Theos-Talk Archives (December 1998 Message tt00022)

[Rich]:
>Then again, it is a grave error to suppose that all tantra has to do with
>sexual imagery and practice.  This is a western misconception made deeper
by
>all the books (written by Westerners, even if they have taken up
"sanskritic"
>names) which promise the reader this or that special sexual ecstasy through
>Tantra.  Very sad.  Most tantra, in my experience, has to do with
visualizing
>oneself in various stages of relationship to a deity, drawing in closer and
>closer until the final (ati) stage, where one visualizes that one IS the
>deity, with all the purity and powers of a full Buddha.  Tantra is called
the
>Fruit approach, as opposed to most Mahayana, which is a Path approach.
>Tantra, as the Vajrayana of Diamond Vehicle, assumes that one already *is*
a
>Buddha, and operates on that basis, encouraging the practitioner to REMAIN
IN
>THE STATE of Buddha mind.  This has little to do with sex, except for some
>isolated practices aiming at this very state.
>
>Rich
>

Well said. This is my understanding of Tantra as well. In the West
it is virtually equated with sex-with-non-ejacultation which misses
the spiritual elements completely.

Jerry S.