The Cult of Tara

84 MAGIC AND RITUAL IN TIBET
Piece by piece I seem
to re-enter the world: I first begin
a small, fixed dot, I still can see
that old myself, a darkblue thumbtack
pushed into the scenes,
a hard little head protruding
from the pointillist's buzz and bloom.
After a time the dot
begins to ooze. Certain heats
melt it.
Now I was hurriedly
blurring into ranges
of burnt red, burning green,
whole biographies swam up and
swallowed me . . .
Till, wolfed almost to shreds,
I learned to make myself
unappetizing. Scaly as a dried bulb
thrown into a cellar
I used myself, let nothing use me . . .
—Adrienne Rich, 33
This poem sets forth an experience that is a remarkable parallel, as
we shall see, to the Process of Generation; as Tsongk'apa said, the
creation of such a reality is "natural" when one is "shaken wit
wishes, fears and sorrows, worried by thieves and dreams." Here
again we see the primary importance of the ritualization of moral
attitudes for the Tibetan contemplative: the imagination that evokes
a universe belongs to one Who is already a Bodhisattva, who has
awakened the thought of enlightenment for the benefit of all beings,
and who creates his magical reality from a realm that is not only
empty and unlabelable but also "wishless." The yogin consciously
bases his magical power upon his understanding and hence upon his
control of himself and his reality; the schizophrenic's power is based
not on control but on chaos: 118