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Permission to perform karmamudra
doesn’t require you to actually do it with a real partner to receive the empowerment.
Yes, that’s right. The scriptures are unambiguous that karmamudra is essential, but that is not now the case. Initiation/empowerment (abhisheka/dbangs) has had a very different function than it did according to scripture, for several centuries at least. It’s given casually to people who have no interest in practicing anything at all, and functions mainly as entertainment during fundraising events. Actual sex is never involved. As far as I can tell, even visualized sex is very rare.
I don’t know all the details of how and when and why the function of dbangs changed. It’s a key historical question (I think) and I’ve collected some relevant factoids, but there’s no extended discussion anywhere, so far as I know. This would be an excellent PhD thesis topic for someone.
As you suggested, there’s an inherent conflict between vinaya (the monastic vows, of which celibacy is #1) and tantric practice (particularly karmamudra, but really the whole thing). Most of the text of “Sleeping with Sukhi” is about that, in fact! The history of Vajrayana is largely the history of people working out different ways of fudging this contradiction. The novel is set in the early 700s, when it appears that the scriptures were understood literally, and abhisheka did require actual sex.
Another important historical and practical question is what happened to actual karmamudra practice in different strands of tantric Buddhism. Officially it got mostly eliminated. However, there seem to have been, and to still be, secret exceptions, so that high-status monks practice it while saying they don’t—analogous to the faculty at Nalanda sneaking off to charnel grounds at midnight. How much of this there is and was in different places and times and lineages, and the specifics of what they practiced, would be great to know, but probably impossible to find out.
Fortunately, there are also a few lineages that have continuously acknowledged that yes, karmamudra is a thing, and always has been. Actual permission to practice has been rare, and requires a great deal more than a routine dbangs.
Sorry about the Sanskrit! I’ve never studied it properly and couldn’t put together sentences with even the grammatical complexity of “the cat is on the mat.”
Thanks
Thanks for the reply, David!
Rakta
As I puzzle more over the various ways in which a monk could possibly receive a Higher Yoga Tantra empowerment without violating the vinaya, it occurs to me: as far as I can see, there is nothing in the vinaya prohibiting a monk from consuming what is known is Sanskrit as rakta (i.e. red stuff, blood, menstrual blood, vaginal lubrication). A monk would need to be careful, of course. Actually touching a woman in order to bite her neck looks to be forbidden. Having a woman who is not the monk’s relative do his laundry is also right out, because that might lead to them having sex. But actually consuming rakta, e.g. from her previously worn garments, appears to be an omission in the vinaya.
Of course, now, you can buy substitute rakta that’s basically just a red herbal drink, which is obviously OK. A fictional vampire might scorn such synthetic substitutions.
Have I missed something in the vinaya here?
Good call
I think you were right to just go ahead and write that last chapter!
The one bit I ‘stumbled’ on was this:
when it was all the way in it needed to come back out, and when it was out it needed to go all the way in
And by ‘stumbled’ I mean that I noticed that as something I was reading (instead of just continuing to read the text), and that it seemed ‘off’.
After re-reading it, it seems fine. I don’t remember clearly, but I might have had the same kinds of ‘stumbles’ reading other romance novels (or ‘romance’ writing in other works), and I’ve actually enjoyed a few. (I’m intimidated by the idea of trying to find other good ones. I mostly just enjoy them in not-romance-novels when I happen upon them.)
But I think it was mostly great and that you’re, in fact, perfectly capable of writing this kind of stuff!
The Vampire's Victim
Given this is a vampire novel, genre convention would suggest that somebody is going to get bitten in the neck (or equivalent) at some point.
The only suspense is in who gets bitten, and who by. Vampire novels are fairly diverse, so gay vampire, lesbian vampire, heterosexual vampire are all possibilities. (Indeed, bi vampire is probably the default for the genre),
The other thing we can guess from this scene is that it’s the young monk who is at some point going to be bitten in the neck.
Genre convention would suggest that some Twilight-like agonizing over “I really want to have sex with the vampire, but I’m a monk (or a respectable Mormon girl like Bella)” is needed. Perhaps not as overdone as in Stephanie Meyer.
Neck biting
Uh, did you not notice that there was a neck biting at the end of the previous episode?
(That might clarify what is going on in the most recent one…)
Oh also, a trans/gay character
Oh, also, forgot to mention, an AMAB trans-ish character has a romance with a man later on. From what I know so far, neither of them gets bitten though.
Neck Biting
Yes, thanks. Surya did get bitten in the previous installment. I’d forgotten it was explicitly described, rather than just implied. The young monk does look like he’s being lined up to be next, though.
GPT scares me
So, vaguely inspired by this, I decided to ask some questions of the GPT2 machine learning algorithm. For those who don’t know, the algorithm uses a huge amount of data trawled off the web to guess which word comes next after an initial string.
In the following, Sukhi’s dialog is typed by me and the Venerable Udayin’s dialog is entirely machine-generated by the GPT algorithm as a response . The only initial hint I gave it was two paragraphs from the vinaya.
=====
You ask, “And the Fourth Noble Truth, Venerable Udayin?”
He says, “That this craving, this attachment to the idea of escape, causes more suffering.”
“Yes,” you say, “it is as you say, Venerable Udayin. Dukkha, anicca, anatta, and nirodha.”
“Yes.”
He stands and touches your head again. “Yes. You are wise, my dear Sukhi.”
He says, “Have you come to ask me for something?”
You ask, “Venerable Udayin, what are amrita and rakta?”
He says, “Amrita is the elixir of life. It is made from the tears of the gods. It can prolong life and grant immortality.”
He says, “Rakta is the blood of the blessed. It has the power of magic, and can turn those who drink it into vampires.”
=======
I am astonished what GPT has learned from the web (some of it possibly of doubtful accuracy), Note: I did not prime the algorithm with anything about what these words might mean, or tell it what the fourth noble truth was. (I did tell it I was called Sukhi).
Recursive Stupas
I was falling about laughing at this point. If this meant to be a serious erotic sex scene, a nomination for The Bad Sex Awards would be in order. As the whole thing is a comedy, it works.
A serious question about the scene: My understanding of the third empowerment, in present day real vajrayana as opposed to the fictional alternate reality vajrayana of the novel, is that it gives you permission to perform karmamudra but doesn’t require you to actually do it with a real partner to receive the empowerment. (Consorts can be imagined etc,) I take it the fictional/historical tantra of the novel has a stronger requirement to actually do karmamudra than our present, ethically-acceptable-to-feminists, version? (I can think of some actual historical texts that strongly imply that karmamudra with a partner is optional … e.g. for monks who aren’t allowed to have sex, people with intersex conditions who physically can’t etc.)
P.S. I was hoping for some actual Sanskrit.