Traveller in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan

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Part 2 of 2

Historically, the evolution of the Tibetan Tantra, from the archaic emphasis on female subjectivity and the power of maternity, to the centrality of the male as divine and the holder of power, meant that the actual purpose of the female involvement became more and more obscure. According to the male view, women were the necessary 'ingredients'20 in the process of birthing and sexual activity, but, in the context of autonomy within the societal structures, women became co-opted solely on male terms. The encouragement of women's passivity, the discouragement of their voices of difference, and the seductive ambience of the Tantra with its promises of enlightenment for all, have led to a critical situation for women who feel attracted to follow Tantric teachings in western society at this time. Whilst the male side of the institution is readily accepted by men as they aspire to enter into it, many women may be confused about their place and role in a system which does not 'recognise' them. As Julia Kristeva writes, 'He and all his avatars would be possible but not the other'. 21 Even the question of female tulkus, which some feminist Buddhists see as a step towards 'equality', opens up a whole new debate on the nature of 'reincarnation' and its meaning, something which has barely begun to be discussed in Buddhist circles.

In general, very few women have been publicly recognised to have high spiritual qualities, and none holds a position of power within the hierarchy. Those who achieve acknowledgement are either married to lamas, are the mothers or sisters of lamas, or (and these are extremely rare) have achieved some kind of status through an extraordinary practice of meditation. Although many lamas do encourage women students by saying that women practitioners are some of their most devoted and skilful practitioners, no women are truly acknowledged as teachers, or take their place within the hierarchy. If so many lamas have had so many consorts over the years, why is it that there is no lineage of women as teachers in this area of knowledge? And why have so few women written about their actual lives and roles within the system, if they had truly participated as mutually co-operative partners with equal status in the rituals of sex?

These questions are fundamental to Shaw's argument that the mutual respect between men and women in the Tantra clearly gave them the authority to teach and write about such interdependence within their society. This seems to indicate that societal and personal interdependence between the sexes would be connected. While Shaw states that, 'Buddhism can coexist with oppressive social conditions' (italics mine),22 I wonder if an overt Tantric tradition which was widespread in a society could possibly exist openly in 'oppressive social conditions', given that the whole purpose of the Tantra is, as Shaw remarks, 'to deconstruct ... an armored, boundaried, or selfishly motivated "self".23 Were many individuals to undertake and teach this kind of co-operation, it would surely have an impact on society in general, and gender relations in particular.

To argue, therefore, that it is simply woman's role to remain 'hidden' is plainly detrimental to the cause of improved relations between the sexes, for, as Shaw's work uncovers, there existed at a different time women in Tantra who were at least as powerful, as active and as vocal as men, a fact which substantiates her claim that her 'study has "discovered" a different gender pattern'.24 My own view is that the area of knowledge itself has largely disappeared, and that women no longer know how to use the symbolic means of representation which would allow them proper subjectivity in contemporary western society. It is also my view that if anything had to remain 'secret' it was the truth of the fact that the patriarchal system had repressed the female in many covert ways, in order to maintain its male power, both on a personal and on a societal level. In Tibet the rights of transmission were held by the male lineage, so that rarely did women act as initiators to other women. It may have been the case that in the lay traditions one or two famous female yoginis were incorporated into the lineage, but in the last five hundred years there are no women included as lineage holders in any of the major schools. This meant that even though the images which symbolised female subjectivity and sexuality were retained, but classified largely as 'secret', their control was in the hands of men, as were the sexual consorts who, once initiators of sexual rituals to men, now became participants whose role was dictated by the male lineage. As Irigaray so aptly remarks on the effect of women's purpose being defined by men,

women are amputated of the purpose of their action, forced to be disinterested, self-sacrificing, without ever having chosen or wanted this. The path of renunciation described by certain mystics is women's daily lot. But it is not possible to ask one people to be saintly in the name of a purpose espoused by another people. In fact -- as Hegel understood very well -- neither the people nor the gender are one. But one part lays claim to the right of ethical consciousness and leaves the other no purpose, no effectiveness, except as double, shadow, complement. (Italics mine)25

Padmasambhava, as the earliest example of a holder of Tibetan Buddhist patriarchal rule, happily declared to his followers that the realm of female energy was under his control, 'I Pema Jungne, this Great Being, miraculously appeared, [S]pontaneously manifest, unborn and undying, [W]ith dominion over the hosts of Dakinis'.26 Concerning the objective role of the female, he also said, 'woman is a sacred ingredient of the Tantra, [A] qualified Awareness Dakini is necessary .... [W]ithout her the factors of maturity and release are incomplete' (italics mine),27 a statement obviously addressed by a man to men.

The loss of a potential female lineage, which since ancient times could have protected Tantric information of benefit to women, and created representations of female sexuality, meant that the purpose and goals of sexual activity became more and more concerned with the needs of the male participant. It has long been known, for example, that the male Tantric practitioner has as his aim the achievement of the retention of semen during intercourse, a practice which in many cultures is thought to be extremely beneficial for the man's health. Milarepa extolled the virtues of such practice, not only from the point of view of meditational and breath control, but also of pleasure, and described in his teachings both the characteristics required in a good karma mudra, and the various techniques which had to be employed by the man in order to achieve semen retention, and thus great bliss. He called this method 'a path of bliss -- of voidness, of no thoughts, and of two-in-one, A path of quick assistance by a goddess'.28

The instructions which appear in the so-called 'secret' texts spelled out the methods which enabled the man to control the flow of semen, particularly through practices of breath control. This kind of practice, known to many ancient cultures, determined that the semen had to be driven upwards along the spine to the head. In the Hindu tradition the semen was called 'ojas' -- 'the more ojas is in a man's head the more powerful he is, the more intellectual, the more spiritually strong'. 29 Like the cults of ancient times, the semen was equated with the substance of the brain, and was valued as a commodity to be retained by the body, in order to promote bliss, intelligence, good health and long life. This practice was one of the two aspects of masculinity which coloured the meaning conveyed in Tantric texts and commentaries. The other was the subjective experience of the male as privileged, which, as I have already shown, was firmly established through the societal theocratic system, and through the incorporation of the human 'divine king' into the iconography of the religion.

Retention of semen, however, formed the central part of an ideology of the 'opposite', which was intricately woven into the philosophy of the religion, both through the iconography, and through yogic practices which aimed for control over, or union with, an aspect of the opposite, whether that was as a person, or as a function pertaining to life in the ordinary sense. For example, breath control interferes with normal bodily functions, sitting absolutely still for extreme periods of time goes against physical norms, stopping thoughts defies the brain's normal activity, and holding back ejaculation goes against the physiology of sexuality in the male. In Tantric sexual practices the aim of uniting the male and female aspects (however they are defined) into a whole, unitary experience is attempted (by the male) through the use of a female partner. Eliade calls this 'the symbolism of the "opposite"'30 and claims that practices which involve it re-enact an experience similar to death, and also to divinity, two experiences which, by definition, are impossible to achieve in the live human form.

In shamanism, death is the prelude to rebirth, and forms a central theme in the practices which aim to take the shaman beyond mundane life. This goal is also that of the Tantric yogi. In Tibetan Buddhism, the supreme goal is for the practitioner to become enlightened in one lifetime, by overcoming the restrictions of death and becoming divine whilst still alive. The meaning of this extraordinary goal is that the yogi steps outside of ordinary time, the boundaries of which are only ultimately clear to humans through the phenomenon of death. By controlling both breath and semen, he enters a different conceptual reality in which he recognises his own divinity and is not bound by linear time. 'The yogin repeats and, as it were, relives the cosmic Great Time'.31 This attempt to master physicality in order to experience extraordinary time dimensions is reflected in one of the epithets for highly realised lamas -- Dusum Chenpa (Tibetan du.gsum.kyhen.pa.), which means 'the knower of the three times'.

But what is the importance of the symbolic break with linear time and why is it so closely associated with the male quest for enlightenment? Linear time is, after all, the time which is seen to 'pass', which is historical, measured, and is conceptualised in the logical systems of all societies. It is recognised through our perception of beginnings and endings, which colours our notion of entering into time, or even of controlling it. Death is always a part of our definition of linear time, perceiving as we do that time 'runs out' at the boundary point which ends life. In his work Being and Time Martin Heidegger proposes that awareness of one's own death is the ground for authentic existence. This kind of view is also to be found in Freud's works, when he associates the male experience of authenticity (phallic existence and sexuality) with linear time. He theorises that, for men, castration and death are often synonomous in the unconscious, and relate quite specifically to their experience of orgasm. Indeed in several languages the post-coital state for men is referred to as 'the little death'. In her essay on women and time, Julia Kristeva maintains that linear time 'is readily labelled masculine and ... is at once both civilizational and obsessional'.32

In a similar vein, the Tibetan tulku, Tarthang, describes linear time as having 'the effect of appearing to cover all the possibilities for expression',33 with its relentless emphasis on sequential moments, through which it seems impossible to break. He also suggests that we tend to believe, 'that ordinary lived time is actually a hidden, autonomous force that pushes us about'.34 Until the advent of relativity theory and sub-atomic physics, when the whole space-time paradigm was articulated, this perception of an omnipresent paternalistic Father Time, who watched over our march through life, would have seemed an apt metaphor, but we now know space and time are interconnected, so that body-space, which is dependent on gender, must be significant in the appreciation of time, its limits and qualities. The male yogi, in his attempt to experience a state beyond linear time is compelled to use his body-space, and thus his sexuality, as a means to experience what Tarthang calls 'Great Time'.

This kind of concept of time is present in most world civilisations, particularly those whose art and literature are religiously inspired, like those of Tibet. It has been called both cyclical and monumental time. Cyclical time is a deeper current in human experience than linear time, and seems to lie at the boundary between linear and monumental time. For women, the physiological experience of cyclical time binds her to corporeality through menstruation and gestation, placing her at the boundary of space-time. Not only that, but the experience of cycles within the body which so closely mirror extraneous forces in nature which seem eternal (the moon's phases, the tides) suggest an affinity with monumental time, something which men lack in this specific way. Monumental time, which is impossible to articulate, has been described as having a 'massive presence ... without cleavage or escape'.35 It is often conceived as all-pervading, mystical and beyond language, and, as a consequence of these associations, described by philosophers as within the female domain and therefore semiotic. Even Tarthang Tulku describes it as, 'the muse that all artists seek, the feature which allows us to perceive and celebrate the otherwise hidden dimensions of all the presentations that constitute life' (italics mine).36 For the male practitioner, that muse is always female. By reversing ordinary trends, and metaphorically stepping outwith the boundaries of ordinary time as it is perceived, going beyond language, and entering the sacred realm of the symbolic female, construed as Great Time and Space, the Tantric yogi seeks to achieve the transcendental aim of transcending his own body and its natural limits.

In sexual ritual, where the aim is to experience this different dimension of space-time through reversal and control, the male practitioner attempts to negate the subject-object dichotomy to be at one with the other. This enables him to experience a mythical state of being which is characterised by his ability to feel at one with all phenomena, a state in which no separation between himself and the 'other' is felt, a state not unlike that of his first relationship with his mother, before the idea of difference and separation arose.

One of the major conflicts, fundamental to the human condition, is wanting to grow versus wanting to go back to the womb. By the womb, we mean that feeling of safety and security that all of us experienced in our own lives before we were born and that humanity experienced before consciousness arose.

As human beings we find ourselves in the strange position of being organisms who must grow to self-actualize, and for us growth means separation from all of the bonds that keep us from our unique individuality. We feel the need to transcend our situations, to break free of the chains that bind us in order to forge our own paths.

But we also feel an almost irresistible pull to surrender that human responsibility so that we can experience the warm comfort of not having to make any decisions, of having someone else take care of all our needs and wants. Whether this someone is our parents, our nations, our Gods, our spouses, or any other entity the psychology behind the phenomenon is the same.

And so we’re left with the barely conscious but still very real conflict between moving forwards and moving backwards, and whichever decision we make we feel like we’re losing something vital. But really the question is between regressing and progressing, between evolution and devolution. We are free of the womb and however much we would like to go back the wish is nothing more than a childlike fantasy, both on the individual level and for humanity as a whole. Becoming a mature adult does not have to mean sacrificing all of the very important human connections that make life worth living, but it does mean questioning the nature of these connections and refusing to go backwards into a sort of childlike state where someone else dictates our values to us and makes our important decisions for us.

-- Wanting To Grow Versus Wanting To Go Back To The Womb, by mpschreiner

The withholding of semen is a crucial aspect of the practice which enables the yogi to unite with his so-called 'opposite'. In Tibetan semen is called tigle (Tibetan thig.le.), meaning literally 'dot' or 'essence'. Metaphorically, semen becomes changchubsem (Tibetan byang.chub.sems., Sanskrit bodhicitta), meaning literally 'mind of enlightenment', but subject in the texts to a variety of interpretative meanings, one of which is 'semen'. 'In Tantra the word bodhicitta also denotes sperm and female juices, and the injunction to retain the bodhicitta for the sake of others therefore possesses a powerful dual meaning.'37 Of the different translations of tigle and changchubsem (which incidentally are frequently used interchangeably to indicate an essence equated with male life-force), 'seed-essence', 'white bodhicitta' and 'psychic energy' are the most common. One commentator translates tigle as 'bioenergetic flow-input' and quotes the fourteenth-century Longchen Rabjampa's definition, '''thig'' means "unchanging" ("unalterable") and Ie "all-encompassing by virtue of its spreading far and wide", ... thig-Ie is similar to what we call the "genetic code" and its presence in every single cell'.38 Taking this definition into consideration, it is apparent that the word tigle, which is the specific word used in texts which describe the physical withholding of semen, could also be used generically to mean DNA.

In spite of the wide-ranging applications of the term, there does exist a counterpart to describe the female 'essence', which is known as 'red bodhicitta'. Referred to as trag (Tibetan khrag) which means 'blood', it is also known as dazen (Tibetan zla.mtsan.), which means 'monthly sign' and clearly refers to menstrual blood. It is also clear that the male and female essences, when described in physiological terms, i.e. semen and menstrual blood, are hardly synonymous, as one is of significance during the act of sexual orgasm and the other is not. It seems unlikely that the crude equation of menstrual blood with semen in Tibetan texts was due to an ignorance of the facts of male and female physiology and sexuality, but in the medical texts which describe human physiology it is written that 'Refined marrow forms semen or menstrual blood (conceived as female creative seed)',39 thus linking the two substances as parallel. Why the female creative seed should be equated with red menstrual blood, rather than the yellow corpus luteum of the ovum, which, as the carrier of the life-force, would be the true equivalent of the semen, can only be supposed, but it is evident that the symbolism associated with the colours red and white, to represent the female and male respectively, are conveniently found in these two fluids. It is also apparent that the function of menstrual blood is confused by its association with procreativity and the sexual act, for, as modern scientific investigation has shown, the ovum, if not fertilised, is destroyed long before the onset of menstruation, and therefore menstrual blood contains no 'seed essence' in the way semen can be said to. Indeed the most recent research points to the purpose of menstrual blood as being related to a protective mechanism in female physiology, to prevent infection by rogue sperm, rather than being simply the aftermath of ovulation and unsuccessful fertilisation, as has long been thought.

The confusion between the equating of semen with menstrual blood is further demonstrated by Keith Dowman in his explanation of Tantric practices, when he proposes that 'refined semen is stored in the heart centre as "radiance", which produces long-life and gives a shine to the complexion'.40 He goes on, 'loss of semen, by any means, causes life-span to be shortened and causes a pallid complexion'.41 It is clear from this latter statement that in this case the word 'semen' literally means semen, and not the generic term 'seed-essence' which would encompass menstrual blood, a substance impossible to 'withhold' and unrelated to the sexual act. Yet in other statements the word 'semen' is used interchangeably for seed-essence, or bodhicitta, which females are also said to produce.

In many cases the use of male gender identified terminology to cover both male and female reality or experience, may be, if not theoretically inappropriate, at least partially transferable, but in this particular case the equations do not balance. If it were simply the fact that the word 'semen' were used metaphorically, to describe a symbolic energy which had to be controlled through use of breathing techniques, during a visualised meditation, there might be no need for men to aim to withhold ejaculation, but clearly this is not so because the texts and the practice link breath control with this actual physiological achievement. Miranda Shaw agrees that menstrual fluid and semen are not the same, but further confuses the issue in her discussion of the sexual fluids. She recognises two types of Tantric sex, one which features the 'mingling' of the sexual fluids (and here she describes the woman's sexual fluid, whose flow the man has to stimulate, as 'the female equivalent of the man's seminal fluid') (italics mine),42 thereby implying ejaculation on the part of the man. In the other type of Tantric sex the man withholds ejaculation but absorbs the woman's fluids, in a reversal of ordinary sex. According to Shaw, 'the tantras (both Hindu and Buddhist) place somewhat more emphasis upon the man's absorption of female fluids',43 and this is certainly borne out in the texts which declare that not one drop of bodhicitta should be spilled in the quest for enlightenment.

What is interesting, however, about Shaw's comments on this kind of sexual practice is that its origins, in the Hindu Tantra, stipulate the passivity of the male, and the active nature of the female, as was the original designation in the Hindu Tantras. This allocation of qualities to the male and female, as I have already shown, is the opposite of the one adhered to in the Tibetan sexual iconography, where the female represents passivity. This almost seems substantiated by her other comment that, 'The gathering of the female fluids by the man ... expresses the relative status of male and female within the ritual, for it signals the power flowing from the female to the male' (italics mine).44 This reversal of the roles and processes involved in physiological sexual activity, again reinscribes the shamanistic imperative to undertake an ideology of the 'opposite' which may well have been thought physically possible by the ancients who developed these practices. It is my view, however, that the emphasis on this particular practice of Tantrism has reinforced in the Tibetan system the notion of imbalance between male and female, and that power has not flowed to the female, either metaphorically or literally for quite some time. Shaw herself concedes that 'Tantric Buddhism displays the conviction that all the powers of the universe flow through and from women'. 45

It seems likely, as Shaw herself states, that any degeneration in the way in which the rituals and practices of the Tantra were enacted, were surely due, as I have argued here, to 'cultural forces, institutional factors, and social patterns that have eclipsed the original vision'.46 Nonetheless, there are several problematic areas in attempting a reconstruction of Tantra in the west, under the terms of the philosophical goals which are stipulated by Shaw, and which she describes as consisting of the 'merging of identities . . . loss of ego boundaries, forgetfulness of self, and absence of subject-object dualism'.47 Whilst I argue later for the recognition of all identities and ego boundaries as ultimately fluid and unstable, the idea that the bodies of the male and female, already inscribed as male-subject/female-object through their gender allocation in the philosophy, could be merged into a unitary whole, is something which clearly requires to be debated. From the western psychoanalytical perspective on the relationship between subjects, the importance of autonomous difference is seen as a key factor in the development of healthy female subjectivity. The dangers therefore that the female would easily be subsumed by the male into a phallocentric arena of meaning, where 'unity' meant 'man', are very real, and require to be considered if male and female are ever to become autonomous yet different individuals with the capability of relating to one another harmoniously.

When Yeshe Tsogyal instructs a female disciple by saying, 'Practise to perfection the skill of retaining your seed-essence',48 she clearly does not mean semen, but rather some form of autonomous energy which requires to be held on to. If the ancient Tantras are to be interpreted now, it is my contention that the secret area of practice which is alluded to in many texts and whose aim is to establish female subjectivity should be read as the practice of retention of difference, as encoded in an essential aspect of being female (i.e. seed-essence). It is this difference which requires to be sustained through meditational visualisation, or breath control, and which helps to create open bodily awareness during any form of physical activity, including sexual intimacy. So while both men and women can potentially control breathing and orgasm through certain practices, which in turn increase pleasure, it is only men who require to control the unique physiological functions which pertain to their orgasm during sexual acts.

The different nature of female physiology is addressed to some extent in the Tantric texts of other traditions, by taking the focus of attention from the genital area in women to other parts of the body, in accordance with the contemporary view that women's sexual pleasure is not as specifically genitally located as men have described their own to be. The ancient Chinese texts are quite clear about the difference in physiology,

In his Secret of Feminine Alchemy, Liu I-Ming says, 'There is a true secret about starting practice. The operation is as different for men and women as sky from sea. The principle for men is refinement of energy, the expedient for women is refinement of the body.' Men begin practice with the attention in the lower abdomen, just below the navel. Women start work with the attention between the breasts. (Italics mine)49

Whilst the Chinese promoted the breasts as the centre of energy control for women, the Tibetans, by default, allowed the Tantric texts and images to prioritise the male side of the practice. The unfortunate generic application of the term for energy which is put forward in certain texts as representative of the life-force in both sexes, simply privileges male over female, by the linking together of a specific male biological reality with something which is said to be universal. The symbolism of tigle, for example, is described by one commentator as having, 'clear connotations of the ultimate ground of the universe, conceived both as semen and as pure spirit or thought' (italics mine).50 This kind of statement clearly places the male-essence as fundamental in nature, yet another misconception which prioritises the male, for, as we now know, the essential building block of all nature, if it must be gendered, is female. It is this tendency in the male-biased texts to privilege one gender over the other that also leads to the need to reflect a token presence of the female, often by attributing to her qualities and aspects which are defined as 'opposite' or 'mirror-image' to the male. Whilst bodhicitta may be used metaphorically to refer to particular states of mind, or indeed energies which flow in the body, there can be no justification for linking male physiology to enlightenment, in the absence of a different physiological model which is in tune with the reality of being a woman. As most linguistic analysts would now maintain, the sexism inherent in the use of a word with exclusive male associations, semen, to stand in for a general concept of universal relevance, does little more than to encode the superiority of the male in language itself.

This, together with the notable absence of an equivalent term for songyum, which would be songyab, establishes the male as the only viable subject in the sexual rituals of Tantra, in whose power rests the conditions and the meaning which pertain to the act of sexual union. Seen in this way, Andrea Nye's statement about masculinity in language can be paraphrased by substituting Tibetan words for her English examples. 'Masculinity' she claims, 'is the positive presence around which the meaning of words like 'father', 'mother' and 'child', is structured, and around which, by extension, all meaning must be structured'.51 I would paraphrase this to 'masculinity is the positive presence around which the meaning of words like 'tulku', 'songyum' and 'tigle', is structured, and around which, by extension, all meaning in the context of Tibetan Buddhism must be structured'.

The one-sided perspective on reality which I have shown is one with which western thought is beginning to come to grips, by recognising that philosophy, language and gender are interrelated, and as such have provided a blueprint for our way of living which has lasted for thousands of years. That the blueprint of many different cultures is now being subjected to scrutiny by thinking women and men is shown by the fact that it is no longer acceptable for the female experience to be either peripheral to that of the male, or to be defined as 'opposite' to the alleged centrality of the male experience. Even Yeshe Tsogyal, as an early 'female practitioner said, 'Unite (male) solar and (female) lunar energies ... Female assisting male and male assisting female, the principles of each being separately practised' (italics mine).52 This statement is interesting because the analogies of the sun and moon are very appropriate. Usually thought of as representing opposite forces, the sun and moon are clearly two separate, unique and different entities. Just because they are associated with the creation of conditions which are categorised as polarised opposites -- day and night, or dark and light -- does not mean that they themselves are in opposition to one another. Yeshe Tsogyal's acknowledgement therefore of sexual difference, and the presence of different principles, points out the need for separate practices. By so doing, the view that maleness and femaleness are somehow interchangeable, as absolutes, or simply mirror-images of one another, is undermined. Not only that, but any acknowledgement of difference as a crucial variable in human experience, like that articulated by Tsogyal, sets the scene for the establishment of a viable female subjective.

Interestingly, the view that is taken by Janice Willis in her article on the dakini is in stark contrast to that of Tsogyal. Willis strives to maintain the classic Buddhist position, so often adopted by gender-conscious commentators, which rationalises the absence of female experience and perspective by maintaining that the dualisms of gender are ultimately the illusions of unenlightened minds. Milarepa expresses this position when he states, 'Though . . . born in a female form, which is considered to be inferior, nevertheless, so far as the Maya [Store] Consciousness is concerned, there is no discrimination between man and woman.'53 Willis ties herself in semantic tangles when she attempts to neutralise the female-oriented implication of the term 'dakini' by placing the words referring to her in inverted commas. By this means she can show that dakini is of relevance to both men and women, as 'she' is simply an energy form which, whilst always represented in Tantric symbolism as female, is, in reality, according to her, a 'feminine principle' (italics original).54

The differentiation implied by labelling the dakini as 'feminine' rather than 'female' means that gender classification is seen as an arbitrary facet of being, of irrelevance to the practitioner, who must view her qualities as energies rather than as arising out of female being. This is the same argument in reverse, of the significance of tigle to both men and women. Whereas tigle must be read as having universal relevance, while it is clearly only of relevance to men, dakini must be seen as beyond gender, when she is clearly female. Of this paradox Willis says, '''she'' is not "female'" (italics original),55 but goes on to point out that the dakini is 'the necessary complement to render us (whether male or female) whole beings. To put it another way, "she" is what is lacking, the lacking of which prevents our complete Enlightenment' (italics original).56

As noble as this sentiment might be in philosophical terms, Willis fails to explain why it is that the dakini is first and foremost the sexual consort of the male lama, in all Tantric mythology. The unlikelihood of the texts implying that the dakini, as female, could also be the sexual consort to a woman, leads one to suppose that this kind of dualistic labelling of concepts is ultimately male-centred, and somehow adapts itself, somewhat clumsily, to 'fit' the notion of 'woman as practitioner'. Just as woman can have no connection to teachings which relate specifically to male physiology, so woman can have no access to the concepts of wholeness, developed erroneously in her name. Whilst the recovery of the historical facts about the Tantra and women's position in it by writers like Shaw represents a crucial factor in the development of understanding women's place in Buddhist history, there seems little doubt that any uncritical adaptation of ancient customs to the contemporary situation in which gender relations are under a different kind of philosophical scrutiny might oversimplify the issues which we face as humans now.

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Chapter 7: A 'Traveller in Space': The Significance of the Dakini and her Sacred Domain

In Tibetan texts there is some evidence of the recognition of divine beings in female human form, but of the tiny minority of cases where a woman tulku was recognised (Dolma and Dorje Phagmo are among the very few documented), little importance was given to their position in the hierarchy, apart from the required acknowledgement by the monastic order that such female incarnations existed. In addition, some biographies make reference to female practitioners and teachers, but it is clear that the transmission of teachings and the authority of the lineage, which are said to be at the heart of Tibetan Buddhism, are now, and have been for quite some time, in the hands of men. The importance of the guru-lama to the maintenance of the Tantric lineage, which incorporates the female/feminine as an essential component, is elucidated by several commentators,

On the Bodhisattva path no Guru is needed, but as soon as the complex but enriching elements of enigma, paradox and twilight language (sandhyabhasa) enter into the expression of the dharma, the aspirant needs a Guru preceptor, a Lama, to make the appropriate meaning quite clear and to convey the empowering oral transmission and authorisations (lung). (Italics mine)1

It is clear from this statement that certain teachings which are associated with the dakinis (particularly the twilight language, which is said to originate from them) can only be understood with the help of a lama, and although it is not specified that the guru or lama should be male, it is always implied. 'The Lama's pronouncements and precepts are the dharma, and his word assumes the sanctity of absolute truth . . . Obedience to the Father-preceptor remains of primary importance even after the Guru's parinirvana' (italics original).2

In general, there are very few exceptions to the rule of guru as father-preceptor, and these tend to appear only in lineages where marriage is permitted amongst the clergy, and of them very few examples in the last five hundred years. The interesting proposition therefore, that only 'father-preceptors' are essential to the tradition in which the so-called 'twilight language'3 of the dakinis is employed, gives credence to the belief that only qualified men are in possession of the knowledge which is 'written on the female body', and which relies on a particular philosophy of femininity. This means in effect that the male lineage, in whose power lie the teachings transmitted by the Buddha, and subsequent enlightened men, also claim the right to the holding of knowledge related to the female. In the absence of an all-female lineage, whose sexuality and historical gender difference might have endowed them with different and unique ways of expressing their insights on reality, the all-male lineage acknowledges the importance of the female body in the expression and practice of the teachings, yet does so from the peculiar perspective of the male yogi.

While other schools of Buddhist thought are happy to exclude the female and sexual relations with her as a legitimate means of practice, the Vajrayana school at least recognises the presence of the female, and has constructed philosophies around her body. Their assertion that a father-guru is essential when dealing with teachings which pertain to the female body, and which are characterised by concepts to do with 'paradox', 'enigma' and a language which is undecipherable to ordinary mortals, signals a recognition of philosophical complexity. The transmission of teachings which incorporate this kind of complexity has traditionally been restricted to those who have the capacity for unwavering devotion, and a reasonable intellect. These teachings are in turn incorporated into the lama-system, where they form part of the canon concerning sexual practice, largely addressed to men. As I have already shown, there are very few available and equivalent sets of structures (either lineages or texts) which address women as practitioners in this respect.

Notwithstanding this anomaly, most commentators might argue that the very fact that Tibet's religion has female deities, a so-called 'female language', and a female paradise, is reason enough to claim the egalitarianism of Tibetan Buddhism. But it is my contention that the mere existence of such symbols in no way guarantees either a living female tradition, or positive and beneficial symbolism for women practitioners. I have already shown that the Tibetan tulku system succeeded in assimilating and appropriating women both as symbols and as participants, so much so that not even their role as essential participants in the system was ever properly acknowledged. Even the supposed existence of a 'Dakini Lineage' (a misnomer, because the lineage is only associated with the dakinis, and is not held by them), does not ensure that women understand their position in the philosophy or iconography. Kelsang Gyatso in his work on the practices of the dakini lineage, even places the primary source of insight into what might be called 'the female mysteries' in the realm of a male deity, 'The first Guru in the lineage of these instructions is Buddha Vajradharma [male], and the second is Buddha Vajrayogini' [female], he writes (italics mine).4 Even at the level of Buddhahood, it seems, the male gender is privileged as guru.

On the symbolic level, it is worth considering what the textual references to dakinis, their teachings, lineage, Pure Land, 'twilight language' and significance might represent in the context of the whole system. In order to facilitate an understanding of my thesis concerning the dakini, I have divided the remainder of the chapter into five sections, each of which deals with a particular facet of the dakini. I begin with the nature of the teachings which are associated with her, and their modes of transmission. I then describe the significance of her sacred domain and language. Next I consider the essential femaleness of the dakini, and I then go on to discuss the meaning of female subjectivity which can be extrapolated from her representation. Finally, in the last section, I examine the etymological roots of the Tibetan word for dakini in order to substantiate some of my arguments about her essential nature historically.

THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF THE DAKINI

There seems little doubt that the authors of the Tibetan Buddhist Tantras were almost exclusively male, despite the fact that the Indian Tantras from which they were derived involved the participation of women at every level in very early times, and that evidence of female lineages with transmission of myth and initiation from mother to daughter is to be found in ancient Indian writings. Even the later bhakti movement,5 which began in South India in the fifth century, retained into modern times important aspects of female involvement and female autonomy, which were characterised by poetry in the 'mother tongue'. These are the kinds of lineages and traditions which, had they reached Tibet, might have survived in some form, but there is no evidence that they ever existed. Luce Irigaray remarks of this kind of absence, 'Through incredible neglect and disregard, patriarchal traditions have wiped out traces of mother-daughter genealogies'.6

The largely male authorship of the Tibetan Buddhist Tantras ensured therefore that the practices were geared towards men, and the imagery slanted towards an understanding by the male reader. This meant that for ordinary men, not schooled in the intricacies of the philosophical tradition, the gender polarities and dualities which existed in everyday life could be used to convey a meaning which they might understand. Certainly, for those involved in the monastic tradition, stereotypical images of women as temptresses and so on were used in order to help them maintain celibacy, and for those using the iconography in their meditation practice the female came to represent something which was transcendental in her form as an idealised mother or sexual consort.

The particular scriptures that were said to emanate from the dakinis were guarded with great secrecy, and written warnings on the texts ensured that access to these kinds of teachings should be limited only to those able to understand their meaning and to maintain the required degree of discretion concerning their contents. In particular, texts which were reputed to have been hidden by dakinis (or revealed by them to practitioners who then hid them), to be found at a later time, and said to be written in the dakini script, a kind of secret language, were highly prized for their esoteric nature. Historically, the discovery and interpretation of such sacred hidden texts written in the so-called 'twilight language' and known as terma (Tibetan gter.ma. literally 'mother treasure') were made by yogic practitioners called tertons. The role of the terton was to reveal the truths of the text at an appropriate time. 'The Dakini cypher, says the Lama, can be understood only by initiated tertons'7 and 'Treasure-finders are invariably emanations (sprnl-pa) of Guru Pema or emanations of his emanations'.8 In other words the vast majority of tertons were men, and since the time of Yeshe Tsogyal, in the eighth to ninth centuries, when it was at least acknowledged that women had powers concerning truths pertaining to 'the feminine', the men of the lineages have proclaimed their right to hold that power, although in many texts it is made clear that they require the help of a female partner in order to do so.

The terton seem to represent the 'wildest' and most shamanic end of Tibetan Buddhist practice. Most of them are male but very few are monks. According to Tulku Thondup, most terton do Tantric practice with a female consort and the presence of the right consort is part of the circumstances . . . which enable the discovery of the terma.9

It seems very clear therefore, that the tradition of hidden texts is associated with the female, not only through the language of the dakinis, and Yeshe Tsogyal, the initiator of the system, but also (if the terton herself were not a woman), through the necessity for a woman to be sexually involved with a male terton in the revelation of such a text. Furthermore, the use of such language as 'hidden', 'secret' and 'mystical', which pertains to those components of a patriarchal tradition which are represented in the female body, has similar resonance in the writings of other cultures, at other times, when woman has been associated with the unknown or with nature, and her body perceived as a metaphor for the mysteries of the world which require to be revealed or 'penetrated'10 by men. In the Tibetan case, these dakini texts were often buried in 'mother earth' or revealed through a terton's esoteric power to 'read' from an aspect of 'mother nature', such as clouds, rocks or a body of water, the mystical hieroglyph which contained a treasure of enlightened knowledge. The practitioners of Bon thought that there were nine oceans of treasures associated with female symbols such as pearls and lotuses. The proviso for such acts of discovery was of course that the terton had received the initiation of the dakinis, symbolised most commonly in his sexual relations with an actual woman. '[W]ithout the Dakini's initiation into her mystic language (mkha'-gro gsang-brda'- i dbang) we fumble in the dark', writes Dowman.11

For those practitioners who pursued perfection on the Tantric path, therefore, it was no wonder that the dakini, par excellence, came to represent the secret, hidden and mystical quality of absolute insight required by men, and that her name became an epithet for a sexual partner. Her presence was characterised in texts by her ability not only to enable practitioners to overcome obstructions on the path, but also as a required element in their practice, whether symbolic (in meditation) or real, as a sexual consort. Of the four major schools, the Nyingma in particular appear to have maintained closest links with this latter tradition through their lay lamas, who openly married, and through some of their practices which were and still are nearest to the shamanistic roots of Tibet itself. Of their key teachings the Nyingma sect places particular importance on the terma known as the khandro nying thig, sometimes known as the 'dakini's heart drop', but which I translate as the 'the mark of the dakini's mind'. However, even within their liberal system, it is the lama who, with his essential dakini as a partner, retains the power of the teachings, and it is the lama who transmits meaning in such a way as to preserve and encode the view of the dakini as a required complement to the centrality and subjectivity of the lama. She rarely enters the frame as the mistress of her own domain, a state to which women could aspire, but rather takes her identity from her role as a complementary force, in situations where her intervention or participation enables practitioners not to become like her, but to become more like the Buddha. Clearly this perspective on the role of the dakini makes sense for men, but is more problematic for women, for whom the symbolism casts them always into the role of helper, whether as human consorts, or as divine beings such as dakinis, or the goddesses of Amitabha's Pure Land.

However, the interesting aspect of the debate on the understanding of the dakini and the 'female domain' is not who controls or articulates it, or who gives it meaning, because that is apparent, but what that meaning is perceived to be, especially in the context of a male-dominated religious institution. Logically, one might expect that such a symbolic domain as is represented by the dakini's Pure Land would be the antithesis, or counterpart, of the Buddha Amitabha's homo-exclusive Pure Land of untainted men, into which no woman can achieve entry in a female body. Here, the fortunate being is miraculously reborn from a lotus flower, in male form, to enjoy the pleasures of a paradise where the only female forms are beautiful goddesses, whose role is to attend to the needs and wishes of the 'self-born' and 'enlightened' males.

If a similar kind of paradise existed where beings might take rebirth only in female form, then access, one might conclude, would be limited to those in female form. Similarly, if such a female domain were to be given the same symbolic status as those of the male Buddhas, then the power of transmission of the teachings of that realm would lie in the hands, for the most part, of a female lineage. According to Diana Paul, the only reference to an equivalent 'land of women' appears in a Chinese Buddhist Sutra, where the option of a female achieving enlightenment in a female body, in a land peopled by women, is only one of four options for achieving enlightenment which relates to gender.12 This domain is not featured in the mythologies of the Tibetan spiritual quest. Instead, the Dakini Pure Land offers some notion of the worth of the female body in the context of the Vajrayana, albeit without the possibility of the unique and subjective gender exclusivity for the female. Initiation into the teachings of the dakini land appears to take place through transmission of teachings by women in the guise of sexual partners, or as facilitators on the spiritual path, and not as direct teachers within their own female lineage. The boundaries of subjectivity, therefore, which protect the male symbolic, in his representation as Buddha and lineage, fail to withstand the intrusions of the male psyche when they pertain to the female. This dichotomy of significance, in which the male body resists encroachment by that of the female, further strengthens its own subjectivity by depriving the female body of hers.

HER SACRED DOMAIN AND LANGUAGE

Descriptions of the dakini Pure Land, known in Tibetan as Ngayab Khandro Ling, do suggest a more egalitarian representation of the gender question, than appears in some of the symbolic representations of male-gendered icons. Unlike the strictures of exclusivity which seem to surround issues regarding the male gender, no equivalent gender boundaries apply on the female side. Textual references show that male practitioners have access to the dakini Pure Land for the purposes of obtaining initiation, and even, as in the case of Padmasmbhava, to give initiation to the dakinis themselves. Furthermore, whilst the dakini Pure Land is the acknowledged destination of enlightened females such as Machig Labdron or Yeshe Tsogyal on their death, it is also the destination of certain male yogis such as Milarepa, who appear, from textual evidence, to retain their male form once they have entered that Pure Land. In the context of 'the enlightened state', this kind of disregard for the importance of gender or sexed categories seems much more in the spirit of the Buddhist teaching than the disenabling emphasis which is placed on gender in other areas of Tibetan Buddhist thought. But the problems of representation still pertain, because, for women, the issue is not about gender and its limitations, but about the ways in which the 'truth' is written on the female body.

Given that there are no mirror-like comparisons between the male and female domains, the symbolic female, whilst carefully not resting in the control of women, is incorporated completely into the patriarchal system. This enables the men of the lineage to speak not only for themselves, the symbolic male Buddha, and his descendants in the lineage, but also on behalf of the divine female, in a way which is quite plainly denied to women. The implications of this gender bias are not just that, at a simplistic level, male power is equated with dominance, but that the complex philosophy which appears to offer models of symbolism to both men and women actually fails to achieve egalitarianism at the everyday level. This failure is encoded again and again in the commentaries concerning the dakini, whose symbolic presence is interpreted from a point of view which consistently defers to the position of the guru as male and the female as complementary.

Clearly it is important to state that there is no reason why the feminine, as a fluid gender concept, could not be interpreted and experienced by men, for this is not only possible because it is a socially constructed concept, but also because men have just as much access as women do, to the feminine, and also to the female body, in the first place, through symbiotic uterine experience, and later through physical relationship with her or other women. However, at issue are two distinct questions in this debate. Firstly, one has to consider the importance of the interpretation of meaning which is specifically related to the female body, but given by one gender (i.e. the male) on behalf of the other. This act inevitably reflects the personal experience and bias of the interpreter, and in the absence of a corollary, or of an acknowledged 'difference' by the male speaking subject, appears to take on universal significance. Secondly, the use of the female body as a vehicle of symbolism for women remains problematic for them, because of the ways in which her representations are often less than validating of her subjectivity. It is very apparent that the relevance of these factors inevitably tilts the system towards an understanding by men, and reinforces the negation of women as subjects.

Other features of the interpretation of the characteristics of the dakini and her domain, reveal similar problematic areas for women. The significance of the 'twilight language', for example, reveals the reasons why the dakini is represented as female, and elucidates the connection between women's status and language itself. In the history of Tibetan Buddhism, those texts which were said to be written in the 'twilight language' of the dakinis often consisted of a single syllable, or were discovered written in a mysterious language which required to be deciphered by an able exponent of the spiritual path, such as a terton. Essentially, the notion was of a symbolic language, whose musical sounds could not only be heard mystically by advanced meditators, but whose elaborate meaning could be condensed into a single and mystical hieroglyph. Sound seems to have played an important part in the mythology of the teachings, for even in straightforward lineages where ordinary language was used, the texts were often said to have been received by the lama through a whispered communication by the divine voices of the dakinis.

Standing outwith the limits of ordinary understanding, and outwith the boundaries of language as we know it, the dakini 'twilight language' was a metaphor for divine transcendence, a state of 'otherness' which was transmitted through the female body, and in particular, the female voice of the dakini. Allione defines it as a language which is translated 'through "another way of knowing" which comes from a space which is far from the sunlit rational world dominated by the logos, and at the same time it is not from the dark abyss of the unconscious but rather a twilight world'.13 She makes reference particularly to 'The Song of the Vajra', a chant used by certain schools, which is said to be in the dakini language, and whose sounds 'vibrate in the body of the individual and ... bring(s) forth waves which massage the vibration of the being, bringing an integration with the spherical sounds of the universe'.14

The whole concept of a kind of language which is associated in this way with the female body, and which is both symbolic and indecipherable in conventional terms, is nonetheless interesting for the female voice is often absent in discourse, marginalised, or seen as hysterical. Also, as Julia Kristeva has pointed out, the expression of meaning through symbol, which is the subject of study in semiotics, is always associated with the feminine. She maintains that the expression of meaning which takes form in human existence in all artistic endeavours including the 'languages' of music, dance, poetry and art, has its roots in the early experience of pre-linguistic relationship with 'the other', who in most cases is the child's mother. Even if a child is removed from the mother at birth, it has still been subject to the mother's body for nine months, and contemporary research has shown that sound, and especially the mother's voice, plays a very important part in the baby's development. There is a link too between the experience of sound which the baby has, not only in utero, but also in its first year of life, through the closeness to the mother's actual heart, where the sound of the heartbeat is reminiscent of the sound of the drum, an instrument closely associated with the dakini, and one which may give its name to her Pure Land, Nyayab Khandro Ling, which could be translated as 'Dakini Land of Drumbeat'. It is no coincidence that a drum, struck in such a way as to excite the listener, clearly replicates the sound of the human heart beating faster in times of peril, or excitement.

Because this pre-linguistic state, which is characterised by the intensity of the senses, particularly hearing, touch, smell and taste, occurs before entry into the world of what Kristeva calls the 'law of the father',15 and to the development of language, it is deemed 'feminine'. But, as Kristeva points out, the pre-linguistic stage of development actually knows no sexual difference, because infants have not yet developed an awareness of their own identity or gender, so whilst it may be related to the body of the mother it is a state in which paradox and enigma do exist side by side, without the presence of limiting polarities, amongst the first of which to arise is the difference in sexual identity. These are the very polarities which artistic endeavour attempts to reveal and elucidate, by crossing the boundaries of logic and reason to uncover expressions of ambiguity and paradox which are understood without suspension of belief.

THE DAKINI AS ESSENTIALLY FEMALE

In western discourse, it has been the divine intervention in the form of the female muse which has been credited with the inspiration of artists and writers, in addressing the paradoxes of everyday life. In the Tibetan system, the female body serves a similar purpose, as in the case of the dakini, who is clearly perceived as a form which transcends gender boundaries, like an early mother-figure to a pre-linguistic child, and has a strong connection to the primal sounds which lie outwith language as we know it in societal terms. In a sense this kind of association of art, the 'semiotic', or the 'symbolic female' as being 'beyond gender', 'other' or 'transcendental', is close to what Janice Willis expresses when she maintains that the dakini is 'not female',16 all the while acknowledging that she is represented by the body of a woman. Paradoxical as this statement itself is, it nonetheless provides a degree of truth, but is, I maintain, only useful as an insight into how the categorisation of the female as a vehicle of meaning for men has been developed, much in the way the muse has become a symbol of the creativity arising from the psyches of western male artists. On the other hand, it is also my view that Willis's statement is extremely problematic for women themselves. In her study of the dakini, Janice Willis glosses over any explanation as to why the dakini is represented in female physical form, and is always used as an epithet for a female sexual partner, by claiming that the dakini is not female, but feminine, and as a representation goes beyond gender categorisation.

Related as the dakini language is in texts and in the iconography to the female body, this cypher is not, as Willis suggests, merely a gender form, as feminine, but is, I propose, more closely linked with female sexuality. This crucial difference of emphasis is important in the understanding of the symbolism and philosophy of Tibetan Buddhism as it pertains to women, for while it may be easy to abstract gender from either the male or the female body, it is impossible to abstract the human body from its sexuality. This means that whilst men and women may all be variations of a prescribed gender ideal, which in Buddhist terms is ultimately a manifestation of illusion, they are nonetheless restricted as different individuals to the experiences of their different physical bodies in relation to sexuality. It is this sexuality which is represented so vividly in the art of Tibet, not least in the images of the female form, with her nakedness, her swinging breasts, detailed vagina, and often wrathful appearance, which suggest something more than the simple gender category of 'femininity', as it has traditionally been defined.

For Willis, however, the dilemma of the dakini's gender and sexuality is summed up, when she acknowledges that it would 'require at least a book'17 to explain why the predominant form of the dakini is female. My concern here, nonetheless, is to ensure that any discussion of the philosophy surrounding the dakini (and therefore her representation in a female body) has to be undertaken, before the dakini can be abstracted from the female body, and classified in some esoteric way as being 'not female' but 'feminine', as Willis suggests. If this is the case, there would be no reason for the dakini not to be portrayed in male form, having 'feminine' qualities (as Chenrezig does) and, if gender categories can be so easily swapped, there would also be no reason why male and female yab-yum representations could not be read as reversing the wisdom-means polarity embodied in them. Wrathful female deities such as Ekajati, for example, could be visualised in meditation as embodying 'masculine' (means) as a Tantric partner, or the Buddha himself, the 'feminine' (wisdom) partner. These kinds of shifts in perspective offer the possibility of opening the debate on what 'feminine' and 'masculine' really mean in respect of the deities in the pantheon, but the arguments about gender still seem to centre on how the female is perceived, whilst the resistance to de-gendering the male in the same way is very apparent. In particular, there is very strong resistance amongst Buddhist lamas to acknowledging the possibility that one of the historical Buddhas born into this world could take human form as a woman. By abstracting the 'feminine' from the female body of the dakini the place of the male as subject is unconsciously protected, whilst creating a notion of fluidity around the concept of the female body. This construct throws into question women's carnality, rather than the concept of femininity, which is certainly a potentially unstable social construct. Advocating a position which claims the irrelevance of gender is certainly a justified stance, but the consequences of such an argument when it relates to the sexed body is somewhat more complex. We must embrace the dakini, Willis says, 'regardless of whether we are "male" or "female" beings'.18 Here the idea of gender as a fluid concept is expanded to encompass the more concrete reality of one's physical and sexual identity, proclaiming a kind of absolute Buddhist truth which, when applied to life as it exists, simply does not transfer. If 'male' and 'female' were as interchangeable in reality as Willis implies are 'masculinity' and 'femininity', then the patriarchal system would clearly have collapsed long ago.

Willis also maintains that whilst the dakini goes beyond gender 'she' may, however, take a myriad of forms, and includes as examples a stone statue, and a dog, but does not give the example of the dakini as male. Willis goes so far as to refer to the dakini as 'it' which she characterises as 'highest wisdom . . . direct, unmediated, non-conceptual understanding of Voidness',19 a characteristic which, she says, is a necessary facet of Buddhist spiritual practice. Her Lacanian assertion that the dakini is not female but is 'all that we lack!' (italics original)20 firmly places the dakini in the role of complementary presence, where symbolically she becomes not what we are, but what we are not. This reading of the dakini is obviously more in tune with the psyches of men than those of women. Willis does go further, however, by acknowledging that '''she'' is often the sexual partner or "mystic consort" (Tibetan, rig ma) of the siddha',21 where the siddha (yogic master) she refers to is implicitly male. She writes, 'According to Katz's count, "fully fifty six of the eighty-four [Indian mahasiddha-s] are depicted in the company of a woman".'22 The fifty-six must be read as men, so the "she" who is the sexual partner is patently female, for according to her statement, 'the aid of an actual flesh and blood partner is useful and/or required'.

Willis provides no textual example to show that a male dakini could be represented as a sexual consort to a woman practitioner, although the masculinised term daka is sometimes used, but with none of the connotations of the dakini. Male consorts to renowned female practitioners are usually considered to be emanations either of the Buddha, or of some other deity or mythological being. Perhaps if scholars were able to abstract the Buddha from his male gender, and all the lamas of the lineage from theirs, there might be more possibility of reaching an understanding of the emptiness of all gender categories, not simply those which relate to women. In the Tibetan case, it is clear that the non-static figure of the dakini, has been manipulated as a transformational symbol in whom gender may be used as an expedient means of either fixing or refuting particular concepts.

By repeating the tendency to deprive the female of a subjectivity whilst allowing the male his, Willis perpetuates a one-sided perspective by reading the dakini as 'lack', 'void' or a 'complement', thus echoing the western psychoanalytical notion of Lacan that the phallus is the signifier, and the feminine merely an absence. Lacan's infamous statement, 'woman does not exist', can easily be seen to be valid vis-a-vis the Tibetan system and ideology, because while she clearly does not exist as an acknowledged force within the system, she clearly does if one considers her essentiality for men. What many commentators fail to articulate is that it is because woman has been defined by men and in men's terms, her gender can be exploited as a movable entity to be used to reflect men's sense of 'other' or to be abstracted to the transcendental, when the acknowledgement of her subjectivity by-and-for-herself, becomes problematic for them.

This is adequately demonstrated by the many male commentators whose blind spot regarding gender and sexuality is revealed when they make statements such as, 'The woman, or rather the Dakini, transforms the man who lusts after her into her Guru, the man of her dreams' (italics mine).23 Furthermore, 'It is the Dakini's nature of complete receptivity, empty space, that assuages male aggression; and it is the female organ's 'empty space' that is receptive to the symbol of his aggression' (italics mine).24 Whilst these kinds of sentiments may be meaningful to male readers, and even hint at a symbolic rape of the female, there is no doubt that the polarised categorisations which they reveal are extremely problematic for women. Women may indeed be reinscribed in history, philosophy and representation as 'lack', 'empty' or 'receptive', but, in the absence of the articulation in history, philosophy and representation of a something which is the female body, which is the female voice and which is its sexuality, women's subjectivity will always be difficult to achieve.

THE DAKINI, FEMALE SUBJECTIVITY AND MEANING

It is apparent from traditional texts that the dakini as a female helper and sexual consort fits well into the arena of male-centred fantasy and spiritual endeavour. Willis's attempt, however, as a contemporary commentator, to rationalise the meaning of the dakini to women relies on a further negation of the female body in which her essential sexuality, and its meaning, is abstracted to a concept of enlightened energy of universal significance. But it is clear that the female body has a different meaning for men than it does for women, so, while men may be reassured by this definition of the dakini, it does little to enable women to understand their own unique subjectivity. The de-stabilisation of a concept related to the female body at once hinders women in their quest, and simultaneously promotes the cause of men. It is this kind of interpretation of philosophical concepts concerning the physical body which, whilst claiming to be 'beyond duality' are, on the contrary, locked into it.

The word dakini, as has been illustrated, is widely used to represent a number of concepts, including a certain kind of esoteric and dynamic energy, a female deity, and a woman who has achieved status either as a practitioner, or through sexual involvement with a high lama. The human dakini, so often referred to in texts as an outstanding practitioner, is described most often in association with a male yogi, who attempts to further his own practice through sexual acts, or who requires the intervention of a wise woman in order to clear his spiritual path of obstacles, or awaken him out of a tendency to intellectualise. Whilst in the former role the dakini is represented as a very young and beautiful woman (16 years old seems to be the optimum age), in the latter role she frequently appears in the form of an old and ugly hag. These polarised representations associate the dakini, in turn, with virginal sexuality or with the figure of the crone, two of the three aspects of the ancient triple goddess, the third being the mother. Similarly, iconographic representations tend to show the dakini as a young, naked figure in a dancing posture, often holding a skull cup filled with menstrual blood or the elixir of life in one hand, and a curved knife or a drum in the other, sometimes wearing a garland of human skulls, with a trident staff leaning against her shoulder. Her hair is usually wild and hanging down her back, her face often wrathful in expression, as she dances on top of a corpse, to represent her complete mastery over ego and ignorance.25 Dakinis may also be represented in different colours, to show their association with the five different 'Buddha Families' each of whom represent the purified wisdom of a certain aspect of emotional defilement.

In the sense that each individual iconographic figure represents, through its colour, stance, demeanour, and accoutrements, certain facets of the Buddhist teaching, the dakini is no different from other Buddhist deities. It is in the association of her body, however, with essentialist qualities which pertain to the meaning of the female that her representations of 'lack' or 'emptiness' become problematic. It is certainly the case that the original form of these philosophies, written as they were in ancient Sanskrit texts, did attempt to break the bounds of dualistic thinking by expressing paradoxical notions in language. One only has to read the text of the Heart Sutra to understand this, 'Form is emptiness, emptiness itself is form; emptiness is no other than form, form is no other than emptiness'.26 But the transference of a written philosophy to visual representations within the iconography (which already favoured the male as subject, both as Buddha and as lama) meant that the religious concepts which were supposed to be 'beyond duality' were simply encoded in notions which perpetuated the superiority of the male, and represented the paradoxical or the unrepresentable in female form. The Heart Sutra, for example, was personified as the Prajnaparamita (in Tibetan Yum Chenmo or the Great Mother), and worshipped in deified form as a female deity who was associated with emptiness and transcendence. In the case of the dakini it was the particular aspect related to emptiness, or 'lack', as Willis calls it, which seemed to make her a suitable medium for man's enlightenment quest through sexuality. These kinds of concepts, which were related to certain deities, and which involved gendering notions such as 'enlightenment', 'means', 'wisdom' and 'emptiness', further complicated the issue of sexual being as it is understood in the context of Tibetan Buddhism.

Agehananda Bharati, in his study of Tantra, points out the discrepancy between the Buddhist Tantric assignation of the static principle to the female, and the dynamic principle to the male, while the Hindu Tantric assignation was the opposite. With the Indian tradition being older, he claims that the Tibetans made a choice to create their polarity symbolism in this way, but somehow retained the shakti element of the Hindu goddesses who were sexually dynamic. In this way, the Tibetans had representational access both to the passive goddesses, whose iconography fitted in with the philosophical notions of female/wisdom (prajna in Sanskrit, sherab in Tibetan), and male/means (upaya in Sanskrit, tab in Tibetan); and the dynamic, autonomous goddesses such as Dorje Phagmo, who were often represented alone. Bharati suggests that these dynamic goddesses emerged in Tibet during a period of transition to a more orthodox Buddhism. That they survived at all may be due in no small part to the fact that indigenous tradition was very strong, and very little centralisation of power possible in the vast expanses of hostile terrain, with a large itinerant population. As a result, the Tibetan pantheon can be seen to offer images of the female which have the possibility of disrupting the traditional significance of male/active, female/passive, and thus offer for women the kind of representations of the divine which might bring about a different kind of subjectivity. My contention is that the passive mother images, alongside the yab-yum representations with their conservative aura, were allowed to predominate through tradition and neglect, created by more powerful imperatives in the social sphere, whilst the dynamic images were relegated to the realms of secrecy, with their practices only in the hands of an elite, who controlled access to them.

In the Tibetan system the focus on a particular paradigm of sexuality expressed in the yab-yum, meant that the dakini formed the concrete means through which men could unite with 'the other' in order to achieve the mystical experience of unity, the forerunner of supposed Buddhahood. The 'twilight language', on the other hand, offered an esoteric cypher by which men could gain access to the mystical world of the female, and by so doing gain a sense of wholeness. Keith Dowman maintains that, having reached this symbolic level, the male might then be able to articulate the language (and therefore the feminine) in an 'appropriate'27 way to others. The difficulty with these kinds of concepts for women, I would argue, is that any supposed clarity which might be interpreted from the translation of a female-centred symbolic into the patriarchal world of dualisms would inevitably fall into the control of its (male) proponents. This is the very reductionism, incorporation and assimilation of the female into the male domain, which renders her as 'other', a category in which she is defined by and through her relation to the dominant force -- the male. In other words she is unable to define herself, and must rely on the 'enlightened' men of the lineage to establish her position vis-a-vis their own. In terms of the evolution of the lineage system, therefore, the absence of a female-centred symbolic, articulated in the context of a female subjective, has given rise to an ambiguous presence within the institutions of Buddhism, and has created a situation of compromise for women practitioners.

The same is also true of the female role in the sexual practices of the Tantra. It should be apparent that women ought to have more of an affinity than men to the experiences and meaning of female sexuality. In the absence of opportunities for the legitimate expression of this crucial assertion of subjectivity, women easily fall victim to charges of passivity and exploitation, but in most societies the taboo against this very articulation has meant that women have failed to express the power of their own being in the same way as men have done. It is not just the expression of female sexuality which is missing from historical texts, but also its symbolic representations. In psychoanalytic terms, the female imaginary, which relates specifically to the female experience of early relationship with the mother, and to the development of the female-as-subject, has been suppressed under all forms of patriarchy. On the other hand, the male imaginary, and the establishment of male subjectivity centred on the male experience of relationship, have been well articulated throughout history, in myth, religion, literature, art, and more recently in psychoanalysis itself. In European philosophical traditions, for example, there is plenty of evidence to show the predominance in culture and thought of the Oedipal myth, which relates to the male experience of relationship to the parents and to power structures in society.

In Tibetan Buddhism it could be argued (as does Robert A. Paul) that this is not only present in the myths concerning the father-son relationship of the lineage, but is also expressed in terms of mother-son relationships through the valorised accounts of the mothers of tulkus, and through such analogies as the meeting of the mother-son, to represent the state of luminosity one may achieve in the bardo28 after death. What is plainly missing in the symbolism of Tibetan Buddhism are representations of the father-daughter, and more importantly mother-daughter, relationship, which as Irigaray has noted might provide the required kind of representation in culture through which women could create a viable sexual identity through the manifestation of female subjectivity. 'Woman must be valued as a daughter (a virgin for herself, and not so that her body has an exchange value amongst men), as a lover, and in her own line'.29

One could argue that the suppression of meaning vis-a-vis the position and subjectivity of the female has become an habitual tendency in different cultures throughout history, and that this has both preserved male power and neglected women. These powerful systems have, until modern times, either co-opted, cajoled or bullied women into colluding with the negation of representations of the female experience, and this has allowed men to dictate their world view at the expense of a balanced position. I have already shown how yab-yum symbolism is declared to be of benefit to men in their struggle for subjectivity, meaning and enlightenment, but what use is it to women, whose practice might require them to take account of their sexuality in forms which relate to her perspective? Perhaps one of the clues to the prospect of reversing the debasement of female subjectivity lies in the images of the female herself, and the meaning behind her gestures. It is certainly possible that the actual symbols used may not in themselves be detrimental, but the interpretation of their meaning has tended to be very one sided. As I have described, the word for the female sexual partner is mudra, or chaja (Tibetan byags.gya) which literally means (in both Sanskrit and Tibetan) 'seal', 'symbol'. The word is also commonly used to describe the ritualistic and symbolic hand gestures or body postures which are adopted by deities within the iconography. From these meanings it can be seen that the female is clearly identified as the signifier. In Lacan's work, he theorises that 'the Other represents language, the site of the signifier' where 'the Other is the locus of constitution of the subject or the structure that produces the subject'.30 In other words, the mudra is significant in the constitution of the male subject. However, in its usage as the female sexual partner, it is usually written as karma. mudra, or lae chi chaja (Tibetan las.kyi byags.gya) where karma (Tibetan las) meaning 'action', clearly suggests movement. This kind of linguistic representation implies that woman is not sexually passive, but rather finds her expression in movement.

In the texts the karma mudra, in her form as a human dakini, classically appears to men at difficult moments, to clear away obstacles or to provide the sexual experience by which spiritual realisation could be achieved. The concept, however, of female movement embedded in this term, and also found in her iconographic representations which invariably show her as dancing or flying, is one which has been taken up by Irigaray, in a different context, in her analysis of the development of subjectivity in the female. She maintains that dance is one way in which the female 'can create a territory of her own in relation to the mother'.31 Unlike the male, whose physical difference enables him to forge a differentiation from the mother in order to establish his identity as male, the female's relationship is more intimate and complex because the mother is of the same physical essence as the daughter, and thus the daughter can never be completely different. Irigaray suggests that whilst the boy may make use of objects, and ritual, which he manipulates in an attempt to achieve not only his own sense of subjectivity, but also mastery over the mother's absence at certain moments in his life, the girl uses dance or movement of her own body, in order to map out, by defining her own boundaries, her own special relationship with the mother. In an abstract sense, this is something which she points out is similar in composition to the Tibetan mandala, which, as a sacred territory, consists of highly symbolic boundaries which incorporate movement. Furthermore, her notion is that women need 'an axis of their own, which on the microcosmic level moves from between the feet in the standing position up through the head, and macrocosmically from the center of the earth to the center of the sky.'32 She goes on, 'This axis can be seen represented in the iconographic traces of traditions in which women had some visible presence.'33

One only has to glance at the particular form of the dance position adopted by the ancient Tantric goddesses in paintings and sculptures, including the important Vajra Varahi or Dorje Phagmo,34 as she was known in Tibetan, to see how viable a subjective presence she has. Furthermore, it is known from Hindu Tantric sources that the dancing posture of the female, especially when depicted as dancing on top of the male, suggested her active sexuality, something which was crucial to the early Tantric philosophy. Bharati declares that sexual advances initiated by the male were, in these times, construed as 'crude', and that the desired role of the sakti was active. The reversal of this role in Tibetan Tantrism therefore gave different meanings to the depictions of the dancing goddesses whose images were retained in the Tibetan iconography. The comparisons between contemporary western psychoanalytical thought and the images of Asian cultures may not be as far fetched as they might seem. If the Tantric teachings originated, as I have already suggested, at a time when female subjectivity was acknowledged and represented in societies which recognised the powers of female creativity and fertility, then the sacred rituals, diagrams and spaces created by such a philosophy would have had to reflect in some way a subjective essentialism of the female form. Also, if mundane subjectivity is achieved in different ways by men and women, then the symbolic representations of that subjectivity would have to take account of the different ways in which the two sexes express their subjective desire for union with the mother, or in metaphysical and historical terms, the Great Mother. This appears to have been done through the image of the dance.

It is certainly the case that the undertaking of gesture, dance, art and music in the ritualistic ceremonies of worship in many ancient traditions originated at a time when rational thought did not prevail, and when culture and nature were not posited as polarities. Whilst it could be argued that these symbols may still have the potential to be of value to both men and women, I sustain that their incorporation into an institutional system which has been predominantly patriarchal has meant that the reading of their meaning has been undertaken by and for men. Within this tradition, however, it is possible to see that for women the potentiality for positive identifiable representations is discernable in certain aspects of the symbolism, but very often it has been engulfed by the over-riding needs of the male, who has either objectified the female or incorporated her image for his own purposes. This has happened in relation to the imagery of the mother in her form as Yum Chenmo, or Kuntu Zangmo,35 and in the imagery of the consort, in her forms as dakini. As a result, it has been difficult for women to achieve any degree of autonomy or subjectivity, equated with the symbolic representations of 'enlightenment', under the divine law of men. Much as the prospect of being a participant in male sacred rituals might be attractive, it in no way compensates for the lack of understanding which dictates the law which states that gender, or more specifically, sexuality, is ultimately insignificant in the quest for enlightenment. The iconography itself makes quite clear that this is not the case.

THE ETYMOLOGY OF DAKINI (TIBETAN 'KHANDRO')

In Tibetan the word khandro is everywhere interchangeable with the Sanskrit dakini, but its roots are entirely different in the two languages, and it is doubtful that the two words are synonymous. The roots of khandro are 'kha' (Tibetan mkha.) meaning sky or space; and 'dro' (Tibetan 'gro) meaning goer or traveller. On the other hand, the Sanskrit word dakini is defined as a 'kind of female demon (in the retinue of Kali) that feeds on human flesh',36 and has no roots in any meaning related to sky or space. The male equivalent of the dakini, the daka, appears in the Sanskrit language also defined as 'an attendant of Kali' and both words were clearly imported into the Tibetan language from India and adapted to Buddhist teachings to mean a variety of different goddesses. The other word which is sometimes used in Tibetan for khandro is pamo, which has both a male counterpart (pawo) and Sanskrit equivalents. Meaning 'hero', the words pawo and pamo are the same as the Sanskrit words vira, and sura, which both mean heroic. The word khandro therefore is quite a unique word, with no male equivalent, and would seem to have arisen not out of the Sanskrit background of Tantra, (as pawo and pamo do) but apparently from the shamanistic roots of Tibet itself. This is an important observation, because it does mean that as a term it is unusually confined to the female body, much in the same way that the term Buddha has generally been confined to that of the male.

On the one hand, the name 'sky-goer' obviously has connotations of the ancient goddesses associated with the heavens, and the notion of moving through the skies strongly suggests the supernatural, or magical attributes associated with such a deity. On the other hand, the philosophical notion of a 'traveller in space', which is an equally valid interpretation of the word, suggests a more esoteric meaning to do with the metaphysical attributes of the divine female in the context of space, and therefore time. As I have previously shown, it is the space-time dynamic as a crucial factor in the notion of the feminine, and in the female experience of cyclical rather than linear time, which places the dakini quite specifically in her own dimension of paradox. This is the dimension which Irigaray characterises as offering 'the features of the unconscious . . . its fluidity and mobility; its indifference to the laws of logic (identity and non-contradiction); its inability to speak about itself.37 As a movable symbol, the dakini occupies no ground, but rather, as her name suggests, simply moves in 'space'. This attribute is useful for the male practitioner who can make use of her non-position in any way which is expedient. Dowman himself confirms this view,

The word Dakini, or Khandroma, has introduced a valuable new concept to the western world. The value of the concept is in its very lack of precise definition; it embraces a range of meaning -- the female principle, a moment of spiritual integration, the Guru's Consort, a female sexual partner -- that adds up to an enigma and paradox. (Italics mine)38

Of course Dowman is mistaken when he suggests that the Tibetan concept of the dakini as enigmatic and paradoxical introduces something new into western discourse, for it does not. However, the way in which these particular ideas concerning the female are transmitted through the language, philosophy and iconography of Tibetan Buddhism is certainly new to westerners, some of whom may be unfamiliar with the comparisons with certain strands in contemporary feminist philosophy and psychoanalytic thought. Furthermore, the implications of the association of the female with the concept of 'enigma' are made even more difficult to grasp in the context of Tibetan Buddhism, which, though structurally patriarchal, still makes use of very ancient symbols which carried a very different meaning, at a very different time and within a very different cultural milieu.

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Chapter 8: The Question of 'Otherness' in Female Representation

The unique position occupied by the dakini, as a symbol of substantial meaning in Tibetan Buddhism, is augmented by other symbolic representations of the female, which tend to emphasise either her oppositional otherness, or her divine transcendence. As I have shown, in the Vajrayana Buddhist scriptures, 'otherness' is commonly represented as either demon or woman, or as both. In the spiritual realm, the Tibetan Buddhist's ultimate goal is to realise all phenomena (both external experience and the mind itself) as emptiness. As Longchenpa states of the appearances of the physical world, which he maintains are 'created by mind',1

Although in their manifestation as errant appearance and in the mistaken belief in their reality they seem to be veridical for all practical purposes, actually they have no essence (of their own) and have never moved from the range of original awareness.2

Here mind and phenomena are brought within the same philosophical sphere, in which duality and otherness appear to collapse as concepts. However, as I will show, the promise of a non-dual philosophy, applicable to men and women, is not fulfilled, for in the allocation of symbolic femaleness to the concepts of both 'otherness' and 'emptiness', the application of the philosophy is rendered problematic for women. As I have demonstrated, women's 'otherness' is considered to be a real threat to the potential spirituality of the male. The monastic tradition emphasised the polluting aspect of women, and encouraged celibacy and physical distance from women. On the other hand, women were viewed as essential components to advanced Tantric practice, which addressed the understanding of man's being through his sexuality. In both respects, however, woman is 'other', either through her negative potential or through her female being and sexuality with which man had to associate in order to reach his full potential (Buddhahood). This state was sought, as illustrated previously, through the higher practices of the Tantra which involved meditation based on the utilisation of sexuality as a potent force for spiritual awareness, or realisation of emptiness.

As I have also shown, in the Tibetan case the symbolic male motherhood implied by the tulku system was a crucial part of its patrilineal ideology, for through it the male lineage was elevated to the realms of the sacred. In many examples in the iconography, Tibetan scroll paintings depict the lineage of lamas as divine beings alongside the Buddha, and various other deities, thereby signifying their centrality to the whole system. I have suggested that the definition of the mother as profane and the son as sacred in the social system, together with the abrogation of her role and its subsequent adoption by the male lineage, gave rise to a particular kind of religious philosophy which was reflected in the exclusion of women from positions of power within society. But how exactly did this philosophy express itself within the texts and iconography of Tibetan Buddhism?

One way was to make use of this particular philosophical concept in relation to the female, and to endow her, as mother, with the transcendental qualities which distinguish her from the mundane female who must be shunned. The most popular deity who represented the mother was Dolma, a variation, as I have already shown, of the Great Lotus Goddess of antiquity. We know also that the 'Great Mother' of the Mahayana tradition, the Prajnaparamita, was deemed to be the mother of the Buddhas, and a symbol of the absolute. Robert A. Paul has suggested that men construe the absolute as female, but taboo and untouchable in her form as Mother Buddha, or Prajnaparamita. From her realm, the Dharmadhatu, the Buddha is born, and she is viewed as unborn and uncreated, and therefore 'other' than the Buddha, who is viewed as male. The further association of a non-dualistic ideal, 'emptiness', with the specifically dualistic concept of the feminine, and subsequently of the female body, has succeeded in foreclosing the potential of a particular philosophy of relevance to women practitioners. Guenther's view that 'Male and female are only the adaptation to organic life of basic polarity pertaining to the very process of becoming'3 certainly reflects the promise of a non-dualistic approach to the philosophy of gender, but his telling use of the term 'basic polarity' betrays his assumption of male and female as opposing categories, in which, if the evidence of textual reference is to be believed, the male is subject and the female 'other', either as an oppositional force, or as transcendent emptiness.

Whilst the symbolic allocation of woman's role as either harmful or expedient to the practice of the male can be understood as a straightforward example of the dualistic notions which concern religious practice, it is more difficult to understand the allocation of the female gender to the concept of the absolute, or 'emptiness', as being that which is beyond duality. Arguing that the understanding of 'emptiness' is the state to be achieved in order to become 'Buddha', i.e. a divine, transcendent being, Robert A. Paul maintains that because 'emptiness' is associated in the (male) practitioner's mind as being a state of 'otherness', it is therefore associated with the female, whose 'otherness' is already established in his mind. Guenther too points out the importance of the Tantric view of 'emptiness' and its association with the female,

basic nothing is termed 'ancestress', which is a verbal symbol for pure transcendence. In the fine arts this nothing is represented as a female figure .... This conception of the ground of man's Being as female has important consequences for the whole attitude of Buddhism. It recognises the female principle in the nature of things as valid in its own right and attributes to it an inspiring and emotionally moving character of friendliness, tenderness and intimacy, the greatest one being the union of two lovers ... its symbolic representation in the human female form lets the transcendent and the divine remain near man, who becomes the centre of this-worldliness and other-worldliness. (Italics mine)4

It is clear that Guenther's statement is not a general one in which the word 'man' could be read as either male or female, because for women, naturally, 'otherness' and the female human form would not be synonymous (except through belief in cultural norms, by which women often do experience their bodies/selves as 'other', a patently disfunctional state). Yet his view on what he calls the 'female principle' is interesting because Guenther's implication is that the male practitioner must accept the different and unique reality of the female, as a 'being-in-herself (to paraphrase Guenther's terminology), whilst simultaneously objectifying actual women as the embodiment of 'other-worldliness'. His acknowledgement of the special Buddhist position which affirms the female not only as 'basic ground' but also as 'valid in its own right' is, however, undermined by his rationale for representing transcendence and emptiness as female. Guenther, in a blinkered view of the reality of the physical body and its relationship to the 'speaking subject', sees only the male side of the equation, ignoring completely the implications for women practitioners who might be involved in Tantric practices which already symbolised their bodies as transcendent or 'nothing'.

The question of the incorporation of 'otherness', as a prerequisite for enlightenment, which Guenther implies must be experienced (by men) through sexual relations with a real woman, appears in many texts which try to show the relationship between external reality and the mind's understanding of emptiness. Often the concept of 'otherness' is associated with the subjugation of demons, for, as Paul has noted; 'In general it may be said that the demons, the passions and women are conceptually related, and thought of as opponents of Buddhism, and of patriarchal unity'.5 Certainly this idea is not unique to Buddhist thought, but it does have implications for women practitioners, especially where diminished symbols of female subjectivity are the only ones which can be called upon to balance this one-sided view. In order to try and understand the way in which this philosophy of the incorporation of the 'other' works, it may be useful to turn again to one of the most popular pieces of literature in the Tibetan canon, the biography of Milarepa.

In 'The Tale of the Red Rock Jewel Valley', Milarepa is troubled during his meditation practice by demonic local deities,6 who appear to him in a variety of physical forms. He realises that he must overcome their presence in order to advance his practice to the realms of perfect equanimity. His first thoughts concerning the demons reveal his acknowledgement of their reality as ghosts, 'These must be magical apparitions of the local deities who dislike me. Although I have been here a long time, I have never given them any offering or compliment.'7 Deciding to try and pacify them, he sings a complimentary song, but when this does not work he begins a 'powerful incantation',8 then preaches the Buddhist dharma to them out of compassion. Later, when they refuse to disappear, he realises, in accordance with Buddhist teaching, that 'all beings and phenomena are of one's own mind'9 and ceases to fear them, at which point they disappear.

In another encounter with local deities who attempt to disrupt him with displays of aggression, he firstly prays for protection to his own guardian deities, and when this has no effect tries to quell their disturbing influences by offering them his own body. In the end he succeeds in taming and converting them by exposing them as simply 'creations of the delusory thoughts of the clinging (mind), which grasps forms and deems them to be real'.10 This mysterious act of meditation which transforms perception so that fear vanishes, has, according to Milarepa, similar benefits for the demons themselves, 'The malignant male and female demons who create myriad troubles and obstructions seem real before one has Enlightenment; but when one realises their nature truly, they become Protectors of the Dharma.'11

There are several interesting features in these two accounts of the transformational aspects of a particular meditation practice, which parallel the Tibetan philosophy of the female. First of all, it is clear that there are three distinct ways of viewing the demons. They can either be seen as real, with substantial power, and therefore deserving of acknowledgement and pacification, or as inferior beings requiring compassionate help. A third alternative is to realise them as illusory forms which simply arise as projections out of the practitioner's mind due to its impure and unenlightened state. These three views, in turn, represent the different schools of Buddhist thought as viewed by the Tibetans. On the one hand, the Hinayana accepts reality as it is, with its polarised good and evil, and promotes a code of practice which adheres to rules and discipline in order to foster the former and avoid the latter. On the other hand, the Mahayana, which bases its view on the understanding of emptiness, nonetheless relies particularly on a doctrine of compassion for others as the essential path. The third interpretation corresponds to the Vajrayana perspective which anchors the transmutational quality of the mind in the very nature of dualism itself. The Vajrayana tackles the dilemmas surrounding duality by explicitly attempting to break the very boundaries which separate 'self and 'other', 'good' and 'bad', 'inner' and 'outer'. Reality is often described as nothing more than a dream.

Kalu Rinpoche, in an explanation of the Vajrayana position to the French writer Arnaud Desjardins,12 compared the practice of the three different Yanas to eating a bowl of poison. The Hinayana approach is to avoid eating it, the Mahayana approach is to eat it knowing the antidote, and the Vajrayana approach is to eat it deliberately, transmuting the poison to nectar through the realisation of the emptiness, tongpanyi (Tibetan stong.pa.nyid, Sanskrit sunyata)13 of all phenomena. Milarepa's developing relationship with the demons appears to follow the view of the Yanas in consequential order, thereby inferring the superiority of the Vajrayana. Whichever way they are viewed, their presence is affirmed, however, as either definite entities, with an external individual existence, which can be perceived through the senses, or as manifestations of the deluded thought processes of the ordinary mind. Even the enlightened mind incorporates them into its perfect vision, not as the 'other' but as allies to the path of enlightenment. In this way the interdependence of mind and phenomena is established, with reality and illusion as terms or categories which cannot be fixed as opposing dualities, given the position and centrality of the mind itself, from which everything is said to arise.

This is the same process which occurs in the conceptualisation of the female. Firstly, she may be viewed as the very real physical enemy who causes obstructions for man on his spiritual quest, and therefore must be either rejected or denied so that he can proceed unproblematically. Secondly, she may be seen as deserving of compassion, because of her inferior birth, whilst being conceptualised, like man, as essentially empty by nature. The third view posits all phenomena as projections of the mind, and therefore sees woman in her manifestation of 'other-worldliness' as an embodiment of either emptiness or transcendence, which may be incorporated through sexual relations, so that man may achieve enlightenment. The Vajrayana view obliges man to confront deliberately the difference which woman presents, ideally bridging the gap between the view of woman as enemy and woman as nothing, by both recognising her mundane presence and conceptualising her as transcendent, through sexual activity. As man's archaic 'other', woman has been represented in Tibetan Buddhism in all of these ways.

Whilst providing a philosophical framework for men, however, these representations have deprived woman of the ability to define herself in terms of her own transcendence, because the iconography represents ultimate subjectivity in terms of the historically embodied male Buddha. Furthermore, a system which evolved to privilege the male cannot be simply transposed to produce concepts about the female which will mirror his experiences and perceptions of physical being, because the symbols which emerge in the iconography of a culture, ultimately relate to the social and cultural norms operative within the society which produces them. Logically any system which privileged the female, in the same way the system has privileged the male, would lead to radical social change. It is clear too that whilst woman is not the same as man, neither is she a polar opposite, for all humans (whether male or female) experience the 'other', in the first instance, in their relationship with the female as mother, which means that the earliest possible experiences, including those of being in the womb, do not always constitute for the female the obverse of the male.

It is not therefore appropriate to suggest that by simply reversing symbolism, significant meaning will be produced for female practitioners, for, as I have already shown, that symbolism is very much rooted in the bodies of the male and female. Textual evidence bears this out, because it is clear that gendered classifications and symbolic meanings are not seen to change depending on the gender of the practitioner. If they did, then logically, 'otherness' for women would be equated with maleness, and men seen as either embodiments of the transcendental, or a threat to women's good practice. Not only that but the image of Buddha, as the enlightened subject, would be female for women, and the significance of the female body, menstruation and the potential for motherhood as natural and fundamental facets of femaleness, would have to be reconsidered, and integrated into the female symbolic which would have to emerge.

If the symbols were truly read in this way, there is no doubt that societal norms, as well as theological perspectives, would change considerably. Perhaps this is the process to which Anne C. Klein alludes in her inconclusive critique of the status of Tibetan women. Klein proposes that there does exist within Tibetan Buddhism a seemingly positive female symbolism, and wonders whether an 'inappropriate reification'14 displaces notions of spirituality which are potentially of value to women. 'In a Buddhist context this can happen' she writes, 'when the essential nature of things, emptiness or primordial purity, is treated as if it had a life of its own, apart from those persons and things whose nature it is. That sets the scene for women to be characterized in less exalted ways.'15 Klein stops short of acknowledging that the actual association of such a primordial purity with the female, far from being liberating, creates an iconography which ultimately binds the female to her position in relation to the male, and not, as Guenther implies she should be, valid in her own right. That the non-dual should be characterised in dualistic terms, through the medium of gender, may reflect the ambiguities of language, but it does little for the cause of female spirituality which is stymied by the position in which women are obliged to be placed. Furthermore, in the context of the social and iconographical structures, the exclusion of the female in worldly terms, and the appropriation of the female in transcendental terms, can only be seen to be of benefit to the ruling class - the priesthood of incarnate lamas, and the lineage system.

Luce Irigaray is not as optimistic as Klein seems to be about woman's potential in the context of patriarchal power, for she writes, 'Woman, for her part, remains in unrealized potentiality - unrealized, at least, for/by herself ... Ontological status makes her incomplete and uncompletable. She can never achieve the wholeness of her form' (italics original).16 This seems particularly true in the Tibetan system where the potential of wholeness in the female form, quite clearly represented in some of the more archaic Tantric images, is somehow never realised in the social sphere. I have argued that this is because the association of emptiness with the female links the female body to a concept of the transcendental, which means that the female body is exploited by the male in his quest for his own topology, while she herself has no adequate means to realise her own. The transcendental therefore becomes, as Irigaray understands it, 'the arena of the (philosophical) subject split off from its ground'.17 This, she maintains, 'prevents women's accession to subjectivity'.18 Furthermore, the creation and control The Question if 'Otherness' in Female Representation 155 of symbolic images of women by men also prevent 'woman from acceding to her own separate being; she must always be for-men, available for their transcendence' (italics mine).19

In the Tibetan Buddhist system and its iconography, the position/non-position allocated to the female helps to sustain a double-bind from which there is no escape. This is by no means unique to Tibetan society, for as Elizabeth Berg has stated, with reference to the dilemma for women in western culture,

[I]f she is represented - this representation must necessarily take place within the context of a phallocentric system ... in which the woman is reduced to mirroring the man. On the other hand, the presence of woman as a blank space - as refusal of representation - only serves to provide a backdrop or support for masculine projections.20

Apart from the blatantly negative representations of women which do appear in Tibetan texts, most other images fall into either of these two categories, so that, for example, the lives of saintly women tend to mirror those of men, i.e. within the lineage context, and therefore subject to the limitations of the system, whilst divine representations such as the dakini or the Yum Chenmo, embody the concept of emptiness or paradox. This latter 'refusal of representation' is, as Klein has noted, impossible to translate into egalitarianism within the social sphere.

In the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchical institution, the acquisition of power for women seems unlikely to go beyond tokenism for some time, because in their unique and complex social system (albeit in exile from their own land) the symbols of spiritual and temporal power have been so intertwined in the iconography and the philosophy, through the stress placed on the lineage, that any disruption of any part of that system would, I maintain, threaten to change the whole philosophical view. Because the image of the male-Buddha-lama predominates in the system, and the key to understanding that system remains locked in the secrecy of the practices, and the suppression of the female, it is my contention that its evolution within western culture will be signalled by the inevitable abandonment of the tulku system, as it presently stands, and the close examination of the principles of egalitarianism which are enshrined in the philosophy. This would be done through a reciprocity between the stated elements of dualism, notably the male and female, and an acceptance of difference as a determinant of culture, rather than dualism or sameness. Woman would then be viewed not as an obstructor, a complement, or as even as the embodiment of transcendence, but as a self-defining subject in her own right.

In order to reach that position as a speaking-subject, women would have to attain enough autonomy to speak and act outwith the approval, control or supervision of men. This would return them to a position of philosophical equality with men. However, it is often extremely difficult for women to extricate themselves from male-dominated systems of religious power, principally because the ideals of these systems are often akin to the kinds of experiences women have in day-to-day life. This means that their experiences are perceived to fit in with the ideals of the religion, even though these experiences are the ones they wish to change. As Irigaray states,

If. . . the mystical experience is precisely an experience of the loss of subjecthood, of the disappearance of the subject/object opposition, it would seem to hold a particular appeal for women, whose very subjectivity is anyway being denied and repressed by patriarchal discourse.21

In the Tantric tradition many of the practices explicitly state the undesirability of an attachment to self, known in Tibetan as dagzin, (bdag. 'dzin), encouraging instead a symbolic yet sacrificial approach to the human body and mind through meditation practices such as the Chod22 or the mandala23 offering. Considering the sacrificial role which women are usually called upon to enact in the social sphere, it is tempting to agree with Irigaray's notion that women's affinity with certain religious practices mirrors everyday existential experiences, in particular those which tap into women's already weak sense of self (or female identity). In her analysis of the Buddhist teaching concerning the self, Rita Gross distinguishes between 'self and 'ego' by explaining that 'ego' is what is required to be 'dismantled',24 no matter what 'style' it has, because 'someone who is forceful doesn't have "more ego" than someone who is shy and retiring'.25 Gross proposes that it is entirely possible to 'go directly from the unhealthy and often overly weak or co-dependent ego styles that characterize women in patriarchy to the health of egolessness' (italics mine),26 and describes ego as that which 'names the defence mechanisms, projections, and other tactics habitually used to cope with and ward off direct experience'.27 On the other hand, Gross maintains that 'a healthy, functioning sense of self or identity is necessary for . . . spiritual development' (italics mine),28 and that, without it, it is not possible 'to pursue Buddhist spiritual disciplines, which, by themselves, may not be sufficient to heal the emotional deprivations'.29 As emotional deprivations in everyone tend to manifest themselves in defence mechanisms and projections, it is not clear what that 'healthy sense of self' (which is required in order for someone to attempt dismantling the ego) would actually be.

I am therefore not as convinced as Gross that it is possible to separate self and ego in this way, nor to insinuate a third more stable factor which supposedly underlies the ego and the identity. In discussing what it is that must be destroyed, she says that ego is 'any style of habitual patterns and responses that clouds over the clarity and openness of basic human nature' (italics mine).30 In the context of this search for female identity, the question of 'basic human nature' presupposes that there is, beyond individual experience as men and women, a unitary experience of humanity which does not take into account sexual difference. This notion fits very well with Gross's 'Androgynous Vision in Buddhism',31 in which she sets out the mandating and institutionalising of gender equality through the adoption of androgynous institutions and 'androgynous thinking' which would recognise the dharma as 'both male and female', rather than the classic Buddhist position of 'neither male nor female'.32 It is my view that an idealistic conception of androgyny which did not acknowledge difference and separateness as fundamental would ultimately be detrimental for women, because in the overall context of a debased female symbolic operative in Tibetan Buddhism, this kind of merging would reinscribe the loss of both male and female bodies to 'the phallic economy'.33 Rita Gross, in her argument on egolessness as a Buddhist ideal, goes further by elevating the experience of the female 'ego' which she says is 'based on patriarchal projections',34 to an advantageous virtue when she writes,

women, by virtue of being 'the other', of being outsiders in patriarchal society, are in a better position than men to become aware of such oppositional duality and to think past it than are men, who, not being the victims of duality, frequently cannot imagine any other mode of being in the world. (Italics mine)35

The double-bind involved in this way of viewing women's task in throwing off the negative chains of 'ego' are obvious, for if women acquiesce within a religious system which seeks to encourage or exploit their 'better position', they remain fettered by it. Furthermore, Gross's extraordinary statement, that men are not victims of duality, somehow reinscribes women's position as inferior, by making them the only ones to be affected negatively by the manifestations of 'oppositional duality'. It is my opinion that the strange inverse privileging of women as 'fortunate to be unfortunate' can do no more than substantiate a particular way of thinking which does not challenge the inherent, yet very subtle, debasement of the female symbolic.

In considering women's actual experience of self, therefore, I believe it is important to recognise certain particular differences which are consequential, and which do not necessarily arise from the projections of the patriarchal world. Whilst not overlooking the fact, therefore, that women's bodies have often been abused and exploited by men, it is important also to consider those aspects of bodily function and those of experience which are uniquely female and can only relate to a female 'identity'. First of all, the actual physiology of women's bodies allows for a very real kind of invasion of her distinctive physical boundaries through vaginal intercourse, pregnancy and breastfeeding. These differences have been recognised in the social sphere as existing since the time of early humans. As one anthropologist writes, 'for millions of years the male has been taught to desire separateness and be wary of proximity and touching. Maternity, by contrast, requires tolerance of continual invasion of one's space and body' (italics mine).36 Secondly, -- the female experience of being a daughter, vis-a-vis the mother, naturally carries different meaning to that of being a son. Kristeva goes as far as to say, 'sexual difference is the result of different relations to the mother' (italics mine).37 Theories of psychoanalysis also point to a different process in the formation of ego between females and males, in which females, by virtue of being physically the same as their mothers, must find unitary identity not through physical difference, but through psychic separation from the other-of-the-same. Girls therefore are required to undertake the paradoxical step of both identifying with and separating from the other-of-the-same, in order to develop a sense of self. Boys, on the other hand, require to separate from the other, then identify with the other-of-the-same. This task, already complex for girls, leaves them with a different set of psychological features from boys, whose ego-formation is structured differently.

As feminist theorists have shown in their accounts of the formation of the masculine self through differentiation from the mother and the feminine, such a self stresses sharply defined ego boundaries and emphasises its distinctness, autonomy and separation from others.38

If this statement is true, the central metaphor for the Tibetan Tantra in the yab-yum symbolic is more easily understood, because the male actively uniting with the passive female represents an attempt for unity which seeks to overcome his unique sense of dualism. In a book about Tantric representations, one western commentator notes, 'The male Buddha and his female counterpart are polar opposites in manifestation .... They are divided wholes . . . the opposites are united during the search for wholeness in Buddhism . . . the female part is his Prajna, his wisdom' (italics mine).39 Unlike Gross, it is my belief that men are just as much victims of this dualism as women, because their maleness affords them the possibility of developing a more sharply defined ego or sense of self, and within the patriarchal system of Tibetan Buddhism, which emphasises the masculine and marginalises the feminine and the mother, they fall into a belief in their selves which reflects their subjective position vis-a-vis women.

In this way the female is established either as 'other' and to be completely avoided, or as 'other' and to be united with in order for him to feel whole. In the Tantric system, where union with the 'opposite' is considered essential, the male requires to seek a kind of union in which he is helped to destroy the very ego created in his hyperseparation from his mother. Dowman associates the dakini with this process when he writes, 'from the beginning the Dakinis were associated with the meta-psychotherapeutic function of ego destruction and the initiation of yogins into the mandala of pure-being, consciousness and ecstasy' (italics mine).40 According to Trungpa, however, this very destruction takes place as a result of a total surrendering of the ego to the guru, and brings about a state of being in which a 'sort of transparent experience of duality begins to develop in which things are really precise without depending on each other' (italics mine).41

The linking together of the dakini and the guru as important catalysts in the task of the destruction of ego suggests an unconscious association with the symbolic female, because the goal of the master-disciple relationship, or the yab-yum relationship, as interpreted contemporarily by Trungpa and Dowman, is to create (for the implied male) some kind of unitary state in which dependence is negated. It is my view that both these concepts relate specifically to a perception of ego development as seen from the male point of view, for in the Tibetan system, in the case of the tulku, or child-monk, the separation from the mother and the feminine sphere was often dramatic and significant in the development of a sense of self. Often it took place at such an early moment in the child's life that it is uncertain whether or not, as Trungpa's poems illustrate, the boy child had a chance to complete a process of individuation and develop a real sense of identity, ego, or separate self from the mother. Whilst the monastic system which took over the motherly function, particularly that of dependence, later established a new identity for the boy, and excluded the feminine from his sphere of influence (except through the female symbolic represented in the iconography), the sense of sacrificial indebtedness to the guru, as elaborated by Trungpa and others, does seem to reflect something of an unresolved denial of dependence. Indeed one might argue that the deeply repressed early feelings of dependency on the mother, all too often interrupted by removal from her, and the subsequent sense of loss in the face of what must have seemed like her omnipotence in banishing her son, could lead to a transference of dependence on, and sacrificial actions towards, that other great mother -- the La-Ma, or guru.

It would be this La-Ma who, in all likelihood having experienced something similar, would, as an adult, subsequently take up the role of omnipotent mother, and demand, as befitted the tradition, that his spiritual children offer their bodies, emotions and minds without question as he inspired them 'to walk further into the desert of egolessness'.42 Trungpa Tulku adequately explains the dangers of surrendering everything to the lama, as part of the spiritual process, yet his words carry a poignancy when read in the context of his own early removal from the secular world into the spiritual domain of the monastery.

If we surrender our body to the guru we are surrendering our primal reference point. Our body becomes the possession of the lineage; it is not ours any more. I am not talking here of becoming hysterical and losing sense consciousness; I mean that surrendering our body, psychologically our dear life is turned over to someone else. We do not have our dear life to hold onto any more. (Italics mine)43

In a sense, Trungpa's aside about hysteria links this process, in his mind at least, with a condition primarily associated with women, and the male fear of it. Irigaray on the other hand reminds us that there is a 'revolutionary potential' in women who display it, for they 'exhibit(s) a potential for gestures and desires .... A Movement of revolt and refusal, a desire for/of the living mother who would be more than a reproductive body in the pay of the polis, a living, loving woman' (italics mine).44 In the tulku system, it is this living, loving mother who is absent, because so often the mother was no more than a reproductive body, used by the lineage and metaphorically usurped by them. Trungpa's further elaboration of the process which begins with the body, proceeds to the surrendering of the emotions, and finally ends with the surrendering of the mind, could be seen, he agrees, as 'absolutely terrible', but argues that it is the only way to 'uproot this thing that we try so hard to hold onto',45 in other words the ego or sense of self.

For women, the sacrificial role is one which has been traditionally expected in many societies, so that 'women in the traditional family are supposed to exhibit feminine qualities of altruism in the sense of self-abnegation, non-development or abandonment of their own projects, and putting others first'.46 However, some psychoanalytical feminists have theorised that the sacrificial act demanded of women in western societies is of a more profound nature than simply being altruistic in both family and public spheres, and relates particularly to the development of a sense of self where that self is based on the sacrificial repression of the feminine through neglect of the mother-daughter relationship, female genealogies, and the body of the mother. Just as the infant tulkus are forced to adopt an identity which does not spring naturally from the mother-child bond, so women in the west enter the symbolic patriarchal order 'constituted from outside in relation to a social junction, instead of to a female identity and autonomy' (italics original).47 This frequently occurs because of the failure of many mothers to experience personal autonomy and individuation in their relationships with their daughters.

In the case of western women, then, the notion of sacrifice of ego within the religious context may mean an inappropriate understanding, which may further precipitate a denial of self, where that self has been constructed and defined within a western philosophical tradition which has put her on the side of 'the other'; object, not subject; and inferior, not different. In the case of the lamas, however, the complex psychology which must have come into play when very young tulkus were removed from their mothers, sometimes at such a young age as to have interfered with the process of the development of a sense of self, may well account for the readiness some lamas show in associating their identity with the illusory body (the literal meaning of the word tulku). Read in this way, Trungpa Tulku's poetry carries the poignant sense of abandonment and the uncertainty of identity in a situation where he was forced to create a new identity within the context of the monastic tradition. Interestingly, it is this very disruption of the young boy's life which leads to the establishment of a sense of self which can be moulded for the sake of the lineage, in a way reminiscent of the philosophy surrounding the dakini, whom I have shown can be represented in ways useful to male practitioners in particular.

Of course, these kinds of perspectives may be totally unacceptable to those who believe in the power of the tulku system as being, not a questionable phenomenon in a social system, but rather a divine manifestation of faith and belief. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that the association of the lama with ideas which pertain to the female experience, of lack, emptiness, or the absence of a sense of subjective identity outwith that bestowed by patriarchal society (in the lama's case the lineage) could be one reason why they are often idolised by westerners as embodying a deeply attractive persona which is difficult to articulate. Religion, after all, is described in psychoanalysis as, 'a system of internal objects constructed socially and over generations' which 'by its manifold repititions'48 seeks to create and maintain the internal world. The outward ambience of the lama's spiritual cell, together with his appearance and an often covert, or suppressed, aura of sexuality do imply for some people a connection with female experience, in a way which has sometimes been viewed as idealistically androgynous. This kind of ambiguity, where there is a perceived merging together of male and female roles, may indeed hold its attractions for women not wishing to be compromised sexually by the 'guru' figure, but who find a dearth of women teachers to follow. In addition, for men, the often gentle, passive image of the all-caring lama in his attire of long skirts, and absence of stereotypical masculinity, create an ideal of androgynous sexuality with which to relate in the quest for the extinction of the subject/object dichotomy. Yet as I have already illustrated, the importance of sexuality is stressed in the Tantric teachings, but its manifestations largely hidden, through the requirements of the lineage system, which has an elaborate code of expressing sexuality in profoundly ambiguous ways. What is clear from the way in which the actual lives of the lamas intersect with the philosophical teachings, and in particular the expression of sexuality, is that there is an absence of a philosophy of female physicality which would translate into a radical enactment in the social sphere of the egalitarian principles enshrined in Buddhism in general. Additionally, the very complex and elaborate mechanisms which attempt to address the problematic areas of the inner lives of men (and which, perhaps, ought to be questioned in the contemporary context), fail to address the different experiences of women.

The assumption that the teachings are complete in themselves for whoever practises them may well be true as far as the basic doctrines, the moral questions and the articles of faith are concerned, but there is no doubt that there has been a decline in the consideration of women's difference, and no acknowledgement of what that would imply for spiritual practice, and for a deeper understanding of female identity. For example, the disappearance of the subject/object dichotomy, which is so revered by Tantrics as an ideal goal of practice, is complicated for women in western society because they already live within a philosophical tradition which has emphasised women's sense of being on the 'object' side of that dichotomy for some considerable time. Against this tendency, the ideas of the Enlightenment, the beginning of an era focused on rights, and the rise of feminist consciousness, have all contributed to a change in western society where a possible exploration and realignment of gender categories is at least now open to debate. The simple 'merging' of male and female identities which Miranda Shaw advocates as an ideal of Tantric practice, may in the end turn out not to be so simple.

On a more basic level, however, woman's very physical experience of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding already give her a unique experience of the paradoxical relationship between subject and object, in which the boundaries are not always clear. Furthermore the complex relationship which women have with their mothers (who themselves may have failed to achieve existential autonomy) already prepares them for an experience of (sometimes problematic) 'merging' or 'sameness' which male children usually do not have. For these reasons, then, some of the Tantric practices (developed at a time when social and cultural norms had a very different flavour) may now be seen as positively unhelpful for contemporary women practitioners. These are the kinds of issues which emerge from a closer examination of Tantric systems, and which affect the way in which woman takes her place either as an 'oppositional' force, whether good or bad but certainly 'other', or as a transcendental force symbolising 'emptiness'.

With the evolution away from basic concepts around the Great Mother, the lotus deity and the Sky Goddess to the combined image of the divine lama-king and the Buddha, the subjectivity of the ancient symbolic female was lost, replaced instead by a symbolism which represented female deities as either mothers of Buddhas, or as consorts, but not as individual, active sexual females whose initiative emerges from subjective power, within a self-defined sphere of action. Given the huge range of deities in the pantheon (and it is not my aim here to analyse all of them or their meaning), many would argue that exceptions such as Dorje Phagmo49 and Ekajati,50 with their semi-wrathful and wrathful appearances respectively, give notice of an aspect of female nature which is not in the control of men. Not only that, but the textual and iconographical references to other aspects of essential femaleness, such as menstrual blood, do provide the powerful images required for identification and for the acquisition of supreme subjectivity. But given the rigid control which the lineage operates in providing access to, and understanding of, such symbols, the revolutionary qualities which can be read into them fail to materialise in the unequivocal acceptance of female practitioners and their role and status within the system. One of the few exceptional examples of a contemporary practice which reflects some of these issues is the Dakini Retreat as devised by Tsultrim Aliione, an American woman teacher who makes different use of the dakini symbolism in her self-developed practices.51

The lack of prominence given to the exploration of potential symbols of use to women is often undermined, however, by writers like Willis, otherwise sympathetic to the idea of the value of the Vajrayana for women. Her caution to women that they should not think that any philosophically defined characteristics attributed to female aspects such as the dakini give women any special privileges over men in spiritual practice, leaves women wondering just what are the unique facets about being female which can be called upon to aid such practice. Clearly this is a complex issue, for if women were to accept the labels put on them by men and in the cause of men, they would be accused of collusion, whilst rejecting them could lead to a sense of being nothing, because subjective reality has traditionally been difficult for women to express. Irigaray, constantly accused of essentialism by attempting to describe 'woman', has reflected the paradoxical nature of this problem by saying, more or less, that although woman may be conceptualised as not something, she is also not nothing. What does this cryptic remark mean for women within the Buddhist context?

Whilst I have shown that the representation of the female as 'oppositional other' deprives women of status in the social sphere, I have also pointed out that the notion of 'mirroring' men in philosophical terms is a simplistic one, hardly worthy of consideration. In addition I have argued that emptiness as a concept associated with the female is equivalent to a 'refusal of representation', as Elizabeth Berg suggests, and has led in the Tibetan case to the transcendentalisation of the female in order to meet the needs, both social and psychological, of the male. Furthermore, I have attempted to describe the complexities involved in addressing the issue of the 'destruction of ego' as one of the central aims of Buddhism, and what this means for women within a system whose symbolic structure may disadvantage them enormously. Whilst it may be the case that the Tibetan Buddhist structures reflect to some extent the psychodynamic needs of the men who are a part of them, my contention is that there are no such structures, within the lineage system, which address the different needs of women. I have shown Rita Gross's idea, that the ideal of the destruction of ego is a process in which gender is irrelevant, to be doubtful, given that I have demonstrated that many of the practices of Tantric Buddhism are encoded with a privileging of the male position. Irigaray's question concerning an imagery for women, therefore, 'Where and how to dwell?'52 seems relevant and timely, and, I suggest, could only be approached, in the context of woman's involvement with Tibetan Buddhism, by considering a reclamation of the meaning of the dakini, but only under terms laid down by women themselves.

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Chapter 9: Perspectives on Culture and Gender

The search for female identity in Tibetan Buddhism has taken me from the historical roots of the religion, through its institutions, into its secret practices, and has culminated in an analysis of the way in which female identity is constructed within its philosophy. But an important aspect of this search has been my use of western theoretical approaches as a way of understanding Tibetan Buddhism, particularly in the context of its historical transposition to the west, and the implications of that phenomenon. The confluence of the traditions of Tibet with the rise in so-called 'New Age' philosophies, postmodernism and the general secularisation of western society has come about at a time when many people are actively seeking some form of spiritual practice which addresses the needs of contemporary society. In particular, there are those who seek some form of religious philosophy or secular wisdom which would not only take account of the destructive effects of industrialisation, consumerism and colonisation, but also put forward a framework for understanding relationships, especially those between the sexes.

There seems little doubt that Buddhism offers a kind of religious environment in which markedly different philosophies and practices from those of traditional western religions appear to predominate. The atheistic and humanistic aspects of Buddhism appear to place humanity within a seemingly greater space-time dimension than other religions, and appeal to those who fail to find meaning in some of the more rigid dogmas of the Judeo-Christian traditions. Furthermore, the emphasis which Buddhists place on non-violence, and the practice of meditation which focuses on the individual and the spirit within, has led to great interest in the powers of the mind and the possibilities of inner and communal peace through the use of particular meditation techniques. So, whilst it is important to recognise the potential value of certain aspects of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition as being helpful in creating a different understanding of human reality for westerners, it is also important, I believe, to examine what aspects of this tradition may prove to be problematic in their transposition to the west, and why.

It seems self-evident that any religious tradition from a different culture, in order to find relevance in the minds of new converts, would have to contain concepts or symbols which would be in some way recognisable, so that the meanings arising out of particular representations and texts would be different enough, but not so totally alien as to be dismissed out of hand. What is interesting about the Tibetan tradition for westerners is that it contains both features, as I shall show -- the familiar philosophical base and the absolutely alien iconography. In the past, western travellers and academics were all too ready to analyse those aspects of the Tibetan tradition which they conceptualised as 'alien' and by so doing implied the 'inferior' nature of them. This categorisation prevented them from seeing the sameness of some of the approaches to the Tibetan world view, and as a result the culture and religion was consigned to the category of 'totally other'.

The Victorian orientalists, for example, expressed fascination for Tibet and its religion, but expressed their prejudicial view of its 'otherness' in a way which represented it as inferior, and therefore symbolically as the debased feminine. This was in line with the predominant societal view of women at that time, and simply reflected the association of man with science and culture, and woman with the passions and nature. Early explorers seemed inspired by the perceived mystery of Tibet's landscape and religion, and described its features in terms which reflected the rise of scientific exploration and the subsequent desire for mastery over nature. The use, for example, of sexual metaphors to describe man's 'penetration' of the mysteries, or exploration of landscape as a sexual chase, was frequent in all forms of literature. One writer describes the Tibetan explorer Marco Pallis's relationship with Tibet in a manner familiar to Victorian writers, 'Tibet is Pallis's Beatrice. It is his anima, a symbol of his soul'.1 Tibet, anima, soul, unconscious, or woman -- all these concepts were linked.

Since the Dalai Lama's exodus, however, and the spread of the Tibetan people all over the world, Tibet, as the primary landscape supporting the culture of Tibetan Buddhism and its institutions, no longer exists. The teachings, therefore, have been presented in refugee settings and in Dharma Centres created by lamas from all traditions in places where westerners have sought to establish new Buddhist institutions. The mysticism, therefore, has for many been conveyed purely through the teachings themselves, and not in the physical geography of the landscape which engendered them. The geographical and societal context in the west has also changed since that time, a hundred or more years ago, when the main influx of explorers to Tibet took place.

Many writers, including Tibetans themselves, have analysed the western and Tibetan traditions in order to find common ground, and have seen similarities between the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism and some western-based theories and philosophies of the moment, particularly in science, psychological theory, and in the peace and ecological movements. For example, much has been made of the interesting correlation between certain Tibetan and Chinese texts and the writings of contemporary physicists such as Fritzjof Capra. Many medical practitioners have also looked at the holistic approaches to medicine by the Tibetans, and found similarities with western scientific theories which explain the body-mind relationship. This has meant that, for some people, it appears that western science is only now catching up with eastern mysticism, rather than the other way around. The shift in the western perspective has also been made possible by the development of a more pluralistic western society, which to a certain extent now acknowledges that different religions offer relative truths to different peoples in different cultures at different times, and that the western cultural imperialism of the past is no longer acceptable. This, together with the transmission of the many sacred texts which were neither destroyed through political upheaval, nor lost through neglect, meant that the Tibetan tradition was recognised as containing many of the ancient and important philosophical teachings of the Indian sub-continent.

Many of these points are taken up very convincingly by Peter Bishop in his book Dreams of Power, in which he maintains that Tibet and its religion have found a place in the western imagination since early times, by fulfilling the western desire to place 'otherness' in an actual geographical setting. 'Tibet was a vital link in the West's imaginative connection with memoria, with the past, with the ancients', he writes.2 Bishop argues that by sustaining the fantasy of a land, 'too white, too silent, too pure3 in which there is 'an avoidance of the shadow',4 westerners provide for themselves the opportunity to believe in and long for, an idealised spiritual domain in which 'a reawakened appreciation of the Divine Father'5 could take place. It is his belief that the lineage and tulku system embody, as I have also argued, potent archeytpes of the 'omnipotent and divine father' and he points to the iconographic representation of the lineage tree (which depicts the unbroken lineage of lamas who received teachings from divine sources and carried them forward through the tulku system), as the key to understanding the link between the social and the divine.

It is interesting, however, that in his analysis of the symbols and representations to be found around the tree he fails to mention the meaning which can be construed by the fact that no women tulkus are present in the representations of the lineages of lamas since the Middle Ages. So whilst the tree has a symbolic message pertaining to 'an idealized image of a cohesive hierarchical order, one which is unified around the principle of a direct kinship between the divine and the social hierarchies',6 it also represents in the clearest terms the dependence of the existence of the idealised divine father on the absence of women. Bishop does argue, however, that the uncritical acceptance of Tibetan Buddhism through the 'partial transportation to the West of a complex spiritual-cultural system' has 'resulted in a critical imbalance' (italics original)7 and that this has led to a 'Western denial of Tibetan Buddhism's dark and messy aspects'.8 What is surprising is that he does not associate the 'darkness', the 'underside' or the 'hidden' facets which he describes with the female, nor does he mention the possible link between the all-male lineage, and the quest for the divine father with the denial, subjugation and incorporation of the mother, as I have argued here.

Bishop's thesis is that Tibetan Buddhism can be seen as the focus of the west's desire to return to the infallible and omnipotent father at a time when he claims there has been 'a massive turning-away from orthodox patriarchal values'.9 But by his own analysis he describes Tibetan Buddhism as 'a symbol of Otherness'10 which, as I have clearly shown, is linked in western philosophy with the female. If his thesis is true, and Tibetan Buddhism has become the object of idealised projections by westerners, then the situation may be a great deal more complex than he suggests, for, as I have pointed out, a divine father who not only appears to incorporate 'the other', but whose existence also depends on the denial of the other, may not necessarily be a valuable symbol at this time, for either women or men.

Certainly the problem for all westerners, whether male or female, in adopting an orientalist stance, (i.e. viewing it as 'other') is that through idealisation, and denial of what Bishop calls the 'messy' aspects of Tibetan Buddhism, they themselves take on the position of (masculine) subject, and through their idealisation, objectify or 'feminise' Tibetan Buddhism as 'other'. This process masks the need to be realistic about what the Tibetan Buddhist system actually entails, so that many writers who seem ready to portray Tibet as magical, mystical or 'other', fail to acknowledge the patriarchal system which was the foundation of Tibet's socio-religious system, and thus to identify the aspects of sameness which are a part of it. This in turn allows western men the opportunity not only to idealise the difference of Tibetan Buddhism, but also to conceal their identification with the subjectivity and socio-religious power which men can achieve within it, and by implication objectify the female symbolic, which is repressed within it.

The result of such a view is that while Tibet's cultural system can be seen on an unconscious level to represent the female/feminine, thereby fulfilling the desire for union with 'the other', the hierarchical system offers opportunities for men to attain the real power of patriarchal rule. This interesting symbolic structure may then cause some men to confuse the blatant sexism of the institution with the rights and privileges which they would rationalise are a part of cultural difference, so that they no longer see a need to challenge a system which patently favours men on all levels. For western women, on the other hand, while the idealisation of cultural difference also reflects an orientalist position, their dreams of power within such a system are modified by the recognition that their place within it is limited to the roles and positions dictated by its patriarchal bias.

It is clear, therefore, that there is a tremendous difference between these two approaches. On the one hand is the idealising of an alien system of socio-spiritual rule which resembles the symbolic female because of its cultural difference (but is in practice denying that female symbolic within a patriarchal structure). On the other hand is the acknowledging, as an outsider, of the problematic aspects of a patriarchal system within a culturally different context. In the latter case it is always difficult for any outsider to comment without appearing to imply cultural superiority, yet in the dynamic created between cultures and genders, where Tibetan lamas have engaged in unusual sexual relationships with western women (which may be defined as being culturally constructed), western women (if traumatised) must have the right to speak of their experience, and their view of it. When confronted by western women who expressed distress, confusion and concern over this issue, the Dalai Lama himself affirmed, publically, in 1994, that this should be so.

The key to understanding the desires expressed by westerners vis-a-vis the Tibetan Buddhist culture must however be understood not just in terms of the gender of the scholar or student, but in the reality of the desire and yearning which all humans have in relation to the female/feminine, traditionally viewed as the dark side, the mystical, or even the messy. The idea that only men require reparation with the symbolic female, the Great Mother, or at the very least require an understanding of the female/feminine, is of course absurd, for women too are born of women, and often require to pursue the symbolic mother in the same way as men, in search of their unique subjectivity and autonomy in relation to her. For western men who write about Tibet, its religion or other facets, their position often reflects the dominant ideology which posits the male as subject and the female as object.

Peter Bishop, however, in his contemporary analysis of the western relationship with Tibetan Buddhism, does succeed in undermining such a male/colonialist subjectivity by exposing the unconscious determinants in the western psyche which drive people to idealise Tibetan Buddhism. By so doing, Bishop thereby 'speaks the unconscious', exposing his own privileged subjectivity, but subverting it by adopting the so-called 'feminine' position. Despite this contribution to the debate, however, Bishop fails to mention in his work the position of actual women in the system, the female symbolic in representations, or the encounter of western women with the lamas of the lineage. He proposes that what westerners (sic) truly seek is 'the Divine Father', thereby succumbing to the notion that the mother has no status in the unconscious, neither of men nor of women. Although he does not state it, my view is that his analysis conceals the western male's desire for the mother, and that she is subsumed by the phallic presence of the divine father.

Peter Bishop acknowledges right from the start the masculine ambience surrounding the study of Tibet and its religion. In the early days when Tibet was used as an object of fantasy making, it was the exclusive domain of white European men, whilst other travellers, writers or scholars, whether women or from other cultures, were marginalised and excluded from describing their relationship with the culture. The travels and writing for example of Isabella Bird and Alexandra David-Neel were given prominence many years after their achievements, and there is much evidence in their writings to suppose that their motivation for travelling and exploration, whilst similar to those of colonial men, were to some extent different, and reflected their different sociological position as women in the society of their time.

Nowadays, the real and imaginary pursuit of idealised human realms on earth takes on a different meaning in a world reduced in size by mechanisation and technology. Furthermore, with a philosophical movement occurring in which gender is under scrutiny in the west, ancient categories of meaning like that of the omnipotent and divine father may well be falling apart, and a new discourse emerging about the nature of the 'divine'. This may mean that in the process of adapting and reinterpreting Tibetan Buddhism in the west, the subtext of many writings about its methodology and philosophy will be exposed, to uncover a relationship between the 'dreams of power', the nature of those dreams and the gender of the dreamer. Given that the systems of power in Tibet were exclusively the domain of men, there is an unspoken assumption that men are the only ones to have 'dreams of power', and that these dreams necessarily relate in the first place to high status, and in the second place to spiritual power within patriarchal systems, whilst the question of women's desires regarding such power do not appear to be on the agenda. Clearly, in the past, Tibetan women achieved power through being mothers of tulkus, or wives of lay lamas, but few achieved social power and the right to be represented in the lineage trees.

The new fascination for Tibetan Buddhism which has come about due to the work of the Tibetan scholars and converts who have put Tibetan Buddhism into the public domain in the west since 1959 has meant that parts of the Tantric tradition now convey aspects of the symbolic meaning of the religion, outwith the major social structures in which it developed. This has happened at a time when the equal rights and women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s paved the way for major shifts in the perception of race and gender in the west, and challenged notions of certain kinds of institutional power and the domination of nature by science for the sake of the market. I would propose that the current fascination about Tibet is motivated more by a desire to express otherness and speak its existence as a reclaimed aspect of repression, rather than to explore otherness and objectify it, as was the aim of the Victorians and orientalists. For this reason I believe the ambiguous aspects of sameness and otherness which religious converts may discern in its teachings fit the contemporary desire for a reconciliation of the dualistic dichotomies between the rational and the mystical, the human and the divine, or in mundane terms, the male and the female. In a sense, it is only by reinscribing the paradoxes of existence on the 'other' that any form of patriarchal thought achieves its aim of understanding itself.

In terms of philosophical comparisons between western and Tibetan thought, I believe that there are several other deeply rooted points of contact which enable westerners to be attracted to Tibetan Buddhism, besides the need to believe in, and fantasise about, the idealised, omnipotent father/mother. These aspects relate to the underlying philosophical context of the tradition, particularly those parts from which the social system developed. As I argued earlier, the interconnection between the philosophy and the social structure in Tibet meant that only certain parts of the philosophy were translated into the power structures of the society, and that inevitably those other teachings which philosophically challenged the kind of dualism set up by the hierarchical system could not find expression in societal structures. Nonetheless, unlike many societies, there remained from the ancient influences traces of reference in the iconography to the essential subjectivity of the female. Furthermore, the radical presence in stories of so-called 'mad yogis' and wrathful goddesses meant that there was some acknowledgement of the disturbing influence of 'the feminine', or the dark chaotic side of the psyche. The society itself was, however, more profoundly influenced by hierarchical structures of a masculine order, and these came about through the application of a fundamental Tantric philosophy which polarised masculine and feminine as categories implying opposition, and setting up a philosophical framework which in western terms can be likened to that established originally by Plato and later elaborated by such philosophers as Descartes.

Val Plumwood has pointed out that 'Platonic philosophy is organised around the hierarchical dualism of the sphere of reason over the sphere of nature',11 and that

it is not only a masculine identity as such which underlies the Platonic conception of reason ... but a master identity defined in terms of multiple exclusions, and in terms of domination not only of the feminine, but also of the slave ... , of the animal, and of the natural.12

In her interesting analysis of man's relationship with nature, Plumwood maintains that the 'master' mentality, which originated in western thought with Plato, involved a denial of dependency by men on nature, women and all those others who were defined as 'inferior' by a kind of rationality which had at its heart a perception of the world in terms of dualisms. Amongst the predominant pairings which made up this system of thought were of course male/female, mind/body, subject/object, reason/emotion, culture/nature, civilised/primitive. In western philosophy at least, the side on which woman was placed associated her with categories which were traditionally considered 'inferior', or to some extent 'alien' to man. Plumwood calls this kind of division, which leads to the objectification of beings and phenomena closely linked to the male-subject, 'hyperseparation', a process which is characterised by 'radical exclusion' of the other. It is her assertion that 'dualism ... results from a certain kind of denied dependency on a subordinated other'.13

The Tibetan Tantric tradition very clearly maps out its philosophy in much the same way, particularly in its polarity symbolism which had its apotheosis in the yab-yum images of sexual acts in the iconography. Bharati confirms that the Tibetans were much more rigid than the Hindus about their assignments of male-female qualities. In his study of Tantra, he writes that,

the Tibetans invariably assigned the dynamic function to the male, the static to the female metaphysical principle, and the essential homologies are: (1) Buddha or Bodhisattva: male (yab) = upaya (thabs); the method the manner, the way ... = karuna (compassion). (2) The Goddess . .. = the female (yum, mother) = prajna (sesrab supreme wisdom) = sunya (ston pa nid, the Void).14

Although it may appear that no value judgements can be, or should be put upon these different categories (particularly in the light of the philosophy which states that all things are empty), it is interesting that the most fundamental concept on which Buddhism is based, i.e. the notion of the enlightened being, the Buddha, is associated specifically with the male body in historical terms. This in turn creates a powerful conceptual framework in which, as I argued earlier, the female is not only 'not-Buddha' but she can also be objectified, particularly as dakini, mother, or void.

Concerning a similarity between Plumwood's other observations on the western tradition and my analysis of that of Tibet, I would argue that the 'radical exclusion' which she identifies in western culture takes place in the Tibetan system in the exclusion of certain categories of people, and of animals, from the philosophical sphere which predetermines the possibility for enlightenment. In the monastic way of life and in particular in the elaborate mechanisms of the tulku lineage, there is also an exclusion which operates through the failure to acknowledge the dependency which men have on women, especially the mother. This leaves them free to order their masculine world in such a way as to render women invisible, necessary though they are. Finally, it is through the exclusion enacted by the involvement of women in secret sexual acts with the masters of the tradition, together with their collusion and silence, which clearly place women in the Tibetan system on the side of passivity, where they can be both objectified and denied. Whilst in Tibetan Tantra the aim of the dynamic male is to unite with the passive female in order to go beyond duality, as I noted earlier, in the ancient Indian Tantras it was the female who always took the active role in sexual acts, and it was her activity which was thought to 'create unity from duality',15 the opposite of what the Vajrayana proposes. In the Tibetan Tantras, the representations of the male as active symbolised separation through his activity, a philosophical position akin to what I have been suggesting formed the basis of the hierarchical social situation.

Alongside the fundamental polarisation of concepts, and the exclusion of and separation from the female, the fourth aspect of similarity between the Tibetan and western philosophical traditions, is the hierarchical concept of the 'master'. Naturally this category extends to both men and women who, in whatever way, adopt or abuse powerful and hierarchical positions. It has tended to dominate the western philosophical tradition in its promotion of reason and science, where 'man' dominates nature, develops culture, and distinguishes himself from the inferiority of the natural world. In the western world, it could be argued that the concept has moved away from the old meanings which were associated not only with the class system, and applied to the ruling class or landowners, but also to skilled craftsmen. Presently it seems to be associated with the masters of industry, commerce, the media and materialism, who appear to be the ones who control our lives through the promotion of capitalist ideals and a consumerist mentality.

It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that the notion of the 'spiritual master' has been so enthusiastically taken up by western converts to Buddhism, who under patriarchal rule are familiar with the concept of the master-identity, but who have become aware of the destructive tendencies of western power structures which have systematically colonised other cultures, and used reason and science for selfish ends. These converts, whilst eager to escape the clutches of western materialistic masters, seem to seek the kind of authority which they might normally deny to other leaders within their own society, and show, particularly within the Tibetan system, a willingness to perform overt acts of obeisance to the master by, for example, making physical prostrations to him, or by placing his photograph on a shrine alongside images of the Buddha. Although these acts appear to take on a different significance in a religious context, nonetheless this kind of renunciation of basic principles of democracy and equality exaggerates the boundary line between master and disciple, and creates a relationship of submission akin to that of the master-slave or parent-baby, where autonomy is denied on the student's side, and obedience in the face of omnipotence is stressed. At its most extreme level, this kind of slavish devotion often leads to the creation of a cult, in which values and ideals may become reversed, resulting in the kinds of tragedies which involve murder, suicide, militarism or sexual abuse.

Peter Bishop discusses the uncritical devotion which so many westerners have shown towards Tibetan lamas since the arrival of Tibetan Buddhism in the west, and argues that the unquestioning nature of the student in this relationship is due to the wishful thinking of someone who longs to be in the presence of the divine father. He writes that, 'the claim of omniscience, inherent by definition in any reincarnated lama, plus the densely coded iconographical and ritualistic displays, create a myth of infallibility and omnipotence'.16 Whilst I agree that the cultural factors which promote and sustain this kind of submission can be seen in the behaviour of the Tibetans themselves, it is my view that the relationship between lama and student bears more resemblance to the relationship between mother and child than to that between father and child. The infallible and omnipotent mother whom the lama represents is not only a symbol of the historical antiquity of the universal mother, the Great Goddess, but also of the mother who is present during the earliest of human developmental stages, when the baby has no individual autonomy and is completely dependent on her, due to its narcissistic needs. The lama fulfils therefore, for westerners, the role of what is called in psychoanalytical terms the 'phallic mother', or 'an idealised archaic mother' whose position is, according to Kristeva, 'a fantasy ... of a lost territory'.17 But, in addition, his own origins as a Tibetan reinscribe him, in the western psyche, as belonging to a land of mystery and of wild primordial nature, thereby accentuating the desires of those belonging to the 'melancholic western culture' to 'transfer . . . desire for the lost mother onto an "elsewhere".'18

Trungpa Tulku explains that 'to relate to the guru we need a tremendous amount of openness and surrendering' and that the process can have 'very deathly consequences',19 for if disciples break their vow of promise to the master, they are destined to suffer the 'Vajra Hell',20 a threat which goes beyond the bounds, surely, of a humane teacher. In many texts, the consequences of breaking with the guru are told in graphic terms, for it is believed that, once having left a guru, a disciple's spiritual progress 'comes to an absolute end' because 'he never again meets with a spiritual master', and he is subject to 'endless wandering in the lower realms'.21 In the case of disrespect for the guru, it is said in the texts that if the disciple 'comes to despise his Guru, he encounters many problems in the same life and then experiences a violent death'.22

As Trungpa explains, the process of opening to the master involves trust, but may bring fear, for in the end the goal is the annihilation of the ego, and the process is as dangerous as 'riding on the edge of a razor'.23 'We have to give, to open up and display our egos, to present our egos as a gift to our spiritual friend' (italics mine).24 This particular facet of the Tibetan tradition, which involves fierce devotion to the master, in which 'body, speech and mind'25 must be offered up without question, is one which I dealt with to some extent in the previous chapter, when looking at the position of women. However, whilst I may have looked at the philosophical questions concerning the destruction of ego and the nature of gender difference, I did not consider the process of ego destruction in the context of guru devotion. What is striking in Trungpa's explanation of the consequences of failing to relinquish the ego to the guru, regardless of his behaviour, is the punitive aspect which threatens the student with different kinds of retribution, amongst them madness, illness or even death.

For western women practitioners (and in some instances men too), the extra dimension of secret sexual intimacy within a non-questioning relationship in which absolute trust is required of the student creates a powerful and complicated taboo, which taps into very deeply unconscious areas of the development of a person's sexual identity. With no cultural background to support this kind of liaison as a 'norm', westerners often fall into states of total confusion as to the meaning of having sex with the all powerful lama. Within Tibetan cultural boundaries, on the other hand, mechanisms of accepted 'secrecy' and the complete public adoration of the lamas did not allow for dissension by women. By all accounts, women either happily colluded with the lamas and their requests for intimacy, believing that this was both beneficial and within cultural norms, or if they did have doubts or distress the supportive social ambience protected them from abandoning their own cultural values, or expressing concern. According to many folk tales, those women who did 'cause trouble' to lamas were either badly affected karmically, or had to to be in some way 'subdued'.

Perhaps Bishop's notion of 'dreams of power' could be extended to those western women who found disillusionment in the aspect of Tibetan Buddhism which required submission (rather than an open, autonomous relationship) to the guru through sexual intimacy. It could be argued that their dream of power was simply to achieve female subjectivity within a wholesome and egalitarian relationship, or even to experience the frisson of a kind of illicit relationship with a heroic figure. The fact that, for many, these dreams were frustrated or complicated by the power relations which became evident in the liaison meant that, far from achieving the original aims of the Tantra (which were unity through the merging of 'opposites'), the dissenting standpoint of some women in the west ultimately challenged the institution of Tibetan Buddhism and, as a result, its philosophical position on issues of sexuality and gender.26

The potential risks involved therefore in the promotion of certain philosophical ideals which depend on notions of sexuality and secrecy for their fulfillment, in turn raise questions about the symbiotic union with the guru-lama which is represented in the iconography and in the meditational practices. In the context of a changing world-view in the west, it may be that it is not only the fiduciary relationship which is under scrutiny, but also the very basis of our own understanding of concepts such as 'unity' and 'difference'. The scientist Donna Haraway has summed up her opposition to the cause of 'unity' in philosophical or scientific theory by viewing it as 'risky', and the forerunner not only of dualism, but of a tendency to stabilise forces and concepts which cannot and should not be stabilised. 'In difference' she writes, 'is the irretrievable loss of the illusion of the one.' (Italics mine)27 It is this illusion, which often sustains those who undertake 'the spiritual search', that may also characterise an unhealthy desire to avoid the reality of individual identity, with all its contradictions, uncertainties and fragmented parts. These are the parts which, as non-substantial, and non-fixed, can be recognised in the Buddhist doctrine of self, but they are also the parts which must be valued as unique, separate and different in each and every being.

Conclusion

In this study of female identity in Tibetan Buddhism I have set out an historical context in which concepts concerning the female developed, and have shown how ideals of gender equality can fail to materialise when dominant groups in society selectively use (consciously or unconsciously) philosophical ideals to promote self-interest. Thus, despite the availability, for example, of the texts of the Yogacharyan epistemological school,1 and later the Madhyamika tradition as propounded by Nagarjuna,2 which provided theoretical frameworks for disclosing the dynamics of dualistic thinking, polarity became the central most important metaphor in the Tibetan iconography. This was most potently symbolised through the yab-yum representations of the Tantric tradition, which in Tibet reversed the ancient signification of the female as active and the male as passive, and was superimposed onto the already complex indigenous form of Buddhism (Bon) to form an even more elaborate system of thought. Eventually, the trend in monasticism and the widespread establishment of the tulku as the self-born enlightened male reinforced the denial of the possibility of female subjectivity within the system, and left many of the potential metaphors for her autonomous individuation largely redundant, for all save an elite within the hierarchical structure.

Now that its institutions have been firmly established in the west, the question remains, is it possible to adapt or change them (as proposed by some feminists) in order to accommodate what appear to be fundamental issues of egalitarianism and subjectivity, or is it simply impossible to tinker with a whole system of thought, intertwined as it was with a particular culture and way of life? Furthermore, is it enough to focus on the specific and visible signs of deficiency in a system operating to the potential disadvantage of women, or is it just as important to question the symbolic aspects which underpin some of the seemingly benign practices of meditation? n the history of Buddhism (and in accordance with its major philosophy of impermanence as the underlying force in all things) there have always been changes and upheavals related to doctrine and other issues, and these have taken place through debate and reformation of thought and institution. Since the early twentieth century, therefore, when, as Bishop states, the 'psychopathology of the west' has been in relationship with certain very specific cultural manifestations which encompass the simplicity of basic Buddhism, westerners have debated issues of interest. It is no coincidence that, at a time when cultural issues concerning sexuality and gender are prevalent in the west, female identity in Tibetan Buddhism should be examined critically from a woman's point of view.

In this work I have tried to highlight the fundamental importance of not separating the experience of individuals from either the social system in which they live, or the symbolic system which they create in order to sustain a sense of well-being. This psychoanalytical approach has, I hope, demonstrated the importance of considering individual pathologies as a crucial factor in the understanding of the institutions which emerge when individuals seek to pursue spiritual goals. As Kristeva has noted, 'Psychoanalysis calls on us to work toward this humanity whose solidarity is rounded on a consciousness of its unconsciousness'.3 In an attempt therefore to search for facets of female identity in the symbolic arena as well as within human experience, I have also had to confront the complexities which arise when discussing relationships between the sexes, and also communication between different cultures. This endeavour has led me to surmise that evolutionary thought with regard to female identity has run on somewhat parallel tracks in both east and west. Contemporary expressions of the importance of sexual identity and difference, therefore, form part of the challenge to outdated modes of thinking in eastern and western philosophy, which have in the past denied the importance of the unconscious (and the female) in the social sphere. My study therefore has also attempted to create a context of common humanity very often missing in the accounts of the lives of religious teachers. It is my view that the emphasis on the 'divinity' aspect, in some writers' interpretations of the lives of lamas, for example, has not only created a problematic area for the lamas themselves, but has also reinforced the notion of cultural 'otherness' in the Tibetans, as if they were not essentially human like everyone else. As a result, outwith their own protective cultural environment which was capable of accepting their sometimes deviant behaviour and viewing them as 'divine', many eastern religious teachers in the west have paid the price of implying their own divinity but being unable to act within the restricting projections of many of their students, whose ideas of divinity clashed with their own different cultural view of divinity.

The emphasis I have placed on the link between the human and the symbolic, or divine, has enabled me to compare those elements in the culture of Tibetan Buddhism which manifest in human terms and which can be recognised in all cultures. These elements include attachment and loss, the development of identity, power and authority, and the desire to be free of suffering. By considering these aspects of human experience, I have tried to identify areas of common concern between peoples and cultures, and have attempted to create some understanding of the difficulties which ensue when any group is categorised to their detriment as 'other', or when 'divinity' is simply a masquerade for exploiting others through an abuse of power. These concerns have arisen out of the growing debate, in western society, on the nature of difference, on female identity, and on the changing nature of gender and cultural relations.

What is clear is that, in the western philosophical tradition, changes which have come about in the social sphere, through the promotion of reason and rights, have meant that access to knowledge, and the opportunities for expression, have become greater for women. This, together with Freud's legacy in the field of human understanding, has led to an upsurge in women's expression through writing in particular, so that in the philosophical arena the denial of the female body as an important denominator in the advancement of a way of thinking, may no longer be sustained because of the strength of challenge to it. As Jessica Benjamin has pointed out, there is a certain irony in the fact that the insights which psychoanalysis helped to release have allowed women to begin to speak from their own subjective position. '[T]he vulnerable core of male individuality' is, she writes, 'this inability to recognize the other, which the psychoanalytic focus on narcissism has finally brought to the surface'.4

In terms of what this means for women seeking to establish their own subjectivity, whether in religious institutions or in other projects, it seems clear that consideration of the specific nature of the female body and female experience has to take place, and find expression through symbolic representations in culture. In order for these expressions to find meaning in a contemporary context, they have to resist idealism in archaic images of the past so that the central metaphors of motherhood and female sexuality find resonance in the minds of women now. Furthermore, Irigaray's stress on the importance of a female genealogy has to emerge through a deeper understanding of the mother-daughter relationship, whilst the question of ensuing relationships between the sexes has to be addressed in an egalitarian framework. Given the distinct possibility of a multitude of variations of 'travel in space' in the future, aspects of human identity stand to be challenged, particularly if the prospect of real male motherhood, various forms of surrogacy, gender realignment, and sexual freedom begin to erode many of the fixed categories of meaning concerning gender identity.

By attempting to draw together so many different facets of culture and philosophical thought, I have tried, through a focus on female identity, to shed some light on the complexities involved in any culture when sexual relations are examined. I have shown that symbols which are created by people in an attempt to overcome worldly unhappiness can and do change both their form and their meaning, according to the time and the place in which they are significant. In the past, for example, the concept of the Buddha was certainly biased towards the male/masculine, not just because the predominant image of the Buddha was that of a man, but also because of the intertwining of concepts such as nirvana/samsara with the male/female polarities. If the female in Tibetan Buddhism was, as I have suggested, a symbol appropriated by practitioners to achieve wholeness, then perhaps she needs to be reclaimed to be that which is whole in herself, something which will serve women, the way the Buddha, to some extent, has served men. Additionally her role with regard to men could be seen not as a subsidiary force, but rather as a subject in herself, of equal status and right, with her own power and determination to be a separate and different entity, capable of relationship, but not reliant on union with him in order to find wholeness, nor the vehicle by which he necessarily finds his.

If this process evolves, it will mean that for most men their separation from 'the Great Mother' will no longer place them in the position of either denying her and their dependence on her, nor neurotically seeking her as reparation for their own abandoned selves. For most women it will mean they need not enter into the world of the father as a compromise, either mimicking their mother's deference, or attempting to be an equal to men, while suppressing their dependence, as the male does, on the mother. The world might consist of two subjects, and not one subject and one object. In ideological terms, the outcome of such a view and practice could be that each woman's singularity and multiplicity would be identified and valued; the dichotomy between men and women would become metaphysical, and the nature of identity itself would be questioned. In this way both the perceived solidity of male identity as represented by the Buddha, and the perceived insubstantiality of female identity as represented by the dakini would both be under scrutiny. Any new definitions or representations would have to take into account relativity, so that beings might be compared with a cell, or the cosmos, which as actual entities, we now know, are nonetheless free of isolated subjectivity, are fluid and unable to be fixed in time or space, much as I have shown the dakini representation is capable of being. Ideas like this would attempt to escape the paralysing discourse of dualities, and recognise the fundamental principle of interdependence of entities, in the context of a different perception of time. Barbara Adam describes this process as, 'Non-temporal time, ... causality, truth and objectivity (having) to give way to temporality, fundamental uncertainty, the relevance of the future dimension, . . . the fusion of action, energy and time, and the mutual implication of observer and observed.'5

There is no doubt that most Buddhists themselves would argue that their teachings already enshrine such truths and paradoxes, and that their special position of promoting such visions outwith the sphere of western philosophy and science per se allows better and clearer access to anyone seeking meaning for the future. These philosophical links with occidental world views make Buddhism a most attractive alternative to the traditional religions of the west which have often been reluctant to admit secular truths to their belief systems over thousands of years. But to turn from the doctrinaire certainty of the traditional Tibetan view, which developed in tandem with its culture, however, to the uncertainties contained in any new view which could be promoted, would involve enormous changes in the structure of its institutions and would be unlikely to come about quickly because of the fear of chaos. This is the fear which naturally places chaos as an opposite force to order, and traditionally associates it in the western philosophical tradition since Plato, with the Void, and thus with the female.

Yet the awareness of the inadequacy of certain kinds of hierarchical systems of so-called 'order', which abuse power, colonise the other, and create suffering, is already in many minds, and as Barbara Adam has said in her discourse on the irreversibility of time, 'There can be no un-thinking, no un-knowing, no un-doing.'6 Adam's view again links time and space, so that we cannot think of expedient change simply in terms of linear progression, but rather as a process of unfolding, which appears evolutionary, but in fact draws on all the known dimensions of space and time. Indeed scientific theories on chaos confirm a different view to the old one, namely, that it is part of the process of change in the cosmos, not in opposition to it. In the world of scientific theory a recognition of our relationship to space/time already exists, and is now evident in revolutionary technologies which are bound to threaten our entire perceptions of the delicate relationship between 'self and 'other'.

In an essay on geometry and abjection, Victor Burgin maintains that 'Space has a history',7 and is simply not unaffected, either in its being or its definition, by our perceptions of it. He suggests that many orthodox western theories have remained faithful to the now discredited Euclidian geometry, thereby fundamentally influencing all theories on boundaries, and the relationship between the subject and object. With an acknowledgement of woman as central to these theories, he proposes that 'Perhaps we are again at a moment in history when we need to define the changing geometries of our changing places.'8 The implication of this statement is that if the boundaries between different disciplines were blurred, then it is quite possible for geometry to influence psychoanalysis and vice versa. As a result, who can say how long the present boundaries between gender categories of masculine and feminine could be sustained, and how long religion as we know it could be kept separate from science or psychoanalysis? Who can say how long the rigid, defensive boundaries between cultures could be kept and, if they were maintained, to what cost?

Within this changing philosophical context, the addition in the west of a new symbolism through the traditions and rituals of Tibet may offer, as some writers like to suggest, a vibrant alternative to the belief systems which have grown out of the western philosophical tradition. Within this new framework, ancient symbols of female identity might be reclaimed to fit the emerging debate on gender in the west and, more particularly, the needs and rights of women. In this respect I believe this could only be done by acknowledging the essential and different nature of the female body and its sexuality. This would have to take account of the many and varied aspects of the dakini, particularly the one which has the capacity to escape definition by men, through her power to be out of control, thus avoiding her inevitable positioning within any dualistic system of hierarchies. What would not be emphasised would be her 'emptiness' or her 'obscure, enigmatic, hidden or even disguised'9 nature, given that insubstantiality is an essential quality of all entities, not just the female.

In this way woman, like dakini, could relate to her physical presence through a grounding in her bodily functions, which serve to create personal boundaries, and elude the ordinary gender constraints of linear/historical time/space in the way her name suggests, as a traveller. Furthermore, women would have to become more actively involved in self-identification, by recognising their own relationship with their mothers as significant, and their own specific dilemma of identity as crucial in their quest for self-acceptance and authentic relationship with others. It would also mean that women would no longer depend on male-biased texts and commentaries for a definition of themselves, and that women could not claim to be victims of the system which has dictated their position whilst they themselves remained silent and collusive. Furthermore, by viewing the dakini with her intrinsic nature of female sexuality, the position of the female could resist appropriation by the male, because the space in which she dwells could never be defined by 'the other', occupying as she does a space/time dimension whose definition, as quantum physics has demonstrated in relation to all entities, is paradoxical. There is little doubt that the dakini as a female-centred concept has the potential to move away from over-simplified notions of 'a helper for men', or the 'little something we all need' in order to get enlightened. The female body requires to be acknowledged and not abstracted as portraying neither this nor that. Then as a primordially female figure, and as a wrathful one, her symbolic anger must be grasped and understood not as retribution which inspires fear and submission, but for the powerful and constructive force which it is, a force for change, egalitarianism and understanding.

This process might then translate into the human realm, where women could express their real subjectivity, having realised their difference from men, then give voice to their experience, feelings and insights, not as a punishment for men, but as an act of concern in the process of developing mutual understanding. Men's role in the process would naturally have to be reciprocal, so that mutuality and interdependence, with a recognition of the pluralistic nature of human relationships, would both be acknowledged and valued. The possibility of all kinds of relationships between the genders would have to be acknowledged in a context of non-exclusion, and people and beings of all kinds respected within the sacred space.

It is clear that the female body both in Tibetan and western discourse has been the vehicle through which the body of the male has achieved its self-important and superior subjectivity. What is now required is that the male body, as the enlightened subject, be rejected as a fixed and universal constant, whilst the categories of male and female, masculinity and femininity, become deconstructed in such a way as to lose their opposition to one another. Without this very dualism, woman would have to be taken as seriously as man, and radical changes to the perception and understanding of religious teachings would have to take place. Furthermore, the interdependence of the institutional structures and the philosophy would have to be recognised, exposing the historical privileging of the male body which has been endowed with the capacity to incorporate masculinity and femininity, yet remain uncompromised in its own subjectivity.

This is the mechanism which I believe must be dismantled in order to abandon the curious dichotomy between the philosophy of the male and female bodies. This position would be neither 'both male and female' nor 'neither male nor female' but a third possibility which reinscribed 'male' and 'female' as individual but relating categories. This kind of perspective, whilst viewed derogatorily by some as 'feminist', could never be read as 'biased' in the way in which Dowman and others have seen it. The shifting of the historical positioning of 'woman' to ground which is self-defined, and to realms in which she refuses definition by and in relation to men only, means that as a consequence 'man' would also have to be reassessed. This dual process is long overdue because, as I have shown, the evolution of a system in which men are deified in society depends for its smooth running on the compliance of women at all levels.

Outwith the geographical isolation of Tibet, Vajrayana Buddhism is now subject to new and critical evaluation, in which the possibilities for mutual understanding between men and women and different cultures might be enhanced. At worst a new kind of cultural imperialism might arise in which some western men may choose to follow in the footsteps of the Victorian orientalists, by not only 'dreaming of power' within the institutions of Tibetan Buddhism, but also by marginalising and denying women's place in their sacred space. In their fantasy of eventually becoming what Bishop describes as 'the Divine Father' (but what I suggest can also be read as the Omnipotent Mother), many men might feel driven to re-enact the symbolic exclusion of the mother by attempting to become her, then replicating her omnipotence. The dangers in these kinds of activities (which often surround the evolution of 'new' religions in the west) have been well documented, and highlight the caution people must take when approaching any charismatic leader who makes use of esoteric practices and the imposition of rigid power structures in order to promote 'spiritual teachings'. Clearly many people are turning against such religious movements which can ultimately develop into closed and dangerous cults, and, with the rise of women's voices in all fields of literature, those women involved in religious traditions like Tibetan Buddhism may no longer choose to remain silent on difficult issues, nor rest as victims. The changes which could be brought about by such actions would inevitably involve the recognition of difference as a basis for understanding relationships, rather than the dualistic polarities which create unhelpful divisions and hierarchies, and on which so much human thought has already depended.

This task, 'to recognise the difference in ourselves as the condition of our being with others'10 might bring forth a reality in which the supposed polarities of gender would collapse, and in which we would no longer be so bound by thoughts and actions which ultimately divided detrimentally one category of people from an 'other', or even one species from another. In this way the causes of oppression might be better understood. Furthermore, the dualism which stems from the patriarchal denial of dependency on the female and the categorisation of her as symbolically and socially 'oppositional other', or 'embodiment of emptiness', would come to an end. This could only be achieved through the mutual recognition of the unique subjectivity of each individual, and through mutual awareness of the interdependence which sustains each. This kind of recognition would truly open up the possibility of a different kind of spiritual insight, and a different future to the one we have imagined till now.

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Notes and References

INTRODUCTION

1 'Taking refuge', chamdro (Tibetan skyabs.'gro), is the term used to describe the ceremony which takes place when a person officially becomes Buddhist. The objects of refuge in most Buddhist traditions are the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha (community of practitioners), whereas in Tibetan Buddhism there are three additional refuges - the lama, the dakinis and the dharma protectors. During the ceremony a piece of hair is cut from the person's head, reminiscent of the Buddha who shaved his head before setting out to gain his enlightenment, and to symbolise a renunciation of worldly ways. Usually the person is given a religious (dharma) name, taught the refuge prayer and urged never to kill any living being.

2 An article appeared in Time Magazine on 4 April 1994, reporting an open conflict between two sections of the Karma Kagyu sect over the choice of two rival claimants to the 900-year-old throne of the Karmapa Lama, the oldest line of incarnate lamas in Tibet. It was reported that the assets of the Kagyupa Buddhists amounted to $1.2 billion, and that the new lama would hold sway over 428 meditation centres throughout the world.

3 John Potter, in the introduction to Officium by Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble, on ECM Records, 1994, when speaking of the degeneration of polyphonic music.

4 The Guardian newspaper of 10 January 1995 reported that Sogyal Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama living in England, would be sued for $10 million for sexual abuse of a female student who alleged he took advantage of her vulnerability to request sexual favours, and that 'according to the suit, Sogyal told her that "through devotion and his spiritual instruction, she could purify her family's karma"'.

5 Rita Gross, Buddhism Afler Patriarchy (State University of New York Press, 1993), p. 3.

6. A tulku (Tibetan sprul.sku) is the name given to a lama who is considered to be a reincarnation of a lama who has died. The tulku system has operated in Tibet since 1204 when a successor to Tusum Khyenpa, the head of the Karma Kagyu sect was said to have reincarnated in a child who was then selected and installed as the first reincarnate lama. Thereafter, other sects adopted the same practice, the head of the Gelugpa sect achieving greater fame and power in his position as secular head of state, with the new title, Dalai Lama. Trungpa Tulku writes of this phenomenon, 'The Tibetan Buddhist teaching concerning tulku declares that "although the moment of enlightenment releases one from the forces leading to rebirth, an enlightened intelligence which transcends the sense of 'I' or ego in the conventional sense may decide to continue to work on earth for the benefit of all sentient beings".' (Trungpa Tulku, Empowerment (Vajradhatu, 1976), p. 14) In recent years western male children whose parents were Buddhist practitioners have been chosen as incarnate lamas and will in the future hold positions of great power in the Buddhist community. See Vicki Mackenzie's Reincarnation: The Boy Lama (Bloomsbury, 1988), which is an account of the death and subsequent 'rebirth' of Thubten Yeshe, a Tibetan lama, whose tulku was chosen (in 1985), with the approval of the Dalai Lama, to be Osel Hita Torres, a 14-month-old Spanish boy, the fifth child of Buddhist devotees, living in Spain. In July 1995, however, it was reported in the Guardian that the boy's Spanish mother was 'fighting to gain more control over his upbringing' (15 July), arguing that the monastic life was turning him into 'a little tyrant rather than a little Buddha', and that no matter 'how much of a lama he is, he still needs his mother'.

7 Gross, Buddhism After Patriarchy, p. 89.

8 Tibetan Buddhism is known by many epithets - Lamaism, Tantric Buddhism or Vajrayana. In Tibetan the actual extended term for the religion is Sang Nga Dorje Thegpa (gsang.sngags.rdo.rje.theg.pa.), which translates literally as 'The Secret Mantra Diamond Vehicle'. The Sanskrit word Vajrayana also has the same meaning: 'thunderbolt' or 'diamond' vehicle. The other two vehicles of Buddhist practice are, according to them, the Hinayana 'small vehicle' (known in Thailand and Sri Lanka as Theravada) and the Mahayana 'great vehicle', which is practised now in Japan, and in some other areas of Asia. The scriptures of both Hinayana and Mahayana (the Sutras), as well as the monastic rules of discipline (the Vinaya), are all contained within the Tibetan tradition, in addition to the metaphysical branch of Buddhist study and the Tantric teachings.

9 Marion L. Matics (trans.), Entering the Path of Enlightenment (Macmillan, 1970), p. 21.

10 Trungpa Tulku (ed.) Garuda III (Shambhala, 1973), p. 47.

11 Beru Kyhentze Rinpoche, 'Guru-devotion' in Alex Berzin (trans, and ed.) The Mahamudra (Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1978), p. 160.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., p. 161.

14 Peter Bishop, Dreams of Power (Athlone, 1993), p. 19.

15 Gross, Buddhism After Patriarchy, p. 3.

16 Edward Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), p. 328.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid., p. 207.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Bishop, Dreams of Power, p. 130.

22 Said, Orientalism, p. 328.

23 See Kelly Oliver, Reading Kristeva (Indiana University Press, 1993), p. 164 for a discussion and rebuttal of the term 'French feminists', which has been given to these three writers.

24 Toril Moi describes the symbolic order as, 'a patriarchal order, ruled by the Law of the Father, and any subject who tries to disrupt it, who lets unconscious forces slip through the symbolic repression, puts her or himself in a position of revolt against this regime' (Sexual/Textual Politics, Methuen, 1985, p. 11).

25 Julia Kristeva, 'Women's time' in Toril Moi (ed.) The Kristeva Reader (Blackwell, 1990), p. 201.

26 Ibid., p. 209.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid., p. 200.

29 Ibid.

30 Margaret Whitford (ed.) The Irigaray Reader (Blackwell, 1991), p. 126.

31 Ibid., p. 127.

32 Ibid.

33 Oliver, Reading Kristeva, p. 174.

34 Significantly, 'songyum' (Tibetan gsang.yum.) literally translates as 'secret mother', and not 'secret wife', as might be supposed. See Chapter 6.

35 The 'democratic attitude' found in Scots literature and philosophy from the time of the sixteenth century reflects the 'Scottish love of arguing from purely individual points of view' (Kurt Wittig, The Scottish Tradition in Literature, Mercat, 1978, p. 95). This found expression in the Presbyterian religious tradition, where not only was there no hierarchy, it was not thought improper to argue about religion, and there was no intermediary whatsoever between a person and their 'God'.

36 Harry Guntrip, 'My experience of analysis with Fairbairn & Winnicott (How complete a result does psycho-analytic therapy achieve?)" International Review of Psychoanalysis 2 (1975), p. 145.

37 Ibid.

CHAPTER 1: WHEN IRON BIRDS APPEAR

1 See Keith Dowman's account of the historical events of this time in Sky Dancer (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), Chapter 4 of the Commentary.

2 See Garma c.c. Chang, 'The conversion of a dying bonist' and 'The miracle contest on Di Se Snow Mountain' in The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, 2 vols (Shambhala, 1977).

3 Ibid., vol. I, p. 257.

4 Padmasambhava (Tibetan Guru Rinpoche), the mythical figure said to have taken Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century AD.

5 Peter Bishop, The Myth of Shangri-LA (Athlone, 1989), p. 248.

6 W.Y. Evans Wentz (trans.), The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Oxford University Press, 1960), p. 29.

7 One of the first Tibetan exponents of this approach was Trungpa Tulku, who set up the first Tibetan Buddhist Centre in the west, in Scotland in 1967, with Akong Tulku. His command of English, and his ability to translate Tibetan terms into the kind of language understandable by young westerners, gave him one of the largest followings in the west at that time. His early seminars on 'Buddhist Psychology' and the establishment of centres which actively promoted links between western thought and Buddhism were complemented by his teachings which made use of poetry and art, and which tried to relate specifically to the western experience of life (e.g. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, The Myth of Freedom, Glimpses of Abidharma.)

8 Evans-Wentz, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, p. xliv.

9 Indra Majupuria, Tibetan Women (M. Devi, 1990), p. 118.

10 Ibid., p. 42.

11 Anne C. Klein, 'Primordial purity and everyday life' in C. Atkinson et al. (eds), Immaculate and Powerful (Crucible, 1987), p. 135.

12 By 'patriarchal' I mean in this context not only the rule of men, but also a system of rule which itself favours the rule of men over women and incorporates in its ideology ways and means by which this rule is perpetuated.

13 H.A. Jaschke, A Tibetan-English Dictionary (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), p. iv.

14 Chandra Das, Tibetan-English Dictionary (Rinsen Book Company, 1979), p. 872.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 H.A. Jaschke, A Tibetan-English Dictionary (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), p. 393.

18 Chang, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, vol. I, p. 121.

19 Ibid., p. 174.

20 Ibid., p. 143.

21 Ibid., p. 121.

22 Robert A. Paul, The Tibetan Symbolic World (University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 272.

23 Chang, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, vol. I, p. 46.

24 Ibid., p. 269.

25 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 358.

26 H.V. Guenther, Buddhist Philosophy in Theory and Practice (Shambhala, 1976), p. 194.

27 H.V. Guenther, The Life and Teachings of Naropa (Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 182.

CHAPTER 2: ARCHAIC FEMALE IMAGES AND INDIGENOUS CULTURE

1 Garma C.C. Chang, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa (Shambhala, 1977), vol. I, p. 329.

2 B. Kuznetsov, 'Who was the founder of the "Bon" religion?', Tibet Journal, 1975, p. 113.

3 Chandra Das, Tibetan-English Dictionary (Rinsen Book Company, 1979), p. 1347.

4 See Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade (Pandora, 1990), which reconstructs prehistory and argues that there are two cultural models, partnership and dominator, the former being associated with goddess worship, and the latter with patriarchal religions and societal organisation.

5 The dakini, as the embodiment of female energy and wisdom, is, according to Trinley Norbu, a goddess figure who is both the mother of the Buddhas and their consort, in her different manifestations. Widely believed to be the energy which clears away obstacles on the spiritual path, the dakini is also believed to take human form, and can act as a sexual partner to practitioners of the Tantra. (Keith Dowman, Sky Dancer, Roudedge & Kegan Paul, 1984).

6 Barbara Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Harper & Row, 1983), p. 102.

7 W.J. Pythian-Adams, Mithraism (Constable, 1915), p. 82.

8 Walker, Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, p. 663.

9 Mircea Eliade, Shamanism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), p. 163.

10 Ibid., p. 434.

11 Rene de Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons of Tibet (Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 540.

12 Mircea Eliade, Birth and Rebirth (Harvill, 1961), p. 94. Eliade points out that this costume is the same as that of the Siberian shaman. It was thought that it protected the shaman from the escape of the life essence during ritual (believed as in Tibetan Buddhism to reside at the heart centre).

13 De Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Oracles and Demons of Tibet, p. 538.

14 W.I. Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light (Rider/ Hutchinson, 1981), p. 105.

15 G.R. Levy, The Gate of Horn (Faber, 1948), p. 229.

16 M. Homayouni, The Origins of Persian Gnosis (Malvana Centre, 1989), p. 35.

17 The word 'honeymoon' is of Mithraic origin, as it was believed that honey was produced by the moon after the bull's sacrifice.

18 Chang, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, vol. I, p. 121.

19 See R.B. Onians, The Origins of European Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1987).

20 See Chang, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, vol. II, p. 398, n.13.

21 Mircea Eliade, Yoga (Routledge, Kegan, Paul, 1958), p. 300.

22 Ibid.

23 Janet Gyatso, 'Down with the demoness' in Janice D. Willis (ed.) Feminine Ground (Snow Lion, 1987), p. 47.

24 Ibid., p. 45.

25 Das, Tibetan-English Dictionary, p. 318.

26 H. Hoffmann, The Religions of Tibet (Allen & Unwin, 1961), p. 37.

27 N. Bhattacharyya, History of the Tantric Religion (Manohar, 1982), p. 7.

28 Ibid., p. 65.

29 Ibid., p. 72.

30 Miranda Shaw, Passionate Enlightenment (Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 45.

31 Ibid., p. 70.

32 Ibid., p. 58.

33 Ibid., p. 71.

34 N. Bhattacharyya, Ancient Indian Rituals (Curzon, 1975), p. 109.

35 Ibid., p. 111.

36 Agehananda Bharati, The Tantric Tradition (Rider, 1992), p. 200.

37 Sanskrit yoni, meaning vulva or womb.

38 W.W. Rockhill, The Land of the Lamas (Longmans, Green, 1891), p. 339.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid, p. 341.

41 The Prajnaparamita is one of the most important Mahayana Sutras, in which the Buddha preaches the essential emptiness of all phenomena.

42 Mani walls are structures made entirely of stones carved with the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum, and are to be found throughout the Tibetan Buddhist geographical region.

43 A.H. Francke, Antiquities of Indian Tibet (Calcutta, 1914), vol. l, p. 21.

44 Ibid.

45 Bharati, The Tantric Tradition, p. 61.

46 Ibid.

47 Ibid., p. 22.

48 The mantra is the spoken invocation to a deity, made up of Sanskrit syllables which are said to encapsulate the essence of the powers of that deity, and whose recitation is said to bring spiritual benefit.

CHAPTER 3: THE LOTUS DEITY - A LOST GODDESS

1 The word for image in Tibetan is Ku which literally means 'body'. The painted scroll or thangka (Tibetan thang.ka) is mounted on cloth and silk, with poles at each end, $0 that it can be rolled up for easy transportation.

2 Diana Y. Paul, Women in Buddhism (University of California Press, 1985), p. 249.

3 Ibid., p. 307.

4 Ibid., p. 308.

5 Ibid., p. 287.

6 Ibid., p. 247.

7 Ibid., p. 283.

8 Ibid., p. 176.

9 Ibid., p. 250.

10 Ibid.

11 Thomas Cleary, Immortal Sisters (Shambhala, 1989), p. 2.

12 Mary Daly uses this specific term to mean 'actual participation in the Ultimate/Intimate Reality (Webster's First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language (Women's Press, 19~8), p. 64).

13 Luce Irigaray, Elemental Passions (Athlone, 1992), p. l.

14 Joseph Campbell, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization (Pantheon, 1947), p. 96.

15 Richard Knight, A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus (Redway, 1883), p. 50.

16 Barbara Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Harper & Row, 1983), p. 102.

17 Ibid.

18 M. Edwardes, A Life of the Buddha (Folio, 1959), p. 16.

19 Walker, Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, p. 550.

20 D.Y. Paul, Women in Buddhism, p. 249.

21 Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God (Secker & Warburg, 1962), p. 157.

22 Alice Getty, The Gods of Northern Buddhism (Oxford, 1928), p. 84.

23 E.J. Eitel, Handbook of Chinese Buddhism (Trubner, 1888), p. 286.

24 Toril Moi (ed.) The Kristeva Reader (Blackwell, 1990), p. 138.

25 Walker, Encyclopedia of Myth and Secrets, p. 780.

26 Ibid.

27 Margaret Whitford, Luce Irigaray (Roudedge, 1991), p. 145.

28 John Blofeld, in his book In Search of the Goddess of Compassion (Mandala, 1990), states that the word potala has a Sanskrit origin, and means 'Kwan Yin's paradise', but the Sanskrit word, according to Jasche, literally means a 'refuge for boats', or harbour, thus linking it again with images of the sea.

29 Getty, The Gods of Northern Buddhism, p. 90.

30 Ibid., p. 128.

31 Monier Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Oxford, 1899), p. 774.

32 Agehananda Bharati, The Tantric Tradition (Rider, 1992), p. 164.

33 A.H. Francke, 'The meaning of Om Mani Padme-Hum', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1915, p. 397.

34 Ibid.

35 H.V. Guenther (trans.) Kindly Bent To Ease Us (Dharma, 1975), part I, p. 85.

36 Joseph Campbell, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, p. 90.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid., p. 91.

39 Ibid.

40 Robert A. Paul, The Tibetan Symbolic World (University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 150. Paul suggests that the role played by such a male deity is one which embodies the mother imago, who is useful to the ascetic in his meditation practice, by having the qualities of a woman, but who is not too much like a woman. The youthful Chenrezig, with his qualities of compassion and symbolic associations with the mother, is, according to Paul, 'The ideal mother whom one seeks ... an idealized version of oneself.' (p. 150).

41 Ibid., p. 148.

42 Mary Daly, Pure Lust (Women's Press, 1984), p. 66.

43 Willy Fischle, The Way to the Centre (Robinson & Watkins, 1982), p. 29.

44 Joseph Campbell, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art. & Civilization, p. 98.

45 Ibid.

CHAPTER 4: MONASTICISM AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE LINEAGE OF THE SELF-BORN

1 The Nyingma (Tibetan rnying.ma.) School or Old School remained unreformed, and still has the clearest links to the Bon tradition, with its lamas favouring the married tradition rather than the monastic. Its lineage goes back to the time of Padmasambhava, and it upholds the practices of the terma, or 'revealed truth'.

2 See Introduction, note 2. The practice, which survives to the present day, is that when a lama dies he is said to give written details of his future birthplace to his closest followers. These details are said to include such things as the time and place of birth, and the parents' names. After his death, the child is then sought and when found subjected to certain tests to ensure that he is the true incarnation. If there are several claims, as there often are, to positions of great power, all the children are subjected to tests, and the 'true' candidate acknowledged. It has not been unknown in Tibetan history for two or more rival claims to have established their own followers and for a lineage to have become divided. In modem times, the selection of the fourteenth Dalai Lama has been well documented, with a neutral candidate from a peasant family successfully selecting a rosary belonging to his predecessor, and being acknowledged as having the ability to recognise friends from his previous incarnation.

3 H.V. Guenther (trans.) Kindly Bent to Ease Us (Dharma, 1975), part II, p. 100.

4 Chandra Das, Tibetan-English Dictionary (Rinsen, 1979), p. 900.

5 Ibid.

6 See Riane Eisler's The Chalice and The Blade (Pandora, 1990).

7 Julia Kristeva associates the patriarchal system with the exclusion of women 'from the single true and legislating principle, namely the Word, as well as from the (always paternal) element that gives procreation a social value: they are excluded from knowledge and power': The Kristeva Reader, p. 143.

8 Anne C. Klein, 'Primordial purity and everyday life', in C. Atkinson et al. (edsd), Immaculate and Powerful (Crucible, 1987), p. 120.

9 Ibid.

10 The six realms are: The hells (hot and cold), made up of beings who have been particularly sinful and who have committed the most heinous crimes, such as murder; the hungry ghosts, condemned to wandering endlessly in search of sustenance; the animals, human beings; jealous gods; and gods. Rebirth in the latter three realms is achieved by the performance of virtuous acts in one's lifetime, but all six realms are nonetheless deemed to be within the cycle of existence, even the heavens in which the gods reside.

11 Kalu Rinpoche, The Foundations of Buddhist Meditation (Kagyu Kunkhyab, 1972), p. 7.

12 A Bodhisattva (Tibetan Changchub Sempa, byangs.chub.sems.pa.) is someone who postpones the achievement of nirvana for the sake of others, and is reborn again and again out of compassion until 'the last blade of grass is enlightened'.

13 Even in contemporary times the extraordinary coincidences of these so-called miracle rebirths stretch to the limit the belief of onlookers. The lama with whom I studied for many years, Kalu Rinpoche, and who subsequently died, was found to have reincarnated in the very same place as he died, as the son of his own nephew who had been his constant companion since he left Tibet in 1959. This of course ensured that the vast amount of wealth and property that had been gathered since his successful missionary activity in the west would remain in the family, and no outsiders could claim wealth or power in his monastery. The convenience of such a 'reincarnation' ensures that the system is held in the hands of a male elite who, as self-appointed guarantors of the veracity of the claims for reincarnation, can either place power and wealth in 'neutral' hands, if there seems a risk of political in-fighting, or confirm dynastic power as in this case.

14 Fosco Maraini, Secret Tibet (Hutchinson, 1952), p. 124.

15. Robert A. Paul, The Tibetan Symbolic World (University of Chicago Press, 1982) p. 7.

16 Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God (Secker & Warburg, 1962), p. 160.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 R.A. Paul, The Tibetan Symbolic World, p. 7.

20 Ibid., p. 32.

21 Ibid., p. 37.

22 Ibid., p. 96.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid., p. 12.

25 Ibid.

26 See James Lovelock's Gaia (OUP, 1987) on the theory of the Earth as a living, self-regulating organism.

27 Luce Irigaray, Sexes and Genealogies (Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 120.

CHAPTER 5: 'FREE OF THE WOMB'S IMPURITIES' - DIVINE BIRTH AND THE ABSENT MOTHER

1 Fosco Maraini, Secret Tibet (Hutchinson, 1952), p. 128.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid., p. 129.

4 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile (Clio, 1991), p. 17.

5 Michael Aris, Hidden Treasures and Secret Lives (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1989), p. 137.

6 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 17.

7 Samten G. Karrnay, The Treasury if Good Sayings (London University Press, 1972), p. xxi.

8 Marija Gimbutas, The Language if the Goddess (Thames & Hudson, 1989), p. 321.

9 Willy Fischle, The Way to the Centre (Robinson & Watkins, 1982), p. 29.

10 Nik Douglas and Meryl Whyte, Karmapa, The Black Hat LAma if Tibet (Luzac, 1976), p. 83.

11 Ibid., p. 79.

12 Keith Dowman, Sky Dancer (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 10.

13 Ibid., p. 12.

14 Arya and Asanga Maitreya, The Changeless Nature (Karma Kagyu, 1979), p. 35.

15 Ibid., p. 36.

16 Dowman, Sky Dancer, p. 12.

17 Trungpa Tulku, Born in Tibet (Unwin, 1979), p. 44.

18 Trungpa Tulku, Shambhala, The Sacred Path if the Warrior (Shambhala, 1984), p. 94.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Trungpa Tulku (ed.) Garuda III (Shambhala, 1973), p. 35.

22 Ibid.

23 See Introduction, note 6 on the response made by the mother of one of the first western tulkus to the manner of his upbringing by the monastic community.

24 These images are reminiscent of stories which form part of the canon of literature of the highest teaching of the Buddhist Tantra. In the so-called 'secret biography' of 'the divine madman' Drukpa Kunley, portrayals of sexuality and the abuse of power are described as potentially enlightening attributes. Keith Dowman, in attempting to explain Kunley's biography, which openly elaborates all his wild deeds, writes 'there is no distinction made between external events and the inner life . . . He works without any discrimination, inhibition or selfish motivation, to give meaning to other people's lives ... Also it is secret, a mystery, because a Buddha's existence resolves the paradoxes and dualities of being' (Keith Dowman, The Divine Madman, Rider, 1980, p. 9).

25 R.A. Paul, The Tibetan Symbolic World (University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 272.

26 Tibetan rang.byung. This is a common name given to tulkus of high status, e.g. Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the 16th Karmapa Lama.

27 R.A. Paul, The Tibetan Symbolic World, p. 279.

28 Mary Daly, Pure Lust (Women's Press, 1984), p. 66.

29 W.Y Evans-Wentz (trans. and ed.) Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa (OUP, 1969), p. 175.

30 Trungpa Tulku (ed.) Garuda III, p. 23.

31 Ibid., frontispiece.

32 Ibid., p. 23.

33 Ibid.

34 Paul, The Tibetan Symbolic World, p. 59.

35 Ibid., p. 233.

36 Luce Irigaray, Sexes and Genealogies (Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 16.

37 Tsultrim Allione, Women of Wisdom (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 20.

38 Dowman, Sky Dancer, p. 272.

39 Irigaray, Sexes and Genealogies, p. 85.

40 See Chapter 6.

CHAPTER 6: AT ONE WITH THE SECRET OTHER

1 Michael Aris, Hidden Treasures and Secret Lives (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1989), p. 30.

2 Mircea Eliade, Yoga (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958), p. 152.

3 Miranda Shaw, Passionate Enlightenment (Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 15.

4 Ibid., p. 201.

5 Ibid., p. 257.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid., p. 14.

8 Ibid., p. 19.

9 Lisa Lowe, 'Des Chinoises', in Kelly Oliver (ed.) Ethics, Politics and Difference in Julia Kristeva's Writing (Routledge, 1993), p. 154.

10 Luce Irigaray, Elemental Passions (Athlone, 1992), p. 2.

11 Mary Daly, Pure Lust (Women's Press, 1984), p. 249.

12 See Peter Bishop's Dreams of Power (Athlone, 1993), in which he analyses the imaginary aspect of westerners' fascination with Tibetan Buddhism.

13 Geoffrey Samuel, Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies (Smithsonian Institution, 1993), p. 351.

14 See David N. Gellner's Monk, Householder and Tantric Priest (CUP, 1992).

15 The Dalai Lama, quoted in an article (Telegraph Magazine, 25 February 1995) concerning the alleged sexual abuse of a student by Sogyal Rinpoche, when asked how many Tibetan teachers were qualified Tantric masters, replied, 'As far as I know - zero'.

16 Tibetan Lae Chi Chaja, las.kgyi.phyag.gya. has the same meaning as the Sanskrit, i.e. 'action seal'.

17 Garma C.C. Chang, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa (Shambhala, 1977), vol. II , p. 358.

18 H.V. Guenther, Buddhist Philosophy in Theory and Practice (Shambhala, 1976), p. 194.

19 H.V. Guenther, The Life and Teachings of Naropa (OUP, 1963), p. 182.

20 Keith Dowman, Sky Dancer (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 261.

21 Julia Kristeva, 'Women's time' in Toril Moi (ed.) The Kristeva Reader (Blackwell, 1990), p. 193.

22 Shaw, Passionate Enlightenment, p. 203.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid., p. 197.

25 Luce Irigaray, Sexes and Genealogies, p. 120.

26 Dowman, Sky Dancer, p. 23.

27 Ibid., p. 24.

28 Chang, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, vol. II, p. 360.

29 Ajit Mookeljee, Kundalini (Thames & Hudson, 1982), p. 62.

30 Eliade, Yoga, p. 362.

31 Ibid., p. 271.

32 Kristeva, 'Women's time' in Toril Moi (ed.) The Kristeva Reader, p. 193.

33 Tarthang Tulku, Time, Space and Knowledge (Dharma, 1977), p. 125.

34 Ibid., p. 12.

35 Kristeva, 'Women's time' in Toril Moi (ed.) The Kristeva Reader, p. 191.

36 Tarthang Tulku, Time, Space and Knowledge, p. 142.

37 Dowman, Sky Dancer, p. 226.

38 H.V. Guenther (trans.) Kindly Bent to Ease Us (Dharma, 1975), vol. II, p. 94.

39 Dowman, Sky Dancer, p. 248.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Shaw, Passionate Enlightenment, p. 157.

43 Ibid., p. 158.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid., p. 176.

46 Ibid., p. 199.

47 Ibid., p. 187.

48 Dowman, Sky Dancer, p. 156.

49 Thomas Cleary (trans. and ed.), Immortal Sisters (Shambhala, 1989), p. 96.

50 R.A. Paul, The Tibetan Symbolic World (University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 116.

51 Andrea Nye, Feminist Theories and the Philosophies of Man (Croom Helm, 1988), p. 183.

52 Dowman, Sky Dancer, p. 156.

53 Chang, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, vol. I, p. 121.

54 Janice D. Willis, 'Dakini: some comments on its nature and meaning' in Feminine Ground (Snow Lion, 1987), p. 73.

55 Ibid., p. 72.

56 Ibid., p. 73.

CHAPTER 7: A 'TRAVELLER IN SPACE': THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DAKINI AND HER SACRED DOMAIN

1 Keith Dowman, Sky Dancer (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 220.

2 Ibid., p. 221.

3 As its name suggests, this esoteric language remains hidden from ordinary practitioners by virtue of their unenlightened state.

4 Kelsang Gyatso, Guide to Dakini Land (Tharpa, 1991), p. 4.

5 The bhakti movements began about the sixth century in southern India, and attempted to act as a counter system to the Brahmanical traditions which had been prevalent for almost a thousand years. Their views were totally different to these patriarchal traditions on issues of gender, caste and theology, and re-established the notion of all-women lineages and sanctity within the Hindu tradition. Most importantly, they emphasised the possibility for women to achieve spiritual realisation in the social sphere, as part of their everyday lives, and made no distinction between the religious and social spheres.

6 Luce Irigaray, Je, Tu, Nous (Routledge, 1993), p. 17.

7 Dowman, Sky Dancer, p. 290.

8 Ibid., p. 292.

9 Geoffrey Samuel, Civilized Shamans (Smithsonian Institution, 1993), p. 196.

10 This is a motif which appears frequently in the language of nineteenth-century western writers who associated woman with nature, man with culture or science, and viewed nature's 'secrets' (inevitably female) as requiring probing by men, in terms of a sexual metaphor.

11 Dowman, Sky Dancer, p. 291.

12 Diana Paul, Women in Buddhism (University of California Press, 1985), p. 283.

13 Tsultrim Allione, Women of Wisdom (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 44.

14 Ibid.

15 Kristeva proposes that the socio-symbolic contract which constitutes our external reality is defined and constructed by events which take place in the individual psyche, and which have their roots in sexual difference. Expanding the psychoanalytic/linguistic theories of Jacques Lacan, Kristeva suggests that each child has a relationship, pre-oedipally, with the maternal, which is characterised by its form as 'a wholly provisional articulation that is essentially mobile, and constituted of movements and their ephemeral stases' (Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics, Methuen, 1985, p. 161). This state, the semiotic, pre-dates language and is associated with the feminine. In order for signification to take place, a splitting must occur, whereby the child begins to recognise self and other, and subsequently acknowledge difference. It is from this process that language develops, the acquisition of which marks the child's entry into the symbolic order, which is dominated by the law of the father. For the female, a position of lack (of phallus) is recognised during the oedipal phase, and she must choose either to identify with the mother, and therefore the semiotic feminine, and be marginalised in the symbolic order, or identify with the father and be thereafter accepted yet defined by that order, as feminine, and therefore as 'other'.

16 Janice D. Willis, 'Dakini: some comments on its nature and meaning' in Feminine Ground (Snow Lion, 1987), p. 73.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid., p. 75.

19 Ibid., p. 74.

20 Ibid., p. 73.

21 Ibid., p. 68.

22 Ibid., p. 69.

23 Dowman, Sky Dancer, p. 250.

24 Willis, 'Dakini: some comments on its nature and meaning' in Feminine Ground, p. 74.

25 See Tsultrim Allione's detailed analysis of the symbolism of the dakini, in Women of Wisdom.

26 Francesca Freemande (trans.) 'The Sutra on the essence of transcendent knowledge' in Trungpa Tulku (ed.) Garuda III, p. 3.

27 Dowman, Sky Dancer, p. 220.

28 There are several bardo (gap or between) states, which the Tibetans elucidate as times between different states of reality. They are: the various phases between death and rebirth; whilst dreaming; whilst meditating; and the time between birth and death.

29 Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics (Methuen, 1985), p. 100-1.

30 Luce Irigaray, Elemental Passions (Athlone, 1992), p. 3.

31 Luce Irigaray, Sexes and Genealogies (Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 98.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid., p. 68.

34 Dorje Phagmo is the pig-headed goddess, loosely based on the ancient Tantric goddess Kali, and is visualised with an entourage of dakinis.

35 In Tibetan Buddhism there are three levels of divine manifestation: the Dharmakaya which is the non-dual sphere of supreme awareness; the Sambhogakaya which is the realm of the deity; and the Nirmanakaya, the realm of the incarnated deity. Kuntu Zangmo belongs to the Dharmakaya, and because of her association with emptiness is shown naked, without ornamentation. Even in the realm of the non-dual, the Tibetans puzzlingly create the yab-yum symbolism of Kunto Zangpo with his consort Kunto Zangmo, their union being symbolic.

36 Arthur Anthony Macdonnell, Practical Sanskrit Dictionary (OUP, 1971), p. 104.

37 Margaret Whitford, Luce Irigaray (Routledge, 1991), p. 35.

38 Dowman, Sky Dancer, p. 273.

CHAPTER 8: THE QUESTION OF 'OTHERNESS' IN FEMALE REPRESENTATION

1 H.V. Guenther, Buddhist Philosophy in Theory and Practice (Shambhala, 1976), p. 200.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid., p. 195.

4 Ibid., p. 166.

5 Robert A. Paul, The Tibetan Symbolic World (University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 272.

6 'Local' deities are differentiated from divine deities by virtue of the fact that they are unenlightened and still chained to the samsaric cycle of existence, in the spirit realm. They haunt particular areas and have a demonic form, but are capable of being converted to Buddhist practice, and thereafter become protectors of the dharma.

7 Garma C. C. Chang, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa (Shambhala, 1977), vol. l, p. 5.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid., p. 307.

11 Ibid., p. 309.

12 Arnaud Desjardins, The Message of the Tibetans (Stuart & Watkins, 1969), p. 80.

13 A full explanation of this important term is to be found in the Prajnaparamita, the Sutra taught by the Buddha concerning the insubstantiality of all phenomena. Tibetan Buddhist sources define 'emptiness' as the 'explicit negation: things do not exist as such apart from our labelling them to be this or that' (Guenther, Buddhist Philosophy in Theory and Practice, p. 225).

14 Anne C. Klein, 'Primordial purity and everyday life' in C. Atkinson et al. (eds) Immaculate and Powerful (Crucible, 1987), p. 134.

15 Ibid.

16 Luce Irigaray, Speculum of the Other Woman (Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 165.

17 Margaret Whitford, Luce Irigaray (Routledge, 1991), p. 154.

18 Ibid., p. 155.

19 Ibid., p. 153.

20 Ibid., p. 71.

21 Irigaray, Speculum of the Other Woman, p. 165.

22 The Chad rites were reputed to have been begun in the eleventh century by the Tibetan female mystic, Machig Labdron. In the myth surrounding her life, a male yogi in India transferred his consciousness into the body of a female foetus in Tibet and she was born with miraculous powers. It was during her reading of the Prajnaparamita that she achieved insight pertaining to the emptiness of all things, and developed the practice which uses visualisations of demons to overcome fears and dispel the notion of a belief in a ·self. In the practice, the meditator beats the rhythm of the chant with a large hand-held drum and simultaneously rings a bell, which is said to represent the feminine. At intervals a thigh bone trumpet is blown to summon the demons to a feast of the meditator's ego.

23 The Mandala offering involves the making of a symbolic offering of everything imaginable using a small plate and rice to mark out a mandala of the universe and everything in it.

24 Rita Gross, Buddhism after Patriarchy (State University of New York Press, 1993), p. 162.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid., p. 221.

32 Ibid., p. 222.

33 Kelly Oliver, Reading Kristeva (Indiana University Press, 1993), p. 174.

34 Gross, Buddhism after Patriarchy, p. 165.

35 Ibid.

36 Dudley Young, Origins of the Sacred (Abacus, 1993), p. 91.

37 Oliver, Reading Kristeva, p. 177.

38 Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (Routledge, 1993), p. 144.

39 Willy Fischle, The Way to the Centre (Robinson & Watkins), pp. 33,49.

40 Keith Dowman, Sky Dancer (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 258.

41 Trungpa Tulku, Glimpses of Abidharma (Prajna, 1978), p. 75.

42 Ibid., p. 61.

43 Ibid., p. 60.

44 Margaret Whitford, The Irigaray Reader (Blackwell, 1991), p. 47.

45 Trungpa Tulku, Glimpses of Abidharma, p. 61.

46 Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, p. 146.

47 Luce Irigaray, Sexes and Genealogies (Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 72.

48 David Black, 'The relationship of psychoanalysis to religion' in Ivan Ward (ed.) Is Psychoanalysis another Religion? (Freud Museum, 1993), p. 12.

49 Dorje Phagmo is represented as wrathful in appearance and, like Kali, associated with blood, even menstrual blood, and is adorned with various ornaments and accoutrements which symbolise her raw female power. (See Tsultrim Allione, Women of Wisdom (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984). In particular her naked body with exposed genitals signifies the power of the female.

50 Ekajati is a one-eyed dharma protector of wrathful appearance. See Chapter 3 on eye symbolism.

51 In an interview with Davine Del Vale in 1992, Allione stated that the dakini practices had come to her in a vision, which the head of the Bon lineage later thought might be a gongter or 'treasure of the mind' (see Chapter 7). Her contention is that these female-specific practices are 'part of the coming of Buddhism to the West'.

52 Whitford, Luce lrigaray, p. 157.

CHAPTER 9: PERSPECTIVES ON CULTURE AND GENDER

1 Peter Bishop, Dreams of Power (Athlone, 1993), p. 35.

2 Ibid., p. 41.

3 Ibid., p. 30.

4 Ibid., p. 46.

5 Ibid., p. 130.

6 Ibid., p. 122.

7 Ibid., p. 96.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid., p. 60.

10 Ibid., p. 130.

11 Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery oj Nature (Routledge, 1993), p. 72.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., p. 41.

14 Agehananda Bharati, The Tantric Tradition (Rider, 1992), p. 212.

15 Ajit MookeIjee, Kundalini (Thames & Hudson, 1982), p. 62.

16 Bishop, Dreams of Power, p. 104.

17 Toril Moi (ed.) The Kristeva Reader (Blackwell, 1990), p.161.

18 Kelly Oliver, Reading Kristeva (Indiana University Press, 1993), p. 139.

19 Trungpa Tulku, Empowerment (Vajradhatu, 1976), p. 59.

20 Ibid. The Vajra Hell is one specifically reserved for practitioners who break their vows, and involves interminable suffering.

21 Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, Tibetan Tradition if Mental Development (Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1974), p. 243.

22 Ibid., p. 244.

23 Trungpa Tulku, Empowerment, p. 66.

24 Ibid., p. 71.

25 Ibid., p. 61.

26 See Introduction, Note 4.

27 Donna Haraway, Simions, Cyborgs and Women (Free Association, 1991), preface.

CONCLUSION

1 The Yogacharin school is epistemological and characterised by its 'one-mind', philosophy, in which there is no individual knower, and phenomena and intelligence are brought together in luminous cognisance. In this way the enlightened 'realise' the false dichotomy between mind and phenomena, whereas the unenlightened adhere to duality.

2 Nagarjuna was a tenth-century Indian philosopher who founded the Madhyamika or Middle Way, and who opposed the Yogacharin School, asserting that 'that any philosophical view could be refuted, that one must not dwell upon any answer or description of reality, whether extreme or moderate, including the notion of "one-mind'" (Trungpa Tulku (ed.) Garuda III, Shambhala, 1973, p. 47). He was the major exponent of the Prajnaparamita.

3 Kelly Oliver, 'Politics of psychoanalysis' in Oliver (ed.) Ethics, Politics and Difference in Julia Kristeva's Writing (Routledge, 1993), p. 12.

4 Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds if Love (Virago, 1990), p. 181.

5 Barbara Adam, Time and Social Theory (Polity, 1990), p. 60.

6 Ibid., p. 169.

7 Victor Burgin, 'Geometry and abjection' in J. Fletcher et al. (eds) Abjection, Melancholia and Love (Routledge, 1990), p. 105.

8 Ibid., p. 119.

9 Miranda Shaw, Passionate Enlightenment (Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 19.

10 Oliver, 'Politics of psychoanalysis' in Ethics, Politics and Difference in Julia Kristeva's Writing, p. 12.

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Index

Africa, 25-6
aggression, male, 137
Ahura Mazda (Iranian deity), 37-8
Airavata (white elephant), 56
Alaya (Store) Consciousness, 33, 122
Allione, Tsultrim, 10, 94-5, 165, 212
alphabet, Aramaic 37; Tibetan, 30
Amitabha (Buddha of Pure Light),
viii, 53, 62-3, 129
amrita (fluid of life) , 43
Anahita (ancient great goddess), 38
Anatolia, 38, 47
androgeny, 53-5, 65-6, 157, 163
Apollo (Greek god), 65
Aramaiti (Iranian earth goddess), 37
asexuality, 53-5
Assam, 44
Astarte (universal great goddess), 38
astrology, 27, 42
autonomy, female, 95, 107, 110, 127,
140, 144, 156
Avolokiteswara (Indian god), viii,
52-3, 57, 69
Bactria, 36
Benjamin, Jessica, 184, 212
Berg, Elizabeth, 166, 212
bhakti movement, 127
Bharati, Agehananda, 63-4, 139-40,
143-4, 176, 212
Bhattacharyya, NN., 47, 212
Bihar, 6
Bird, Isabella, 173
Bishop, Peter, 10, 14, 169-72, 178,
180, 212
Bodhgaya, 6
bodhidtta, 116-17
Bodhisattva Mahasthamaprapta,
53
bodhisattvas, 6, 53-5, 73, 124
body, human, 28, 43; female, 119-20,
125, 130-2, 135, 138, 148, 158;
fluids, 43-4, 112-18, 164-5
Bon, viii, 23-4, 36-8, 42-4, 46, 84
bones, 43, 69
'Book of the Dead', 20
Brahma, 64-5
brain, 43
breasts, 120, 135
breath control, 107, 112-14, 117, 119
Buddhahood, 35, 148-9; female
capability, 54
Buddhas, 9, 52-3, 56, 66-7, 135-6;
Amitahba (pure Light); viii,
53, 62-3, 129; historical, viii, 6,
56-7, 84, 129, 135-6; images
of; 52, 177-8; Vajradharma and
Vajrayogini, 126
bulls, 41-2
Burgin, Victor, 187, 212
Burma, 44
Campbell, Joseph, 56, 58, 65, 67, 213
Cartesian thought, 175
Catal Huyuk, 41
celibacy, 2, 12, 28-9, 83, 105-8; need
for female stereotyping, 127;
sacred lineage, 76
Chaja Chenpo, 7
Chenrezig, viii, 19, 52-8, 62-5, 108
China, 31, 47, 51, 73, 130;
communism, 4; female
physiology, 119-20; gender
transformation, 38; mythology,
53, 61-5
Christianity, 65, 86, 167; saints, 60
Cixous, Helene, 14, 17
consorts, 2, 97-130, 136-8; male, 136
cornucopia, 43
cultural factors, 3-5, 11-14, 99,
167-81; archaic female images,
35-51; female 'otherness',
220 Traveller in Space
153, 183-4; geographical
factors, 18-19; lineage of the
self-born, 77-8; sacrificial role
of women, 161-2; sexuality
and egalitarianism, 17-18;
use of language, 31; Western
difficulties, 18, 99, 121, 155-6,
167-73, 184
Dakinis, viii, 19, 29, 112, 121-2,
124-46; archaic female images,
38-9, 42; ego destruction,
159-60; insubstantiality of
female identity, 186; secret life
of the lamas, 105; Vajrayana for
women, 165
Dalai Lamas, 26, 73, 168-9, 172;
childhood and upbringing,
81-4, 88-90; re-incarnation of
Chenrezig, viii, 52, 62
Daly, Mary, 65, 91, 103, 213
Damema (Marpa's wife), 93
Das, Chandra, 31-2, 38, 70, 213
daughters, 109, 126-7, 141-2,
158, 185
David-Neel, Alexandra, 26, 173, 213
de Nebesky-Wojkowitz, 39, 213
death, 27, 73-4, 113-15
demons and demonesses, 41, 102-3,
151-2; language, 31-2, 38;
sinmo, ' 44-6
Desjardins, Arnaud, 152, 213
dharma, viii, 2, 42, 102, 125, 150-1
Dharma Centres, 169
Dharmadhatu, viii, 148
difference, 16-17, 122, 131, 155-6;
male separation from mother,
143; retention of, 119
Dionysus (Greek god), 65-6, 91
divination, 69
divinity; divine birth, 81-96; Divine
Father, 170, 172-3; divine king
myth, 74-6, 79; divine victim,
74; essentialism of female
divinity, 94
Doirna, viii, 55, 58, 63, 124, 148
Dorje Phagmo, 124, 140, 143, 164
Dorje Sempa, 8
Dowman, Keith, 10, 95, 117, 128,
159-60, 213; dakinis and
"twilight' language, 140, 146
Drugpa Kunley, 105
dualities, 7, 17, 118-22, 127, 139;
conceptual framework and
language, 20-1; Great
Mother, 55, 139; Milarepa and
Buddhist view of 'woman', 33;
'otherness', 147-9, 154-8, 174
Dusum Chenpa, 114
Earth Goddess, Iranian, 37
egalitarianism, 17-18, 53-4, 125-6,
131, 156-7, 185
ego, 157-62
Egypt, 42
Eisler, Riane, 44, 214
Ekajati, 135, 165
elephant, white, 56
Eliade, Mircea, 39, 44, 98, 214
Emptiness, viii, 6, 53-4, 71, 139,
148-9, 162
energy, female, 38, 109, 112, 119-20
enlightenment, 6-9, 35, 44, 151,
152; linked with male
physiology, 120; symbolic
representations, 144-5
Evans-Wentz, W.Y., 26-7, 214;
exorcism, 69
father figures, 107, 124-5
fatherhood; daughter relationship,
141-2; male motherhood, 90-4
fear, 151
female priests, 109
feminism, 10-11, 14-16, 28
femur, 43
fertility, 41-3, 56, 61, 67
feudalism, 29-30
fluids, body, 43-4, 112-18, 164-5
Francke, A.H., 49, 64, 214
Freudian interpretation, 10, 65,
77-9, 184
Gelug school, 1-2, 73
gender transformation, 53-67
genealogy, female, 61, 94, 109, 112,
126-7, 162, 185
Index 221
Gengis Khan, 23
geographical factors, 18-19, 24-5, 44,
73
Getty, Alice, 62, 214
Gimbutas, Marija, 41, 84, 214
Girard, Rene, 61
Govinda, Anagarika, 26-7
Great Goddess, 178
Great Lotus Goddess, 148
Great Mother, 18-19, 39, 70, 76, 186;
Heart Sutra and Emptiness,
139; Mahayana tradition, 148;
mother-daughter relationship,
109; parthenogenetic powers,
84; vessel of the fish symbol,
61; waning power of, 36, 44-51
Greece, 43, 65-6, 91
Gross, Rita, 4, 11, 156, 157, 166, 214
Guenther, Herbert, 26, 148-50, 214
Guntrip, Harry, 22, 215
gurus, 2, 7-9, 51, 124-6, 137;
androgeny, 163; dakinis and
surrender of the ego, 160-1;
etymology of guru, 69-70; as
father-perceptors, 124-5
Gyatso, Janet, 45, 215
Gyatso, Kelsang, 126, 215
Haraway, Donna, 180, 215
Havnevik, Hanna, 10, 215
healing, 27
Heart Sutra, 139; Hegel, Georg, 112
Himalayas, 44, 57
Hinayana, viii, 151
Hinduism, 42-3, 55, 63-4, 109, 175-6
historical context, 17-18, 23-4, 28, 34,
182; development of language,
30-4; lineage of the self-born,
73-4, 77; prehistory, 44,
74-5; recent events, 1-3, 24;
shamanism, 71-2; social norms
and female status, 29
hom, symbol of, 41-2
I-Ming, Liu, 120
iconography, 1, 29-30, 35-6, 51-2,
79-80, 182; ancient India, 109;
Bon, 24; culture and gender,
174-6; Dakinis, 126-7, 134-5,
138-9, 143-4; emerging lineage
of self-born, 68-9, 71-2;
enlightenment, 144-5; female
inferiority, 65-6; Freudian
interpretation, 65; monastic
attitude to women, 83; origins
of Chenrezig, 54; 'otherness',
148, 153-5, 164-5
identity, female; insubstantiality and
the dakini, 186; metaphor of
the traveller in space, 12
identity, male, solidity and the
Buddha, 186
India, 8, 24-5, 37-8, 43, 46-7;
Avolokiteswara, 52-3; exodus
of lamas to, 27; female priests,
109; gender transformation, 54;
life of Buddha, 6, 56-7; lotus
imagery, 56-7, 60, 64-5
Indus civilisation, 41-2, 56
Inuit peoples, 40
Iran, 37
Iraq, 51
Irigaray, Luce, 14, 16-17, 56, 79, 146,
215; divine birth and female
power, 93, 95-6; 'otherness',
154, 156
Japan, 35, 62-3
Jasche, H.A., 30, 215
Jayakar, Pupul, 109, 215
Judaic traditions, 167
Jung, Carl, 26-7, 215
Kagyu school, 1-2, 4, 20, 92-3, 98
Kaladugmo (sky goddess), 39
Kill (Indian goddess), 38-9, 59-60
Kannon (Japanese goddess), 62
kanna, ix, 5, 7, 20, 24, 72, 84, 106-7
Karma Kagyu, 85
Karma Mudra, 33, 108, 112, 143
Karma Tang, 75
Karmapa Lama (9th), 8-9
khandro, 38, 145
Khandroma, 146
Khyenpa, Dusum, 72
killing, 29, 42
222 Traveller in Space
Klein, Anne c., 30, 71, 153-5, 215
Korea, 6
Kristeva, Julia, 14-17, 59, 115, 133,
158, 178
Kuan-Yin (Chinese lotus goddess), ix,
53, 57-8, 61-5
Kulamava, 47
Kunley, Drugpa, 108
Kuntu Zangmo, 144-5
Kuznetzov, B., 37, 216
Kyhentze Rinpoche, Beru, 9
La-Ma, 160-1
Labdron, Machig, 109, 130
Lacan, 100, 142
Laksmi (Hindu goddess), 50
Lalita (Hindu goddess), 50
lamas, 26-7, 125, 168-9; absent
mothers, 81; celibacy and
sexuality, 97-123; complete
devotion to, 7-8; control over
women, 106; definition and
etymology, ix, 70-1; pressures
of Western culture, 1-5, 11,
14; reincarnation, ix, 4, 14,
19, 72-7, 81; role in Tibetan
society, 69; see also Dalai Lamas
Langdarma (Bon king), 42
language, 15-18, 20-1, 25, 83, 86;
Ahura (demons), 38; ancient
Tantra and polarities, 51;
celibacy and secrecy, 100, 120-
1; dakinis and 'twilight', 19,
125-8, 132-4, 140; derogatory,
65; development of, 30-4;
dualities and ambiguities, 17,
154; Lacan's work, 100, 142;
sexist polarities, 33; Tantric
'intentional', 63-4; 'the
little death', 114; 'wife' and
'mother', 97; Lhasa Palace, 62
lineage, 68-123, 130, 141, 148, 162;
female, 61, 94, 109, 112, 126-7,
162, 185
Longchenpa (philosopher), 33, 97,
108
Lotus Deity, 19, 52-67
Lotus Sutra, 62
lung gom (air meditation), 12-13
Ma (Anatolian Mother goddess), 38
Madhyamika (the middle way), 6
Mahamudra, ix, 7-9, 33, 108
Mahayana, ix, 50, 54-5, 148, 151;
Buddha-Dharma, 52; Uttara
Tantra, 86
Majupuria, Indra, 29-30, 216
mandala, 66, 143
Manipadma, 64
Manjusri, 64-5
mantras, viii-ix, 7-8, 63-4
Maraini, Fosco, 81, 216
Marpa, 92, 93
marriage, 29, 106
Marxism, 15
Mathura, 37
matriarchies, 44, 48-9
Maya, Queen (Buddha's mother),
84-5
Medea, 51
medicine, 27
meditation, 5-8, 28, 35, 108, 117,
129; air (lung gom) , 12-13;
energy control, 119; female
'otherness', 148, 151, 156
Medusa, 60
menstrual blood, 116-17, 164-5
Merton, Thomas, 26-7
Mesopotamia, 38, 56
metaphysical argument, 16-18
Miao-Shan, 58-62
Milarepa, 20, 23-4, 32, 35, 93, 152,
160; Alaya Consciousness, 12G;
liasons with dakinis, 105, 108,
112; parallels with Jesus Christ
and Socrates, 27
Minaksi-Kali, 60
misogyny, 53-4
mistress, 95, 102-3; see also consorts
Mithra, 37-8
Mithraism, 37, 39, 40, 42
Mithras, 37-8
Mitra (sky goddess), 38
Mohenjo-Daro, 56; monasticism, S,
28-9, 68-80, 82, 97-8, 104;
exile to India, 1-2
Index 223
Mongolia, 73
Mother Buddha, 63
Mother Earth, 55
Mother Goddess, 38, 42, 56, 64, 74
Mother Sky, 39, 65
motherhood, 61-2, 76-7, 158,
160-1, 173-4, 176; daughter
relationship, 126-7, 141-2, 162,
185; divine birth, 19, 81-96;
patriarchal ideal, 91; symbolic
male, 148, 185
Mudra, ix, 142
Mula, 47
Mysterious Female, 55
mysticism, 27
Nagarjuna (Indian philosopher), 6
Naropa (Indian mystic), 33, 108
Nepal, 51
'New Age' cults and philosphies, 27-8
Ngayah Khandro Ling, 130
ninJana, ix, 6, 72, 185
Noble Truths, the Four, 6
non-violence, 5, 7
nuns, 5-6
Nyingma school, 1-2, 20, 106, 129
occult, 27
Oedipal struggle, 73, 75, 77-9
Om Mani Padme Hum, viii, 7-8, 63, 85
oracles, 69
oral tradition, 4-5, 8, 76, 99
orgasm, 119
orientalism, 13-14
otherness, 14, 20, 147-66, 170, 174
Padrna (Indian lotus goddess), 56, 58
Padmasambhava, ix, 24, 36-7, 41,
66-9, lOS, 112
Pallis, Matco, 168
paradise, 125, 129-33
patriarchy, 17, 30, 59, 60, 136, 154-7;
female subjugation, 46, 112
Paul, Diana, 10, 53-4, 57, 217
Paul, Robert A., 10, 73, 77-9, 141,
149, 217
Pearl-Lotus Goddess, 64
PemaJungne, 112
Persia, 36, 47, 51
phallus, 63-4; philosophy; Buddhist,
2, 6-7; theoretical approaches
taken, 16-18; see also dharma;
Plato, 175, 187
Plumwood, Val, 175-6, 217
polarities, 19, 33, 51, 127, 148, 175-6,
182, 185
political factors, 1-3, 29, 36, 68; feudal
social system, 71; role of the
Dalai Lama, 26, 73
Potter, John, 4
power, 10, 103-7, 130, 154; centrol
role of the lamas, 68; exclusion
of women, 148; female power
of destruction, 32; flow
from female to male, 118;
motherhood, 173-4; Oedipal
struggle, 75
Prajnaparamita, 6, 50, 50-1, 64-5,
139, 148
prayer drums/wheels, 52
pregnancy (divine motherhood),
85
promiscuity, 106
property inheritance, 29
Protectors of the Dharma, 151
Pure Land, 129-33
purity, 26
Pythian-Adams, W.J., 39, 217
Queen Mother of the West, 57,
62
Queen of the Stars, 38-9
queendoms, 49
rebirth, 20, 32-3, 86, 113; female
form, 129-30
reincarnation, 4-5, 14, 68, 72, 86;
Dalai Lama as Chenrezig, viii,
52, 62; female tulkus, 110; see
also Tulku system
Rema, Drenchen, 109
renunciation, path of, 112
Rinpoche, Kalu, 98, 104, '152, 217
rituals, 101-8, 120-1, 144-5; initiation
oflamas, 76; regicide, 74-5;
sexual, 111, 115
224 Traveller in Space
Rock Mother, 37
role, woinen's, 31, 161
sacrifice, 59-60, 74, 161; animals,
74-5; female role, 161-2;
human, 44, 74; symbolic, 156
Said, Edward, 13, 217
Sakti, ix
Sakya school, 1-2
Sambhou, Thonmi, 30
Samuel, Geoffrey, 104, 217
Sang Nga Dorje Thegpa see Vajrayana
Sangha, 42
Sanje, 6
Sarasvati (snake goddess), 50, 63
secrecy, 2, 35, 97-123; teachings,
126-30
self, 7, 157-60, 181
self-born, 68-80, 88, 93
Semele, 65, 91
semen, 43-4, 112-18
serpents, 63
sexuality, 10-11, 17, 27, 44, 97-148,
185; imagery and symbolic
represenution, 1, 52-67, 148,
175-6; lineage of the self-born,
76-7, '148; male and female
fixation, 94; 'otherness' and
androgeny, 150, 163-4; sexual
freedom, 29, 185
shamanism, 36-44, 46, 69, 71-2; death
as prelude to rebirth, 113
Shangri-La, notions of, 13
Shaw, Miranda, 10, 47-8, 98-9,
110-11, 118, 164, 217
Siberia, 40
siddha (yogic master), 136
sinmo (demoness), 44-6
Siva, 50
skull, 43, 44
sky goddesses, 38-9
Snake Goddess, 63
Sogdiana, 36
Songsten Gampo, 23
songyum, 97, 97-8, 98, 103, 121
South America, 25-6
space travel, the term, 12
space-time dynamic, 114-15, 145-6
Sri Lanka, viii-ix, 5, 35
status, Tibetan women, 29, 31
stereotypes, 13, 163
subjectivity, 16, 20, 137-46, 182;
'otherness', 153-5, 159,
162-4, 174-5
suffering, 6; Supreme Tantra, 108
sutras, ix, 9, 53-4, 62; Chinese
Buddhist, 130
symbolism, 51, 55, 61, 66, 71,
120; enlightenment, 144-5;
female body, 131-2; Oedipal,
73; 'otherness', 14, 149,
153-6, 170-1; relationship to
mother/father, 95, 141-2
Syria 47
Ta-Zig, 36
Tantra; definition of, ix, 7; threads of,
36, 44-51
Taoism, 55, 57, 62
Tara, viii, 50, 57
Tarthang (Tibeun tulku), 114-15,
218
teachings, 122, 125, 144, 169; Dakini's
secret, 126-30; different levels,
35-6; mother to daughter
transmission, 109; peruining to
the female body, 125; sexuality,
106-8; since Dalai Lama's
exodus, 168-9
terma, 127-9
tertons, 127-8, 132
texts, use of, 20
Thailand, viii-ix, 5, 35
The Goddess Moisture, 64
The Highest form of Earth, 64
The Hundred Thousand Songs c!f
Milarepa, 20
'The Song of the Vajra', 132
'The Tale of the Red RockJewel
Valley', 150
Thegpa Chenpo, ix
Thegpa chung chung, viii
Theravada tradition, viii-ix, 5
thigh bones, 43
Thondup, Tulku, 128
Threads ofTantra, 36
Index 225
Tibetan Uprising (1959), 24
'Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa', 20
tigie, 116, 120, 121, 122
time, 15, 114-15, 145-6
Trungpa, Tulku, 87-8, 92, 160-1,
178-9, 218
truth, absolute, 22
Tsogyal, Yeshe, 86-7, 91, 95, 109,
119-21, 127-30
Tsug Pu, 37
tulku system, ix, 4, 68-96; female
'otherness', 148, 155, 162,
176; meaning oftulku, 88,
121; women and secrecy, 97,
101-2, 105-6; women tulkus,
110, 124; twilightlanguage, 19,
125-8, 132-4, 140
United Kingdom, 2, 26
Utter Pradesh, Indian, 56
vagina, 63-4
Vajra Hell, 178-9
Vajra Varahi, 143
Vajradharma, Buddha, 126
Vajrapani, 64-5 .
V~rayana, x, 5-11, 35, 50, 52, 147,
151-2; celibacy and secrecy,
104, 108; teachings and the
female body, 125, 130
Vajrayogini, Buddha, 126
visualisation, 8, 52, 108, 119
Voidness, 136
Walker, Barbara, 38-9, 218
white moon-cow goddess, 43
White Sparrows, monastery of, 58
wholeness, concepts of, 122-3
Willis, Janice, 121-2, 136, 218
wisdom, 135, 140
yah-yum, 135, 159, 175-6, 182
Yar-Lung thrones, 75
Yellow Hat Sect, 73
Yellow River, Tibet, 75
yoga, 35, 40, 43, 52, 107, 127
yoginis, 111
yogis, 105, 108, 113-14, 116, 125,
136; see also Padmasambhava
yoni, 49-50
Yum Chenmo, 50, 144
Zeus (Greek god), 65
Zhang-Zhung, 36