Interlude # 2: Introduction to the Tantric Traditions

Tantric traditions are based on a class of South Asian ritual and meditation manuals known as tantras.  The basic idea of all tantric traditions, whether they are Buddhist, Hindu, or Jain, is to use ordinary states of mind, specifically states of desire, in the process of becoming awakened.  In most Buddhist and Hindu traditions, and in both major Jain monastic traditions, the renunciation of the ordinary life of desire is considered a prerequisite for committing oneself to the path of awakening or liberation.  However, the tantric traditions seek to use desire on the path of awakening rather than renounce it altogether.

This does not mean that the tantric traditions encourage self-indulgence.  Rather, what they really do, at least in theory, is to encourage people to transcend base desires using the wisdom at the heart of every one of them.   The wisdom of the Buddha and the Buddha-Nature, or in the tantric Hindu context, of Shiva-Shakti and one’s true identity as Shiva-Shakti, exist in all situations, including those involving sensual desire, and can be realized in all situations, including those involving sensual desire.  It is this insight that the tantric traditions seek to utilize in the pursuit of wisdom through desire. 

Other major practices of the tantric traditions include secret rituals and initiation ceremonies, complete dedication to one’s guru as equivalent or identical to a deity or a buddha (depending on the tradition, though Tibetan Buddhism includes both), elaborate visualization practices (of deities and other important beings), the use of mandalas (or maps of the cosmos) and yantras ( or geometric designs representing deities and concepts), the use of mudras (or stylized hand gestures – though this word also refers to “parched grain,” one of the five taboo substances discussed below), and the use of mantras (best translated as “sacred phrases”).

Ritualized sex is part of the tantric traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism, at least in theory (and often in practice as well), but it is not the central practice of any form of tantrism, whether Buddhist or Hindu (and it is absent in Jainism, the tantric tradition of which is of the extreme “right hand” variety).  However, sexual intercourse is one of the five things that were traditionally taboo for monks and mendicants to do in South Asian society, along with consuming alcohol, eating meat, eating fish, and eating parched grain, all of which tantric practitioners did and still do either literally or symbolically.  These five taboos are known as Panchamakara, or the “Five M’s” – because they all begin with that letter in Sanskrit.  Antinomian behavior, which consists of engaging in the “Five M’s” as well as other taboo activities, is part of many tantric traditions.  It is very prominent in the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as in the Kapalika and non-tantric Pashupata traditions of Shaivism and the tantric Kalikula traditions of Shaktism, all of which can safely be categorized as “left-hand” forms of tantrism (with the Pashupata simply being a form of “left-hand” cremation-ground asceticism rather than left-hand tantrism). 

However, other tantric traditions, such as the Geluk sect of Tibetan Buddhism headed by the Dalai Lama, the popular Shaiva Siddhanta tradition of Southern India, the householder tradition of monistic Shaivism that is usually known as “Kashmir Shaivism” (and which is based on Kapalika or “Cremation-Ground” Shaivism, but no longer incorporates that element of the Shaiva tradition in practice), and the Srikula traditions of Shaktism, discourage antinomian behavior almost entirely (or even altogether), allowing it only for the most advanced practitioners, and even then only on rare occasions.  These “right hand” tantric traditions interpret the “Five M’s” symbolically, and often go out of their way to discourage antinomianism among their practitioners, especially their monastics and priests. 

Tantric practices are part of all the following traditions: Shingon Buddhism (which is the oldest school of tantric Buddhism, and is still popular in Japan); Tendai Buddhism (as a minor element of the tradition, and only in Japanese Tendai, not Chinese Tiantai); the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism – the Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Geluk (as well as the minor schools of Jonang and Kadampa); Bon, the heterodox tradition of Tibetan Buddhism that mixes tantric Buddhist elements and indigenous Tibetan elements; the Newar tradition of Buddhism in Nepal (which I will not cover in this series); Kapalika (or “Cremation Ground”) Shaivism; Kaula; Kashmir Shaivism, which is also known as Trika; Shaiva Siddhanta; Natha Yoga or Siddha Siddhanta; Shiva Advaita; Vira Shaivism or Lingayatism; Kalikula Shaktism; Srikula Shaktism; and some esoteric traditions of Jainism.  Some reform movements within Hinduism and Buddhism also have tantric overtones.  Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga has a metaphysic that is similar to Advaita Vedanta in some ways, but it is (at least in theory) more life-affirming and world-affirming (even though, by Western standards, it is still quite ascetic, as it encourages extreme moderation in most sensual activities as well as celibacy), and this element of it seems to derive from tantric traditions more than Advaita Vedanta.  The Ramakrishna Mission / Ramakrishna Math and its American branch, the Vedanta Society, while it is based principally on Advaita Vedanta, has its roots in a guru (Ramakrishna) who was originally, and while alive never ceased to be, a devotee of Kali, and a tantric adept of the right-hand variety (baseless claims by some psychoanalytically-inclined scholars about his mystical experiences being the result of repressed homosexuality and pedophiliac tendencies notwithstanding).