This article is featured on: Buddhism and Sex & Spirituality
Posted October 18th, 2007 by Ross Vaughn
An interview with Miranda Shaw

When Professor Miranda Shaw looks at women in Tibetan paintings,
she does not see colorful two-dimensional figures born of an artist’s mind.
She sees “numinous, sky-borne women,” “revelers in freedom,” “enchantresses
of passion, ecstasy and ferocious intensity”—radiant reflections of the powerful,
enlightened women who helped to shape the world of Buddhist tantra.


She writes:
“One can almost hear the soft clacking of their intricate bone jewelry and feel
the wind stirred by their rainbow-color
ed scarves as they soar through the tantric
Buddhist landscape.” It was her encounter with these images at an art exhibit
during her sophomore year in college that first captured her imagination and
inspired the curiosity that fueled her life’s first major work—a research quest
that carried her from the Harvard Divinity School to the remote reaches of the
Tibetan plateau in search of an authentic firsthand understanding of the theory
and practice of tantra.


Raised
by Methodist parents in a small town in Ohio, Shaw first became interested in
Eastern religions at the age of fourteen when a family friend showed her a copy
of the Bhagavad Gita. Despite having been raised with little exposure to religious
thought, she found herself mesmerized, unable to put the book down. It was the
beginning of a love affair with religious literature, the tokens of which still
line the hallways and rooms of her small apartment near the University of Richmond,
where she is now Assistant Professor of Religion. Her zeal for religious study
eventually propelled her into the doctoral program at Harvard, where working
on her Ph.D. dissertation, she found her way to the forefront of research into
tantric Buddhism.


The culmination
of that research is her 1994 book, Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric
Buddhism. Now in its fourth printing, Passionate Enlightenment has
been hailed as a groundbreaking contribution to the study of tantric history.
Drawing on her exhaustive study of the central tantric texts in their original
languages, as well as two and a half years of field research in India and Nepal,
Shaw’s book presents a revolutionary reexamination of the nature of tantric
practice, revolving around one simple point: In addition to serving the spiritual
progress of men, tantra was also for the enlightenment of women. While there
has been a great deal of scholarship on both Buddhism and tantra over the past

quarter century, prior to Shaw’s work, the assumption underlying that research
had always been that women were included in tantric practice only to the extent
that they could support men in their pursuit of enlightenment. By setting
that assumption aside and taking a fresh, in-depth look at both written and
living sources, Shaw discovered a world in which women not only lived and practiced
on an equal footing with men in their own pursuit of spiritual transformation,
but in many cases even led the way. In fact, Shaw learned that for the serious
male tantric practitioner, women were to be worshipped, honored and revered
as the bringers of enlightened energy into the world. Through this revolutionary
reinterpretation of the tantric texts, Shaw was finally able to make sense of
many of the seemingly disparate strands of this complex tradition and, in so
doing, to create a foundation for a new chapter in the study of tantric theory
and practice.


While
this issue of What Is Enlightenment? is not directly concerned with the
topic of gender in relation to spiritual practice, we knew as soon as we read
Miranda Shaw’s book that we wanted to speak with her. As a pioneering thinker
in her field and a researcher with firsthand experience among traditional teachers,
she appeared to be in a better position than almost anyone to help us sort through
the confusing message of contemporary tantra. And, in a manner uncharacteristic
of the writing of many scholars, her adventurous prose revealed a dynamic and
seemingly personal interest in her subject. What intrigued us most of all, however,
were the apparent ease and confidence with which she was able to shift from
subtle and insightful explications of esoteric Buddhist teachings to detailed
descriptions of the more graphic dimensions of tantric sexual practice without
missing a beat. Miranda Shaw, we thought, must be an unusual professor.


But despite

having read her work and having spoken with her a f
ew times on the phone, the
day Miranda Shaw picked me up at the Richmond airport, I think I was still expecting
someone more closely resembling a librarian than the attractive, spirited woman
who greeted me. “I didn’t expect you to be so young!” she said, shaking my hand
and smiling warmly. And as we sped into town from the airport, tires screeching
around at least one corner, I began to get a sense of the Miranda Shaw who had
found so much inspiration in the images of the sky-dancing tantric heroines.
Later, sitting lotus-style in the living room of her apartment, surrounded by
erotic imagery from both classical and contemporary art, she shared both her
understanding of the views and practices of Buddhist tantra and the personal
passion for her subject that had taken her to the far corners of the earth.

Interview

WIE:
In your book Passionate Enlightenment, you describe how tantric Buddhism
began as a revolutionary movement or rebellion against the rigidity of traditional
Buddhist monastic institutions. Who were these revolutionaries?



Miranda Shaw: The founders of tantra came from all walks of life.
We find royalty and aristocracy as well as tribal people and people practicing
all kinds of trades and crafts. But interestingly, we also find people from
the monasteries. As tantra was being founded and shaped, some of those in the
monasteries left because they didn’t want to be removed from life-as-lived.
The main impetus for the movement, though, did take place outside the monasteries,
from what we would call laypeople—people who wanted to practice yoga and spiritual
disciplines, but not necessarily in a monastic context as celibates, and not
in separation from members of the opposite sex or outside of the context of
their intimate and familial relationships.



WIE: Prior to the emergence of tantra, Buddhism
was generally practiced only within a strict monastic setting, so if you wanted
to become a serious spiritual practitioner within Buddhism, you joined the monastery?



MS: That’s right. There were ethical practices
and simple meditations that laypeople did, but they wouldn’t be the intensive
spiritual pursuits in quest of enlightenment.



WIE: What were the pivotal events that spurred
this new movement?



MS: The development of Buddhism has been marked
by ever increasing expansion into new geographic areas and new social groups
and cultural contexts. During the t
antric period, we find Buddhism once again
expanding its base and actually reaching out to people, for example, in the
mountains, at the borders of society, and at the lower rungs of society. As
these people entered Buddhism, they brought with them their own forms of spirituality,
their own symbolism and ritual skills. So their insights became woven into the
tantric Buddhist vision. One of the ritual skills that is associated with those
groups is the shamanic practice of “transforming into deity.” These
techniques of transforming into deity then combined with the tantric goal of
attaining Buddhahood in this very life.



WIE: Transforming into deity—what does that
mean exactly?



MS: Embodying the presence of deity on every level of your being:
body, speech and mind. Not only mentally seeing the world as a deity would see
it—as harmonious and pure and perfect as it is, as a realm of aesthetic splendor—but
also speaking as a deity would speak: with words of insight, liberation and
compassion. What I find very exciting about the tantric vision is the practice
of realizing the presence of deities within your own body and manifesting divinity
through your physical actions. But it is not only manifesting the presence of
a deity so that the deity can receive worship, or to heal or to perform other
activities, but to manifest the presence of full enlightenment, of Buddhahood,
in the world.



WIE: This was obviously an entirely new
context for the practice of Buddhism. What was actually happening at that time?



MS: The institutional pattern of tantra followed
the ancient yogic model in India, which is that a teacher comes forth with teachings,
revelations and methods, and then disciples who want to practice that gather
around the teacher and often live near the teacher. They practice together and
perhaps go on pilgrimage together and form a small community. There was no central
organizing or authorizing body that would censor the teachings in advance or
would limit who could teach, which is one of the reasons why it was such a creative
period.



WIE: What were some of the key practices
of the tantric approach?



MS: The basic mindfulness techniques and ethical
teachings of Buddhism were already in place by this time. What was added at
this point was the incorporation of a number of yogic techniques, specific ways
of directing the breath and the inner energies of the body, which were drawn
from the broader yogic knowledge of India. A lot of ritual elements were also
incorporated, as well as magical techniques and dance practices. Probably what
was most distinctive about this period, though, was the introduction of the
yoga of union—the practices that men and women could do together in order to
transform the energies awakened by sexual union into very refined states of
consciousness, wisdom and bliss.



WIE: Until that time, there had been no
sexual practice in Buddhism, right?



MS: Right. There were ethical teachings about
sexuality but there were no yogas for using those energies to attain enlightenment.



WIE: How was sexuality or the practice of
sexual yoga seen to be of benefit on the path to enlightenment?



MS: Sexuality is an extremely powerful, primal
and irreducible aspect of human nature. One of the contributions of the tantric
paradigm was the insight that sexual energies were being wasted in some forms
of meditative practice. Some of the tantric pioneers felt that a celibate lifestyle
did not, in fact, represent a mastery of one’s sexuality, but rather a repression
of and even a flight in fear from one’s sexuality. One was in fact postponing
for future lives work which must be done to integrate every aspect of one’s
being and to master every form of energy at one’s command.



WIE: So the idea was that if you took a
lifelong vow of celibacy, there was no way you could actually achieve mastery
over the sexual impulse?



MS: There is a tantric teaching to the effect
that without the practice of sexual union and without integrating one’s energies
at that level, it is impossible to attain enlightenment in the present lifetime.



WIE: I read in your book that one of the
tantric texts goes so far as to state that even the Buddha did not in fact attain
enlightenment under the bodhi tree, as is commonly believed, but while practicing
sexual yoga in the palace with his wife.



MS: That’s exactly the teaching I’m referring
to. They say it’s impossible to attain enlightenment in the present lifetime
without uniting with a yogic consort. So they claim that even Shakyamuni Buddha
had a consort with whom he practiced—his wife, before he left the palace—and
that if he had not done that, he could not have attained enlightenment.



WIE: You say in your book that although
he had already
actually achieved enlightenment in the palace, he renounced his
kingdom, became a homeless wanderer and did years of austere practices in order
to inspire people to take up the spiritual life—people who might be moved by
such a powerful act
of renunciation.



MS: Yes, he attained enlightenment in union
with her. Then, in order to draw people who would be inspired by renunciation
and who are in fact destined to follow a path of renunciation during this lifetime,
he provided that illusory display of austerity.



WIE: It’s a fascinating story. But I would
imagine that the Theravadins or other more traditional Buddhists would argue
that that was just a rewriting of history to serve the tantrics’ own ideological
aims.

MS: What Shakyamuni actually did and attained
and said is so lost in the mists of time that by the time we get the earliest
written sources, it’s already hundreds of years later. I do feel that the tantric
account is possible.

In speaking about this, though, I want to make it clear that the tantrics did
not make a value judgment about people who could not or did not want to integrate
their sexual energies into their spiritual path during this lifetime. They realized
that celibacy is appropriat
e for some people because of where they are karmically.
But what the tantric insight added was the recognition that some people have
an abundance of passion—a very sensual, sensuous, aesthetically alive, emotionally
intense character. They wanted to offer tantra as a way that those people could
use this intensity so that they would not have to waste all this energy which
was at their command, and which in all likelihood they could not really renounce
or repress in any case.



WIE: In talking about it this way, you seem
to be saying that there are different paths for different types of people and
that tantra was intended for passionate people, those who expressed an unusual
degree of fire and intensity in their character.


MS: Absolutely. The texts say this over and
over again: Tantra is for passionate people.



WIE: How does that fit with the view you
just described, that tantric union is the only way that anyone can actually
attain full Buddhahood in this lifetime?



MS: Full Buddhahood in this lifetime is a tantric
goal. It is not a Mahayana or Theravada goal. Therefore, it’s fully consistent.



WIE: But in whatever lifetime it happens,
at that point it will be in this lifetime. So in the end, they do seem
to be saying that the only way anybody is ever going to get there is through
the practice of sexual yoga or tantric union.



MS: That’s right. Because, interestingly, they
believe that in order to attain full enlightenment you have to contact and release
the energy of your heart, which for them is the center, the core of your being,
of your consciousness, at the deepest level. That is where you are storing the
fears, hatreds and angers of many lifetimes. They felt that only the energy
that is generated through the practice of union with a consort could have the
power to blast through the residue of centuries of egoic behavior and immersion
in illusion and negativity, and to dissolve the layers of hatred and fear within
the heart.



WIE: How does this “blasting through”
occur? In your book, you state that “practice with a [tantric] partner
is believed to make it possible to open the heart fully at the most profound
level, freeing it from all knots, constrictions and obscurations created by
false views and self-cherishing emotions.”



MS: One of the purposes of the sexual yogas
is to concentrate the energies in the abdominal area of the body, which is the
seat of
inner fire that the tantrics seek to kindle and fan into flame. Through
the practice of sexual union, the attention is concentrated in that area, which
is several inches below the navel, in the region where the sexual sensations
would be arising. However, unlike ordinary sexuality, where the partners would
simply allow the pleasure to take its course, tantrics would concentrate their
energy and their thought at this one point and use it to arouse that inner fire.
When that fire is kindled and starts to burn very brightly, there are several
meditations that can be done to refine the energies at the heart. One of them
is to direct the energy upward into the heart and, because of the quantity of
energy involved, as it goes through the heart, it naturally unties a knot, as
they say, and bursts through these residues. However, as the residues are being
released, one will sometimes have an experiential sensation of the emotion that
is being released as it floats up into conscious awareness. Sometimes if it’s
a hatred, for example, or a fear that’s floating up, one will actively experience
the emotion as it’s being released. It takes a great deal of awareness to be
able to process the emotions that are coming up from the past and release them
as they arise, rather than project them onto the present situation.



WIE: It sounds as though the practice requires
a lot more than just the generation of intense energy. It must also demand a
cultivation of certain qualities, and of one’s character, in order for the practitioner
to be able to bear everything that such an intensity of energy is going to stir
up.



MS: The potential for reattachment is there
because as these emotions and powerful mind-states are being generated, if you
are not really poised to detach from them, you can become reinvolved in these
past neuroses. They demand at that time to be dealt with in one way or another,
and that’s why practicing tantra is said to be like walking along the edge of
a sword. It’s not without its danger. The intensity of energies you’re working
with and the level of psyche that you are excavating is potentially dangerous
to your peace of mind.



WIE: What is it like to be working so closely
and intimately with another person when dealing with such powerful energies
and emotions? Tantric relationships must be unusually intense.



MS: The relationship provides an opportunity
to observe ourselves, to mirror one another and to work with these energies
as they arise in an ongoing way. When that direct involvement is combined with
the power of the yoga, the entire relationship becomes a crucible of inner combustion
and total transformation.



WIE: It would seem, then, that the spiritual
involvement between two partners goes far beyond just doing the energetic practice
together. Does it also confront the challenge of living together and finding
a way to become decent human beings?



MS: It goes vastly beyond becoming decent human
beings. It has to do with how we are going to support one another in attaining
enlightenment, which is another level of interaction altogether. It might involve
things that in an ordinary way don’t look decent. That’s why it’s very important
in choosing a tantric partner to find someone who has a comparable level of
emotional, intellectual and spiritual sophistication. Because the processes
involved require not only a high degree of emotional detachment, but also the
possession of certain intellectual skills, such as the capacity to deconstruct
the contents and interpretations of one’s experience in a precise way.



WIE: It sounds as though getting into a
tantric relationship is a serious event requiring a lot of forethought. This
doesn’t seem like something you could just add to your relationship.



MS: It would be harder to add tantra to an
existing relationship than it would be to start it as a tantric relationship
from the beginning, because in an existing relationship so many patterns would
already be in place. And then you’d have all those patterns in addition
to all the patterns from the previous l
ifetimes that you’re trying to clear
up. I like to think that in theory it could be done, but that’s not the way
it seems to work.



WIE: One of the other practices that you
detail in your book has to do with the combining of bliss and emptiness, or
the attempt to bring the realization of emptiness to bear on one’s experience
of bliss. When you say “bliss” in this context, do you simply mean
erotic pleasure—the same pleasure that most people are familiar with?



MS: In tantric practice, one goes beyond pleasure
and follows the pleasure to its root, which is the core of the mind, which is
made of pure bliss. You go into the realm of pure bliss which is beyond the
senses, but you have used the senses to reach it. You’ve used the sense pleasure
and gone deeply into its core. But when you’re in this deep level of bliss,
it’s very easy to become attached to the object of the
bliss, or source of the
bliss—which is your partner—and also to the experience of bliss itself, and
to turn the bliss into yet another experience of entanglement. That is why the
experience of bliss is combined with meditation upon emptiness. It is necessary
in tantra to combine this experience of very intense bliss with the realization
of emptiness.

Tantrics would already have familiarized themselves with the philosophy of emptiness,
the understanding that all phenomena are devoid of intrinsic identity, of permanent,
independent selfhood. So in that sense, there’s an understanding that the world
is illusory and thus is not capable of providing satisfaction or ultimate bliss.
What tantric partners do in the midst of the experience of bliss is to take
this specific insight and apply it to the experience of bliss itself and to
deconstruct it, to see that there is no self that is experiencing the bliss.
The bliss has arisen in a kind of empty space. There’s no owner of the bliss.
There’s no source of the bliss. The combination of bliss with this insight into
its emptiness should then lead each partner into vast, skylike awareness, a
decentered awareness—in essence, an experience of universal awareness.

WIE: There’s another point in your
book
where you describe the transformation of sensual pleasure into spiritual ecstasy.



MS: This is exactly how it happens. The ordinary
pleasure is turned into transcendent pleasure by the application of insight
into emptiness.



WIE: Okay. So there’s this intense experience
of erotic pleasure and you’re completely concentrated in that.



MS: Yes, and then you’re applying your insight
into emptiness. You’re deconstructing it. You’re seeing it as empty. As you
move through that process, you’re actually removing any possible elements of
attachment within it, so you’re taking yourself out of the bliss as the experiencer.
You’re taking the object out of the bliss as its cause. You’re taking even that
interpretation of the experience as bliss, even the word “bliss,”
out of it also. As you deconstruct the different aspects of the bliss, it is
transformed from ordinary bliss or pleasure into the transcendent bliss that
is devoid of characteristics, and which cannot be described.



WIE: So does the bliss actually change or
do you just peel away everything that you’ve imposed on it in order to illuminate
what it was already?



MS: In the tantric analysis, you’re removing
the obstacles to experiencing it in its fullness. According to tantra, that
transcendent bliss is fully present in every moment of experience, but it’s
covered over by what we have projected onto our experience, which are the demands
of our ego upon that event.



WIE: One of the main topics of your book
is male/female gender relationships and gender roles. You make it quite clear
that in the practice of tantric sexual yoga, men are to worship women. Throughout
the text, men are variously referred to as “devotees,” “servants”
and even “slaves” of the women, and in particular, men are advised
that they should “take refuge in the vulva of an esteemed woman” and
should even “be willing to touch and ingest every substance discharged
by a woman’s body.”



MS: And lick any part of her body, if requested
to do so!



WIE: That’s an extreme degree of willingness
to worship and to accept a decidedly subordinate relationship to the woman.
It’s literally treating the woman as a goddess.



MS: As a goddess, yes. The goal of tantric
practice is to transform into deity. The woman’s path involves realizing that
she is, in essence, a goddess or a female Buddha. The man’s treatment of her
supports her in her emerging
realization of her enlightened essence. If he were
treating her merely as an equal or as a subordinate, she would have to struggle
against his vision and his treatment of her in order to realize her innate divinity.
Tantric women do not want to do that.



WIE: If embodiment of deity is one of the
main goals of tantra, is it also a goal for the man?



MS: Oh, absolutely.



WIE: Does she then treat him like a god?



MS: He’s also realizing his innate divinity
and his Buddhahood, only he believes that the proper expression of his Buddhahood
is to honor her divinity. In this worldview, it is the role of the female
to channel enlightened energies, the energy of transformation, into the world
in a powerful way. It is the role of the male to be the recipient of those energies
and to honor them and their source. Some men may disagree, but that is the tantric
view.



WIE: In your book you mention that in bringing
the woman to arousal, “a man must be careful to incite arousal without
detracting from her mindfulness.” How does he do that?



MS: It’s a question of virtuosity, of precision,
of delicacy. He can’t approach it in a sloppy or


WIE: A gross-minded kind of way?



MS: Yes. I guess delicacy is the best word
for it. Not imposing himself and his advances upon her but eliciting her pleasure.
It’s a different orientation. It involves a great deal of attentiveness to her
state of mind and her stages of arousal. It precludes the kind of aggressiveness
in the sexual act where the man has a set of preconceived stages in his mind
that he’s going to get through before he reaches his goal, and the quicker the
better.



WIE: That would distract her from her meditation?



MS: Undoubtedly.



WIE: You mentioned earlier that tantric
union or sexual yoga is considered to be one of the highest, most advanced practices,
requiring tremendous preparation, including intensive meditation practice, the
cultivation of a sense of universal responsibility, compassionate motivation,
and even the abandonment of the illusion of a separate, isolated self—all this
simply to prepare to do the practice.



MS: That’s right. And it requires solitude. It’s something that you
would do in most cases in a retreat type of situation.



WIE: What kind of retreat?



MS: The couple might go to the woods, to a
cave or a meditation hut—someplace where they have silence and solitude.
Because of the rarefied states of awareness that one would be cultivating, one
really wouldn’t want interruption at that time. One would need to concentrate
and go into the experience very deeply.



WIE: So this wasn’t a practice that couples
were doing in the evenings after work and dinner?



MS: Once the practice was stabilized
and mastered,
they could do that, but at the beginning, while they were developing it, it
wouldn’t be like that. You hear about people going on retreats, for example,
for six months or a year, where they would perform sexual yoga practice intensively
before they would try to integrate it into their lives on a more natural, ongoing
basis.



WIE: It’s interesting to hear that this
is how it has historically and traditionally been viewed because our reference
point for tantra these days is something much different. Looking through the
spiritual magazines, we see countless tantra workshops being taught by couples,
which other couples attend together or to which singles come and pair up for
a one- or two- week “intensive.” Compared to the spiritual context
you’ve described, from what I’ve seen these workshops seem to be based on more
of a Western therapeutic approach.



MS: The main distinction, I think, between
some of the modern, more secularized or Westernized versions—but also some
Indian versions—is that in these contemporary approaches, the relationship itself
is the focus, and they’re importing elements and practices from tantra in order
to enhance their relationship. Whereas in authentic tantra, you’re using the
contents of your relationship in order to pursue and attain enlightenment. So
the focus, the goal, is completely different.



WIE: How much of what’s currently going
on around us in the West in the name of tantra do you feel actually lives up
to the seriousness of what you have been describing?



MS: It seems that in general Westerners do
not have the foundation that Eastern practitioners would have. For example,
the practice of tantra in India, Nepal and Tibet presumes five years, on average,
of study of the philosophy of emptiness. People who are considering doing tantric
practice ask one another: “What philosophies of emptiness have you studied?”
“What texts?” They’ll question one another on technical points of
emptiness. What Westerner has done that? The fruitio
n of tantric practice is
the union of bliss and emptiness. If you do not understand emptiness, you cannot
deconstruct your emotions, and that is essential to tantric practice. What do
you do with fear when it arises, or anger or intense desire or lust? How do
you deconstruct that if you don’t understand emptiness? As you said, it’s not
psychotherapy.



WIE: I understand that it’s also a tantric
practice to imagine you’re performing sexual yoga without actually having a
physical partner.



MS: This is for monks, because they don’t want
to give up their vows of celibacy. They consider it preparation for that time
when they can practice with a consort in future lives.



WIE: When they’re doing that visualization
practice, is it actually something that they’re engaged in on every level, so
to speak? Do they provoke arousal in themselves?



MS: They’re supposed to.



WIE: They’re supposed to get sexually aroused
and do this visualization? Even in the monastery they’re doing that?



MS: Some of them. That’s the impression one
gets. They learn to channel that energy on their own. They’re not taking it
to a point of release, but arousing it and controlling it.



WIE: In addition to your study of the tantric
texts, you also did two and a half years of field research in Asia. You mentioned
that you met a number of yogis and yoginis. How many did you meet whom you felt
were true tantric masters?



MS: More than a dozen. They weren’t all teachers
of it, but they were all serious practitioners and adept masters. I met some
inauthentic ones, too.

WIE: What convinced you that they were true
masters?

MS: I talked to them about the practices and
I also looked at the level or intensity of their awareness, their capacity to
be totally aware in the present moment. One also gets a feeling for the purity
of the yogic body of a person to whom one is talking.



WIE: What do you mean by that?



MS: How much presence or absence there is in
their system of egoic residue. You can tell that by the way they move and the
way they comport themselves, the gravity, dignity and total mindfulness of their
presence. Whether their movements appear to be the gestures of a deity, whether
they communicate divinity and total impeccability. It was the quality of their
embodiment and presence that I looked at. But I didn’t stop there. If I thought
I had found someone, I would question them. It’s a very subtle process.



WIE: In your book you mention Lama Jorphel,
who was in some sense a teacher to you. Did you have other teachers as well
or was he the only one?



MS: I met many impressive people, but he was
the one with whom I worked most closely for the longest period. He really became
involved in the project and took an interest in guiding me personally as well
as intellectually. As a tantric teacher, he would not be interested simply in
providing information about tantra or spiritual development. His whole purpose
as a teacher of course is to guide and to transform people. Shortly after we
met, very early in our interaction together, he asked me if I had a meditation
practice. At that time, I did not. He told me that if I were to work with him,
I would need to do 100,000 prostrations, starting today. And 100,000 purification
mantras as well. I just said, “All right.” I mean, how could I presume
to ask for tantric teachings and not be willing to do any practice?



WIE: In your book, you also describe the
way he worked with you ongoingly by spontaneously responding to your different
emotional and mental states.



MS: He’s a person wh
om I would characterize
as having total awareness of the present moment and the capacity to devise a
teaching or a lesson on the spot that mirrors the state of mind of the student
and reveals whatever aspect of ego or illusion that may be operative in them
at that time. It was an extraordinary kind of interaction. I had never experienced
such accuracy of feedback from any Western therapist or counselor. I realized
that that was because he was bringing no ego needs or projections to the situation
whatsoever and therefore he had the capacity to mirror it in a very clear way.



WIE: Did you also undergo some of the more
advanced tantric trainings? It wasn’t clear to me whether you yourself engaged
in the tantric yoga practices we’ve been speaking about.



MS: Tantric practice is secret. You can’t talk
about it. You can’t say, “I did this.” You can’t say, “I did
that.” It’s absolutely forbidden.



WIE: People only speak about it in the abstract?



MS: You can speak about it with the people
you’re doing it with.

I talk about things in the abstract that I know to be true. That’s all I can
say. I wrote about very little from a purely theoretical perspective. I either
ascertained it or talked to someone who had experienced it.



WIE: Lama Jorphel obviously imparted a lot
to you during your time with him. Can you speak about what’s changed for you
as a result of all this?



MS: I changed profoundly on every level from
my research and study, even on a cellular level. I was completely transformed
physically. People who knew me before I started my research and then saw me
towards the end of that period did not recognize me.


Also,
my understanding of men totally changed. I discovered that men were capable
of decency, total refinement, and in fact
, enlightenment. That it’s possible
for men to be supportive of women in a profoundly spiritual way, not simply
emotionally. I discovered a whole form of male celebration of women that I did
not know existed. I was also surrounded by images of divinity in female form,
and seeing the unclothed female body in a religious context rather than in a
commercial, secular context as it is in the West was profoundly affirming for
me as a woman. My understanding of what is possible in male/female relationships
changed and my understanding of myself as a woman completely changed. I had
internalized a lot of the shame-based attitudes of the West, not only the general
attitudes of the culture at
large but also specific forms of shaming that had
been inflicted upon me in my own personal trajectory from which I was able finally
to be healed.


I would
really say that I encountered the power and full sacredness of being female,
because the tantric teaching is that women are pure and sacred in the essence
of their being. You’re talking about your very cells, your energy, not simply
something that you can attain, but an ontological fact. That changes the orientation
of your journey.



WIE: There have been so many abuses of power
by spiritual authorities over the past twenty years, and in particular, many
reported cases of sexual abuse by teachers in the Buddhist tradition claiming
to be practicing tantra. Often it seems that the word “tantra” is
used to justify what usually turns out to be nothing more than the pursuit of
personal sexual gratification, often at the disciple’s expense. Even the great
Kalu Rinpoche, revered as one of the greatest Buddhist masters of the modern
era, often referred to as the Milarepa of the twentieth century and considered
by many to have been a living Buddha, is now known to have been maintaining
a secret sexual relationship with his young Western female translator, June
Campbell, who claims with considerable support that she was intimidated into
keeping the relationship secret.



MS: I have no doubt that it happened. She was
emotionally coerced into a sexually abusive and exploitative relationship. Unfortunately,
the word “tantra” does provide a shield behind which sexual predation
can hide. But when you actually inquire into such sexual situations, you find
out that tantric practice was not the intent of the relationship. The way, for
example, that June Campbell describes their relationship, there was nothing
even remotely tantric about it. It was not for their mutual pursuit of enlightenment.
It was purely exploitative. This is not tantra.


I have
been approached by people who would simply say something like, “Have sex
with me and you’ll become more enlightened!”—which of course is not tantra.
If someone is approached by a spiritual teacher and is told, as it was told
to June Campbell and others, that this is for the benefit of the teacher, then
they should know automatically that it is not tantra. Because in tantra, you’re
not allowed to use the other person on any level. It has to be totally voluntary.
Any form of coercion is disallowed in tantra. I think the tantrics foresaw this
kind of abuse because they made a rule that the man may not directly approach
or request a woman to enter into a tantric relationship. He has to approach
her and offer himself subtly, indirectly through body language, through signs
and a certain secret language they use.

We need this kind of clarity in the West, because women’s lives, their peace
of mind and even their spiritual practice are being destroyed by ordinary predation.
This is simply sexual abuse in Eastern garb. I hope that work like mine, interviews
like yours and this issue of your magazine will help to clarify what tantra
is so that people cannot hide behind that label.



WIE: In looking at this whole issue, though,
it seems to me that something else is also revealed by the fact that so many
great masters have failed to demonstrate an enlightened relationship to sexuality.
We’re not just speaking about charlatans. Everybody I know who met Kalu Rinpoche
said he was an incredibly beautiful human being, a truly rare example of purity
and humanity.


MS: He was unbelievable.



WIE: So my question is: If even a man like
that, who has attained such a high level of practice, in a tradition where there
is such an elaborate teaching around sexuality, is unable to live with integrity
and decency in the face of the sexual impulse, then how wise is it for anyone
to recommend that people take up sexual practice as a path to enlightenment?



MS: These abuses and distortions actually justify
the original insight and intent of tantra, which was that if you do not work
directly with your sexuality, if you simply repress it or try to ignore it without
mastering it, then you cannot become fully enlightened. It’s not going to take
care of itself. And it’s not going to go away by itself if you have a lifetime
of celibacy. What we see happening, even in the case of the great master, is
that if sexuality is neglected, and at the same time, other sides of the personality,
such as lust for power or accumulation, are also developing, then the sexual
energies are simply going to be there to be claimed by the uncultivated and
even possibly corrupt dimensions of the personality. This is the entire point
of tantra: Enlighten your sexuality along with everything else!



WIE: Because if it’s not looked into, if
it’s not reckoned with, then it’s bound to resurface somewhere?



MS: Yes, it will surface as part of the unenlightened
dimension of your character and emerge in a way that causes you suffering and
inflicts suffering on others. The purpose of th
e path to enlightenment is to
cease to suffer and to cease to cause others to suffer. Cases like this simply
demonstrate that no matter how enlightened you may be, you must also pay attention
to your sexuality.