What is Tantra?

February 9, 2023

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What is Tantra? Okay, this is a huge subject. This will take a long time. But anyway. In Buddhism, the blue Buddha’s teachings are like a pure crystal. So a crystal has got different sides. Everything is perfect. It’s the same crystal, but looking at the same subject from different sides. Like when you turn around a crystal. So we have Sutra. Sutra means the discourses.

That’s what it means. Sutra, you know, like a thread, we have this word in the West, it’s like, the Sutra is the thread, isn’t it, that brings together a discourse of the sutras. Buddha’s public teachings. I mean, not even teachings people used to ask him, and he would give answers, you know? Then sometime after, several hundred years after the Buddha passed away, the monks who had memorized this from generation to generation started to write it down, actually, in the first century before the Christian era. It was written down, so the sutras are like, let’s say, the public talks the Buddha gave, Actually the answers Buddha gave to people.

He didn’t like to go around teaching. People would ask him things, and he would reply. So that’s what we call the sutras. So the Buddha met all kinds of people, you know like as you know, you can see with a big master like Lama Gangchen.

He meets all kinds of people from all over the world: big people, simple people, young, old, all different ideas. So they asked many different things, no? So Rinpoche answers according to each one, their idea, their capacity, Yeah? So that’s like the Buddha, yeah? So there are all kinds of different subjects. So the Sutra is the public teachings of the Buddha. It’s basical:42 Renunciation. Need to get out of samsara. Need to develop empathy, bodhicitta.

We need to extend our circle of caring and opt to take responsibility for all beings. That’s the bodhicitta. Emptiness, wisdom, we need to understand how things work, we need to understand interdependence, we need to understand how everything is a process, we need to understand that the way we project a reality is wrong. Therefore, we suffer. These are we call the three principal aspects of the path. Mahayana Buddhism.

It is based on the development of basically the two bodhicitta. Developing empathy and love towards all beings, understanding how things work, interdependence, and karma. We have a special part of that that we call Tantra. Okay? It’s not something separate but a special way of expressing Mahayana teachings. So Tantra means… Well, there are different explanations. One meaning is like something like, you know, like a cloth? And it’s like, all the threads are joined together like that, you know? Something like interdependence. Another meaning is like the continuum of the mind, you know?

I think this is the best explanation because the tantric viewpoint is we have the gross body and mind like the normal one, and then we have what we call a subtle and very subtle body and mind. So in the tantric part of the Mahayana teachings, we’re learning to use the gross, subtle, and very subtle body and mind.

Why? Because we want to use them as instruments to achieve enlightenment to benefit ourselves and others. So, there’s Buddhist Tantra, and there is Hindu Tantra. Okay? The Hindu tradition also has a great tantric tradition of a different philosophical background. Then there’s what we call neo-Tantra, like on the Internet, that please forget, yeah? because it is it’s not, well, according to our point of view, It’s not true, okay?

Buddhist Tantra is about transforming the body and mind, and we have what we call tantric teachings, which originated in the time of Buddha. We have great tantric systems. Like Kalachakra, Guhyasamadja, many many, many. What they’re based on is transforming the five basic emotions, let’s say, into five wisdom consciousnesses and five impure elements into five pure elements. That’s why the Self-Healing practice of Lama Gangchen and the Making Peace with the Environment practice put together is truly the essence of Tantric Buddhism, and I’m not making that up, is true.

If you actually study deeply Tantric Buddhism, you will come to your own conclusion yourself that that’s true. In the West, people have a lot of wrong conceptions about Tantra. This comes from, like, the 60s, the 70s, the hippy period, yeah? Buddhist Tantra is based on Sutra, and it’s based on developing ethics, concentration, and wisdom. Many Western people get into Tantra, and they think it’s like becoming a libertine or going away from any kind of ethical system Absolutely not true, you know? To study Buddhist Tantra, you have to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. We have to take the Bodhisattva vows.

It’s a whole like ethical lifestyle that you have to follow, you know? And the tantric vows, which is like in Tantric Self-Healing, there’s a certain kind of behavior that we have to do in order to manifest pure wisdom consciousness. So, if you don’t like ethics or vows Tantra is definitely not the right system for you. Sorry, but really it’s not. Because actually as a Buddhist layperson, you know, practicing Tantra I think I have like about 240 vows or something, a lot, yeah? All this is to channel our energy in the correct direction towards enlightenment, okay?

Tantra. Buddhist Tantra is to accelerate our personal development. So we use not only the gross mind, like in Buddhist, in the Sutra teachings, Buddhist philosophy, you know, it’s like psychology, we’re learning to work with our emotions, to understand the mind, you know? Very important, very necessary, but we’re using the gross mind, the gross experience. With the Tantra, let’s say, this is speaking in the Western terms, we use the deeper parts of the mind. The unconscious or subconscious, we call it the subtle mind, yeah?

So there’s deeper parts of our experience. So we’re using many different levels together. So we are using visualization, we’re using things to awaken and transform our emotions, while understanding that everything is empty, of course, based on the motivation of compassion of bodhichitta. Tantra is like, how do you say? Mahayana on steroids. It’s like the quick path, you know? To do Tantra you must have a guru. If you don’t like gurus, Tantra is not for you. Sorry.

That’s the truth. Because you cannot do Buddhist Tantra without a tantric guru, you know? I mean, look, if you want to learn to drive a car, mostly people get a driving instructor. If you want to learn a language, mostly people have a teacher, it’s normal, mostly people have a teacher to teach you something of value, no? So if you want to become an incredible positive being full of wisdom and compassion and power able to help many beings in many ways, you need somebody who already has gone on that path, that’s why you need a spiritual teacher. Okay, so I’ll say if for you that’s a problem, there’s many other spiritual paths which are, or whatever, is perfectly available. Okay, is called Guru Yoga. From generation to generation of realized masters who achieved these experiences that they are transmitting

it to us. It’s a bit like the Olympic torch, you know? They have this real experience of wisdom, compassion, inner experience, very beautiful visionary experiences, like incredible, and they pass it on to the next generation. So now we receive this torch, you know, this Dharma torch from our Gurus, and we need to realize those things and then pass it on to the next generation.

So if you want to do Tantra, honestly, the best thing to do is, I mean, okay, you listening to this, there’s many many great Gurus, great masters, great lineages, okay? within Buddhism. Please you find the one that’s suitable for you, according to your karma, your mentality. Okay. Me personally, I think the NgalSo Tantric Self Healing way is the way to go. So anyway, if you like, you’re very welcome to try. Lama Gangchen kindly says that his Tantric Self-Healing is open to everybody, regardless of whether they’re Buddhist or not, and they also don’t need to commit themselves to all the ethical restrictions that are normally practice by tantric practitioners.

So, if you would like to try Tantra perhaps NgalSo Tantric Self-Healing might be the way to go, you know? Rinpoche always says everybody’s welcome, everybody can try, and if you like any idea within it, you’re welcome. So, anyway, I see a lot of benefit in the tantric system, and I met many great masters, really, with really incredible, I mean you know, we’re Buddhist, we believe in human enlightenment, okay? The result of becoming a Buddha. Buddha means an awakened one. I see many people with incredible levels of personal development based on their integrated practice of Sutra and Tantra.

You can’t do Tantra without Sutra, by the way. This is a mistake that many people make because Tantra seems exotic and interesting, but it’s like if you try and make a palace without any foundations.

We want all the like, you know, nice golden bits on the top, but we need to create a very strong base of like ethics, compassion, wisdom, you know? Like all the basic qualities that are expressed in the Lam Rim Teachings.

If we have that, then, okay, Tantra is like the same, but I don’t know like this, it’s… We’re using the subconscious mind to… We’re working with the same concepts we work within Sutra, but on a deeper level of the mind, so it touches our, you know, the deep and profound essence of our mind. Because we have the gross mind, the everyday mind, but when we dream,

we have the subtle mind, and when we die we have the even more subtle mind, we called the Clear Light. In Tantra we learn to recognize and work with these different states. So anyway, I would thoroughly recommend this as a way to go you know, honestly. Many people that say my life is boring, there’s no meaning in it.

According to us Buddhist, to practice Tantra Vajrayana in the Mahayana context guided by a great master like Lama Gangchen, and many other great gurus, not just our guru, is really the way to go because in a few years we have the possibility to evolve, and you know, to have more capacity to benefit others in a much more profound way than we could do than just our normal education.

I mean, whatever normal education you have and please use to help other beings as much as you can. However, the greatest gift we can give others is wisdom, and we desperately need wisdom in this difficult time of humanity. The environments in a complete mess. Society is also very difficult, we need more enlightened people in this society, in modern society.

So anybody that’s interested in Tantra, We’re very lucky that the great spiritual masters have arrived in the West. Like in Albagnano and in our other centers around the world, we really have the possibilities, even if we went to Tibet we wouldn’t get these teachings, you know? It wouldn’t be possible because we’re laypeople. Of course, we have gurus and monks and nuns, but I’m the layperson; I’m a woman; I wouldn’t have access to these great wisdom teachings. So anybody who wishes to get out of samsara, achieve enlightenment, and work to benefit others. If you’re interested, these teachings are available in our centers worldwide.

If not, you can also watch through the streaming. Our gurus kindly made this streaming system so people far away can also have the beautiful light of Buddhist teachings for free, so please, anybody interested is welcome. We’re so lucky, you know? We now have tantric teachings. It won’t be here if we don’t practice in the future. So, please, if you’re welcome, come and do it. It is, anyway, the most beautiful thing about the Tantra. That’s all I can say.

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