Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

the living Fourteenth Dalai Lama, and the “god-king’s” spiritual world politics can be understood
through a knowledge of it alone.
The Kalachakra Tantra marks the close of the creative phase of Vajrayana’s history in the tenth
century. No further fundamental tantra texts have been conceived since, whilst countless
commentaries upon the existing texts have been written, up until the present day. We must thus regard
the “Time Tantra” as the culmination of and finale to Buddhist Tantrism. The other tantric texts which
we cite in this study (especially the Guhyasamaya Tantra, the Hevajra Tantra and the
Candamaharosana Tantra), are primarily drawn upon in order to decipher the Kalachakra Tantra.
At first glance the sexual roles seem to have changed completely in Tantric Buddhism (Vajrayana).
The contempt for the world of the senses and degradation of women in Hinayana, the asexuality and
compassion for women in Mahayana, appear to have been turned into their opposites here. It all but
amounts to an explosion of sexuality, and the idea that sexual love harbors the secret of the universe
becomes a spectacular dogma. The erotic encounter between man and woman is granted a mystical
aura, an authority and power completely denied it in the preceding Buddhist eras.
With neither timidity nor dread Buddhist monks now speak about “venerating women”, “praising
women”, or “service to the female partner”. In Vajrayana, every female being experiences exaltation
rather than humiliation; instead of contempt she enjoys, at first glance, respect and high esteem. In the
Candamaharosana Tantra the glorification of the feminine knows no bounds: “Women are heaven;
women are Dharma; ... women are Buddha; women are the sangha; women are the perfection of
wisdom”(George, 1974, p. 82).
The spectrum of erotic relations between the sexes ranges from the most sublime professions of
courtly love to the coarsest pornography. Starting from the highest rung of this ladder, the monks
worship the feminine as “perfected wisdom” (prajnaparamita), “wisdom consort” (prajna), or
“woman of knowledge” (vidya). This spiritualization of the woman corresponds, with some variation,
to the Christian cults of Mary and Sophia. Just as Christ revered the “Mother of God”, the Tantric
Buddhist bows down before the woman as the “Mother of all Buddhas”, the “Mother of the
Universe”, the “Genetrix”, the “Sister”, and as the “Female Teacher”(Herrmann-Pfand, 1992, pp. 62,
60, 76).
As far as sensual relationships with women are concerned, these are divided into four categories:
“laughing, regarding, embracing, and union”. These four types of erotic communication form the
pattern for a corresponding classification of tantric exercises. The texts of the Kriya Tantra address
the category of laughter, those of the Carya Tantra that of the look, the Yoga Tantra considers the
embrace, and in the writings of the Anuttara Tantra (the Highest Tantra) sexual union is addressed.
These practices stand in a hierarchical relation to one another, with laughter at the lowest level and the
tantric act of love at the highest.
In Vajrayana the latter becomes a religious concern of the highest order, the sine qua non of
enlightenment. Although homosexuality was not uncommon in Buddhist monasteries and was
occasionally even regarded as a virtue, the “great bliss of liberation” was fundamentally conceived of
as the union of man and woman and accordingly portrayed in cultic images.
However, both tantric partners encounter one another not as two natural people, but rather as two