TANTRIC BUDDHISM (INCLUDING CHINA AND JAPAN)scenes are played out in other biographies. In Byang-chub sengge's we find the
following (X, A: 9 ff.):
When I, Byang-chub-sengge, was ten years old, a neighbor was playing
with a kid, and the kid broke my leg. As a result, my leg became lame.
Then I thought, "If I, learning mantric teachings, do service and pray to
the tutelary Dpal-gyi-snying-po, will it be harmonious?" As a result of
that I got a rough dream. Then one night in a dream, a red-bodied
woman said, "Son! This is not your tutelary. I am!" Then one night I
had a vision again: I had gone to Tshogs-gsum Monastery and one night
just at dawn, a red-colored woman with a pig's face said to me, "Get up!
I will give you some nectar." I looked and she gave me some blood and
brains inside a skull. She said, "Son this is your ordinary blessing."
Then lifting the blood and brains on a knife, she poured them in my
hand. "Son! Rub this on your leg! By tonight it will have helped your
leg." She said this was a pure vision, and disappeared like a rainbow in
the sky. I thought, "What sort of vision is this?" and the vision vanished.
When I was in retreat at Ra-lang Mkhar-sgong Monastery, one night
I dreamt that the people of the country ate unclean things. When I
thought I did not want to eat unclean things, I dreamt a white boy told
me not to eat them. Then I followed the white boy and he sat down in
the center of a thousand-leafed lotus. He was surrounded by a thousand
others like himself. All of them said the six syllables. All of them told
me to say the six syllables. Again, the white boy had a conch vase in
his hand. Inside it was something like milk, which he gave to me,
saying it was nectar. Giving me a crystal rosary he said, "Son! Count
this! Say the six syllables. I am Avalokite8vara," and he disappeared
like a rainbow in the sky."It is this vision that Byang-chub-sengge doubts and which causes his "illness."
We are entitled, if not obligated, to read these two obviously parallel scenes
together. In the first, we encounter a form of Rdo-rje-phag-mo, who gives him
blood and brains from a skull to cure his lameness. In the second, A valokites-
vara gives him milk from a conch vase, and Byang-chub-sengge becomes his
disciple. This scene appears to be a psychodrama of some complexity. The red
(sexually potent) woman offers him the contents of a skull (a breast symbol)
containing comingled red and white substances. She does so that he may cure
his lame (flaccid) leg (penis). She is, in short, offering him instant sexual-cum-
yogic success. Byang-chub-sengge appears not to follow her advice, and seems
to associate her offer with the eating of filth in his next vision, against which
Avalokitesvara warns him. If we recollect the similar scene from Karma-dbang-
'dzin's encounter with the mi-ma-yin, which we have quoted above, it will be
recalled that she also rejects this infantile food (feces). What Avalokitesvara
appears to be doing is telling Byang-chub-sengge to grow up, but not through