This blog is the third installment in a series of recent conversations between Adi Suyash and one of his disciples on Tantric Buddhism. These conversations are lucid and spontaneous, the questions are asked on the spot, unplanned, and the answers are given without preparation or much elaboration. The aim is not to provide an in-depth, traditional, understanding of every topic, but to offer simple, clear explanations that are sufficient to give the reader a basic understanding and a sense of the subject.

Sadhika: How does the Dakini essentially mirror the practitioner’s deepest confusion and bring it into direct contact with awakened awareness? Could you give an example and explain it?

Adi Suyash: Look, within us, we have our own preconceived biases, misunderstandings, false knowledge, and confusions. We are confused about what is true.

Now, where exactly does that confusion lie?

You can write a ten-page formula, but if, somewhere in those ten pages, you make a single mistake—say, you put a plus sign where there should have been a minus—the entire answer changes. And then, within those ten pages of equations, finding that one tiny mistake can become incredibly difficult. Or, if you are coding, perhaps you missed a single semicolon somewhere.

That is how it is within us.

We believe that we possess the correct knowledge, that we understand everything properly. We can even recite that knowledge perfectly, like a parrot. But somewhere, there is a slight misconception. Just one subtle misconception can easily go unnoticed.

That layer—our mistake, our confusion—is difficult to identify casually. But when you observe yourself very deeply, you suddenly realize, “Ah. This is where I am getting it wrong. This is what I have failed to understand.”

A person can possess enormous amounts of correct information while one tiny foundational misconception corrupts the entire structure.

[Pauses thoughtfully.]

For example, I may speak beautifully about compassion. I may be able to define it perfectly and explain why compassion is necessary. And yet, somewhere deep within me, there may still be dveṣa—aversion, hatred.

That is our confusion: aversion toward something.

And then the Dakini takes the form of that very aspect within us—the aspect that is creating the problem—so that she can bring it to the surface and trigger it.

Sadhika: Give me an example of that. Suppose there is a particular confusion in my mind, and then the Dakini takes a certain form so that I can properly understand it.

Adi Suyash: There could be countless examples—completely different kinds of examples. Some of them could be extremely strange, because the confusions people carry within themselves can also be extremely strange.

[Smiles.]

There is actually a very beautiful story of Naropa and Tilopa in the tradition itself.

Naropa was a great scholar and the abbot of Nalanda in Bihar, one of the world’s first and greatest universities. He was known as the Northern Gatekeeper because he was so accomplished in philosophical debate. He had studied the scriptures extensively. He knew the teachings.

One day, while he was sitting and studying, an old woman appeared before him. She was extremely ugly, wrinkled, haggard, almost frightening.

She looked at him and asked, “What are you studying?”

Naropa said, “The teachings of the Buddha.”

Then she asked him:

“Do you understand the words, or do you understand the meaning?”

Naropa replied, “I understand the words.”

The old woman became extremely happy. She laughed, danced, and rejoiced.

Then Naropa thought, “Why should I say only that? I understand the meaning as well.”

So he told her, “And I understand the meaning.”

Immediately, her entire expression changed.

She began crying. Bitterly. She was weeping and pounding the ground.

Sadhika: Why? What happened?

Adi Suyash: Naropa himself was confused. He believed that because he had understood the scriptures intellectually, he had understood their meaning.

But the woman was a Dakini.

She told him, essentially, “You understand the words, but you do not understand the reality to which those words are pointing.”

That was the misconception.

Naropa had enormous amounts of correct knowledge. He could debate. He could explain the scriptures. He could probably defeat almost anyone intellectually. But somewhere underneath all of that knowledge was one very subtle mistake:

“Because I understand the teaching intellectually, I have realized the teaching.”

And that one misconception was enough.

Then Naropa asked her, “Then who understands the true meaning?”

She said, “My brother, Tilopa. Go and find him.”

So Naropa left everything.

He left his position at Nalanda, his prestige, his robes, his status—all of it—and went searching for Tilopa.

And then something very interesting happened.

Along the way, the Dakinis began appearing to him in different forms, or, more precisely, the Dakinis created these encounters for him.

Sadhika: What kind of forms?

Adi Suyash: Forms that directly attacked Naropa’s own confusions and conditioning. 

For example, Naropa would encounter a woman suffering from leprosy asking for help.

He would see her and recoil in disgust.

Another time, he saw someone skinning live fish.

He was disturbed.

Then he encountered a hunter butchering up a deer.

Another time, he saw someone cutting open a corpse.

And every time, Naropa would react with disgust, judgment, or aversion.

And then the apparition would disappear.

A voice would come from the sky:

“If you cannot see the Buddha here, how will you find Tilopa?”

Sadhika: So the Dakini was showing him his own aversion?

Adi Suyash: Exactly.

That was the point. Different forms mirroring the confusions in you.

Naropa had thought, “I understand the words of Buddha. I understand reality.”

But his own mind was still divided. This is pure. This is impure. This is acceptable. This is disgusting. This person is worthy. This person is not worthy.

So the Dakini mirrored the forms or created situations in which Naropa could see his own mind.

And finally, after all these encounters, Naropa found Tilopa. He was living like a wild avadhuta, barefoot, apparently mad, beside the Ganges, eating discarded fish entrails.

Sadhika: [Smiles.] So Naropa must have been completely shocked.

Adi Suyash: Completely.

Because this was the final blow to his conception of what a spiritual master was supposed to look like.

He had imagined realization in a particular form.

And Tilopa appeared in precisely the opposite form.

Naropa had to go through tremendous hardships before Tilopa finally accepted him as a disciple. He was made to undergo experiences that completely dismantled his pride, his concepts, his intellectual certainty, everything he had been holding onto.

And eventually, through that process, he realized what he had been missing.

So you see the pattern?

Dakini first showed him, “You don’t actually understand.”

Then she brought him face-to-face with the things and situations in which your mistake becomes impossible to hide.

Because when somebody tells you, “You have aversion,” you can say, “No, no, I don’t.”

But when the situation itself brings that aversion out of you, you can see it directly.

That is the mirror.

Sadhika: Wow. [Genuinely struck by the example.]

Adi Suyash: In the same way, it can happen in countless different forms. There are so many possibilities. The Dakini can assume a form that corresponds to what is present within you.

For example, suppose you have a very strong concept of purity and impurity. You believe, “This is impure. A spiritual practitioner, an elevated being, a Dakini, or God Himself could never behave in this way, because this is impure.”

Then you may encounter the Dakini or Guru doing precisely the thing you consider impure.

For example, sexuality. She may appear naked. Or she may be eating meat—because you have decided that these things are impure.

Or perhaps you believe that deities must always appear beautiful.

Then she may appear in the most horrifying form imaginable.

Her mouth dripping with blood. Enormous, elongated teeth. Eyes burning red, sunk so deeply into her face that they resemble wells, with the reflection of the moon somewhere at their bottom. Her breasts hanging loosely from an emaciated body, her ribs clearly visible, while her stomach protrudes grotesquely.

[Gestures vividly, painting the image in words.]

Whatever confusion you carry within yourself—whatever is preventing you from realizing the truth—there is always some conception sitting inside you. In fact, usually there is more than one.

But we believe we have mastered them.

Sadhika: Right. We are living within our own delusion, aren’t we?

Adi Suyash: Exactly. We cannot even see ourselves.

How will you see yourself?

You need a mirror to see yourself.

So the Dakini comes as the mirror.

Sadhika: Right. [Nods slowly.]

Adi Suyash: And a mirror can only show you what is already there within you.

So essentially, the Dakini mirrors that.

[Pauses.]

Sadhika: Wow.

Adi Suyash: That very form…

From my understanding, what my experience tells me is that the Śakti—the Divine Energy spoken of in Tantra—is what has become this entire universe.

All these Yoginis are different expansions of that very Devi Śakti. What Buddhism calls Dakinis, in a similar sense, are different rays of that same Śakti.

Just as the sun has countless rays, Śakti has countless expressions.

This entire world is, in that sense, Yogini-Śakti. The different Yoginis are simply different manifestations of different energies.

So whatever it is that we have intense rāga or dveṣa toward, whatever is preventing us from reaching the truth, whatever we are running away from, whatever we refuse to figure out, whatever mistake or deficiency within ourselves we do not want to look at, the world appears before us in that form.

That is what we keep seeing.

The world manifests that very thing before us.

If, for example, we are terrified of losing a loved one, then we may repeatedly be confronted with the possibility or reality of their death.

In that sense, the Yogini is taking that form and appearing before us.

Or suppose we have an intense aversion toward a particular person, or even toward a particular caste, and then we repeatedly encounter people from that very group who turn out to be extraordinarily wise.

Whatever deficiency exists within us that prevents us from realizing the truth, and whatever we refuse to accept, whatever we keep running away from, the world presents itself to us in that very form.

The world keeps showing it to us.

And what is the world?

Yogini.

Different manifestations of Devi Śakti.

Sadhika: So could we say that many things keep happening to us back-to-back in similar ways—similar people, similar situations—so that we can understand that particular thing and eventually rise above it?

It isn’t necessary that we literally encounter a Dakini, because there are so many people who are not on a spiritual path at all, but…

Adi Suyash: [Interrupting gently.] We should consider those very people to be Dakinis.

Sadhika: Okay. Those situations, those people…

Adi Suyash: Hmm. The situations too.

As I said just now, the entire world is Devi Śakti, and the different expansions or aspects of Devi Śakti are the Yoginis, the Dakinis.

So the very aspects of the world, those situations, that you are talking about—that is all Yogini.

And they appear in different forms for the sake of our spiritual elevation.

Whatever you are running away from, whatever the problem is within you—deal with it.

And all of these things are represented symbolically in the form of stories.

[Pauses, then looks toward her.]

Does that make sense?

Sadhika: Hmm… [Nods quietly, absorbing the idea.]

Adi Suyash: Anything else?

Sadhika: No. [Smiles.]