the precise meaning of the anima paradigm has become seriously diluted in Jungian studies. Under the rubric of this fantasy, there is a rich trade of “smuggled hypotheses, pretty pieties about eros, and eschatological indulgences about saving one’s soul through relationship, becoming more feminine, and the sacrifice of the intellect.”

On the other hand, when skillful means (upāya, thap) manifests in the styles of human men, there is strength, solidity, and resiliency. In contrast to feminine energy, the masculine is obvious and oriented toward the material world of manifestation and action.

approaching that thing that people have been rejecting for millions of years. We find it extremely discomfiting, and we are going toward it, exploring it. That is why it is so painful to give and open. That kind of unwanted place is like the charnel ground. It haunts us all over the place, not just one place.17

A frightening, uncomfortable place is the knife that severs discursive thought.

Finding an authentic Vajrayāna guru who is authorized to transmit the tantric teachings and with whom one has a genuine connection is the foundation of the path of Tibetan Vajrayāna.

The ḍākinī knows that tantric realization flourishes in an environment of intimacy, inexpressibility, and direct experience. Too much talk or dissemination can kill yogic realization.

It is difficult to honor passion without being overwhelmed by a self-centered desire for gratification.

In Hindu tantra, this type of iconography of sexual union does not generally appear. Instead, the feminine is usually designated as active and the masculine as passive. Iconographic depictions of divine union have the ferocious feminine deity standing over the supine masculine, frozen in stasis. But in Tibetan Buddhist iconography, the feminine and

Finally, the subtle-body yoga practice itself is considered to be the ḍākinī, the arising of the experience of bliss-emptiness that allows the fundamental nature of mind to manifest to itself. This is the fullest meaning of sky-dancer, the actual accomplishment that opens the gates of wisdom.