TANTRIC BUDDHISM (INCLUDING CHINA AND JAPAN)for it is "knowledge, free from the ideas of self and other" (I.x.8). For one of the
most important aspects of the Simultaneously-arisen state is that
(5) it is an abolition of the duality of subject and object.
This is, of course, one of the basic postulates of all tantric Buddhism, and is
expressed in a great variety of ways, employing cosmological, physiological,
sexual and other symbols: it is the unity of lalana and rasana, the two subsidiary
psychic-veins, of Lotus and Vajra, of sun and moon, of Thought-of-Enlightenment
and blood, of the Yamuna and Ganga, of saJTISara and nirvai)a, etc., or, in brief,
of Wisdom and Means^148 • "The conjunction ... of lunar disk and solar disk, is
the great bliss" (I.viii.4). Speaking of the Simultaneously-arisen Joy, HVT states
that "there is neither SaJTlsara nor nirvaua. It is the great and perfect bliss, where
there is neither self nor other" (II.v.68), or "the essence, pure and consisting in
knowledge, where there is not the slightest difference between saJTlsara and
nirvaua" (I.x.32). The abolition of the dichotomy of subject and object is also
expressed in terms of the various sense-faculties: "In reality there is neither form
nor seer, neither sound nor hearer etc .... neither thought nor thinker" (I.v.i);
"no smell, no sound, no form, no taste" (I.ix.20). In short, "there is neither
object nor subject" (I.x.33), hence "there is neither meditator, nor whatso'er to
meditate" (1. v.ll ), for "nothing is mentally produced in the highest bliss, and
no-one produces it" (I.x.33). - Before proceeding, we may note that it is already
quite clear that "bliss", "omniscience", "abolition of duality", are simply one
and the same. To say that they are "interdependent" or even "aspects" of the one
experience, would be to separate them, for there is only "a single substance of
the one same flavour" (samarasam) (l.viii.40).
With many different images HVT makes it clear that
(6) it is cosmic.
"It is the origin of all that is ... it is there that the threefold world arises"
(I.viii.39); "it is the life (pral)a) ofliving things ... all-pervading" (I.x.l 0), "the
stuff the world is made of ... the universal consciousness, the primeval purusa,
Isvara, iitman, }iva, sattva, kiila, pudgala"^149 (I.x.ll-12). "This bliss is ... all
things moving and unmoving" (II.ii.32); "Whatever things there are, moving and
motionless, all these things am 1"^150 (I.viii.39). "The whole of existence arises in
me ... by me pervaded is this all" (I.viii.41). "Whatsoever things there are,
whether moving or motionless ... they are conceived of as the supreme essence
(tattvam) and possessing the nature that one possesses oneself. In them there is
just one without a second, great bliss which can only be experienced by oneself'
(I.viii.45-46). - One notes how the last passage speaks of "identity-with-
cosmos", "abolition-of-duality", "experience-of-bliss", and "ineffability" in one
breath, to which, as we have seen, "knowledge" and "timelessness" could have
been added. In short, "the world is pervaded by bliss" (II.ii.35), or "The whole
world is the Simultaneously-arisen, for the Simultaneously-arisen is its essence"
(II.ii.44). Duality being abolished, no further explanation can be expected,
beyond the fact that "at that moment knowledge ... assumes one form together
with the heavens, hells, and abodes of men" (l.viii.52-53), to which a comment-