Tantra: Bringing the result into the path

I’m carrying on from this article on Tantra, and how we can use the power of bliss, wisdom, and the creative power of our imagination swiftly to switch our sense of being stuck and limited with the sense of being liberated and enlightened.

Of course we cannot say we are ACTUALLY a Buddha, but we can’t say we are ACTUALLY a neurotic person either. Identifying with our good qualities, identifying with future perfection, will actualize that result far more quickly than if we are thinking, “I am generally quite hopeless at this, and I’m not a very loving person, in fact I’m a bit of a grumpy git; but nonetheless here I am trying to become a Buddha.” There is always a gap then between whom we think we are and whom we are aspiring to be, isn’t there? Enlightenment is somewhere over there, my future attainment is far away from me, and I am over here – the gap will always be there for as long as we identify with being limited, ordinary, deluded. So we want to bridge that gap by thinking, “I’m already an enlightened being,” and then from that vantage point we can quickly increase our qualities.

It’s a bit like tying shoelaces

Here’s a simple illustration. Do you remember once upon a time learning to tie your shoelaces?  You once had no clue, but then some kind person showed you, “This is how you do it.” I remember my mom teaching me, “This is how you do it, darling”, and I remember  the self-doubt, “Oh come on, that’s impossible! What do you expect from me!? I’m only five!” Tying these wiggly strings together in some strange formation, struggling, fumbling – on one level I remember trying, but on another level I was thinking, “Seriously? How am I supposed to do this!? I am not the kind of person who is lucky enough to tie shoelaces. Others may be able to. Maybe I’ll be able to when I’m 18 or something. Meanwhile I’ll stick with Velcro.” My mother was patient, “You can do it!”

Buddha is similarly very kind and patient, painstakingly pointing out to us that we can do it, he did it, others have done it, we have the potential, and the teachings and methods exist. The only thing stopping us is us. “This is how you do it!” And we think, “Noooo, I can’t, it is too tricky, other people can do it.” Or, “Maybe I’ll get enlightened in a future life or something, at some distant point in the future; I’ll just create some good karma in this one – after all, you can sow seeds for a happy future while going around being totally miserable, can’t you?! Can’t you?!” There is some discouragement going on.

But, going back to the shoelaces, I remember thinking one day while my mother was showing me (again), “Well, maybe I can actually do this.” And that was the day I could. Before we know how to tie our shoelaces, there is the thought, “I can tie my shoelaces. And I will.” There is that moment. It is the same for driving a car, using a computer, any skill – a point when we think “I can do this!” even though technically we can’t yet. And that is when we find we learn how to do it.

That is bringing the future result into the present path. “I can do this. I am already arising as a Buddha in an enlightened Pure Land, helping all living beings.” As soon as we can already imagine doing it, that is the point when it starts becoming a reality. And everything is sped up.

Sutra in Technicolor

Sutra are Buddha’s teachings given openly, his exoteric teachings; whereas practicing Tantra requires empowerment or initiation, and are Buddha’s more esoteric teachings for disciples who have some feeling for and commitment to renunciation (the wish for permanent mental freedom), bodhichitta (the compassionate wish to become a Buddha for the sake of others), and the wisdom realizing emptiness.

I sometimes think that Tantra is like Sutra in Technicolor. Tantra is what brings Sutra alive in some ways. Everything comes alive — you let go of your ordinary, limited, deluded sense of yourself by dissolving it into emptiness, and arise as the person you want to be out of your renunciation, bodhichitta, and wisdom.

Now you can believe yourself to be a Buddha who is eternally free, loving, kind, and wise. This so-called “correct imagination” based on the wisdom realizing that nothing is fixed, everything is mere imputation or conceptual label, is just as “realistic,” indeed far more so, than the limited, hallucinatory sense of self projected and fixed by the ignorance of our self-grasping. It also works a great deal better. Regarding ourselves as stuck, ordinary, and suffering keeps us exactly that way, whereas every moment of regarding ourselves as free, enlightened, and blissful draws us into liberation and enlightenment.