Woman As Ultimate Spiritual Vessel

India is truly a land of living saints. By 'saints,' I suppose, I am speaking of people that abandon family and social status and wander where they will, sustaining themselves through the kindness of devotees. Yet due to the idealized roles ascribed to woman as housebound daughter, wife and mother, there have been a sparing few women saints in India. Still, those who manage to attain liberation are accorded great reverence, and even deified.

In the centuries, indeed, the long millennia that followed the extinction of the ancient forms of feminine yoga, many new male forms of ascetic technology appeared on the scene. These highly masculinized modes of asceticism laid great store in the esoteric interpretation of prāna (breath) as the Universal life-force. These designers were part of a wide-ranging religious movement generally designated by the term tantra. Such tantric yogins were comparable to sorcerers who practiced varieties of internal alchemy with the aim of evolving an immortal "diamond body."

But the ancient yoginī or "female yoga adept" appears to have had no hand in the drafting of the medieval tantric texts. She was not, however, excluded from their theories. In fact, the yoginī was explicitly acknowledged for her saintly demeanor and other-worldly powers. She was accorded the monumental role of Devi, the Great Goddess Śakti, and adored as the ultimate manifestation of nature's mysterious life-giving force. She was no longer viewed as an obstacle, but became instead the supreme spiritual vessel for the tantric yogin's emancipation. This engendered an ennobling super-sensual view of sexuality that sought to engage the action of the libido and the subconscious human instincts. The tantric yogi was said to be able to transcend the plane of gross sexuality and thereby align his yoga-fied being with the loftiest realms of saintliness. But these tantric disciplines always seem to strongly underscore that the "amorous coupling" is never to involve the flow of semen.

But are the parties involved in these mystical approaches to be regarded as sexual beings?

Yes. To be sure. But even more important, they are "sensual" beings. Yet it needs to be carefully understood that their special mode sensuality is beyond what we normally regard as "physicality" in that, for one example, it doesn't have the underlying procreative urge as with common human sexuality. So their sex is wholly "astral," to use a terribly misleading term. It is sex without pregnancy, sex without VD. And so, yes, such beings might even be regarded as "purely" sexual, at least to the extent that they have cast aside their foreign robes of flesh. In fact, it might even be stated that these yogis and yoginīs constitute an "variant gender role," a variant "Third" or "Fourth" sex, as it were.[1]

Foreign Robes of Flesh

You are living in a body: This is a fact. You have an intimate relation with a human body. But you are not the body. It is a curious conjunction – you in the body – costumed undetectable in foreign robes of flesh as you stubbornly continue asleep in the body: profound amnesiacs lost in the shadow play of a consciousness entombed in a brain in a body. As you persist oblivious to the luxury afforded you otherwise only through the process of death.

Feel free to explore these fathom-long bodies

Joined by the rarefied currents running through you.

Dilate the vein in a buoyant sense to traverse

Dour brainwave and pointillistic vision.

Bore to the unoccupy-able space

And dissolve in the mystic zone of expanse.

Meta-current lovers on private jihad.

Brilliant, in the body: insurgents of creation.

Affirmation: You are a house in the wind. Your windows are all open.

Community

As a wandering teacher I travel a great deal around the globe. I never stay in one place very long. In the winter of 1996-97, I stayed in Taiwan and conducted an intensive month-long seminar at a certain Buddhist monastery near Taichung. My students were all young nuns. It was a smashing success.

But it's a fact these days that yoga is far more popular with women than it is with men. This goes for not only the physical hatha-yoga, but for the more abstractly meditative practices as well. These appeal to women more than men. I wonder why? Maybe it's because in order to learn yoga one has to be open and vulnerable, and somehow flexible already.

Well whatever the reason, I always feel privileged to be able to educate women. And I learn a great deal from them in return. I recently heard an evocative phrase:

If you educate a man, you develop an individual. If you educate a woman, you develop a community.

Feminine Realms

There is a question often asked of me. This question expresses a common concern about the possible conflict between so-called Buddhist vipassanā meditation and yoga. But, it's always men who ask this question. I wonder why. Are men less able to let go of structures? Maybe this proves that in spite of its history, yoga endures as a feminine domain. Which suddenly reminds me of the rather sensational topic: the semi-legendary "female-realms" that were known in ancient India as Strī-rājya.

Like the ancient Greek legend of an Amazonian kingdom, the Indians recognized legendary strī-rājya. These were countries entirely ruled by women and where men were only used as laborers. There are several ancient citations of these states in Sanskrit, Chinese and Arabic literature.[2]

But only two classic writers make important mention of Strī-rājya. I will first mention Vatsyayana, the celebrated fourth-century CE author of Kāma Sūtra. Vatsyayana notes two Strī-rājya, thought to have existed variously in Afghanistan, Orissa, Assam, Nepal, Tibet or on a distant island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. In his famously explicit manual of eroticism and social conduct, Vatsyayana describes these "matriarchal countries" as places where "violent practices and brutal sexual behavior are required" to satisfy the women, where "dildos are much employed," and where women often hide young men in their apartments for sexual use.[3]

According to the popular writer Benjamin Walker, 'the women of these states were possessed of extraordinary beauty and seductiveness. They were adept in magic and the ability to lure men into their domains, and to extract their seed without having intercourse. They then used the seed to impregnate themselves. They gave birth to girls or boys. Girls were for keeping a stable female population and boys were for doing manual labor and providing a fresh supply of seed. These women were also "full of impetuous desire,"[4] Their passions could not be gratified by normal sexual intercourse with men but rather in a sort of communal orgy with a number of men and women devoting themselves to the orgasm of those females who were in the grip of passion (oestrum) and ready to make love. The men indulged with one woman after the other or collectively. In the words of one Hindu text, One man holds her down, another unites with her, a third massages her lips; a fourth man kisses her all over.[5] Sometimes the women had themselves thrashed till they bled, some favored sapphism.'[6]

Wandering Nuns & Erotic Ascetics

The mere indication of strī-rājya alone demonstrates that women in ancient India had, for various reasons, sought out gender-role variants counter to the customary 'secluded virgin, wife and mother' as prescribed in the time-honoured Dharma-sūtras (ca.7th-5th century BCE), ancient India's Legal Code.

Walter Penrose has shown great interest in the subject of female homoeroticism in South Asia. I am sampling bits of his excellent article, "Hidden in History,"[7] wherein the author examines prevailing "gender-role variants" particular to ancient India. One such role was the wandering mendicant (yoginī, sādhin, parivrājika, etc.) who appears throughout Sanskrit literature, sometimes in quite surprising situations. By becoming ascetics, ancient Indian women were choosing a lifestyle independent of men. Commonly recognized by their shaven heads, they moved about freely through societal structures, as would widows, actresses, musicians, and 'experts in affairs of love.'

Kautilya

Now, the second and probably more important ancient writer to cite Strī-rājya is Kautilya (more popularly known as Chanakya), the fourth-century BCE key advisor to the great emperor Chandragupta Maurya who ruled in the area of the present-day Ganges plain. In his Arthashastra, a classical treatise on government and security, Kautilya makes note of female mendicants that served as royal messengers. He even gives instructions on employing them as agents and spies:

A wandering nun may be a Brahmin (parivarāika)[8] or from another sect (vrshala) with their heads shaven. Such agents shall be recruited from poor but intrepid widows, who need to work for their living. They shall be treated with honor in the palace so that they may go into the houses of high officials freely.[9]

But they could also be used to test the loyalties of the king's own ministers, writes Kautilya:

For the kāma ("passion") test, a wandering nun shall be used to gain the confidence of a minister in order to convey the suggestion that the Queen is in love with him. Much wealth and a meeting with her shall be promised. If any minister refuses to be tempted, he is clean.[10]

Thus, by adopting the role of a wandering ascetic, these independent women who had renounced married life acquired "safe haven" in the status of a variant gender role, plus access a viable economic support system. But she also gained the chance "to adopt some features of androgynous dress (hairstyle, in particular)," states Penrose, "and to have homoerotic relations with other women."[11] And to this point, Vatsyayana, too, makes mention of wandering female mendicants who serve as go-betweens to arrange secret trysts between adulterers.[12] But he also lists these "female ascetics" as potential teachers of adolescent girls in the arts of love.[13]

So this really does suggest, as O'Flaherty remarks, that "asceticism" was defined very differently in ancient India than it was in the West. Because it is

...not entirely clear that "ascetic" women always refrained from having sex with men, and it is even less clear that they refrained from having sex with other women. To the Westerner, this may seem confusing, since we expect "ascetics" to have sex with no one.[14]

Why Did Women Found "Women Only" States?

Perhaps in spite of ancient India's ostensible tolerance to a comparatively complex system of gender variances – marked, in particular, by broad acceptance of male-male marriages – there seems to have been nearly no social status conferred on woman-woman relationships. For instance, while both male-male and male-female marriages are mentioned in Kāma Sūtra,[15] there is no citation of woman-woman conjugality. However in Yashodhara's ca. twelfth-century CE Kāma Sūtra Commentary, one gains a glimpse into the conflicting attitudes towards male and female homoeroticism in early India.

[Male] citizens behave in this kind of inclination, who renounce women and can do without them willingly because they love each other, get married together, bound by a deep and trusting friendship.

"Do this to me and afterward I will do it to you." Arranging their bodies in contrary positions, they are indifferent to everything in their moments of passion. They are of two kinds, according to whether they are together openly and without complexes, or [secretive]. Women behave in the same way. Sometimes, in the secret of their inner rooms, with total trust in each other, they lick each other's vulva, just like whores.[16]

So while men could "marry" and live together openly, same-sex relations between two women were apparently restricted to the "secrecy of their inner rooms." But even more revealing – though of what, I don't know – is that the women are likened to "whores" who lick each other's vulvas. But, indeed, this is an area that calls for more study.

I shall now to return to more "hetero-normative" issues.

Buddha Versus Yoga

So when addressing men's concerns about the possible conflict between so-called Buddhist meditation and Yoga, it's important that I to speak to them with soothing diplomacy. I need to play the role of nurturing Mother (I am sometimes known as Kālī Tantra).

"Yes, yes," I gently assure them. "You can practice meditation and yoga together. But if you practice meditation very effectively, then you don't need to practice yoga at all!"

At other times, I tell them: "All right then. If you're already practicing 'Buddhist' meditation, then put it up high on the Buddhist altar. If you still want to add some yoga to your practice, then place it at the bottom. – Put yoga down!" I plainly encourage them.

In Thailand – where I have lived off-and-on for many years – I am continually confronted with the perennial conflict of "Buddha versus Yoga." It's ridiculous. I have seen Buddhist temple murals where, in the lower portions of the compositions, 'yogi/rishis' are depicted with erect penises bulging beneath their garments. I remember one mural that grouped such yogi/rishis together with a clutch of masturbating rabbits. Needless to say, the higher portions of these stylized paintings were reserved for the reverend members of the Buddhist clergy. This is only to illustrate how over the centuries the Thais have been culturally induced to believe that yoga is a corrupt and depraved occupation, while generic Buddhist meditation techniques such as satipatthāna and vipassanā, are held to be hallowed and inviolable regimes. But, again, these are long-held cultural convictions, and the Thais are above all a very traditional Buddhist people with deeply established ways of looking at the world. And what is more, their views are worthy of respect.

"Yoga is the high school of Buddhism," I tell them. "Meditation is the University. But how many people can go to University without first passing through high school?"

It is the nature of yoga to assume supporting roles.

Where To Place Your Bottom

But before meditation (or what would better be called "reflective trance"), you have to learn āsana. Āsana is basic to the practice of yoga. Āsana means a "seated pose," it means, how to fold your legs and where to place bottom. But few of us can sit in pūrna-padma-āsana or "full-lotus pose." Much more common is ardha-padma-āsana or "half-lotus pose." But whatever the pose you happen to adopt, don't forget: you will still be practicing a basic form of yoga. But I should also mention that in India – as in Thailand – āsana refers to more than just the way you perch your bottom. Āsana also means 'the thing you perch your bottom on.' So, the platform, seat or rug a yogi sits on is also called his āsana. Āsana is something that gives firm support.[17]

Anyone that hopes to practice meditation should be able to sit with ease and comfort. Your posture should also be firm and stable. Sitting like this, you are practicing yoga. So you can never separate yoga from meditation, neither meditation from yoga. And for just this reason it can rightly said that Siddhārtha Gautama, the Historical Buddha, achieved Enlightenment while actually practicing yoga. According to the legend, the Buddha was sitting in the full-lotus pose when he gained his renowned Liberation.

Hatha-yoga

The most prevalent form of yoga is the West is known as Hatha-yoga. But it is often criticized – both rightly and wrongly – as a physically indulgent discipline that neglects the development of the mind. This is because Hatha-yoga employs a wide variety of āsanas that go far beyond the seated meditative pose. But understood properly, these āsanas are "attitudes" designed to make the body strong and flexible – balanced and graceful – healthy and fit. Āsanas also increase the body's reservoir of subtle energy. This accumulated charge can further be used as a focal point in the yogi's meditation. So we are speaking here of yoga as a body meditation.

It would be well worth repeating, then, for many of my readers that a fundamental principle of Buddhist yoga is that everything we need to know is contained within our "fathom-long body." Doctrine is not necessary. Rites and rituals are also not at all necessary. Everything is contained within this very body. This is unequivocally affirmed in the hallowed tradition of satipatthāna-yoga where especial attention is placed on the body and where the yogi becomes conscious of "all those physiological acts he had previously performed automatically and unconsciously."[18] Stated succinctly: contemplation of the corporal structure has always been the basis of Buddhist Yoga.[19] According to the scriptural words of the Buddha,

It is within this fathom-long body, my friend, with its impressions and ideas that you will find the world, and the cause of the world, and the end of the world, and the strategy that leads to the end of the world.[20]