The goal of Buddhism is to reach enlightenment, in which one is supremely at peace with the nature of reality — the highest form of pleasure. It is often posited that the fickleness of human desire hinders such a pursuit. Tantra, however, gives us a novel interpretation of such desire: because all pleasure, however “fickle,” is a shadow of the supreme pleasure of enlightenment, we can thus use our desires to truly understand ourselves. Tantra, thus, views desire not as an obstacle but as a tool on the path to enlightenment.
Religion and Repression
Across Abrahamic religious contexts, there has been a clear contrast between “the world” and “the other world.” Our world as we know it—which includes the physical, material, and bodily—is often viewed as a stepping stone to the ultimate reality of the next world. Where we end up in the “other world” (heaven, hell, purgatory) depends on how we behave in our world.
Our world, however, is filled with obstacles that distract, tempt, and delude us into forgetting spiritual reality. As such, the obvious and immediate materiality of our lives becomes something we must morally overcome. Overly indulging pleasure traps one in the logic of “the world” and prevents us from remembering a larger spiritual reality. Desire—especially sexual desire—has been highly regulated in religious contexts to avoid this dissolution into hedonism.
Tantra gives us a different logic for thinking about desire, one which isn’t so predicated on the drastic split between this world and the next, this body and the soul. This is partly because the purpose of Buddhism isn’t to travel on a linear path towards a final destination such as “the other-world,” but rather to reach Buddhahood now, to reach enlightenment through the world. Tantra has a powerful grasp on the psychology of desire. Rather than repudiating it on moral terms, it asks a deeper question: Why do we desire, and is it truly fulfilling?
Why We Desire, According to Tantra
If we were to take a poll of people on the street, we would most likely find that they were in pursuit of some small goal or another. Much of their days are taken up by obligations, but often, they are also driven by some desire—to be happy, to be a good parent, to feel safe, to be successful, to experience pleasure. These desires keep us searching and seeking.
Tantra posits that desire is not the problem. It is our relationship to desire as grasping that is the problem. Similarly, Tantra posits that pleasure is also not the problem. It is the psychological insufficiency behind pleasure that is the problem.
We notice that even when we get what we want, we experience disappointment and pain. Why is this? We often blame the object—a better version of the object, we reason, will actually make us more happy. We then find ourselves in a constant cycle of searching for better, better, perfect. According to Tantra, we desire because we are attached to this mistaken vision of reality, which promises that attaining the objects of our desire is both possible and permanent.
We often find ourselves blindly and continually grasping to fulfill desires that can only be temporarily fulfilled. A lover, for example, will change over time, and we will have to come to terms with the fact that they are not the person we originally fell in love with. The psychological insufficiency of desire is that desire has no higher aim to fulfill itself: in this ordinary vision of reality as a system of object-attachments, we are in the unending hamster wheel of desire, disappointment, and grasping again and again until death.
The Tantric Solution to Disappointment and Grasping
The tantric solution is to totally destroy this ordinary vision of reality and cut the grasping off at its source. This is done by alchemizing desire into a deeper understanding and awareness of the actual nature of reality as change, interconnectedness, and constant transformation. Paying real attention to desire allows us to bring awareness to the fickle nature of our grasping.
Notice that this solution does not renounce desire altogether: it is alright to pursue and seek, but we must be conscious of the attachments we invest into the objects of our desire. Be it a lover, a job, a sum of money, even the object of addiction, our desire always distorts our perception of the object. In order to remain connected to the true nature of reality, we must practice detachment. In this we will find true peace.
The irony is that Tantra itself can become an object of desire. People sometimes substitute Tantra for the constant grasping they’ve experienced with other attachments, inadvertently repeating the very same mistake. This is dangerous. Alchemizing desire is not an intellectual process but an organic process. We might experience temporary pleasure by “figuring out” our problem with desire, but this again puts us back in the position of grasping. The Tantric solution requires total renunciation from attachments and a connection to nature as evolving change. Our place in the world is to witness and be consciously aware of that reality—achieving the true pleasure and essence of being alive.
Renunciation of “I”
At the higher levels of the Tantric path, one’s renunciation of attachments reaches deeper and deeper levels of awareness until the ego is dissolved altogether. To get to this place, we must first practice bodhichitta. It entails practicing radical equanimity towards and unconditional love for every single person, causing a paradigm shift wherein we can even view our enemy the same as our closest confidant. We accept that people are constantly changing and will come to love them and serve them not for our perception of them but for their essence as alive, conscious beings.
Seeing other people in this way allows us to also accept the same of ourselves. We might believe ourselves to be “this way” or “that way” (smart, kind, introverted, outspoken, successful, insecure, etc), but these are superficial projections of our conscious mind, which seeks to create permanence amidst constant change. We are more dynamic than even our conscious minds can grasp. There is no stable “I,” though our minds seek to create one to give us a secure sense of identity. Through renunciation and bodhichitta, we are able to even break free of our attachment to our idea of ourselves, accepting true change and transformation. We become the flow of the current rather than the fish struggling to swim. We melt into the essence of our lives: we are alive, aware, conscious, and free.
Freedom From Conceptuality
Tantra gives us two visions of reality: the vision in which we are attached to objects and concepts, desiring lovers, money, success, fame, and sometimes even “inner peace,” but falsely believe that acquiring these—at face value—will make us happy. We are also attached to the idea of people and objects—that others and ourselves are “this way” or “that.” This vision of reality is rooted in a false sense of control and permanence and fails to come to terms with the changing and dynamic nature of reality. It is a vision of reality trapped in conceptuality. All of life is limiting beliefs, concepts, and objects, as well as an attachment to them.
The other vision of reality is freedom from conceptuality altogether. When one practices total renunciation, detachment, and bodhichitta, one is able to experience true transcendence and freedom. We taste the liberation of consciousness by refusing to play ego games. With a clear awareness, we are able to identify that everything is just a fleeting appearance projecting itself onto the clear space of our minds. We must train ourselves to experience and observe our thoughts and desires without following and fully believing them.
The result is, in short, transcendence. In English, the word means to surpass ordinary limits. The reason for seeking transcendence isn’t just happiness or bliss; it is to remove ourselves entirely from dependence on temporary objects into reality as it is and our conscious experience of it. Throughout this journey of alchemizing desire, Tantra radically sharpens our ability to accept our position within reality: we are pure energy, pure awareness, flowing through existence, no less than or greater than any other living being, connected to every form of life at its essence. We experience true spaciousness within ourselves: we are everything, and everything is us.
Conclusion
Tantra recognizes that desire is a powerful force in our lives. Desire is not only for actual objects but for anything that can be attached to—a person, an idea, or a story about ourselves. Tantra asks why these so infrequently bring the long-term satisfaction we crave and how we often delude ourselves into believing in the promise of their longevity.
In orienting desire as a force that has no higher aim than to fulfill itself, Tantra posits the problem is not in desire but in a misconception of the nature of reality. Tantra gives us a way to liberate ourselves from the constraints of conceptuality, even of ourselves as a particular “I,” into a truly present and blissful aliveness.
The process of Enlightenment is no easy feat. One cannot think themselves into transcendence. Transcendence is organic and embodied—especially considering that ideas can even become attachments. We must be wary of proclaiming ourselves masters of ordinary reality. Tantric guides are crucial for this process. Go too far too fast, and you can hurt yourself by becoming disenchanted with the process. Gurus give hope and infinite inspiration as they are themselves Enlightened. Within our own egos, we can get confused and lead astray; spiritual guides mirror back our own progress and inspire change carefully, slowly, as a lifelong process.
Tantra, gurus, and transcendence are all buzzwords in our world that want inner peace and spiritual Enlightenment fast. There is no slower and more difficult process than truly coming to terms with the nature of reality. There is no quick trick or simple solution. Tantra, as with all other systems of transcending ordinary reality, demands much of its practitioners. To alchemize desire, one must have the bravery to confront a reality that is wholly less glamorous but infinitely more real.
References
Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire by Lama Yeshe.
