A Tantrika in the Modern World: The Sexual Agency of Yeshe Tsogyel

Natasha L. Mikles
Tantric Buddhism (Vajrayana), a form of Buddhism which relies on intense sensual practices in an attempt to bring about enlightenment in a single lifetime, has become increasingly popular in Western societies. In the discussion of modern Vajrayana practitioners, Yeshe Tsogyelthe popular mythologized Tibetan consort of the powerful tantric guru Padmasambhavahas taken on epic proportions. Taking a Tibetan mythological folk hero out of her cultural context and claiming her as their own, many female Vajrayana practitioners have adopted Yeshe Tsogyel as a role model of a powerful tantrika (female Tantric practitioner). They strongly identify with her quest to attain enlightenment as a woman in a patriarchal world, and draw upon her as a source of inspiration for their own practice in modern society. One of the most pointed examples of this elevation is found in the work of Rita Gross, an inuential Buddhist theologian who nearly waxes poetic in her essay on Yeshe Tsogyel1.1 In Grosss hands, Yeshe Tsogyel becomes an exemplar of the joys of enlightenment and a spiritual model that women can follow, especially withregards to their relationships with men and their sexuality. Throughout the narrative, Gross sees Tsogyels sexuality [not]ignored or repressed; working out an enlightened version of her sexuality was apparently an important part of Tsogyels training.2 She claims that through Yeshe Tsogyels hagiography women are called upon and challenged to be a Yeshe Tsogyel; their companions are challenged to become a Padmasambhava.3 However, despite numerous references to the specically female role model Yeshe Tsogyel provides for practitioners, Gross attempts to remove gender from the equation of Yeshe Tsogyels practice and life, stating that dierences between men and women in Tsogyels hagiography (mythologized biography) are deemphasized and shown to be false considerations, making her an ideal role model for modern practitioners.4 Gross has built an image of Yeshe Tsogyel as the ultimate Tantric model for a Western female Vajrayana practitioner. She makes this case from her interpretations of the rnam thar (hagiography), itself a very late document NATASHA L. MIKLES is a senior at the College of William and Mary, majoring in Religious Studies. Natasha studies Asian Religion primarily, with a focus on mythology studies and modern Western interactions with Asian religion. She would like to thank Professor Suzanne Bessenger and Professor Kevin Vose for their help in guiding this paper; their input was critical to its development.

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discovered as a gter ma (once hidden text, now found) text more than eight centuries after the supposed existence of Yeshe Tsogyel. However, when one pulls back the layers of wishful reading and takes a good, long look at the actual events described in this rnam thar, the situation becomes more complicated. The presentation of Yeshe Tsogyel as the ideal role model for the modern Western female practitioner is often based on a misreading of the text, overlooking passages which remind the reader of Yeshe Tsogyels 16th-century context. In this regard, Gross is one of the highest oenders. She is correct in her understanding that for the time period in which the text was written, Tsogyel is an amazingly powerful womanan inuential Tantric guru with disciples, the ear of the king, and astounding abilities. Nonetheless, with regard to her sexual choices, Yeshe Tsogyel seems to have few real decisions; she is acted upon, and does not choose to participate in the actions Her rnam thar does not seem to display an enlightened version of her sexuality.5 Throughout her rnam thar, Yeshe Tsogyel exhibits incredibly little agency in decisions regarding her sexuality, a fact which supports and conrms her gender, rather than creating a nongendered model of enlightenment. The concept of sexual agency is complex, with the possibility of subtle dierences in individual interpretation. In this paper, sexual agency refers to ones ability to choose sexual partners, with emphasis on active choice, as opposed to passive agreement. Due to the resources available, this paper unfortunately relies on a single translation of a single version of Yeshe Tsogyels rnam thar, Lady of the Lotus Born. It is important to note that there are many dierent versions of the life story of Yeshe Tsogyel throughout Tibetan history and relying on one severely limits the scope of this paper. However, working with the resources available, rst there will be an examination of the text, specically focusing on the sexual agency of Yeshe Tsogyel within the larger context of the narrative. Then, this paper compares the hagiography to modern Western interpretations, specically those that claim that the femininity of Yeshe Tsogyel is a minor point within the text. These will be refuted through understanding the sexual agency and gender roles of Yeshe Tsogyel, showing that her femininity is actually very important in constructing her as an enlightened human being. Finally, there will be a consideration of whether one even has the right to analyze the rnam thar of Yeshe Tsogyel according to 21st-century concepts such as sexual agency. Yeshe Tsogyel descends to Earth and comes into her mother, Queen Getso, through a dream sequence reminiscent of Queen Mayas impregnation with the Buddha. Once born, she is beautiful to behold and grows into a woman described as a lovely girl, whose beauty, nonetheless, was now well known to everyone.6 Her father, who at her birth acknowledged that she would either be a great Buddhist or Bonpo meditator or she will be a consort for the great king7 begins to seek a husband for her, but worries that whichever of two suitors he

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chooses will make war on the other. Only after long deliberation does he deign to ask Tsogyel her desires. In one of the few passages of the rnam thar describing Tsogyels attempts to eect a decision regarding her sexuality, Tsogyel demands that she marry neither suitor, rejecting the secular world for the dharmic. Although she begged and begged, they [her mother and father] were deaf to her pleas,8 and her father continues with marriage plans. Despite this, Tsogyel continues to proclaim her rejection of secular sexuality. Her father releases Tsogyel into the wild and tells the suitors that whoever catches her rst will have her as his bride. She is beaten and whipped until her body was mangled and bloody9 by one man when she refuses to go with him. She continually rejects the suitors, but neither of them listens, until nally the King of Tibet,Trisong Detsen,declares that Tsogyel will be his wife as a means to stop the ghting. All is well for the suitors, however, for Tsogyel just happens to have two sisters who are given to the two suitors as brides. In short, the opening chapters of Yeshe Tsogyels rnam thar describe her experience of having her sexual agency be cruelly denied and of being forced into a marriage despite her active and impassioned resistance. After becoming Trisong Detsens queen, Yeshe Tsogyel seems to submit quietly and delight her husband, for he feasted for three months in celebration of his marriage.10 When Padmasambhava comes to court, Trisong Detsen greatly wants to please him and obtain dharmic teachings both for himself and Tibet; he oers Padmasambhava huge piles of gold and jewels. However, Padmasambhava declines, and asks for something greater: But in the practice of the Secret Mantra The presence of a woman is required. She must be faithful, of good lineage, And pure in her samaya. She must be fair and excellently wise, Skilled, and graced with qualities of mercy, Unreserved in open-handed giving, A perfect wisdom dakini indeed.11 Trisong Detsen oered the Lady Tsogyel together with the ve substances of samaya. The Master was well pleased and made Tsogyel his consort.12 Yeshe Tsogyel is given as property from one man to another, an objectied gift in return for teachings. While the rnam thar makes it quite obvious that Tsogyel is thrilled with this turn of events, as she desperately wants to practice the dharma, the event still is noteworthy for its complete lack of any description of choice on the part of Tsogyel. She is a possession passed amongst men; while she may be pleased with the

The Sexual Agency of Yeshe Tsogyel 31

outcome it does not change the basic fact that Tsogyel is stripped of her agency. Once she becomes the tantric consort of Padmasambhava, Tsogyel engages in Secret Mantra practices with him, involving intense sexual rituals. She advances quickly, and obtained the siddhi of unfailing memory,13 among others. Upon completing her intense period of sexual yogic practice with Padmasambhava, he informs her that she requires a consort of her own to further her practice. He tells her in the land of Nepal [] there lives a youth who goes by the name Atsara Sale [] search him out and make him your companion.14 Yeshe Tsogyel follows his instructions and nds the young man, taking him as her consort. Here, Yeshe Tsogyel is once more refused sexual agency, for Padmasambhava made a decision and chose Tsogyels tantric consort. This happens throughout the text. Towards the end of the rnam thar, Padmasambhava again chooses Tsogyels tantric consort. He tells her, Go therefore to Uru in Tibet where there is a boy of fourteen years [] Make him your companion in the practice and together you will accomplish the yidam.15 She seems to contribute little, if any, to the decision. Upon initiating her tantric practice with Padmasambhava, he takes control of her sexuality through his deciding of her future tantric consorts. When Yeshe Tsogyel exhibits her great compassion as a tantrika, it is often through sexual means; however, here as well, she has little actual sexual agency. Through her great compassion Tsogyel engages in sexual activities with whosoever requests it. At one point, a leprous man whose wife threw him out of the house comes to her begging for companionship. He tells her, I thought that since you live only for the benet of others, you might [] perhaps [] be a wife to me.16 With joyful compassion, Tsogyel submits to the mans request and lives as his wife. She transforms herself constantly in her sexual activitiesfor men and women who are lonely, she becomes the ideal companion, changing gender and physical appearance to t their uttermost desires. In a moving statement, Yeshe Tsogyel explains that she gave her lower limbs to the lustful [] I gave away my body and my life.17 In a scene the translator calls one the most astonishing and beautiful encounters of the book,18 Tsogyel is gang-raped by a group of seven men. However, as they violate her, she sings to them of the beauty of the Dharma, bringing them to spiritual maturity and liberation. While it is tempting to view these acts as an expression of Tsogyels sexual agency, sexual agency requires the option to deny a sexual advance. The sexual encounters described are founded on a nonjudgmental innite compassion for all human beings and a desire to end their suering. Tsogyel is forced by her vows as a bodhisattva, an intensely compassionate individual who delays her own entrance into nirvana so that she can work to end the suering of all beings, to acquiesce to all sexual advances. And it seems that this is a gendered activity in Buddhist hagiography, for these sexual acts of compassion are purely the domain of the female. Serenity Young notes that giving oneself sexually seems to

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be the special provenance of the female bodhisattvas.19 In her compassionate works in the world, Yeshe Tsogyel has little control over her sexual partners or decisions, acting as whatever and whoever people need. There is a single instance in Yeshe Tsogyels rnam thar in which she expresses sexual agency. During a three-year solitary retreat, Tsogyel meditates extensively in a cave high up in the mountains. While there, she has a vision: On another occasion, the spirits took the form of a band of handsome youths, their faces beautiful and complexions wholesome, good to smell, well built and sturdya joy to look upon. To begin with they spoke to her [Yeshe Tsogyel] respectfully, addressing her as Mistress and Lady, but later they called her girl and Tsogyel, and began to speak to her with words of desire. They started teasing her playfully, but little by little they uncovered their manhood, saying things like, Hey, girl, is this what you want? Do you want its milk? And they put their arms around her waist, fondling her breasts, playing with her sexual parts, kissing her, making love in all sorts of ways.20 In this instance, Tsogyel displays sexual agency, and rejects the wanton displays of the dream youths. Through the power of her meditation, some disappear, others ee, and the remaining are turned into blackened corpses. Gross sees this passage as Tsogyel working out an enlightened version of her sexuality.21 In analyzing the vision experience, Gross claims that Tsogyel has stopped perceiving men as objects of self-gratication and sexuality no longer is an end in itself.22 Rather, sexuality has become incorporated into the higher cause of enlightenment and no longer serves secular concerns.23 The passage certainly is indicative of the great meditative strength of Yeshe Tsogyel and her determination to attain enlightenment; Grosss theological analysis may be correct within the larger narrative framework. However, the vision sequence is also an important interlude for its exhibition of Tsogyel making sexual decisions through her own power. As she is in solitary retreat, there is no male present to dictate to her sexual choices. Tsogyel is allowed to make her will known. While the presence of Padmasambhava telling her how to react to the vision would not have changed the outcomeshe still would have rejected the sexual advances of the dream youthsit is important to make a clear distinction between having an active choice and merely an implicit agreement in the performance of a given action. Here, Yeshe Tsogyel is making and enacting a sexual decision through her own power. Unfortunately, it is a single instance of sexual agency encapsulated within a narrative lled with a larger denial of that same agency; therefore, its

The Sexual Agency of Yeshe Tsogyel 33

overall eect does little to lessen the fact that Yeshe Tsogyels rnam thar presents her as a being with little input into the sexual decisions aecting her. When reading the rnam thar of Yeshe Tsogyel, many modern female interpreters attempt to deemphasize her femininity and show that the fact that she is a woman has little to do with her enlightenment or compassionate works. In her work on the Great Bliss Queen, an epithet for Yeshe Tsogyel, Anne Klein explains in the introduction that Yeshe Tsogyel is not specically associated with the feminine: I do not oer her [Yeshe Tsogyel/Great Bliss Queen] as a goddess or matriarch or role model who automatically arms or embodies the female characterI am not sure at all that there is something distinctly and meaningfully feminine about her as Westerners, or even Tibetans, understand this term.24 In the beginning of her essay, Rita Gross agrees with Klein, saying that Tsogyels biography, compared with biographies of similar spiritual heroes in Vajrayana Buddhism, does not point to essential, basic dierences based on gender that aect or enhance ones spiritual practice.25 However, despite her initial agreement claiming a negligible femininity, Grosss essay is ripe with allusions to Tsogyels position as a role model of enlightenment for woman. Gross informs the reader that in her [Yeshe Tsogyels] ability to integrate enlightenment with enlightened relationships, Tsogyel provides a provocative, challenging, and untypical model for women.26 She later refers to how Tsogyel can be used by female practitioners to understand how to integrate their Buddhist practice with conventional role expectations and their natural longing for companionship.27 Despite adopting Yeshe Tsogyel as a symbol and role model of an enlightened woman, modern female practitioner-scholars deemphasize and reject a gendered reading of enlightenment through study of Yeshe Tsogyel. Klein and Gross are correct in at least one regard: when considering Yeshe Tsogyel as an enlightened being, it is painfully obvious that she is very atypical in the female experience of Tantric Buddhism evidenced by the textual de-emphasis on her gender. In his research on Tantric Buddhism in India, Ronald Davidson notes the extreme decline and lack of female practitioners within the tantric system. In his pivotal work on Tantric Buddhism, he states, Our sources suggest that, even while individual women exercised power and authority in political and economic aairs in specic regions during the medieval period, they did not extend that involvement into Buddhist institutions.28 While some scholars, notably Miranda Shaw and to a certain extent Rita Gross and Judith Simmer-Brown, have supported the theory of an androcentric record keeping to explain the disappearance of women from the historical records documenting the rise of tantrism in IndiaDavidson attacks

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this idea, claiming that the record-keeping model as proposed actually relies on an astonishing logical fallacy that the absence of evidence is in itself evidence for presence.29 His research indicates that women were little involved with the Tantric Buddhist system as individuals working towards enlightenment. Women did participate in the tantric system as consorts, leaving them in a complex and confusing position. Some scholars have interpreted the Vajrayana sexual yogas as at least theologically consisting of a meeting of equals. Female consorts are considered to be dakinis, representing and containing a special form of prajna (wisdom) with which the practitioner can unite.30 Rita Gross sees this strongly at work with Yeshe Tsogyel: Regardless of who is the leading or more developed partner, the [tantric] relationship serves to develop both partners more fully, to mature them both in spiritual practice [] Vajrayana Buddhism presents a balance of feminine and masculine energy, both on the ultimate and empirical level.31 In another work, Gross explains that one of the most profound implications of the yab-yum icon [image of a male and female Buddha copulating] is that the primary human relationship used to symbolize ultimate reality is that of equal consorts, of male and female ascooperative partners.32 Miranda Shaw even claims that Vajrayana Buddhism elevates the female into a form of goddess worship claiming that the ritual signals the power owing from the female to the male.33 Vajrayana philosophy has been understood by certain scholars to at least theoretically involve the meeting of equals within a sexual context for the purpose of enlightenment. However, despite idealized visions of tantric consorts and sexual relations, the system often displayed a lack of equality, with the consort being used by the guru primarily for his own spiritual gain. It has been noted that in yabyum images, the female appears as simply an attached counterpart, indicated inconographically when the dakini consort is the smaller gure, with fewer hands and arms and less adornment.34 As previously shown in Padmasambhavas impressive speech to Trisong Detsen, in choosing tantric consorts, the woman is often objectied, and chosen primarily for her physical beauty or age. Serenity Young comments that younger women have more female seed than older women. In a tantric context this means the male adept will receive greater benets from a young woman.35 It is interesting to note that Tsogyels male consorts are described predominantly for their great physical attraction as well. Looking at the actual sex act, it is imperative that the man not ejaculate, for he will lose all his spiritual gains at that point.36 This is due to the tantric understanding of the human body, through a structure known as the subtle body system. In this system, there is a complex series of channels, with one critically important channel running from the genitalia through a series of cakras (energy wheels) to the crown of the head. Men have white uid running through their subtle body system, and women

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have red uid. It is only through a combination of this white and red uid that one can, through meditative strength, draw the mixture up the central channel and achieve enlightenment. During the sex act, the tantric guru is supposed to absorb the red uids of the female and incorporate them into his own body, without allowing his white uids to escape into her. Therefore, in sexual yoga, only one partner gains spiritual benets: the male practitioner requires a female, any female, to complete his spiritual training or to speed it up. He takes her bodily uids and the powers attributed to them into himself, for his own benet, not hers.37 The female tantric consort becomes a farm of sorts for the man to draw out these red drops for his spiritual enlightenment. Tantric literature is written almost completely from the male perspective, indicating a primarily male audience.38 Though some might claim that Tantric Buddhist sexual yogas support gender equality in the quest for enlightenment, historically and mechanically it seems to be primarily for mens dharmic growth. Using this understanding of the historical positions of female tantric consorts, one can see that the described sexual yogas of Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyel are unique in the great benet derived by Tsogyel. Throughout the rnam thar, her sexual yogic experiences with her guru are described as moments of great enlightenment and understanding. During one such experience, Tsogyel describes that the whole of the inanimate universe clearly appeared as the palace of the deity, and all animate beings, manifested within it, could be clearly perceived as the Buddhas.39 Frequently the sexual experiences are explained as the opening of mandalas and other forms of spiritual realization. It is quite clear from this perspective that Yeshe Tsogyel is not a mundane tantric consort, as other women might have been, but is gaining special spiritual insight from her yogic practice. This places her in a much more masculine role than her historical counterparts, as sexual yoga was geared towards the enlightenment and spiritual progress of men. The text presents Padmasambhava as an enlightened being, thus he might not require the tantric benets of his sexual yogic practices with Tsogyel. However, it does not change the fact that Tsogyel still receives major tantric benets as Padmasambhavas consort, which does not seem to be often the case in tantric sexuality. Thus, Tsogyels dharmic benets from her sexual yogic practice can be read to indicate a rejection of traditional feminine attributes within the tantric context. While it is clear that Yeshe Tsogyel is not an everyday female practitioner, her femininity is not completely rejected and still plays an important role in her experience as an enlightened being. This is most emphasized by her lack of sexual agency, which ensures her continued subtle subjugation to the desires of the men in her society. While the beginning interlude in regards to her secular marriage obviously indicates a lack of sexual choice, some might be tempted to point to her sexuality with Padmasambhava as an expression of sexual agency. It is true that

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Tsogyel was not displeased by becoming Padmasambhavas consort; from birth she desired to learn the dharma. However, once more, a distinction must be made between desire for a given action to occur, and choosing that action to occur. There is still a critical lack of agency in the fact that she did not choose Padmasambhava as her sexual partner, but was merely given by Trisong Detsen. In addition, Tsogyels physical female body is emphasized within her enlightened context, drawing the readers attention to her feminine nature. Anne Klein herself notes that there is an understood dharmic importance to Yeshe Tsogyels physical female body: The great expanse that is both Tsogyels womb [] and other female organs are emblematic of enlightened wisdom and the state of Buddhahood itself, and are among the most important symbols associated with the Great Bliss Queen.40 Tsogyel is often associated with heavy mother imagery, emphasizing her feminine nature even more strongly. Tsogyels rnam thar is lled with images of her acting as a mother to the Tibetan people. After Queen Getso, Tsogyels mother, was impregnated through her vision, she dreamed that she was holding in her hand a necklace of conches and corals. From the corals there came large quantities of blood, while from the conches milk owed in great abundance. She gave these substances to multitudes of people, but no matter how deeply they drank, they could not exhaust the ow.41 Throughout the text, Tsogyel is referred to by mother, both a sign of reverence for her great tantric status and an acknowledgement of her female person. While Tsogyels mother imagery primarily parallels that of Padmasambhava, who is presented throughout the text as the father of Tibetan Buddhism, it does not serve merely as a parallelism; it focuses the readers attention on Tsogyel as a woman, whether that was an intention of the author or not. The implicit theme within the text which centers on Yeshe Tsogyel as a physical woman, often expressed in mother imagery, emphasizes her feminine presence within her enlightened status. Yeshe Tsogyels lack of sexual agency is further understood as a reinforcement of her feminine nature when one examines her cultural context as a woman within traditional Tibetan society. Although it is found within a mythic context, as the setting of Tsogyels hagiography, it is still a product of the Tibetan consciousness and indicates the secular status of women in 16th-century Tibet, where a womans sexual decisions were made primarily by men. While Matthew Kapstein in his book on the Tibetan people notes that Tibetan women were generally unencumbered by the disadvantages burdening women in many other traditional Asian societies, he follows this with the thought that it is only because womens circumstances throughout much of Asia were deplorable.42 He proceeds with a description of women in traditional Tibetan society, noting that while they did have some economic independence and social freedom, they were still limited to a large extent and placed in dened roles. Kapstein is echoed by Barbara Nimri Aziz, who studied women living in modern Tibet. She notes that

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the word for women in Tibetan literally translates as born low,43 and that other features of the Tibetan language indicate a discrepancy in social status of men and women. While neither Kapstein nor Aziz directly addresses the sexual agency of Tibetan women in either traditional or modern society, they do discuss the social status of women which, while better than much of Asia, still places women in a secondary position to that of men. A lower social status almost invariably indicates a womans lack of complete agency in regards to her sexual decisions. This is emphasized by beliefs such as the inferior engagement of the woman in the procreative sexual act. Serenity Young states that, Tibetans and North Indians, among others, believe that it is male blood that passes through the generations, making womens contribution secondary.44 Thus, Tsogyels lack of agency in regards to her sexual decisions mirrors that of traditional Tibetan women and further emphasizes her femininity within her tantric practice. Through a close reading of Yeshe Tsogyels rnam thar, one can see that in regards to her own life story, she is still a subordinate actor. In particular, she almost completely lacks sexual agency and seems to be at least partially at the will of men in her culture. This lack of sexual agency, among other things, emphasizes Tsogyels feminine status within a male-dominated society. Rita Grosss enlightened version of her [Yeshe Tsogyels] sexuality45 seems to be little present. It is incredibly important to note that this paper rests on a major assumption, one which it is probable Rita Gross shares, that an enlightened sexuality necessitates sexual agency on the part of the individual female. This view is not necessarily a truth that would have existed for women within a 16th-century Tibetan context. Rather, Yeshe Tsogyel is in many ways a snapshot of a particular period in Tibetan cultural history. Thus, when evaluating Yeshe Tsogyel in this way, some scholars and individuals could accuse one of removing the hagiography of Yeshe Tsogyel from its cultural contextbringing 21st-century feminist values into a 16th-century Tibet. Anne Klein, as mentioned earlier, is careful to avoid this, stating that the cultural signicance she [Yeshe Tsogyel] had in Tibet cannot simply be translated to another context. She cannot model how to be a woman in the twentieth century.46 A common rule within folkloric studies is always to remember a myths cultural background and to analyze it accordingly, not to rip it out and attempt to force it into modern standards. It might seem that in discussing Yeshe Tsogyels sexual agency one is attempting to do just that, rather than acknowledging how powerful a womandharmically, sexually, and emotionallyYeshe Tsogyel was for her setting. And to a certain extent once a discussion of Tsogyels sexual agency is initiated, one does have to pull Tsogyel from her cultural context. However, as a mythic gure, Tsogyel no longer belongs to 16th-century Tibet alone. Despite Kleins warnings, many modern female practitioners have adopted Tsogyel

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as a symbolic ag of a powerful female tantrika and begun to use her as a role model and inspiration for their own practice, as evidenced most strongly by Rita Gross. Yeshe Tsogyel now belongs to the 21st-century Western female Vajrayana practitioner as well as the 16th-century Tibetan. And so with this in mind, it is not only possible, but important to analyze Tsogyels hagiography according to 21stcentury feminist standards. Yeshe Tsogyel shows female Vajrayana practitioners the dangers of overlooking traditional cultural realities in a rush to nd role models in Buddhist history. However, Yeshe Tsogyels inability to live up to modern feminist standards should not cause these practitioners to reject her entirely, for there are few Buddhist heroines who could pass that test. It is important to remember that Tsogyel is not a model of a perfect lifestyle, and should not be the map on which modern female practitioners pattern their practice. Rather, they should accept that while Tsogyel is a creation of 16th-century Tibet, she can serve as a motivation to continue practicing and implementing change in our own awed society. It is only through analyzing Yeshe Tsogyel in her historical context that one can understand what to accept, what to deny and how to bring Yeshe Tsogyel into a modern context as a tantric guru, as a woman, and as a sexual agent.

Notes
1

Gross, Rita. Yeshe Tsogyel. Feminine Ground. Janice Willis, ed. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 1987. p. 11-32 2 Ibid, p. 24 3 Ibid, p. 27 4 Ibid, p. 28-31 5 Ibid, p. 24 6 Changchub, Gyalwa and Namkhai Nyingpo. Lady of the Lotus-Born: The Life and Enlightenment of Yeshe Tsogyal. The Padmakara Translation Group, trans. Boston: Shambala, 1999. p. 11 7 Ibid, p. 11 8 Ibid, p. 12 9 Ibid, p. 14 10 Ibid, p. 19 11 Ibid, p. 22 12 Ibid, p. 22 13 Ibid, p. 23 14 Ibid, p. 45

The Sexual Agency of Yeshe Tsogyel 39

15 16

Ibid, p. 95 Ibid, p. 149 17 Ibid, p. 147 18 Ibid, p. xxxii 19 Young, Serenity. Courtesans and Tantric Consorts. New York: Routledge, 2004. p. 154 20 Lady of the Lotus-Born. p. 84 21 Yeshe Tsogyel. p. 24 22 Ibid, p. 25 23 Ibid, p. 25-26 24 Klein, Anne Carolyn. Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, Feminists, and the Art of the Self. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995. p. 22 25 Yeshe Tsogyel. p. 28 26 Ibid, p. 26 27 Ibid, p. 25 28 Davidson, Ronald. Indian Esoteric Buddhism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. p. 92-93 29 Indian Esoteric Buddhism. p. 92 30 Courtesans and Tantric Consorts. p. 136 31 Yeshe Tsogyel. p. 24 32 Gross, Rita. Soaring and Settling: Buddhist Perspectives on Contemporary Social and Religious Issues. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1998. p. 124 33 Shaw, Miranda. Passionate Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. p. 158 34 Simmer-Brown, Judith. Dakinis Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism. Boston: Shambala, 2001. p. 158 35 Tantric Consorts and Courtesans. p. 141 36 Stevens, John. Lust for Enlightenment: Buddhism and Sex. Boston: Shambala, 1990. p. 66 37 Tantric Consorts and Courtesans. p. 168 38 Indian Esoteric Buddhism. p. 97 39 Lady of the Lotus-Born. p. 37 40 Great Bliss Queen. p. 160 41 Lady of the Lotus-Born. p. 9 42 Kapstein, Matthew. The Tibetans. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. p. 199 43 Aziz, Barbara Nimri. Moving Towards a Sociology of Tibet. Feminine Ground. Janice Willis, ed. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 1987. p. 79 44 Courtesans and Tantric Consorts. p. 167 45 Yeshe Tsogyel. p. 24 46 Great Bliss Queen. p. 22