The Tantric Shaman

Continued from Mind-Altering Practices...

From an Asian perspective, there are certain classes of non-physical beings that thrive on the energy that is generated by warfare and killing. The Tibetans have up to eight classes of beings that affect humanity in different ways. Epidemic disease is associated with a specific class of being which feeds off of the energy of the dying.

In many of the traditions of China, India and Tibet, the tantric shaman has the ability to fulfill any of these aforementioned functions when fully trained. These shamans become mahasiddhas who have united the Three Bodies. This is the highest level of power. In many civilizations, the first king or ruler was a tantric shaman. In China, this includes the Yellow Emperor and Lao Tzu.

Tantric shamans have attained power through successful practices that often include fasting and sensory deprivation, as well as sexual yoga. This type of shaman employs dreams, visions, and inter-dimensional travel in order to retrieve useful information from other realms for all the members of the tribe, clan, or community.

Shamans serve as intermediaries between the worlds of the dead and the living. Shamans have the ability to guide the souls of the departed to their next destinations. Shamans translate the inner meanings of dreams for the benefit of the tribe.

The majority of descriptions of ascending or descending (journeys to an "upper," "middle" or "lower" world) are based on shamanic intervention on behalf of a student or patient. A shaman's journey is the defining practice of shamanic visionary experience.

In many tribes in Siberia, the shaman has to have experienced eight dismemberments of the subtle body. This is one of the key characteristics of shamanic initiation. This experience of dismemberment is also the basis of the Chod practice of Tibetan Buddhism, wherein the practitioner visualizes dismembering him/herself and offering the body parts to various "guests” at the ritual feast.

Until the latter decade of the twentieth century, Western science did not include the concept of multiple worlds, but this has been the basis of the shamanic worldview for thousands of years. The Western physicists' discoveries that echo Buddhist billion-world theory have confirmed the essential shamanic worldview: there are many parallel dimensions, and our waking reality obscures our perception of these other worlds. They are always present, but most of us cannot observe or visit them. Shamans can.

The Seventh Yoga of Naropa: Forceful Entry (Switching Bodies)

The forceful entry is a legendary yoga that is said to have been lost in its complete form in Tibet, although Indian yogis claim to have preserved the tradition. Like many of the yogas, there are two or three versions. The art of hypnosis, for example, is described in medieval India not as suggestion but as forcefully entering another's body and controlling them. The most important idea of forceful entry is that it is possible for an adept to switch his consciousness from one body to another without dying and without discontinuity of consciousness. The idea would be that the yogi who possesses this skill is able to transfer his consciousness from an aged body to that of another body. In China it was believed that it was possible to transfer consciousness into the child of a wealthy family, resulting in enhanced material benefits. There is a recurrent legend in China that Taoists who have been traveling out of body have returned to find their physical body cremated and thus were forced to enter the body of a recently deceased individual in the area in order to maintain an earthly existence. This is the basis of one of the stories from China of the Eight immortals (eight Taoist masters of ancient times).

One of the most beloved figures of the Eight Immortals is Ti Kuai Li or Iron Crutch Li. He is usually shown with a crutch and a gourd that contains medicinal herbs; he is associated with medicine and healers. He is known as an irascible and unpredictable figure and, since he has the form of a beggar, is known to fight for the rights of the poor and needy.

He was not always a crippled beggar. One time when he had left his body to go to the mountains to do his spiritual cultivation (some say with Lao Tzu himself), he gave precise instructions to one of his students that if he was not back in seven days to burn his body. Unfortunately, while he was away his student got news that his mother was very ill and on death’s door. Even though it had only been six days that his master had been gone his student decided that he had waited long enough; he burned his master’s body and then took off for his home village to visit his ailing mother. So when the master returned after being gone for seven days he found that his body was now a heap of ashes. Desperate, he was forced to enter the body of dead beggar he found at the side of the road, who had a crippled leg. From then on he inhabited this unfortunate body, hence his often terrible temper.

The idea of being trapped without a body, or consciousness traveling from body to body, is relatively common in yogic alchemical literature.

The Fourth Yoga of Naropa: Clear Light Yoga

The idea of clear light and the experiences associated with practitioners who have had luminous meditation experiences is probably the most important theme in the Tibetan yogic worldview; experiences of luminosity are common to many other meditation practices as well. It is believed in the Tibetan view that at the time of death there is a universal experience of seeing a brilliant white radiance, which is considered to be the underlying reality itself. The belief is that an unprepared person is terrified by the brilliance of the void in its luminous form and flees, preventing true liberation; liberation results when the practitioner can unite with the clear light of the void without fear.

Almost all Tibetan practices are said to be preparation for navigating the death experience successfully. The Dalai Lama describes meditation as a means for the practitioner to achieve deeper and deeper levels of clear light during his or her lifetime. In China, Bodhidharma (470-543 A.D.), the founder of Zen, describes a number of clear light experiences in his famous Bloodstream Sermon. He says these experiences occur prior to complete enlightenment, which he describes as seeing your true nature or Original Face.

The Second Yoga of Naropa: Dream Yoga

The goal of this practice is to have lucid dreams. Many Tibetan texts have been created by Tibetans dreaming and communicating with deities. Tibetan literature is believed to be a creation between the tantric deities and the Tibetan masters.

Dream yoga is an ancient practice based on the idea that gaining lucidity or awareness that one is dreaming while one is dreaming provides a quantum leap of awareness. The practitioner uses self-suggestion until lucidity occurs and success is said to provide great spiritual and health benefits to the practitioner. Like all Asian arts, dream yogic practices are transmitted in a teacher to student lineage, usually with an initiation ceremony of some kind.

In Tibet, it could be argued that dreams within dreams are from other dimensions. Skilled practitioners can communicate with enlightened deities, ancestors, etc. and bring this information back as powerful teachings.

Many Western scholars ignore the influence of dreams and their consequences within shamanic cultures. Western society has lost the ability to use dreaming as a survival tool. Hunter-gatherer cultures are essentially based on the visions or dreams of the shamans who function as intermediaries between the world of the living and the world of the dead. It is normal for example, within a hunter-gatherer culture, for individuals to be guided by dreams with either ancestors or animal guardians. Similarly, in China, many of the meditation lineages in both Buddhism and Taoism consider consciousness projection to be one of the results of successful energy cultivation. The founder of the water-boxing martial arts system, Chen Tuan, was known to leave his body for 100-day periods. Here once again we have the primordial archetype of a shaman who can hibernate like a bear while he travels out of body for three months intervals; during this time fellow practitioners were guarding his body.

The First Yoga of Naropa: Yoga of Psycho

The first of the Six Yogas of Naropa is tummo (inner heat); it is the yoga of psycho - physical heat. This practice uses a combination of visualization and breathing techniques that eventually result in the adept being able to survive arctic temperatures with very little clothing. It is said that in 1100 A.D., Milarepa, the most well - known Tibetan to have completed the Six Yogas, was able to spend all winter in the Himalayas in a light cotton garment.

____________________________________________________

TUMMO/INNER HEAT. Tummo is Tibetan for “inner fire” and is one of the Six Yogas of Naropa. It includes regulation of the breath, concentration on the navel center or in the lower abdomen and visualization of sacred syllables.Traditionally in Tibet, a practitioner of tummo would be tested by being put out naked into the snow and then having wet sheets wrapped around their body. Then they would need to generate enough heat within their body to dry multiple sheets.

____________________________________________________

Heat yoga is probably among the oldest practices, dating back to shamanic hunter- gatherer cultures. Like many of the techniques and practices we will be discussing, the original technique led to physiological, transformative results. These results provided a greatly enhanced survival advantage, which was then passed down to descendants, probably both genetically and culturally. Thus, any culture that had to exist in extremely cold climates appears to have linked inner heat with both a survival and a consciousness- illuminating affect.

In China, at the hunter-gatherer level of development, survival was largely based on skill derived from hereditarily transmitted animal martial arts systems. Each village or clan had a specific animal guardian with a system of corresponding martial arts, often based on sword, spear, and a variety of other weapons; these systems were used to protect the tribe from marauders. Very few students of Zen realize that one of the oldest sayings from the Shaolin temple, the legendary source of both Zen and martial arts, is "kill the leader of the bandits and you save the whole village."

The basis for all martial arts systems is chi development; martial arts skills are determined by the amount of heat that the individual has been able to generate through specific breathing, visualization and meditation practices. Energy cultivation is the basis of both the martial arts and medical traditions dating back toprehistoric times in Asia.

Essentially, an individual who mastered these practices could be expected to live to a much greater age than most people as well as maintain a very high level of health. In theory, this would allow the clans that had mastered these techniques to survive and reproduce successfully at a much greater rate than those who were not able to master this yogic skill. Heat yoga can compensate for nutritional inadequacy in winter months, so fasting practices could benefit those in times of extreme cold or famine. Heat yoga and fasting practices are techniques that ultimately became the basis of many Tibetan yogic systems.

Even in modern times, martial arts masters are able to fight successfully past their seventies. There have been many cases in which elderly practitioners successfully defeated challengers or armed opponents. In one story, Wang Pei Sheng, a well-known master, defeated four Japanese soldiers carrying bayonets with his bare hands, using tai chi skills, during the Japanese occupation of Beijing. Similarly, in Japan, the belief was that one true samurai armed with a sword could defeat ten armed opponents. In China, the belief has always been that success in combat is determined by the level of chi development of the practitioner. In modern times, these arts have continued to be transmitted because of their health benefits and their associations with longevity. In ancient times, the medical system, the martial arts system and the system of spiritual cultivation were not separate; you see this in the monastic teaching systems that existed in China, Tibet and India.

Six Yogas of Naropa

The Six Yogas of Naropa are a collection of techniques passed down by enlightened couples, many of whom have achieved the permanent union of the Three Bodies. These yogas can be done before or during death, with the understanding that some yogis can only achieve full Buddhahood at the time of death. Each of the techniques is considered a complete method of transcendence in and of itself; the Six Yogas represent a collection of practices of a number of Mahasiddhas. In many ways, the Six Yogas appear to be based on the original shamanic and yogic methods of inner power development; the most complete form results in the union of the Three Bodies.

Naropa, one of the most well known practitioners of Buddhism and tantric yoga, was a student of Tilopa in India in the 10th century. He studied with Tilopa by first being subjected to what are known as "The Twelve Trials of Naropa,” which involved Tilopa's placing Naropa into situations that were quite challenging and painful, testing Naropa's willingness and devotion.

There are many stories of spiritual teachers who test their potential and ongoing students with extremely harsh conditions, demands, requests, and questions. The trials to test sincerity, which many teachers put their students through, are meant to eliminate dilettante practitioners who do not have the mental fortitude or devotion to traverse the path to its end. The students who successfully pass through these trials demonstrate a level of devotion conspicuously absent from many modern spiritual or religious disciplines. The focus and dedication that it takes an Olympic athlete to earn a gold medal are similar to what is necessary for a student to master advanced spiritual disciplines, such as those in chi gong or mahamudra teachings.

The Six Yogas of Naropa, advanced teachings that are the foundations of the Buddhist lineages, especially in Tibet.

Story of the Rainbow Body

In 1998 a strange story emerged from a village in the remote Kham region of eastern Tibet. It is said that a rainbow appeared one day above the cabin of Khenpo A- Chos, a devout lama who had continued to practice and teach Buddhism despite the severe restrictions of the Chinese government. He was in his eighties, but not sick. Nevertheless, he lay down on his bed, began reciting the Tibetan mantra "Om mani padme hum," and died.

Shortly after the nuns, monks and others who studied with him began the Tibetan Buddhist prayers that accompany death they noticed that Khenpo A-Chos' skin began to turn soft and pinkish. His students hurried to another lama to ask about this, and he told them to cover the body and continue their prayers. They placed a thin yellow monk's cloak over him and as the days passed, they saw his body was shrinking. By the end of the week, the students reported, nothing remained—just a few hairs left on the pillow. Khenpo A-Chos had apparently become what is known in Tibetan Buddhism as a Rainbow Body.

The story spread through Buddhist circles, making its way to the United States, where Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, heard it. He realized that the miraculous event had implications for Christianity: "If we can establish as an anthropological fact that what is described in the resurrection of Jesus had not only happened to others but is happening today," he said, "it would put our view of human potential in a completely different light."

Brother David enlisted the aid of Father Francis Tiso, an associate director of the secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington D.C., who also has a doctorate in Buddhist studies. Father Tiso journeyed to Kham with a translator and recorded the testimony of several people who had witnessed the events.

The lama who had been consulted by the students, Lama A-Chos (no relation), told him that achieving the rainbow body "is a matter of inner realization. It's not a philosophical idea. It's not a metaphor." He also showed Father Tiso photographs of himself, indicating what looked like light radiating from his body. Jane Bosveld, Discover Magazine, June 07.

Tiso interviewed Lama Norta, a nephew of Khenpo A-Chos, Lama Sonam Gyantso, a young disciple, and Lama A-Chos.

They described the following: A few days before Khenpo A-Chos died, a rainbow appeared directly above his hut. After he died, there were dozens of rainbows in the sky. Khenpo A-Chos died lying on his right side. He wasn’t sick; there appeared to be nothing wrong with him, and he was reciting the mantra Om mani padme hum over and over. According to the eyewitnesses, after his breath stopped his flesh became kind of pinkish. One person said it turned brilliant white. All said it started to shine.

Lama A-Chos suggested wrapping his friend’s body in a yellow robe, the type all Gelug monks wear. As the days passed, they maintained they could see, through the robe, that his bones and his body were shrinking. They also heard beautiful, mysterious music coming from the sky, and they smelled perfume.

After seven days, they removed the yellow cloth, and no body remained. Lama Norta and a few other individuals claimed that after his death Khenpo A-Chos appeared to them in visions and dreams.

Shrinkage of the body occurred with another guru, Lama Thubten. His miniature-sized frame is now kept in a monastery in Manali, India. Tiso has ascertained that incidents of bodies shrinking or disappearing shortly after death were documented centuries ago, such as in the classic story of Milarepa, a Buddhist saint from Tibet who lived in the 11th century.

Sexual Yoga

The use of sexual energy for spiritual attainment, sometimes called dual cultivation, has been practiced for health and spiritual cultivation in both the West and East for centuries. In the West it was sometimes called sex magic and was used in both religious and magical pursuits. The fundamental concept of dual cultivation and sex magic is that sexual energy is an extremely powerful force; when we harness this potent energy we can use it for attaining transcendent states.

In some schools it was the orgasmic release that was thought to confer power upon the celebrants; an example of this is in the union of the High Priestess and the High Priestas they celebrate the Great Rite of Wicca in European pagan schools. In other schools it was thought that retention of the orgasm freed up great areas of creative and spiritual energy. It was believed that in the transmutation of the orgasm one could be lifted into greater heights of energetic and spiritual attainment.

In India the study of sexual yoga covered a wide range of practices. One can travel to the great temple of Konorak to see these holy buildings absolutely covered with hundreds of intertwined figures having sex in every sort of posture possible. Rather than viewing this as pornographic the Indians see it as the god and goddess at play.

The image of yab-yum is a common symbol found in India, Bhutan, Nepal, and Tibet. This image is that of a male deity in sexual union with his female consort, usually sitting in his lap and facing him. The male figure usually represents the quality of compassion and the female figure that of insight. This is actually a representation of an inner union, one that takes place within the body and psyche of the tantric practitioner. It often represents the mystical union of wisdom and compassion. Yab-yum can also be connected to the tantric practice of Karmamudra. This practice involves having a physical partner as well as the practice of tummo or inner heat.

Dual cultivation was taken very seriously in some tantric Buddhist circles. In Tibet one sees many tankas (religious paintings) of various divinities, male and female, in conjoined bliss. There are, of course, many layers of meaning in these images.

Tibetan ritual chanting practice also uses two objects. The dorje, called the Diamond Thunderbolt Scepter, is the male and represents compassion. The bell is the female and represents wisdom. Manipulated together during ritual, these two objects dance together in a cosmic dance of male and female, compassion and wisdom. In some schools of Buddhist practice, trying to reach enlightenment without tantric union is likened to using water to churn butter.