sea blue turned black by the low dipped moon, with the colors of the natural mystic, and yet the video makes explicitly clear his urban upbringing; going as far as to call him ‘ the first city poet.’ Resolution comes through the reality of Whitman’s New York, through the close long Island blend of urban and rural lives and the still somewhat raw city interbetweens. The video paints Whitman as a sort of expansion age ‘Marlboro Man,’ a roughneck with a gentleman’s sophistication, and in Whitman’s  case with a twist that stirred the neck hairs of his contemporaries.  There’s a line at the beginning of the video, uttered by the Whitman play actor, that goes: “I abandoned the conventional themes… the choice plots of love and war” that seems to be a far cry from what Whitman actually did. He may have ‘abandoned the conventional themes” in the first edition of Leaves of Grass, but as it evolved ‘the choice plots of love and war’ became a mainstay for Whitman as well.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Sunbeam
Ala Wallace Stevens

I
Among trillions of hydrogen mols
Two atoms touch, two fuse and such,
Balloon filling and a pulse ensues.

II
Existence of three kinds,
at light speed
a particle, wave and tune are thrown.

III
Photons do the twist and form solar winds.
It’s a small part of the cosmic rain.

IV
A turnip and a rose
Are One.
A turnip and a rose and this tune
Are One.

V
i choose not to prefer
the Beauty of reflection
or the Beauty of invisibles,
The carrot hued tune
or just the mirror.

VI
Tears filled the near closed windows
with prismatic glass.
The sulfer flame became blured,
Crosses to and fro
with tunes
that danced in the shadow,
indecipherable hues.

VII
O woman, Floridelphian,
why do you imagine green birds?
Do you not see how the jade bird
shines at your feet?
Bright in tune, with you near.


VIII
i know noble hues
And lucid, inescapable blues;
But i know, too,
That the tunes are involved
in what i know.

IX
When photons sink below height
it marks the edge
of the denim depths.

X
When the bright sine curve
floats as violet light
even the squid’s open aperture,
excited, widens quickly.

XI
He rode over the Marianas
In an ebony conch.
Once a fear pierced him,
when he mistook
the shadowlessness of his lodge
for a lack of tunes.

XII
The floor is sinking.
The tunes are no longer silent.

XIII
It was energy all along.
It was changing
And is going to change.
The tunes turned to heat
as the center spins.

Disillusionment with disillusionment
ala Wallace Stevens

The mind is hollowed
By White crown shine,
When there’s no Blue
or Green while Blue sings
or Blue with Yellow things
or Yellow with Red rings.
Let’s try something strange;
With stock in grace,
Let’s bridge centuries.
People are not going
to always be keen of Pan & Tink.
Only, here and there, brave Siddhas,
Drunk, yet awake in their boots,
Catch rainbows
In any weather

pencil
-ala Gertrude Stein-

A pencil is a pen with no sealing.
A pencil is a pin in a hair people;
pen the pencil in, pen the pencil sty;
don't style the pencil with ink, link it
think it to the brink and see.