{"id":9304,"date":"2021-09-06T17:59:37","date_gmt":"2021-09-06T23:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&p=9304"},"modified":"2021-09-06T17:59:37","modified_gmt":"2021-09-06T23:59:37","slug":"the-fierce-empowered-feminine","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/the-fierce-empowered-feminine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fierce Empowered Feminine"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Tami Simon:<\/b> Welcome to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>, produced by Sounds True. My name\u2019s Tami Simon. I\u2019m the founder of Sounds True. I\u2019d love to take a moment to introduce you to the new Sounds True Foundation. The Sounds True Foundation is dedicated to creating a wiser and kinder world by making transformational education widely available. We want everyone to have access to transformational tools such as mindfulness, emotional awareness and self-compassion, regardless of financial, social or physical challenges. The Sounds True Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to providing these transformational tools to communities in need, including at-risk youth, prisoners, veterans, and those in developing countries. If you\u2019d like to learn more or feel inspired to become a supporter, please visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re listening to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>. Today, my guest is Lama Tsultrim Allione. Lama Tsultrim is an author and internationally known Buddhist teacher and the founder of Tara Mandala, a mountain retreat center of 700 acres south of Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Lama Tsultrim was the first American woman to be ordained as a Tibetan nun by His Holiness, the 16th Karmapa, at the age of 26. After four years as a nun, she returned her monastic vows, married, and raised three children. Lama Tsultrim is the author of the book <\/span>Women of Wisdom<\/span><\/i> and also <\/span>Wisdom Rising<\/span><\/i>, and<\/span> Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

With Sounds True, Lama Tsultrim has released a new ten-part audio series. It\u2019s called <\/span>The Empowered Feminine: Meditating with the Dakini Mandala<\/span><\/i>. In this conversation, we talk about what is the <\/span>dakini<\/span><\/i> principle in Tibetan Buddhism, and Lama Tsultrim actually takes us into a meditation, an invitation to become a wrathful dakini. We get a chance to feel how that meditation transforms us and transforms our capacity to be clear, cut through, and create change in a compassionate way. Here\u2019s my conversation with Lama Tsultrim.<\/span><\/p>\n

Great to be with you, Lama Tsultrim. It\u2019s always a treat and a delight. Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lama Tsultrim Allione: <\/b>I\u2019m happy to be with you too, Tami.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Here, as we start, for listeners who are just getting to know you, I would love for them to understand more how your own life and path of being a teacher has emphasized bringing out the empowered feminine in terms of practicing and teaching\u2014and that being an aspect of Tibetan Buddhism that many people, I think, are not familiar with. Why was this focus, in your own life, on the empowered feminine in Tibetan Buddhism so important to you personally?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA: <\/b>It really came very directly out of my own experience. It wasn\u2019t something that I developed because of something I read or even some teachings I heard. It came out of the death of my daughter, Chiara. So she died of sudden infant death in 1980, and sudden infant death, sometimes called crib death, it happens in the night. It\u2019s every mother of a newborn\u2019s worst nightmare. So I found her dead in the morning, and my experience of that was turning to my practice, turning to my lineage, turning toward the dharma. I had already been a Buddhist nun. I had already had two children. This was the second of two twins … or of twins, not two twins.<\/span><\/p>\n

So when it happened, I turned toward the dharma and realized there were no stories of women in my experience, in what I had read, in what I had heard. I wasn\u2019t finding the story of the Buddha helpful. The Buddha left his family. I wasn\u2019t going to do that. I didn\u2019t find the story of Milarepa, who was a renunciate also, or even Marpa, who was a layperson, but it didn\u2019t have a relationship like a mother would to her children. So I set out to look for the stories of women, and in that process I also started reading about women\u2019s spirituality as it was being developed in the West at that time, about particularly in the United States and in England, the United Kingdom scholars. So I started reading them for the introduction to what became my first book, <\/span>Women of Wisdom<\/span><\/i>, which has a pretty lengthy introduction about women in Buddhism and women\u2019s spirituality in general.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then I ended up writing a personal preface in that book of why I was writing this book. I felt sort of embarrassed to write that personal preface because I felt like, well, who cares about you? There\u2019s these fantastic, great women practitioners. Who cares about your story? But it felt relevant to tell the reader why I wrote the book and why I felt it was important. So in the process of writing <\/span>Women of Wisdom<\/span><\/i>, a lot of interesting questions came up, like, what would spirituality be like if it was developed by women, for women, as are all the major religions in our world? What would it be like? What would the practices be like? What would the attitude toward the material world be like? Lots of questions like that, as well as developing an inspired relationship with things like the dakini principle and the feminine principle, which I studied for the introduction of the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the death of Chiara\u2014that was her name\u2014was really the event that spurred me into this whole question. I was never really interested in it. I wasn\u2019t a feminist. I hadn\u2019t felt particularly discriminated against as a woman who had been studying in Asia for quite a few years. I didn\u2019t feel I was treated differently by my teachers. But I later realized that, if I had been an Asian woman or a Tibetan woman in those situations, I probably would have been. But in any case, that was what started me off on this tangent that has really defined my life in many ways.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>You ask rhetorically, here, a question that I think many of us ask, which is, what would our spirituality be like if it was developed by women for women? So when you look at Tibetan Buddhism, which is the lineage framework in which you teach, how can you bring to that view … How do you bring to that view … What if Tibetan Buddhism were developed and articulated by women for women? How would it have to be different?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA: <\/b>Well, architecturally different is one thing. When I began to teach, when <\/span>Women of Wisdom <\/span><\/i>came out, I used to ask people to close their eyes, and maybe the people who are listening now could try this. Close your eyes, and imagine you\u2019re walking into a temple that is built by women, for women, and the architect is female. What would it be like? What would that temple be like? What shape would it be? What would be in it? What would your relationship to what\u2019s in it be like, if you were male or female going into that space? What\u2019s on the walls? Are there windows? Is it an enclosed space? So I always saw something round. I don\u2019t know what you saw, if you tried that just now. But I always saw something round or perhaps an octagonal shape, and that there would be living things in the temple. There would be plants, and there would be female imagery.<\/span><\/p>\n

So within the Tibetan tradition, we do have a feminine principal, which is called the Great Mother or Prajnaparamita. We also have the dakini and the dakini principle, which is the wisdom feminine and various different forms and levels of that, which I think we\u2019re going to talk about as well. But how would Tibetan Buddhism be if it had been formulated by women and for women? I think we can look back a bit to Tantric Buddhism in India, because there was a much stronger female presence at that time in India. What we find is a religion that operates very much in daily life. People are practicing within their professions. If they are a jeweler, they\u2019re carving their jewels while they\u2019re doing a meditation, and the actual carving of the jewel, they\u2019re meditating on their own mind and bringing out the luminous facets of their own mind. If they\u2019re a washer person, which there were in India, both male and female, who would do laundry, basically, in rivers, then you would be meditating on purifying your mind as you\u2019re doing that.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a wonderful story about a woman who was a housewife, and she was going to the river to get water. She had been practicing at night. It seems like mostly they practiced after midnight, which is probably when they had time. So she was doing a sadhana, a practice, every night. That\u2019s a tantric deity yoga practice. Then during the day she was doing her housewife duties, and so she was coming back from the river carrying this container of water. On the way up the embankment, she slipped, and it fell. It was clay, so it broke. In that moment of it breaking open and the water going everywhere, her mind did the same thing, and she went into an extremely expansive, all inclusive, non-dual state, and it was her enlightenment moment. So that kind of thing would be present.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s another story that\u2014it\u2019s very touching for me\u2014that took place around that same time, which was around the 8th century, Guru Rinpoche, who was the primary person who\u2019s given credit for bringing tantric Buddhism to Tibet. He wanted to receive the empowerments of the eight herukas, tantric deities. He heard there was a woman who was giving these and could give the … who was the one to go to receive this. Her name was Kungamo. So he found her. He found out where she was, and it was in a jungle area. I believe it was in Bengal or East India.<\/span><\/p>\n

When he got there, he ran into a young woman at the well getting water. He realized that this young woman was probably an assistant to Kungamo, or Leykyi Wangmo is her name in Tibetan. So he asked her to take him to her teacher, and she refused. She acted like she didn\u2019t understand. So he did a mudra, a kind of hand signal, which made her freeze where she was. She couldn\u2019t move. She was just standing there with the water, and then she realized she was up against somebody that she couldn\u2019t compete with in terms of her powers. So she agreed to take him to see Leykyi Wangmo. To me, that\u2019s already an interesting story because of the well and a woman at the well and that sense of the depth coming from the well, which is a kind of eminent essence, water, of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

He freezes her, and then she complies, and then takes him to her teacher. So when he gets to see Kungamo or Leykyi Wangmo, she\u2019s seated on a throne, and she\u2019s in a house of skulls, which is common in the early tantric period. Those people lived in charnel grounds, where the corpses would be brought at the time of death, and they would actually make things out of the bones, like houses or containers to eat. The skull cup originally comes from that tradition, thigh bone trumpets, so on.<\/span><\/p>\n

So she\u2019s there, and he requested empowerment from her. Then she turns him into a <\/span>hung<\/span><\/i> syllable, into a syllable, into a letter. She transformed his body into this letter, which is the sound of hung, and she swallowed him. As he was passing through her body, he received these eight empowerments. When he emerged from her <\/span>yoni<\/span><\/i>, from her secret place, he had all the empowerments. To me that\u2019s such a feminine metaphor to have it come through the body like that and have his transformation be actually in her body, and have her power be in her body like that, and then to emerge like birth from her, and that\u2019s how he received the eight empowerments, which he subsequently taught.<\/span><\/p>\n

So those stories give you a little bit of an idea of how it might be if there\u2019s a strong feminine presence in the Tibetan tradition, for example. I think it would have an embodied quality. I think there would be more circular structures and perhaps a more circular approach to community. The Tantric tradition has\u2014and I think this is also because of the feminine influence, which did come in when the tantric influence came into Buddhism\u2014the emphasis on this world. This world that we\u2019re in now is sacred, that our emphasis is not to get up and out of this world, that this world is\u2014which we hear more in earlier Buddhism. It\u2019s bad. It\u2019s all suffering. We need to get out of here approach.<\/span><\/p>\n

This tantric approach was that actual embodiment is a path, can be a path, and that, for example, the senses can be liberating factors, that sexuality can be a liberating factor, which was a piece that was pulled out of tantric Buddhism in the West and became\u2014that\u2019s what tantra is. But that\u2019s not what tantra is. That\u2019s a very small part of what it is, but it is there. It\u2019s part of this sacralization of embodiment and the idea that we can transform these things into a path. I think that\u2019s typical whenever you have a strong feminine presence in a spiritual path.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now, Lama Tsultrim, as a woman teacher who was trained in your own life by many Tibetan Buddhist male teachers, is there something definitive that you\u2019ve said, \u201cI\u2019m going to do this XYZ thing differently. I may have been trained this way, but this is how I\u2019m going to do it to bring the embodied feminine into the way I teach\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA: <\/b>Yes. There was a decision that I made quite early on in my, I guess you could say, teaching career, where I decided I wasn\u2019t going to take the approach that had been used on me, which was to cut through the ego, to try to cut down the student\u2019s ego to, I don\u2019t know, make them egoless, I guess, or to confront their shadow or to transform, whatever the approach was to almost violently and sometimes quite hurtfully to insult the student or to make them somehow\u2014confront them in a fairly aggressive way. I decided not to do that. At first, it was just because I was just uncomfortable doing it, and then I thought about it more. I was like, what is this? I really don\u2019t want to do this, even though that was the model that I had.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then I thought, I\u2019m working a lot with women, and I don\u2019t think women need this. I think women have enough of that in just being an oppressed part of society, and they need more nurturing. They need more confidence building with kindness. So I decided to take that more nurturing approach. It doesn\u2019t mean I won\u2019t, say, stop a student if I think they\u2019re going in the wrong direction or question what they\u2019re doing or something like that. But, in general, my approach is more to nurture them. I think all teachers, male and female, have fundamentally that idea that they want to nurture their students, but their approach might be different.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s the same way of raising children, for example. There used to be this idea that spare the rod, spoil the child, that if you don\u2019t act aggressively towards your child, they\u2019ll be spoiled. That\u2019s been disproved. Corporal punishment, for example, has been proven to not create better behavior and to create deep harm in the child. So this was a choice that I made. Another example would be our temple at Tara Mandala. I\u2019m not sure that you\u2019ve been there yet. I hope you come. But it\u2019s round inside. I actually dreamt the temple in 2001. It wasn\u2019t built until 2008 and \u201809, but it has the round shape.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had studied the temples, for example, in Malta, the goddess temples that are actually like the body of a woman. You actually go in through the yoni, enter into the body, into her body, essentially. The body was a big, round, generous female body. Tara Mandala is a mandala shape with four entrances in the four directions, and it\u2019s all carved by Bhutanese wood carvers and painted by Tibetan artists. It\u2019s really quite an extraordinary building architecturally, and I dreamt it in 2001. So I haven\u2019t been in any round Tibetan temples. I think there\u2019s one in Bhutan that is a little bit like the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where you kind of walk around in it. It\u2019s now a museum in Bhutan. It is a roundish temple, but generally they\u2019re square or rectangular, as are Christian churches.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now Lama Tsultrim, you mentioned the dakini principle, and with Sounds True, you\u2019ve created this new ten-session audio series on meditating with the dakini mandala. For people who are hearing about the dakini and going, \u201cNot quite sure I know what that is exactly,\u201d is that some beautiful female, fierce deity or something? What is it, and what does it mean to have as part of my spiritual practice this focus on the dakini principle?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA:<\/b> Well, before I begin, I would like to say that what I\u2019ve been talking about in terms of the feminine is something that\u2019s present in both genders. So it\u2019s not just about women. It is about women, but it\u2019s also relevant for either gender. This is true of the dakini principle. There\u2019s equal number of male practitioners who focus on the dakini as female, if not more. So I just wanted to clarify that, that this isn\u2019t a just-for-women type thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Very good.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA: <\/b>So the dakini is … It\u2019s quite complex, actually. So there\u2019s different levels of the dakini principle. The first level is the feminine principle itself, which is the ground of being itself, which is emptiness, which contains or embodies cognizance and luminosity, so empty luminosity, which pervades everything. Ground of being is the source of all phenomena, and in that sense it is considered feminine. So you could say, as Joanna Macy said in her book, she called it the pregnant zero, that it\u2019s formless, and yet it contains the potential for all form. In that sense, it\u2019s feminine. It\u2019s pregnant with all phenomena. So that\u2019s the Great Mother. Trungpa Rinpoche, I think, called it the Great Space Wearing Makeup or something like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s a deity level of the dakini, and that would be like Vajrayogini or Vajravarahi, [inaudible], Tara. All those energies could be considered dakini energies. They exist at the level of <\/span>sambhogakaya<\/span><\/i>. That great mother principle is <\/span>dharmakaya<\/span><\/i>, this formless, open, vast, empty, pregnant awareness. Then the sambhogakaya is the dimension of luminosity, so it\u2019s pure light. It\u2019s not this dimension that we\u2019re in now. We are in kind of a condensed light reality. The sambhogakaya is a dimension of light, but it also has form. So the dakini at that level is the wisdom energy with which we identify in order to transform ourselves into enlightened energy. So it\u2019s sort of like imbuing ourselves with luminosity.<\/span><\/p>\n

So at that level, the dakini is usually manifesting as wrathful, and that fierce energy doesn\u2019t mean that she\u2019s angry. It is fast-moving, powerful energy. This is something that I talk about in my book, <\/span>Wisdom Rising<\/span><\/i>, that the wrathful or fierce feminine is something that has been forbidden in our world. It\u2019s bad. It\u2019s the witch and the bitch. We saw that manifesting so much when Hillary Clinton was running for office and there was all this question. If she was slightly fierce at any moment, she was the bitch, whereas if a male had acted the same way and said the same thing, it would have been considered that he was being forceful, right?<\/span><\/p>\n

So the dakini is that fast-moving, wisdom energy, and she also moves through space. So the Tibetan word for dakini is <\/span>khandro<\/span><\/i>. Kha is space, and dro is go. So it\u2019s literally sky dancer or sky goer. Why? Because she\u2019s moving through space, and she\u2019s an expression of that primordial ground of being in form. So when you do Vajrayana practice with the dakini, in most practices, you identify with her. You become her. You are holding certain implements. You\u2019re in a certain posture. You\u2019re emanating wisdom flames. Your expression is wrathful, sometimes extremely fierce. You\u2019re emanating wisdom. You\u2019re embodying wisdom. So you\u2019re taking that forbidden archetype, if you will, and you are transforming that into a positive energy which has a definite force. I think we see this wrathful feminine wisdom aspect in some of the political activism that we see, like with our friend Greta. The way she is … She\u2019s fierce and forceful, but underneath that is compassion. That\u2019s what she\u2019s moving. It\u2019s like a mother animal that\u2019s protecting her young. So that\u2019s at that level of the dakini.<\/span><\/p>\n

The transformation takes place through identification and mantra recitation. The mantra gives you the vibrational field of the dakini, and then that works within your energy system to transform it into wisdom. So that\u2019s the dakini at the level of sambhogakaya, the level of luminosity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the<\/span> nirmanakaya<\/span><\/i> level, which is our dimension. Nirmanakaya is this physical world. In Tibetan, the word for nirmanakaya is <\/span>tulku<\/span><\/i>, which is the word that we use that you may be familiar with for reincarnated lamas, like Tulku Jigme. It\u2019s a title. But, in fact, what it means is illusory body. So a tulku or a nirmanakaya manifestation is someone who\u2019s manifesting a normal physical body, like, for example, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He brushes his teeth. He has a physical body. He eats and so on. But he\u2019s manifesting that body to benefit beings.<\/span><\/p>\n

So dakinis can be the same way. Wisdom dakinis can manifest in the human body, and then they enact acts of wisdom and compassion. That\u2019s why they\u2019re here. That\u2019s why they\u2019ve chosen to be reborn, and that\u2019s what they do. But they look fairly normal, although there are certain physical signs and so on for recognizing a dakini. Those women are not necessarily pretty, and they\u2019re not necessarily young. This is a misconception that\u2019s also developed is, oh, she\u2019s such a dakini. It\u2019s some pretty, young girl. Often, in the stories, in the old stories like in the story of Naropa, who lived also in the early time of tantra in India, a dakini appeared to him as a ugly old hag. He analyzed her 32 ugly features. She had a beard, and she was drooling. Her eyes were rolling, etcetera, etcetera.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the dakini in the human form doesn\u2019t always manifest as a beautiful woman. She can if that\u2019s appropriate, and it\u2019s not necessarily true. Dakinis, also, in the human form, are not always nice. They can be wrathful or have other kinds of fierce manifestations. Then there\u2019s the worldly dakinis, and those are women are partially dakinis. They manifest sometimes as dakinis and sometimes as ordinary women. They might manifest in a certain occasion or certain circumstances, but they aren\u2019t enlightened, completely enlightened like the wisdom dakinis. The wisdom dakinis are said to have the same level of realization as a Buddha, and so that\u2019s a very high level of realization. So that\u2019s the three levels, the empty essence, ground of being, Great Mother, formless dimension of <\/span>dharmakaya<\/span><\/i>, the luminous dimension of sambhogakaya that\u2019s not on this plane of existence. We don\u2019t see it, but we can visualize ourselves as that to literally illuminate our own bodies, then the physical level, nirmanakaya, where that same enlightenment principles manifests in an ordinary body.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>All right, Lama Tsultrim, I\u2019m going to ask you a direct question. Are you some type of dakini? If so, what type?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA: <\/b>I don\u2019t think I would answer that question. I think that that\u2019s something that should not be answered.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Let me ask you a different question. Have you ever met a physical wisdom dakini? If so, what was that like? What did you experience?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA: <\/b>Hmm. A wisdom dakini?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>We\u2019ll go for both a worldly and a wisdom. Maybe you could give me an example of each. I think that will help make it real.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA:<\/b> Well, I think that Khandro Rinpoche is a wisdom dakini. She\u2019s a Tibetan teacher, a female. She can be very sharp and direct, but also very compassionate. She\u2019s in the female form, and she\u2019s a tulku, a nirmanakaya emanation. I\u2019ve met other women during my lifetime, for example, Sangye Khandro, who is a Tibetan translator. I feel that she is a dakini. I would say she\u2019s a wisdom dakini also. Then I\u2019ve also met, for example, the consort of my teacher, Apho Rinpoche, who was a great yogi, a family yogi, I guess, you could say. He had four children, and he had a <\/span>sangyum<\/span><\/i>, or a secret consort, a wife. She held a lot in that mandala of him. She wasn\u2019t directly teaching, but she was holding the whole mandala of his world as a teacher, as the mother of his children, and so on. There\u2019s also Chagdud Khadro. She is a dakini. She was the consort of Chagdud Tulki, and she\u2019s now overseeing his temple in Brazil. She\u2019s American, but overseeing his temple in Brazil. I find her really quite amazing as a being.<\/span><\/p>\n

So those are all sort of identifiable dakinis. There\u2019s also people that I just meet, and I experience that energy from them. It\u2019s a kind of very direct wisdom. Then maybe they are that for some time, and then they\u2019re not. So that would be more like a worldly dakini.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Well, tell me what you mean by that very direct wisdom. Maybe you could share a story. The person doesn\u2019t really matter. But I\u2019m curious to know more when you\u2019re encountering this energy, and you go, oh, that\u2019s it, that\u2019s it. This direct wisdom feels like this.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA:<\/b> I\u2019ll tell you a story. It\u2019s not about me. It\u2019s about my son. So my son was recognized as a tulku in 2001, but it was kept secret until last year, or actually now two years ago, 2019. However, he was recognized as a tulku of Yudra Nyingpo ,who was an 8th century yogi who lived in far eastern Tibet. After Vairochana was exiled from Central Tibet\u2014Varachana was the great translator of that era, and there were very intense political things going on in Central Tibet, and he was exiled. Then the prince, the son of the king where he was exiled, became his disciple, and that was Yudra Nyingpo, who had actually been with him in his previous life. He had a died, but \u2014 hadn\u2019t died, and then this person had been reborn.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, anyway, that\u2019s a whole story about Yudra Nyingpo that\u2019s actually very interesting. But now we\u2019re in this life. So he\u2019s in Tibet. He\u2019s at <\/span>Samye Chimpu<\/span><\/a>, which is the caves of Guru Rinpoche in Central Tibet. He\u2019s just walking around up there. There\u2019s probably about 200 caves up there. He\u2019s on pilgrimage. Suddenly this woman appears, and she says to him in Tibetan\u2014he speaks Tibetan\u2014 \u201cYour cave is over there.\u201d So he\u2019s kind of like, \u201cWhat?\u201d She starts to get a little wrathful, like, \u201cYour cave\u2019s over there. Go!\u201d So he follows her, and he goes to this cave. Outside the caves there, they have little plaques for whose cave it was historically, and the plaque says Yuduningpo at this cave that she\u2019s directed him to.<\/span><\/p>\n

So he goes into the cave, and she tells him, \u201cGo inside. Meditate.\u201d So he does that, and he comes out. Then he goes over to this little house that she\u2019s come out of when she gave him those directions. He looks inside, and it\u2019s completely empty. It\u2019s like nobody ever lived there, had been there recently. She just completely vanished. So that would be a manifestation of a dakini.<\/span><\/p>\n

In my life, it happened in Tibet also, also connected to a cave, where I was in this area called Chotero Terdrum, quite an amazing area of Tibet, where Guru Rinpoche lived and where Yeshe Tsogyal lived, who was the Tibetan consort of Guru Rinpoche, Padmasambhava, the one who was eaten by Leykyi Wangmo and received all the empowerments in her body. So this is sacred to him, and also Yeshe Tsogyal who was exiled there and lived there with her consort, who was from Nepal. So I heard that there was an emanation of Yeshe Tsogyal that lived there and that she had vowed to always come back as an emanation that would live in this place.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I stayed up in the cave. I think it was about two weeks. I was there with my daughter who was then 16 and one of my students. So we were there, and she wasn\u2019t there. Her consort was there, and he sort of took care of us, would make us tea and direct us to different sacred places to go. Then the time ended for us to leave. We went down the mountain, and we went to try to find her. We heard she was building a prayer wheel down in the valley.<\/span><\/p>\n

So we went to this place, and I was walking up to this place where she was said to reside. Suddenly this dog appeared, Tibetan mastiff, which are very aggressive dogs. This dog came after me and bit me in the leg. My experience of that bite was like the whole world kind of\u2014kind of like the woman who dropped the water. It was just like it was so shocking, and somehow everything just opened. I could see everything with such clarity, and the emptiness of everything. It was like a direct experience, from the shock of it, from whatever happened.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then right behind this dog was this woman, and she actually threw something at the dog and scared it away, and it was her. I felt that that dog was her manifestation and that that experience brought me to a greater understanding and, really, was, in a way, the most important thing that happened to me during that whole time in that very sacred place in Tibet. So those are encounters that I had in Tibet. That was an encounter that I had there that\u2014she was a dakini, and that dog which was like her emanation was my wake-up experience. Actually, I haven\u2019t told that story for a very long time. I think I wrote about it when I first came back. That would have been in 1992, I think.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I hope it doesn\u2019t discourage people from wanting to do dakini-style meditation. The idea of enlightening dog bite doesn\u2019t sound so terrific.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA:<\/b> I wouldn\u2019t think that by doing a dakini meditation you would be inviting dog attacks. But it is interesting how these things can happen in ways that you might not think, or you might not like the way it happens. I think that does happen around the dakini, that often things will happen that are not in the program. You think, oh, this is really bad, whatever it is that\u2019s happening, a change, usually, because dakinis are change agents. A change will happen in your life, and you\u2019ll be upset about it maybe at the time, but then you realize, oh, that was actually the best thing that could have happened to me at that time, and it led to a major shift that I really needed.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now let me ask you a question, Lama Tsultrim. You talked about, in the meditation practice, working with the deity level of the dakini and actually transforming ourselves into these dakini figures. Then you described the dakini figures as these fierce, wrathful beings. Why do I need to transform into a being that\u2019s fierce and wrathful? Why wouldn\u2019t it be perfectly helpful and useful and transformative to transform into a peaceful being?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA:<\/b> It is. It is perfectly useful to do that, and, for example, the Green Tara, for example, is a female figure who is peaceful and extremely powerful and beneficial. It\u2019s just another aspect of ourselves, and I think particularly because this archetype has been forbidden to us, it\u2019s like a part of the psyche that has been lost. That aspect of the feminine, I think, is important because, if women can\u2019t be like Greta or other women who are standing up in various ways\u2014I find Simone Biles also\u2014she\u2019s not so much manifesting as wrathful, but she\u2019s very decisive and powerful as a young woman, and her voice is powerful. So that aspect of taking charge and manifesting your power and not apologizing for it, I think, is an important aspect. The gentle nurturing feminine is equally important. But my point is that we need both. We need all aspects. There\u2019s also the seductive or the desire provoking aspect of the feminine as well. They say that each of these aspects transform one of the three poisons. So anger is transformed into the wrathful deities, not only female, male as well. Desire is transformed into what\u2019s called the semi-wrathful deities that are in-between wrathful and peaceful. Then ignorance is transformed into the peaceful deities.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I emphasized and wrote about in my book the wrathful aspect because I felt it was a part of us as a society that we need. We need her. Obviously, this could be abused and rationalized. Oh, I\u2019m just the wrathful dakini, when actually somebody\u2019s just being mean. So that\u2019s important that that\u2019s not the case. But if you\u2019re working with it at an energetic level and you\u2019re taking that energy that\u2019s wrapped up in anger and illuminating it as fast-moving energy\u2014and this is the way it\u2019s been described to me by my teachers. That fast-moving intense energy of something that is wrathful\u2014I mean, when are we more intense than when we\u2019re mad? We\u2019re manifesting all that energy as humans, which is potentially extremely destructive, but also potentially extremely powerful in removing obstacles and change, in creating change. So that\u2019s why I wrote the book emphasizing that. I could have written a book about the peaceful feminine and the importance of that, because it is very peaceful. But I felt this was something that needed to be brought forward because it\u2019s something that has been disparaged. Women, especially, have been discouraged from expressing that kind of forcefulness.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Can you help me and our listeners understand, if we take something like anger and we work with the dakini energy, the dakini deity, how that anger get transformed into what? How does that work?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA:<\/b> Yes. The clearest way that I\u2019ve heard it explained is as fast-moving energy, movement, whereas the peaceful deities are not movement, stationary. The dakinis were dancing. They are not just standing there. They\u2019re not just running around. They\u2019re actually dancing, and I think that\u2019s interesting also. Dance is such an expression of joy and power and being in the flow of energy. So how does this work? How does this actually work? Do you think we could do a little short meditation to\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Oh, yes, oh, yes. Let\u2019s do it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA:<\/b> \u2014pull in something a little more experiential. So what I\u2019m going to do is invite you to become a dakini, a wrathful dakini. The reason I want to do this experientially is because I want you to have the feeling of it, because I could describe it, but I don\u2019t think that would be as helpful as you trying it. So what we\u2019ll do is we\u2019ll close our eyes in this experiment. So now I\u2019ve got my eyes closed, and we\u2019re going to work with the syllable, hung, like H-U-N-G, or H-U-M, hum. As we sound hung, I would like you to imagine that your body, whether you\u2019re male or female listening to this, becomes a female form, takes a female form, that you are dark blue, like blue black in color, and that you have your right leg raised and your left leg extended. You\u2019re dancing on top of the sun disk, like a horizontal sun. Then in your raised right hand, you\u2019ll be holding a hooked knife, which represents the ability to cut through discursive thoughts of subject and object, subject-object fixation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then at your heart, you\u2019ll be holding a skull cup, human skull cup, which again comes from these charnel grounds in India, these places between the worlds where the dakinis often manifested, between life and death. You\u2019ll be holding that at your heart, and that will be full of a nectar of transformation. Then in the crook of your left arm, extending to your foot, your left foot down on the ground, is a staff. That staff goes into the crook of your left arm and then goes up to just above your shoulder, and on it are three skulls, a freshly severed skull, a few days old one, and then a dry skull. Those represent the three <\/span>kayas<\/span><\/i> that I spoke about before. Then on top of that is a <\/span>vajra<\/span><\/i>, which is a scepter that has five points on each end. It has two ends, and then it has a hub in the middle. That symbolizes the sacred masculine. So this staff that you\u2019re holding called a <\/span>khatvanga<\/span><\/i> symbolizes the sacred masculine. You will be emanating wisdom flames, and your expression is fierce. You have your tongue extended and coiled. You have fangs, and you\u2019re full of wisdom energy of mirror-like wisdom.<\/span><\/p>\n

So now we will sound the seed syllable, hung, a long deep sounding, and as we do it imagine that your body, wherever it is right now, becomes this wrathful dakini. So take a moment and become present in your body. As you sound the hung, feel that that sound is transforming your physical body into a body of luminous, dark blue light. Hung. Take a moment to feel yourself in the female body. Your body is blue black in color. It\u2019s a body of light. It\u2019s emanating flames that are the flames of wisdom, mirror-like wisdom, the wisdom like a mirror, reflecting all and reacting to nothing. Feel the energy of the wisdom flames emanating from you. Feel your fierceness that is embodying compassion, fierce compassion. Notice what it feels like to have this body of light that\u2019s very intense. The fierce energy is removing all delusion, clarity of mirror-like wisdom.<\/span><\/p>\n

You have three eyes, the third eye in your forehead that sees beyond two. You\u2019re holding the skull cup in your left hand, at your heart, containing the nectar of transformation. You could put your hand up at your heart, if that feels right, and just feel that you\u2019re holding that skull cup of transformational nectar. Then in your raised right hand\u2014and, again, you can lift your hand\u2014imagine you\u2019re holding this crescent shaped, hooked knife that cuts through subject-object delusion, subject-object fixation. Feel your fierceness. Feel that energy, and feel yourself as female, the fierce feminine, wise, strong, undefeatable, unconquerable. Really allow yourself to feel the fierce wisdom, strength, compassion, and that blue black color emanating wisdom flames.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take a moment to really, really fully embody this energy. Notice how it feels. If you have any anger, imagine that that anger is transformed into mirror-like wisdom, clarity, strength. You have your consort in the crook of your left arm. You have the masculine there with you to support you, to be with you as a walking stick or as a tent pole, as a weapon to protect you. It\u2019s there with you, integrated. You\u2019re noting how this feels, how this wisdom feels, the strength of it, the power. Let that sink into you in a way that you can recall it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then we\u2019ll sound the seed syllable again, and as we sound it, we\u2019ll allow this visualization to dissolve from the top down and from the feet up into our hearts, where there\u2019s a sphere of blue light. Then that sphere also dissolves, and we\u2019ll rest for a moment in open awareness. Hung. Down to a tiny point of blue light, and then that blue light dissolves. Rest in whatever\u2019s present after that dissolution.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then we\u2019ll come back. I\u2019m opening my eyes now. As you come back into your normal body, notice how you feel. Do you feel somehow slightly transformed by this energy in your body? Does it feel destructive, harmful? Or does it feel strong and luminous and forceful? That\u2019s how it feels to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Thank you, Lama Tsultrim. Thank you so much. Thanks for giving us that direct experience. I feel so grateful to have had this conversation with Lama Tsultrim Allione. She\u2019s the author of the book, <\/span>Wisdom Rising<\/span><\/i>, and with Sounds True, we\u2019ve released a new ten-session audio series. It\u2019s called <\/span>The Empowered Feminine: Meditating with the Dakini Mandala<\/span><\/i>. Here as we close, Lama Tsultrim, I\u2019m just going to ask you to comment on this quote that\u2019s towards the end of your book, <\/span>Wisdom Rising<\/span><\/i>. You write, \u201cMy journey to and with the dakini has been going on for half a century and has paralleled the rapid changes on Earth, changes that have become more devastating daily. I have become convinced that it is her wisdom that we need now.\u201d Why, in your view\u2014and in many ways this wraps up our whole conversation\u2014do you feel we need dakini wisdom now?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA:<\/b> Well, I think, in general, we need the feminine. We need the feminine voice in our world at an equal level to the masculine, which has definitely been dominating for quite a while, so that\u2019s one thing. Then the dakini principle is wisdom. This is different than, say, outer empowerment of women or the feminine that is also important. I\u2019m not diminishing that in any way. But I think the word inpowerment, like I-N, inpowerment, is very important for all of us who are trying to make changes in, for example, climate change, that if we have that inner power to draw on as we are being activists or as we are trying to make change, be change makers, then we will have a strength to draw on that we wouldn\u2019t have otherwise. I think it\u2019s also really important to transform the anger into wisdom, to have it as we are making changes and being forceful, to be drawing on a source of compassion and strength that may appear wrathful, but underneath it is wisdom and compassion. This voice of the feminine has\u2014from the beginning of the ecological movement, it\u2019s been dominated by women. I don\u2019t know if you are aware of that, but that\u2019s an actual fact. So I think it\u2019s up to the feminine to really take this on.<\/span><\/p>\n

To me, climate change is the big issue of our time. To have an inner practice\u2014and in the book and in our series, there\u2019s an actual meditation on the mandala of five dakinis, which really is very powerful and actually quite simple meditation that you can do as you are a change maker, or even if you don\u2019t see yourself as being an activist, still to access this feminine wisdom which is so important, as I said, for men and women. To actually feel that is crucial. I really feel it\u2019s crucial. It\u2019s not just, \u201cOh, wouldn\u2019t it be nice if that happened?\u201d We have to do this. We have to. I mean, I feel that, more and more every day, this is really getting to a point of no return. If that happens, we\u2019re still going to have to live, and we\u2019re going to have to live within that no return with as much wisdom and compassion as we can. But let\u2019s not get there. Let\u2019s do what we can to turn it around. The dakini mandala meditations and the understanding, the stories of the dakinis will be a force of transformation in your life, as well as in the lives of those around you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Thank you so much, Lama Tsultrim. Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LTA:<\/b> You\u2019re very welcome. It was so nice to be with you today.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Thank you for listening to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>. You can read a full transcript of today\u2019s interview at SoundsTrue.com\/Podcast. If you\u2019re interested, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app. Also, if you feel inspired, head to iTunes, and leave <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i> a review. I love getting your feedback, being in connection with you, and learning how we can continue to evolve and improve our program. Working together, I believe, we can create a kinder and wiser world. SoundsTrue.com: waking up the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

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