interview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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