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

deities. “The man (sees) the woman as a goddess, the woman (sees) the man as a god. By joining the
diamond scepter [phallus] and lotus [vagina], they should make offerings to each other” we read in a
quote from a tantra (Shaw, 1994, p. 153). The sexual relationship is fundamentally ritualized: every
look, every caress, every form of contact is given a symbolic meaning. But even the woman’s age, her
appearance, and the shape of her sexual organs play a significant role in the sexual ceremony.
The tantras describe erotic performances without the slightest timidity or shame. Technical
instructions in the dry style of sex manuals can be found in them, but also ecstatic prayers and poems
in which the tantric master celebrates the erotic love of man and woman. Sometimes this tantric
literature displays an innocent joie de vivre. The instructions which the tantric Anangavajra offers for
the performance of sacred love practices are direct and poetic: “Soon after he has embraced his
partner and introduced his member into her vulva, he drinks from her lips which are dripping with
milk, brings her to coo tenderly, enjoys rich pleasure and lets her thighs tremble.” (Bharati, 1977, p.
172)
In Vajrayana sexuality is the event upon which all is based. Here, the encounter between the two
sexes is worked up to the pitch of a true obsession, not — as we shall see — for its own sake, but
rather in order to achieve something else, something higher in the tantric scheme of things. In a
manner of speaking, sex is considered to be the prima materia, the raw primal substance with which
the sex partners experiment, in order to distill “pure spirit” from it, just as high-grade alcohol can be
extracted from fermented grape must. For this reason the tantric master is convinced that sexuality
harbors not just the secrets of humanity, but also furnishes the medium upon which gods may be
grown. Here he finds the great life force, albeit in untamed and unbridled form.
It is thus impossible to avoid the impression that the “hotter” the sex gets the more effective the
tantric ritual becomes. Even the most spicy obscenities are not omitted from these sacred activities. In
the Candamaharosana Tantra for example, the lover swallows with joyous lust the washwater which
drips from the vagina and anus of the beloved and relishes without nausea her excrement, her nasal
mucus and the remains of her food which she has vomited onto the floor. The complete spectrum of
sexual deviance is present, even if in the form of the rite. In one text the initiand calls out
masochistically: “I am your slave in all ways, keenly active in devotion to you. O Mother”, and the
“goddess” — often simulated by a prostitute — answers, “I am called your mistress!” (George, 1974,
pp. 67-68).
The erotic burlesque and the sexual joke have also long been a popular topic among the Vajrayana
monks and have, up until this century, produced a saucy and shocking literature of the picaresque.
Great peals of laughter are still heard in the Tibetan lamaseries at the ribald pranks of Uncle Dönba,
who (in the 18th century) dressed himself up as a nun and then spent several months as a “hot” lover
boy in a convent. (Chöpel, 1992, p. 43)
But alongside such ribaldry we also find a cultivated, sensual refinement. An example of this is
furnished by the astonishingly up-to-date handbook of erotic practices, the Treatise on Passion, from
the pen of the Tibetan Lama Gedün Chöpel (1895–1951), in which the “modern” tantric discusses the
“64 arts of love”. This Eastern Ars Erotica dates from the 1930s. The reader is offered much useful
knowledge about various, in part fantastic sexual positions, and receives instruction on how to
produce arousing sounds before and during the sexual act. Further, the author provides a briefing on
the various rhythms of coitus, on special masturbation techniques for the stimulation of the penis and