Appendix B:
by: manwitch
posted on Sat, 01/25/03 at 19:20:31
The
short version of this post is that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is about
spiritual transformation.
The
long version follows in three parts, and I hope is as interesting...
Metaphor
is, to my way of thinking, the revealing of an aspect of one thing through its
identity with something else. When Buffy says of Dawn to Giles, "She's
me," Buffy is using metaphor. When Faith says, "I'm Buffy," she
is using metaphor. In both cases, they reveal a truth about themselves through
positing an identity with something else, a truth based on what might be called
the "subtle" identity rather than the "gross" or physical
one. What you see is Dawn, but what it is is Buffy. What you see is
Faith, but what she is is Buffy. Buffy herself actually gives a nice
description of how metaphor works at the end of Choices, when she says
to Willow, "It's weird. You look at something and you think you know exactly
what you're seeing, and then you find out it's something else entirely."
Such is the case, I will argue, with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In addition
to what we look at and what we know we're seeing, BtVS is also something
else entirely, a metaphor for our (the viewers') spiritual journey from a place
of spiritual cluelessness to spiritual bliss. What we see is Buffy and her adventures,
her friends, fights and foes. But what it is is ourselves on a journey
of psychological transformation.
The metaphor starts with Buffy herself. As Faith realizes when she says to Riley,
"I'm Buffy, I have to do this," being Buffy is not a physical or historical
event applicable to one person only, but rather a psychological realization
that anyone can achieve. It's not unlike Buddha consciousness. We are all Buffy,
but haven't recognized it yet.
So what is this Buffy?
I believe it's a commonplace in screenwriting to make your leading character
both unique enough to be interesting and yet universal enough to allow everyone
to recognize themselves in the character. The beautiful thing about Buffy is
that her very uniqueness-"the one girl in all the world"-is the exact
same thing that makes her universal, namely her existential charge to be morally
responsible for the fate of the entire world. Much has been made of the existential
qualities of this show. Well the root of that existentialism is in this basic
metaphor for you. Buffy is you. You are the Chosen One. Sartre argued that it
was everyone's experience to be plopped down into a brutal and horrendous world
and to be uniquely chosen to behave morally, to be chosen to save the world
through our moral behavior. This is what he calls "anguish." We must
perform every act as though we were legislating for the entire world through
that act, bearing moral responsibility for the entire world in every action
we take. We are alone in this endeavor, what Sartre calls "forlornness,"
even though we are all doing it, because it appears as though everyone else
can take short cuts, trim a little here, take a little there, and because there
is no guide telling us what to do. But even so, we are never absolved of this
responsibility, never free to cut corners. And it doesn't matter whether or
not we are ever acknowledged for the sacrifices we make, or the effort we give.
Nor, according to Sartre, can we find solace in our nature. He calls this "despair."
We were born neither hero, nor coward. We must choose.
That is the Buffy Metaphor, whose reference is to us. We all are chosen
for this. We all do have a sacred calling and spiritual destiny. We
all do bear the moral responsibility for the world on our shoulders.
And I think I seriously believe this. We all have this charge. We all
have it uniquely. And we must all choose for ourselves whether or not
we will live up to it. Being born into this world, in whatever condition, is
not sufficient without our choosing to live up to our responsibility and potential.
The Buffy series shows us how to make that choice. It shows us, through
Buffy and her adventures, what will
happen to us when we do make it, what obstacles we will face on the journey
that follows, and how we can overcome those obstacles by transforming ourselves.
For all its adventure and violence, BtVS is at its core a story of
inward transformation.
The
Big Bads that Buffy faces each Season can also be interpreted in terms of this
other inward story. They become, in this sense, not simply villains that Buffy
must vanquish, but metaphors for Buffy's fears, for her subconscious drives,
desires, and obstacles along her spiritual journey. The Master is the personification
of Buffy's fear of her spiritual destiny, representing her anguish, forlornness
and despair, if you will, over this unique spiritual calling that we all share.
So in a sense he's not really a vampire, not even evil, but part of Buffy. He
is characterized as evil only to the degree that Buffy resists her
charge. Angel in Season Two is a metaphor for Buffy's desire, particularly sexual
desire, the indulgence of which is, in terms of her spiritual growth, pathological.
He is characterized as evil to the degree that Buffy's selfish obsession
with "having" him removes her from her spiritual path. The Mayor in
Season Three is a metaphor for Buffy's life force turned in service to herself.
The Mayor, looming as the ultimate symbol of the individual devouring life for
selfish purposes, is characterized as evil to the degree that Buffy
toys with the idea of having her own life, apart from Sunnydale and her Slayer
responsibilities. Adam in Season Four is a metaphor for Buffy's internalized
blockage to her awakening spiritual life. He is evil to the degree that Buffy
allows her own spiritual impulses to come from external programming rather than
from her own spontaneous heart. Glory in Season Five is a metaphor for Buffy's
illusions about her own identity, about the relationship between the corporeal
and the non-corporeal world. Glory is characterized as evil to the
degree that Buffy fails to recognize who and what she (Buffy) is, namely the
mystical convergence of the mortal and the divine. Willow in Season Six is a
metaphor for Buffy's spiritual antipathy for the world/state in which she exists.
Willow is characterized as evil to the degree that Buffy wishes the
world were other than what it is, that she were somewhere else.
In this psychological context, as well as its plot, each season of BtVS
begins by outlining a conflict which defines these metaphorical Big Bads as
precisely the psychological obstacle to be overcome, and Buffy psychologically
overcomes precisely that obstacle in the Season Finale, immediately prior to
dispatching the year's Big Bad.
In Season One's Welcome to the Hellmouth, Buffy hopes to start a new,
normal life, and explicitly resists her Slayer calling. So yes, according to
the script she is already the Slayer, but its clear that she has not yet chosen
to embrace that role. The obstacle she faces inwardly is her fear and resistance
to committing fully to her spiritual destiny. She overcomes this obstacle not
by dusting The Master, but by accepting her calling, by allowing the Anointed
One, the child who leads us all inexorably towards adulthood, to lead her willingly
onto the next stage of her life, where by facing her fear and surrendering herself
to her destiny, she is reanimated as a fully spiritual incarnation. When that
happens, The Master is already as good as dust, because he's no longer facing
a child in denial.
In the start of Season Two, Buffy's sexual desire is visibly coursing through
her, but not always making her a better person. So Season Two asks, will desire
further our lower selves or our higher ones? Buffy must take the desire she
feels, that when indulged is not having spiritually elevating consequences,
and find a way to use it for something better. Angel, personifying Kantian ethics,
is the perfect metaphor for this struggle. Kant felt that Happiness was unattainable
in the world, in part because Happiness itself could lead to pride, selfishness,
and evil intent. So what was required for moral conduct was not the pursuit
of Happiness, but the pursuit of virtue, of the worthiness to be happy. According
to Kant, this pursuit outlasted a simple lifetime, so it presupposed the existence
of an immortal soul, capable of continuing the quest forever. And since this
pursuit was meaningless if happiness were not to be at some point apportioned
to the virtuous, it also presupposed what Kant called "a cause equal to
this effect," namely God, or The Powers That Be, capable of recognizing
virtue and reallocating happiness in accordance with it when the time was right.
(This is why Angel is always accompanied by two things to which other characters
on the show frequently seem oblivious, namely a soul and The Powers That Be).
Kant felt every act implied an actor, and it was the intent of that actor, more
than the act itself, that determined the morality of the act. It was important
to intend the good. So we have Angel, imbued with an immortal soul that intends
good, pursuing not happiness, which he can never have in this world, but the
worthiness to be happy, hoping for the day when the Powers That Be will reallocate
happiness in accordance to his worthiness. But this quest is a metaphor for
Buffy's spiritual condition. When Buffy indulges her own desire, pursuing
her own fulfillment (happiness) at the expense of her spiritual duties (virtue),
then of course Angel, Buffy's desire, turns evil. What the symbol of Angel is
saying is that the fulfillment of one's desire is an animal trait, not a spiritual
one, and to allow passions to rule our intent is to throw all virtue aside and
be like an animal. The inward obstacle to be overcome is the selfish fulfillment
of desire in pursuit of our own happiness. Buffy overcomes this obstacle not
through duty, but through self-sacrifice. When she is willing to tenderly surrender
what she desires most, and any personal happiness that might come with it, in
favor of doing what she knows must be done, Angelus is defeated and the world
saved.
Season Three opens with Buffy attempting to leave Sunnydale and live her own
life, something she will repeatedly consider throughout the season. As she considers
being a part-time slayer, her will to life comes in conflict with her spiritual
role. The obstacle Buffy faces in Season Three is not simply the evil Mayor,
but the inward belief that her life is hers to live as she pleases. It is Buffy's
tempatation to turn life to her own service that is symbolized in the Mayor,
who rather than fulfill his public service seeks only self-aggrandizement. Buffy
overcomes this obstacle not simply by blowing up The Mayor, but by recognizing
that her life's purpose is something more than herself. When Buffy makes the
commitment to stay in Sunnydale, to give her life force, even her very blood,
to the service of others, The Mayor is already toast.
Season Four's The Freshman opens with a shot of the Winged Statue in
the cemetery, which Buffy then stands before, appearing to have angel wings.
As Buffy paces back and forth talking to Willow, the image is subtly repeated
several times, suggesting that Buffy either has become or is about to become
a heavenly or spiritual creature. The episode is ostensibly about self-reliance,
self-confidence and independence, but the flurry of art references--Of Human
Bondage, the Vienna Secession, Impressionism, Dadaism, and the Renaissance-all
suggest that the real message is that art, in this case Buffy's spiritual art,
will only flower in independence from tradition. Add to that her opponent
is named Sunday, the day of the Lord in the Christian tradition, and
I think it's clear that it is not simply independence from Giles or Joyce that
Buffy must find in Season Four. The inward obstacle for Buffy to overcome is
an internalized, and therefore inauthentic, tradition of spirituality that is
blocking her from her true spiritual source. The Big Bad takes shape as the
Initiative and Adam, references to Genesis and the First Patriarch of tradition
respectively, both of which are run by programming, by chips in the heart, driven
by a man-made artificial source of power. Buffy defeats this inward obstacle
not simply by calling on the First Slayer, but by finding her true spiritual
source, by tapping directly the source of spiritual power that informs both
the First Slayer and Buffy. Once she does this, Adam's power is already destroyed,
and he loses in one of the most lopsided fights Buffy has ever had.
In Season Five's Buffy vs. Dracula, we find Buffy energized with a
new zeal, and with the desire to know more about who and what she really is.
Dracula, the master of tricks and illusions, puts the question to her: "Do
you know what you are?" The season unfolds as the pursuit of the answer
to that question, exploring what reality is and the relationship between the
body and the mysterious force that animates it. There are several metaphors
for this throughout the season: Joyce, who leaves while her body remains; Buffybot,
who has Buffy's body but not her spirit; Dawn, who is living energy molded into
a human form, but doesn't know what it means to be real; Glory, the divine presence
locked in the body of a man, trying to separate itself from him and return to
its proper realm. The inward obstacle to be overcome is the belief in illusion,
the reliance on what we see for what we think we know. This inward obstacle
is overcome when Buffy sees with her heart rather than her eyes, when she recognizes
what she is. And the answer, what she is, is Dawn. By the climactic conclusion
of The Gift, we have a sort of been lulled into thinking the question
being answered is "what is Dawn?" But it's only through that
answer that we come to answer the real question of the season, which has always
been "what is Buffy?" And the answer is that Buffy is herself the
link, the living energy beyond forms, the intersection between the divine and
the mortal. When Buffy recognizes this reality, two things happen. The image
of God trapped in a man trying to escape back to its proper dimension is rendered
powerless. And Buffy, having identified herself with the reality beyond the
illusory forms of our senses, leaves behind the world of forms altogether.
(Allow me to digress here briefly and say that this is not mindless television.
A very powerful religious message is being sent here. If Buffy is both
divine and mortal, and if Buffy is a metaphor for all of us, than BtVS
is telling us that we all are this link. The Knights of Byzantium are a reference
to the Christian doctrine of the uniqueness of Christ. They come from Byzantium,
the capitol of the Roman Empire that did not fall. Byzantium became Constantinople,
named for the Roman Emperor who converted to Christianity and made it the religion
of the Empire. The Knights of Byzantium wear crosses, they have priests whose
"God" is more powerful than the "infidels." They are associated
with the Crusades, the effort by European Christendom to bring Christianity
back to the Holy Land. And these Knights of Byzantium say that "the link
must be severed." The link is "too dangerous to be allowed to exist."
They believe that the divine and mortal realms must be kept separate.
God and man mixed only once. But we find that they are wrong. And the
final images of Buffy in the shape of the cross as she descends, sacrificing
herself, and in the shape of the crucifix, after her sacrifice has saved the
world, suggest to us that Christ was not a one-time event. The message we are
being given is that God and man coexist in all of us, and when we recognize
that fact in the sacrifices we make for others, we save the world. That's a
big message, the kind that the greatest works of art and literature have been
at pains to deliver, and it's rarely been done any more beautifully than in
this television series.)
In Season Six's Bargaining, Willow states the issue to the remaining
Scoobs, "We don't know where Buffy really is." They have her body,
but not her spirit. And when her spirit animates her body again, Buffy asks
basically the same question, "Is this Hell?" She doesn't know where
she really is. Having beheld the beatific image, she looks at the world now
around her and sees a wasteland. Her spirit longs to be somewhere else, back
in Heaven, and the daily obstacles she faces overwhelm her with their pettiness.
This is not the life she wants, not the life that her spirit needs. Spiritually,
she has condemned this world to Hell. The perfect metaphor for this is Willow,
who has always been a metaphor for Buffy's spirit, and who now shapes the world
to her liking, rather than accept it as it is, who seeks a magical existence
beyond being simply Willow. As Buffy's spiritual crisis reaches its apex, Willow,
seeks to put the world out of its misery, seeing in the world only a spiritless
place of pain and suffering that should not be allowed to exist. The obstacle
of Season Six is purely psychological. If you cannot see the world as a wonder,
as Heaven itself, the fault is not the world's. So the inward obstacle to be
overcome is the mistaken belief that this world is not heaven, that it should
be other than what it is, that it is not the domain of the spirit. The obstacle
is overcome when Buffy opens her heart, when she can forgive herself for the
mess she's made, when she sees the world as a wonder that she can share with
Dawn. When she does this her symbolic heart, Xander, opens with compassion to
her spirit, Willow, helping her to recognize in the misery of humanity the all-encompassing
love of the divine presence right here in the world. Buffy knows where she really
is, and she has been in Heaven all along.
So each season establishes early on a psychological obstacle for Buffy that
is perfectly represented by the season's Big Bad. And in each season, Buffy
overcomes that Big Bad at pretty much the same moment she effects an inward
transformation that overcomes the psychological obstacle that has been blocking
her all year. In Season One, Buffy starts in a place of resistance and denial
about her spiritual calling, but ends as a willing participant in it. Buffy
begins Season Two immersed in the power of her own sexual desire, but ends with
an awareness that her intentions must be higher than her desires. At the start
of Season Three, Buffy wants life to serve her purposes, but ends with the realization
that her purpose is to serve life. She starts Season Four unsure of her spiritual
footing, but ends by tapping her spiritual source directly. Season Five begins
with Buffy questioning who and what she is, and ends with Buffy recognizing
herself as divine living energy. At the opening of Season Six, Buffy rejects
the spiritual emptiness of the world, but by the end, she embraces its humanity.
In each case she overcomes the Big Bad, but her most significant victory is
within.
Now,
I am calling these "spiritual transformations," rather than simply
acknowledging them as themes that each season explores. I would offer three
reasons why I do this. First, since I am arguing that Buffy, through her existential
charge to bear the moral weight of the world on her shoulders, is a metaphor
for the viewer, I am necessarily arguing that her adventures are also a metaphor
for the viewer. So the point in such a context would not be that the viewer
is supposed to go out and slay demons or depose the Mayor or jump off a tower.
The point would be that we are supposed to achieve these transformations. Its
application to us is necessarily psychological rather than literal.
The second reason is that I don't find these to be random themes. They are progressive.
We must willingly commit to our spiritual life first (Season One). After we
do that, we will need to find a way to let our newly stirring subconscious drives
and urges pass through us without bringing down our intention (Season Two).
If we are able to do so, we must decide what that intention is, what purpose
our life will serve. And if we decide that purpose is to serve others (Season
Three), we will move on to a true spiritual awakening as we find the source
of our spiritual power in the opening of our heart (Season Four). Having tasted
of that power, we will seek to know it better, to find it in ourselves forever
(Season Five). And having found it there, we will have then to recognize that
spiritual presence in all the forms around us, no matter how petty, painful,
or mundane (Season Six). There is a deliberate growth process here, not simply
the random exploration of interesting themes.
The third reason why I call these "spiritual" or "psychological
transformations" requires a brief digression into an existing vocabulary
of spiritual transformation that comes from yoga. We tend to think of yoga as
an exercise program, but its purpose is primarily spiritual, to use certain
meditations or exercises to awaken spiritual powers in the body. There are many
different kinds of yoga, but the basic purpose is to reunite the consciousness
of the yogi with his true self. Normally, our consciousness associates with
our body, with our characteristics of enjoyment or involvement with our physical
existence in the world. Yoga attempts, through differing kinds of mental discipline,
to strip those characteristics away, until what is left, unattached to our particular
physical incarnation, is the true self.
The yoga that I want to focus on is called Kundalini Yoga. Kundalini means "coiled-up"
and refers to the latent female energy (Sakti) that exists in everyone. It is
to be thought of as a coiled up serpent, dormant at the base of the spine of
the "subtle" rather than "gross" body. The goal of this
yoga is to awaken that serpent through meditation and raise it from the base
of the spine to the top of the head. At the base of the spine is spiritual lethargy,
at the top of the head, spiritual bliss. Along the way, the serpent will pass
through spiritual centers known as chakras, that are located along the spine
at different levels of the body, and as it passes through each chakra, that
center will be awakened and its spiritual powers activated, resulting in a spiritual
transformation.
The first chakra in kundalini yoga, called the "root support," is
at the base of the spine, between the anus and the genitals. This is where the
kundalini serpent is sleeping. To quote Joseph Campbell on this first chakra,
"when the coiled serpent rests in the first lotus center, asleep, the personality
of the individual is characterized by spiritual torpor. His world is the world
of unexhilarated waking consiousness; yet he clings with avidity to this uninspired
existence, unwilling to let go, just hanging on" (MTLB, 111). "The
first task of the yogi, then, must be to break at this level the cold dragon
grip of his own spiritual lethargy and release his own Sakti" (TMI, 341).
This first chakra is associated with the element earth, for its properties of
solidity and resistance.
Now I would suggest that this chakra very much addresses Buffy's condition in
Season One. Her spiritual calling is lying dormant, as she clings to a wish
for normal life. And her task in Season One is to shake off that lethargy and
awaken her spirit. That this is what happens is suggested by the fact that throughout
the season, most of the villains of each episode are not killed by Buffy in
typical Slayer fashion. The Witch and Moloch destroy themselves, Angel kills
Darla, the dummy kills the demon, the boy takes the mask off of the ugly man,
the Hyenas kill hyena man, nobody gets Marcie or the Anointed One. From this
perspective, she has not really functioned as the Slayer throughout the first
season, except for The Harvest, when she was under duress. But in Prophecy
Girl, when she goes willingly to her fate with the Master, she truly becomes
the Slayer. The music cue as Buffy marches off to dispatch the Master is the
only time in the series that the Buffy theme is used as scoring, as if to say
the entire series up to this point has been teaser. Now the real show is about
to start. It's also worth noting, I think, that there is an association with
the element earth. Beyond the suggestion of life on the surface and life underneath,
and the fact that the Master exists in a subterranean church, it is ultimately
an earthquake, a relaxing of the earth's rigidity, that heralds the awakening
of Buffy's spirit. When that spirit awakens, Buffy has made the exact transformation
represented in chakra one.
The second chakra in kundalini is at the level of the genitals. At this level,
according to Campbell, "the whole aim of life is sex." All thoughts
and acts seem sexually motivated or are understood in sexual terms. "According
to Tantric learning, even though the obsession of the life-energies functioning
from this psychological center is sexual, sexuality is not the primal ground,
end, or even sole motivation of life. Any fixation at this level is consequently
pathological...The method of the Kundalini is rather to recognize affirmatively
the force and importance of this center and let the energies pass on through
it, to become naturally transformed to other aims at the higher centers"
(TMI, 345). The element associated with chakra two is water, and its energy,
like water, tends to flow downward.
Looking at Season Two of Buffy, the parallel is again visible. Buffy's
sexuality is announced in the first episode of Season Two. It stays a major
theme up until the point that Buffy actually has her first sexual experience
with Angel. After that, Buffy tends to interpret everything that happens through
the prism of that sexual experience. It is ultimately when she is able to let
desire pass through her in favor of other aims that she overcomes Angelus. The
season also seems to be associated with the element water. It includes the first
time we have ever seen the docks, the first time we see rain, and the first
time we see the beachfront. In most cases, the water is shown in episodes where
the primary theme is the downward consequences of unbridled desire. When Buffy
and Angel are at the dock, their conversation is about their desire for each
other, their inability to part from each other. They both end up, oddly enough,
not simply near the water at the dock, but in it. The water can be thought of
as the energy of subconscious sexual drives, and Angel and Buffy are immersed
in them. When Buffy and Angel actually have sex, it is pouring rain out. Again,
they are immersed in water, and it is flowing downward. The consequences of
their sex are not spiritually elevating to say the least. The result of Buffy's
fixation is a pathological monster. And when Buffy confronts Angel for the first
time after their sexual encounter, even though it is indoors in the mall, it's
still raining. The sprinklers come on, and Angelus and Buffy are once again
immersed in the downward flow of this subconscious energy. Now, in the chakra
iconography, the water element is symbolized by the moon, which suggests the
cycle of the moon in relation to water both in terms of filling and emptying,
and in terms of its force on the tides, metaphorically the waters of our subconscious.
And we find in Season Two, our own lunar symbol, Oz, governed by the cycles
of the moon. Oz's appeal is to Willow, metaphorically Buffy's spirit. And his
appeal is quite specifically to her creative potential, as she too associates
herself with the cycle of the moon, saying, "3 days out of the month, I'm
not much fun to be around either." And since Willow is a metaphor for Buffy's
spirit, the message is, I think, that these energies do not have to be negative,
but can be put in service of the creative potential of the human spiritual life.
Buffy ultimately figures this out, overcomes Angelus, and realizes exactly the
transformation of chakra two.
In kundalini, if the yogi is able to allow the sexual energies of chakra two
to pass through him, he then comes to chakra three, which is at the level of
the navel, or the stomach, and its element is fire. Campbell says, "the
governing interest of anyone whose unfolding serpent power has become established
on this plane is in consuming, conquering, turning all into his own substance,
or forcing all to conform to his way of thought. His psychology is ruled by
an insatiable will to power" (MTLB, 111).
And this certainly is the Mayor of Season Three, whose "governing"
interest is literally turning all into his own substance. The reference is to
Buffy. Buffy's task in Season Three is to decide whether her life will be hers,
whether the world will be turned into her substance, or whether she will serve
the world. I think other characters also are representative of this Will to
Life. Angel returns from hell, and like Buffy he wonders what to make of his
life. Faith must decide also what purpose she will put her life towards, and
she chooses poorly, choosing, like the Mayor, to use her power to claim life
for her own rather than to serve. The Season is, I think one could argue, associated
with the element fire. The episodes are riddled with fiery explosions, flashes
of fiery electricity, and ritual flames. We witness Buffy's immolation in Angel's
dream, and Angel's burning fever, which ultimately helps Buffy to make her choice.
And the final images, when the mayor is defeated, are of firemen and fire trucks,
putting out the fire. "Fire bad, tree pretty," Buffy says. Twice.
When she decides to serve the world, rather than consume, she not only defeats
the Mayor, she also accomplishes exactly the transformation of chakra three
and "ascends" to chakra four.
Chakra four is special. It is at the level of the heart, and it is about the
awakening of the true spiritual life. In the kundalini system, the lower chakras,
as chakras one, two, and three are known, are essentially the energies that
any worldy being would possess: the energy to build, to procreate, to conquer.
These energies are not specific to the spiritual power of humanity.
But it is at the level of the heart, the organ of compassion (which is the opening
of the heart to another), that the true spiritual life begins. The fourth chakra
is called "not hit," and this name refers to the sound that is not
made by two things striking together. As Campbell says in speaking about chakra
four, "every sound normally heard is of two things striking together: that
of the voice, for example, being the sound of the breath striking our vocal
cords. The only sound not so made is that of the creative energy of the universe,
the hum, so to speak, of the void, which is antecedent to things and of which
things are precipitations. This is heard from within oneself...It is the sound
beyond silence, heard as OM." The sound OM is considered the seed sound
of creation, as it encompasses all other sounds within it, but also the silence
that words cannot touch that is "before, after, within, and surrounding
the sounding syllable" (TMI, 356). It is here at chakra four that the yogi
has his first momentary experience of his true self, stripped of its worldy
characteristics.
As I have indicated before, Season Four opens with an image of Buffy in front
of the winged statue, suggesting that she is or is about to become a spiritual
creature. Her task is to find her true spiritual source for her true spiritual
awakening. She does this, I would argue, through the opening of her heart. The
opening of the heart to another is shown in many of the relationships of the
season. Buffy certainly opens her heart to Riley, and in Primeval,
Buffy opens her heart to her friends. But I think the most significant examples
are Xander and Willow. Xander, a metaphor for Buffy's heart, remember, opens
his heart to Anya. Anya, once a demon, is now on the path to the full experience
of humanity. So one might interpret the symbol as Buffy's heart opening to the
full experience of humanity, or compassion. Willow is a metaphor for Buffy's
spirit, and her heart in Season Four opens to Tara. Willow/Tara is a lesbian
relationship. Willow and Tara are also both witches, and in the days of old,
being a witch meant being someone who did not require the mediation of a priest,
always male, to open to the realm of the spirit. That's why there has always
been an association between witches and lesbianism. It's because male mediation
is not required for either. So, interpreted as a metaphor for Buffy's spirit,
we are being told that Buffy is prepared to have direct, unmediated access to
her spiritual ground. Also, Tara is the name of a Buddhist divinity that is
the personification of a tear of divine compassion from one of the great Bodhisattvas.
So Buffy's spirit is also opening its heart to compassion.
What's more exciting is that both Willow and Xander open their hearts to their
respective symbols of compassion in the same episode, an episode in which the
sound of two things striking together, such as the breath against the vocal
chords, is taken away, leaving only the silence. These openings of the heart
happen in silence, because words cannot reach this spiritual event, this momentary
realization of our true selves. But these openings of the heart are themselves
the hum of the void, the sound that is not made by two things striking together.
Buffy also silently breaks past the Babelfest to finally open her heart to Riley
in the same episode. I will point out also, that what is being harvested in
this episode, is seven hearts. They are being harvested by a group of conservatively
dressed demons known as the Gentlemen. I would interpret the symbol as saying
that by following traditions of manners and customs, society's requirements
rather than our own deepest spiritual impulses, we are confining the power of
our hearts just as surely as if we placed our hearts in jars. But by opening
our hearts spontaneously to compassion, as both Xander and Willow do in the
episode, we tap the creative power of our spirit.
This is ultimately what Buffy will do to defeat Adam, and the suggestion for
how it will be done will come, appropriately enough, from Xander, Buffy's heart.
Buffy's heart, mind, and spirit come together to tap the true source of her
spiritual power and overcome Adam, the symbol of inauthentic, uncompassionate
spirituality. She accomplishes exactly the transformation of chakra four.
And so I will defer again to Campbell, as he describes the transition to chakra
five. "There is a new zeal, a new frenzy, now stirring in the blood. Once
the great mystery-sound has been heard, the whole desire of the heart will be
to learn to know it more fully, to hear it, not through things and within during
certain fortunate moments only, but immediately and forever. And the attainment
of this end will be the project of the next chakra, the fifth, which is at the
level of the larynx, and is called 'Purified.' When the kundalini reaches this
plane, the devotee longs to talk and to hear only of God" (TMI, 363-368).
Surely this is Buffy as we transition to Season Five. She feels the frenzy in
her blood, and goes out for the hunt. She wonders where her power comes from
and enlists Giles support in finding out what that power is and what it means
to be the Slayer. And her point of focus in Season Five is, in fact, a God.
The aim of chakra five, whose element is space, or ether, is "to eliminate
all interpositions of the world between oneself and the immediate hearing of
OM, or, expressed in visual terms, between oneself and the vision of God. The
ideals and disciples of this stage are those rather of the hermit's cell and
monastery than of art and civilized life: not aesthetic, but ascetic" (MTLB,
115). And we find in Season Five, Buffy slays in a monastery for the first time,
and she retreats like an ascetic into the desert to find spiritual guidance.
We also have the first appearance ever of an enemy that appears from outer space,
and we have the negative space of Dawn's art class and Joyce's life. And of
course, just as Dawn came out of the ether, Buffy returns to it by season's
end.
Now in the higher chakras (the chakras above the heart) the energies of the
lower chakras are used to assist in the spiritual activation. So in chakra five,
the energies of chakra three are put to use to assist in the attainment of the
chakra's goal, namely the seeing of the beatific image. At chakra three, Buffy
conquered the consuming power of the Mayor to recognize her purpose in service
to life. And in Season Five, at the fifth chakra, the energies used at chakra
three are to be turned in upon oneself. Buffy needs to conquer the consuming
power of Glory not through outward directed force, but through inner recognition.
This is called in kundalini, "the turning about of the Sakti." Buffy
does so through her service to life, realized through the bright and blinding
fire of her love, which brings her to her gift.
There is another exercise used by the yogi in the attainment of chakra five,
"known as Illusory Body Yoga, the aim of which is to realize in experience-not
simply to be told to believe-that all appearances are void. One is to regard
the reflection of one's own body in a mirror and to consider how this image
is produced by a combination of various factors, the mirror, the body, light,
space, etc...One is then to consider how one's own self, as one knows it, is
equally an appearance" (TMI, 378-379). Buffy surely does exactly this as
she contemplates the body of her mother, and as she realizes that she and Dawn
are the same. She recognizes her body as illusory, and her true self as a manifestation
of the divine presence, and beholds the beatific image. Buffy accomplishes exactly
the transformation of chakra five.
But a decision now confronts the yogi, for "one thus 'released while living'
may voluntarily return to the state of mind of chakra four in the way of a Bodhisattva,
touched by compassion for all suffering beings, who, renouncing for himself
release from rebirth, returns to the world in the form of a teaching savior,"
or he may ascend further to the "rapture" of the higher chakras (TIROOS,
106). I have argued in the past that Buffy returned to the world in Season Six
as a bodhisattva figure, but I no longer believe this. From a psychological
point of view, she had never left the world, so her return to the world was,
I believe, metaphorical of the limitations of the world of forms. Chakra 6,
at the level of the forehead, is called "command," also known as "conditioned
rapture," and is to be thought of as the experience of God in the form
of God. Which does not necessarily mean in the form of an old irascible bearded
white man, but rather in a form of any kind, even the forms of the world. But
the significance is that the form of God, even as one beholds its rapture, maintains
the separation from God. The chakra is at the level of the forehead because
the mind is maintaining, and therefore limiting, the concept of God. At this
chakra, the mind "wishes to be one with the all-pervading divine, but cannot
do so. It is like the light of a lamp inside a glass case. One feels as if one
could touch the light, but the glass intervenes and prevents it." (TMI,
380).
Buffy's malaise in Season Six is exactly this. She wishes to be one with the
divine, but she cannot do so, and the fact that she cannot, throws her back
onto the world of form and separation, which she perceives as hell. Her task
is to overcome that perception, to find the rapture, even though it is "conditioned"
by the forms of the world, to see in the world a place of divine wonder, in
which she can participate with joy. And just as the energies of chakra three
were "turned around" to assist in the activation of chakra five, so
here are the energies of chakra two turned around to support the activation
of chakra six. The sexual love of the second chakra is transformed in chakra
six to the sublime love of God. And we unmistakably see the reenergizing of
sexual love that we saw in Season Two, between Buffy and Angel, in Season Six,
between Buffy and Spike. But in Season Six, Buffy is able to sublimate that
love and walk into the light. When she realizes she wants to show Dawn the world,
she is recognizing that God's presence is all around, in all the forms of the
world, and at that moment the world is revealed as a wonder, and even the form
of Spike is infused with the divine. Buffy accomplishes exactly the transformation
of chakra six.
The psychological arc of each season matches with each corresponding chakra,
from Buffy's awakening of her spiritual destiny (1), through her sexual energies
(2), her Will to Power (3), her discovery of her true spiritual source (4),
and her beholding of the divine (5), to her recognition of the conditioned rapture
of the world itself (6). So, in short, the third and final reason why I refer
to the arcs of each season as "spiritual transformations," is that
it would appear that the entire series is structured around a metaphor of spiritual
transformation, a very specific journey from lethargy towards bliss. And this
journey of spiritual transformation takes place in the "subtle" body,
rather than the "gross" or physical one. This suggests that everything
we see is not necessarily the reality of the story. Even if Buffy were seated,
cross-legged, on the floor of a tiny room, meditating, and, as I picture it,
wearing very little, and all we were seeing were the reflections in her mind
of her own inner powers and drives, we would be seeing the exact same story.
It's weird. You look at something and you think you know exactly what you're
seeing, and then you find out it's something else entirely. Buffy has been practicing
yoga.
And so, through Buffy, have we all.
In closing, I will add that there are two points of significance that follow
from this regarding Season Seven. The first point is that, having tracked the
arc of each season and found it to match with its respective chakra, we can
surmise that by examining and understanding the next chakra, the seventh, we
may gain some accurate insight into the psychological transformation that Buffy
must make in Season Seven. I will say only that the seventh chakra is located
at the top of the head, sometimes pictured as above the head, to indicate that
it is not part of the body. The rapture of the seventh chakra is not
conditioned by any form, not even that of the yogi. It represents the overcoming
of the world of forms, and all its accompanying binary oppositions, in the complete
extinguishing of the self into undifferentiated consciousness. The energies
of chakra one, in which the yogi overcame his spiritless ego to begin the journey,
are used to assist in the activation of chakra seven, but here the very ego
to be overcome is the one activated at the first chakra, the ego that has successfully
traversed all the chakras up to this point. This may provide a framework for
interpreting Season Seven.
The second point of significance is that there are only seven chakras.
A Something Else Entirely Epilogue: The Seventh Chakra
This
was a very difficult post to write, which can't bode well for reading it, because
frankly, I feel done. It's over. But I started an idea a few months ago and
never really completed it. So hopefully this puts an end cap on it.
Buffy has accomplished the transformation of Chakra Seven.
A few months ago, I did a post on Buffy as a metaphor for spiritual transformation.
Briefly, the idea was that each season of Buffy matches with a step along a
metaphorical ladder of spiritual transformation in Kundalini Yoga, which is
I think from some Tantric adaptation of Hinduism. I'm not the person to talk
to on the history of it. But Kundalini has been around for a long time, and
the idea is that through meditation you awaken these successive spiritual centers,
called chakras, in your body. Each one has specific relevance, specific powers.
And I was simply arguing that each season of Buffy corresponds perfectly to
the respective chakra on the kundlini ladder.
So Chakra One is about letting go of your spiritless ego and choosing to embark
on your spiritual journey. I'd say that's a bulls-eye with Buffy's first season.
The second chakra is all about sex, recognizing both that it is important and
that it is not the sole motivation of life. Again, fits Buffy season 2 perfectly,
where she must recognize the importance of her passions, in contrast to Kendra
who has none and dies, but not allow herself to be ruled by them, in contrast
to Angelus.
Chakra Three is about the will to life/power, and the recognition that our lives
are for more than simply our own use. That's exactly what Buffy realizes in
Season 3. Chakra four deals with the opening of the heart to compassion, and
thereby finding the source of our being. Again, Buffy Season 4. Exactly that.
Chakra 5 is the beholding of the beatific image, one might say, which is exactly
what Buffy achieves at the end of Season 5. Chakra 6 is about experiencing the
rapture of God conditioned by form, seeing the world as a wonder rather than
a wasteland. That is what Buffy accomplishes at the end of Season 6.
I suggested in that post that all of the other characters, big bads and friends
alike, have been, in addition to well-developed independent characters, metaphors
for Buffy, or for some aspect of her, to further our understanding of her place
along this journey of spiritual transformation.
And so my argument is that by matching these chakras, the entire series has
been built around a metaphor for spiritual transformation, and is telling us
that we are Buffy, and through Buffy's adventures, we can see how to make these
spiritual transformations for ourselves. So that we, in our world, can be the
slayer, can be responsible for the fate of the entire world. I think that's
part of why the show resonates so deeply with people. I mean, sure, it's smart,
it's witty, it has action, romance, horror, comedy, it has everything one could
ask for from an entertainment aspect, but more than that, and more than just
handling important topics, it addresses spirituality, the nature of it, how
we can experience it in our own lives. Other shows don't speak to that, and
I think people want it. There are some shows, certainly, that deal with religious
motifs, angels, the afterlife, and some relatively heavy-handed shows on ethics,
but Buffy is about who we can be during the brief experience of being
human on this planet. It's not about religion, it's not about ethics, it's about
realizing our fullest humanity.
This has been a seven year story of Buffy's journey from spiritual lethargy
(prior to activating the first Chakra) to spiritual bliss (upon the activation
of the seventh), and by extension, it has been the story of our journey, because
Buffy is a metaphor for us. During this story Buffy has changed, and we with
her, from a child wanting mine mine mine, to the fullest expression of humanity
in pure love. And that is Chakra Seven.
Chakra Seven is the last chakra, and at that level the task is to extinguish
all ego and dissolve oneself into undifferentiated consciousness. And that is
exactly Buffy's task in Season 7. So if you figure that what you are transitioning
to is undifferentiated consciousness, that is, pure consciousness unhindered
by separate or individual forms, then you can figure that what you are transitioning
from is differentiated consciousness. That's the world of
forms. Of difference. Of otherness. Of separation. So that's the First Evil.
If you think of the Bible, we were cast from the Garden by eating from the Tree
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. What expelled us from bliss was getting the
idea of evil, and the idea that it is opposed to good. This opened
up the whole world of binary oppositions, which is the world of forms as we
tend to experience it in our everyday lives. Good/Bad. Right/Wrong. Male/Female,
Dead/Alive. Me/You. These are separations. So the way to overcome the First
Evil, these notions of separation, is to cease to be separate, to cease to be
differentiated, isolated or alone. The obstacle that Buffy must overcome is
not simply the First Evil, but the separations themselves, including all the
pairs of opposites that are part and parcel of such division. And what makes
Buffy separate and alone, what differentiates her, is that she is THE slayer.
The one girl in all the world.
Spike is sort of the embodiment of these separations. Again, if you think of
the whole show as a metaphor for Buffy, every character as metaphorical of some
aspect of Buffy, you could argue that Spike is Buffy's otherness. He is everything
she's not. She says so, in Season 6. She says, "He's everything I hate,
everything I'm supposed to be against." And they are opposites in so many
ways. Man/Woman, Dead/Alive, Vampire/Human, Good/Not quite so good. So there's
a really lovely moment in the finale when Buffy says, "He is in my heart."
She wasn't choosing Spike over Angel. She was giving primacy to a particular
kind of love. Of course, as characters, Angel is the guy she would like one
day to settle down with. He will always be special to her. Angel is boyfriend
love. But Spike, oddly enough, is Christ love. In the "Love your enemies,"
passage, Christ goes on to say, "for the lord sends his rain to fall on
the evil as well as the good, and the sun to shine on the just as well as the
unjust." Or something like that. Christ is saying that divinity does not
concern itself with the oppositions, with the separations. Divinity includes
all. So when Buffy says of her absolute otherness, "He is in my heart,"
she is acknowledging that she has finally managed to incorporate otherness into
herself. She recognizes her connection to that which she is not, and it becomes
part of her. She breaks past the separations.
So it's basically at that moment that she realizes the First Evil is defeated
and she realizes how: by ceasing to be separate, by ceasing to be isolated and
alone. That it is a spiritual realization is indicated in that the vehicle for
sharing this power, for including all, for overcoming the separations, is Willow,
the metaphor for Buffy's spirit, who has been working on the interconnectedness
of all things for the entire season.
So everyone becomes a Slayer, and Spike for the first time feels his real soul,
not the one he acquired in the cave last year, but the one he has just acquired
in the last couple of episodes, the soul of Buffy's grace. All Spike has ever
wanted was to be worthy. He would have been ok, ultimately, if his love had
been unrequited, and he ultimately was ok with it. But he wanted his love to
be acknowledged, for her to admit that he was worthy to love her. When Buffy
tells him she loves him, she is speaking in terms of this all encompasing pure
love that breaks past all barriers of good and evil, of ally and enemy. When
Spike says, "No you don't," he's talking about romantic love. But
he knows, as he turns to dust and stops up the hellmouth, that he has been redeemed
by the only power capable of redeeming him: Buffy's love.
We
all face this part of Buffy's obstacle, this limitation in our ability to love.
Where do you draw the line? Who are you unwilling to love? Who are you unwilling
to forgive? That is the final obstacle to this spiritual bliss. If you have
aught with your brother, you cannot make your offering to God. Spike was the
emodiment of that obstacle for Buffy, and when she admitted him into her heart,
when she took that which was absolutely not her and made it part of her anyway,
she went beyond good and evil and found spiritual bliss. At the metaphorical
level, when the obstacle is overcome, that which represents the obstacle becomes
superfluous. So with Spike's metaphorical function complete, he appropriately
disappears.
So it makes sense in this journey of transformation why Spike would die. But
why Anya? Anya is, in my opinion, a metaphor for Buffy's humanity. The character
was undergoing the transition from immortal demon to mortal human, learning
what it means to be human, taking in the whole experience bit by bit. There
were many things about humans that she did not understand, but in the last few
episodes she admitted that she liked humans, she liked that they fought for
what was important, and she wasn't going to run away this time. She would fight
with them. In the series finale, Buffy reached the fullest possible expression
of humanity, metaphorically speaking, by overcoming her separation, overcoming
all of the binary oppostions that separation reveals, by finding in her heart
pure love. And it is fittingly at that moment that Anya, the metaphor for Buffy's
humanity, realizes the fullest expression of her own in mortality. In death,
her transition to humanity is complete.
One of the things I love about this show is how things that seem very negative
at the character/plot level are sometimes joyous occurences when seen in terms
of their metaphorical significance. That's why you cry so damn much at this
show. While Anya's death is devastating, Buffy's realization of the fullest
experience of humanity, of which Anya is a metaphor, is a joyous event. Another
good example of this would be Buffy's rejection of Xander in Prophecy Girl.
It's heartbreaking for a character that we love, but if we think of Xander as
a metaphor for Buffy's heart, the organ of love and desire, for Buffy to love
or desire herself would be narcissistic, which, oddly enough, she kind of is
during all of Season 1 up to that point. By turning her heart away, or outward,
she is saying she is psychologically prepared to take the next step, and embrace
her spiritual commitment. So what seems sad at one level, is wonderful and necessary
at another, just as with Anya's death.
Xander's eye is another example. From the pov of the character, he got his eye
stabbed out, which has to kinda suck. But again, when we see Xander as a metaphor
for Buffy's heart, and when we recall that "one sees well only with the
heart for what truly matters is invisible to the naked eye," we see that
what has really happened is a good thing. Buffy's heart used to see in terms
of duality and separation, the left and the right. But now it sees everything
as one. Xander's remaining eye is the same as the eye in the middle of the forhead
of the hindu deities, the eye that sees the truth beyond the dualities. When
her heart lets go of duality and separation, Buffy can admit Spike into her
heart, and overcome her final obstacle. It ends up being a wonderfully positive
image.
But for a truly wonderful image, there is one that surpasses all the others.
At least in my estimation. Dawn, who seems to be a metaphor for potential, for
the new beginning, fittingly asks the final question at the end, as Buffy faces
a new beginning. "What will you do now?" And Buffy simply smiles.
That, I can safely say, is my favorite moment in the seven year history of wonderful
moments in this television series. In a sense, Buffy's answer is wordless, because
having reached bliss, she can simply appreciate the world as it is. In a sense,
her answer is, like her spirit, boundless, not limited by words, including all
possibilities. But for me, the real beauty is that we are the ones being asked.
For seven years this show has been a metaphor for Buffy and Buffy has been a
metaphor for us. And last night, in the finale, they came out and basically
said it. They gave us all Buffy's power. She handed it over to all of us, if
we choose to take it. All over the world, people are waking up to being a slayer,
to fulfilling their spiritual potential. That's not characters on the show.
That's us. We're waking up. We're slayers now. We're chosen. Having reached
her spiritual bliss of the seventh chakra, Buffy has exploded past the confines
of the television itself, and given us the spiritual injection we have been
looking for. By loving, by sharing, by connecting, we can save the
whole world. Dawn wasn't asking Buffy what she was going to do now. She was
asking us. And not about Tuesday nights during the 8 o'clock timeslot, either.
What are we going to do, now that we are the slayer? That's why Buffy just smiled.
Her task is complete. The new beginning is ours.
I've said before that this is reality television, and here is where it makes
the transition. Last night may have been the last episode, but this story of
spiritual transformation never ends. And for the rest of its seasons, you
are the protagonist. What are you going to do now? We all get to repeatedly
ask and repeatedly answer that question for the rest of our days. And like Buffy's
silent smile, the sum of all our answers is that we can do anything.
My favorite moment in this whole empowering series. We are all Buffy, and now
we recognize it. Really, I feel like we've all been part of a very beautiful
thing.