Tag Archives: yeshe tsogyal

Guru Viking Interview on Sexual Yoga, Dakinis, and Queer Tantra

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yeshe tsogyal

The great Khandro, Dakini or Yogini of Tibet, the princess who became a Buddha Yeshe Tsogyal

(This particular image of Yeshe Tsogyal is from a specific practice involving the Khandro that was revealed by the 17th century Tibetan treasure-revealer Tagsham Nuden Dorje who is said to have been a reincarnation of Yeshe Tsogyal’s sexual yoga partner Atsara Salé. The lineage for this practice is held by Namkha Drimed Rinpoche, see here for more information. See here as well for more on this blog regarding Yeshe Tsogyal’s life and exploits)

Hi, friends!

Here’s the information regarding a further podcast I recently did with Steve James of the Guru Viking podcast, as part of a series of interviews connected with my PhD dissertation on Tibetan tantric Buddhist non-monastic, non-celibate yogis and yoginis. In this interview, Steve quizzed me a little about some issues connected with gender and sexuality in Tibetan tantric Buddhism. I am hardly an expert in (or the best person to be mouthing off about!) the experiences of women in Vajrayana, but I hope that some of what we discussed here will be of use and interest.

Here’s Steve’s list of the topics we talked about along with the relevant links:

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For the Religion and the Race: Words of Praise for Tibetan Non-Celibate Tantrikas

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(A depiction of prominent 19th century poet, meditation master and promoter of the ‘white robed, dreadlocked community’ or ngakpa tradition, Shabkar Tsokdruk Rangdrol)

Recently, some non-Tibetan practitioners of Tibetan tantric Buddhism or Vajrayana were asking me about some informal advice texts or ‘speeches’ ༼གཏམ། tahm༽written in Tibetan by great ngakpa ༼སྔགས་པ།༽ or non-celibate tantric ritual specialists and whether these had been translated into English. In the course of looking into some of these older texts, I was reminded of a Tibetan blog post from 2009, which represents an interesting variation on the genre of advice speech for ngakpas, by ngakpas. So I thought I would translate it – very roughly! – and share it here.

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‘His Weight in Gold’: Women of Power in Game of Thrones and Tibetan Buddhism (*SPOILERS!)

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FOR THE INTERNET IS DARK AND FULL OF SPOILERS! GAME OF THRONES AND TIBETAN BUDDDHIST SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT WATCHED THE MOST RECENT EPISODE OF THE SERIES OR HAVE NOT ACHIEVED ENLIGHTENMENT!

Last week’s episode of Game of Thrones, the second in this current season, saw fans’ questions about whether we’d be seeing more of a moving version of the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch Jon Snow put to rest. Continue reading →