SOPHIA (2008) 47:4355

DOI 10.1007/s11841-008-0052-9

Metaphor and Mandala in Shingon Buddhist Theology

__
David Gardiner

Published online: 15 April 2008

# Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract Buddhist mandala that are made of colored sand or are painted on cloth have
_
been well represented in_Asian
art circles in the West. Discussions of the role that they can
play in stimulating religious contemplation or even as sacred icons charged with power
have also appeared in English scholarship. The metaphorical meaning of the term
mandala, however, is less commonly referenced. This paper discusses how the founder
_ _ Japanese school of Shingon Buddhism, the Buddhist monk Kkai of the ninth
of the
century, uses this term in a metaphorical sense to convey the transformed nature of
awareness that is the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice. Emphasis is also placed on the
importance of metaphorical thinking to the religious path of transformation itself.
Keywords Shingon . Buddhism . Kkai . Mandala . Metaphor . Jujushinron .
__
Sokushin-jobutsugi

Introduction
I could say that the focus of this essay is the positive value of certain kinds of
cognitive dissonance. Some people who think a lot about education say that the most
significant and transformative learning grows from encountering new ways of
thinking, from encountering new paradigms that register a discord with our
established, habitual ways of knowing and of being. This is a fairly common
epistemological model among psychologists for describing effective vehicles for
growth, and for encouraging pedagogies that incorporate intellectual conflict in order
to catalyze valuable transformation. But this particular model of intellectual and
emotional growth is actually not my chief interest here, as concerned as I am with its
pertinence for our thinking about human psychology in general, and even education
and teaching in particular. Still, I think that something about this model is relevant
for discussing some Buddhist perspectives on religious practice.
D. Gardiner (*)
Department of Religion, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO 80903, USA
e-mail: dgardiner@coloradocollege.edu

NO52; No of Pages

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D. Gardiner

I will present here some thoughts about the usage of mandala (mandara in
_ _ dala that is used
Japanese) in Shingon Tantric Buddhism. This is the same word man
_ _ China in the
in Indian Vajrayna Buddhism (Shingon Buddhism came to Japan from
ninth century, not long after streams of Vajrayna Buddhism had entered China). I
intend to portray one understanding of mandala as being instrumental in a path of
_ _ Buddhist soteriological lines. I will
religious practice aimed at transformation along
move from a consideration of the material or plastic mandala to an analysis of the
__
term mandala as a metaphor for a new envisioning of reality,
of self, of the world.
_
_
And I will argue that the metaphorical usage of mandala represents a theological
perspective that engages a certain tensiona tension_ _that might be described as a
cognitive dissonanceas a vehicle for transformation. I will also suggest that the
tension inherent in the very nature of metaphorical thinking is central to this model
of transformation, which sees enlightenment as a kind of transformed vision.

Material Mandala
__
I will not elaborate on the vast historical usage of mandala, but will make only a few
__
comments. In Indian Vajrayna or Tantric Buddhist traditions,
they seem to have been
first drawn with colored sand on horizontal earthen platforms, with the side closest to the
practitioner being designated as the east. Cloth scrolls on which colored mandala get
_ _the east
depicted are mostly vertical transpositions of the horizontal mandala, such that
_
_
is now at the bottom. I will only add that, in the early traditions, mandala were
_ _ into the
commonly used within a ritual context aimed at inviting (invoking) a deity
mandala, as a guest, a pattern of religious behavior common to many practices in India
_ _ ancient times. Vertically hung painted mandala are still often regarded in this same
from
__
manner as a seat of the deity who is to be invoked
in rituals.
There is some tendency in scholarly writing on mandala to address their role as
_ _ An important article that
props or aids for the practice of visualization in meditation.
reviews some of these views is Robert Sharfs Visualization and Mandala in
_
Shingon Buddhism.1 The article focuses on the ritual use of mandala in the _Shingon
_
_
tradition, and essentially aims to disabuse us of the view that, in this tradition,
mandala serve as props for visualization practices. It should help us here to
__
summarize
a few key arguments in Sharfs article, since it clarifies some crucial
ways of understanding what mandala are and are not in the Shingon tradition.
__
The first sentence of Sharfs article
states the following:
One of the truisms in the study of East Asian Buddhist Tantra is that the
depictions of deities associated with Tantric practicenotably the often
complex geometric arrays of divinities known as mandalasfunction as aids
__
for visualization practices. (151)
After citing examples in the scholarly literature of this truism, Sharf adds: Yet
rarely, if ever, do scholars bother to substantiate the claim with historical or
ethnographic evidence (153).
1

In Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context, ed. by Robert Sharf and Elizabeth Sharf,
Stanford, 2002.

Metaphor and Man dala in Shingon Buddhist Theology

__

45

He follows this accusation by noting, Shingon rituals themselves offer little support
for this view (153).
He continues:
Even more striking is the fact that there is little obvious correlation between the
elaborate graphic detail of the major Shingon mandalas, on the one hand, and the
__
content of the specific rites with which they are associated,
on the other. Finally,
the commonly accepted understanding of visualizationthe notion that
Shingon rites involve fixing a Technicolor image of one or more deities in the
minds eyeis borne out neither by an examination of the ritual manuals, nor by
ethnographic evidence pertaining to the utilization of such manuals. (153)
Near the end of his Introduction, Sharf clarifies that the aim of his paper is:
... to raise some problems concerning the claim that (1) Shingon meditative
practices center on the mental construction or inner visualization of mandala-like
__
images, and (2) Shingon mandalas are used as aids in visualization exercises.
I
_
_
[he] will hereafter refer to both claims under the rubric of the phenomenological
model, because they are enmeshed in an approach to the subject that privileges
the inner experience of the practitioner over the performative and sacerdotal
dimensions of the rite. (15354)
While he acknowledges that there are passages in the ritual manuals that instruct the
practitioner to hold in mind particular images, he finds that these passages are more
discursive, literary, or tropical than they are visual or graphic (163). He thus chooses to
avoid using the English word visualization when rendering the multiple Chinese terms
commonly so translated, and opts, instead, for terms such as think, imagine,
contemplate, and discern (163). He also notes that, even in those few instances where
an image of a deity is described in the text in graphic detail, there are no indications of
what to do with this image and, moreover, the ethnographic evidence he cites indicates
that, even if a practitioner wanted to make efforts to sink into such a visualization, there
is no more than a few seconds time during which she would be permitted to do so
because, during the actual rite, these contemplations are placed in the midst of many,
many other ritual sequences that need to be completed within a limited time frame.
According to Sharf, since the manuals, as well as the written records of oral traditions
he has also studied, suggest little, if any, correlation between the painted mandala and
__
any internal acts of imagination, he urges that the best way for us to properly understand
the use of mandala in Shingon ritual is as objects possessing a sort of divine presence. In
_ _ emphasizes the magical role that these icons play, and he adequately
other words, he
supports this view by citing the writings of Kkai and others.2
2

In addition to his argument against interpreting these ritual manuals as referencing the interiorization of
mandala images in Shingon contexts, Sharf argues elsewhere that the rhetoric of meditative experience
_ _ constitutes a problematic discourse for analyzing Buddhist practice. He points to the scanty
itself
references in classical Buddhist texts to actual states of mind experienced by practitioners, in spite of
abundant theoretical constructs in such texts of ideal states and stages of consciousness. While this insight
regarding a tendency to assume that people actually do what the texts say they can or ought to do stands as
an important caution, it is still the case that innumerable classical Buddhist texts do, of course, discuss at
length the incomparable value of transforming our minds through meditative experience. See Sharfs
Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience. Numen 42 (1995):228283.

46

D. Gardiner

One of the ways in which Sharf highlights the importance of the physical
presence of the mandala is by showing the care that is taken in Shingon ritual to set
_
up, or to adorn, the_ritual
space. He focuses on the term shgon or adornment in its
technical meaning of properly laying out the altar space with paintings and statues of
deities and many implements. Beyond this, he notes, The adornment of the
sanctuary is thus a formal procedure wherein the place of practice is ritually
transformed into the world of enlightenmentthe instantiation of the Mahyna
tenet that nirvana is samsra correctly perceived. He adds that [t]his transforma_ a pure land is effected in large part through the agency of
tion of the sanctuary into
the image that constitutes the sacred presence of the principal deity (191).
The image thus sacralizes the space. On a historical note, Sharf comments on the
tendency among modern scholars (east and west alike) to ignore the very magical
properties of these icons, and concludes that this misunderstanding is rooted in a
Japanese predilection, from the Meiji period (late 19th C.) and in response to rapid
Westernization, to excise elements of their religion that appear magical or superstitious.
He refers to the Protestantization of Buddhism and of the problematic tendency to
speak of religious practice in terms that emphasize or privilege private religious
experience (192).3 As a nod to the view that inner experience may actually play
some role in Shingon ritual practice, Sharf admits in his conclusion that:
It is certainly possible, if not probable, that the store of visual imagery that does
appear in the texts, would contribute to the construction of an elaborate
imaginative world in which the sanctuary is construed as a pure Buddha field
populated by a host of benevolent deities. In entering the sanctuary and
undertaking the rites a priest learns to behave as if he were dwelling in a sacred
realm, as if he were in the presence of the principle deity, as if he had merged
with Mahvairocana [the cosmic Buddha].
And he adds that all of these as if aspects of Shingon performance demand that the
practitioner remain fully cognizant of his immediate environs, like any good stage
actor. As such, he states that his analysis stands in contrast to the phenomenological
projection or inner visualization of an alternative universe (196).

Alternative Considerations
Having summarized Sharfs arguments, I would like now to supplement his analysis
by a consideration of this very notion of an alternative universe. In short, I want to
draw our attention to certain perspectives present in Shingon textsalbeit not the
liturgical manualsthat reveal that the as if dimension Sharf points to may also be
understood somewhat more deeply as a significant soteriological tool. As Sharf
himself notes, the adornment (shgon) of the sanctuary can be seen as a physical
reminder of the Mahyna doctrinal premise that, when properly perceived, nirvana
(the Buddhist term for spiritual liberation) is really samsra (the term for our default
_
3
Gregory Schopen, Archaeology and the Protestant Presuppositions in the Study of Indian Buddhism,
History of Religions 31 (1991):123.

Metaphor and Man dala in Shingon Buddhist Theology

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47

state of spiritual entrapment, suffering, and delusion). This premise suggests that our
world can be perceived as a pure land, as an alternative and better universe. With this
concept in mind, I would like to direct our attention to other uses of the term
adornment, metaphorical uses that point to a significant altering of perception or
thinkingperhaps the making real of the imagining of a possibilityas constituting
one ultimate aim of the ritual practice. As we shall see, both the material and the
metaphorical mandala play crucial roles in this adornment process. Further, I want to
_
suggest that we _ can
understand the relationship between these two mandala as
__
informing a kind of tension, one in which the imaginative dimension is creatively
coupled with the practitioners awareness of his immediate environs such that the
two do not stand in contrast, but, rather, complement one another in a tension that
could form a central aspect of the soteriological practice.
Sharfs very helpful critique isolates the liturgical context within which icons
function as charging forces. He demonstrates that the liturgical texts make almost no
reference to the mandala as a support for visualization. In other words, his analysis
__
is restricted to an understanding
of the mandala as artistic icon and of adornment as
_ _ other ritual accoutrement in liturgical
referring to the placement of mandala and
_
_
space. My approach here is to look instead at some Shingon doctrinal writings in
order to demonstrate that there are other meanings of mandala and other meanings
__
of adornment.
Shingon tradition commonly characterizes its ritual practice as comprising acts of
body, speech, and mind, known as the Three Mysteries (alternate translations include
secrets or even intimacies): the practitioner makes particular physical gestures with
the body (mudr), recites mantras by mouth, and thinks in terms of the mandala.
__
These acts are said to unite the practitioner with the Three Mysteries of the Cosmic
Buddha Dainichi (Mahvairocana). Sharfs corrective is aimed at the misconception
that the third of these Mysteries, the Mystery of Mind, entails visualizing what is
depicted in the mandala. The purpose of the present essay, however, is to demonstrate
_ _ the Mystery of Mind can also be understood as follows: the
that the practice of
practitioner is adorned to the extent that she or he sees/understands the world as a
mandala, as a world of awakened beings. Of course, the physical presence of the icon
_ _ may assist in this process. The soteriological power of this shift in perspective
itself
this new seeing or understandingis an essential emphasis of much of the Shingon
doctrinal literature that employs the terms adornment and mandala. Thus, my
_ _ from Sharfs
readings of these terms supplement the understanding gained
presentation. These other meanings of mandala and adornment allow us to understand
_ _ dimension, perhaps one not made very
as implicit within the ritual practice an inner
explicit in the liturgical texts themselves. This inner dimension of seeing may not be
an actual visualization, but is, nonetheless, a form of what I will call a vital
envisioning. And I intend this word to include both its meanings of forming a mental
image and of imagining a future possibility.

Kkai on Shgon and Mandala

__
The entry for shgon or adornment in the Mikky daijiten (the Japanese Large
Dictionary of Esoteric Buddhism) lists only the meaning of to decorate ornately,

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D. Gardiner

and the term can refer to the elaborate ornaments and utensils found in the
sanctuaries (dj) of Shingon temples. For the common Sanskrit equivalents of
shgonvyha and alamkraEdgertons Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary
offers the meanings of an array and a manifestation of something sacred, both of
which appear commonly in the Mahyna literature. Many Mahyna texts describe
the elaborate and spectacular arrays of various Buddha fields or Pure Lands in terms
of their adornments of gold mountains, lapis lazuli lakes, perfumed trees, and so
on. Along a more explicitly metaphorical vein, the Hua-yen ching uses the term
adornment to describe the meditative trance state of the Buddha Vairocana as being
a miraculous world of interpenetration, where the ordinary limits of time and space
are exploded. Yet another metaphorical usage of the term shgon is indicated in the
Sg Bukky jiten (the Japanese Comprehensive Dictionary of Buddhism), which
lists several meanings in addition to to decorate, most of which refer to the
metaphorical adornment of a practitioner with the qualities of wisdom and virtue.
There seems to be at least one common thread in these various meanings of
adornment, which is a sense of the marvelous transformations of character, as well
as of vision (in a sense, transformations of the inner and outer worlds) that come into
being as a result of realizing Buddhist truths, such as dependent origination and
emptiness, and as a result of learning to manifest the wondrous skills of compassion
that are so central to the bodhisattva path. The decorations of a sanctuary can, thus,
be seen as symbolic of these noble qualities. In this sense, the final enlightenment of
a Buddha would be the ultimate adornment, wherein, as a consequence of ones
vows and meritorious deeds, one acquires the three Buddha bodies and nurtures a
glorious Buddhafield for the cultivation of the spiritual capacities of living beings.
Kkai uses the term shgon frequently and in various contexts. Sometimes, he
describes the pure abodes of Buddhas in a manner similar to the descriptions of
Sukhvat in earlier Pure Land texts, by writing of mountaintops all being adorned
with jeweled trees (1:14). Yet, I think it is more common for him to describe ornate
palaces than landscapes. His many references to the residence of the Buddha as a
palace adorned with jewels carry regal connotations, albeit of a metaphorical
palace with ornaments. As an interesting side note, in some comments of his on the
actual Japanese sovereigns palace of his day, he refers metaphorically to its religious
attributes by noting how the imperial palace was adorned with lectures on the
Dharma (1:78, 79).
Most commonly, however, Kkai uses the term shgon to refer, as do some of the
earlier texts mentioned above, to spiritual qualities that accrue to practitioners on the
Buddhist path. One phrase that appears often in his writings with this meaning is a
description of the religious goal as one of immeasurable adornment (mury
shgon, or its synonym, inexhaustible adornment mujin shgon). He also uses the
term to refer to the goal of Buddhahood in his Himitsu mandara jjshinron
(Treatise on the Ten Mind Abodes of the Secret Mandala), his massive text on the
_ _ to note here that, in English
stages of religious development. I think it is important
scholarship, it has been common to translate the title of this text using the
abbreviation Treatise on the Ten Stages. Yet, this rendering ignores both the
wording of jshin, mind abodes, and ignores that Kkais understanding of these
abodes is that they all form a secret mandala. Of course, in this text, the tenth and
__
highest stage/abode is that of Shingon
practice, wherein the wonders of

Metaphor and Man dala in Shingon Buddhist Theology

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49

Buddhahood are revealed. The name of the tenth stage is the mind abode of secret
adornment (himitsu shgon jshin). As he writes in the opening section of the tenth
chapter of the Himitsu mandara jjshinron (which, to repeat, means, Treatise on
the Ten Mind Abodes of the Secret Mandala):
__
The mind of secret adornment [the tenth abode] is to thoroughly awaken to the
knowledge of the root source of ones own mind and to realize, as it truly is, the
multiplicity of ones own body/ies. This [abode] is none other than the oceanic
assembly of the Womb Mandala, the assembly of the Diamond World
__
Mandala, and the Eighteen Assembly
Mandala of the Diamond Peak [Stra].
4
_
_
__
(2:307)
And near the end of the same final chapter, he writes:
The term adornment refers to the universal manifestation of all manner of
sacred deportment from the single equality of body. There is nothing among these
sacred deportments that is not a secret seal [that is, that does not express reality].
From the single equality of word manifests all sounds. There is nothing among
these sounds that is not mantra. From the single equality of mind manifests all of
the sacred ones (honzon). There is nothing among these sacred ones that is not
an expression [of their vows; sammaya]. Every single one of the distinct marks
of these three activities [of body, speech and mind] are without limit and
unfathomable. Therefore we speak of inexhaustible adornment. (2:316)
Here, we see Kkai discussing adornment as spiritual realization, of both body
and mind. He equates this realization with the iconic depictions of the Two Mandala
__
frequently employed in Shingon ritual, the Womb World and the Diamond World
Mandala. This equivalence of the inner and outer, or mental and material, is telling:
the _ _painted icons are understood as representations of the goal of personal
transformation, as visual depictions, for example, of the truth of the multiplicity
of ones own body/ies. As such, they may not be props for actual visualization
techniques, but they surely are aids for the work of envisioning.

Metaphors
I want to turn now to some reflections on how both the terms adornment and
mandala function as metaphors. I have been aided in my reflections on
__
metaphorical
language by the writings of the philosopher Paul Ricoeur.5 One way
in which Ricoeur recommends thinking about metaphors is to consider them not as a
form of substitutionthat is, as if a sort of knowing is temporarily replaced with
another knowing (a relationship becomes a swamp, the cold wind turns into knife)
but rather as forming a specific tension. Within a given sentence (and a metaphor can
never function at the level of a single word, but it must happen in the context of a
4

Teihon Kbdaishi zensh, Research Institute of Esoteric Buddhist Culture, Koyasan University, 1995.
From this point,texts from this collection will be cited with their volume andpage number only.

Word, Polysemy, Metaphor: Creativity in Language In A Ricoeur Reader, ed. by Mario J. Valdes,
University of Toronto Press, 1991, 7685.

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D. Gardiner

sentence that is a proposition about something), a metaphor displays a kind of

tension that we can understand as almost a self-contradiction, as a semantic
discrepancy: it tries to make sense with nonsense (but Daddy, the cold wind isnt
really a knife, is it?). It is a kind of visionary grasping of resemblance. According to
Ricoeur, this discerning of similarity where we would normally not see it is, itself,
the very fruit of metaphor.
But the tension present in metaphor is one that allows the holding together of both
sameness and difference. The wind both is not and is a knife. Ricoeur stresses the
simple fact that, if the two were to somehow become indistinguishable, the language
would no longer function metaphorically. To say this is to note that the likeness
disclosed through metaphor is somewhat paradoxical, because it correlates sameness
and difference without simply mixing the two. They remain opposed yet connected,
in a potent tension, a creative tension. This tension of likeness manages to become a
matrix of emergent meaning, of new possible human ways of being in the world.
Ricoeur applauds this flexible and fertile feature of our linguistic and cognitive
capacities.
I once came across a fine quote from Borges on the subject of symbols that
dovetails nicely with Ricoeurs analysis of metaphors. In his review of Arthur
Waleys Monkey, Borges writes an introductory section on allegory, in which he
states the following:
We tend to believe that the interpretation exhausts the meaning of a symbol.
There is nothing more false... Symbols, beyond their representative worth, have
intrinsic worth... The lean and hungry wolf of the first canto of the Divine
Comedy is not an emblem or a figure of avarice: it is a wolf and it is also
avarice, as in dreams. That plural nature is the property of all symbols.6
Is there a similarity between the double duty of dreams and of metaphors? With
this plural natureconstituting a field from which new meaning can emergethe
theme of new possibilities expressed by metaphor should be ripe with potential for
religious language. And this theme is also centrally anchored in an important feature
of Tantric Buddhist doctrine in all its forms. In the Indian and Tibetan traditions, this
doctrine is indicated by the injunction to avoid the sin of ordinariness. In these
traditions, the practitioner is exhorted to be on guard against the conceiving of her
own person as ordinary, as being just a teacher, just a student, and so on. Instead, one
is encouraged to develop what is called divine pride, which is a sense of
confidence not merely in ones potentiality for supreme transformation, but, instead,
a confidence that one is in actuality at the very moment an embodiment of the
perfected wisdom and compassion that is a Buddha. The Tibetan tradition, in
particular, maintains to this day healthy lineages of oral transmission in which the
practitioner is taught to engage in detailed contemplative exercises that entail
intricate visualizations of specific features of the body, speech, and mind of a deity
that one imagines oneself to be in ones practice. And in the Tibetan tradition, this
visualization is, indeed, assisted by paintings of mandala, the visual details of which
__
are effective supports for the practice. The imaginative
act of self-generation as a

Jorge Luiz Borges: Selected Non-fictions, ed. by Eliot Weinberger, Penguin Books (2000), 252.

Metaphor and Man dala in Shingon Buddhist Theology

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51

deity is seen as counteracting, as an antidote to, our habitual imagination of

ourselves as, David, Joan, a good student, a lousy accountant, and so on. In
other words, the visualizations are a direct assault on our tendency to rehearse, to
attach to, to identify with a particular self-image. In standard Buddhist psychology,
such misplaced attachment is, of course, seen as the fundamental source of
afflictions such as hatred and greed. Thus, in Tantric practice, one is trained to
imagine oneself as something altogether different, something that entirely embodies
the ideal virtues espoused in the tradition. One is, furthermore, trained also not to
attach to this visualized image, and this caution is programmed into the
visualization not only in terms of doctrinal reminders, but, for example, also by
technical directions to begin ones visualization by generating the image out of ones
imagining of the all-pervasive clear light that is the minds own cognition of the
ultimate truth of emptiness, and to end the visualization by dissolving the image
back into this clear light. It is commonly said that, post-meditation, one tends to
gradually return to attending to the apparent ordinary self who strives in practice to
realize its extraordinary dimension. Note the tension here: the meditator is both the
practitioner aiming for Buddhahood and is also the Buddha. This is a tensive
relationship (but Daddy, you arent really the Buddha, are you?).7
The Shingon tradition shares with the Tibetan tradition similar instructions
regarding divine pride. Kkais language of being adorned with the mandala
__
expresses this view, an example of which we saw earlier:
The term adornment refers to the universal manifestation of all manner of
sacred deportment from the single equality of body. There is nothing among
these sacred deportments that is not a secret seal.
Elsewhere, we find in a text by Pu-kung (Amoghavajra), the teacher of Kkais
main Chinese teacher and an author and translator of numerous texts on Tantric
practice: To call oneself an ordinary being is the equivalent of slandering all the
Buddhas of the three times. It is a severe offense against the Dharma.8
The Shingon practices of Body, Speech, and Mind (mudr, mantra, and
mandala), the Three Secrets/Mysteries/Intimacies, is often said to create a sense of
__
identity
between the practitioner and the Buddha. Yet, I think identity is not
actually the best term, and that the relationship is actually more of a tensive one, as it
is in metaphorical thinking. As Kkai often writes, they are two but not two. Or, in
his Sokushin jbutsu gi (The Meaning of Becoming a Buddha in This Body),
regarding the relationship between sentient beings and Buddhas: they are not the
same and yet the same, not different and yet different (3:28).
I would like to quote here another passage of Kkais, from a votive document he
wrote on the occasion of the consecration of the ritual space on top of Mount Koya,
where he founded a monastic community. Kkais evocation of the significance of
7

On basic Tibetan tantric visualization methods, among numerous texts now available, see Lama Yeshes
Introduction to Tantra, Wisdom Publications (1987) and the Dalai Lamas Tantra in Tibet, Snow Lion
Publications (1987). David L. McMahans Empty Vision: Metaphor and Visionary Imagery in Mahyna
Buddhism, Routledge Curzon (2002) also contains helpful analyses that overlap with my thinking here.

8
Togano Shogun, Shingon Dokuhonkygihen, 13. Original in Taisho #1174, vol. 20: 713c28, Five
Letter Dharani Verse ).

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D. Gardiner

this event, which marked the founding of the first temple in Japan dedicated entirely
to Shingon practice, waxes poetic:
Mahvairocana Buddha, the great compassionate one, enjoying for himself the
taste of equality that is enlightenment, was saddened by the plight of the beings
in the six realms of rebirth. And so it was that the thunder of his wisdom that is
one with reality trembled throughout His dharma-realm palace and the secret
mandala was thereby transmitted to our world. (Emphasis is mine.)
__
Clearly, this is written in the language of myth. It speaks of the origins or
transmission of the esoteric teachings of the mandala among human beings. It
speaks metaphorically of the power of wisdom as_ _ thunder, of the effect of this
wisdom trembling through our world, and of the practices that share in this wisdom,
that help beings to realize it, as themselves constituting a secret mandala. This kind
_
of poetic phrasing is very common in Kkais writings, and in the _Chinese
Tantric
texts he frequently cites. The language of this tradition is deeply metaphorical, and I
think this feature is woven deeply into the fabric of the practice, whether in body,
speech, or mind. A good Tantric practitioner works on his or her metaphors.

Mandala as a Prop for the Metaphorical Work of Envisioning

__
To return, then, to our entry into this topic, we looked at Robert Sharfs critique of
the truism that:
... the depictions of deities associated with [East Asian Shingon] Tantric
practicenotably the often complex geometric arrays of divinities known as
mandalafunction as aids for visualization practices.
__
We have noted that Sharfs observations are a corrective based on careful readings
of Shingon liturgical texts. I will add to this consideration that I think one source of
what Sharf calls a misunderstanding among scholars might be the faulty assumption
that the mandala of Japanese Tantra must be used just as they are in Tibetan Tantra.
If, as Sharf_ _claims, this assumption is unwarranted as far as the details of actual
visualization practice are concerned, then he has made an important contribution to
our understanding by clarifying a weak and possibly inchoate assumption.
Nonetheless, as I have argued, these beautiful icons are still part of a practice of
envisioning, if not of visualization. As the practitioner sees the icon, she also learns
to see her world through this image. Thus, the icon must be understood to catalyze
a transformation of her sense of the ordinariness of her world and its horizons. The
visual arts of the Shingon tradition, thereby, assist the emergence of this
transformative vision, whereby the secret mandala is transmitted to our world.
_ _ to supplement Sharfs comments
In light of this understanding, I think we need
regarding how misconceptions of visualization practice are enmeshed in an
approach to the subject that privileges the inner experience of the practitioner over
the performative and sacerdotal dimensions of the rite (15354). With due respect
for the undeniable importance of studying what religious people do as much as what
they write or think, in the presence of texts that eloquently exhort mental
transformation (this being just one of the Three Secrets, or loci, of transformation),

Metaphor and Man dala in Shingon Buddhist Theology

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53

I suggest that there is ample evidence that mandala, in both their material and
__
metaphorical dimensions, are implicated in processes
of inner experiences of
transformation in various ways in the Shingon tradition.

Further Reflections on Metaphor and Imagery

The poet and poetry critic Jane Hirshfield says of metaphors, images, and tropes that,
within a good image, outer and subjective worlds illumine one another, break bread
together, converse.9 There is also a way, says Hirshfield, that through the spoken or
written word of poetry, image summons the body, into a poem.10 She adds that,
metaphor, and the images in poetry that perform a similar function, are no
decorative addition, but a fundamental tool for the seeding of meaning: by a fertile,
imaginative turning of outer image, we plow the ground of our lives.11 I think
Hirshfield offers here a marvelous metaphor for understanding how metaphors work.
A feature that strikes many readers of Tantric texts is the pervasiveness of
metaphorical language. This verbal style is sometimes referred to as twilight
language, and is often described as a code. But regardless of how code-like this
opaque terminology might be, I think it is also part of an intentional project to help
shift a practitioners perception of things from ordinary to extraordinary, from the
appearance that all things of our experience possess an intrinsic identity (svabhva)
to knowing things as being empty of any enduring core and as, thus, fluid and open.
Kkais metaphor of shgon (adornment), which refers to an enhanced
perception, a shift in the way one understands ones own body and mind, might
also be thought of as a dawning of a new awareness. I will take the liberty of
complicating matters by deriving from this metaphor of dawning (which is not
Kkais but mine) its homonym donning, and will playfully remark on how this
punning reveals a stunning image. Can we not speak metaphorically of the donning
of a new awareness, like the donning of a beautiful raiment? I think that the term
adornment (shgon) conveys this kind of meaning. I also think that Kkai intends
adornment to include a corporeal dimension, and that this sense extends as well to
his understanding of mandala.12
_ _ again from the Treatise on the Ten Mind Stages of the
Here are Kkais words
Secret Mandala, in an extended gloss on a passage from the Kongochky
__
(Vajraekhara-stra),
which is among other things cited in order to clarify the
meaning of the phrase inexhaustible adornment. Kkai glosses in particular the
phrase secret adornment, flower adornment as follows:
Secret refers to the Vajra Three Secrets. Flower means the unfolding of the
flower of enlightenment. Adornment means to possess all varieties of virtue.
So [the phrase] says that the Buddha virtues as numerable as grains of sand, and

Jane Hirshfield, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, Harper Perennial. New York (1997), 84.

10
11

Ibid., 18.

Ibid., 84.
12
In a forthcoming book on Kkai, I explore the somatic aspect of his understanding of mandala.
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54

D. Gardiner

the Three Secrets as numerable as particles of dust, are the adorned body and
land [of enlightenment]. This is called mandala. (2:318)
__
Kkais prose is indirectly exhorting the practitioner to don this mandala, to
__
become adorned by the power of this vision. And he employs a metaphor
intentionally as a key element in his discourse. I think one reason for this is that
metaphors are themselves, in a sense, such donnings. They cover one reality or
phenomenon with the meaning of another reality or phenomenon. However, as I
alluded to before in reference to Ricoeurs comments, the cover is transparent, so
that the thing covered is still visible. For metaphors to be truly effective, the two
must not merge into one; indeed, they cannot. The nature of metaphorical thinking is
such that it operates always with a tension between two different things, whereby
one thing is seen in light of the other, where both similarity and difference are
preserved. Thus, the metaphor of shgon, which itself curiously refers to the very
process of working with metaphors, is, as Hirshfield says, no decorative addition
but, a fundamental tool for the seeding of meaning. Her explanation that metaphors
do not add anything extra, as would a decoration, is perfectly congruent with
Ricoeurs insight that neither do metaphors function as forms of substitution. They
might adorn, but only by transforming the range of the possible. Hirshfield also
writes that [i]mages, metaphors, similes, and stories are sliding doors, places of
opening through which subjective and objective may penetrate and become each
other.13 The two are not entirely two; reality and the wisdom realizing it are not
completely distinct; self and Buddha are not two; and separate bodies are not
altogether separate because, as Kkai writes in The Meaning of Becoming Buddha in
This Body, they all interpenetrate like reflections of light in a mirror.

Conclusion
It is fitting to end with a quote from Kkais introduction to the Ten Stages, one that
addresses the importance of understanding what he calls the words and letters of the
secret names. This phrase refers in particular to the true nature of mantra, but also, I
think, more generally to the nature of metaphorical language:
If people could just recognize the [actual nature of] words and letters of the
secret names, they would profoundly open the secret store of adornment. Then
hell [would become] heavenly halls, Buddha-nature [would become] the
icchantika [one incapable of attaining enlightenment], afflictions [would
become] bodhi, and samsra [would become] nirvana. (2:6)
_
With reference to the tension of preserving both sameness and difference, I will
add one more supplement to a comment of Sharfs introduced earlier. In discussing
briefly the metaphorical meaning of adornment as imaginatively holding the view
that the sanctuary is a Pure Land or Buddha Field, Sharf avers that such a holding is
made extremely difficult by the pressing demands of the Shingon practitioner who,
in the midst of complex liturgical processes, must remain fully cognizant of his
13

Hirshfield, 84.

Metaphor and Man dala in Shingon Buddhist Theology

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55

immediate environs, like any good stage actor. Thus, he states that his analysis
stands in contrast to the phenomenological projection or inner visualization of an
alternative universe. This may well be true with regard to the difficulty of engaging
in a detailed and complex visualization of the particulars, say, of a given material
mandala depiction while engaged in the thick work of liturgy. But what about the
__
possibility
that, instead of visualizing a mandala, a practitioner could envision his
practice as being the work of the Buddha?_ _To do so while engaged in the work
seems not only possible, but is, moreover, in perfect accordance with the various
doctrinal exhortations presented above. So the issue may not be one of either/or, that
one can either perform a complex ritual or a complex visualization. Rather, it may
be an issue of both/and. It appears that the tension of both/anda tension inherent in
the structure of metaphorical thought, as well as in basic Tantric Buddhist doctrine
can be preserved so long as one acknowledges that the term mandala designates not
_
only a sacred material icon, but also a transformation of self and_ world
to which one
awakens as the fruit of sacred envisioning.

Glossary
Kkai
Shingon
Sanmitsu
Shgon
Mandara
Mury shgon
Himitsu mandara jjshinron
Sokushin jbutsugi

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