TANTRIC BUDDHISM (INCLUDING CHINA AND JAPAN)reciprocate by paying attention not to her, but to others' children, and she
departs for hell and limbo under a cloud of utter disillusionment. Equally typical
in the 'das-log biographies is the scene in which the 'das-log departs because of
anger. Long-wa A-drung, for instance, says (XVI, A: 161 ff.):
When people I knew came to eat, they didn't give me any food, but
brought this dog-food-like stuff to the dog's corpse. It has vexed me
and I can't stand my relatives. I'm going to seek a distant land and a
good lord.But in both instances the tone is that of the child suffering anxieties of separa-
tion and ego splitting, demanding and not getting oral attention, in a world
where it must take unwilling cognizance of others, who intrude upon its sources
of satisfaction.^33
The 'das-log biographies, then, preach much the same message as do the
texts and the clergy about death. These forewarn us in a rather abstract way to
renounce our claims of corporeal, material and sentimental attachment in order
to gain liberation, in a last chance to direct our attention to a higher order of
purpose. The biographies concretize these last scenes of a person's life and
ground them in a much more specific ethnosociology. Here the soul is depicted
as regressing toward an earlier stage of identity formation, having been battered
by one brutal disllusionment heaped upon another, as it attempts to individuate,
beginning with the dissolution of the corporeal and ending with the most valued
ties of love.
However; the soul, now stripped of its naivete has only begun its trans-
formative journey. I have mentioned that the 'das-log belongs to the traditions
of A valokitesvara worship, and I would like to explore briefly what relationships
and corresponding affective states seem necessary to complete death's tale. The
whole point of A valokitesvara worship, as far as laymen are concerned, is to
acquire salvatory merit to guarantee rebirth in paradise or as a human. Often the
two seem identical to Tibetans, who are neither overly expectant about their
truly paradisaical prospects nor about this world's perfection. However, since
the other possibilities do not offer much comfort either, rebirth as a human, with
the goods of human existence, seems not a bad choice. Cultic merit is made by
well-intentioned repetitions of the Mm;i formula and occasional participation in
the central cult rituals, principally smyung-gnas (abstinence), during which only
certain foods (white foods and sweet foods) are taken at prescribed times and
sex is abstained from. The underlying dogma of compassion requires that one
must, in order to obtain salvation, become both parent and child to all living
things. The general notion is outlined in one text, which reads: of all the beings
in the world "there is not a single one that has not been one's parents. Because
they interchange rebirths, one may not recognize them now as one's parents, but
every being has been the parent of every other ... " One must recognize this fact
and "recollect their kindness to one ... Even hawks and wolves love their off-