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by Joe Szimhart
Anyone who has
followed the recent histories of Zen and Tibetan Buddhist teachers with
western devotees knows that, too often, these same teachers have been
criticized for both authoritarian and sexual indiscretions. It is easy to
play the cynic who believes that these ostensibly celibate or married
men--the teachers are almost always monks--find it hard to resist
“sexually liberal,” white, westerners who dote over them. And it is easy
to degrade devotees who submit “totally” to such gurus as no more than
naive seekers who should have known better. In Traveller In Space, June
Campbell delivers us beyond superficial cynicism into a scholarly study of
the unusual patriarchal system of Tibetan Tantra and its relevance to
female subjectivity.
Although Campbell
speaks from extensive personal experience--she was a consort of an
important Tibetan lama (priest-monk) for several years and an accomplished
translator of Tibetan texts--Traveller is not another “ex-member” exposé
for lay readers. Campbell lives in Scotland where she teaches Religious
Studies. Hers is an important study that utilizes sophisticated
psychoanalytic, religious, and cultural theory. She explains and
criticizes how the female role, the dakini, in Tibetan Tantra (Vajrayana)
has diminished the individual female integrity to comply with a
male-dominated, male-defined tradition. Campbell invokes feminist
scholarship, especially that of Luce Irigay, as well as religion and
mythology scholars, Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell (no relation to the
author), and Agehananda Bharati among them, to reinforce her perspectives.
In certain terms,
Campbell points out the vulnerabilities of Tibetan Tantra to western
influence. Tibetan dakinis have been acculturated to accept their roles as
unequal if revered “objects” useful to lamas in their sexual rituals. The
latter, usually secret, are said to provide powerful opportunities for the
lama to attain “enlightenment.” Western ethics (conditioned by a long
history of Judeo-Christian influence) and feminist philosophy conflict
with this secret patriarchal system. Western women have long complained
about sexual exploitation by certain gurus who invoke an “enlightened”
status, one that “entitles” them to have sexual contact with devotees.
Campbell provides a scholarly and psychoanalytic basis for their
complaints as well as a new standard for women within the Tibetan
tradition. She admits that if this new standard, one that accepts women as
self-determining “subjects” in their own spiritual destiny, were
incorporated, Tibetan Tantra would either revolutionize or disappear.
More than a
cross-cultural critique, Traveller In Space is a good primer on lamaism
and Tantric religious history with its roots in Indian philosophy.
Campbell analyses how separation from the mother at a young age has
certain emotional effects on “reincarnated” lamas and their ensuing needs
for “nurture” from consorts. The title is a translation of the Sanskrit
word dakini (Tibetan khandro) that means “sky-goer.” The implication is
that the submissive dakini is unattached to any thing and functions as an
empty “space” to afford the partner-lama an experience of “enlightenment,”
but, in tradition, this does not work in reverse. Campbell systematically
discusses and deconstructs such male-generated notions as untenable and
“illogical” within and “outwith” the system if Tibetan Tantra is to
incorporate status integrity for women. She also points out how lamas
manipulate their consorts, or dakinis, by suggesting if they reveal the
affair or rebel, the dakini will suffer “madness, trouble, or even death.”
The fact that this
manipulative behavior is somehow sanctioned by a centuries-long tradition,
largely unchallenged by the females within Tibetan culture, demonstrates
how completely the “feminine” has been politically framed by both
male-generated symbology and signature, according to Campbell. The effects
of Campbell’s study may be difficult to predict, but the need for it in
light of the continued attraction of western seekers, particularly women,
for exotic “enlightened” teachers is inestimable.
Review by Joseph P.
Szimhart published in Skeptical Inquirer (July-August 1996) "A Wayward way
to Buddhist Spirituality."
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