AHHHH!  Gearing up for my Women’s Sacred Sexuality course, so I thought I’d get back in touch with a practice that I used to love to do on a regular almost daily basis.   I would love to schedule more time for myself to this more often, it left me in a very peaceful arousal state, perfect for going into lovemaking with my partner.  I’ve included more information about the practice below…

It was a very magical day when I first learned the Vajra Yogini practice.  I was attending a workshop entitled Sexual Wholeness with instructors Kip Moore and Lexi Fischer.  It was the 3^rd or 4^th day of the workshop and I was feeling very low.  I went to the workshop without my partner and I was having a hard time with the level of intimacy of the work and not feeling supported by the men that I had to choose from.  It was very challenging to honor my boundaries and feel into what I really needed.  I was elated when the men and women were separated and we were given a day just to celebrate being women.  At this particular time in my life I was also really having trouble cultivating my own feminine energy.  I honestly was hating being a woman, I felt powerless and unattractive in my female body.  But this day changed everything and it began with the Vajra Yogini Practice.

Lexi so gracefully led us through the practice and I was hooked instantly.  I was very drawn to the fact that the Vajra Yogini was practiced by Tibetan nuns in order to master their female energies for rejuvenation.  Sunyata Saraswati, one of the founders of Ipsalu Tantra Kriya Yoga learned this practice from the Tibetan nuns and passed the teachings down to Lexi Fischer who taught me. The practice is said to have originated in India between the 10^th and 12^th centuries

Vajra Yogini is not just a practice but is also said to have been a Dakini in real life.  In Miranda Shaw’s book Passionate Enlightenment she says that Vajra Yogini is “inarguably the supreme deity of the Tantric pantheon. No male Buddha, including her divine consort, Heruka Chakrasaṃvara, approaches her in metaphysical or practical import.”.   Vajra means “diamond like”  or “thunder bolt” in Sanskrit.  The Vajra is meant to be a symbol of firmness of spirit that like a diamond cannot be cut through, yet it can penetrate like a bolt of lightning.  Vajra is also a term used for the male phallus, which I think is interesting given that Vajra Yogini is a feminine practice. Vajra Yogini’s practice consisted of methods that prevented ordinary death and rebirth, by transforming them into paths of enlightenment.   She also used the practice to take the mundane daily experience and transform them into higher spiritual paths, which is at the heart of many Tantric Practices.

There are rumored to be eleven different Vajrayogini practices or yogas.  The practice that I did today  is passed down from Tibetan Buddhism and does have some elements of Ipsalu Tantra woven into make the practice more effective.