**Getting Started with Tantra: Why It's So Precious** So, what exactly is Tantra? According to the sources, Tantra (also known as ‘Secret Mantra’ or ‘Vajrayana’) is a very special set of methods. It's described as a powerful way to quickly reach the ultimate goal of human life, which, as discussed in Volume 1 (Sutra), is enlightenment. One of the most captivating ideas about Tantra is its function: it's a method to purify our world, our self, our enjoyments, and our activities. This purification leads us very quickly to enlightenment. The sources explain that this works because our world, our self, our enjoyments, and our activities are actually the nature of our mind. Isn't that a thought-provoking concept? It's like saying the quality of your mental projector determines the movie you see. When your mind is impure, everything appears impure, but when your mind becomes pure, everything becomes pure. This connects back to the idea that the world is the result of the karma (actions) of the beings inhabiting it, and ultimately, everything is created by the mind. Milarepa, a great Yogi mentioned in the source, put it beautifully: all appearances are the nature of mind, and mind is the nature of emptiness. Because of this connection, purifying the mind through Tantric practice allows everything – our world, self, enjoyments, and activities – to become completely pure, which is the state of enlightenment. So, attaining enlightenment boils down to purifying your mind. Simple in principle, profound in application! **Sutra and Tantra: Not Opposites, but Partners!** Sometimes, people might mistakenly think that Sutra and Tantra teachings contradict each other. However, the sources clarify that this isn't the case at all. In fact, practising Sutra teachings is the basic foundation for Tantra. And the practice of Tantra is presented as a _quick method_ to fulfil the ultimate goal taught in Sutra. Think about attachment, for instance. Sutra encourages abandoning attachment. Tantra, on the other hand, encourages transforming attachment into a spiritual path. At first glance, this might seem contradictory, right? But the sources explain that Tantric instructions on transforming attachment are actually a quick way to achieve the _abandonment_ of attachment, thereby fulfilling the aim of the Sutra teachings. This highlights how Tantra builds upon and accelerates the path laid out in Sutra. The source compares the universal compassion developed through Sutra practice and the wisdom of Mahamudra Tantra (achieved through Tantra) to the two wings of a bird. A bird needs both wings to fly, just as a practitioner seeking enlightenment needs both Sutra and Tantra. This beautiful analogy shows they are equally important and work together harmoniously. **Obstacles on the Path: Ordinary Appearances and Conceptions** What holds us back? The sources point to "ordinary appearances and conceptions" as the principal objects we need to abandon in Tantra. Ordinary appearance is how we normally perceive everything – our self, body, and all the things around us. This appearance is considered a _subtle mistaken appearance_. Why mistaken? Because, as we learned in Volume 1, things appear to exist inherently, from their own side, but they don't; they are merely imputed by mind and depend on parts. It's a subtle mistake because it's hard for us to grasp that this appearance isn't reality. Ordinary conception is the mind that believes these ordinary appearances are true. Self-grasping (believing in a truly existent 'I') and all other delusions are considered ordinary conceptions. Ordinary conceptions are obstacles to liberation, while ordinary appearances are obstacles to enlightenment. Most ordinary beings experience these, except for very high-level Bodhisattvas. Abandoning this subtle mistaken appearance completely requires the practice of Highest Yoga Tantra. **The Gateway to Tantra: Empowerment** How do you start practising Tantra? The gateway is receiving a Tantric empowerment. An empowerment is a pretty amazing event! It's described as bestowing special blessings that heal our mental continuum and awaken our Buddha nature. When you receive an empowerment, it's like sowing special seeds on your mind – the seeds of the four bodies of a Buddha. Ordinary beings usually only have one body, but Buddhas have four simultaneously: the Nature Truth Body, the Wisdom Truth Body, the Enjoyment Body, and the Emanation Body. An empowerment helps plant the potential for you to achieve these. This also ties into the importance of the Spiritual Guide, or Guru. Having deep faith in your Spiritual Guide and recognizing them as an emanation of Buddha (or in the case of Heruka practice, an emanation of Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka, who synthesizes the Spiritual Guide, Je Tsongkhapa, Buddha Shakyamuni, and Heruka) is crucial for receiving these blessings and making rapid spiritual progress. **The Two Main Stages of Highest Yoga Tantra** Highest Yoga Tantra practice is generally divided into two main stages: Generation Stage and Completion Stage. 1. **Generation Stage:** - **What it is:** This is described as a "creative yoga". Through wisdom-guided imagination, practitioners generate themselves as an enlightened Deity, like Heruka or Vajrayogini. They also imagine their environment, body, enjoyments, and activities as those of the Deity. The imagined new world of the Deity becomes the object of meditation. - **How it works:** The main emphasis here is on training in "divine pride" and "clear appearance" of being the enlightened Deity. Divine pride means developing the thought, "I am Buddha Heruka" (or whichever Deity you are practising). Clear appearance means perceiving your body and mind as the Deity's body and mind, your world as their Pure Land, and others around you as enlightened beings. This practice is about changing your "basis of imputation" from contaminated (your ordinary body and mind) to uncontaminated (the aggregates of the Deity). - **Its function:** The main function of generation stage is to purify ordinary death, the intermediate state (bardo), and ordinary rebirth. By doing so, it helps accomplish a Buddha's Truth Body, Enjoyment Body, and Emanation Body. It's seen as a quick method to ripen your Buddha nature. Training in non-dual appearance and emptiness is also a profound part of generation stage, where the imagined mandala and deities are realized to be non-dual with emptiness. 2. **Completion Stage:** - **What it is:** Unlike generation stage, completion stage is _not_ a creative yoga. Its main objects of meditation are things that already exist within your body: the channels, drops, and winds. - **How it works:** The main effort in completion stage is to gather and dissolve the inner winds, which normally flow through the left and right channels (acting as mounts for delusions like self-grasping), into the central channel. Ordinary beings only experience this dissolution during death and deep sleep, but completion stage practitioners train to do it at any time through meditation. This process allows the very subtle wind and mind to manifest. - **Key Realizations & Stages:** Gaining control over the winds and drops leads to the accomplishment of the "union of spontaneous great bliss and emptiness". This unfolds through five stages of completion stage: 1. Initial realization of spontaneous great bliss (isolated body and speech) - freeing from gross ordinary appearances/conceptions of body and speech. 2. Ultimate example clear light (isolated mind) - a fully qualified clear light mind experiencing great bliss and realizing emptiness with a generic image - freeing from gross ordinary appearances/conceptions of mind. 3. Illusory body - the subtle wind transforms into a divine body of wisdom light. 4. Meaning clear light - a fully qualified clear light mind experiencing great bliss that _directly_ realizes the emptiness of all phenomena. This is synonymous with Mahamudra Tantra. 5. The union of meaning clear light and the pure illusory body - From this stage, practitioners can attain enlightenment very quickly, sometimes within months. **Great Bliss and Emptiness: The Heart of Mahamudra** The concept of "great bliss" is central to completion stage, especially in Mahamudra Tantra. Mahamudra means "great seal" or "union," and in this context refers to the union of great bliss and emptiness. It's described as a single mind that simultaneously experiences great bliss and directly realizes emptiness. The bliss in completion stage is not just any bliss. It's "unequalled" and called "great bliss" because it has two unique characteristics: 1. Its nature is a bliss arising from the _melting of drops inside the central channel_. This distinguishes it from ordinary sexual bliss (which arises from the left channel) or the bliss of concentration/peace described in Sutra. 2. Its function is to _prevent subtle mistaken appearance_. Experiencing this bliss causes self-grasping and distracting thoughts to cease, leading to a deep inner peace. Attaining this great bliss requires gathering and dissolving the inner winds into the central channel. The sources emphasize that having the physical conditions (the six elements from parents) necessary for this bliss is a special fortune humans possess, making them more fortunate in this regard than even some high Bodhisattvas in Pure Lands who lack these conditions. This bliss is incredibly powerful because it allows practitioners to transform their attachment into a path to enlightenment. Before this bliss, attachment causes rebirth in samsara; with this bliss, attachment contributes to release from samsara. By gaining this bliss, the winds that carry self-grasping through the side channels are reduced and eventually cease, leading to liberation. The sources suggest that while Sutra explains nirvana (permanent cessation of suffering), understanding precisely _how_ this cessation, particularly the cessation of self-grasping and its mounted wind, occurs is fully revealed only in Highest Yoga Tantra teachings. **The Heruka Body Mandala Practice** The sources dedicate a significant portion to explaining the practice of Heruka body mandala, presented as an essence of Highest Yoga Tantra. Heruka is described as an enlightened Deity embodying the compassion of all Buddhas. - **Meaning of Heruka:** The name "Heruka" itself holds meaning: 'He' refers to the emptiness of all phenomena, 'ru' to great bliss, and 'ka' to the union of great bliss and emptiness. This implies that relying on Heruka with faith leads to the realization of this union, the quick path to enlightenment. - **Body Mandala:** In this context, "body" refers to the subtle body (channels and drops), and "mandala" is an assembly of enlightened Deities. The Heruka body mandala is the assembly of the imagined Heruka (the practitioner) with consort (Vajravarahi, representing purified drops), and a retinue (Heroes and Heroines, representing purified channels and drops), all in the imagined Pure Land of Keajra. It's a practice involving visualization of specific channels and drops within one's body. - **Lineage:** These instructions come down through a specific lineage, notably from the great Yogi Ghantapa, who received them directly from Heruka. The lineage is traced through various masters to Je Tsongkhapa and contemporary Teachers. - **Preliminaries:** The practice of Heruka body mandala, like other profound Dharma practices, depends on foundational preliminary practices. These are presented as the "four wheels" that make the practice effective: 1. **Going for refuge:** Sincerely relying on Buddha, Dharma (teachings/protection), and Sangha (spiritual friends) for protection and liberation from suffering. It's the entry point to Buddhism. 2. **Renunciation:** Developing a strong wish to permanently free oneself from the unbearable sufferings of countless future lives. It's the gateway to the path of liberation. 3. **Bodhichitta:** The supreme good heart that spontaneously wishes to attain enlightenment for the direct benefit of _all_ living beings, recognizing that others' freedom is vastly more important than one's own. This is the gateway to the path of enlightenment. 4. **Guru yoga:** A special training in relying upon one's Spiritual Guide. Through Guru yoga, practitioners receive the blessings of all Buddhas, which are essential for ripening the seeds of Tantric realization. It involves visualizing the Guru as inseparable from Buddha and the Deity (Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka in this specific practice). Guru yoga includes practices like visualization, inviting wisdom beings, the seven limbs (prostration, offerings, purification, rejoicing, requesting teachings, beseeching Gurus to remain, dedication), making special requests, and generating the experience of great bliss and emptiness. - **Non-Dual Appearance and Emptiness:** A key meditation in the generation stage of Heruka body mandala is training in non-dual appearance and emptiness. This involves realizing that the appearance of the Heruka body mandala (the conventional truth) is not separate from emptiness (the ultimate truth). Meditating on this union with single-pointed concentration is a powerful method to attain enlightenment quickly. **The Instructions of Vajrayogini** The sources also briefly introduce the instructions of Vajrayogini, another female enlightened Deity of Highest Yoga Tantra. Vajrayogini is presented as the manifestation of the _wisdom_ of all Buddhas, complementing Heruka's embodiment of compassion. Her function is to guide beings to the Pure Land of Keajra, a special Pure Land where beings have bodies suitable for practicing completion stage Tantra and thus can attain enlightenment quickly. Vajrayogini Tantra is a Mother Tantra, meaning its main focus is training in clear light, which is the primary cause for attaining Buddha's holy mind. This training is outlined through eleven yogas. - **Yogas of Sleeping, Rising, and Experiencing Nectar:** These yogas are a simple but profound way to integrate practice into daily activities, including sleep. The yoga of sleeping involves recollecting emptiness and meditating on self-generation as Vajrayogini while sleeping, with the aspiration to recognize the clear light mind that manifests during sleep. By training in this, memory can function during sleep, allowing recognition of the subtle mind and eventually leading to its direct realization, which helps permanently cease subtle mistaken appearance. - **Other Yogas:** The remaining eight yogas cover various practices including immeasurables (refuge, bodhichitta, purification), Guru yoga (visualizing the Guru as Buddha Vajradharma to receive speech blessings), self-generation (transforming death, intermediate state, and rebirth into the three bodies of a Buddha), purifying migrators (a Tantric form of taking and giving), body mandala meditation, verbal and mental mantra recitation, and meditating on inconceivability (training in clear light of bliss). **Putting it All Together: A Quick Path** The overall message from these sources is that Tantra, particularly Highest Yoga Tantra, offers a uniquely powerful and quick path to enlightenment. By relying on the foundational practices of Sutra (renunciation, bodhichitta, wisdom realizing emptiness) and then entering the Tantric path through empowerment and Guru yoga, practitioners can engage in the sophisticated meditations of generation stage (purifying ordinary appearances and preparing the basis) and completion stage (working with inner energies, achieving great bliss, directly realizing emptiness, and transforming into a Buddha's body and mind). The promise is immense: permanent liberation from suffering and the ability to directly benefit all living beings every day. This is the ultimate meaning of human life. **Further Ideas and Questions to Explore:** As you read through this, you might find yourself wondering about a few things! The sources hint at some deep concepts that are worth contemplating further: - The idea that happiness and suffering are states of mind and their main causes are within the mind. How does training the mind in these specific ways truly control suffering and create happiness? - The subtle mistaken appearance and ordinary conception as the root of suffering. How exactly does our mind create this illusion, and why is it so hard to see through? - The nature of emptiness itself. It's not nothingness, but the real nature of phenomena. How can contemplating the absence of inherent existence lead to liberation? The source points to the chapter "Training in Ultimate Bodhichitta" in Volume 1 for more on this. - The "very subtle wind and mind" as our actual Buddha nature. How do these subtle aspects of ourselves hold the potential for Buddhahood? How does working with the channels and drops ripen this potential? - The unique nature of "great bliss" in Tantra. How can a blissful experience, especially one arising from physical energies like winds and drops, be a crucial spiritual realization that prevents mistaken appearance? - The role of the Guru and receiving blessings. How does this connection with a Spiritual Guide unlock the potential within? - The Pure Land of Keajra and the special bodies of the beings there. What does this tell us about the connection between physical form and spiritual capacity in Highest Yoga Tantra? These are just a few of the rich areas touched upon that could spark deeper investigation, perhaps by exploring the full text of _Modern Buddhism_, or even looking into the mentioned root Tantras and commentaries by masters like Atisha, Je Tsongkhapa, Shantideva, Nagarjuna, Ghantapa, Naropa, Je Phabongkhapa, and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche.