The Cult of Tara

APPLICATION 249
they are thus unarisen from the beginning.
Similarly when they die they do not die,
they are deathless and undying;
they are unfixed, without a place,
for in such a place no place is necessary.
If something unarisen were to cease
then the unarisen would have arisen;
both arising and ceasing are horns on a rabbit.
If something existent were to arise
then the existent would have arisen twice;
if something nonexistent were to arise
then there would also arise the son of a barren woman !
This axiomatic allows the total interpenetration of god and yogin,
and each is summoned and controlled as the magical simulacrum
for the other: to be the deity is to own the image of the deity; to
control the image is to control the object and thus to be master of
the deity's own enlightenment.
Compared with this soteriological function of the Process of
Perfection, the ordinary magical attainments present a more chaotic
picture. The great Sacha lama Dragpa jets'en, for example, gives
the following list of five functions the ritual service has empowered
the practitioner to perform: 26
1) Reciting the mantra to arouse the hearts of all the Tathagatas
2) Offering up tormas to pacify obstacles
3) Performing the burnt offering to gain quickly the magical
attainments
4) Consecrating images and paintings to gain empowerment of
body, speech, and mind
5) Performing the miscellaneous functions to take in hand the
sort of people who have faith in the ordinary magical attainments
Dragpa jets'en further classifies the ordinary magical attainments
into three classes—lower, middle, and upper—and he lists the
lower-class ordinary magical attainments as the ability to perform
the following basic functions: (1) pacifying, (2) increasing, (3) subjugating,
and (4) destroying, along with all their subsidiary functions:
Each of these basic functions has many subsidiary functions. In
pacifying, one may pacify a disease, or pacify an evil spirit, or
many other things. In increasing, one may increase one's life,
or increase one's fortune or enjoyments, and so on. In subjugating,