Tanta--General Introduction

Tantra is the general term for a genre of secret ritually-based religious practice.  These are most often laid out in texts also known as tantras ("loom"), so named because these texts weave a distinctive picture of reality.  Tantric practice can be found among both Hindus and Buddhists, and their structural similarities make it likely that both religious groups have used and shaped a previously existing tradition.  Images of tantra in American pop culture tend to focus on sexuality, but this is a symbol pointing toward other things, and not the ultimate meaning--speaking historically for Buddhists, most tantrik practitioners have been celibate Buddhist monks, which means that their practice was NOT about how to improve their sex lives.  

Seen from this more detached perspective, tantra has at least three central, fundamental themes: SECRECY, POWER, and NON-DUALISM (the ultimate unity of all things).

SECRECY serves two functions.  On one hand, it conceals the rites and practices from the uninitiated, who are seen as unqualified to receive it.  On the other, it creates an exclusive subcommunity with a well-defined sense of identity.  This sense of exclusivity, of being privy to something to which few have access, is one of the reasons that tantra is portrayed (by especially by its adherents themselves)  as a higher religious practice.  Even when a tantric text has been written down, it assumed to be lifeless without the instruction of a qualified person.  This stress on personal transmission means that initiation is the only way to gain access to this tradition, and thus tantra stresses the primacy of the teacher-disciple relationship.  Teachers can initiate anyone they deem qualified, which means that in theory tantric practice is open to people regardless of gender or social status (and one finds tantric texts written by women).   

POWER is manifested in various ways.  One is in the teaching itself, since the teacher's empowerment is believed necessary to "activate" the material.  Tantric practice is also claimed to be far more powerful than ordinary religious practice--tantric practice is said to bring one to enlightenment in a single lifetime, whereas other practices require untold eons.  Such powerful forces must be kept secret from the uninitiated, and this reinforces the tantric stress on secrecy.  It is also widely accepted that tantra's spiritual attainments include superhuman powers as a natural byproduct.  Aspirants are discouraged from seeking such powers, since the act of seeking is seen as rooted in selfish desire, but those who gain such powers as a byproduct of their attainment are believed to be able to exercise them without being corrupted by them.

For tantrikas, NON-DUALISM--the assertion that all reality is ultimately one thing, often conceived as the union of polar opposites--is both a philosophical affirmation, and the operative principle behind their religious practice.  Hindus and Buddhists conceive of this differently--Hindus usually conceived of this ultimate unity theistically, seeing their chosen deity as the root cause of all reality; for Buddhist tantrikas the ultimate reality is Emptiness (sunyata), and even the visualizations of various Buddhas and protective deities must ultimately be seen as a symbolic and provisional idea.  Tantric practice affirms this nondualism, often through ritual stressing the unification of opposites.  For this reason, some tantrikas ritually use normally forbidden things, or consciously violate sexual, dietary, or sanitary taboos.  In theory, such transgression is a means to destroy dualistic thinking, collapsing conventional boundaries between good and bad, pure and impure, holy and profane.  Not surprisingly, one of the most common images used to symbolize non-duality is sexuality (for some explicit images of this from Buddhist tantric art, click here).  The ultimate goal is often to replace external rites with interior ones, for which one of the most common images is the union of the two basic principles in the subtle body.  The subtle body is an alternate physiological system involving a series of energy centers called cakras; its general conceptual framework is common to both Hindu and Buddhist tantra, although each group interprets this in different ways.  For Hindus the two ultimate principles are Shiva and Shakti, for Buddhists they are Wisdom and Skill in Means.   

Copyright James G. Lochtefeld 2006