The Buddha in the Tarot

by Paul Greer

  As he listens to Brahma’s entreaty, and filled with compassion for the lost, the Buddha looked across the world, and saw many with keen understanding who would respond to his teachings. Thus, for the sake of those who had ears to hear, the Buddha decided to open the “door to the Deathless.” But to whom should he teach? Through his visionary powers the Buddha discerned that his first two teachers had died. His mind then turned to his five ascetic companions who looked after him during his austerities. Perceiving they were now living near Benares in the Deer Park at Isipatana, he set out to meet them.12

  A Buddhist Reflection: “To Save the World of Gods and Men”

  What exactly is a Buddha? The answer seems obvious – it is someone who has experienced enlightenment; someone who is “awake.” Yet, different Buddhist traditions differentiate between different types of awakened beings. The Theravadin tradition for example makes a clear distinction between a Buddha and an Arhat or Worthy One. Here, Buddha refers to one who has figured out and attained enlightenment through their own insights and resources. The Arhat by contrast is one who has awakened through the benefits of received teachings (Dharma) and the fellowship of other practitioners (Sangha). Buddhism also makes a distinction between a Samyaksambuddha (a Fully Pure Buddha who teaches others) and a Pratekyabuddha (Private Buddha) – the latter being someone who becomes awake through their own resources, but does not teach the Dharma.

  To remain a “Private Buddha” was the first temptation faced by Gotama after his enlightenment under the Asvattha tree, based it seems on his assumption that no one would be able to understand what he had discovered. Like Jesus, tempted to be borne away by angels, the Buddha felt that his insights could not be communicated to a society engulfed in its own darkness. So, we must ask - what motivated the Buddha to engage with the world, and formulate his insights in such a way that would make them intellectually accessible? Fundamentally it was based on a sense of compassion for those lost in Samsara. Such compassion is rooted in a sense of identification; the realization that the suffering of one is at the same time the suffering of all. “Compassion,” as Jack Kornfield rightly says, is founded upon a “sense of our shared suffering.”13 Conversely, the awakening of one holds in itself the potential for the awakening of all. This perhaps explains the enigmatic saying which the Zen tradition attributes to the Buddha at the moment of his enlightenment: “Seeing this morning star, all things and I awaken together.” The Buddha’s subsequent establishment of a casteless Sangha, open to both men and woman, and his vision of a life based in moral virtue, wisdom and meditation, represent his pragmatic efforts to establish a culture of universal awakening; his attempt to “save the world of gods and men.”

  However, it is fair to say that as Buddhism has carried itself forwards through the ages, much of this energy and potency has been lost or forgotten. Despite its grand vision of transformation, the central achievement of traditional Buddhism, as Gary Snyder has argued, has been helping a few “dedicated individuals” with their “cultural conditioning.” As a whole, Buddhism has been noticeably accepting of “the inequalities and tyrannies” of the political systems it has been obliged to co-exist with.14

  The traditional Buddhist vision of transformation has also encountered a number of problems in its dialogue with Western culture. The first has been its rather clumsy-looking and at-odds stance with what Michael Welton has described as the West’s “narrative of progress.” Teachers from traditional Buddhist countries have had the onerous task of relating the Dharma to complex societies of wealth and abundance, with extensive traditions of “human rights, liberal democracy and collective welfare.” Within this narrative, “religion” has for the most part been removed from its pre-Enlightenment position of power, to become a mostly personal and private concern.15

  Another problem has been consumer culture’s ability to assimilate and repackage all things as harmless commodity. At the bookstore, whether actual or virtual, we enter a latté-drenched maya-world, where Buddhism competes with Buddish self-help or the latest Ramtha for our spiritual and financial affections. Mara’s demons have been hard at work, turning Samatha meditation into Corporate Mindfulness Training,16 and Tantra into Neo-tantra. The transformative vision of Buddhism has become a personal lifestyle option, a productivity tool; another exotic nugget in my unique book-collection of “me.” In response to the “conjuror’s trickwork” of the West, “Buddhism,” as Sulak Sivaraksa plainly puts it, “does not know what to do.”17 As discussed in relation to the Justice card, Buddhism does potentially have much to offer in terms of a wise and discriminating response to the dominant consumerist ideology of our times. Yet, many may doubt that we are about to witness a society-wide transformation of values on the basis of this fact. In the West, as it was in the days of the original casteless Sangha, converts to Buddhism are drawn principally from the intellectual classes. The rest, as Michel Clasquin-Johnson puts it, “did as they were told.”18

  But all is not doom and gloom. First, what Buddhism really does have in its favor is our misery. The spiritual malaise that helped foster the growth of Buddhism long ago seems much like our own. Like those ancients who experienced the unfixing of the pole star, and life as a frog at the bottom of a dried-up well, we too have had our “losses,” perhaps more so:

  loss of meaning, feelings of alienation and powerlessness, unhappiness in the midst of the glut of material possessions, despair over deepening discrepancies between rich and poor, social fragmentation, moral confusion and pervasive personality disorders and addictions, plus an ever degrading eco-structure.19

  It is obvious that many in the West are hungry for something more meaningful than that which consumer culture can supply; for healthier ways to relate to themselves, others, and to the planet. Second, there is hope in the human potential for change and transformation. Contrary to mainstream Christian pessimism, there is, as Snyder says, nothing in what we now know about human nature or social organisation which fundamentally necessitates that any society should be repressive, or fashion only “violent frustrated personalities.”20 Third, as Dominique Side points out, there are a number of features within Buddhism which make it particularly attractive to a growing number of discerning Westerners – its elevation of reason over faith, it’s ongoing dialogue with science, its lack of hierarchical authority, and its emphasis upon personal insight and self-development.21

  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, “Buddhism” as universal compassion is neither defined by nor confined to issues of doctrinal allegiance. It is rooted primarily in the belief that we all in some measure possess the bodhisattva world; that we all have the innate potential to cultivate The Beautiful, transforming ourselves, society and the world in the process. Moreover, this potential can be cultivated in myriad ways, the traditional path of the received teachings of the Buddha being but one of them. The West has a number of its own significant spiritual resources which reflect or can be utilized to reflect a Buddhist understanding of the spiritual life, whether we call it “Buddhist” or not. “The presence of Buddhism in society,” says Sivaraksa, does not mean having card-carrying Buddhists in charge of every institution, but that these institutions be permeated by those who live by “humanism, love, tolerance, and enlightenment.”22

  For some, this definition of Buddhism as dharma-farers in spirit might be too amorphous to be of any real meaning or value. Yet, we are reminded that the Dalai Lama himself defines his “simple religion” as “kindness,”23 indicating what he considers to be Buddhism’s primary allegiance to practice over doctrine, which only functions as an external support to compassionate action in the first place. As the Buddha himself says in the Dhammapada:

  If a man is a great preacher of the sacred text, but slothful and no doer of it, he is a hireling shepherd, who has no part in the flock.

  If a man preaches but a little of the text and practices the teaching, putting away lust and hatred and infatuation; if he is truly wise and detached and seeks nothing here or here
after, his lot is with the holy ones.24

  The Moon (18)

  General Overview

  The RWS Moon closely follows the Marseilles version of the card, showing a moon above two towers, under which two dogs (in Waite’s version, a dog and a wolf) appear to be howling. A serene face is set within the surface of the moon, which also shows the waning, waxing and full aspects of its cycle. Thirty-two rays of light are shown around the moon’s perimeter, perhaps suggesting that the moon is eclipsing the sun, blocking out most of its illumination. In the lower section of the card a lobster or crayfish is shown emerging from a pool of water. At the card’s center a path is shown, winding between the lobster and the dogs, leading through the two towers to the mountains beyond. The towers appear to be those first seen distantly in Death, indicating that our Hero is coming to the end of his or her sojourn in the Land of Trials, and is about to emerge into the light of the everyday, back into society.

  Despite what we might expect, this Return card is usually interpreted quite negatively within Tarot literature, associated with such themes as fear, fantasy, lunacy, deceit and distortion. According to Waite, the card represents the “life of the imagination apart from life of the spirit.” The moon’s reflected light only illuminates “our animal nature,” represented by the dog and the wolf. The lobster represents something even more primitive – “that which comes up out of the deeps, the nameless and hideous tendency which is lower than the savage beast”; a primeval horror within humanity which seeks to “attain manifestation.”1 For Papus, similarly, this card indicates that the soul has left the world of spirit and fallen completely into the lower world of matter, from which “it can descend no lower.” The three animals represent “servile spirits,” “savage souls” and “crawling creatures” which all seek the individual’s destruction.2 Comparable negative appraisals attend Jungian interpretations of the card. For Nichols, the card represents the Hero’s “bleakest” point in his travels, in which he has lost his human identity and sunk to the level of an animal and the “watery unconscious” of the “prehistoric crawfish.” If he can find no conquest here, his devouring unconscious will overwhelm him, “resulting in psychosis.”3

  Within the spectrum of possibility the card has more positive connotations, including intuition, powerful dreams, “the female element … [or] women in general,”4 and guidance through “potentially unfriendly territory.”5 The Neopagan and Wiccan movements – as Pollack herself recognizes6 – would also be inclined to offer a more positive appraisal of this card, reflecting the “triumph” as opposed to the “trials” of The Moon. Within feminist Wicca in particular, the moon has come to symbolize a recovery and reaffirmation of the “shadow” that patriarchal culture and spirituality has denied or devalued – sensuality, sexuality, mystery, nature, darkness, the feminine, and indeed, women. This reaffirmation of the lost or devalued is recognized by Gardner’s channeled Moon, who declares that the way forward lies in a “remembering of what you have forgotten.”7 In Dianic Wicca especially, the Moon has come to represent the immanent presence of Diana, the Great Goddess of nature and childbirth, whose power and energy can be “drawn down” during full moon rituals.

  In Roman mythology, Diana (Bright Sky) is the virgin goddess of the hunt, the moon, nature, childbirth and women. She supplants the earlier Titan moon goddess Luna, but retains her name as an epitaph. In statuettes and reliefs she is shown carrying a bow, accompanied by a deer or hunting dogs - a likely origin of the two canines in The Moon card. Indeed, many early Tarot decks make The Moon’s link with Diana much more explicit than the Marseilles’ stylization. For example, The Moon from the 15th-Century Tarocchi of Mantegna is entitled Luna, and depicts a goddess in a sky-chariot holding a crescent moon.8 For Kaplan, the 17th-Century Tarocchini of Mitelli simply shows “Diana beneath the moon.”9 The link between The Moon and Diana is also made obvious in many modern decks, including Place’s Alchemical Tarot and Waldherr’s Goddess Tarot.

  In regards to our poor lobster, I am tempted to ignore explanations related to the astrological sign of Cancer or to the chthonic monstrosities of the unconscious, and settle instead for the simple fact that lobsters and similar crustaceans are affected by lunar forces, the biggest catches often being made just before a full moon. Our Renaissance counterparts may not have known about depth psychology, but they did recognize the pull of the moon on the contents of their lobster pots.

  The “pull of the moon” is certainly something which brings out Wiccans to celebrate the power of the Goddess, as revealed in her celestial presence, in the cycles and rhythms of nature, and in what Starhawk perceives as the “pulsating power” that works in harmony with menstrual processes. In addition, continues Starhawk, the Goddess is “the liberator.” She is venerated at the full moon because she connects humans with their deepest drives and emotions; aspects of ourselves which threaten those systems “designed to contain them.” She liberates her worshippers from “fixed perceptions,” “blind beliefs,” and “fear.”10

  This understanding of Diana as “liberator” may derive in part from her ancient association with the succession of the rex Nemorenis – the High Priest of Diana who could be challenged to mortal combat by a slave at any time, the victor then resuming the priestly office. But perhaps the greatest influence on our understanding of Goddess as liberator comes from a small book published in 1899 by the folklorist Charles Leland, entitled Aradia or The Gospel of the Witches. The book, which was very influential in the development of modern Wicca, purports to be a translation of a manuscript which Leland claims he received from an Italian hereditary witch by the name of Maddalena. The first section is in the form of a Gospel, recording the words spoken by the Goddess Diana to her daughter Aradia, who is to be reborn as a woman in order to teach and spread witchcraft. Aradia in turn gives counsel concerning the revolutionary task which lies ahead:

  And when the priests or the nobility

  Shall say to you that you should put your faith

  In the Father, Son, and Mary, then reply:

  “Your God, the Father, and Maria are

  Three devils …

  “For the true God the Father is not yours;

  For I have come to sweep away the bad,

  The men of evil, all will I destroy!

  Ye who are poor suffer with hunger keen,

  And toll in wretchedness, and suffer too

  Full oft imprisonment; yet with it all

  Ye have a soul, and for your sufferings

  Ye shall be happy in the other world,

  But ill the fate of all who do ye wrong!”

  The work of “all witchcraft,” declares Aradia, is “to destroy the evil race (of oppressors).”11

  Another goddess associated with the moon is the triple-aspected Hekate, viewed by modern Wiccans as representing both the three phases of the moon and the three important phases of a woman’s life – maiden, mother and crone. The figure of Hekate can also be found in The Moon cards from a significant number of Tarot decks, including Dugan’s Witches Tarot, Zadok’s Mansions of the Moon Tarot, and Greene’s Mythic Tarot. Diana and Hekate share a number of similar features; indeed Diana is sometimes viewed as one aspect of Hekate. Like Diana, she is a goddess of childbirth, and is also usually depicted surrounded by dogs. In addition, Hekate carries the epitaphs of light-bearer (phosphoros) and key-bearer to all mysteries (kleidophoros). Of relevance to Smith’s depiction of The Moon is Hekate’s association with “liminal” or “threshold” places, such as gateways - the entrances and exits to which were often guarded by Stygian dogs, such as Cerberus. This conforms to Smith’s depiction of the two canine-defended towers (or Hekataea), which together form a gateway to the everyday world, towards which our Hero must now venture forth.

  A neglected aspect of The Moon’s symbolism within most Tarot interpretation is its association with what could be termed “transformative community.” Aradia for example commands her followers to assemble together “[o]nce in the month, and whe
n the moon is full” to adore the “potent spirit of your queen,” the “great Diana.” Together as community, her worshippers will be taught “all things as yet unknown,” and “ye shall all be freed from slavery.”12 Similarly, in Rabbinical and Kabbalistic symbolism, the moon is associated not only with of sephirah of Malkuth (the world), and God’s Shekinah or feminine presence, but, as Eliezer Segal says, with the people of Israel “in exile.” The Moon, according to Segal points towards both the future redemption of the people of Israel, and to “a remedying of alienation within God him/herself.”13 A similar Luna-Ecclesia connection existed within early Christianity – a point recognized by Jung.14 The moon became identified with both Mary and the Church community; the “bride” which bears social witness to the light of the “Son,” and awaits union with her bridegroom and lover.

  In the Story of the Buddha: Turning the Wheel of the Dharma

  The Buddha set out to wander by stages to Benares, and to the five ascetics, now residing at the Deer Park at Isipatana. When the five first saw him, they agreed among themselves that they would only address him as “friend,” and not pay him any respect for having abandoned the spiritual quest for a life of luxury. The Buddha rebukes them, and tells them that “friend” is not an appropriate term for one who has attained the status of a Tathagata - a fully enlightened one. The Buddha approached, and set forth his intentions: “I shall teach you the Dhamma.”15 Under a full moon, on that “lunar day sacred to Vishnu,”16 the Buddha thus set in motion the “Wheel of the Dharma,” instructing the five ascetics on the core aspects of his teachings. The Buddha eventually won them all over, and they attained liberation from “bondage.”17 The five, now transformed in their hearts and minds, requested to embark on the Buddha’s vision of the religious life. Touching their heads, the Buddha thus brought them into his new “mendicant order.”18