The Great Stupa is an ancient Tibetan Buddhist legend. It teaches that the world's only hope for overcoming increasing chaos is to learn to tame the animal passions using the spiritual path of tantra, or “controlled indulgence.” (Making love without conventional climax.)

The Great Stupa itself is both a three-dimensional Tibetan religious monument, supposedly constructed by people who were pure of faith in a past age, and a physical symbol of the non-physical essence of Buddhahood. (See above photo of the Great Stupa.) The legend tells the story of a brigand turned holy man. However, from a sacred sexuality perspective, that's not its most interesting feature.

According to the legend, time moves through aeons, or ages. The current aeon, the last of three, is known as the “Fortunate Aeon.” That is both good news and bad news. It's good news because one-thousand Buddhas are predicted to incarnate during this aeon to liberate those imprisoned in sensuality.

The bad news is that we're in the final era of that aeon, the Kaliyuga.¹The Kaliyuga is the time just prior to the destruction of the world. It is characterized by: unchecked lust, vicious and selfish living, materialistic philosophies and belief in the inevitability of a general meltdown. The:

poisonous passions, particularly lust, avarice, acquisitiveness, jealousy and envy, cause loss of concentration. Mind screams away from its peaceful center in search of the objects of its desire or retreats from objects which repel it. Finally, the pace of life increases as the length of life diminishes.²

According to the legend, the pure teaching can no longer be heard. However, the Buddha Gautama came 2500 years ago to teach a doctrine to carry mankind through the initial stages of the Kaliyuga.

The vibration of the Kaliyuga is predicted to become so low that it will damage the Great Stupa itself. A modern commentator points out that in 1969 the pinnacle of the Stupa was destroyed by lightning, and the son of the abbot of a nearby monastery was arrested for selling ritual artifacts stolen from temples. Chinese aggression against Tibet is seen as a further sign of how low mankind has sunk.

Tantra to the rescue

The legend predicts that unless the teachings of tantra are heard and practiced, the destruction of the Great Stupa's outer form is inevitable. Hope lies in the incarnation of tantra teachers – Bodhisattvas who have accumulated enough merit in previous lifetimes to have the courage to tame mankind's overstimulated and inflamed animal senses. (Bodhisattvas are enlightened being who, out of compassion, forgo nirvana in order to save others.)

Among them will be a Tulku, or enlightened man, who will also be a Tantrika, an adept of tantra. He will understand the essential purity in every experience. He will be able to alter his vibration, enabling him to placate, instruct, subdue and otherwise exemplify mastery over the dark forces motivating the human mind. He will know exactly what must be renounced and what must be developed, and he will be fearless in demonstrating the ways in which the human body may be used to create life, light and love.

The Three Paths to Enlightenment

The legend explains that there are three paths to enlightenment. The first two paths are the Mahayana and the Hinayana. The Mahayana is the neutralization of passion through selfless service and dedication to releasing all life from the bonds of emotional distortion and limited vision. It is open to a wide range of personalities. In contrast, the Hinayana is not suited to all personalities. Yet it is characterized as safe, sure and slow, and prescribes total rejection and renunciation of passion.

However, one's best chance for freeing oneself from the chaos of the Kaliyuga is to learn to tame the passions using the principle of "controlled indulgence," or Vajrayana, the third path. The Vajrayana, which is the path of understanding passion by the homeopathic method of using sexual desire carefully, is open to all. It is a means of overcoming man's impulsive nature.

The Vajrayana (sex without conventional orgasm) is said to be the fastest, yet most dangerous, path. Perhaps it is considered dangerous because it has the greatest potential for throwing lovers back into the uncontrolled passions of the Kaliyuga. In any case, the legend suggests that other two paths to enlightenment (service and celibate devotion) apparently won't get the job done during the chaos of the Kaliyuga - even though they are excellent, beneficial disciplines.

According to The Legend of the Great Stupa sexual desire is both close to the heart of our worst problems...and also our most effective solution when wisely employed. (For more, visit our Sources page.)

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This article is based on the commentary to the text of the legend prepared by Keith Dowman and published by the Tibetan Nyingma Meditation Center. The actual text of the the legend is here.