Tantric Philosophy
The Buddha taught three cycles of teachings. His first cycle of teachings cover the basics, the prerequisites. This would include the Dharmapada.
His second cycle of teachings discusses the cosmology of the universes. But in his later years, he wrote the tantric texts.
The tantras can be very confusing for a person who is new to Buddhism, and for several thousand years the rule was not to expose a person or a new monk to the tantras until they had practiced for many, many years.
The tantras are ancient sacred books of India and Tibet. The tantras detail specific means for attaining liberation.
The Dali Lama and other notable Buddhist teachers have now indicated that since the world has plunged into a dark age, the information available in the tantras, which include the very, very powerful Kundalini release techniques, should be made available to the public.
Tantric Buddhism means that we become mature adults and we learn the reality of chaos theory.
The human mind and the entire life process is chaotic. Chaos is not something that lacks order; chaos has varieties of order within it.
Everything is subtle. Everything has a million sides. Everything is a manifestation of god. Everything is light. All beings are infinite. All things are perfect, in their own way.
Everything aids everything, because all things are a reflection of the Buddha mind, of the mind of Enlightenment.
In Tantric Buddhism we call the inherent knowledge that all animate and inanimate objects possess of themselves - their emptiness.
Our failure to see and access the pure joy and radiance of life is owning to a lack of awareness. In any situation there is beauty. Even at the moment of one's death there is beauty.
If we are in a high enough state of consciousness we see that life is only a passing dream.
Tantra is the left-handing path, meaning it is the road less taken.
People who are capable of practicing tantra are individuals who have meditated for many, many years and developed very strong and powerful states of attention.
Some people go into tantra with the idea, sort of an intellectual approach, that now they can just do everything and stay high. That doesn't work at all.
Tantra is not sexual yoga. When the word tantra is used in the West, very often people immediately associate it with some kind of sexual yoga in which you use sex as a vehicle for enlightenment.
Sexuality, for the person who practices tantra, is a marvelous way to experience illusion. Illusion is just another way of seeing things. There are no illusions because there is no self.
Tantra works well for people who are engaged in relationships and sexuality. Sex itself is just an action. It's just part of the dream.
Tantra is not for a hedonist at all. It won't work. If you're heavily attracted to sensual experiences, tantra will definitely not be of any use to you.
Sex can never bring about enlightenment. Only enlightenment brings about enlightenment.
The emphasis is on meditation in Tantric Zen. The experience of meditation in formal practice, zazen, where you're sitting down and meditating and concentrating.
A critical part of Tantric Buddhism is a process of turning of the activities and experiences in your daily life into meditation.
Consumer goods become enlightenment. Relationships -- anything! It doesn't really matter because infinity exists in everything.
Tantra has to do with the reconciliation of opposites. All the yogas recommend that you avoid certain experiences. In tantra there is no avoidance.
In this world we see the pairs of opposites. Ultimately there are no oppositions. In the superconscious awareness there is no division.
Tantra has to do with the reconciliation of opposites. All the yogas recommend that you avoid certain experiences. In tantra there is no avoidance.
Avoidance of experiences is a fixation and it binds you to the world, it binds you to the personal self.
It doesn't really matter what you do. It is your state of mind that matters.
Any avenue that you follow leads to light. All roads lead to Rome.
Tantra means the avoidance of a set or defined form of spirituality. Tantra is intuitive self-discovery.
Success, failure, pain, small furry animals, household products, freeways, Star Wars systems -- all are interlinked in the dance of tantra, the disco of the mind, the ballroom of cosmic consciousness.
Advanced yoga is not withdrawal from the world. That's a preliminary state.
When I speak of tantric yoga, I'm speaking of a type of yoga that is best practiced by persons who live in society. It's a yoga for the last yuga.
In Tantric Buddhism, we believe that Samsara is Nirvana. That is to say that everything in the universe is part of us. And we also are part of everything in the universe.
If you follow anything far enough in the universe, it will eventually lead to light.
Tantra is for someone who practices all the paths because all the paths encompass tantra.
Practitioners of tantra don't decide to break the rules. They are not particularly hung up on having sex or eating meat or drinking alcohol. They don't strive to do these things, nor do they strive to avoid them.
The Ten Commandments have a social purpose, for people who still need a social purpose.
There are no rules. Nothing you can do will take you to liberation; therefore, nothing you avoid will help you along the path to liberation.. Everything is liberation.
The basic assumption of tantra is that God not only exists in the superconscious, God also exists in the lowest forms of existence.
Tantra is for a person who has reached a point in their spiritual evolution where everything looks the same.
In tantra one does not seek experiences that most people would consider unspiritual and try to see truth in them. In tantra we don't try to guide our life in a specific way. We let the winds of existence blow us where they will.
Tantra is for the desperate. Unless you've really experienced pain and suffering, tantra won't work. Unless you've really experienced exultation and ecstasy, tantra won't work.
Tantra is for extremists, but balanced extremists.
Tantra is for the person who has self control but doesn't care anymore. It is for the person who is able to abandon self-control and its fixation.
Tantra is only recommended for someone who has a very developed will power, a terrific sense of humor, and a sense that nothing else matters but God and self-realization.
If you think that material success will bring you happiness, relationships, people, places, things, fame, fortune, you definitely should not practice tantra.
Tantra does not seek any type of experience, nor does it avoid it.
You shouldn't run around killing people or eating meat. That's not what we mean by tantra. There's no need to break the rules.
The only problem that occurs in the practice of tantra is when you don't practice tantra and fool yourself. You get caught up in powerful vortexes of negative energy which pull you into the lower bardo regions ... into the mud.
Tantra is for the advanced spiritual practitioner who is ready to push aside spiritual practice in the name of spiritual practice.
Tantra is for the person who has gone beyond the rules. They've learned the rules so well that now they can go beyond them.
Tantra won't work unless you've been trapped by spirituality. You have to be trapped by spirituality before you can be liberated from it.
In tantra we have complete faith in the winds of eternity. The key to tantra yoga is to feel that you are not the doer, that you cannot possibly act. All you have to do in life is to accept.
Since everything is God and everything contains God, you see God in everything, everything is a step towards liberation.
In tantra we don't believe in commandments. We believe in the moment and the truth that is applicable for that moment, as best we can sort it out with our heart, our intuition, our knowledge, our common sense.
In tantra, samsara is viewed as the same thing as nirvana. Eating a hamburger is meditation.
For most people the prohibitions are a good thing. But If you are able to maintain very powerful states of mind, then you'll find yourself in everything you see.
Tantric Buddhists don't believe in sin. Stupidity, yes, meaning we make ourselves or others suffer.
One person will eat meat and it will lower their attention field. Another person won't even be affected by it because they're not in the state of mind whereby they'll be affected by it.
For the person who wants to get to the mystical experience directly, Tantric Buddhism is the path.
Zen is Tantric Buddhism, Vajrayana is tantric Buddhism - these are various forms of it. Tantric Buddhism simply means cutting to the chase.
Tantra is quicker; but for some people it can be spiritually disastrous.
Why don't you like being you for a change? Just be different and don't hate yourself and feel very good about all your different desires and all the things you didn't want and want. Go get them all, and see what it's like.
There's a path in enlightenment called the path of negation where we intentionally throw ourselves into experiences that are extremely transient. In other words, we do all the stuff you're supposed to normally avoid to become enlightened, intentionally.
If you find a Tantric master - he has you go and do all the things you hate to do.
Tantra is spiritual, not religious. It deals with the spirit. Religion is just an applied body of doctrines that's believed or not believed by one or more individuals. Spirituality is the science of metaphysics.
Tantra is non-dogmatic, in the sense that we don't care about the sensual world; we don't care about other religious traditions. To not care doesn't mean that we don't learn.
What we seek to do in Tantric Buddhism is to liquefy ourselves. Life will automatically bring us to the next stage. You don't really have to know where you're going -- It's like breathing.
There's no right or wrong in the study of enlightenment. There's only experience.
There is nothing that you shouldn't do. Everything can be used as a tool for liberation.
Living in the spiritual world is very easy, once you grow accustomed to it. But initially, it puts you through some changes.
Tantra and adventure are very, very connected. Perhaps the greatest enemy for one who's journeying along the spiritual path is complacency.
Tantra involves radical change, a change in states of awareness.
Be radical! The reason you feel so miserable is because you put spirituality in a form. You boxed it, franchised it. You decided spirituality was a certain way but then you got stuck in the way.
Your soul wants experience. It wants the world. You're a human – and your eternal. The two are the same.
Music is part of the tantra, the dance of life. Before your eyes, before your awareness, is the procession of eternity.
Be neither attracted nor repulsed is the message of Tantric Buddhism. Don't be drawn to something, don't run away from it. Just naturally accept whatever comes into life.
Tantra is the perception of the oneness and the perfection of all things. Not just the perception of light, but the perception of darkness, seeing God in both beauty and horror.
In the world of Buddhist mind, in the advanced states, we go beyond time, space, life, death and Newsweek.
Tantric Buddhism is just a collection of things that work by doing them. And sometimes we add new things. We have electronic music; we did not have it in Tibet.
The emphasis in tantra is not what you find yourself doing, it's on meditation.
It's not what you do that matters. It's not what you say. There's nothing that is not holy or spiritual. Be beyond definition, beyond categorization, be absorbed.
