Thesis. I'm not sure I even have a question here. This isn't the direction I want to go.

[icarus]

Reworking my thesis question.




Tantric Buddhism is widely misunderstood by western scholars due to a text bias and tendency to decontextualize tantric rituals. On the one hand, tantric texts have been commodified for the appetites of orientalist scholars, who represent them as preserving a mystical tradition from eighth century India like a bug in amber, unchanged for 1,200 years. On the other hand, these same texts have been demonized as a corruption of early Buddhism by comparative religion scholars and historians, who point to sexual tantric elements and hold tantra responsible for the demise of Buddhism in India. A third, if not truly middle ground, has diced, sliced and pureed tantric Buddhist rituals, stripping them of Buddhist beliefs in order to mine them for traces of Mongolian shamanism or Hinduism according to the researchers' aims. Lost in the mix has been the living tradition of tantric practitioners themselves.

These various researchers have sought answers to questions that have little to do with tantra as it is, and more to do with the mindsets and aims of the researchers as they are. These mindsets have been reflected in the research without taking into account a post-modernist awareness of the researcher's lens. Or to phrase it in a Buddhist manner: who is the watcher? And who is watching the watcher? Only in this way could such diametrically opposed representations of tantra emerge: a sacred Buddhist mysticism, versus a corruption of Buddhism, versus an alternate religion with merely a Buddhist facade. They can't all be equally true. [How does one begin to formulate a credible approach that will accurately reflect tantric Buddhism and not simply create one more perspective, worth no more than the next?]

Given that the Buddhist definition of even scripture emphasizes the meaning over the words, and that all methods—tantric and otherwise—act as a disposable Dixie cup for direct experience, the living practice tradition is far more important than the texts. Yet divorcing ritual performance from its meaning to the practitioners renders it empty. One must examine Buddhist ritual within the context of its meaning to the participants.

There exist endless numbers of tantric Buddhist rituals to examine. Some are popular; some obscure. Some are simple; others esoteric. Some can be performed by a single individual in under twenty minutes. Others require multiple participants and a month or more to complete. However, abhiseka or initiation is the gateway through which all must pass to be authorized to do tantric practice. On the surface, abhiseka is an often elaborate ritual involving images of meditational deities, symbolic gesture, sculpted ritual offerings, and musical accompaniment such as bells, hand-drums, and wind instruments. The teacher uses directed visualization, symbolic imagery, meditation, and recitation, to introduce the entire tantric path in condensed symbolic form to the mind of the initiate. Therefore analyzing the ritual performance and meaning of abhiseka should give a clear-eyed look at an essential tantric Buddhist ritual that has not been studied, and through sheer contrast throw the misconceptions about tantra into stark relief.

Comments

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

Well, it's been a while since I was in grad school, and I had to do a content analysis, so what I have to say may not be useful at all.

Also I don't know what "abhiseka" is, so yeah.

How one begins to formulate a credible approach is kind of a meta question -- in that section you are criticizing the way the entire subject has been approached in the past, which sounds interesting to me; even compelling...

And then you pick out a chewable bite to focus on for your purposes, and explain why that would be meaningful and why it would shed new light.

Works for me!

But again -- I'm so out of the loop these days, and out of my own area of study, that that might not be very useful to you. in any case I'm cheering for you!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

*glomps* I am so frustrated with this thing. I can't tell if I really just don't have a question, or if my professor is so unfamiliar with my topic that she's trying to force a social "why" question out of religious studies--religion being very different from the international studies-type questions everyone else is doing.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I've updated it with more of an explanation of what abhiseka is:

However, abhiseka or initiation is the gateway through which all must pass to be authorized to do tantric practice. On the surface, abhiseka is an often elaborate ritual involving images of meditational deities, symbolic gesture, sculpted ritual offerings, and musical accompaniment such as bells, hand-drums, and wind instruments. The teacher uses directed visualization, symbolic imagery, meditation, and recitation, to introduce the entire tantric path in condensed symbolic form to the mind of the initiate.

This was very helpful.

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

again -- my thesis was all about doing primary research, and I guess that in your thesis you won't do that? It will be secondary research?

But I would imagine it would be fascinating to focus on what the practitioners themselves say they get out of it, rather that focusing on the outside researchers.

and i would imagine that your teachers would be interested in your critique of the way the subject has been approached in the past -- arguing with previous research methods is always interesting and a good thing to do, i deem.

glad if kicking it around here clarified things for you; it sounds like a fascinating topic. I know very little about Buddhism but have read a little and am fascinated by comparative religion in general, so i'll be following your degree progress with great interest.

[yin-again.livejournal.com]

My thesis was a "creative" one, so I'm uniquely unqualified to answer. However, my roommate shrewreader is in thesis mode, so I will send her here to look.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Thank you. My professor says that my question is there, it's just implied: why don't they study abhiseka?

[twistedrecesses.livejournal.com]

The way I'm reading this, the three sections of your final sentence all correspond to one of the expository paragraphs above, so the overall goal of your paper is very clear. There is a question there; my question in return is, what are you going to do with those misconceptions about tantra once you've got them? Or is this paper intended (for you) to be the basis of further, more extensive research?

Also, what exactly is your adviser trying to push on you, in terms of a focus?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

The way I'm reading this, the three sections of your final sentence all correspond to one of the expository paragraphs above, so the overall goal of your paper is very clear.

Oh. Cool. That was unintentional. Glad it worked out.

what are you going to do with those misconceptions about tantra once you've got them?

Good question. That's the next step I think. *considers*

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I am not well versed in academic requirements, OR in Buddhism, but just from what you've got here, it sounds like a thesis I would be FASCINATED to read. I may be biased because I've enjoyed reading your journal entries about Buddhism at least as much as I've enjoyed reading your fanfic, but it does sound like good stuff.

[zzanthalinn.livejournal.com]

This does sound fascinating. And it seems to me the "why?" question is very clear:
Tantric Buddhism is widely misunderstood among Western scholars. WHY? "Due to text bias and a tendency to decontextualize" is actually HOW they are misunderstanding it, that is, the mechanism. The "why?" has more to do with the "researcher's lens", which "post-modern awareness" helps us identify and analyse. Is this lens an inevitable lens (many of the post-modernist would say yes: every reader reads from behind a lens of one sort or another, so even modern Tantric Buddhists view ancient texts from a different perspective than the original authors), or is it possible to devise a purer stance / strategy that renders a reading closer to the original intent? You are then offering a method, and a target, to produce a more accurate reading. Test it, and then analyse your results, and comment.

That sounds like a thesis to me (I've taught grad students). Actually, I'm a bit puzzled as to why your profs would focus on a "why?" question in this age of entrancement with post-modernism -- it always seems very focussed on interpretation and multiple definitions to me (and thus very close to what you are exploring here).

Best of luck -- I very much enjoy your fiction, I think I would very much enjoy reading this exploration as well: I've always been curious as to what the straight skinny on Tantric Buddhism might be....

[zzanthalinn.livejournal.com]

Sorry -- forgot one point. The "why?" has much to do with "Orientalism" in Said's [now] classic sense: the exoticization, and therefore eroticization, of the Other, specifically the Arabic or Asian Other. You are proposing an interpretive strategy that could potentially de-exoticize and de-eroticize the modern Western reading of Tantric Buddhism by re-contextualising individual ideas within an example of the whole sweep of thought, as encapsulated in abhiseka (if I understand your described approach correctly). That is, you are offering abhiseka as a micro-universe, or micro-Weltanschaung, that will correctly position what Western readers often see as fragments, thus enabling a more accurate reading of the system as a whole.

And as we all know, the system is different from the sum of the parts.