ACCORDING TO the understanding of Buddhist Vajrayāna masters, Tantrayāna is an important part of the Buddhist heritage passed down through the Nālandā and Vikramaśīla masters in ancient India as well as by itinerant yogis. Buddhist tantra differs from non-Buddhist forms of tantra in that it is conjoined with refuge in the Three Jewels as a foundation and with renunciation, bodhicitta, and correct wisdom as the mainstays of the practice. Thus Vajrayāna evolves from ideas mentioned in the Pāli and general Sanskrit teachings.
In general, the uniqueness of Vajrayāna comes from its sophistication in concentration and meditation practices that make it possible to attain full awakening quickly compared to the three countless great eons required to accumulate merit and wisdom by following the Sūtrayāna. Ideally, Tantrayāna is practiced on the basis of both the Śrāvakayāna and general Bodhisattvayāna. When well trained in the three higher trainings and six perfections, bodhisattvas with exceptionally strong bodhicitta enter Tantrayāna. With great compassion that finds sentient beings’ suffering in saṃsāra unbearable, these bodhisattvas request and receive tantric initiation (abhiṣeka), taking on the tantric ethical restraints and commitments. They then diligently engage in study and meditation on the tantric teachings in addition to the practices described in the sūtras.
Vajrayāna is widespread among followers of Tibetan Buddhism and the Japanese Shingon sect. Tantric practices are threads in the Buddhist fabric of China, Korea, and Vietnam as well. Interestingly, the Amitābha practice popular in these countries is found in Tibetan Buddhism as a tantric practice.
Unfortunately, misconceptions about Vajrayāna exist due to lack of correct information. While sexual yoga and intoxicants are permitted in some tantric practices, they are firmly restricted only to people on very high stages of the path. Only a very few people are qualified to do these practices, and they do them discreetly. Fancying themselves highly realized tantric practitioners, people who have entered Vajrayāna and yet engage in this behavior without having realized ultimate reality are transgressing the tantric precepts and creating destructive karma. Furthermore, some so-called tantric practitioners have reduced Tantrayāna to the performance of rituals done with a worldly motivation seeking wealth or prestige. Some people may give initiations to receive offerings. All this is wrong and outside the scope of the Buddhadharma. In this chapter, I explain how sincere and serious practitioners practice Vajrayāna.
Because the minds of ordinary beings are too obscured to receive teachings directly from the Buddha’s omniscient mind, he appears in various form bodies according to the dispositions of sentient beings in order to teach them. Due to sentient beings’ different mental inclinations and different physical constituents, various meditation deities appear. All tantric deities are one nature—the exalted wisdom of bliss and emptiness. They are not individual personalities with inherently existent selves.
Because a blissful mind is used to realize emptiness, many of the meditation deities in highest yoga tantra are depicted in union with consorts. The male deity symbolizes the method aspect of the path—compassion, generosity, and so forth—and the female deity symbolizes the wisdom aspect of the path. It is not the case that these awakened meditation deities have sexual desire.
A buddha’s wisdom may manifest as either peaceful deities or fierce deities. The appearance of fierce deities illustrates the power and clarity of compassion and wisdom. Their ferocity is directed toward ignorance, afflictions, and self-centeredness, the real enemies that destroy our well-being. These awakened deities have compassionate minds and never angrily harm sentient beings.
Buddhists who do not understand tantric practice may incorrectly regard a deity as an external god to be worshiped. While tantric meditation manuals enjoin bowing, offerings, and prayers, the tantric path is not about worshiping an external being so that he or she will bless us and grant us nirvāṇa. The Buddha clearly said that we need to cultivate the path ourselves and transform our own minds. Bowing, offering, and so forth are methods to purify our destructive karma and create merit, which prepares the mind for meditation on serenity and insight.
Receiving a tantric initiation marks formal entry into tantra. Before receiving an initiation from a spiritual master, it is important to examine the master’s qualifications and qualities. A qualified vajra master has the qualities of a bodhisattva spiritual mentor, especially the correct understanding of emptiness complemented by bodhicitta. Such a master guards body, speech, and mind from destructive actions, practices the three higher trainings, is knowledgeable in both the sūtras and tantras, and is compassionate and free from pretense and deceit. He or she possesses the set of ten outer qualities and the set of ten inner qualities of a vajra master. This mentor must have received initiation into Vajrayāna, kept the precepts and commitments purely, studied the practices well, completed the appropriate retreats and concluding ceremonies, and experienced some deep insight through this path. Finding a qualified tantric guru may take many years, but careful selection is worthwhile.
Tantric texts instruct that initiations be given only to people who are properly prepared—those who have faith, renunciation, bodhicitta, and correct understanding of emptiness—not to people who lack understanding of the fundamentals of Buddhism. In spite of this, some Tibetan lamas allow newcomers to attend initiations. Their thought is to “plant good seeds” in the person’s mindstream. In general this may be beneficial. However, detrimental results sometimes follow when initiation is given prematurely.
Ethical conduct is crucial in tantra. Tantric precepts are taken on the basis of the bodhisattva precepts, which, in turn, are based on refuge in the Three Jewels and preferably all five lay precepts.
Those with tantric initiation must study the various precepts and commitments and practice them diligently. Similarly, they must receive teachings and study the steps of meditation on emptiness, visualization of the deity, mantra recitation, and so forth in a tantric meditation, as well as practice these daily. Furthermore, Vajrayāna practitioners must continue to strengthen their renunciation, bodhicitta, and wisdom realizing emptiness, do purification practices to cleanse their mindstreams of destructive karma, and accumulate merit.
Vajrayāna teachings and practices should remain private or “secret” in that tantric practitioners should not boast about the initiations they have received or advertise to others that they do Vajrayāna practice. They should keep their Vajrayāna images private, taking them out only when they meditate. In this way, they avoid the danger of self-centeredness and arrogance, attitudes that hinder spiritual progress.
According to one system of classification, Buddhist tantra can be divided into four classes—action, performance, yoga, and highest yoga. Highest yoga tantra reveals the ultimate meaning of buddha nature by explaining the subtlest level of mind—the fundamental innate clear-light mind. When this subtlest consciousness is transformed into the path, yogis are equipped with a very powerful instrument to quickly purify both obscurations and complete all a buddha’s magnificent qualities.
Some of the factors that distinguish highest yoga tantra and make it profound are:
• One has a strong, urgent aspiration to become a buddha to benefit sentient beings, which brings forth special effort in practice.
• The object with which one cultivates serenity is very subtle, leading to deep concentration.
• Stabilizing meditation on subtle meditation objects and subtle levels of mind increases the clarity of the ascertainment of emptiness.
• Due to special meditative techniques, serenity and insight are attained simultaneously.
• Great bliss is generated to make manifest the subtlest clear-light mind, which is then used to realize emptiness directly and eliminate even the subtlest obscurations.
• Method and wisdom are cultivated simultaneously in a single mental event—enabling simultaneous accumulation of method and wisdom.
• One trains in perceiving the two truths simultaneously, preparing the way for buddhahood, where conventional and ultimate truths are perceived at the same time.
• The path of the union of bliss and emptiness that leads to an illusory body is a unique cause for attaining a buddha’s form body.
• The illusory body and actual clear light actualized in Vajrayāna are substantial causes that are directly concordant with the resultant form and truth bodies.
The practice of transforming the bliss generated by desire into the path is governed by the tantric precepts that all practitioners of highest yoga tantra have taken. Transgression of these ethical restraints is extremely serious and leads to great nonvirtuous karma and adverse consequences. Yogis who take desire into the path must have stable renunciation, bodhicitta, and wisdom. Only a few, rare people have these prerequisites. Even if monastics are qualified, they do not engage in this practice since they are celibate.
Some people mistakenly believe, “Since everything is empty, there is no good or bad. When one realizes emptiness, one is beyond ethical precepts.” This is flawed logic. Padmasambhava said that the higher one’s realization of emptiness, the greater one’s respect for karma and its effects and thus the stronger one’s commitment to ethical conduct.
Contrary to misconceptions, tantric yogis do not practice magic, and tantra is not an excuse to behave in outlandish ways. The Buddha was always humble, and he is our guru. He worked very hard on the path—living simply and practicing diligently. We should follow the Buddha’s example.