In the Cave Womb of Mother Earth

Birth of the Dhammakaya -- the body of teh Buddha -- is described in the book Cambodian Buddhism, by Ian Harris. His English-language book is based on the French-language research of Francois Bizot, of the Ecole de extreme oriente.

The rebirth ritual takes place in a cave in Cambodia.

The yogi practitioners enter together into the cave, the body of mother earth.

“Therefore the goal of this quest in the abyss was not a new birth, a uterine release of a renovated body; it really consisted in acquiring – through the mystery of a superior initiation – the necessary dispositions to reach the abode of the Great Felicity; in other words, the acquiring a new body enabling one to change from a mortal to a divine existence.”

The yogin enters the “body” of the earth. Bizot himself participated in the ceremony. He entered the birth cave and described the initiation.

“The acary (master) takes his shoes off and asks everyone to measure the importance of going through the ‘golden gate’ (dvar mas) to enter the maternal womb. He reveals the formula – the three characters A RA HAM – that one must recite and not stop during the regression process then, one by one, with great difficulty, everybody enters the 10m or so long passage, only wide enough for the shoulders of one man.”

The people inside the cave see the guts of the mother-body. There is a pool where the mythical naga dragon lives. Washing their faces with the water of the cave, the people meditate “for the time an incense stick takes to burn.” Meditation is the last step before exiting the cave. Several people take water in a flask.

Outside, the achar says: “We entered this cave and acquired great merits, for it is the womb of the august mother (garbh brah mata) the opening here is the Golden Door. Entering through it to practice asceticism we regressed into the maternal womb, and were thus born again. Let us apologize for having soiled the august mother.”

Bizot says the purpose of the meditation is to see the Buddha within the body, through tantric visualizations: “Repeating non-stop A RA HAM formula, the Venerable recognizes the purple letter NA at the entrance of his nose. He follows the nostril, goes through a door, takes a ladder down to the epiglottis where he reaches the blue letter MO. Climbing down a few more rungs to the neck, he gets to the yellow letter BU. He ten follows the sign of the red letters DDHA in his sternum. He finally reaches his navel, the seat of the letter YA whose color is that of crystal. He concentrates on his navel for the apparition of the Buddha sitting on the throne of Enlightenment. He inhales air and makes it go up and down from his nose to his navel. This exercise must lead him to distinguish a remote island that must be reached by crossing the ocean.”

Regarding the role of caves in Cambodia, Choulean Ang wrote a 1993 article about caves in Cambodia, and mentioned particular Buddhist caves in Takeo Province.

It is dark, he said, “except around the entrance.” Inside, the monks practice meditation or khammatthan, “during which they symbolically regress into the maternal womb before being reborn as an initiate….The cave is widely considered a maternal womb. Other activities can also be mentioned such as possession ceremonies and the manufacturing of protective magical objects.”

There are some caves that exist only in the realm between dreams and awakening – such as one cave at Thon Mon, Kandal province. “As far as the imaginary is concerned, Phnom Thon Mon ranks among the most fantastic sites. Indeed, one figures a cave housing a miraculous pond, guarded by a royal couple of white eels. This cave can only be seen in a dream by certain people!...It is said that, in the 1960s, only a few monks and faithful saw the cave with the pond in dream.”

Andre Barreau wrote an article about hermitages in Cambodia in which he mentions several caves in Battambang, Phnom Sampau. At this meditation center, there are two hermitages for women and laymen; and the monks. The women meditate in their hermitage, monks meditate within the cave.

The monks practice Samadhi in the cave of the mountains. “Each goes alone in the cave of his choice and remains there alone for three or four hours, generally in the afternoon or at night…A monk accepted to take us to his cave. It is reached by a steep and narrow patch that follows the vertical side of the cliff…There are no statuettes nor painted images of the Buddha or of any other religious topic. The monk sits on his bed, facing the inside of the cave, cross-legged, his back straight, his eyes closed, his head bent as if watching his hands or his thighs…Our monk most assiduously practices Samadhi every night from 2am to 6am and also in the evening from 7pm to 10pm. He gets up and leaves only when ‘the light of the Buddha’, the sign the exercise has been successful, has appeared to him…When he sees this light, which is all internal, he is, as he says, “as in his mother’s womb; he both lives and does not live’.”

There are also some hermits living in caves in Kampot, near Phnom Penh. Other hermits also live on Phnom Kulen, north of Siem Reap. These caves are small cavities in the rock, with walls made of banana leaves and palms. Natural holes keep rain water. These hermit anchorites would not tell the foreigner Barreau why they practice such austerities. Only monks would live there permanently. Other, nuns, laymen and women, boys would meditate in the caves for a few days, especially during the rainy season.

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The Ramayana

Another example of this tantric tradition in Cambodia is the Reamker, the Khmer version of the Ramayana. On one level, it is the traditional dramatic story. On another level, it is a mystic journey of transformation.

"A final allegory of the progress of the yogavacara is provided by an esoteric reading of the Reamker. In this interpretation, the spiritual master, Bibhek helps Ram overcome obstacles in the way of his union with Seta. The demons are the Indriy birds that prevent Ram and Seta from achieving unity; the monkey-helpers are virtues (tun) that make the goal possible. The journey to the precious island of Lanka involves the construction of a causeway, or umbilical cord linking the yogavacara with the mother’s womb and the possibility of rebirth. Ram’s great struggle with help of his ally the monkey king ‘son of the wind’”·

The appearance of the key characters represent the embryo/fetal stage in the psychological elements of the yogi (yogavacara) is formed.

The marriage of Rama and Sita leads to the conception of a special crystal globe (tuong kaev) that holds the elements for the attainment of enlightenment.

The defeat of the demon-king Rab equates to the perfection of spiritual praxis (samatha, vipassana, kammathanattham).

Seta’s banishment is the completion of the initiatory phases. The exile from Ayodhya, the seat of the initiate’s spirit, demonstrates the impossibility of union with the crystal globe while still embodied. The yogavacara must first die to his old identity; “go forth” into exile from all this is conventional.

The final stage involved Ram’s “faking” his own funeral, his recovery of Seta, and birth of their twin children.

This is the ultimate attainment of Nibbana.

In this tradition, the yogi meditate on breath (khyal). The interior journey should be conducted in the following manner: During a fortnight of intensive asceticism in which the yogavacara hardly eats or sleeps, he or she should recite the formula “A RA HAM” while visualizing a violet “NA” at the opening of the nose.

The use of the term “A RA HAM” in this way is quite widespread in the Theravada world. The following corresponds with the triple jewel (triratana) and the Tipitaka are found, for instance, in the commentary on the famous pre-Buddhagosa Vimuttimagga (a text of Abhiyagiri school).
“Passing along the nostril he opens a door and passes down a ladder that ends at the epiglottis, where there is a blue ‘MO.” Descending by stages, the adepts come to a yellow “BU” in the neck, a red “DDHA” in the sternum, and a “YA” the color of crystal in the umbilicus (navel). Thus he makes homage to the Buddhaya (Namo Buddhaya). At the umbilicus he visualizes the Buddhas seated at the place of enlightenment, while the breath is drawn down from the nostril to the navel and back again. Success in the technique means that the yogavacara has arrived at the remote but ‘precious isle of Lanka’ (koh kaev tuip lanka). Lanka is both a funeral monument and a mother’s womb. At the center of the island is a great mountain called Meru. The yogavacara is fortified here prior to final release from the realms of suffering.”