What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

General discussion, particularly exploring the Dharma in the modern world.
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Dechen Norbu
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by Dechen Norbu »

tamdrin wrote:geez most people are happy when they learn that Tibetan Buddhism can include sex! IT makes them flock to it.. but you, you're bound by some weird protestant morality! LOL
Most flock by the wrong reasons :lol: , but I agree with you.
You know there are people who consider this:
Image

pornography!

It's ridiculous! They are so strongly attached to their preconceptions that instead of learning Dharma they give it a spin so it fits them. When others tell them about it, they denigrate teachers and schools, then play the victim and finally cry wolf.

It's sad. :|
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Aemilius
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by Aemilius »

Urgyen Chodron wrote:you miss my point. i know that there are sex scandals in zen as well as in tibetan teachings. i have been around long enough to know this and to read about it. i am leaving because i do not believe in tantric teachings. period. leaving because my teacher teaches the kalachakra tantra. i have no idea about whether he engages in tantric sex or not. i just don't believe that buddha taught such things.
Kalachakra is about State Religion, about how Dharma must be to be a Religion of State, a Doctrine of a Republic. Therefore and necessarily it is about power, you can't excape it. In any State there are secrets, unbelievable secrets, about the functioning of the mass minds, how it is controlled, etc... Show us a State without secrets ? Kalachakra is pure Dharma.
I am certain that it is a teaching of Buddha for special needs, for the needs of a King. Who then abolishes the four castes and creates a State where everyone belongs to the same caste, i.e. the Vajra caste,... Read the Kalachakra tantra differently, without an emphasis on "sex", it really isn't about sex at all!
svaha
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Sarvē mānavāḥ svatantrāḥ samutpannāḥ vartantē api ca, gauravadr̥śā adhikāradr̥śā ca samānāḥ ēva vartantē. Ētē sarvē cētanā-tarka-śaktibhyāṁ susampannāḥ santi. Api ca, sarvē’pi bandhutva-bhāvanayā parasparaṁ vyavaharantu."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1. (in english and sanskrit)
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fragrant herbs
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by fragrant herbs »

I understand things better now, and so I am not leaving. My teacher doesn't practice it as such.

I also learned from a reliable source, an atheist Buddhist, that the Trimondi's book is not to be taken seriously, and I wish the OP to know this.

I do not have weird protestant morality. Just because I don't believe that teachers should be sleeping with their disciples or that sex should be used to reach high states of meditation, does not make me a weird protestant. You don't need the use of sex to reach enlightenment, and I also agree with Dechen, that most flock to tantric teachings for the wrong reason, and that too is materialism. Sometimes, they may wind up with teachers who do take advantage of them, but maybe that is what they wanted too. The book, Sex and the Spiritual Teacher, is a good read.
DGA
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by DGA »

I think it's absolutely reasonable for someone to expect not to be sexually assaulted or harassed by their spiritual teachers. Or for that matter, lied to by their teachers, about sex or anything else.

Here's an example of what can happen to a Buddhist community when these and related matters of control get out of control (read around and you'll see what I mean).

http://obcconnect.forumotion.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Malcolm
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by Malcolm »

Urgyen Chodron wrote:I understand things better now, and so I am not leaving. My teacher doesn't practice it as such.

I also learned from a reliable source, an atheist Buddhist, that the Trimondi's book is not to be taken seriously, and I wish the OP to know this.

I do not have weird protestant morality. Just because I don't believe that teachers should be sleeping with their disciples or that sex should be used to reach high states of meditation, does not make me a weird protestant. You don't need the use of sex to reach enlightenment, and I also agree with Dechen, that most flock to tantric teachings for the wrong reason, and that too is materialism. Sometimes, they may wind up with teachers who do take advantage of them, but maybe that is what they wanted too. The book, Sex and the Spiritual Teacher, is a good read.

Fundamentally, Vajrayāna is a path of non-renunciation. In other words, in Vajrayāna we are not rejecting any dimension of our experience on the path. Therefore, since we do not reject any of our experience, we have to integrate all of our experience on the path, including our sexuality. If we do not, our path is not complete and our sexual experience continues to be a cause for more samsara.

If you are practicing any kind of mandala yoga for example Kalacakra or Vajrayogini, it is a 24/7 practice.

The person who wrote the book above has no insight in Vajrayāna. He is coming from the Zen tradition. This is fine, but there it is not appropriate to apply his point of view to Vajrayāna.

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tamdrin
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by tamdrin »

Urgyen Chodron wrote:I understand things better now, and so I am not leaving. My teacher doesn't practice it as such.

I also learned from a reliable source, an atheist Buddhist, that the Trimondi's book is not to be taken seriously, and I wish the OP to know this.

I do not have weird protestant morality. Just because I don't believe that teachers should be sleeping with their disciples or that sex should be used to reach high states of meditation, does not make me a weird protestant. You don't need the use of sex to reach enlightenment, and I also agree with Dechen, that most flock to tantric teachings for the wrong reason, and that too is materialism. Sometimes, they may wind up with teachers who do take advantage of them, but maybe that is what they wanted too. The book, Sex and the Spiritual Teacher, is a good read.

Actually according to Highest Yoga Tantra .. You do need sex to reach enlightenment, .. but that is another discussion.. If you don't like the idea of sex as practice and want to practice Vajrayana your best bet is with the Gelukpa sect as they, in general, follow the example of Je Tsongkhapa who maintained pure monastic vows, thus he didn't use a consort, and consequently he was said to have achieved enlightenment in the bardo instead of in this life. Although there are always exeptions, in Gelukpa too.. Stuff happens in secret, people aren't perfect. And this type of consort practice that is found in vajrayana is not a teacher taking advantage of a student, or at least it shouldn't be- I agree with you there! What pissess me off is the monks who pretend on the outside that they are monks- but in secret they take women.. This is pretty common in Tibetan Buddhism-unfortunately. Maybe you should question yourself as to why you feel such an aversion to people using sex on the path if it is a consensual relationship?
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LastLegend
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by LastLegend »

Namdrol wrote: Fundamentally, Vajrayāna is a path of non-renunciation. In other words, in Vajrayāna we are not rejecting any dimension of our experience on the path. Therefore, since we do not reject any of our experience, we have to integrate all of our experience on the path, including our sexuality. If we do not, our path is not complete and our sexual experience continues to be a cause for more samsara.
Experiment yes but at the end you have to get rid of it completely if you want to achieve enlightenment, then you have to uproot the anchored habit of lust as this is one of the chains in DO. I am talking about birth.
It’s eye blinking.
Malcolm
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by Malcolm »

LastLegend wrote:
Namdrol wrote: Fundamentally, Vajrayāna is a path of non-renunciation. In other words, in Vajrayāna we are not rejecting any dimension of our experience on the path. Therefore, since we do not reject any of our experience, we have to integrate all of our experience on the path, including our sexuality. If we do not, our path is not complete and our sexual experience continues to be a cause for more samsara.
Experiment yes but at the end you have to get rid of it completely if you want to achieve enlightenment, then you have to uproot the anchored habit of lust as this is one of the chains in DO. I am talking about birth.

You are not a Vajrayāna practitioner, you don't understand. Vajrayāna is not a path of renunciation. Desire is not "uprooted", it is transformed.

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LastLegend
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by LastLegend »

Hopefully you will transform the lust and don't let the lust transform you :rolling:

And what how does this transformation work? Does the transformation of this lust happen during the process of realizing enlightenment or when you are enlightened?
It’s eye blinking.
Malcolm
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by Malcolm »

LastLegend wrote:Hopefully you will transform the lust and don't let the lust transform you :rolling:

And what how does this transformation work? Does the transformation of this lust happen during the process of realizing enlightenment or when you are enlightened?

It is the path.
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LastLegend
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by LastLegend »

Thanks
It’s eye blinking.
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fragrant herbs
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by fragrant herbs »

tamdrin wrote:
Urgyen Chodron wrote:
If you don't like the idea of sex as practice and want to practice Vajrayana your best bet is with the Gelukpa sect as they, in general, follow the example of Je Tsongkhapa who maintained pure monastic vows, thus he didn't use a consort, and consequently he was said to have achieved enlightenment in the bardo instead of in this life. Although there are always exeptions, in Gelukpa too.. Stuff happens in secret, people aren't perfect. And this type of consort practice that is found in vajrayana is not a teacher taking advantage of a student, or at least it shouldn't be- I agree with you there! What pissess me off is the monks who pretend on the outside that they are monks- but in secret they take women.. This is pretty common in Tibetan Buddhism-unfortunately. Maybe you should question yourself as to why you feel such an aversion to people using sex on the path if it is a consensual relationship?
Thank you so much for this post. Even my teacher said that they do not practice in the way I feared and that they keep monastic vows. I thought it was all the same.

Thank you all for your posts since I last posted, as it cleared up many misconceptions.
Malcolm
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by Malcolm »

Urgyen Chodron wrote:
tamdrin wrote:
Urgyen Chodron wrote:
If you don't like the idea of sex as practice and want to practice Vajrayana your best bet is with the Gelukpa sect as they, in general, follow the example of Je Tsongkhapa who maintained pure monastic vows, thus he didn't use a consort, and consequently he was said to have achieved enlightenment in the bardo instead of in this life. Although there are always exeptions, in Gelukpa too.. Stuff happens in secret, people aren't perfect. And this type of consort practice that is found in vajrayana is not a teacher taking advantage of a student, or at least it shouldn't be- I agree with you there! What pissess me off is the monks who pretend on the outside that they are monks- but in secret they take women.. This is pretty common in Tibetan Buddhism-unfortunately. Maybe you should question yourself as to why you feel such an aversion to people using sex on the path if it is a consensual relationship?
Thank you so much for this post. Even my teacher said that they do not practice in the way I feared and that they keep monastic vows. I thought it was all the same.

Thank you all for your posts since I last posted, as it cleared up many misconceptions.
If you are a monk, it is considered that you should not break your monastic vows.

However, most mahāsiddhas who were monks left their vows and took up with female partners. For example, Saraha, Naropa, Virupa, etc., the list is quite long.

N
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fragrant herbs
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by fragrant herbs »

My feeling about lamas and other gurus is that I think they could be married and still be a lama. It is the secrecy that I don't like because it harms the sangha.
Malcolm
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by Malcolm »

Urgyen Chodron wrote:My feeling about lamas and other gurus is that I think they could be married and still be a lama. It is the secrecy that I don't like because it harms the sangha.
Sometimes, when you are an advanced practitioner, there are kinds of conduct you must keep secret until you have mastered stability in your practice. For example, eating meat, drinking wine, etc. these things were very shocking in ancient Buddhist India.

Now of course many of these things have become kind of a ritual divorced from their real context.

However, if you are a Lama and you are sleeping with someone other than your wife secretly, this is hard to justify. It is quite another thing if it is all out in the open.

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tamdrin
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by tamdrin »

What is the reason behind tankrikas drinking alchohol exactly? Like, copious amounts?
Malcolm
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by Malcolm »

tamdrin wrote:What is the reason behind tankrikas drinking alchohol exactly? Like, copious amounts?

Conducts are in general used to test one's "heat" on the path of application.

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conebeckham
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by conebeckham »

"Entering the Action" is an interesting topic...but I think we have to be realistic, very few of us are at the stage of coming out of the woods/down from the mountain and hitting the bars and clubs....we should be heading up the mountain, most of us, I think. :soapbox:
དམ་པའི་དོན་ནི་ཤེས་རབ་ཆེ་བ་དང་།
རྟོག་གེའི་ཡུལ་མིན་བླ་མའི་བྱིན་རླབས་དང་།
སྐལ་ལྡན་ལས་འཕྲོ་ཅན་གྱིས་རྟོགས་པ་སྟེ།
དེ་ནི་ཤེས་རབ་ལ་ནི་ལོ་རྟོག་སེལ།།


"Absolute Truth is not an object of analytical discourse or great discriminating wisdom,
It is realized through the blessing grace of the Guru and fortunate Karmic potential.
Like this, mistaken ideas of discriminating wisdom are clarified."
- (Kyabje Bokar Rinpoche, from his summary of "The Ocean of Definitive Meaning")
Jnana
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by Jnana »

conebeckham wrote:we should be heading up the mountain
Yes, this is what seems to work for me. Tilopa:
  • With insight into your sorry worldly predicament,
    Realising that nothing can last, that all is as dreamlike illusion,
    Meaningless illusion provoking frustration and boredom,
    Turn around and abandon your mundane pursuits.
    Cut away involvement with your homeland and friends
    And meditate alone in a forest or mountain retreat;
    Exist there in a state of non-meditation
    And attaining no-attainment, you attain Mahamudra.
All the best,

Geoff
tamdrin
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Re: What is a tantric teaching in Buddhism?

Post by tamdrin »

Yes I agree, one will find more satisfaction meditating in the mountains than wandering the cities- mind full of the 3 poisons...
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