Footnotes

*1 Translator’s note: Originally frémissante, from frémir—“to tremor, to quiver, to shudder, to shiver, to thrill, to simmer (as in water).” Daniel Odier uses this word to indicate the idea of spanda, which has been translated variously as “the divine pulsation” or “vibration” or “vibratory dynamism of the absolute consciousness.” Here, inner/sacred/divine tremor or tremoring vibration (and their various forms) will be used in the absence of a single English word that adequately conveys this sense of frémir and spanda.

*2 Even after 90 percent of our neurons are destroyed, however, it is worth noting that enough remain to establish two million billion neural connections.

*3 Patriarch’s note: Sumeru is the central mountain of every world system, translated into Chinese as miao kao, “wonderfully high.”

*4 Suchness might be defined as “the true nature of things, outside of subjective description and all interpretation of what we perceive.”³⁸

*5 Kalou Rinpoche’s note: See the Five Golden Teachings in the Vajrayana (213).

*6 This means that it contains the ojas or vital luster of sabda (sound), rupa (form), rasa (savor), gandha (smell), sparisa (touch).

**7 “This ‘force,’ or rather consciousness itself, is conceived as a kind of emission which incessantly renews the world. Such an emission of force (this force is identified in turn as seed) is the effect of the union of two opposing principles, Shiva and [Feminine, Shakti] Power, Sun and Moon, etc.” (Raniero Gnoli).
    “Inundated by the beautified emission which issues from the union of the genital organs of Shiva and the Power [Shakti], all this is renewed incessantly” (TA, V, 124).

*8 Vislesana here means visesena slesah, definite junction or unon. Mahavisargavislesana is a technical word of the system which means that all joy arises by union with the perfect-consciousness.
    “The separation of the emission is the equivalent, in a psychological sense, to the seminal emission. Each form of pleasure can be, from this point of view, conceived as a separation of the emission. From a cosmic point of view, the separation of the emission is equivalent in the end to the creation of the all, contained implicitly in consciousness” (Raniero Gnoli).

**9 Vislesana in this context means not separation but union: visesena slesanam i.e. uniting in a definite characteristic way.

*10 Author’s note: This stanza is translated on the Tantra/Ch’an Web site as: “O goddess! The sensual pleasure of the intimate bliss of union can be reproduced at any moment by the radiant presence of the mind which remembers intensely this pleasure.”

*11 “The middle or central channel, the susumna, is consciousness itself” (Raniero Gnoli).

**12 Author’s note: From the Tantra/Ch'an Web site: “At the start of the union, be in the fire of the energy released by the intimate sensual pleasure. Merge in to the divine Shakti and keep burning in space, avoiding the ashes at the end. These delights are in truth those of the self.” This pleasure, in other words, can also be reproduced without the actual presence of a woman, quite simply by concentrating on the woman. See also my translation of the Vijnanabhairava Tantra in Tantra Yoga.

†1 “The two aesthetic senses are, according to Indian thinkers, sight and hearing. Things perceived through the other senses spring up only in the self proper; they are so to speak incapable of breaking the barriers of the limited ego and the practical interests tied to the ego” (Raniero Gnoli).