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Sky Dancer: The Secret Life & Songs of the Lady Yeshe Tsogyel

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yeshe tsogyal. apology accepted if you don't know of her. she is the consumate female yogi, and the events of her life-story, with its sweet and bitter struggles as a stunning village-beauty offerred in marriage to the king of tibet, to her tantric initiation and education and subsequent practice (under the guidance of her consort padmasambhava, the mystic yogi credited with bringing tantra to tibet), all serve to exemplify the triumph over ignorance and suffering. this book is heavy at times (she went through some tuff stuff) but you will be a better woman for reading it (males and females alike!)

If I could have only one book, one to carry with me and drink from while sojourning here, this is the book.

Tantra yoga is sometimes called "highest" tantra yoga, and this book makes clear just what's highest about it.

But I'm getting ahead. First, I'd like to applaud Keith Dowman, the translator, for his courage. Some of you may have read Mr. Dowman's translation of the bawdy life and enlightened adventures of Drukpa Kunley (*The Divine Madman*, apparently out-of-print, and sometimes hard to find), and know how Mr. Dowman has an ardent interest in examining just what sex and enlightenment might have to do with each other. And while examining this question, he keeps the language juicy. I can't understate how helpful that is to me (a straight male). Instead of serving up the usual feast of impossible and impenetrable buddhist terminology, he calls sexual parts by their western bedroom names, and introduces sexual situations with a sense of humor. In this modern era of famous celibate monks from the East--many of whom seem to get in trouble when they come West and encounter women living and behaving in nontraditional, nonpatriarchal ways--such writing is for me most refreshing.

The Dalai Lama has been quoted as saying that in his opinion there may be no one alive on the earth presently, capable of successfully practicing highest Tantra yoga. The Dalai Lama delights me, and he may be right. But for those of us born and raised in the West, for whom negative attitudes toward sex do not seem a healthy spiritual possibility, what other choice do we have but to go INTO the matter rather than avoid it? This book goes into the matter.

Every bit of exotic sexual business that less-than-highest Buddhism tells me to avoid for fear of its karmic consequences, is here in Yeshe Tsogyel's story ecstatically embraced. A veritable bliss of boy parts and girl parts and bodily fluids, all transmuted through and into desireless wisdom.

But then, Tsogyel was a goddess come-to-earth, guided by a buddha come-to-earth. Do I have the strength and purity, the mastery, to engage these practices without engendering attachment and the other negative tendencies of my often-less-than-exalted mind? If so, my actions, according to these teachings, will produce no karmic traces. They'll be like finger-paintings on water. A bird flying through the sky, who leaves no trail.

If not, then there's the rub. Suffering and more suffering will be the likely result. So for some it may be best to stick with basic moral precepts. "Don't do this, don't do that." "These things are good, those things will get you in trouble." But if you're anything like me, you have no choice. Thou Shalt Not just doesn't work.

This book says, in effect, If you have a qualified teacher (which I don't), and you are really high-born (which I'm not), then initiation and empowerment (which I don't have) into these secret practices will take you to very quickly to the highest buddha sky. Otherwise, the practices may well destroy you.

Irresistible. Even if I have to steal the teachings--practice them without lineage permission--what choice do I have but to go for it?

Keith Dowman has had the extraordinary good fortune of learning (and learning well) from very skilled teachers, among the best really, including Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche and Dudjom Rinpoche. The reader of Dowman's translation benefits much from the depth of his learning and engagement with the material.

And what material! What a joy it is to read psychotropic hagiography, the revelation of many gifted hands. (This text is a terma, or what Gurdjieff might call a 'legominism.' Interested?) In short: first order reading of first order importance for men and women engaged in the Tantric Buddhist path, and those interested therein.

A weakness: I found some of Dowman's exclamations on gender in the commentary a bit undercooked. Just to listen in, I would love to share a pot of coffee with him and Judith Simmer-Brown (have you read her book Dakini's Warm Breath yet? Good stuff, mate!). At least Dowman's honest and well-intentioned.

Thinley Norbu Rinpoche's forward is perhaps as indelible as any other aspect of this text; the interested reader may wish to explore his volume Magic Dance, regarding the manifestation of the dakini.

Finally: Tarthang Tulku's translation of this biography, entitled Mother of Knowledge, is very much worth the reader's time and attention.

Homage to the dakinis!

Perhaps all one would ever want to know about Yeshe Tsogyel -- probably the most important semi-historical female figure in Tibetan Buddhism. However, not a book for the casual reader. The author Keith Dowman always chooses meaty material.

This book is a wonderful addition to the library of any Tantrik practitioners. Yeshe Tsogyel was an incarnation of the Goddess Sarasvati, and this book documents her life and adventures. I found it a little tough to get into the language at first, but then I was hooked!