Sutra does not have a so-called yab-yum practice; if anything, sutra explains the union of merit and wisdom, not the union of a male and female. The yab-yum practice in tantra is a practice involving the winds, channels, and essences of the body.
However, to most people, it is not a practice, but a symbolic representation. For instance, the male deity represents clear light, an aspect of phenomena; the female deity represents emptiness; the union of a male and female signifies the inseparability of phenomena and emptiness. People should understand the yab-yum practice from this standpoint. Is the yab-yum practice required in tantra? Actually, it is not required in Dzogchen, nor is it ever emphasized.
People who lack this understanding think all Vajrayana followers practice the same way, but that is not the case. The practice of working with the winds, channels, and essences of the body constitutes only a small portion of tantra; it is also not undertaken by the average man and woman. Thus, to an ordinary person, it is basically not a method. Dzogchen does not emphasize the yab-yum practice; a Dzogchen practitioner on the path that starts with the preliminaries and culminates in enlightenment is not required to take up this practice; moreover, there are better methods in Dzogchen to realize emptiness.
In the future, if you have the opportunity to engage in formal practice and study the Vajrayana texts, it will become even clearer this is the correct view.
Tantra does indeed have some magical practices that have added to its mystery and caused misunderstanding. Some people who are either not willing or unable to follow the precepts have committed wrongdoing under various pretenses, and brought disgrace to Vajrayana Buddhism. Of course, ordinary people are not perfect in conduct, but any misconduct must be imputed to the person, not to Vajrayana Buddhism.
For most people, the yab-yum practice is not necessary, nor should it be practiced. Even for someone who is quite accomplished in tantra, it is not that necessary since there are better methods that can be used. In sum, the common goal in sutra and tantra is to realize emptiness; the difference lies in methodology. Generally speaking, the methods in sutra are not as good as in tantra; the methods in tantra in general are not as good as in Dzogchen. Because of the unique features of Dzogchen, it is considered the highest of all the practices.
The other aspect unique to tantra, which sutra does not have, is the attainment of the vajra body. When the vajra body is actualized, it does not appear differently from an ordinary person; however, in reality, it is no longer subject to birth, aging, illness, and death, or affected by the four elements of earth, water, fire, and wind.
Because the body is unobstructed, it can easily fly at will or pass through a wall. Of course, this is not the purpose of attaining the vajra body; the real purpose is to transform the body of an ordinary person into the sambhogakaya that is defined by the thirty-two sacred marks and eighty virtuous signs. From the standpoint of sutra, this is totally inconceivable; sutra maintains the physical body dwells in samsara, is impure, and should be eradicated or abandoned.
To most people, this viewpoint in sutra is not incorrect, but tantra contains a lot of methods developed from wisdom that can transform the impure body into a pure body. As an example, a person who consumes poison may die, but a person who knows the way can combat poison with poison. Before realization, our body is a part of samsara; to be liberated, we must abandon it. However, with wisdom and skillful means, we do not have to give it up; rather we can transform it into the buddha body.
The practices in tantra—using winds, channels, and essences and realizing clear light in Dzogchen—are the only way to attain this state. Not having read the teachings in tantra, even some of the venerable monastics in the sutra tradition are not able to accept the assertion that the physical body can be transformed in this way. But tantra indeed has methods rooted in the attainment of realization, which is a capacity of the mind. Actually, the development of the impure body is also a function of the mind; it is impure due to negative karma born of an impure mind.
When the mind is able to attain realization and experience clear light, the impure body can then be transformed into the vajra body. Naturally, other practices are also necessary during the process. This is not merely an exposition; there are many such cases among accomplished masters in the history of Tibet. You must also have heard that, at the actual moment of death of some Dzogchen masters, people witnessed the gradual shrinking of the body until it dissolved into rays of light, and rainbow in the sky.
This transformation of the body is also a function of the mind. Ordinary people do not know how to develop this capability, but practitioners know the key to unlocking such capabilities and can actualize the result for all to see.
This is likened to all the high tech gadgets nowadays that people five to six hundred years ago would not have thought possible. Actually, if people had the technology then, they would be able to develop the same things without having to wait several hundred years later for the right conditions to appear.
In other words, the technology in the production of these modern gadgets has been around since antiquity; it is only that people in the past did not know how to develop it. Similarly, we can now open up the inner world of our mind and discover the wonder inside.
However, lacking the knowhow, we think afflictions and discursive thoughts are things that must be discarded. Without wisdom at the start, this approach has its merit, but once deep insight is attained, we can transform afflictions into the path without eliminating them. This is where tantra is unique. In the sutra system, we have to undergo a very slow and long process of countless kalpas to attain initial realization.
It then takes as much time to progress from the first bhumi to the seventh bhumi. When the eighth bhumi is realized, the consciousness of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, out of the eight kinds of consciousness, are already purified. At that point, the external world we perceive is a buddha realm. This is how it is recorded in the sutras.
In the tantric system, one can transform the impure body into the vajra body in one lifetime through the special practice of manipulating the vital elements of the body and Dzogchen. Tibetan Buddhism gives a very detailed explanation of the vital elements of the body and separates them into four levels—outer, inner, secret, and utmost secret; the vital elements that non-Buddhist traditions refer to constitute only the simplest part of the outer level, and are nowhere near the deeper levels.
It is by way of these pith teachings that tantra can develop the practice explained above. Included in Dzogchen is the bardo practice which describes very clearly the entire process of death. I believe many people have either heard of or read The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Some people in the West who have had near death experiences are shocked by the description in the book, since their initial death experiences were clearly documented thousands of years ago in Tibet.
While the experience of people in the West is limited to the early stage of dying, The Tibetan Book of the Dead teaches not only the entire process of death but also how to manage it. Actually, we can by way of the bardo practice learn to work with and capitalize on the death process when we are still alive. This practice is unthinkable in the sutra system, nor is it undertaken even in the other Tibetan traditions; it is another reason Dzogchen is distinctive.
There are many aspects of Dzogchen that are special, but here we can only cite one to two that are particularly important to highlight the differences between sutra and tantra. To sum up, sutra and tantra are different in one, insight; and two, methods of realizing emptiness.
From the standpoint of emptiness, it is not necessary to employ logic on the tantric path; the clear light nature of mind can be realized here and now. Frankly, considering the logic in elaborate historical analysis about the origins of Tantra from pre-Vedic shamanism, it seems pretty difficult to believe that this myth is in fact correct.
How do you Vajrayanists reconcile with this fact? Unlike the Chinese, Tibetans were poor keepers of historical records during that early period.
Periodically there are more ruins or texts unearthed in India, Afganistan and Pakistan, and the archeologists are able to glean a little bit more about early tantra have a short time to look at them before they are stolen, defaced or destroyed by hungry, greedy or hostile people.
Vajrasattva is here today as much as he was present for Garab Dorje—the first human practitioner of Dzogchen. Same for Vajrapani, and Vajradhara… they are alive and well. After a thousand years, sometimes the dates are a bit off, and a number of lineage holders have dropped into the background while the best of a whole century or generation of adepts may be exemplified by one figure.
Pretty impressive that we know anything! Buddha was born in India, not in New York, and it is a given that Buddhism —both sutra and tantra--incorporates Indian perspectives of the time. The sutras are replete with assumptions that are very foreign to people raised in a Judeo-Christian culture. We mostly hear about them second hand through our lamas, or now-a-days in the back of Ph.
If we make a display of our practices, we will attract many hindrances and negative forces. This would be like someone talking openly and carelessly about a precious jewel they possessed and, as a result, attracting the attention of thieves.
The function of Secret Mantra is to enable us to progress swiftly through the stages of the spiritual path by protecting our mind against ordinary appearances and ordinary conceptions. For more information on this subject, see Tantric Grounds and Paths. Why Practice Tantra? It is often said that the path of Tantra is superior to the path of Sutra, but to understand why this is so we need to engage in a precise study of both Sutra and Tantra; otherwise our statements about the superiority of Tantra will be mere words.
Moreover, if we do not study both Sutra and Tantra well, we shall find it difficult to understand how to practice the union of Sutra and Tantra, and then there will be a great danger of our either rejecting the practice of Tantra or ignoring the practice of Sutra. It is only by following the path of Secret Mantra that we can attain enlightenment, or Buddhahood. Why can we not attain full enlightenment just by practicing the paths of Sutra?
There are two main reasons. Although Sutra teachings present a general explanation of how these two bodies are accomplished in dependence upon the stages of the path of wisdom and method, they do not give precise explanations of the actual direct, substantial causes of these two bodies. The direct, substantial cause of the Truth Body is meaning clear light, and the direct, substantial cause of the Form Body is the illusory body. These are explained only in Secret Mantra. The second reason why Sutra paths cannot lead us to full enlightenment is that Sutra teachings do not present methods for overcoming the very subtle obstructions to omniscience — the subtle dualistic appearances associated with the minds of white appearance, red increase, and black near-attainment.
These three minds become manifest when our inner winds dissolve within the central channel during sleep, during the death process, or during completion stage meditation. Although these minds are subtle minds they are nevertheless contaminated minds because their objects — the appearance of space pervaded by white light, the appearance of space pervaded by red light, and the appearance of space pervaded by darkness — appear as inherently existent.
These appearances of inherent existence are subtle dualistic appearances, and very subtle obstructions to omniscience. Because Sutra teachings do not explain how to recognize the subtle minds of white appearance, red increase, and black near-attainment, Sutra Bodhisattvas are unable even to recognize the subtle dualistic appearances associated with them, let alone abandon them.
In general, dualistic appearance is the appearance to a mind of both its object and inherent existence. All the minds of living beings, with the exception of the exalted awareness of meditative equipoise of Superior beings, have this appearance.
A direct realization of emptiness with a gross mind does not have the power to overcome the subtle dualistic appearances associated with the minds of white appearance, red increase, and black near-attainment. The only way to abandon these subtle dualistic appearances is to realize emptiness directly with a very subtle mind of clear light.
Since the methods for manifesting and using the very subtle mind of clear light are explained only in Secret Mantra, anyone who wishes to attain Buddhahood definitely needs to enter this path. Shunyata is the nature of mind and tantra picks up seemlessly with where that realization left off.
These are nirvana dharma seal. Tantra is part of Tibetan Buddhism and is the diamond indestructible vehicle because there is nothing left out and nothing to add. As taiyaki said in another thread 'the fruit is the path. Did I mention that tantra ONLY can legitimitely, 'authentically', definitively, and safely be taught as a pointing out instruction. Otherwise it would be like trying to learn to speak english from a dictionary.
I do not intend to argue about this, but just to let people know that caznamyaw's views on the superiority of certain Tibetan traditions are by no means universal. In particular, again, without wanting to dispute this myself, because I've seen a lot of these arguments go nowhere, I suggest that the characterisation of all other traditions as limited 'sutra' traditions as opposed to complete 'tantric' methods, should be considered and investigated in an unbiased way before being accepted.
I see tantra as a patchwork of non-sectarian methods. PrairieGhost , could you elaborate on how tantra is a patchwork of non-sectarian methods? For example, what do you mean by non-sectarian? The Tibetans adopted Indian Tantras, which were practical techniques that influenced various religions. Breath meditation is tantra, as is kundalini yoga, metta practice, mantra practice, tai chi etc. Every tradition has experts who claim that their versions of these techniques are profoundly opposite to the techniques of other sects, and only appear similar on a surface level.
Or that other sects are purely theoretical, whereas theirs is practical. Whether that is true or not is something I would encourage others to keep an open mind about; I don't know everything, am by no means an expert, but I have noticed in this world a historic tendency for religious supercessionalism and the mischaracterisation of other traditions, and am therefore suggesting people bear this in mind and investigate for themselves.
I keep an open mind to Vajrayanan claims. Also keep in mind that the traditional way of explaining things often uses a certain "dialect" if you can call it that. Traditional phrases you will hear over and over; if we translate it too directly, or without knowing that some things are a figure of speech, it can be confusing. For example, a teacher may introduce the Vajrasattva mantra, and at some point in the lesson will say something like "this mantra is supreme for purification.
It would be similar to hearing the Christian phrase, "most loving Father" one day and then "most loving Savior" the next; a non-native English speaker, or someone unfamiliar with Christian dialect, might be confused and think there is some kind of competition going on, and that it's not clear who is the most loving.
At the beginning of sutras themselves you will often hear them introduced as being the "best" in some way, but this is really a figure of speech praising that particular sutra. In older English we used to have more of this "praise" speech ourselves, but it's gone out of fashion for the most part. This is not to say there are no differences between practices; tantra is definitely taught as being a practical path for a householder i.
Tantra tries to make use of everyday life as a means of practice, instead. However, tantra is not in opposition to sutra, and the basics of Buddhism ethics, wisdom, compassion, etc. I think it's very valuable to discuss this issue, because it can sound very complicated, and is very often misunderstood. People get unnecessarily fearful and spooked over tantra, in my opinion, mostly due to misunderstanding and disinformation.
We generally accept, for example, that visualizing success on the sports field visualizing making a basket, or hitting a ball farther, etc. This is a reasoned belief for many now, because scientific studies show that visualization does have an effect. This familiarity with visualiation is not something every culture has yet. This point of dissimilarity between sutra and tantra integrates the second point and the fourth point discussed above. Every word in tantra can be explained on many different levels.
All tantric practitioners have the requisite capacity for the tantric path, but the ripening of that capacity can vary and so the inner meaning of the same word is revealed differently to people of varied capacity.
The reason is that ancient India was a complex place with many schools of thought and belief; people were quite open, active, and free spirited at that time. Thousands of Brahmins once pretended to give up their own faith and converted to Buddhism, but their real intention was to destroy Buddhism by mixing the Brahmin view with Buddhist theories. This went on secretly for many centuries. However, there were ways to handle this problem. The Buddha knew this would happen long ago, so he withheld the true meaning of many Buddhist terms from them.
Many tantric contents were kept secret, including the astronomical calculation in the Kalacakra Tantra, especially some of the tantric terminologies. Even though non-Buddhists also use exactly the same terms, the real meanings are completely different between the two groups. This is why tantra strongly emphasizes the importance of lineage.
Oral transmission from the vajra master is absolutely necessary for realization to be attained in tantra, because without it, one cannot even understand fully the theoretical part of the teaching. On the other hand, the viewpoints of sutrayana such as impermanence, suffering, no-self, etc. For example, the opposite of impermanence is permanence. No Buddhist would acknowledge phenomena are permanent, so there is no way it can be mixed up with other views.
If other views were incorporated, it would be pretty obvious. As mentioned earlier, when a person has gallbladder disease, a white object looks yellow. If someone is born with this disease, he or she will naturally believe all white things are yellow and not for a second think there is a problem on his or her part.
When later on the disease is treated, the person will gradually see things turn from yellow to white but think the change is taking place externally rather than from within. By the same token, we were born with defilement and ignorance, so the world we see is a kind of distorted illusion. Subsequently, through the help of Dharma practice, we slowly come to realize all phenomena are indeed the realm of the buddha.
It is clearly stated in chapter six of Beacon of Certainty, as well as the view held by Tibetan tantra, that all phenomena are the mandala of the buddha. When actually deducing this point, the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism takes some unique approaches which are not only conceptually simple but also very persuasive.
In addition, Rongzom Pandita always stressed that every sentient being sees a different world; it does not mean the reality of the world is different, only the experience or appearance of it is different. Subjective idealism is right about this point. George Berkeley maintained existence is that which is perceived; nothing exists other than human cognition. But he was wrong in his subsequent reasoning. Despite this, materialism cannot overturn the theory of subjective idealism.
The Buddhist view is that if a being from each of the six realms, a bodhisattva of the eighth bhumi, and a buddha, representing eight different states of mind, all go to the same place and look at the same glass of water, each will see a different phenomenon: a being from the hell realm sees the water as boiling liquid copper, liquid iron and the like; a hungry ghost sees blood, pus, etc.
These eight phenomena cannot all be accurate and true; there can only be one truth and that is the realm of the buddha—the ultimate, the absolute truth of all. Why is that? The reason is because the other phenomena are all products of ignorance, and the products vary depending on the extent of ignorance.
Although these phenomena get increasingly close to the truth, none of the representatives except the buddha can see true reality. Simply put, what we see now is not the state of the buddha nor the absolute reality of matter, only its relative reality. Even if our vision is very good, without any obstruction, what we can see is only the gross aspects of things.
In this sense, it can also be said that our conclusion about the world around us is accurate, but we cannot see anything beyond this, such as the atom, electron, nucleon, etc. All these therefore are just relative reality, while absolute reality only the buddha knows. The view of the highest state of sutrayana holds that the external world is not real, but it exists despite being impermanent and illusory; whereas the view of tantra is that when our ignorance is eliminated, the external world will change as a result.
We all know that a buddha has three levels of manifestation—dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya. Many wrathful and peaceful deities in Vajrayana, such as the Five Dhyani Buddhas, are basically the sambhogakaya.
This kind of buddha can provisionally be the central deity in the mandala we are referring to; however, this is only the state of an eighth-bhumi bodhisattva, not that of a buddha. It is stated in the Diamond Sutra and many other sutrayana texts that any buddha image showing colors and shapes along with the head and hands is not the most definitive meaning of the buddha.
From the comparisons presented so far, we can conclude that although sutra can be used to great effect, the solutions that can really help us at the end must still come from tantra. During the time of Sakyamuni Buddha, people were relatively simple, leading a slower-paced lifestyle and with moderate afflictions.
Whereas people today are very complicated, very busy and burdened with gross defilement. That is why Sakyamuni Buddha at the time chose to expound teachings of the sutra system first. He believed tantric teachings should be widely propagated to benefit people in modern times.
Now years later, we find the current situation is exactly so. As I know very little about the rest, I will not make any passing comment. Presently, in the practices of sutra, I think the Pure Land practice is more promising. If one does not have a particularly sharp faculty nor the time to take up a whole series of practice, it is best to choose the Pure Land school, the reason being that its practice is practical, not likely to sidetrack its practitioners, and requires no realization.
I think the Amitabha practice is the best hope for those who really have no other way to practice. Pure Land practice is also available in tantra; it is basically no different from that in sutra except for the addition of Amitabha empowerment and visualization.
Therefore, in my opinion, if one is unable to handle other practices, one should take up the Pure Land practice as it is faster and more practical. Many people who turned to Buddhism came from different backgrounds and often with different faiths; if all of a sudden a term was used that conveyed a view very different from what they originally held, they would reject it right off.
Confucianism upholds the basic goodness of human beings, while some Western religions maintain mankind is here to atone for its original sin. But I think neither Eastern nor Western philosophy can elucidate the very essence of matter, or what the true face of the world is. Buddhism holds that goodness and evil are only a product of the basic nature—an external phenomenon, nothing real. There can be no second face besides this. Under close examination, there are gross and subtle aspects of everything in the world.
For example, matter at the grossest level is its solid state such as earth, stone, wood, etc. In fact, Buddhism discovered the existence of energy very early on. Although it is not called energy, it is a concept similar to that of energy, a very subtle matter that exists beyond our perception. Among the desire, form, and formless realms, the bodies of beings in the desire realm are formed by these very subtle matter. These subtle matter are similar to dark matter, energy, and other such things that people in the past, even scientists, never even thought of.
Now that matter such as these are gradually being discovered, science is also beginning to move closer to the Buddhist view. Sentient beings of the six realms also differ in terms of the gross and subtle aspects of their body and mind. At the very gross level are beings in the hell realm; their bodies, their environment, their suffering, and all other aspects are the coarsest.
Next are animals and hungry ghosts. We can all see animals and some hungry ghosts occasionally; many of the possessed beings are hungry ghosts. Sometimes we may hear some people say they have seen ghosts. Of course, not all are necessarily true; some ghost sightings may just be their own illusions, but ghosts do actually exist and we have proof of that as well.
More subtle than animals and ghosts are human beings. Their living environment, body, life, etc. Last are celestial beings.
There are also three types of celestial beings—those of the desire realm, form realm, and formless realm. Their body, life, environment, wisdom, and so on are increasingly more refined, transparent, and subtle. Besides the general differences among the six realms, there are also gross, medium, and subtle differences in each realm. This is just a law of nature. Apart from external phenomena, our internal mental state has many aspects as well. At the very gross level are the thoughts that ordinary people go through in everyday life.
The subtler aspect is the state of meditative concentration of humans and celestial beings. In fact, the state of the buddha is beyond the boundary of being subtle and gross. We can never describe it in words, only know it through personal experience.
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