Jew in the Lotus Part 12

The Dalai Lama wondered if the neophyte kabbalist is tested as a monk is before entering the monastery. Jonathan replied that very often there was a pushing away. His own teacher told him, "not now, come back next year." The Buddhist leader asked about limits on the numbers of students. "Like we say, you cannot teach more than ten." Jonathan answered, "There used to be limits. Now we welcome anybody, there are so few. There are empty seats in the academies" in part because of the Holocaust. Rabbi Greenberg explained that we lost 30 percent of the Jewish people during the war, but more than 80 percent of the scholars, mystics, and teachers who could pa.s.s on ancient traditions.

The Dalai Lama asked about the qualities necessary for the student to be initiated into the teaching. Rabbi Omer-Man answered that "some very old esoteric schools look at the lines on the forehead...but normally it is at the discretion of the teacher." Although "there used to be a law that you had to study the first three levels of Torah first"-that is, pshat, remez pshat, remez and and drash drash-"in fact, some of the greatest kabbalists did not know the first three levels."

Jonathan Omer-Man mentioned another qualification: the student must be married. "There is a lot of discussion of s.e.xuality and s.e.xual energy in the meditations," he explained, "and we say this is only appropriate for someone whose blood is not boiling."

The Dalai Lama was curious. "When you relate this esoteric teaching and focus on the relationship with s.e.xual energy," he asked, "do you lay emphasis on the importance of the channels and drops?" He was alluding to concepts from traditional Tibetan physiology that are used in meditation. We would learn more about the channels and drops as the dialogue continued.

Rabbi Omer-Man answered softly, "I cannot open that door." But he stated that "there is most definitely an attempt to connect the inner tree of life with the outer tree of life in order to find a better balance within, and by so doing, align ourselves with the tree of life that is beyond."

In his answer, Rabbi Omer-Man alluded to an a.n.a.logous kabbalistic physiology, in which the sefirot sefirot are mapped onto body parts. The array of are mapped onto body parts. The array of sefirot sefirot is visualized as a tree. is visualized as a tree.

Moshe Waldoks had already explained the traditional Jewish image of the Torah as a tree of life. This derives from Proverbs 3:18 where the reference is to wisdom. Wisdom "is a tree of life to them that hold fast to it and its supporters are happy." In kabbalah, the tree is turned upside down. The cosmic tree grows with its roots in heaven, and spreads out through its sefirot sefirot into trunk, and main branches. The tree is an array of the ten into trunk, and main branches. The tree is an array of the ten sefirot sefirot, each sefirah sefirah being an aspect of the infinite. (The etymology of being an aspect of the infinite. (The etymology of sefirah sefirah is the Hebrew for sapphire and suggests the glow of supernal light.) is the Hebrew for sapphire and suggests the glow of supernal light.) But in addition to this picture, as the scholar Gershom Scholem notes, "we have the more common image of the sefirot sefirot in the form of a man." (The tree is turned right side up again!) The kabbalists interpreted the phrase that G.o.d created man in his own image to mean that the human body is a cosmic map of divine energies, much in the spirit of John Donne's poem "I am a little world made cunningly." in the form of a man." (The tree is turned right side up again!) The kabbalists interpreted the phrase that G.o.d created man in his own image to mean that the human body is a cosmic map of divine energies, much in the spirit of John Donne's poem "I am a little world made cunningly."

In the interior tree, the ten sefirot sefirot are arranged and mapped out on the body. "The first are arranged and mapped out on the body. "The first sefirot sefirot represent the head, and in the represent the head, and in the Zohar Zohar, the three cavities of the brain; the fourth and the fifth, the arms, the sixth, the torso, the seventh and eighth, the legs, the ninth the s.e.xual organ, and the tenth refers either to the all-embracing totality of the image or...to the female as companion to the male, since both together are needed to const.i.tute a perfect man" (Scholem, Kabbalah Kabbalah, pp. 106-7).

The mapping is quite complex, and the whole system as used in Jewish meditation and prayer exceedingly difficult. That alone could account for Rabbi Omer-Man's reluctance to take the discussion of s.e.xual energies much further. There were other reasons he would reveal to me later.

After Jonathan's demurral, Rabbi Zalman Schachter offered a few more specifics, based on Hasidic prayer. He showed how the body parts corresponded to various sefirot sefirot, as well as to vowel sounds that the pract.i.tioner would take a breath through. For instance, "the right hand represents generosity and the sound of 'ehh' is connected to that." Similarly, the heart is represented by a long o o, and the sefirah sefirah of of tiferet tiferet, or beauty, resides there. This whole meditation, combining breathing and visualization, "was suggested by the Zohar Zohar and worked into the prayer book by Rabbi Yitzhak Luria. It is not p.r.o.nounced with the mouth; it is heard on the inside and the body goes with it." and worked into the prayer book by Rabbi Yitzhak Luria. It is not p.r.o.nounced with the mouth; it is heard on the inside and the body goes with it."

He explained a second system, which he believed close to tantra, in which each month and letter of the alphabet is a.s.sociated with eyes, ears, and inner organs "so that in the twelve months of the year each of the organs is purified."

All the energies of the body are enlisted in the service of this meditation, including s.e.xual. But like Jonathan, Zalman appeared cautious about opening this door. However, the Buddhist master apparently had heard enough to come to a conclusion, for after intently following the details of Zalman's explanation, he leaned back and shook his head with amazement, smiling. He spoke rapidly in Tibetan to Laktor, who reported back his comment, "It's interesting to find that there are very striking similarities."

These similarities soon became even more apparent. While tea was served, Michael Sautman introduced Charles Halpern from the Nathan c.u.mmings Foundation. Halpern asked the Dalai Lama to "share with us the Buddhist approach to esoteric practices."

Over a hot cup of tea, the Buddhist master explained that through tantric meditation one learned "how to actualize concentration."

"One important method is to bring the twin practice of method and wisdom together, or the integration of the practice of method and wisdom. For that it is important to block the ordinary appearances as we are.

"First you visualize that everything is dissolving into the nature of emptiness and from that emptiness you visualize a purified state of existence, like a purified deity. And then you focus on that purity and see that deity as having a level of inherent existence. In other words, through that visualization you bring the practice of method and wisdom together."

In Jewish thought, wisdom is equated with Torah. In Buddha tantra, wisdom is defined as a consciousness that realizes emptiness, or the lack of inherent existence of every phenomena. Uniting method and wisdom means generating a mind that, as scholar Daniel Cozort explains, "realizes emptiness at the same time it compa.s.sionately appears as a deity." To one unfamiliar with tantra, it sounds like doing a handstand with no hands. The Buddhists, however, use even more daring imagery-s.e.xual union.

That was the significance of the yabyum statuette I'd glimpsed in the Drepung Temple during our visit to the oracle. In tantric meditation, wisdom is the female figure and method the male. We did not go into specifics, but Professor Robert Thurman-a scholar and translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts who sat in on this session as an auxiliary translator and observer-told us, "You employ the energies of the body when the mind is in meditation. You empower the meditations of the mind to mobilize the energies of the body." The Dalai Lama added-probably enigmatically for most of his Jewish listeners-"With respect to that we do meditation on the channels, winds, and drops."

As scholar Daniel Cozort has written, these winds or vital energies "cause all movement by and within the body. The winds move in a system of 72,000 subtle 'channels.' The white and red drops are the pure essence of the essential fluids of the male and female, having evolved from the original white drop of the father and red drop of the mother that combined to become the original physical basis for the human body at the time of conception." The white and red drops are found everywhere in human bodies, "where they coat the inside of the channels 'like frost.'" Tantric meditation melts these drops, thereby releasing the energies of winds dissolved in them. It then controls and directs the movement of winds into various channels of the body. Coa.r.s.e and subtle winds correspond to different levels of consciousness.

The Dalai Lama told us, "We divide consciousness, or inner energy, into three levels. Grosser level, more subtle level, innermost subtle level, or subtle state. Now to utilize the innermost subtle consciousness or subtle energy, the first two levels of consciousness energy should be reduced, should cease." Because in ordinary life, too much energy comes from sense organs and mental consciousness, "the subtle consciousness remains inactive and very weak." For ordinary people, subtle consciousness is only apprehended at the moment of death. But in tantric meditation, the activities or energy of the grosser levels are reduced, "then," the Dalai Lama explained, "subtle consciousness becomes more active. For this to occur, we first should control the sense faculty. So the power of the external sense faculties can be brought down or reduced through visualizing or meditating on the seven important physical points, like channels and drops." Robert Thurman added, "especially on the red and white elements inside the body. By bringing them up, that brings the sense down."

Moshe Waldoks thought this practice sounded "like sublimation." Zalman Schachter quoted a relevant pa.s.sage in the Talmud. "It says the mother gives the red, the father gives the white, but G.o.d gives the sight to the eyes, the hearing to the ears."

I suppose before coming to Dharamsala, I might have dismissed the whole business of drops, channels, and winds as nonsense, mishegos mishegos. But I was beginning to see that this was highly useful mishegos mishegos. There was no doubt in my mind that the Dalai Lama and many of the other pract.i.tioners had a very clear understanding of the subtle levels of consciousness. I now saw this elaborate physiology as a way of guiding thought-a steering mechanism. It allowed the meditator to get past the b.u.mps in the road, the distractions to concentrated thought. And one of the biggest b.u.mps was l.u.s.t.

Tibetan Buddhist tantra was largely derived from Hindu tantric texts and practices. ("Tantra" is the name for both the philosophy and its texts; at root the word means web.) Though some deny it, Hindu tantra was a frankly s.e.xual yoga, according to the Buddhist scholar David Snellgrove, with its texts written in "outspoken and deliberately scandalous language and in the unorthodox terminology which one might well expect of wandering tantric yogins, who claim to have no allegiance anywhere except to their own revered teacher." It was a different matter when they came over into Buddhism. According to Snellgrove, it was possible for the tantric texts to be "accepted into the mainstream of the Indian Buddhist tradition by interpreting them [tantras] in accordance with the theory of enigmatic meanings. This is what the commentators set out to do." He gives as an example the Guhyasamaja Tantra Guhyasamaja Tantra. Its literal interpretation was still a cause of anxiety some two centuries after its introduction to Tibet, as shown by the ordinance of eleventh-century King Yeshesod of western Tibet: As retribution for indulging your l.u.s.t in your so-called ritual embrace Alas! You will surely be born as a uterine worm You worship the Three Jewels with flesh, blood and urine. In ignorance of enigmatic terminology you perform the rite literally Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Dalai Lama's gelukpa gelukpa sect, wrote that only those on lower stages of the tantric path would require an actual consort, known as a "knowledge woman" to practice deity yoga, whereas those further along could achieve the same ends, a union of bliss and emptiness, purely through the power of meditation. sect, wrote that only those on lower stages of the tantric path would require an actual consort, known as a "knowledge woman" to practice deity yoga, whereas those further along could achieve the same ends, a union of bliss and emptiness, purely through the power of meditation.

Certainly, as the Buddhist leader explained his practices to the Jewish group, tantric yoga is sublimely psychological. A visualization of the s.e.xual union of deities generates subtle states of consciousness. In the gelukpa gelukpa sect, the practice, as the sect, the practice, as the geshe geshes had explained to some of us Sat.u.r.day night, was reserved for those who were extremely well schooled in Buddhist philosophy and dialectics, and only after many years of training. (This may be why Zalman Schachter's suggestion to the geshe geshes to speed up the training might not be well received.) On the other hand, the meditation was not simply a fantasy, because at the highest level, one simultaneously believed in the deities invoked and recognized them as empty. Snellgrove writes, "It would be useless to invoke any form of divinity, higher or lower, without believing in such a being. The pract.i.tioner is certainly taught that the divine forms are also emanations of his own mind, but they are not arbitrary imaginings and they are far more real than his own transitory personality, which is a mere flow of nonsubstantial elements. In learning to produce mentally such higher forms of emanation and eventually identifying himself with them, the pract.i.tioner gradually transforms his evanescent personality into that higher state of being."

As the Dalai Lama told us, the goal is clarity. The noise coming out of the sense organs has to be quieted, including the powerful s.e.xual impulses. In the puritanical religions, this is done through suppression, denial, hatred of the body. As D. H. Lawrence defined it memorably, religion is bad s.e.x. The daring of Buddhist tantra is to work with the energy, rather than suppressing, denying, or opposing it.

Constraints of time did not allow the discussions to go much further or into greater detail, but enough similarities between tantra and kabbalah had been noted to make it seem worthwhile to continue the comparisons, perhaps in smaller and more intimate working groups.

The whole issue of what to do with s.e.xual energy, or how to accommodate it in religious contexts, goes to the core of life today. The highly moralistic and rigid approaches of some religious denominations to s.e.xuality has led to schizophrenia and denial. In his discussions with the geshe geshes, Zalman Schachter had touched on the Hasidic approach of the Baal Shem Tov and his doctrine of "strange thoughts"-namely, that even thoughts of l.u.s.t come to the mind begging to be raised up. This is probably something Jimmy Swaggart has never thought of. And reflecting on the Dalai Lama's explanation that the whole purpose of tantric meditation was to "actualize concentration," I thought again of how distracting our culture's obsession with s.e.xuality is, and how dealing effectively with such energy is crucial in having a spiritual life. (This was also true in the time of the Baal Shem Tov, when in order to continue their studies, the best students had to put off marriage.) So I delighted to discover that in both kabbalah and tantra there are attempts to recognize the whole human being and all of our impulses, lovely and unlovely, body and soul.

Within Tibetan Buddhism there are various att.i.tudes toward tantric practice. The gelukpa gelukpa sect is the most highly philosophical and scholarly of the Tibetan Buddhist lineages and gives tantric teachings a strong intellectual framework. In this sense, the sect is the most highly philosophical and scholarly of the Tibetan Buddhist lineages and gives tantric teachings a strong intellectual framework. In this sense, the gelukpa gelukpas resembled the rabbis who also carefully embedded mysticism within a rational framework. Thus the conversation about strictures with Jonathan had a certain resonance. Likewise, the Chabad Lubavitch were the gelukpa gelukpas of the Hasidim, the most philosophical and intellectual of the Hasidic sects.

We did not discuss in Dharamsala what might be called Jewish tantra. But, in an utterly different context-the marriage bed-Jewish mysticism also teaches certain techniques for raising s.e.xual energy to celestial realms. The very first written description of Jewish meditation is found in a marriage manual, The Holy Letter The Holy Letter, attributed to the kabbalist Joseph Gikatilla.

As described in Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Meditation Jewish Meditation, the partners meditate throughout the s.e.xual act, becoming "aware of the spark of the Divine in the pleasure itself and elevat[ing] it to its source." According to a contemporary Hasidic description by Yitzhak Buxbaum in Jewish Spiritual Practices Jewish Spiritual Practices, "The Zohar Zohar teaches that when man and woman in s.e.x are both directed to the Divine presence ( teaches that when man and woman in s.e.x are both directed to the Divine presence (Shekhinah), the Divine Presence rests on their bed.... [It is taught that] a man should make his house a Temple and his bedroom a Holy of Holies."

In Jewish mystical thought, then, there is a sacralization of the erotic and an eroticization of the sacred. But this mixture of the erotic and the holy, though very salient in kabbalah, is highly suppressed in mainstream Judaism. It emerges, rather, in hidden forms, such as the Shabbat hymn "Lekha Dodi"-"Welcome to the Bride." Samuel Alkabez wrote it in sixteenth-century Safed, under the influence of the great kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria. At one time in Safed, the men would dress in white and await the Shabbat bride as night fell, greeting her with "Lekha Dodi." For Isaac Luria and his followers, this amounted to a "visualization" of the Shekhinah Shekhinah arriving like a mother with a troupe of Shabbat souls. arriving like a mother with a troupe of Shabbat souls.

In fact, as expounded in kabbalistic texts such as Sod Ha-Shabbat Sod Ha-Shabbat (Secret of the Sabbath), the entire mystical Shabbat was organized in antic.i.p.ation of the s.e.xual union between husband and wife, timed to coincide with a celestial coupling, the "union of the Bride with Her Beloved." The physical union would produce a new body and the celestial union a new soul. "During the six days of the week (Secret of the Sabbath), the entire mystical Shabbat was organized in antic.i.p.ation of the s.e.xual union between husband and wife, timed to coincide with a celestial coupling, the "union of the Bride with Her Beloved." The physical union would produce a new body and the celestial union a new soul. "During the six days of the week Shekhinah Shekhinah is a folded rose, but on Shabbat and holy days, She opens to receive fragrance and spices [from Her husband] and to give souls and joy to Her children...." is a folded rose, but on Shabbat and holy days, She opens to receive fragrance and spices [from Her husband] and to give souls and joy to Her children...."

"This discovery of a feminine element in G.o.d," Gershom Scholem notes, "is of course one of the most significant steps they took. Often regarded with the utmost misgiving by strictly Rabbinical, non-Kabbalistic Jews, this mythical conception of the feminine principle of the Shekhinah Shekhinah as a providential guide of Creation achieved enormous popularity among the ma.s.ses of the Jewish people, so showing that here the Kabbalists had uncovered one of the primordial religious impulses still latent in Judaism." as a providential guide of Creation achieved enormous popularity among the ma.s.ses of the Jewish people, so showing that here the Kabbalists had uncovered one of the primordial religious impulses still latent in Judaism."

In Hasidic prayer, attention is constantly directed toward the union of the heart sefirah sefirah ( (Tiferet) with the Shekhinah Shekhinah ( (Malkhut), also visualized as the union of Yod He Yod He and and Vov He Vov He in the name of G.o.d. According to Gershom Scholem, "The Kabbalists held that every religious act should be accompanied by the formula: this is done 'for the sake of the reunion of G.o.d and His in the name of G.o.d. According to Gershom Scholem, "The Kabbalists held that every religious act should be accompanied by the formula: this is done 'for the sake of the reunion of G.o.d and His Shekhinah Shekhinah.' And indeed, under Kabbalistic influence, this formula was employed in all subsequent liturgical texts and books of later Judaism, down to the nineteenth century, when rationalistic Jews, horrified at a conception they no longer understood, deleted it from the prayer books destined for the use of Westernized minds."

In general, Scholem explains, the kabbalists aimed at "the transformation of essentially profane acts into ritual," especially eating and s.e.xual activity. "These acts are closely bound up with the sacral sphere." At one point in the discussion, Jonathan Omer-Man described a group of kabbalists in Jerusalem who spent six hours a day just on morning prayers and hours reciting blessings over every activity. He used this example to suggest that to the Jewish mystic, every act, no matter how mundane, was part of an ongoing meditation.

In the same vein, Scholem cites the story of the patriarch Enoch, "who according to an old tradition was taken from the earth by G.o.d and transformed into the angel Metatron" and "was said to have been a cobbler. At every st.i.tch of his awl he not only joined the upper leather with the sole, but all upper things with all lower things.... He accompanied his work at every step with meditations which drew the stream of emanation down from the upper to the lower (so transforming profane action into ritual action) until he himself was transfigured from the earthly Enoch into the transcendent Metatron who had been the object of his meditations." Scholem points out "that a very similar legend is to be found in a Tibetan tantric text, the 'Tales of the Eighty-Four Magicians' (translated by A. Grunwedel in Ba.s.sler-Archiv, V, [1916]) Here...the guru guru Camara (which means shoemaker) receives instruction from a yogi concerning the leather, the awl, the thread, and the shoe.... For twelve years he meditates day and night over this Camara (which means shoemaker) receives instruction from a yogi concerning the leather, the awl, the thread, and the shoe.... For twelve years he meditates day and night over this shoemaking, until he attains perfect enlightenment and is borne aloft" (Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism).

Clearly, then, even down to legends, there are "striking similarities" between kabbalah and tantra, as the Dalai Lama exclaimed.

Strikingly similar too is the meditation on complex body maps that align physical and spiritual energies. Both systems work past the famous contradiction in the West between the mind and the body. Ever since Descartes Westerners have been stuck with a soul in a machine, a disembodied body seen as a purely spiritless mechanical construction.

Yet our everyday language teaches us differently. The mechanical body of science, with its circulatory systems for blood lymph, its nervous systems, skeleton, and organs, is rarely the body we "have in mind." Rather, we construct our own mental map, our own imaginal body: emotions in the heart, hunger in the stomach, l.u.s.t in the genitals, thought in the brain. To that picture we add our own overlay-a private map of our feelings and fantasies. Perhaps that is why a look in the mirror always brings a slight shock.

The subtle physiology of tantra can be seen as a highly elaborate and systematic development of the imaginal body. The tantric pract.i.tioner visualizes a very complex and elaborate physiology of seventy-two thousand channels, as well as winds and drops. What's fascinating is how this "subtle physiology" creates a workable interface between the mind and the body that allows for an extraordinary control of autonomic systems.

Many in the West are familiar with biofeedback, which has been used successfully to gain control of blood pressure and heart rate. Dr. Herbert Benson of the Harvard Medical School, a leading researcher on using meditation to lower stress for heart attack patients, came to Dharamsala in February 1981 to study tantric pract.i.tioners, longtime solitary monks who practice "inner heat," or Tum-mo Tum-mo, meditation. It is said that the monks are able to sit all night meditating in the snow without ill effect. Dr. Benson was able to doc.u.ment, using electronic measures, that the monks were capable of raising the temperature of their extremities up to 8.3 degrees centigrade, an extraordinary feat.

In Dharamsala, the rabbis could not provide a detailed explanation of the use of the interior tree in kabbalistic meditation that would permit a fuller comparison to tantra. But the leading scholar of kabbalah today, Moshe Idel, speculates that precisely here kabbalah, by way of Sufism, was "infiltrated" by Hindu concepts. He sees a marked resemblance between Hindu mandalas and the kabbalistic inner tree, or body maps. Since Buddhist tantra is also derived from Hindu texts and teachings, there may even be a point of common origin for both esoteric systems.

Supposing that is true, still the same concepts would have encountered very different environments and therefore manifested in very different ways. Tantrayana is practiced in both householder and celibate contexts within Tibetan Buddhism. Marpa, a great eleventhcentury teacher and guru of the kagyu kagyu lineage, was married, and his student, the poet and saint Milarepa, had many consorts. Up through 1959, many of the great Tibetan tantric pract.i.tioners or yogins were householders, and some were women. lineage, was married, and his student, the poet and saint Milarepa, had many consorts. Up through 1959, many of the great Tibetan tantric pract.i.tioners or yogins were householders, and some were women.

However, in the dominant gelukpa gelukpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, tantra was set into a celibate, monastic system. The mysteries of higher tantric meditation are reserved for those who have spent years refining themselves through study, debate, and meditation practice-it is very unlikely that such a trainee would fall into a merely vulgar interpretation. sect of Tibetan Buddhism, tantra was set into a celibate, monastic system. The mysteries of higher tantric meditation are reserved for those who have spent years refining themselves through study, debate, and meditation practice-it is very unlikely that such a trainee would fall into a merely vulgar interpretation.

Judaism is definitively a householder religion. Historically, its experiments with monasticism were brief, the Essenes being the best-known group. (It's not clear that all Essene groups were celibate.) Even the holy man, the tzaddik tzaddik or prophet, must be part of "this world" as Jonathan had stressed. Therefore, in the Jewish context, the practice of s.e.xual yoga-if one can borrow the term from tantra-is exclusively between husband and wife. or prophet, must be part of "this world" as Jonathan had stressed. Therefore, in the Jewish context, the practice of s.e.xual yoga-if one can borrow the term from tantra-is exclusively between husband and wife.

Another major difference today is that the Tibetans have a wellpreserved, complete, and highly developed path of meditation, which they are willing to teach to qualified Westerners. For many historical reasons, the doors to the Jewish esoteric remain shut to most Jews.

After the session, I asked Jonathan why, when asked about s.e.xual energies, he had replied, "I cannot open that door." He said, "There are some things that have to be held back, taught one-on-one. I don't know how else to do it. The moment it becomes public, it becomes so open to misunderstanding and the wrong kind of visualization-seeing it as an exciting image and not part of a discipline for very advanced people."

Moreover, Jonathan felt that the use of s.e.xual energy had been abused in both the Jewish world and the tantric. Among some Hasidim, for instance, "it became an object of obsession, of doing it the right way-a negative abuse." He referred to kabbalistic texts and folklore, which concentrate on how to avoid getting s.e.m.e.n on the sheets, whether due to masturbation or marital s.e.x. There was a medieval belief that Lilith, the first wife of Adam, would make use of the spilled s.e.m.e.n to create demonic creatures, the shovavim shovavim, or "ill-bred" creatures of man's desire. In Jonathan's view, this sort of superst.i.tion "is an extremely negative development of it when it became popularized." Therefore, these Jewish teachings should only be given to major adepts, people who are deeply involved. "That's one level-it's dangerous or it can be abused. The other level is, when one aligns oneself with the ultimate reality-the divine world-then it's more appropriate. But when one sees oneself as the ultimate reality, when one is looking for reinforcement of oneself, of one's momentary ego, one's s.e.xuality, then it becomes dangerous-a perversion, a distortion."

That did not mean he would refuse to speak about s.e.xual energies in Jewish meditation. "When I speak about it publicly or avoid it, it's also an invitation for people to come one-on-one to discuss it." The teaching is available, "but it's information you don't get for free."

Jonathan added, "One of the major themes of our entire encounter there, from my perspective, was the relation between the two, between the esoteric and the public. It's something the Tibetan Buddhists face because of people like Chogyam Trungpa and others who made things public that shouldn't have been public." But if the teachings remained private, how were most Jews supposed to learn about them? Jonathan himself had not been born into kabbalah like Zalman Schachter. I asked him how he'd learned it.

He'd grown up in England in what he described as a not very observant Orthodox family, in a country where "Orthodoxy was the only club in town." As a young man he'd come to Israel for Zionist reasons. He felt he was fighting against his religious impulses-"just saying no for a long time before I said yes." He worked as a cowboy on a kibbutz until he had the misfortune of contracting polio in the winter of 1956.

After that he came to Jerusalem and found work in publishing. He collaborated with the distinguished Talmudic scholar and mystic Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz for four years as his personal editor and edited Shefa Quarterly Shefa Quarterly. The magazine brought to attention a number of important scholars and mystical Jewish texts. He also worked with Gershom Scholem, editing for the Encyclopedia Judaica Encyclopedia Judaica his articles on kabbalah, which touched Jonathan very deeply. his articles on kabbalah, which touched Jonathan very deeply.

Personally, Jonathan found Scholem "a very impenetrable person who sometimes gave a glimpse beyond." Following that glimpse, he enrolled in Hebrew University to study kabbalah, but "I realized that wasn't the place. It gave me some useful tools, but I sought out more traditional teachers after that." Like Alex Berzin, Omer-Man wanted the practice and wanted to learn from living teachers, not just from a text. Jonathan did not belong to the ultra-Orthodox communities in Jerusalem where kabbalah was taught at that time. But his two most important teachers "were trying to communicate to people who were not in the direct sociological lineage." One came from a Hasidic, Bratzlaver-influenced community; the other brought teachings from an extant kabbalistic community in Tangiers. "The Hasidic teacher knew I wasn't going to join his community but even so taught me. In some ways I took this as a challenge from him to transmit it elsewhere."

After many years of study, Jonathan personally received ordination (semikha) from Zalman Schachter. Recently he conferred his own first semikha semikha upon Rabbi Judith Halevy. So the mystical transmission continues outside its original closed circles and has been pa.s.sed on to a woman. upon Rabbi Judith Halevy. So the mystical transmission continues outside its original closed circles and has been pa.s.sed on to a woman.

Still, Jonathan's story is more exception than rule. Accessibility is still quite difficult-the door still mostly closed. For instance, even now Jonathan declined to publicly name his teachers. "When ultra-Orthodox people teach less Orthodox people, they can get into deep problems in their own community," especially if the less Orthodox reveal this to the world at large. After all, as Jonathan had explained, the Talmud greatly restricts who can receive such teachings. To pa.s.s them on outside of a given community might seem a betrayal to its members.

Jonathan's presentation to the Dalai Lama also made clear that, in the past, women rarely received instruction in kabbalah. That gave Joy Levitt's joke an unintended irony. "Some of us are hearing this for the first time as well," she'd said. As long as the transmission of kabbalah is confined to ultra-Orthodox circles, women are unlikely to receive it.

The question and challenge of gender, and the role of women in Judaism-and Buddhism-would be raised implicitly by the last two Jewish speakers, Joy Levitt and Blu Greenberg.

17.

Survival Strategies.

Rabbi Joy Levitt spoke first of the synagogue-an inst.i.tution so familiar in the West that it is difficult to appreciate how original it is. The Tibetans currently have nothing to correspond to it. At the preliminary session in New Jersey, the Dalai Lama had been impressed by what he heard. He'd commented, in the light and joking tone he often used in referring to his own tradition, that perhaps the Buddhist temple services were too long and boring. Some of the rabbis joked back that their congregants made the same complaint.

But in her formal presentation, Rabbi Joy Levitt stressed that the Hebrew word beth knesset beth knesset meant "more than just a place of worship; it is a house of a.s.sembling, a gathering place." A synagogue is a focus for the community, a place to study and learn, and a place to share happy occasions. She gave some familiar examples such as a naming ceremony for a baby, held in the synagogue, because "that child doesn't just belong to the parents but to the whole congregation." Ultimately the synagogue is a focus of Jewish ident.i.ty in the diaspora, "among many peoples who are not Jewish, the central place to affirm that you are Jewish." meant "more than just a place of worship; it is a house of a.s.sembling, a gathering place." A synagogue is a focus for the community, a place to study and learn, and a place to share happy occasions. She gave some familiar examples such as a naming ceremony for a baby, held in the synagogue, because "that child doesn't just belong to the parents but to the whole congregation." Ultimately the synagogue is a focus of Jewish ident.i.ty in the diaspora, "among many peoples who are not Jewish, the central place to affirm that you are Jewish."

She went on to explain that the synagogue developed in response to the loss of the Temple. In exile, "we needed local places to worship. We needed a place to console each other after the great tragedy. We needed a place to teach one another, because the level of ignorance as we dispersed, grew."

In America, where so much emphasis is placed on individualism, the synagogue helps to reinforce the Jewish value of community responsibility. Joy Levitt gave examples such as the charity box (the tzedekah box, or pushke pushke) found in many Jewish households. The Dalai Lama wanted to know if the sense of collective responsibility derived from a religious teaching. Joy answered that it was "deeply embedded in our religious tradition but also derives from our experience."

Before leaving for India, Joy had told the story of the Tibetan exile to her Hebrew school children. She asked them to prepare an alb.u.m of letters and drawings, "their attempt to sum up what is important about Jewish life." As she presented it, she quoted from the letter of a twelveyear-old girl. "I know that you are probably looking for information on Jews, but did you know that Jews all over the world stick together? Whenever other Jews are in trouble people pray for them or try to help them in some ways." The letter ended with some advice for the Dalai Lama. "The main purpose of my letter was just to tell your Holiness that no matter what, your people should stick together." The child's advice sounded remarkably like the Nechung oracle's.

The Tibetan leader took a few minutes to page through the alb.u.m. I noticed that he often took time-cleared a s.p.a.ce-to contemplate and absorb something new. He seemed genuinely delighted by this contact with Jewish children.

I thought how he himself had been deprived of a childhood to a large extent. As a tulku tulku he had been taken from his home at age three. Yet Buddhist monks have mothers; Dalai Lamas have mothers. I had been touched by his autobiography. "Of course I was very sad at my mother's death," he writes. He explained that although they had been physically apart in recent years, spiritually they had been close so that "I experienced a great sense of loss-just as I always do when any old member of my entourage dies." That last part might sound rather cold, but I knew it reflected instead the depth of his commitment to Buddhism and the difficulty of the path. The need to explain any sense of personal loss, and to so temper it, was as foreign to my way of thinking as perhaps my very Jewish attachment to my family would be to his. he had been taken from his home at age three. Yet Buddhist monks have mothers; Dalai Lamas have mothers. I had been touched by his autobiography. "Of course I was very sad at my mother's death," he writes. He explained that although they had been physically apart in recent years, spiritually they had been close so that "I experienced a great sense of loss-just as I always do when any old member of my entourage dies." That last part might sound rather cold, but I knew it reflected instead the depth of his commitment to Buddhism and the difficulty of the path. The need to explain any sense of personal loss, and to so temper it, was as foreign to my way of thinking as perhaps my very Jewish attachment to my family would be to his.

Joy asked him for his thoughts, wondering "what inst.i.tutions you've developed or ways you've found to maintain Tibetan culture and religion."

Jews, while disagreeing among themselves about the proper proportions, tend to cook Jewish religion and Jewish culture into one ident.i.ty. But the Dalai Lama distinguished between the Tibetan culture and the religion. He mentioned that in the Tibetan community there were "a few thousand Muslims, very few Christians, and a few hundred thousand who follow the ancient Tibetan religion," Bon. Moreover, there were Tibetans "who joined the Chinese Communist party as early as the fifties. Later some of them became very good friends of mine...very good people-very good Tibetans." And the Tibetan Muslims "kept, I think, the best part of Tibetan culture. Emphasis on cultural ident.i.ty is not laying emphasis on the importance of religion."

But this point met with "respectful disagreement" from Professor Robert Thurman. A large and garrulous man, with a ready laugh and a commanding presence, Thurman reminded the Dalai Lama, in mildly scolding terms, that "Your Holiness works day and night so that the doctrine doesn't decline. This is very important preservative work that you do, in keeping the dharma from disappearing in the world." Then Thurman turned toward the Jewish delegates. "He's saying, 'Oh, we don't do much for religion, do we?'" Then, turning to the Dalai Lama, he said, "You're doing tremendous work for the Buddhist religion."

The Dalai Lama listened to this animated outburst with a smile on his face but countered that "it seems in the sixties and early seventies and a little bit today" that "especially younger people" were "skeptical about religion." (Perhaps he was referring to movements like the Tibetan Youth Congress.) They felt that "because of too much concentration on religious matters, we neglected other fields, other work, so we lost our country."

But the Dalai Lama admitted that since the mid-seventies, and then eighties, interest in Buddhism has been much stronger. Ironically, this return was in part because many "Europeans and Americans are showing genuine interest in Tibetan Buddhism." He felt that, overall, "since exile-more than one hundred thousand Tibetans are in exile now-for thirty-one years-comparatively, we are a quite successful refugee community. If this situation remains another fifty or one hundred years, then I think [we will be] OK. After that, n.o.body knows. Sometimes I'm afraid I may not be able to keep up, like our Jewish friends."

Joy Levitt rea.s.sured him, "I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"One way," the Dalai Lama added, "[that we survive is] Tibetans quite easily adapt to new situations: their mental att.i.tude is quite flexible.... Maybe we've gotten too flexible, I don't know." He asked Thurman what he thought.

"I think the contemporary system itself is falling apart pretty fast so that the Tibetans won't get too comfortable if they try to become totally modern.... Then perhaps Tibetans will find more to be proud of in making their own contribution to the modern culture.

"But, as I say, Your Holiness is underestimating, out of humility, the contribution to Tibetan ident.i.ty of the desire-the sense of responsibility-to preserve the Buddha dharma-because, after all, Tibet has been the country that has most preserved so many Buddhist traditions. Your Holiness has taken years of retreats, you get up at four in the morning and say hours and hours of prayers-you're almost like a rabbi!" At that the Dalai Lama laughed and gestured to Jonathan, "Certainly much less than your teachers."

To Thurman, preserving dharma or Buddhist teaching is the glue that holds most Tibetans together. "So many young Tibetans, who in Tibet have been brainwashed by materialism and communism, when they have a chance, go into a monastery and rebuild it. They want to come to India to study in a monastery."

In recent years, the Chinese have allowed the rebuilding of some of the ruined monasteries in Tibet and have allowed a limited number of monks to study there. There is a strict quota and no financial support is provided. Unfortunately, due to the previous actions of the Chinese, there are few qualified teachers. It is estimated that one-fourth of the male population in Tibet in 1959 were monks. Today fewer than 1 percent are monks.

Thus, the major propagation of Buddha dharma rests with the exiled Tibetans. The Dalai Lama has been actively teaching Buddhism worldwide. He has presented the Kalachakra tantra to several large audiences in Los Angeles, New York, and Wisconsin. These Kalachakra teachings are events unprecedented in the history of Buddhism-and may well represent a unique moment in which previously unavailable ancient teachings are pa.s.sed over to the world at large.

Alex Berzin added that the Dalai Lama has also transformed the traditional monasteries in their new settings in exile, by stressing modern education such as studying mathematics and science. "In this way," he said, "the young monks feel that modern studies and religious studies can go together."

Obviously, the Dalai Lama's efforts at both preservation and adaptation are very important. But in Jewish life, much of the day-to-day task of preservation has fallen on women. The active site has not been the temple, but the home. It was Blu Greenberg's turn to speak. She is not only a Jewish mother and grandmother but also the author of How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household, an excellent guide to the subject.

Blu began by praising all the efforts and achievements of the Tibetans over the last thirty years, "the planning ahead and looking forward," but added in a homely way that brought the discussion down to earth, "nevertheless, exile is exile." She wanted to talk about what she feels has been the most significant inst.i.tution for helping the Jews through a very long exile, the family. And she wanted "to know from Your Holiness what role you see the Tibetan Buddhist family playing in the years ahead."

Our contact Sat.u.r.day afternoon with the Tibetan secularists had convinced Blu the topic was important, and more so after hearing through Nathan Katz of an urgent plea from Alex Berzin. The "Dalai Lama's rabbi" had cornered Nathan after the first dialogue session. "You've got to tell them more about the home," he said, "they don't understand that, they don't know about that. Unless you Jews tell them about how to observe religion in the home, the Tibetans won't be able to do it."

But how to explain the role of the family to a group of celibate monks? In Judaism, Blu said, "it wasn't just the exile that created the centrality of the family. This is a fundamental principle of Jewish theology. The very first commandment in the Torah is 'be fruitful and multiply,' create the family." Moreover, "the family is the carrier of the covenant. To maintain the partnership with G.o.d and fulfill the responsibility in the covenant, we have to have children and pa.s.s the message and the tasks on. What you can't do in your own lifetime you expect the future generations to do." She concluded that "the family is our wheel of life, as compared to the wheel of rebirth" in Tibetan Buddhism.

These were foreign concepts to the Dalai Lama and the abbots and monks, firm believers in rebirth. In the Tibetan view, the spiritual mission of highly enlightened people is carried on from lifetime to lifetime through various bodily frames. Through rebirth, Buddhism stresses a connection between all beings. Every sentient being has at one time or another been one's mother.

To get to a similar idea, Judaism takes a very different route. Blu Greenberg cited a midrash on Genesis. "We are all the children of one couple," Adam and Eve. Why? So no one can feel superior to another in being close to G.o.d.

Although Blu admitted that in recent years the Jewish family has begun to have problems, she stressed that divorce is still lower among Jews than the general American population. Family remains a vital metaphor in Jewish life. "The notion of the family is so deeply ingrained in us, that it is not just the immediate family, our first cousins, the extended family, but the whole family of the Jewish people." She pointed to the ongoing resettlement of Ethiopian and Soviet Jews in Israel as examples of this broadened sense of family. Ultimately, it extends to all humanity, "because we are all cousins. And part of the power of this week is that we have been reminded of our Tibetan cousins."

To Blu Greenberg this commitment involves prayer. That morning, in fact, we had finished our prayers by shouting, "next year in Jerusalem" and then, "next year in Lhasa." But it also meant concrete political action. She promised solidarity with Tibetan women and a protest by Jewish women's organizations against the Chinese policy of forced sterilization. "We know in our bones what it is like to have life cut off at its source."

In stressing household, family, and, ultimately, the Jewish mother that afternoon to a group of celibate monks, there were many paradoxes and echoes. In their own lives, Joy and Blu had found an accommodation between traditional roles for Jewish women and feminism. Blu describes herself as an Orthodox feminist, and Blu and Joy are devoted mothers who are also highly active professionally-Blu as an author and Joy as a rabbi and editor. On the Tibetan side, Rinchen Choegyal, who combined roles as diverse as guest house manager and head of the Tibetan Women's a.s.sociation, was also showing a new status for women.

At the first session with the Dalai Lama, Blu Greenberg and Zalman Schachter had commented on the influence of women's consciousness on contemporary Jewish thinking. Blu had asked the Dalai Lama if any similar discussions were going on in the Tibetan context. The Dalai Lama did affirm the possibility of women's high spiritual achievement, citing the story of the G.o.ddess Tara, who upon achieving enlightenment asked to be perpetually reincarnated in a woman's body. He also explained that the mother is considered the symbol of compa.s.sion and affection, while at the level of practice, without the female side, without wisdom, you can't develop.

Furthermore, at least in the abstract, there was no justification in Buddhism for distinguishing men and women, each having equal spiritual potential. "From the Buddhist viewpoint, all sentient beings are the same," the Dalai Lama affirmed. However, it was clear from his explanation that historically Buddhism had accepted social inequality between the s.e.xes without trying to change it. It wasn't hard to see anyway-there were no female counterparts for Joy and Blu on the Tibetan side.

The Dalai Lama's explanation for this seemed somewhat strained, in my view. "In order to serve humanity," he explained, "if in a certain social system the male is more influential, then at that time more preference is given for the male. If under certain circ.u.mstances in certain situations the female is more influential, more useful, then initially-automatically, the preference will go to the female." The actual social result is that in Tibetan and other Buddhist cultures, such as Burma and Thailand, the inferiority of women is a widespread a.s.sumption. For instance, in Tibet it is common for religious women to pray to be reborn as men. On the American scene, Judaism has often been attacked as a patriarchal religion, in which women are relegated to diminished roles in spiritual life. Blu's amplification of the importance of the home and family in Jewish spiritual life added an important correction to that image. Jewish women have given Judaism enormous strength. Any condemnation of Judaism as purely patriarchal overlooks the contribution of countless Jewish women who have found their spiritual needs satisfied through their roles as wives and mothers. Today Jewish women work hard to combine such roles with careers as Jewish educators, rabbis, and cantors.

Still, as Rabbi Levitt had admitted to Chodron on Shabbat morning, Jewish religion remains patriarchal. After listening to the life stories of Chodron and Pemo, I knew that the Buddhist nuns had sought a much more individual and free spiritual path than the traditional roles of Jewish wife and mother could have provided them. The Judaism they had left behind did not seem to offer women an independent spiritual path.

However, despite the broad-minded view the Dalai Lama presented, the actual Buddhism the women encountered is not an egalitarian paradise. I already had an intimation of that from Rinchen Choegyal's work: the Tibetan nuns needed special support because they weren't getting it the way the monks were. Westerners had to be completely self-supporting.

In Dharamsala, Western Buddhist women have had to struggle with the social customs of the traditions they have adopted. For instance, Thubten Pemo made it clear in our interview that Western nuns in particular were often treated like second-cla.s.s citizens, and this seems to parallel the treatment of Tibetan Buddhist nuns. The very name for nun, ani ani, means something like "auntie"-hardly a term of respect. And the Tibetan word for woman means "lowborn." It is clear that the egalitarian theory of the Dalai Lama has not infiltrated Tibetan customs.

Thubten Chodron has found that Tibetan women are very selfeffacing, and that this social relationship continues when they become nuns. All of this is made even more complicated because the lineage for Tibetan nuns has been broken, so that to be ordained, vows must be taken through an order of Mahayana nuns in Taiwan.

Joseph Goldstein, a leading American meditation teacher, later confirmed for me that there are similar problems for Western Theravadan Buddhists. "One of the big influences of the dharma coming to the West is the equalizing of role between men and women. There was never a difference in the actual practice and attainment. But certainly the way people related to one another was quite s.e.xist. I see it reflecting cultures at the time of the Buddha and Asian cultures since.

"In Burma when I was at one of the monasteries, you go into the dining room in file. The monks would go first, then the laymen, then the nuns, then the laywomen. Which is just indicative of how they saw things."