Tantra

Basis, Pathway, and Resultant Viewpoints Most Tibetan texts that discuss tantric masters' being Buddhas explain the topic of impure and pure appearances from a specific viewpoint. Often, however, the texts neglect to state their point of view. This may cause confusion. In...

The Sakya Presentation of Inseparable Samsara and Nirvana The pathway level of the continuity is referring to partially purified, partially unpurified, so there’s some stoppings there. To understand how that is an everlasting stream of continuity, I think the most helpful is...

The Role of the Winds of Karma If the Mental Holograms of the Four Occasions Are Basis-Level Devoid Forms The role that the winds of karma play with regard to the mental holograms of the four occasions is much more difficult to ascertain. Let us explore two hypotheses and,...

For the remainder of this seminar, I’d like to not follow a strict structure, but just answer questions you might have about tantra and let a wider picture of tantra unfold from that. Can Visualization Help with Dealing with Disturbing Emotions?  When, on a practical...

Review We started our discussion of how to make our tantra practice more effective. We saw that the most fundamental thing to start with is to understand what tantra is and what the essential points of tantra practice are – how does it work. Also, we saw that the word “tantra”...

Introduction In the first part of this series, we looked at the initial level of motivation where we aim to avoid lower rebirths and gain a higher rebirth. In particular, we want a precious human rebirth so that we can improve in our practice. The intermediate scope is when we...

The Salutation The text begins with the verse of salutation in which a distinction must be made between the eight qualities of Ishvara (dbang-phyug), the king of the gods, and the eight king-of-the-god types of qualities. The former are the qualities of the king of the gods,...

Review  We were speaking about gaining conviction in the efficiency of the tantra path so that we can engage in it with our full hearts. In order to gain that conviction, it’s necessary to understand why tantra is more efficient than sutra and how it actually works so...

The Special Role of Oral Transmission in Tantra Oral transmission and inspiration from spiritual mentors play an even larger role in tantra than they do in sutra practice. This is evident from the structure of the tantric texts themselves and from the indispensable role of...

Categories in Tantra  Conceptual thought involves categories. How is that relevant in tantra? There are categories with these Buddha-figures, so there is the category Chenrezig, Avalokiteshvara. There can be many different forms of that deity, with four arms, with two...