Great-Bliss-Tantric-Sex-and-the-Path-to-Inner-Awakening

Acknowledgements
Exceptional thanks should be given to the work of several scholars whose life efforts made this
book possible. Keith Dowman’s classic Masters of Mahāmudrā first drew me into the world of
the siddhas, but left me with two questions burning unanswered in my heart for nearly twenty
years – what was the original path of the Indian Tantric Buddhist masters, and how could I
follow it? Miranda Shaw’s Passionate Enlightenment provided the critical groundwork in the
philosophy of Buddhist sexual yoga. Elizabeth English’s Vajrayoginī detailed the ritual
foundations for the Indian Tantric Buddhist tradition, and first brought to light the brilliant
sādhana that would form the core of my book. She also graciously helped me to locate the
published Sanskrit version of The Sādhana of Secret Vajravilāsinī at the Bodleian Library at
Oxford. Exceptionally good translations of the two most important Buddhist Tantras - the
Hevajra Tantra by G. W. Farrow and I. Menon, and the Cakrasamvara Tantra by David B. Gray
- presented crucially important original source texts without which this book could not have been
written. The team of translators for Jamgön Kongtrul’s The Treasury of Knowledge should be
especially acknowledged – their massive, multi-volume work took decades to produce, and
provided a rich well of material on the unique positions of Tantric Buddhist philosophy, the
consecrations and vows, the Four Yogas, as well as many previously unknown practices of
sexual yoga taught by the Indian siddhas. This series, one of the great scholarly achievements of
the past hundred years, will remain an enduring presentation of the transformative potential of
Tantric Buddhism. All these pieces needed to be in place before I could write Great Bliss.
Great Bliss took six years to write, and I had much to learn along the way. Once I began, Traga
Rinpoche was extremely generous with his time, clarifying many key Dharma points of
philosophy and practice – and gave me a mind transmission that left me staggering out of the
room. He especially stressed to me the value of love as equal in importance to compassion in
Buddhism, a precious teaching for which I remain intensely grateful.
Two translators offered their superlative assistance and aided me in the translation of the
sādhana, Suzanne Ironbiter, Professor of Religion at SUNY Purchase, and Amrita Nadi Osborne,
senior staff member at Karma Triyana Dharmacakra monastery in Woodstock, New York.
Numerous readers were very helpful in finalizing the text, and to whom I give thanks.
I want to thank also the staff at the Library of Congress, where I spent a month in research, as
well as the always helpful staff at the New York Public Library, where I spent two months.
Many line illustrations from this book come from Robert Beer’s Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist
Symbols published by Shambhala.