Tantric View of Life

196 Pages·1976·8.876 MB·English

by  Herbert V. Guenther

THE TANTRIC
VIEW OF LIFE
By HERBERT V. GUENTBER
t
sHAM BHA LA
THE CLEAR LIGHT SERIES
BOULDER AND LONDON 1976
SHAMBHALA PuBLICATIONs, INc.
1123 Spruce Street
Boulder, Colorado 80302
First paperback edition 1976.
© 1972 Herbert V. Guenther
All rights reserved.
ISBN 0-87773-088-1
LCC 78-146511
Distributed in the United States
by Random House and in Canada by
Random House of Canada Ltd.
Printed in the United States.
This book is published in THE CLEAR LIGHT SERIES
dedicated toW. Y. Evans-Wentz. The series is
edited by Samuel Bercholz.
TO THE MEMORY OF
]. R. McCULLOUGH

Contents
Prtface page ix
BEING-THE QUINTESSENCE OF TANTRA XI
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TANTRA I
THE BODY AS ON-GOING EMBODIMENT 6
THE MIND AND THE WORLD OF APPEARANCE 22
ECSTATIC BLISS AND EMOTIONAL ENTANGLEMENT 37
THE WAY AND THE APPARENT EROTICISM OF TANTRISM 57
SYMBOLS OF UNITY AND TRANSFORMATION 78
THE GOAL IS TO BE I 17
KARMAMUDRA AND JAANAMUDRA IN ART I40
Notes 148
Bibliography 158
Index I6o
VIJ
List of Plates
1-11 SCULPTURES FROM NAGARJUNAKO~J?A pages 20 & 21
III-IV SCULPTURES FROM NAGARJUNAKO~J?A J6 & 37
52 & 53
V-VI SCULPTURES FROM NAGARJUNAKO~J?A
VII-VIII SCULPTURES FROM NAGARJUNAKO~J?A 68 & 69
IX SCULPTURE FROM NAGARJUNAKO~J?A 84
X VAJRADHARA (RDO-RJE-'CHANG): SYMBOL OF THE
ABSOLUTE IN ITS POLARITY ASPECT
XI SAHAJA (LHAN-CIG-SKYES-PA): SYMBOL OF SPONTA
NEITY AND ECSTATIC BLISS 100
XII WHITE TARA 101
XIII GREEN TARA IJ2
XIV U~~i~AVIJAYA: SYMBOL OF SUPREME BUDDHA-
AWARENESS IJJ
XV MA~J?ALA OF AVALOKITESVARA
XVI MA~J?ALA OF MANJUSRi 149
Vlll
Preface
T
HE word Tantrism has become an accepted term in the
English language, but apart from this fact there is little evi
dence that any serious attempt has been made to clarify what this
word implies and what that for which it stands means to the in
dividual who becomes involved with the discipline of Tantrism.
Generalizations about Tantrism are, as a rule, misleading because
they rest on an insufficient factual basis. Before we can generalize
we must know something of the underlying premises which have
been guiding the development of Tantrism through the ages.
In this book I have endeavoured to deal with these premises on
the basis of indigenous Tibetan texts, rather than with individual
Sanskrit works and their translations (although they, too, have
been utilized) because the indigenous Tibetan texts go to the
very root of Tantrism. The limitation of this approach is that I
deal with Buddhist, not Hinduist, Tantrism; the advantage of
this approach is that I avoid confusing ideas that have nothing to
do with each other.
It is my conviction that Tantrism in its Buddhist form is of the
utmost importance for the inner life of man and so for the future
of mankind. If the life of the spirit is to be invigorated, there must
be a new vision and understanding, and there is hardly anything
of such value as the study of the experiences and the teaching of
the Buddhist Tantrics. For Tantrism is founded on practice and
on an intimate personal experience of reality, of which traditional
religions and philosophies have given merely an emotional or
intellectual description, and for Tantrism reality is the ever
present task of man to be.
The critical references to Western ideas, ass urn ptions, and
conclusions are not meant as a disparagement, but as a means to
IX
PREFACE
highlight the contrast between two divergent conceptual frame
works, the one, predominantly mechanical and theistically
nomothetic; the other, basically dynamic and existentially
appreciative. Unless these points of divergence are made clear
only a mystificatory hotchpotch and a cheap sentimentalism
result.
I am greatly indebted to the Government of India, Archaeo
logical Survey, for making available photographs of relevant
sculptures.
I am also deeply grateful to my colleague Keith Scott for
valuable criticism, to James Valby and, above all, my wife for
preparing the typescript and the index.
X