/lit/ - Literature

>>20480742
>Shariputra, that rich man first used three types of carriages to entice his sons, but later he gave them just the large carriage adorned with jewels, the safest, most comfortable kind of all. Despite this, that rich man was not guilty of falsehood. The Tathagata does the same, and he is without falsehood. First he preaches the three vehicles to attract and guide living beings, but later he employs just the Great Vehicle to save them. Why? The Tathagata possesses measureless wisdom, power, freedom from fear, the storehouse of the Dharma. He is capable of giving to all living beings the Dharma of the Great Vehicle. But not all of them are capable of receiving it. Shariputra, for this reason you should understand that the Buddhas employ the power of expedient means. And because they do so, they make distinctions in the one Buddha vehicle and preach it as three.

When one hears about a teaching like Buddhism it’s ironically the most greedy aspects of the self that might be awakened, which are paradoxically the actual barriers to the authentic realization and practice of the teaching. “This teaching can give me enlightenment, freedom from all suffering, and even ecstatic states of consciousness? Let me go straight to it and see what’s there!” But then when actually practicing in and training in it you see it’s nothing “something outside yourself offered as some way to fill the time or some exotic fun and easy practice to carry out to escape from boredom or some sense of existential dread”. It’s about actually disciplining and changing YOU yourself, one way of which it could be conceptualized is as shifting the mind from its exteriorizing and grasping and desiring tendencies (always looking for something “out there” which will relieve one’s boredom, suffering, existential anguish) and turning it back upon itself, interiorizing it, seeing that what you are trying to seek is legitimately to be found within yourself, through genuinely coming to be stabilized in samatha (calming the mind, tranquility of the mind) and vipassana (insight).

In the Kargyudpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism it’s noted that the path of means (practical techniques, practices) must not be separate from the path of liberation (the genuine liberating insight). The path of means and the path of liberation have to be one. Something like, “Let me just get the highest most exotic techniques which will blow my mind and enlighten me” is something like “Let me have the path of means without the path of liberation.” It’s fundamentally useless and unworkable without also treading the path of liberation!

>>20471690
>>‘It is a womanly thing to establish superiority through convincing arguments; it is a manly thing to conquer the world through one’s power.
>>Reasoning, argument, and inference may be the work of other schools [shastras]; but the work of the Tantra is to accomplish superhuman and divine events through the force of their own words of power [mantras].’
>– Tantrattva 1:27
>Guénonfag BTFO by actual tantric mahasiddhas, discursive intellectual activity is secondary to the cultivation of power, realisation of bliss, contemplation of the void, understanding of the nondual pure-Being.

Yep lol. This is why I love/hate figures like Guenon — he and figures like him are just as much veils to the truth as they are conveyors to it. Instead of becoming something like tantric mahasiddhas oneself, people simply develop a “Traditionalist” ego.

An interesting fact is that “tantra” itself means literally means something like “loom, weave, warp,” but can also be used in the sense of “technique,” “practice,” “system”. It’s not necessarily that you find the ultimate body of teaching which you’re now religiously devoted to and use to put down all the non-adherents — rather, it’s that you let the technique or system change you, work on you. Tantra is ultimately doing, not just forming the ultimate theology, body of knowledge, hence why it freely extends and interfaces between Hinduism and Buddhism. It’s essentially people who honed and refined certain techniques for hundreds or thousands of years that are conducive to a higher state of consciousness

>>20471717
>So they always discriminate between virtue and non virtue, you could become a "siddha" gain powers and then just devote yourself to hedonistic pursuits, but this is not encouraged and is viewed as something contrary to the "bodhisattva"
Yep, as you point out, there really is the risk of something amoral about some of these teachings — I have almost no doubt whatsoever, that some very occultly greedy person, could legitimately use Tantric practices, techniques, and teachings without necessarily having a very morally refined character and get into higher states of consciousness, seeming miraculous or occult experiences and attainments, contact with discarnate entities, etc. In my opinion, this is probably almost certainly what happened to figures like Crowley — in Vajrayana Tibetan Buddhism it is an accepted fact that certain of these techniques, practices, and knowledge are essentially amoral. You could use Tantric rituals, meditation and visualization practices, deity yoga, as a sort of supreme building-up of ego, the idea of becoming a “powerful occultist” or “magician,” like the Bon sorcerers and shamans.

Hence why I think the Bodhisattva ideal and teachings about karma are rather important. Ultimately, the goal being to attain enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, practices for inculcating loving-kindness, and so forth.