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Is the Tantra a sex-obsessed corruption of Buddhism? Padmavajra thinks not.
The last great phase in the historical development of Indian Buddhism was known as the Vajrayana (literally, 'The Thunderbolt Way) Its major contribution to Buddhism was a number of new and radical practices leading to Enlightenment.
The Vajrayana's aim was to bring the practitioner to Enlightenment as quickly as possible, and one of its central concerns was the liberalization and canalization of more and more of the practitioner's energy. Part of its way of effecting this was through sexual 4metaphor, sexual symbolism, and even through what have been called 'sexo-yogic' practices.
Because of its apparent use of sex as an aspect of spiritual practice, the Vajrayana has provoked two extreme responses in the West. In the early days of Buddhist studies, the Vajrayana was generally condemned as a corruption of the sublime ideals of Buddhism. More recent interest has tended to the other extreme. Some are attracted to the Vajrayana precisely because of its apparent sanctification of desire in general, and sexual desire in particular. In a recent exposition of the Vajrayana by a Tibetan teacher, we find the following, '...if desire for a woman arises, it must be relied upon...'. Such a presentation of the Vajrayana would seem to suggest that being a Buddhist does not involve changing ourselves. We can, apparently, keep hold of our desires as they will lead us to Enlightenment.
The truth behind the use of sexual themes in the Vajrayana is, as might be expected, far from either of the extremes mentioned. Though we are dealing with a vast and complex subject, it is possible to discern three distinct (though related) aspects of the place of sex in the Vajrayana. Firstly, there is the shock value of sexual language. For example, in the canonical texts of the Vajrayana - the Tantras - which flourished in India roughly between the 4th and 10th centuries CE, we can find sexual intercourse with the chaodali (outcaste girl) and prostitutes being recommended. At that time, contact - what to speak of sexual congress - with an outcaste, according to Hindu society (back to which Buddhism had to some extent been drawn), would have been deemed spiritually polluting. But, in making such recommendations, the Vajrayana was simply trying to shock people out of their mundane social conditioning. It was seeking to liberate the energy locked up in the convention and taboo of Hindu society.
Whether or not these recommendations were enacted is an open question. Stephan Beyer enthusiastically describes the followers of the Vajrayana thus: 'They sang of wisdom as the great Whore, for she opens herself to every man who seeks her, ...made love to the spontaneous maiden within them, and preached a world upside down, ... and were altogether quite outrageous and shocking to all good and sober citizens. It would be interesting to ponder how the Vajrayana would speak to our own age, where sexual license has become a kind of norm. If they wanted to shock people out of their conditioning today, the old followers of the Vajrayana might have to appear as rock bands singing about the ecstasies of celibacy!
In that passage quoted from Stephan Beyer, we read that the followers of the Vajrayana 'made love to the spontaneous maiden with...
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