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

The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Postscript: Creative polarity beyond tantrism
© Victor & Victoria Trimondi
POSTSCRIPT:
CREATIVE POLARITY BEYOND TANTRISM
As surprising as it may sound after our critical analysis of Vajrayana, we would in conclusion like to
pose the question of whether Tantric Buddhism does not harbor a religious archetype the disclosure,
dissemination and discussion of which could meet with great transcultural interest. Would it not be
valuable to discuss as religious concepts such tantric principles as the “mystical love between the
sexes”, the “union of the male and female principles”, or the unio mystica between god and goddess?
As we demonstrated at the start of our study, Tantrism in all its variants is based upon a vision of the
polarity of being. It sees the primary cultic event on the path to enlightenment in a mystical
conjunction of poles, specifically in the mystical union of the sexes. From a tantric point of view, all
the phenomena of the universe are linked to one another through erotic love and sexuality, and our
world of appearances is seen as the field in which these two basic forces (Tibetan yab and yum;
Chinese yin and yang) act. They manifest themselves as a polarity in both nature and the realm of the
spirit. In the tantric view of things, love is the great life force that pulsates through the cosmos,
primarily as heterosexual love between god and goddess, man and woman. Their mutual affection acts
as the creative principle.
“It is through love and in the face of love that the world unfolds, through love it regains its original
unity and its eternal nondivision” — this statement is also proclaimed in Vajrayana (Faure, 1994, p.
56). For the Tantric, erotic and religious love are not separate. Sexuality and mysticism, eros and
agape (spiritual love) are not mutually exclusive contradictions.
Let us once more repeat the wonderful words with which tantric texts describe the “holy marriage”
between man and woman. In yuganaddha (the mystic union) there is “neither affirmation nor denial,
neither existence nor non-existence, neither non-remembering nor remembering, neither affection nor
non-affection, neither the cause nor the effect, neither the production nor the produced, neither purity
nor impurity, neither anything with form nor anything without form; it is but the synthesis of all
dualities” (Dasgupta, 1974, p. 114). In this synthesis “egoness is lost and the two polar opposites fuse
into a state of intimate and blissful oneness” (Walker, 1982, p. 67).
A cooperation between the poles now replaces the struggle between contradictions (or sexes). Body
and spirit, erotic love and transcendence, emotions and reason, being (samsara) and non-being
(nirvana) are wedded. In yuganaddha, it is said, all wars and disputes between good and evil, heaven
and hell, day and night, dream and perception, joy and suffering, praise and contempt are pacified and
stilled. Mirada Shaw celebrates the embrace of the male and female Buddha as "an image of unity and
blissful concord between the sexes, a state of equilibrium and interdependence. This symbol
powerfully evokes a state of primordial wholeness an completeness of being" (Shaw, 1994, p. 200).