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

This almost limitless extension of the two principles has led to a situation in which they are only
rarely critically examined. Do they stand in a truly polar relation to one another? Why — we ask —
does “wisdom” need “method”? Somehow this pair of opposites do not fit together — can there even
be an unmethodical, chaotic “wisdom”? Isn’t prajna (wisdom) enough on its own; does it not include
“method” as a partial aspect of itself? What is an “unmethodical” wisdom? Even if we translate upaya
— as is often done — as ‘technique’, we still do not have a convincing polar correspondence to
prajna. This combination also seems far-fetched — why should “technique” and “wisdom” meet in a
mystic wedding? The opposition becomes even more absurd and profane if we translate upaya (as it is
clearly intended) as “cunning means” or even “trick” or “ruse” (Wilber, 1987, p. 310). [2] Whereas
with “wisdom” one has some idea of what is meant, comprehending the technoid term upaya presents
major difficulties. We must thus examine it in more detail.
“At all events”, writes David Snellgrove, a renowned expert on Tantrism, “it must be emphasized that
here Means remains a doctrinal concept, serving as means to an end, and in no sense can this concept
be construed as an end in itself, as is certainly the case with perfection of wisdom
[prajna]” (Snellgrove, 1987, vol. 1, p. 283). “Method” is thus an instrument which is to be combined
with a content, “wisdom”. “Wisdom”, Snellgrove adds, “can be seen as representing the evolving
universe” (Snellgrove, 1987, vol. 1, p. 244). Due to the distribution of both principles along gender
lines this has a feminine quality.
The instrumental “method”, which is assigned to the masculine sphere, thus proves itself — as we
shall explain in more detail — to be a sacred technique for controlling the feminine “wisdom”. Upaya
is nothing more than an instrument of manipulation, without any unique content or substance of its
own. Method is at best the means to an end (i.e., wisdom). Analytical reserve and technical precision
are two of its fundamental properties. Since wisdom — as we can infer from the quotation from
Snellgrove — represents the entire universe, upaya is the method with which the universe can be
manipulated; and since prajna represents the feminine principle and upaya the masculine, their union
implies a manipulation of the feminine by the masculine.
To illustrate this process, we should take a quick look at a Greek myth which recounts how Zeus
acquired wisdom (Metis). One day the father of the gods swallowed the female Titan Metis. (In
Greek, metis means “wisdom”.) “Wisdom” survived in his belly and gave him advice from there.
According to this story then, Zeus’s sole contribution toward the development of “his” wisdom was a
cunning swallow. With this coarse but effective method (upaya) he could now present himself as the
fount of all wisdom. He even became, through the birth of Athena, the masculine “bearer” of feminine
prajna. Metis, the mother of Athena, actually gives birth to her daughter in the stomach of the father
of the gods, but it is he who brings her willy-nilly into the world. In full armor, Athene, herself a
symbol of wisdom, bursts from the top of Zeus’s skull. She is the “head birth” of her father, the
product of his ideas.
Here, the swallowing of the feminine and its imaginary (re)production (head birth) are the two
techniques (upaya) with which Zeus manipulates wisdom (prajna, Metis, Athene) to his own ends.
We shall later see how vividly this myth illustrates the process of the tantric mystery.
At any rate, we would like to hypothesize that the relation between the two tantric principles of
“wisdom” and “method” is neither one of complementarity, nor polarity, nor even antinomy, but