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Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine

Book by Lama Tsultrim Allione · 7 quotes · Dakini, Feminist Spirituality, Buddhism

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Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine Quotes

“As we remember the importance of the enlightened feminine in this book, as in the story of Tara that I shared in the Introduction, we must bear in mind that ultimately in the absolute sense, gender is an illusion, just another one of those illusions that we attach to and fixate on so firmly. At the same time, as Tara also said, in the relative world, empowerment has been the domain of one gender. And therefore she vows: "Those who wish to attain Supreme enlightment in a man's body are many, but those who wish to serve the aims of beings in a woman’s body are few indeed; therefore may I, until this world is emptied out, work for the benefit of sentient beings in a woman's body." She makes a commitment not only for enlightenment, but to have all our voices heard: our human rights respected, violence and rape cease, serial harassment end, and women's issues represented at the table where decisions that affect us all are being made.”

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Book:Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine
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“What can we do to restore and heal the balance? In order to find balance, we need to equalize human rights and the economic situation of women and men; and we must move away from religions that model male dominance into spiritual models of partnership and respect for our precious planet. It is by empowering the sacred feminine and by listening to the earth as she tries to communicate with us that we ultimately heal.”

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Book:Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine
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“Like Tara, I firmly believe that at the absolute level, we are beyond gender and any notions of gender are limited and not our true nature. At a relative level, men and women are different, and that difference is precious. I am not in favor of women becoming more like men in order to be acceptable and successful. We don't need more men or more women to act like men. Although I certainly support women following the paths or professions they are drawn to, and certainly they should be treated equally. When I discuss the masculine and feminine in this book, it does not matter whether you identify as male, female, or non-binary, or what your sexual orientation may be. The masculine and feminine energies are alive within each of us, in our world. That said, there are rules and laws and cultural messages worldwide that specifically affect and disempower women. My wish is that we don't lose touch with the magic of primal feminine, the unique power we can bring to bear on the challenges of these times.”

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Book:Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine
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“Some models of strength have been largely lost, repressed, or hidden from view, particularly images that are not acceptable or are not safe in a patriarchal society. Those images of the Sybil, the wise woman, the wild woman, women who are embodiments of specific powers of transformation, magical, spiritual, and psychic, have become wicked witches. Estimates of the number of women executed as witches from the 15th and 18th century, primarily by being burned alive as it was considered a more painful death, range between 60,000 to 100,000. Those were times of puritanism and sexual repression, and the women burned as witches were often independent or rebellious women who lived alone and practiced herbalism, or women who disobeyed their husbands and refused to have sex with them. Images of the devoted, peaceful mother have always been safe. Such images have always been acceptable in all cultures, even patriarchal ones. But there is another level of reflection of the primal feminine experience that both men and women long for, and this is an experience that comes from the intuitive sacred feminine, a place where language may be paradoxical and prophetic, where the emphasis is on the symbolic meaning, not the words, a place where women sit in circles naked, wearing mud, bones, and feathers, women who turn into divine goddesses and old hags, who turn into fierce dakinis.”

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Book:Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine
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“We were discussing sexual misconduct among Western Buddhist teachers. A woman Buddhist from California brought up someone who was using his students for his own sexual needs. One woman said, “We are working with him with compassion, trying to get him to understand his motives for exploiting female students and help him change his actions.” The Dalai Lama slammed his fist on the table, saying loudly, “Compassion is fine, but it has to stop! And those doing it should be exposed!” All the serving plates on the table jumped, the water glasses tipped precariously, and I almost choked on the bite of saffron rice in my mouth. Suddenly I saw him as a fierce manifestation of compassion and realized that this clarity did not mean that the Dalai Lama had moved away from compassion. Rather, he was bringing compassion and manifesting it as decisive fierceness. His magnetism was glowing like a fire. I will always remember that day because it was such a good teaching on compassion and precision. Compassion is not a “wishy-washy, anything goes” approach. Compassion can say a fierce “no!” Compassion is not being stupid and indulging someone in what they want. Trungpa Rinpoche called that “idiot compassion,” like giving a drug addict drugs. The way I am using the word “fierce” in this book is in the sense of how a mother animal defends her young. A laser beam of fierceness, of pure energy that when harnessed and directed is powerful and unstoppable. It is fierceness without hatred or aggression. Sometimes a wrathful manifestation is more effective than a peaceful approach. It is by understanding the Dakini’s fierceness as a productive and creative source of raw energy that we see the Dakini in action, wielding the power to subdue, protect, and transform. We must find the sources to access this fierce Dakini power and bring it to bear on what matters to us in our lives, be it emotional, spiritual, intellectual, or political. Meeting our strong feminine energy, we will develop as women, and not as women trying to be like men or asexual beings. We are different, and until that difference is known, owned, and maximized, our true feminine potency and capacity to bring this world into balance will not be realized. The powerful, fierce feminine is very much a part of the psyche, but it is repressed, and when it is not acknowledged because it is threatening, it can become subversive and vengeful. But when it is acknowledged and honored, it is an incredible source of power.”

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Book:Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine
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“The extent of violation of women and violence of the earth perpetuated by men does not mean that all men are perpetrators. It is important to acknowledge that there are many forward-thinking males around the world who recognize these same problems and are working in collaboration with women to change them. While I am focusing on the needs of the empowerment of women in this book and the devastating results of the lack of women's equality and their abuse, and ultimately we need a partnership society, in the end we need to develop the model of mutually empowered partnership with men rather than domination of either gender. Societies that promote power with, rather than power over, each other. The loss of feminine qualities is an urgent psychological and ecological issue in modern society. It is a painful loss in our emotional lives and a disastrous loss for the safety of life on earth. In women, it affects their central identity, and in men, it affects his ability to feel and value. The loss of the feminine in men causes him to feel moody and lonely. In women, it causes her to lose faith in herself. We are slowly awakening to the crisis of the earth and the effect of the loss of the sacred feminine. The few people understand that the causes of this crisis have spiritual values at their roots. Values of the sacred as eminent, immanent, imbued in all of life, and all life as interdependent.”

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Book:Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine
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“It's good to be aware of all the (buddha) family patterns and to remember that our energy is just energy, and that every form of energy has the potential to be transformed into wisdom. One of the most wonderful things about Vajrayana is that the stronger our afflictions are, the stronger the encumbered patterns, the stronger the wisdom will be. So it's actually considered to be really good for a Vajrayana practitioner to be very passionate or very angry or very lazy, or whatever the dominant obstructing emotion might be, because an equal intensity of that energy will be transformed into wisdom.”

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