Tantric Yoga Techniques

by Samantha DiAlfredi

Tibetan Buddhist art started in the subcontinent of India with the intent of using art to document the life of Gautama Buddha in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. As the Buddhist religion spread throughout the Asia and the rest of the world, the prominence of Tibetan Buddhist art spread along with it. The earliest Buddhist art generally followed the practice of aniconic Indian traditions. This is the use of Buddhist symbols and iconography without any actual representation of the human figure involved. However, it was about the first century CE when an iconic art period came about and represented the Buddha in human appearance; a practice that continues to this day. As Buddhism spread and evolved in each new country or region, Buddhist art followed those adherents to the faith and developed throughout Asia if different ways.

The art of Tibet has always been thought of as religious in nature, particularly that of Buddhist art in Tibet and all over the rest of Asia and the ancient Himalayan kingdoms like Bhutan, Nepal and Ladakh.

The Tibetan Buddhist art that was created before the mid twentieth century were dedicated to the depiction of sacred subjects and permeated with traditional technique. These works of Tibetan art not only detail the key concepts of philosophy and spirituality but also the energy of Tibetan art aesthetics in terms of the development of various schools of the Tibetan religion in different regions and countries. The Buddhist symbols used in the development of Buddhist art can be studied as variations of the influences that have contributed to Tibetan art over the past centuries.

In the fourth century saw the emergence of the Mahayana Buddhist influence. This particular influence emphasized those who wished to forgo achieving Nirvana in order to help those others in need. The deity Chenrezig is commonly depicted as a thousand armed deity with a single eye in each hand in the Tibetan art of this Buddhist influence.

Another great influence in Tibetan Buddhist art is the Tantric influence, its main symbol being the diamond thunderbolt. Tantric influence art is most often depicted as having many gods with angry faces that actually represent guardians of those who are dedicated to the practice and teaching of Tantric Buddhism and the purging of negative thoughts.

In the Himalayas, a shamanistic tradition known as Bon is considered another great influence of Buddhism and Buddhist art. In this shamanistic practice, many local deities are depicted in Buddhist temples as being with the Buddha as their conqueror and are considered to serve him by keeping mischief and evil away from the people.

Concentration and meditation have been the hallmarks of Buddhist meditation techniques for centuries. Ancient practitioners of the art of Tibetan Buddhism have kept the central techniques preserved for centuries in ancient texts that teachers have passed down to students.

Tibetan Buddhist art also greatly influenced Hindu art, but in the tenth century, Buddhism was all but gone from the Indian subcontinent by the rise of popularity in Islam along with Hinduism.

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What Buddhism Teaches About Sexual Morality

Most religions have rigid, elaborate rules about sexual conduct. Buddhists have the Third Precept - in Pali, Kamesu micchacara veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami - which is most commonly translated “Do not indulge in sexual misconduct.” However, for laypeople, the early scriptures are hazy about what constitutes “sexual misconduct.”

Monastic Rules

Monks and nuns, of course, follow the many rules of the Vinaya-pitaka section of the Pali Canon. For example, monks and nuns who engage in sexual intercourse are “defeated” and are expelled automatically from the order. If a monk makes sexually suggestive comments to a woman, the community of monks must meet and address the transgression. A monk should avoid even the appearance of impropriety by being alone with a woman. Nuns may not allow men to touch, rub or fondle them anywhere between the collar-bone and the knees.

Clerics of most schools of Buddhism in Asia continue to follow the Vinaya-pitaka, with the exception of Japan.

Shinran Shonin (1173-1262), founder of the Jodo Shinshu school of Japanese Pure Land, married, and he authorized Jodo Shinshu priests to marry. In the centuries that followed, the marriage of Japanese Buddhist monks may not have been the rule, but it was a not-infrequent exception.

In 1872, the Meiji government decreed that Buddhist monks and priests (but not nuns) should be free to marry if they chose to do so. Soon “temple families” became commonplace (they had existed before the decree, actually, but people pretended not to notice) and the administration of temples and monasteries often became family businesses, handed down from fathers to sons. In Japan today — and in schools of Buddhism imported to the West from Japan — the issue of monastic celibacy is decided differently from sect to sect and from monk to monk.

The Challenge for Lay Buddhists

Let’s go back to lay Buddhists and the vague precaution about “sexual misconduct.” People mostly take cues about what constitutes “misconduct” from their culture, and we see this in much of Asian Buddhism. However, Buddhism began to spread in western nations just as many of the old cultural rules were disappearing. So what’s “sexual misconduct”?

I hope we can all agree, without further discussion, that non-consensual or exploitative sex is “misconduct.” Beyond that, it seems to me that Buddhism challenges us to think about sexual ethics very differently from the way most of us have been taught to think about them.

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