Passion and the razors edge on the tantric path with Irini Rockwell

076 From celebrities like Sting boasting about their sexual prowess to heretical gurus in white robes sleeping with students, the topic of tantra is shrouded in mystery and sometimes scandal. Working with sexual energy is only a part of the sacred outlook of tantric spirituality. Rather than withdrawing from the world of sense pleasures to cultivate awareness, tantra embraces the messy and illuminating aspects of life and relationships equally as fuel for realizing our true nature. Tantra is a transformative approach to waking up, but also comes with inherent risk. Like licking honey from a razors edge, without basic mindfulness and compassion the medicine of great bliss can turn into the poison of self deception.

In this episode of Awake in Relationship I speak with Irini Rockwell, Buddhist teacher and author of several books including The Five Wisdom Energies about the tantric journey of awakening in the modern world. In this conversation we explore the role of passion and sexuality in spiritual growth. We also discuss the yogic approach of working directly with the energetic quality of our conflicting emotions to turn confusion into unshakable wisdom.

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Transcript

Tantra Beyond Sex Myths

Irini Rockwell 0:00

Everything becomes fuel for waking up. That is the tantric message.

Silas Rose 0:08

Welcome friends. My name is Silas Rose, and this is Awake in Relationship. If you've been listening to the show, you might have noticed that I've been focusing more lately on the 'awake' part of awake in relationship. This includes interviews I've done with John Prendergast and Susan Gillis Chapman, where we explore the more yogic approach to love and relationships. This conversation on Tantra with Irini Rockwell follows in that vein. The topic of Tantra is very much shrouded in mystery and speculation. In the West, it's commonly associated with celebrity culture, like Sting, posting to the media that he can make love for hours and hours, or misbehaving gurus in white robes, sleeping with students, in a culture that is hypersexualized, but also strangely frigid. It kind of makes sense that this is what people latch on to when it comes to tantra. Sex is great marketing, but there's a more transformative and profound view to unpack. In Sanskrit, tantra means to weave. There is a thread of continuity and sacredness that we can tune into in our direct experience of the world. Tantra embraces both the pleasurable and messy aspects of life and relationships as the fuel for realizing our true nature. In this conversation, I speak with Irini Rockwell, Buddhist author and teacher about the tantric journey of awakening in the modern world. Irini's been on this path for over 50 years and has studied directly with many of the luminaries of Tibetan Buddhism, including Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. In this conversation, we talk about the view of sexuality and pleasure on the path, as well as the yogic approach of working directly with the energetic quality of our emotions to transform confusion into an unshakable experience of wisdom. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Ireni.

Irini Rockwell 3:10

Thank you so much for having me, Silas.

Silas Rose 3:13

Yeah, I've been looking forward to this conversation.

Irini Rockwell 3:15

Likewise.

Silas Rose 3:31

Perhaps a a good place to start is how did this all begin for you?

Irini Rockwell 3:39

Well, um I go back to 1976 when I met uh Chugem Chungpa Rinpoche and um who became my root guru, my teacher. And the what's interesting about what he did was just even in sitting meditation, you know, going out with the breath, and then he introduced the difference between sitting mindfulness and awareness, and awareness is much more kind of atmospheric. And then he taught us things like Dharma art, which uh was basically not for artists, but was his way of teaching Mahamudra. And uh also the five wisdom energies, which have basically in the last two decades has been my main um way of working with tantric teachings. And then, you know, things like ikabana, fla uh flower arrangement, tea ceremony, all these are um, you know, really tantric in nature. And the other thing is that he was talking about, or you know, the tantric path is basically having an understanding of energy at the core of its teachings. And that resonated with me tremendously because I was a dancer. And uh I had knew about energy, I knew about energy of animals and energy in trees, and so I it was very immediately accessible to me. And then I studied after um Turnpa Rinpoche passed, I studied with Kempold Sultram Gyatso Rinpoche, and basically went much deeper into tantric teachings, working with inner yoga, and I'll talk about that later. Um, they both had an immense capacity scholastically, but their way of teaching was way beyond conventional norms, conventional approaches. So um I I've I've done decades of Tibetan Buddhist practices. In other words, we're talking about sadnas, where you have a visualization, you have um where you have to know all the iconography of what everything means in that visualization. You have a liturgy, you have a uh mantra, you have hand gestures. Uh, it takes an extreme amount of um learning to be able to do Tibetan Buddhist practices. Um and I've seen how powerful they can be. But um now I'm more interested, so this is kind of how I've evolved, now I'm more interested in the essence of Buddhism without those traditional practices. Um it's more, it's less formal, more spontaneously, spontaneous, immediately accessible rather than studiously learned. So we take our awakened nature as the path itself. So I feel that some people are tantric in nature, and the fact that I started dancing when I was eight years old and had a full career, including having a dance company in the San Francisco Bay Area, that I am sort of tantric by nature. Um, I'm so I'm I'm drawn to understand through direct experience, not abstract concepts. Though I have a lot of conceptual capacity to. I mean, I've written three books on the five wisdom energies, but my affinity, um, because I have been a dancer, is what I think has really drawn me to Tantra. So the gist here is with tantric understanding is that you accept there's no external savior. You trust in yourself, you have an inner guru. I've been working with the inner guru. I mean, both my root gurus, Trungpa Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsultrim Rinpoche have passed, you know, years ago. So I have really begun to trust my inner uh inner guru. And to honor, it's also the gist here is to honor reality just as it is. We're not trying to fix it. What's wrong? Everything becomes fuel for waking up. That's the tantric message.

Weaving Reality Into Awakening

Silas Rose 8:58

Yeah, I think I think for a lot of people, uh, particularly in the West, when they think of Tantra, they probably have in mind some form of exotic sexuality. Which is which is great marketing, but it sort of sort of misses the point. So are there particular principles in Tantra that we could talk about? You sort of touched on some of them.

Irini Rockwell 9:27

Technically, Tantra, the definition in of this Sanskrit word means weave or continuity. In other words, there's a consciousness unfolding continuously through every as single aspect of life. The primary message is awares awareness isn't something you achieve, but are constantly working at. It happens naturally. It's like suddenly you're in the moment. You wake up to what's happening right here now. So um this sense of it's in everyday reality cuts through this false split we carry between spirituality and worldly life. Most spiritual paths say uh treat um life as a distraction. Tantra says life is the doorway to awakenment, to enlightenment. You don't give up the world, you wake up to it. Isn't that exciting? I love it. I just love it. So um we could also say that tantra is the mystical, more esoteric side of Buddhism. It's like Sufism is to Islam or Kabbalah is in Judaism, and it seems mysterious because the rational mind can't grasp it. So we go, huh? And that's and because our, you know, society, our world is so um cognitive oriented, it goes, oh, that's that's you know, they dismiss this amazing possibility, they you know, of of getting into a whole uh other way of being and seeing the world. So it's it's it's about more about being naked, metaphorically speaking, and authentic. Authentic is is a very usable world, a word. Um naked maybe not so much, but um so it's not ashamed of the body, sexual energy, and sees both as sacred. The whole path boils down to realizing innate bliss and that sexuality as a sacred path practice is taught as the quick path to realizing this. So sexuality is part of Tantra, for sure, because it's part of the whole awake uh uh everyday experience. Sexual sex is in our world, so that also can be treated as sacred.

Silas Rose 12:35

If I'm tracking the conversation, really the heart of Tantra, this kind of alchemy of turning lead into gold or suffering into enlightenment. You mentioned a lot of your teaching, it's kind of focused on working with emotional energy.

Irini Rockwell 12:54

Yeah, this is a huge topic, a huge, huge topic, emotions. But emotions are our teachers. We meet intense emotions without stuffing them or exploding them, they become fuel, not threats. Every emotional flare-up is a growth opportunity. How about that? So any state of mind is workable, and I work a lot with people on this. So the deep truth here is that obstacles are actually what propel us towards waking up. This is really hard for us to understand. We just want to push our emotions away. I don't want to deal. I don't want to deal. But your fixation is your chance to find your own wisdom. Sanity is inherent, confusion is temporary. One of Trinkot's lines is you can't get stuck in space. So this alchemizing emotion is about our energy in a tight state. We're not to reject them, but transform them. The problem is that negative emotions that isn't that negative emotions exist, but they don't enjoy themselves. We don't give them free reign. We real appreciation of aliveness, not indulgence, turns negative energy into a feast. So here we come into a basic tantric understanding about coal mergent wisdom. That sanity and confusion can't be separated. That's a big tantric message. Every emotion holds a seed of confusion of freedom and a seed of imprisonment, imprisonment. Energy is really neutral. Our reaction is what makes us either confused or sane. Let me give you an example. Um, if if you're in a state of anger, you've like locked in, you totally believe that this anger is justified, pause, you realize that within that anger is your clarity. You have clarity in that anger. And what happens is that there's an egoic defense to say you're right. Being clear is fine. Saying you're right gets you in a lot of trouble. Because basically, you say it has to be that you say someone else is wrong or this situation is wrong. So that's that's an example. So we're always used the power of confusion to transform it. If we give um this stuck energy breathing room, intelligence arises. If we work with energy when it's most vivid, that's when you see most clearly. So that's why we intensify energy.

Silas Rose 16:38

So how how do you create the space for emotions to fully express in their wisdom quality

Irini Rockwell 16:46

Yeah. Well, you cultivate Maitri. Maitre is the catalyst, the key to turning confusion, your stuckness, your claustrophobia into your sanity, your wisdom. And Maitri is uh a Sanskrit word for unconditional friendliness towards yourself. And in my first book, which called The Five Wisdom Energies, I unpack this word Maitre. And there's there's a sense of your neurosis is familiar to it, to yourself. Uh, you go, oh yeah, I've been here, done that, I don't have to go down that road. So it used to be, and this is the pattern for people, if they have a habitual pattern that leads us, leads them into ansified emotional reaction, then they have to use mitre to come into, and using their psychophysical barometer to come into a more wholesome version of themselves. So the the basic idea here is that sanity, as I said, sanity is permanent. Confusion is surface level. It's like a stain, it's totally workable. So when we fully lead into the lean into the neurosis, wisdom is right there. So the result is that when we align with sanity, confusion falls away. It's like water off a duck's back.

Silas Rose 18:35

That notion of leaning into neurosis is interesting. You're moving closer to the fire instead of away from it, which is maybe a kind of more the monastic approach.

Irini Rockwell 18:46

Emotions are not your enemy. They're your work point. Yeah. Pay attention, please. Pay attention to those deeply ingrained habitual patterns that, you know, just spin you round and round and round in samsara. And so samsara, by definition, is this round and round roller coaster.

Silas Rose 19:10

But there's also this notion within Tantra of essentially licking honey from a razor, it can go too far and especially you know with passion. We talked about sexuality. how do you work with passion on the path without it becoming kind of um as you say, kind of obsessive or uh destructive?

Irini Rockwell 19:38

Tantra is a is a tricky path. Um it integrates pleasure, sexuality, spirit, and spirituality towards awakening. And understanding pleasure is crucial to understanding Tantra, because Tantra sees desire as something that can transform you, not imprison you. So when we're not grasping and trying to hold on to things, when we can remain spacious and recognize their transitory nature, we can dance with the energy and actually enjoy it more. So ultimately, this is all about having a sacred outlook and realizing the divine in yourself. That primordial, blissful, non-dual state. It's very shamanic. So the razor's edge is that you are not afraid to meet the sharp edges of reality.

Tantra’s Future In North America

Silas Rose 21:05

Padmasambhava, who is the great yogi that brought the Tatra teachings to Tibet back in I think it was the eighth century. There was a prophecy ' when the iron bird flies and horses run on rails. Uh the Tibetan people will be scattered to the wind and the Dharma will come to the west'. So you got to experience a lot of that as a first generation Buddhist practitioner, and I'm curious how you are feeling about the future of those teachings in North America now.

Guru Principle Without A Guru

Irini Rockwell 21:40

Um, I'll say a couple things. Um there's a lot of you know, sitting practice is mainstream. Everybody's doing it. You know, Catholics are doing it, you know, Jewish people are doing it. It's like, and we have many, many teachers and um sanghas who are uh particular and the Zen people are like ace sitting practitioners bravo they sit and sit and sit and that's a way the tantric practice as I think we've said provides more skillful means and for me uh I was a Quaker first again sitting um it just there weren't enough tools I needed more tools to work with this crazy mind so um basically tantric teachings are more demanding and they're not for everyone and we have a an amazing array of um Tibetan Buddhist masters who are teaching tantra teaching Tibetan Buddhism and then this fifth of the there were four and now there's according to the Dalai Lama there are now five schools of um Tibetan Buddhism and the fourth fifth one is Bon Buddhism which is basically the indigenous shamanic tradition of Tibet and for me that is where I have find myself landing I feel more connected to the teachings of working with sense perceptions and the elements earth water fire and all the elements the animate the inanimate the trees the tree greenery and so on those are the how the sadna of Mahamoja starts that Trungarinpoche basically discovered it came to him in a retreat in Bhutan and that practice has resurfaced for me is uh you know I'll I'll I'll read a couple more passages just uh hum in the boundless space of suchness in the play of the great light all the miracles of sight sound and mind are the five wisdoms and the five Buddhas this is the mandala which is never arranged but is always complete it is the great bliss primeval and all pervading I could go on but uh what I'm trying to say here is that this sense of nature is our and and and and Kembo Rinpoche was you know says you don't he he he left me Kempo Rinpoche with you don't need a shrine you don't need a sadna I take this as the rehearsal is over now you have to live it central to the Buddhist Tantra tantric view is is the guru principle and uh I just wonder if there's a future for that in North America right now. Yeah well it's interesting because I've been working a lot with uh Shambhala has been my you know my sangha since you know I first met Chungpo Rinpoche in 1976. And um you know we had a lot of trouble with his um son who wasn't really getting how we wanted to operate. And uh now there's a resurgence uh and a lot led by feminine energy actually which I think is amazing that that's happening because this world needs more feminine energy and I've been teaching classes on empowering the feminine and embracing the feminine and masculine in both men and women. So the guru principle has come into question because currently Shambhala doesn't have a guru. What does that look like? There are still people in our community who uh senior teachers who are giving empowerments in Suddha Vajrayana and that's great. So what on the course that I the most recent course I did for Shambhala online was called The Essence of Tantra Awakening through direct experience and that is my edge now that is uh where I am both learning a lot and trying to awaken people to uh you don't have to go through the uh immense learning curve of doing sadna practices traditional sadhana practices that mostly developed in monasteries and can go into these more yogic ways of being in the world so for me I think people can experience Tantra and the Vajrayana without a guru and maybe I'm gonna get uh burn in hell for that statement that I truly believe that and I think Tungpu Rimshay was actually doing that through Dharma art through the five wisdoms I mean five wisdoms postures are tantric they intensify energy training is basically Zopchan exactly exactly he he was a tantric teacher from the first time you sat on a cushion and went with the outbreath so I've been instilled since 1976 you know um many moons later I feel that I feel extremely blessed to have been Trungpa Rinpoche's student and then subsequently Kempo Rinpoche's student. I mean I'm just I'm stuffed with the the richness of Dharma and so mostly mm at this stage in my life I'm giving back I'm trying to spread the word as much as possible well I uh Anrina I'm really enjoying this conversation and I'm wondering how uh people might be able to connect more with you and and your work my website has got an amazing amount of material on it about the five wisdom energies so you could go to five wisdomsinstitute.com and um on it uh are um books and my articles just uh a a whole rich assortment I have a YouTube channel that's rich with many many many uh YouTube posts that I've done and I have a quiz and that quiz gives you like a pie shape of your different of the five wisdom energies your Vajra Ratna Padma Karma and Buddha energies so you get a quick look I talk about this is not your portrait but a snapshot.

Silas Rose 29:13

Well be sure to put uh a link to that quiz in the show notes and uh yeah thanks again

Silas Rose 29:22

if you want to learn more about Iranian Rockwell head over to five wisdomsinstitute dot com I

Where To Find Irene And Support

Outro music 30:15

Till next time stay connected