Our goal as spiritual aspirants and students often seems symbolic, because some of the language is culturally symbolic, or sounds cultural, embedded in 2,500 hundred years of flavoring.
But the goal of enlightenment, which involves experiencing emptiness first hand, is not symbolic - it is literal to reach the state of liberation from illusion which starts with recognizing the true nature of the mind as being empty and luminous without duality - and that's it, there are no objects of reference in this state which we can achieve because it is about letting go of everything.
To refer to this state, which is the basic state of the mind (mostly unrecognized), people who have realized it, or have a teaching tradition call it many things -
"Some call it by the name Dharmadhatu or "the dimension of Reality."
Some call it the Prajnaparamita or "the Perfection of Wisdom."
Some call it the name Tathagata-garbha or "the embryo of Buddhahood."
Some call it by the name Mahamudra or "the Great Symbol."
Some call it by the name "the Unique Sphere."
Some call it by the name Dharmadhatu or "the dimension of Reality."
Some call it by the name Alaya or "the basis of everything."
And some simply call it by the name "ordinary awareness."
Now, when you are introduced (to your own intrinsic awareness), the method for entering into it involves three considerations: Thoughts in the past are clear and empty and leave no traces behind.
Thoughts in the future are fresh and unconditioned by anything.
And in the present moment, when (your mind) remains in its own condition without constructing anything, awareness, at that moment, in itself is quite ordinary.
And when you look into yourself in this way nakedly (without any discursive thoughts),
Since there is only this pure observing, there will be found a lucid clarity without anyone being there who is the observer; only a naked manifest awareness is present.
(This awareness) is empty and immaculately pure, not being created by anything whatsoever."
That is what Padmasambhava said about it in Self Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness http://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlane/sets/72157615037339490/show/
That's what we are talking about...
Once this state is reached, and can be reached / or maintained with ease, true creative power is possible -- subsequently the great love for all that live is actionable. This is true because it is a different basis than what we generally understand.
In other words once you are directly in touch with your own mind without any filter - of the body or mental states ( though such means as dropping everything) - you can begin to manifest a different reality with a clean slate because you can direct your reality from a different basis. Like a great shaman or an universal wizard, however close to enlightenment you come, it is a technology - if the heart is also engaged - then that has much more potential (for reasons like karma, all things connected etc) because you can feel everyone is on this same plane, and such knowledge and love tend to wipe out static, convoluted, charged energy and in this open field everything becomes possible.
That state we know from Buddha and latter enlightened people is possible.
And as I understand gender has absolutely nothing to do with achieving this state --two of the first three students to gain enlightenment from Hevajra practice, during its later introduction were women.
