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

The “holy marriage” suspends the duality of the world and transforms it into a “work of art” of the
creative polarity. The resources of our discursive language are insufficient to let us express in words
the mystical fusion of the two sexes. Thus the “nameless” rapture can only be described in words
which say what it is not: in the yuganaddha, “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).
Once the dualism has been overcome, the distinction between self and other becomes irrelevant. Thus,
when man and woman encounter one another as primal forces, “egoness [is] lost, and the two polar
opposites fuse into a state of intimate and blissful oneness” (Walker, 1982, p. 67). The tantric
Adyayavajra described this process of the overcoming of the self as the “highest spontaneous
common feature” (Gäng, 1988, p. 85).
The co-operation of the poles now takes the place of the battle of opposites (or sexes). Body and
spirit, erotic love and transcendence, emotion and intellect, being (samsara) and not-being (nirvana)
become married. All wars and disputes between good and evil, heaven and hell, day and night, dream
and reality, joy and suffering, praise and contempt are pacified and suspended in the yuganaddha.
Miranda Shaw, a religious scholar of the younger generation, describes “a Buddha couple, or male
and female Buddha in union ... [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)
But is this state identical to the unconscious ecstasy we know from orgasm? Does the suspension of
opposites occur with both partners in a trance? No — in Tantrism god and goddess definitely do not
dissolve themselves in an ocean of unconsciousness. In contrast, they gain access to the non-dual
knowledge and thus discern the eternal truth behind the veil of illusions. Their deep awareness of the
polarity of all being gives them the strength to leave the “sea of birth and death” behind them.
Divine erotic love thus leads to enlightenment and salvation. But it is not just the two partners who
experience redemption, rather, as the tantras tell us, all of humanity is liberated through mystical
sexual love. In the Hevajra-Tantra, when the goddess Nairatmya, deeply moved by the misery of all
living creatures, asks her heavenly spouse to reveal the secret of how human suffering can be put to
an end, the latter is very touched by her request. He kisses her, caresses her, and, whilst in union with
her, he instructs her about the sexual magic yoga practices through which all suffering creatures can
be liberated (Dasgupta, 1974, p. 118). This “redemption via erotic love” is a distinctive characteristic
of Tantrism and only very seldom to be found in other religions.
Cultic worship of the sexual organs
What symbols are used to express this creative polarity in Vajrayana? Like many other cultures
Tantric Buddhism makes use of the hexagram, a combination of two triangles. The masculine
triangle, which points upward, represents the phallus, and the downward-pointing, feminine triangle
the vagina. Both of these sexual organs are highly revered in the rituals and meditations of Tantrism.
Another highly significant symbol for the masculine force and the phallus is a symmetrical ritual