Exploring the role of sexuality in Vajrayāna Buddhism

There is perhaps a generalised view that sexuality within Vajray?na Buddhism gives the practitioner ‘the best of both worlds’. My aim is to provide a more critical analysis of the practice of sexuality in an effort to dispel the myths surrounding the use of it for anything other than religious purposes. Practitioners of Vajray?na Buddhism have taken their ideologies mostly from that of Mahayana Buddhism and incorporated their own values within it, encompassing some rather Hindu-like beliefs, which have caused a lot of misunderstanding and even hostility with other practicing Buddhists. The place of sexuality is often criticised in the Vajray?na practice. Buddhists following other paths believe that the union of two people goes against the celibacy vows of the monks, which it appears to do, although, the practitioners of Vajray?na have provided doctrines to counter this belief. Symbolism also plays a major part in the sexuality of Vajray?na Buddhism. While the union of couples is practiced in the flesh, there is room for it to be a symbolic act rather than a full blown act of intercourse, which provides a way for monks to follow the monastic vow of celibacy. Although it is thought to be incredibly powerful to harness human sexuality which in turn provides a way of liberation, both by joining the prajn? (female/wisdom) with karun? (male/method) which creates non-duality and an androgynous singular formation, it also links in with the idea of breaking free from the ideas of what is considered pure and impure. These ideas and practices encourage the practitioner to accept the idea that everything is in fact empty, and that in practicing this type of religion, they are realising the way to liberation which they believe is a more succinct way than their Mahayana counterparts.

Harnessing human sexuality in the quest for liberation is an important part of the Vajray?na practice. It is not so much the actual act of sexual intercourse that is important, but rather that one realises the symbolism surrounding the union of deities. Depicted in this fashion, it was thought that the qualities of each individual deity merged into one. As suggested by Cabezón, the act in a sense formed the creation of something new, in turn breaking through the idea of dualism or two separate entities, and to illustrate this, the deities were depicted in sexual union:

The psychosexual imagery assimilated into Buddhism with the development of Vajray?na provides a rich elaboration of the nondualistic bipolarity incipient in the Prajn?p?ramit?. [a feminised term which means something along the lines of: ‘the mother of all Buddha’s/wisdom personified, used in reference to a set of shortened texts]. Basic psychological states of mind, especially those conductive to or disruptive of liberation, were symbolised as both masculine and feminine deities, each with its own consort of the opposite sex, and enlightenment, the optimum mode of existence, was depicted in terms of a sexual union representing the androgynous ideal (Cabezón, p ).

Thus, the idea of non-duality can be seen in the androgynous single deity, who was neither male nor female, but both. The practice of copulation was not seen in terms of creating new life, or satisfying sexual needs, but about realising that the way to reach salvation was encompassed in the idea that everything is inseparable, non-dual, as is expressed by Dasgupta in the following quote, “The synthesis or rather the unification of all duality in absolute unity is the real principle of union” (Dasgupta, p 113).

This non-dual union is known as the joining of prajn? (female/wisdom) with karun? (male/method). There are different symbolic representations that are associated with this union, and in general it is known as the unification of wisdom with compassion, which as A. Tribe wrote in his work are the “twin aspects of awakened cognition” (Tribe, 161). One symbolic representation of this joining can be seen in the bell and vajra tantra which is described by Tribe in the quote below:

Held along with a bell, the latter usually in the left hand, the vajra now symbolises compassion and the bell wisdom. Together they stand for the non-dual unity of the awakened mind. As has been noted, this unity can also be symbolised by the sexual union of male and female tantric deities. This sexual unity can itself be symbolised by holding the vajra and bell in a particular way, known as the embrace gesture (mudr?). The vajra thus comes to be associated with the male figure in sexual union (Tribe, 164).

However, not all of the practice revolves around the symbolism of sexual intercourse, and indeed, the actual practice of it was considered an incredibly powerful thing. Sexual fluids were thought to be extremely powerful and ingesting them in some way was the ultimate act done in the highest yoga’s. A female consort would be chosen and given to the practitioner’s teacher who would copulate with her and the mingled fluids would be fed to the practitioner. This was believed to give the practitioner what was termed as ‘ultimate bliss’. It is this practice which has received a lot of attention, and more often than not, negative attention for its seeming lewdness.

One aspect that seems increasingly negative in regards to this act is the usage of women. It appears incredibly derogatory to have a woman given to a man who uses her sexually before she is then given on to her tantric partner. However, in religious terms, many women held high status within Tantric Buddhism, both as teachers and as dakini’s, or deities of great wisdom. Many times these women were in fact considered wiser than their male consorts. Tribe writes, “In scriptures women are given high status, and regarded as the embodiment and source of wisdom. In the milieu of tantric practice there is evidence that women functioned both as practitioners and teachers” (Tribe p 155). Here it is seen that they are given the prestige of being not only wise, but also the embodiment of wisdom. Whether or not this justifies the sexual use of them in the practice is debatable. Many times the women chosen were young and beautiful; however, there is not much mention as to how young or handsome their consorts were. In a European sense, it would appear to be a rather shocking prospect to be given up to the ritual acts of tantra, but for the women who grew up with this as an everyday part of their lives, it was probably an incredible honour to be chosen.

One of the other negativity’s felt by other practicing Buddhists in the use of sexuality was that it appeared to dispel the celibacy vows that were taken by the monks, and in a way provided a path towards enlightenment that could be achieved by virtually anyone, including lay people. However, the rituality of the actual act of intercourse within Vajray?na does not leave much room for the average lay person to achieve enlightenment. It is not simply an act of a purely sexual union between two people, but rather an exploration into a world of religious ritual which when examined closer, as it will be further into this paper, can be seen as the incredibly difficult form of self control and mastery that it really is.

Another idea central to the practice of Vajray?na that differs from other forms of Buddhism is the idea of abandoning the distinctions between what is considered pure and impure, by engaging rather than renouncing it. There are many things that Buddhists are supposed to renounce, all of which were embraced by the practitioners of Vajray?na. Some of the more shocking things included spending time in burial grounds, eating defecation, and of course performing sexual intercourse rather than abstaining from it. Embracing the forbidden in Vajray?na Buddhism seems to provide them with the belief that being capable to do such things and remain aloof from it provides a way towards their ultimate goal of salvation as can be seen in the quote from Tribe below:

“…the idea that since awakened cognition (jn?na) is in some sense non-dual, the tantric practitioner can approach that non-dual state by transcending attachment to dual categories such as pure and impure, permitted and forbidden. Thus the Candamah?rosana Tantra states that ‘never should the practitioner think in terms of “edible” or “inedible”, “to be done” or “not to be done”; on the contrary, he ‘should remain with a composed mind, the embodiment of Innate Bliss alone.’ ” (A. Tribe p 173)

Practice of such things should be done with an open mind and emptiness within your heart. It appears to be a little about shocking others, but it is also considered by the practitioners of Vajray?na as a very powerful religious ritual practice. Involving oneself in acts that are considered by others as impure is suggestive of being totally separated from the distinctions which are in fact, empty themselves. The practitioners of Vajray?na are in effect distancing themselves from the stigma’s surrounding what is acceptable and unacceptable, which for them, proves they know that the world and everything within it, is empty.

This idea leads to the other important aspect revolving around the issue of sexuality within the Vajray?na practice. The idea of emptiness and overcoming dualities. Everything within Vajray?na is considered empty, which is elaborated on by Dasgupta who writes; “Vajra [thunderbolt]…is the void (sunyat?) – and in Vajra-y?na everything is Vajra – i.e. perfect void…even the woman to be adopted for the yogic practices was called the vajra-kany? or the ‘thunder or, void girl’ ” (Dasgupta, p 72-3). Thus it can be seen that the practitioners of Vajray?na follow the idea of emptiness, therefore what they actually practice holds no real meaning to them other than for the religious purpose of attaining enlightenment by realisation, wisdom and correct tantric practice. Hopkins writes:

…the usage of desire in the path is explicitly for the sake of enhancing the wisdom consciousness…The difficulty of using an orgasmic blissful consciousness to realize anything indicates that it would take a person of great psychological development and capacity to be able to utilize such a subtle state in the path. It also indicates how, without the contextualization of how and why sexual union is used in the path, the practice could be mis-used or misinterpreted (Hopkins, p 35-6).

It is true that the practices of Vajray?na can and often are misunderstood by those who do not realise the purpose for which they are being used. It is also an interesting idea to view the sexual union in the way described above. The sexuality of human beings is a very difficult thing to harness for many people and indeed leads a lot of them to dispair and sometimes personal ruin. There are always stories of people whose lives have been ruined by the power of sexuality. To harness this and use it with no other means than to achieve religious enlightenment would take a huge amount of self control and restraint.

Sexual practice in the Vajray?na tradition then holds a very important place. Deity unification of male and female consorts into one androgynous being provides the followers with an ideal which they can strive towards. The non-duality of this combination of prajna with karuna suggests the linkage of the best parts of the female and male consorts resulting in a being that is capable of great compassion and wisdom. It is not so difficult to see why this would be considered an achievable path towards enlightenment. In this light, it would appear that women were not simply beings used in the process of male enlightenment, and many tantras even discuss the importance of women teachers. They do in fact seem to hold some equality with their male consorts. The practitioners of Vajray?na realised that sexual fluids held a great power and harnessed this for their own religious benefit, which in a way helped towards their belief of abandoning the ideas of what is pure and impure. Instead of renouncing the things that other Buddhists did, they embraced them and used this practice in order to achieve enlightenment. The realisation of emptiness provided an important way to deal with the impure ideals of other Buddhists. Emptiness to the Vajray?na practitioners is inherent in everything, and therefore impurities are empty and not to be feared or repulsed by. In conclusion, sexuality while being a highly debatable part of the Vajray?na tradition does have its place, and though it has been widely unaccepted in many traditions, it appears to hold a very strong ritualistic place within the Tantric Buddhist tradition that can be justified when explored in a purely neutral way.

List of Works Consulted

Cabezón, J. I. Buddhism, Sexuality and Gender, State University of New York Press, Albany, (1956)

Dasgupta, S. B. An Introduction to T?ntric Buddhism, University of Calcutta, Calcutta, (1958)

Harrison, P. The Buddhist Tradition, Lectures 15 & 17, University of Canterbury, (2003)

Hopkins, J. Kalachakra Tantra, Rite of Initiation, Wisdom Publications, Boston, (1999)

Skilton, A. A Concise History of Buddhism, Windhorse Publications, Birmingham, (1994)

Tribe, A. “Mantray?na/Vajray?na – Tantric Buddhism in India” Chapter 7 pp. 151-163: RELS 227 Course Reader, (2003)