Restricted texts

One or two are about tantra. The others not. I will try to send the link from my computer  since others can benefit from them. What is tantra?

I searched for restricted texts on Shambhala website and got 511 books. These can be bought by anyone, so the books are not restricted. Tantra is a big topic, the word literally translated means the thread that crosses the warp or set of long thread held in tension in a loom. So if you are weaving, it is that thread that knits the long threads into cloth. These teachings are traditionally secret for a few reasons. The first and foremost is that they involve energy channels in the body, and without guidance from a qualified teacher it is easy to injure yourself using them. This is an example of how a little knowledge can indeed be a dangerous thing. Because we are interconnected energetically, it is possible to harm more than yourself with improper or incomplete use of these teachings.

Tantric teachings can also involve the utilization and cleansing of energy in the lower chakras of the body, including sexual energy, which is very potent. Tantric teachings can be easy to misunderstand. A casual exposure to them could give people a very warped and negative impression of Buddhist practices. So that is another reason they are guarded by the teachers and their students. People also misuse these techniques, which corrupts their purpose.

In many traditional forms of tantric practice, male and female practitioners join in sexual union, but they do not have normal sex. They do not achieve orgasm, this obviously takes a lot of training to accomplish, and very few people, relatively speaking, can perform it. Instead they sit in meditation together and open their heart chakras and often experience bliss and other forms of realization. While they are joined they visualize themselves as Buddhist Deities, which are manifestations of Buddha. Because people are visualizing themselves as Buddha, this is called taking the result as the path.

The Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, which is the largest of the four Tibetan schools, does not practice Tantra with a partner. Instead, following the advice of the founder of the Gelug tradition, they just visualize themselves in union as the Diety and his Consort. This is how most modern Tibetan Buddhist practice, and it is as effective, and does not require the extensive training actual union requires. There are a lot of Tantric teachings and practices. They are also referred to as Vajra, and each tradition has various names that refer to different kinds of Tantric teachings, which are often referred to as Tantras.

To follow a Tantric path, a person receives initiations from their Guru. The first initiations give the student the instructions and permissions to visualize one of many Deities in front of them. Gradually the student will acquire initiations that allow them to visualize him or her self as the Diety and accompanying practices. These are not always taught in a strict order, for example, many Tara initiations give first time practioners permission to visualize themselves as Tara, and other practices. Anyone has permission to visualize themselves as Buddha Shakyamuni, the Buddha of this world. This is safe for anyone to practice. Other Buddhas, like Tara or Alakiteshvara or many others require initiation to be safe and to work.

Tantric initiations usually come with precepts. So in order to work up to the highest Tantric practices one has to follow certain rules and avoid behaviors that lead to pitfalls. Traditionally people have taken Tantric initiations after they have developed a strong foundation in Buddhist ethics and discipline. The Kalachakra is a highest form of Tantra. It is not uncommon for a hundred thousand people to attend this 3-5 day initiation when the Dalai Lam gives it. The vast majority of people attending take it as a blessing. A minority take it as an initiation and then follow the precepts and adhere to the practices including chanting and visualization afterward, until enlightenment. So any Tantric path represents a commitment from the student, and a level of realization from the teacher.

Matt wrote:


Hey Matt, Like your posts about tantra, but these particular books are strictly regulated.
Here's the text, for example, regarding the restrictions for purchasing Yeshe Lama, by Jigme Lingpa:


Perhaps this link will work:

email.shambhala.com/public/?q=preview_message&fn=Link&t=1&ssid=23375&id=66pmtygl1jhxw5drkq1m769yzi9ya&id2=ab3781d4u5cadnk81wyt9qcyq1k0i&subscriber_id=bvqgfrmmcxkzacqhtrxcsorpmhdcbhi&messageversion_id=blwhkqsnrcajnmempgwgaagiyvwebkh&delivery_id=bhnhtgqytjelkootvoeonlcpwxjsbmc&tid=3.W08.B1nebA.Cqkv.6Zx4..AabSvw.b..s.AUUe.b.UnvHEA.Unv3Rw.rhQiyw

Thank you Rudy--I will read that text. Wish I had more time to read-work takes quite a good part of the day. Thanks Dan for finding the books--and the link. Those are the ones I received in the e-mail. Thank you Matt for the explanation. I can see how the meaning of the word points to the significance of the practice and can understand why it is kept secret. Had heard in the past about the practice of the sexual union but never associated with Buddhism.  If it's not indiscretion, when you say "Tong Lin is a practice many of us use here", is "here" a group you belong to?  As you mention, I too believe that, in spite of the disorganization we see in society and the rise in materialism, this is part of our evolution, in the same way there is entropy in the universe, and that humanity is changing to adapt to them, hopefully toward a more compassionate self.  Again, thanks to all!

Well, what I was really thinking is that you were a monk, like Matthieu Ricard, and you belonged to a group or a temple.  You all are so dedicated and knowledgeable --I really need to devote more time to study and practice, now that I have found Buddhism.  Having reached this website has been a blessing. Thank you Rudy and thanks to all for your comments.

The practice I referred to is Tonglen. I don't know why I always want to spell it Tong Lin. Any way if you spell it correctly you can find a lot of information about it online. I recommend Pema Chodren, she has published a book and tapes about it, but there are a lot of good teachings available on this practice. It is also called giving and taking. Tonglen may be a direct translation of giving/taking, I am not sure.

In this practice one visualizes breathing in the suffering of others, and breathing out our happiness to them. Apparently this does not actually help others or effect them at all until the practitioner is realized, but it helps create the conditions for that kind of evolution. Even so, to do it correctly a person is supposed to be quite sincere in their intention. So it is a little frightening at first, and a lot of people begin by breathing in their own suffering, and expelling their own happiness to themselves. Then they gradually widen the circle to include family and friends, until they feel comfortable visualizing (intending) to give and take with all sentient beings.


My teacher describes it this way, visualize the suffering of all sentient beings as a black, oily smoke that you breath in through your right nostril, breath out all of your happiness as a white healing light back to them through your left nostril. I have not heard others mention the right and left nostril, have any of you? I am not sure how important that particular direction is, the intention is what matters most.

One of the immediate benefits is this contradicts how we normally strive and behave as sentient beings. Sentient beings, including people like us want happiness and to avoid suffering. This is karmically hard wired into our thinking and attitudes by now. So contradicting that intention is a powerful antidote-remedy in itself. It also helps to cultivate fearlessness. So if you find it a little frightening at first, that is a good thing, because you are able to face that fear through this practice and gain some insight as to why it is delusional. This practice is said to work toward breaking down false mental constructs. If you combine it with a thought about your own interdependence with all sentient beings, and or your own emptiness, it will be more powerful.

This is a safe practice and has been taught openly since the 12th century.

Tonglen is practiced by itself, but it is often a component of Tantra as well. A lot of practitioners use it even more when they are suffering. For example, I heard about a nun who used it while she was ill with breast cancer, and later while she was dying. My friend and teacher Lama Jhampa was with her and he said, "she died amazingly well." That may sound a little depressing, but that is really a wonderful thing. Dying is uncomfortable and can be very frightening. It is something we all will go through, obviously, but we don't give it much thought normally. To die well is a blessing that all people should hope and work toward. A good death certainly ensures a better rebirth.

So she visualized breathing in the suffering of all people suffering from breast cancer and its treatments at times, all people suffering cancer, and then that would segue into all suffering, but she would begin with what she was experiencing and that is a very powerful way to practice Tonglen.

But we should not wait until we are sick. If we practice Tonglen now, it will be better when we really need it.

I would be a bit more careful with that.
When you or I try to practice Tonglen seriously, we have apparently enough self-confidence to handle this without collapsing, or thinking that all hell will break loose over our heads.

People who are seriously depressed are stuck in a circular kind of reasoning in which they cannot see the good things in life, even when it's all right in front of them, they feel they are helpless against all the misery that the world throws at them. They feel they are dealing with all the misery that they can handle (or more); they likely don't even dare the first move of taking on more suffering. Locked in what is basically a self-centered kind of prison, they often cannot even imagine giving anything positive away as they do not have it. They feel so sorry for themselves because they feel they lack any positive karma (good fortune) anyway. Someone who is standing at the edge only needs a small push to fall off... I think that for seriously depressed people just even the thought of doing this could be such a push.

Somewhat similar, people with low self-confidence suffer from the delusion that they are not equal to others. Because of that, they have a tendency to behave like a slave, and they lack courage. They get into a circular situation that people will start treating them like a slave, and because they lack courage, they do not even protest at being abused in whatever way. Tonglen is probably the one Buddhist practice that I know which takes the most courage to do of any Buddhist practice (providing you are doing it right). It is like the ultimate threat to the ego to take on all the suffering of the world on yourself, it is just about the complete opposite of our common sense of self-preservation. To me it feels like putting the load of an adult man on the shoulders of a child: it may be strong enough when challenged, but it could also collapse under the pressure.

Perhaps good to remember that the person who developed Tonglen intended to keep it secret, and only for sharing the best practitioners until other masters insisted that he should make it public.
Maybe a bit like teaching emptiness to people with an unstable mind ("the untrained" - see the Bodhisattva vows); it can confuse them completely and drop them in a nihilist way of thinking in which they lose all sense of direction.

However well intended, some of these practices are so powerful that they need careful handling...

On the other hand, for people who are not right on the edge with depression or low self-esteem, Tonglen could really be of great help to them, so it can be a bit tricky like strong medicine

Well ,

according to HHDL's page on depression and anxiety, he recommends mind training, though he doesn't specify tonglen. But for his mind training pages on his site, he features a commentary on Langri Thangpa's 8 Verses of thought transformation, which features that line about giving away gain and victory and taking loss and defeat, which is really, more or less, the same thing as tonglen, but in a more thought occupying way.


And Lama Zopa's page on Transforming Depression is much the same, though he includes a great deal of detail on giving and taking. I think even a beginner would benefit from reading it to address depreson. He includes, though, Vajrasattva practice at the outset to deal with the karmic aspect of it. (I would think that, here, prostration could also be recommended, if solely for the exercise.)


One of the things I think that tonglen does for someone who may be depressed but open to giving it a try, is to immediately turn their mind to some kind of happiness or generosity they'd received in their lives just to get started. (This can be the first step in developing a habit of positive thoughts arising in direct response to negative thoughts.) It also connects us to the rest of the suffering world, from that side of it.

I think the most harmful thing that could happen would be if the person misunderstood and tried to give away their own suffering and take the happiness and benefit of others...all the more so if it felt successful.

Well ,


Not always though, people like us may be tempted to help others with "good" advice, that may not always be as good as we think... That is basically why I wrote some words of caution.