A KORA OF KORAS

Type ‘Fated’ to encounters enter text occur for all of us, but rarely between those destined for such
epoch-making work, 9 for both Padmasambhava and Mandaravya were to play a
central role in bringing ‘Tantric Tibetan Buddhism’ 10 to the ‘Himalayan regions
of India and Tibet.
So deep was the karmic attraction of Mandaravya for Padmasambhava that
merely glimpsing him as he passed below her window awakened previously
unknown memories and a revolution in her heart’s desiring; overwhelmingly
distracted, she abandoned her celibate renunciation and sent one of her women
attendants to invite this extraordinary man into her castle-refuge where before
only women had been allowed.
They were drawn to each other, not merely with emotional-sexual attraction,
(although these interests were not excluded) and re-engaged their many-lifetimeslong
11 relationship that expressed the essence of Tantra; a philosophy and
realization of Reality in which everything is woven 12 together; nirvana and
samsara, liberation and bondage, male and female energies complementing each
other; emotionally, sexually and physically, nothing denied or excluded. Indeed,
Tantric Tibetan Buddhist imagery is often represented as a man and woman in
ecstatic sexual embrace; the feminine offering her life-nourishing energies to feed
the masculine and the male husbanding, protecting and supporting the female;
they do not seek to avoid or escape each other as in many of the ascetic spiritual
traditions of India; rather they complete each other like all apparent opposites do.