http://www.anandainfo.com/tantric_robes.html An idealistic young Scottish woman goes East to study Buddhism. Twenty-five years later she delivers a radical and unsparing critique of religious structures in Tibet. How much of this system is taking root in West? And how much of it do we really want? June Campbell studied Tibetan Buddhism in monasteries in India in the early 1970's. Subsequently she traveled throughout India, Europe, and North America as a translator and interpreter for various Tibetan lamas.
Her book "Traveler in Space" examines the patriarchy of Tibet's political, religious, and social structures, and the real and symbolic role of women in Tibetan society. Today Ms. Campbell teaches women's studies and religious studies in Edinburgh. This interview was conducted by Helen Tworkhov in New York in June 1996. All text in tinted boxes is excerpted from Traveler in Space, available in the United States from George Braziller, Inc.
Tricycle: What was your motivation for writing Traveler in Space?
トライサクル;宇宙の旅人を書いた動機はなんだったのでしょう。
Campbell: It was a way for me to work through some of the personal confusion that my own experiences left me with. Also, because as time has gone on and Tibetan Buddhism has become more popular in the West, there is much being written by people who know less about the inner workings of the Tibetan system than I, and I thought that what I had to say may be of benefit to others.
Campbell: Yes, but also the academic approach as well, which can take hard lines on certain issues in ways that limit the voices that are heard. Such as the role of women in what is called tantra.
Buddhist tantra makes use of the notion that to enlist the passions in one's religious practice; rather than avoid them, is a potent way to realize the basic non-substantiality of all phenomena. The Buddhist tantric deities are invoked and visualized in meditation, and practitioners identify with them in such a way as to enable them not only to be released from the limitations of ego-clinging, but also to transmute the various mind poisons into various forms of wisdom or enlightenment that the deities represent.
This is reputed to help break the boundaries between "self" and "other" and ultimately between all dualities that are experienced as part of mundane existence. The highest form of realization is said only to come about through the secret tantric practices that involve sexual relations, and that are depicted iconographically in many religious paintings and images. Among celibate practitioners and the "not-so-advanced," these actions are visualized in the mind during meditation as a way of experiencing the "non-dual" through the images of the dual.
Tricycle: In iconography the male and female forms are complimentary, and the facts speak of an exchange of equal energies. Yet in your book you portray the institutions of Tibetan Buddhism as dependent on the subjugation of women. On the other hand, Miranda Shaw, in her book Passionate Enlightenment, speaks of the tantric female masters.
Campbell: To my understanding, it is partly explained by the very unusual social structure that developed in Tibet. Other societies developed kinship, or a monarchy- or lineages that were passed through kinship or, later on, through wealth, or other mechanisms that created a cohesive social system.
The Tibetans incorporated an aspect of Buddhist teachings that had to do with rebirth and reincarnation into the social system, so that you had divine incarnation or what are called tulkus-- little boys--that are identified as being the reincarnations of previous lamas and are born with advanced capacities for enlightenment. In other words: power by incarnation.
incorporateを(…に)組み[取り]入れる((in, into ...));…を(…と) 合併する((with ...)); aspect見方, 見地 外観 様相
And these boys are taken away from their mothers and from the domain of the family and raised in the all-male environments of the monasteries. And even misogyny, which was extensive in the monasteries, was used as a way of helping these young men in their practice. In order for patriarchy to survive, women had to be subjugated.
Tricycle: How did misogyny help male monastic practice?
トライサクル;女性嫌いは男性の修道士(以下単に坊主とする)の修行をどのように たすけたのでしょう。
Campbell: In the very popular text of Milarepa's life story-which all lay people and monastics read--there are many expressions of ambivalence about women: how women are polluting, how they are an obstacle to practice, that at best women can serve others and at worst they are a nuisance. At the same time, women are transcendentalized into goddesses, dakinis, female aspects of being that men must associate with in order to reach enlightenment.
On the one hand, the monastic boys were cut off from women, from maternal care, from physical contact, from a daily life in which women played nurturing and essential roles, and this whole secular way of life was devalued in favor of a male-only society. And yet these boys grew into practitioners who needed women, either in symbolic form or real women as consorts, to fulfill their quest.
on (the) one hand一方では maternal母の、母方の secular世俗の, 現世の, 世間的
So even misogyny, which was extensive in the monasteries, was used as a way of helping these young men in their practice. In order for patriarchy to survive, women had to be subjugated.
まったく同様の文が前にあったので、重複誤植と思われる 割愛
Tricycle: Is the tulku system responsible for silencing women?
Campbell: What I argue in the book is that if it is the case that women did once have a more prominent religious role, then it had certainly declined by the time the tulku system was introduced. I argue that early Tibetan Buddhism replaced much of the Mother Goddess worship and incorporated all the female symbolism of the Lotus Goddess into Chenrezig [the Bodhisattva of Compassion].
キャンベル; 私がこの本の中で論じていますのは、もし女性がかつてはもっと 重要な宗教的役割を持っていたならば、トゥルクシステムが導入されるころには、 すたれてしまったのです。初期のチベット仏教では、母神信仰の多くの部分を置き換え、 蓮の女神のすべての女性的シンボリズムを慈愛の菩薩?(Chenrezig, the bodhisattva of compassion, compassionは同情の意)に編入させました。
The tulku system was what put the tin lid on any potential for women to gain equality in the religious sphere, or for their voices to be heard. It ensured the power of the divine male. Women were excluded from the sacred domain, except under conditions laid down by men, and "tantra" was used as a means of polarizing male and female as opposites.
put the tin lid onを隠しておく. 〈計画・希望・活動を〉だめにする;…にとどめを刺す. sphere 範囲、領域、分野 exclude 除外、排除する lay down 横たえる、定める
As a result, women and their role in the system had to remain hidden. This created very ambivalent attitudes. And in order to keep alive the tantric tradition-as it was being practiced-women had to be kept secret.
Campbell: Both. Because you had lamas who openly had wives and that was quite acceptable. But a lot of them had secret consorts in addition to their wives. And then you had so-called celibate yogis who had secret consorts.
Campbell: No. They may be presented that way in texts. But in the functioning of the system, to have an actual sexual consort is considered the most important ingredient in the path of tantra.
That's where so much of the confusion and ambivalence and misogyny come into play, because you have both: the emphasis on male monastic society and, at the same time the need for women, but without the acknowledgment of the role women play. The centrality of the hidden sexual relationship is terribly important.
misogyny女嫌い come into play〈物・事が〉働き始める, 作用する. monastic修道士の(ような)、修道生活の、禁欲的な emphasis 強調, 力説, (…の)重要視((on, upon ...));[ centrality 中心的な役割
Tricycle: In Traveler in Space, you speak of your own sexual relationship with the late Kalu Rinpoche [1904-1989]. And the revelation was truly shocking to anyone in the West or the East who had known this master. He was considered to be a great Tibetan teacher; who was presented to the world as a celibate yogi.
revelation暴露, 口外, すっぱ抜き.
トライサクル;Traveler in Spaceで、あなたは亡くなったカル リンポチェ(1904-1989)との 性的な関係について話されたわけですが。あなたの暴露話はこのマスターを知っている東西の人々を 驚かせました。彼は偉大なチベットの教師であり、禁欲的なヨギとして認識されていたわけですが。
Campbell: When I have asked why details of sexual encounters often emerge after a lama's death I have been told that it is because ordinary people might misconstrue events, and lose faith in their lama, thus breaking their own personal vow of faith in him, and also helping to bring about the lama's downfall.
emerge(水中などから)浮かび上がる;〈見えなかったものが〉(…から)現れる((from, out of ...) )〈事実が〉明らかになる, 現れる misconstrueを(…と)取り違える((as ...));…を誤解する, 悪い意味に取る. downfall転落, 失墜;(政府などの)転覆;没落, 破滅;零落[破滅]のもと bring about ...(1)〈病気・破滅を〉生じさせる;起こす, 〈事を〉成し遂げる
Naturally any fall in the status of a lama who outwardly maintained a position of celibacy would threaten the whole hierarchical system of theocratic rule, itself dominated since the 1500's by monasticism, and as a consequence the heart of the society itself.
The tulku system lay at the center of the monastic way of life, and symbolically depended not only on the exclusion of women, but also on the metaphorical idea of male motherhood and divine succession. Seen in this way, any lamas outwardly transgressing the rules of the system threatened the very life of the system itself.
Campbell: I don't know what his vows were. We never spoke of them. What I do know is that clearly I was not an equal in our relationship. As I understand it, the ideals of tantra are that two people come together in a ritualistic exchange of equally, valued and distinct energies.
Ideally, the relationship should be reciprocal, mutual. The female would have to be seen on both sides as being as important as the male in the relationship.