Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire (4 page)

At this point he decided to give up this inflexible approach and follow a path more suitable to true spiritual development. The traditional accounts of his life relate that he broke his prolonged fast with a meal of milk-rice offered by a woman named Sujata. The effect this food had on his body and mind was extraordinary; it filled him with strength, clarity, and bliss. This sudden resurgence of mental and physical energy increased not only his determination but also his ability to gain the full enlightenment that was his goal. The fact that he then went on to achieve complete liberation after only one night’s meditation under the Tree of Enlightenment clearly shows that the time was ripe for him to abandon his previous ascetic practices. From a tantric point of view, these events show that the path of utilizing pleasure and desire is far more profound and effective than the path of rigid self-denial.

Later, after Buddha had become well-known as a highly realized teacher capable of guiding all different types of people to fulfillment, a king requested to be shown a path of spiritual development suitable for someone with important social obligations. “As a king I have the responsibility of taking care of my subjects,” he explained, “and it would be wrong for me to abandon them.

I cannot do as you did: give everything away, go into the jungle and follow the ascetic life. What I need is a way of using the royal life itself as a path to spiritual fulfillment. Therefore, if you have a method for transforming my everyday actions as a king into a spiritual path, please teach it to me.” Buddha replied that he did, in fact, have such a method: the practice of tantra. “With this method you can continue to discharge your responsibilities,” he explained, “and need not give up any of your royal pleasures.” He told the king that he could, in fact, enjoy himself as much as possible and still be progressing toward enlightenment.

The teaching that Buddha gave the king was the Kalachakra (Cycle of Time) Tantra, and the lineages of this and many other tantric teachings have remained unbroken and powerful up to the present day. Countless Indians and Tibetans have achieved full enlightenment by following these methods and there is absolutely no reason why Westerners cannot benefit in the same way.

FOLLOWI NG TH E P ATH TODAY

Tantra is particularly well-suited to the Western mentality; being the quickest of all paths it should appeal strongly to the West’s love of instant results.

Furthermore, the path of tantra is essentially one of transformation and the principle of transformation of energy—on a material level at least—is well understood in the West. Finally, while the great explosion of desirous energy in this century is considered to be a serious obstacle to most spiritual paths, it is actually helpful for the practice of tantra where desire is the fuel propelling us to our highest destination. Perhaps only a path like tantra, with its emphasis on direct experience rather than blind acceptance, can rouse us out of our self-destructive patterns and give us the opportunity to fulfill ourselves completely.

However, if we are to derive real value from this path we have to be clear about certain important points. First of all, our motivation for practicing tantra must be as pure as possible. This point will be discussed at greater length later (see Chapter 6); for now it is enough to say that there is absolutely no way for us to reap the immeasurable benefits of tantra if our motivation is centered on our own welfare alone. The only type of person for whom tantra can work is someone who is primarily concerned with benefiting others and sees the tantric path as the quickest and most powerful way of accomplishing this altruistic aim.

Secondly, we must have the patience and self-discipline to engage in the practices in a well-ordered manner. To think, as many people do, “Since tantra is the highest path, it is not necessary for me to bother about the preliminary practices” and then jump into the most advanced teachings is both foolish and arrogant; it is also very dangerous. Anyone who has such an impatient and unrealistic attitude is completely unqualified to receive instruction in tantra.

Finally, it is very important to be able to differentiate clearly between the essence of tantra and the cultural forms in which it is currently wrapped.

What I mean by this is that there is no benefit in a Westerner’s pretending to look or act like a Tibetan, or any other Asian for that matter. Learning to say prayers in a foreign language, for instance, is not in itself the way to fulfill our highest human potential; there is nothing of transcending value to be gained from substituting one set of cultural conventions for another. People whose practice remains on this superficial level end up with nothing but confusion, not knowing who they are or what they should do. Of course, during this time of transition when the tantric teachings are moving from the East to the West, there is a lot to be gained from the study of the Tibetan language and so forth. But my point is that we should always bear in mind that tantra is something far deeper than language or custom. What tantra has to teach us is a way of breaking free from all the conditioning that limits our understanding of who we are and what we can become. If we approach these powerful teachings with clear-sighted intelligence and a strong determination to extract their essence, we can definitely bring to our life the wholeness and inner satisfaction that we all seek.

Four-Armed Chenrezig

Pl e a sure , Disa ppointme nt, a nd Ful f i l l me nt

TANTRA AND ENJOYMENT

THE FUNCTION OF TANTRA is to transform all pleasures into the transcendental experience of deep penetrative awareness. Instead of advocating separation from worldly pleasures the way many other traditions do, tantra emphasizes that it is much more effective for human beings to enjoy themselves and channel the energy of their enjoyments into a quick and powerful path to fulfillment and enlightenment. This is the most skillful way of using our precious human potential.

Through its methods of profound transformation, tantra demonstrates that as human beings we have the capacity to enjoy limitless, blissful happiness while at the same time remaining free of the delusions that normally contaminate our pursuit of pleasure. Contrary to what some people might believe, there is nothing wrong with having pleasures and enjoyments. What is wrong is the confused way we grasp onto these pleasures, turning them from a source of happiness into a source of pain and dissatisfaction. It is such grasping and attachment that is the problem, not the pleasures themselves.

Therefore, if we could free ourselves from this habitual grasping, we could enjoy ourselves as much as we want without any of the difficulties that usually accompany our ordinary compulsive search for pleasure.

With the proper understanding of transformation, whatever we do, twenty-four hours a day, can bring us closer to our goal of totality and self-fulfillment. All our actions—walking, eating, and even urinating!—can be brought into our spiritual path. Even our sleep, which is usually spent in the darkness of unconsciousness or in the chaos of dreams, can be turned into the clear light experience of subtle, penetrating wisdom.

Perhaps all this sounds impossible. Certainly other more gradual spiritual approaches, including those of the sutra path of Buddhism itself, stress that desire, jealousy, and the other delusions of our daily life are always impure and should be treated as poisons. We are constantly reminded of their dangerous effects and are instructed to avoid their influence as much as possible. But, as has been pointed out already, tantra takes a different approach. Although it also insists that delusions such as desirous attachment are the source of our dissatisfaction and suffering and therefore must be overcome, it teaches skillful ways of using the energy of these delusions to deepen our awareness and speed our spiritual progress. Just as those with skill can take poisonous plants and turn them into powerful medicine, so too can the skillful and well-trained tantric practitioner manipulate the energy of desire and even anger to advantage. This is definitely possible.

I MAGES OF WH OLENESS

Tantra not only teaches us how to take advantage of our ordinary pleasurable experiences, it also shows us how to activate a deeper, more intense, and ultimately more satisfying experience of bliss than is ordinarily available through our physical senses.

At present our search for pleasure is habitually directed outward toward external objects of our desire. When we cannot find, or hold onto, these desired objects, we become frustrated and unhappy. For example, many of us are looking for the man or the woman of our dreams, someone who will be the source of limitless happiness for us, yet no matter how many boyfriends or girlfriends we might collect, these dreams remain unfulfilled.

What we do not realize is that within each one of us is an unlimited source of both male and female energy. So many of our problems arise because we are either ignorant of, or we suppress, what we have within us. Men try to hide their female side and women are afraid of expressing their male energy. As a result we always feel cut off from something we need. We do not feel whole and therefore turn expectantly toward other people for the qualities missing in ourselves in the hope of gaining some sense of completeness. As a result, much of our behavior becomes contaminated by insecurity and possessiveness. In fact, all the problems in the world, from one person’s anxiety to warfare between nations, can be traced to this feeling of not being whole.

If necessary, great yogis and yoginis can spend years in solitary isolation without feeling lonely. Yet we may feel unbearably lonely if we are separated from our boyfriend or girlfriend for even one day! Why is there such a great difference between ourselves and the yogis? This has to do with our own internal male and female energies. As long as they are fragmented and unbalanced we will remain desperate for the company of others and incapable of being satisfied. If our internal male/female mandala were complete, however, we would never experience the pain of loneliness at all.

Tantra provides powerful methods for getting in touch with our essential wholeness. Tantric art is filled with potent symbols of the unity and completeness characteristic of our fully realized potential. The image of male and female deities in sexual embrace—taken by some early Western interpreters of Tibetan Buddhism as a sign of its degeneration—is a symbolic portrayal of the inner unification of our own male and female energies. On a deeper level, their embrace symbolizes the aim of the very highest tantric practices: generation of a most subtle and blissful state of mind that, by its very nature, is supremely suited to penetrate ultimate reality and free us from all delusion and suffering. On this level, the male figure represents the experience of great bliss while the female is the symbol of nondual wisdom. Thus their union has nothing whatsoever to do with the gratification of the senses but rather indicates a totally integrated state of blissful wisdom that completely transcends ordinary sense desires.

For those who are ripe, merely seeing such an image can help restore the connection between the male and female aspects of their being. For this connection to be re-established, however, it is necessary to cut through the influence of the over-intellectualizing conceptual mind. It is this type of conceptualization that is largely responsible for the feeling of being alienated from our inner reality. That is one reason why symbols and images such as those used in tantric art and visualization can be so much more effective than mere words in introducing us to our essential nature.

FOUR CLASSES OF TANTRA

There are four classes or levels of Buddhist tantra known respectively as action, performance, yoga, and highest yoga tantra. Each class is designed for a particular type of practitioner and what differentiates one class from another is the intensity of desirous energy the practitioner is skillful enough to direct into the spiritual path. Traditionally, these differing levels of blissful energy are illustrated by examples of increasing sexual intimacy. Thus it is said that the practitioner of the lowest level of tantra is one who is able to use and transform the blissful energy that arises merely from looking at an attractive partner. On the second level, it is the energy of exchanging smiles or laughter with this partner that is transformed. On the third level, the energy used is that of holding hands, while the qualified practitioner of highest yoga tantra has the skill to direct into the spiritual path the desirous energy of sexual union itself. This very powerful imagery gives us an idea of the steadily increasing range of energy that can be channeled and transformed through the practice of tantra.