Not a published book, but Dissertation (1997,
UMI Number: 9733170, http://www.umi.com)
Available from UMI
Dissertation Services, 300 North Zeeb Road, P.O. Box 1346, Ann Arbor, Michigan
48106-1346, USA
Review by : Andy Wistreich
Overall
Rating:
Andresens thesis is based around her 'preliminary
translation' of Chapter Three of the Kalacakratantra together with its commentary
the Vimalaprabha, which is the chapter on the initiation. In this respect, it
picks up where Vesna Wallace's thesis based around the second chapter leaves off.
In most other respects however, this is a very different type of work. I cannot
comment on the accuracy of the translation, but since she herself describes it
as 'preliminary' she acknowledges that in future her work will be refined. The
third chapter is highly technical and is almost entirely focused on the ritual.
However, as the book on the initiation by the Dalai Lama and Jeffrey Hopkins shows,
even a study of the initiation can elucidate important understanding of the structure
of the practice of the tantra, since it is here that the seeds are sown for all
the realisations through all the yogas. The layout of the translation is useful,
since it contains the Sanskrit then Tibetan then English, with the commentary
added in brackets, and like Vesna Wallace, Jensine Andresen also includes references
to Buton's commentary.
As she tells us in her abstract
at the beginning, Andresen adopts a multi-disciplinary critical approach to Kalacakra
as a cultural phenomenon, looking at 'the social, psychological, economic and
political factors that have propelled this tradition forward.' Like David Reigle
in Kalacakra Sadhana and Social Responsibility, she works across the canvass
of history, looking at Shambhala, Tibet, and the West as comparable contexts within
which Kalacakra has achieved social significance and meaning. True to her post-modernist
methodology, her chapters arise as apparently disconnected fragments in her quest
to engage with multiple readings of her central 'text', the initiation itself.
She successfully deconstructs the concept of the initiation as an offering
us as alternatives, the initiation as a video, as a spectacle, as a political
vehicle, and in the process examines the notion of ritual as a social phenomenon.
She helps us to see Kalacakra in a series of settings, as an instrument of power.
Her critical stance inevitably renders her somewhat an outsider to this power,
so practitioners may find themselves at odds with her perspective, since they
are harnessing this power for the inner purpose of spiritual development, whilst
Andresen seems mostly to look at Kalacakra as a social phenomenon. However, she
cannot help being drawn into it, and has herself taken the initiation and has
attended like the rest of us. We can sympathise with her orientation of one foot
in the western academic tradition, and one foot in the Buddhist practice tradition.
However, it makes for a serious tension in the whole work, which comes to a head
in her final chapter, . Here, Western academic balance is
sacrificed to a feeling of panic at the commodification of Tibetan Buddhism, through
its encounter with capitalist culture.
I feel that
the issues raised by Jensine Andresen are most relevant to our project of introducing
this rich, diverse and powerful tradition to the West. We might read her concerns
as a series of warnings. She warns against the development of the Kalacakra Initiation
as an exotic spectacle. She warns against the tradition whereby the Kalacakra
initiation is an instrument of powerful men in patriarchal cultures. She warns
of how the internet and capitalist culture may have a destructive effect on the
Kalacakra tradition. Although she does not say as much, for me, her whole thesis
is a warning against losing touch with Kalacakra as a practice tradition,
and of course this danger applies to the whole of Buddhism. The wherewithal to
remedy this lies completely in our hands. I guess that Jensine Andresens thesis
is evidence of the fear of losing the plot which can beset us unless we root our
entire project in personal practice and pure motivation.