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TANTRA: ALTERNATIVE BUDDHISM
From the beginning, Buddhism has been concerned with death and dying. In the earliest times, one of the most important practices for serious practitioners was the contemplation of the stages of decay of the body of a dead person. In those days it was not difficult to observe dead bodies. Corpses were burnt in the charnel grounds or left to be eaten by vultures. Early death was common. It is a feature of modern life that we have hidden death away out of sight and much of our popular philosophy is life affirming and death denying. In those days, things were different. Spirituality had much to do with encountering death and the sharp contrast between the passion of being alive and the rapid decay of the body after death. Nowadays, arguably, we are less alive and less aware of death and these two go together.
Buddha started an order of wandering monks - perhaps better called friars - who lived a minimal existence and actively sought the dispassion of nirvana. However, there also grew up an alternative vision of the holy life among those who were called yogins or tantrikas who reasoned that instead of extinguishing passion, it should be invoked, explored, transformed and utilised. They would celebrate things that were hidden by polite society, though often doing so in secret. This all led to a different lifestyle to that of the monk or nun. Yogins were eccentric, engaged in activities that were disallowed by the monastic precepts and did so in order to harness the energies thus released. It is immediately apparent that this would be a dangerous course as such energies and passions can easily lead one far astray. Thus the yogins insisted on the importance of doing their practices under the guidance of a teacher and within an ethos that they called samaya - a kind of bond of loyalty to the truth. This created an esoteric tradition.
Nowadays one can buy books or go to workshops that purport to be tantric, some of which are really just an excuse for indulgence. However, the path of the traditional tantrika was a tough one. For instance, the pandit Naropa became a disciple of the yogin Tilopa. Tilopa lived as a beggar. As Naropa was a high class gentleman, proud of his learning, Tilopa put him through all manner of humiliating and dangerous exercises in order to break his attachment to self-preening. It is easy to talk about "non-self", but what does it mean in practice? The yogins sought to destroy the self-clinging while harnessing the whole range of human passion - rage, lust, fear, disgust, and so on - transforming them into a wisdom and compassion that were much more than skin deep. Passion free of narcissism.
Pureland Buddhism is, in some ways, a simple, everyday form of tantra. It accepts the ordinary being just as is: mortal, fallible, vulnerable, sentient. We all have desires, fears, pride, dismay, shame, disgust and so on. The tantrika relates to a guardian-deity-Buddha, called a yidam, and in Pureland, this is Amitabha and the choice of Amitabha is because Amitabha is the Buddha of all acceptance and universal light. We seek to live in that light and, with that basis for faith and courage, to observe our ordinary nature, or our natural ordinariness. This sounds simple and, in principle, it is, but to actually do it is transformational. Such ordinary wisdom and ordinary compassion is unpretentious and does not require grades or status. It is more a matter of plunging into life as it is with a fundamental faith that, just as we are, we are accepted by the Tathagata. Abandoning self-power does not mean expunging passion.
When I asked my Japanese friends what was the meaning of the practice, they said that it is all about being able to die well. If one fully accepts life, one will fully accept death. If one has faith that one is acceptable to the Buddha in life, no matter how foolish or misguided one may have been at times, then one will fall into the lap of Buddha when this life ends. The person who is thus at ease with life and death reflects the grace of the Buddhas into this world without even realising. Those who follow are naturally blessed.
There is much paradox in all this. The more accepted one feels, the more concerned one tends to be to deepen one's practice. At the end it is all about love and being loved. It is said that the true nature of mind is great luminosity. That light is love. But to bring it to fullness, the whole of one's being - good, bad & neutral - must be engaged, and this was the great insight of the tantrikas. In all schools of Buddhism throughout history there have been unconventional practitioners who took the core meaning of Dharma seriously and experimented with their lives, more interested in serving others than acquiring status.
In the beginning (800-1200 CE) it would seem that Tantra was originally largely a women's movement that rejected the moralism of the (mostly male) monastic hierarchy that had developed. Groups of women "yogini's" met under cover of night to conduct "tantric feasts" which included the practice of tantric rituals, often nude, in honour of female deities such a Vajrayogini. Some of the practitioners became famous and seekers after Dharma would travel far to consult them and receive initiations, some of which were sexual. When we look at the acknowledged famous founders of Tantra (like Tilopa, mentioned above), we find that nearly all of them had had women teachers. However, the movement gradually got absorbed into the mainstream of Sino-Tibetan Buddhism to create "the union of sutra and tantra" and, especially in Tibet, became male dominated.
It would seem, however, that the original rebellious spirit was, and still is, of the essence of real Tantra. The history of religious movements repeatedly shows this pattern in which a manifestation of illumination appears in highly unconventional form, but then gradually gets normalised and co-opted by the mainstream. The true adept, however, is not usually the person who has climbed the conventional ladder, but the person who has taken risks with the soul and, by dint of sincerity and perseverance, has found the genuine treasure outside the frame of well-trodden pathways.
STRAY WISDOM
Living water has no faucet.
You can’t get to heaven by tightening your corset.
The more vows you make, the less you keep;
better to have a good night’s sleep.
Don’t criticise nor retaliate;
you can’t change the past - it’s far too late.
Sometimes it’s cold; sometimes it’s hot;
work and play; accept your lot.
Life is a river that knows how to flow
like the clouds that sail and the plants that grow.
Too much contrivance ruins the plot.
Live what you are and enjoy what you’ve got.
ELEUSIS NEWS
David: I am travelling again. There is a double motive. On the one hand, it is a reaching out to meet people that I love and care about and to do so in person, not just through the screen. The advent of zoom and skype is a wonder that has enabled us to form and sustain bonds across vast distances and it is remarkable how the intimate closeness of sangha fraternity and sisterhood has been nurtured by this technological miracle. Nonetheless, there is something essentially precious about meeting in person.
On the other hand, I envisage this travel as a spiritual journey, a kind of pilgrimage. I don't know what I shall encounter along the way, but, like Sudhana in the sutra, I am open to whatever initiations the universe may have in store. Every day is a cornucopia of myriad meanings and it is not so much the gathering of them that matters as the opening of mind and heart that makes appreciation possible. We are all already wandering through the flower meadows of heaven.
Today I am at the Dadrol Ling centre. The people here are friendly and welcoming and I feel well received. Hospitality and generosity are Buddhist virtues and here one can be quiet and contemplative or happily engaged with others by choice. Yesterday I attended a teaching on the ayatanas, a puja to Mahakala and a puja in honour of Milarepa. This last culminated in the sharing of many sweets and small food items - no doubt a vestige of the old time tantric feasts.
SPAIN THIS MONTH
I shall be in the north of Spain for most of the remainder of this month and will endeavour to meet as many friends and sangha members as possible. There will be one retreat on 18-20th in Bilbao, but I shall be available to connect with other people along the route of my travel through Galicia, Asturias, the Basque Country and on to the Pyrenees.
18-20th November 2022
"ORIGINAL DHARMA" - IN PERSON PRACTICE RETREAT
Bilbao, Spain
David Brazier with Ganendra Oscar Martinez
In Spanish & English