Gender Symbolism and Tantra - Khandro Pawo Mirroring

 Naljorma Sel-zér

"The yab-yum coital imagery of the tantras is extremely vivid. It expresses the dual / non-dual energy of Tantra in a visual language which crosses cultural barriers like no other form of symbolism. The power of this coital imagery however, has tended to overshadow the essential meaning of sexuality within Tantra. Tantric sexuality is a vast field of living knowledge in which coital union is infinitely modulated in terms of all the sense fields. It voluptuates in the soft silence of falling snow on bare branches; the succulent stickiness of budding twigs; the glorious unreserved unravelling of blossoms; and the cool moist fire of autumnal foliage. It is the art of the way in which the eye sees, and the poetry of the way in which the ear hears.  Eyesight penetrates visual phenomena, and is engulfed by the field of vision. Hearing penetrates sound and is engulfed by the auditory dimension. Every sense-perception and sense-field performs, and is performed by, the same ecstatic dance. Male and female qualities of existence are the play of reality itself.   They continually interpenetrate and inter-engulf each other as non-dual dance."            Ngak'chang Rinpoche

Tantra is essentially sexual. It speaks of the coital union between emptiness and form, symbolised in the vajra and bell, and in the yab-yum form of yidam practice. Tantra does not eschew lust, love, longing and pleasure: it embraces all aspects of phenomenal reality, transforming them and using them as the basis for practice. Because of the energy involved in sexuality, both in terms of the sensations and the emotions, it is regarded as an exceptional opportunity for realisation.

However, in terms of the Inner Tantras one area of difficulty for some gay/lesbian people is the practice of visualisation of yab/yum imagery and sexual yogas with a partner. The classic imagery and the descriptions of practice would seem to be exclusively heterosexual.

In order to look at this, it is important to understand that in Tantra, gender, like all other concepts and practices, is method, not ultimate truth. The only universal truth is emptiness. Emptiness is the one experience we all share in precisely the same way. But as soon as form arises - whether it is concept, object, thought, feeling, idea, emotion or whatever - it is multiple. And being multiple, it is contradictory; specific, and particular.

For example, if I want to clear the snow from my path, I use a shovel. I could choose to use a screwdriver; but it's not very effective. A shovel is more useful, more appropriate, in this particular situation than the screwdriver. So I say: 'The shovel is better'. But this refers only to this specific circumstance. When I want to fix my shelves, the screwdriver turns out to be more effective than the shovel. There are shovels and screwdrivers and knives and forks and hammers ...and a million other objects, each of which is appropriate, when it's appropriate. All these things contradict each other - a hammer is not a fork; a knife is not a shovel: but this is not a problem because we do not normally get caught up in the notion that there is some ultimate 'truth' about these objects.

However, there can be a tendency to fall into treating our practice as if it were ultimate truth: a kind of 'one size fits all' mentality. But practice is method: it is specific and particular. Tantric methods of practice are  precise and accurate: they are fabulously appropriate to the situations they address. They address our unenlightenment exactly as it is, and provide ways in which our particular pattern of confusion can simply be 'flipped' into its enlightened state. For example, when the 84 Mahasiddhas were given practices, the thief was not told first to give up being a thief, and then to work at being generous. His practice was to 'steal the entire phenomenal universe'. This was something which he could relate to immediately and which took his passionate greed as the energy for transformation. But this does not mean that we all have to become thieves and attempt to make use of this particular practice.

So when Tantra makes use of the method of gender we have to remember that it is not making a statement about gender as a fixed 'reality'; nor about the superiority of one kind of manifestation of gender over another; nor about the genders of people engaged in a sexual relationship. Tantra simply takes what is there - our ordinary, everyday gender identities - and makes a practice out of them. But in addressing opposite-gender relationships, Tantra is no more enforcing that on those for whom it is inappropriate, than suggesting that we are all thieves who need to practice by stealing the universe.

If gender - or any other of our self-identifications such as sexual orientation, ethnicity or whatever - were ultimate then they would transcend our serial life patterns. But they do not. I may be a white English lesbian woman in this life, but next time I could be a black heterosexual man. Any self-identification I may have is purely temporary and for one lifetime only. It is simultaneously tremendously important and utterly irrelevant, because it reflects both form and emptiness.

Tantra addresses this paradox and deals directly with the fact that we are temporarily embodied in a human form with particular qualities. It provides a vast richness of  methods for transforming our different styles of unenlightenment.  But if a particular method cannot work for us, this is not a problem.

For example, since most of us have two arms, Tantra makes use of the symbolism of the left hand as representing emptiness, and thus used to hold the bell, while the right hand represents form and holds the vajra. Ngak'chang Rinpoche tells the story of a man with one arm who approached him in consternation because he was unable to play the bell and thus was unable to symbolise his emptiness. Rinpoche told him, "You are always holding your bell."  The man looked puzzled. "What is your bell?" Rinpoche asked him. "Emptiness" the man replied. "Then unlike those with two arms, you will always have your bell with you," said Rinpoche.

Similarly, in Tantra there is a symbolism associated with gender. In Tantra, the female symbolises emptiness (for example Yeshé Tsogyal) and the male symbolises form (for example, Padmasambhava). In coitus they represent the non-dual arising of emptiness from form and its dissolution back to emptiness. (This is why in thankas, female yidams can stand alone - because emptiness can be without form - but male yidams always have a representation of female/emptiness such as a small female yidam, or the khatvangha - because form cannot be present without arising from emptiness. The small size of the female yidam in such iconography is not a symbol of her lack of social importance but of her essential presence.)

Yab-Yum Imagery

Some have suggested that the yab-yum (male-female) imagery is 'heterosexist' and excludes lesbians and gay men. As gays and lesbians we can't identify with heterosex and our initial reaction to yab-yum imagery may be to find it alien and reject it. If this is our reaction we could look more closely at the way yidam imagery works: and this is not in terms of finding something 'I' can identify with. If it were, how would I 'identify' with a yidam which has the head of a pig, or three breasts, or six arms and three eyes? If identifying with the yidam were the point, why not re-create yidams for the West in jeans and tee-shirts? And why did the Tibetans, over hundreds of years of practice, not re-create the yidam in Tibetan rather than Indian upper-caste clothes?

The reason is that the function of the yidam is to transcend our narrow view of ourselves. The yidam is not an archetype which we create in order to have something to identify with. It arises in the mind of an enlightened being and its function is to blow apart the narrow confines of our unenlightened minds. We enter into yidam practice from the perspective of emptiness in which all our self-concepts of race, gender, sexuality, age etc have been dissolved, and we re-enter the world of form in the visionary body of the yidam. Why the yidam might be blue or red and wear a crown of skulls or wield a flaying knife is something we discover in practice - but it certainly is not a representation of our conventional 'identity'.  

Envisioning myself in yab-yum form (and bearing in mind that I am both yab and yum, not 'having heterosexual sex') can present no different problems than envisioning myself as Ekajati with her single tooth and single eye.

However, if it is not possible for us in our practice to transcend the external gender of the yidams and enter the practice in terms of form and emptiness, then it might be better not to attempt it at all. What we cannot do is re-invent the yab-yum in terms of single sex orientation and create yab-yab or yum-yum yidams. (Not that there is anything wrong with creating these purely as art. There are a number of these images around and they may be extremely inspiring and supportive symbols for gays and lesbians. It is not in some way 'naughty' to have these images. However, unless they proceed from the Mind of an enlightened being they remain simply art and may be misleading in terms of Practice.)

The point is that the yab (male) represents form and the yum (female) emptiness. If we create single-sex coital images then we have a representation of form emerging from form, or emptiness emerging from emptiness - which is plainly nonsense in terms of Buddhism. What is at the root of the problem here is that it takes the symbolism of the coital yidam and makes a truth out of method.

The reason the yidams are in coitus is that they represent the ecstatic embrace of emptiness and form in a way that resonates with people who experience sexual union with someone who is 'opposite' to them in gender.  Perhaps it needs to be spelled out that the function of this symbolism is not to make a statement about the importance of sexual congress, but to use coitus to make a statement about the simultaneous duality and non-duality of emptiness and form: apparent opposites coming together in union.

It therefore misses the point entirely to borrow the coital imagery and lose the oppositeness.  (In fact, it would be more in line with the function of yab-yum imagery for gay people to borrow the symbolism of oppositeness and lose the coital imagery entirely.) However, either way it is actually pointless to borrow any practice which is not appropriate and attempt to 'tweak' it to meet our perceived needs. Tantric practice is method; method is exactly appropriate; as precise as an arrow hitting its target. Coming close is not enough. Tantra always works with who we are - not who we almost are if we do a bit of mental shuffling.  Tantra is incendiary and inspirational - but it is unlikely to set us alight if we are trying to envision ourselves wearing second-hand heterosexual hand-me-downs.

From the perspective of Ati Yoga, it is therefore better to abandon attempts to make the practice fit.  Better to work with emptiness and form in a non-symbolic way, and wait for the day when a practice (or practices) arise in the Mind of a Master which are exactly appropriate for those who, in this life, find blissful union in same-sex relationships.

Khandro-Pawo Mirroring

Human beings - like all phenomena - are the play of emptiness and form /wisdom and compassion /wisdom display and method display.  In Tantric symbolism, men are described as externally method display (pawo) and internally wisdom display; women are described as externally wisdom display (khandro) and internally method display, so the two sexes are mirror images of each other; but complete in themselves. However, because form is emptiness and emptiness is form, these aspects of our nature are not rigid - they dance and flux.

Khandro means sky-going lady, or sky dancer - she is free; she dances; she delights with her ecstatic wildness. Pawo means warrior or hero - he is prepared to lay down his life at any moment; he is direct and accomplished.

Those of us who have had the privilege of meeting someone who has realised their inner Khandro or Pawo can testify that this has nothing whatever to do with conventional notions of 'masculinity' and 'femininity'. This is emphatically not some neutered sexuality; some anaemic theoretical mid-point between male and female. Someone who has realised their inner Khandro or Pawo has the capacity to manifest both wisdom and method (or compassion) display; to manifest both overt and secret activity when appropriate.

However, when we enter into duality we become distanced and estranged from our own inner capacity. We feel this as an aching hollow inside, which we seek to fill by looking outside ourselves. At the extremely neurotic level our inner capacity can become almost completely occluded.  The man manifests as nothing but external action with no wisdom to direct it; the female manifests as decorative but ineffectual: we have the Rambo/Barbie personalities.

Most of us probably manifest at some level between total occlusion and total realisation of our inner nature - though our capacity is not a fixed 'personality trait'. At any moment enlightenment could sparkle through our conditioning and we could discover our secret capacity.  

Tantric Teachings are emphatically not saying that women are emptiness/wisdom; men are form/method.  This is not another Mars/Venus dualistic stereotyping. Tantra is saying that we are all both wisdom and method. Both emptiness and form. But that becoming embodied and living in a social context we become dualistic and to one degree or another lose sight of our inner capacity.

This is a liberating concept. Men and women are not poles apart at either end of a spectrum. We are not defined by societal expectations of gender display. The butchest of dykes or the campest of queens - we are still the display of wisdom and method. We are so used to the conventional idea that more masculine means less feminine, and more feminine means less masculine, that it can take some time for the importance of this teaching to sink in.  

We are completely beyond any social definitions of gender. Women and men visualise themselves as both male and female yidams and manifest the qualities of both. An enlightened person fully manifests the qualities of both form and emptiness; wisdom and method display.

In order to realise our inner, occluded nature - our hidden khandro or pawo - there is the practice of regarding all external phenomena (including one's partner) as either method display (for women) or wisdom display (for men). This practice is often misunderstood - both by heterosexuals and gay people. I have personally known heterosexual practitioners who thought that the practice for men was to view all mountains as breasts and for women to view all towers and lamp-posts as phallic! This is a Freudian projection and a total misunderstanding of the practice - and if it were the practice then it would certainly have no relevance for gay people.

What is happening here is that for heterosexual couples, there is a sense of mystery, attraction and fascination with the external display of their partner which evokes their own inner quality. This is a  powerful way in which, for heterosexuals, the sexual relationship becomes a method for realising their occluded inner nature.

However, in same-sex relationships this mirroring does not happen in the same way.  Since we are both manifesting the same external qualities, we cannot provide a mirror for each others' inner quality in the same straightforward way. This is just a fact of life. It is not a heterosexist plot to exclude us; it's simply an adjunct of the way we are embodied; just as it's somewhat more problematic for us to conceive children with our partners than it is for most heterosexuals.  

We could, of course, attempt to see our inner nature reflected in our partner and in external phenomena; but it becomes rather complex. The whole point of the practice for heterosexual people is that while the external display of the opposite sex is somewhat incomprehensible, in romance it is experientially known. An opposite-sex partner gives a transmission, beyond words and descriptions, of the nature of our own inner qualities and thus enables us to realise them.  

However, for homosexual couples, our partner mirrors in their outer display, our own outer display. Our inner, secret nature is the same as theirs, and it may simply be beyond our capacity to gain transmission of our secret nature from the secret, and therefore un-manifest, nature of our partner.

At this point it is possible that this particular practice has no relevance for us. Perhaps there are more relevant practices for gays and lesbians already in existence (but if so they must be highly secret since there appears to be no public reference to them) or perhaps such practices will manifest in the future. But if so, they will be realised directly by an enlightened person. We cannot simply construct such teachings logically by amending practices which address the heterosexual situation.  

However, Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen - at the request of their students - have tentatively suggested that we practice at the more essentialised level of Dzogchen. The base of Dzogchen is non-duality and therefore the symbols of emptiness and form are transcended.

The practice here would simply be to take the view we have of our partners (assuming that we are in love with them) and to view all phenomena in the light of this quality without reference to gender and without any attempt to try to differentiate between wisdom and method display.

Simply this: we know what it is to love; to delight in; to engage in the dance of passion with, our lover. We know this in the core of our being without needing anyone to describe it to us. This is to be the nature of our relationship with the entire phenomenal universe.  

© 2001 Naljorma Sel-zér