Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Venerable Thubten Dondrub addresses a fundamental misunderstanding about tantra in this 20-minute teaching: that one can simply use uncontrolled anger and desire on the path. He clarifies that tantra requires first subduing these emotions through sūtra-level practices like patience, not bypassing morality. He emphasizes that tantra is rare—only four of the thousand Buddhas teach it—and explains why lamas now give initiations more openly: to plant imprints before the teachings disappear from the world. He walks through the essential prerequisites: renunciation, bodhicitta, wisdom, and especially refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Above all, he stresses that the single most crucial element is complete devotion to one’s spiritual teacher, without which tantric initiation becomes merely ceremony with no effect. He concludes by noting that taking initiation constitutes a profound, irrevocable commitment many practitioners undertake unknowingly.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 Combining Sūtra and Tantra 1998 02 22.mp3
UUID: b7f21677-1e7f-4f65-aa58-a51478865c28
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Retreat (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 1998-02-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 19.9 minutes
Words: ~2,187
Not the only. The best qualities. Best qualities. It doesn’t mean that only the only, you know, bhikshus can practice tantra. That he was making the point that is the best, best basis.
Because, I mean, the point being, theoretically, you know, someone a bhikṣu observing their vows is observing morality, and that that is the best basis. So what it really means is anyone who is observing morality very well, that, you have got the best basis for practicing tantra. Because, of course, if you’re not observing the law of cause and effect, it means you are following delusions and and creating negative karma. And if you oh, anyway, if you’re if you’re you’re creating negative karma, not observing the law of cause and effect, it means you’re following delusions, which means you’re following ignorance. Right?
If one’s following ignorance, how can you practice a tantra that is developing wisdom? Right? It’s just a joke. It means people don’t really understand what tantra is about. Right?
Every time you follow delusions, you obscure the mind. We’ve all all read, probably all of you, the tantra is about transforming, using attachment and anger on the path to enlightenment. But this is a highly misunderstood concept. It doesn’t mean using our uncontrolled anger, our uncontrolled desire on the path just like that. I just recently asked Lama Zopa Rinpoche about this point, because I was teaching the Kopan course in in Nepal in November.
And one man was saying how because I was saying how harmful anger was, and he was saying, because he claimed to be practicing tantra, that he found it very useful as in the path. So I I was saying to Rinpoche, oh, you know, what’s going on? And and and transform you know, he was able to transform it and so on. And but but Rinpoche said, that if if anger if anger just like that was okay to use in tantra, you wouldn’t have to use the word transform. But you have to transform it.
You don’t just use it or you just use desire. You have to transform it, and that’s not easy. That’s not easy at all. Could you be more explicit? What do you mean?
How do I transform it? Well, to be quite honest, I don’t know. To be quite honest, I’m really not sure how it works in tantra. I know a little bit how one tries to practice patience in the sūtra level, and that’s pretty hard. That’s hard enough.
So exactly how you transform it on into the path in tantra, because the they don’t actually really explain it very much. From my point of view, basically, we have to practice the sutras and just a little bit of tantra, yeah, to make some imprints. But the point is in all I think, basically, in order to transform desire and anger into the path, firstly, the first thing is you have to be able to subdue them. People think tantra now means you can just use your sexual desire as it is, your anger as it is on the path. This is wrong.
This is not possible. One has to have been able to subdue one’s desire to control it and one’s anger. And when it is subdued, then it can be used. But to subdue it is not easy. You have to be able to use it to be the master of it.
And for most of us now, we it masters us. If we’re honest, we don’t have much mastery over these delusions at all. They control us. And transforming desire and anger just doesn’t mean I’ll do this with a bodhicitta motivation. Right?
Because we don’t have the bodhicitta motivation anyway. Is much more subtle than that. I mean, it’s just an insult to the Buddha’s teachings to think tantras that gross, that primitive, that simple. Or you think you’re a deity while you’re doing it. Yeah.
Causes and conditions, parts, and the labeling mind. So We’re almost out of time. So maybe I’ll just go back a little bit, just to some very general things about tantra. One should understand that when we talk about tantra, there are various views about tantra and there are various different kinds of systems of tantra. Generally speaking, there is what is called the old translation school and the new translation school of tantra.
So the old translation school of tantra refers almost entirely to the tantras practiced by the Nyingma school of Buddhism, because these were the very earliest tantras that were historically revealed and the first that came to Tibet. Right? But then after that, a whole new system of tantras were revealed and became more popular and were translated and brought to Tibet. And these were what were practiced by the Sakya, the Kagyu, and the Gelug. So there is some difference between particularly the Nyingmapa tantras and the way they practice and their views and the other three schools, although the Kagyu tend to also mix their practices with Nyingma.
So what I’m talking about, my view of tantra, is especially the Gelug, the Gelugpa view. Right? So in the Gelugpa system, what is emphasized from the teachings of Lama Tsongkhapa is that it’s essential, firstly, to develop some experience of the three principles of the path, because they are integral to tantra itself. So in order to practice tantra, to be any kind of qualification to practice tantra, one has to have some understanding or experience of renunciation, wisdom, bodhicitta. Alright.
I mean, ideally, in the old days, I mean, one one wasn’t initiated into the tantras without these things. Now the secret tantras are being made more and more public and given more and more easily. And the reason for that is because the great masters who do I mean, some oh, I shouldn’t I wouldn’t say that. Anyway, the great masters who do this with a great motivation, why they do it is because they say, if if they waited to give these teachings to qualified people, the teachings would die out because there’s hardly anybody qualified to practice them. So in order to keep the teachings going and also to make imprints in the minds of people, because tantra is something very rare to meet, because only very few Buddhas teach tantra.
They say of the thousand Buddhas of this eon, only four would teach a tantra. So we we have been incredibly lucky to have been born not only at the time of Śākyamūni Buddha, but that we were born at the time of a Buddha who taught the tantra and it’s still existing. Because it is so rare, then the lamas are teaching it so we get the imprints. Because for eons and eons, it won’t be available. Even if we take human rebirths again and again, we won’t meet tantra because it just doesn’t exist.
So we are very so that’s why it’s being taught. Because we’re not qualified I mean, sorry, generally speaking. Don’t wanna insult anyone. I don’t know your state of mind. But generally speaking, we are not qualified at all to practice tantra unless, you know, we really have real renunciation, real bodhicitta, and wisdom.
But now the lamas say that well, at least you shouldn’t understand what at least understand what renunciation, wisdom, and bodhicitta are. That’s the very minimum. And, of course, one has to have refuge in the teachings. At least you have to have taken refuge in the Buddha’s teachings. If you don’t have refuge in the Buddha’s teachings, there’s no way that you can practice tantra even in the most primitive way.
Because, of course, as pointed out, one one of the benefits of taking refuge is that it is the basis of all vows. It is the basis of all other practices. Because, of course, you can go to initiations and teachings on tantra and this and that, but if you don’t have any refuge, it doesn’t work. There’s no basis there in the mind for it to work. Because tantra, like everything else, is a dependent arising.
It doesn’t truly exist, and it doesn’t work from its own side. Right? So especially what is emphasized in tantra is faith. Faith is tantra is a very profound subject and a very complex, very difficult to really understand how it works. But if you have faith, it works.
That is the most essential thing in tantra, is to have faith in it. Alright? And you can’t have faith in it without refuge in the Buddha, the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, because the tantra comes from the Buddha. If you don’t have refuge in the Buddha, you don’t have refuge in the Dharma. And tantra is done.
It is the Buddha Dharma. No refuge. There’s no basis for it to work. Right. The more refuge, the more faith.
Even though you don’t understand how it works, it will work. Not because it truly exists, but because it’s a dependent arising, it arises in dependence on faith especially. The more faith, the more it works. So it’s time for lunch, but just to conclude on that point, and I’ll go into it in some detail this afternoon, that in practicing tantra, apart from having these refuge and some understanding and and maybe some experience of the three principal paths, apart from that, because that’s absolutely fundamental. Absolutely fundamental.
On top of that, the single most important thing in practicing tantra and entering the tantra practice is having a teacher and having complete devotion to that teacher. Right? That is the fundamental thing. That’s why in the Lamrim teachings of the of the Lamrim of the Lama Tsongkhapa’s text, The Great Graduated Path to Enlightenment, it starts with the meditation on guru devotion. This meditation is actually really a tantric meditation.
And actually, as Pabongka Rinpoche says, this meditation is the most difficult realization. To get the realization of that meditation is the most difficult to achieve on the path. Guru devotion. But it’s put what then? Why is it put at the beginning of the lam rim?
Because it’s so important. That’s what Lama Tsongkhapa is saying, so that even if one doesn’t have this pure devotion, we need to work on that from the very beginning, especially because the lam rim is a graduated path leading us to enter the tantric path. That’s why it was taught that way, why it’s arranged that way. So the sooner we begin to develop some kind of devotion to a spiritual master, and the more devotion we have, the more we become a qualified vessel to practice tantra. And this is one thing, just in conclusion, my final conclusion, which I’ll talk a bit more about.
One thing one should really understand when you take a tantric initiation, especially there are four levels of tantra, particularly when taking the highest level. What you are doing more than anything else is you are making a commitment to spiritual master. If you don’t have that commitment, if you don’t have that faith to that that teacher, if you don’t know that teacher, you don’t trust that teacher, you don’t know their qualities, you don’t have complete faith in them, there’s no point in taking the initiation because nothing’s going to happen. You’re just gonna hear some words and bells ring and this and that. But it all works.
All tantra works. All tantra comes through the teacher. If you don’t believe the teacher is something very, very special, you’re not getting anything. Right? In zen, they talk about the mind to mind transmission.
Right? Transmission from mind to mind, like a candle, flame from one candle to the next, something like that. That’s exactly what tantric initiations are. And it only works they’re not depend they don’t truly exist. You don’t go into a truly existing initiation.
And the guru, the teacher from their own side, can’t do anything. Right? No matter who it is, no matter how many titles dripping around them, and the kind of fancy dress they wear, and how high the throne is they sit on, From their own side, they can’t do a thing, because if they could, the Buddha would have enlightened us. It all depends on our faith, which is called guru devotion. And this is something that many people don’t understand at all.
People take initiation. They’re right and left and center. Who gave you that initiation? Oh, I don’t remember who his name was. It’s ridiculous.
Sorry being a bit heavy, but I think it’s important. I mean, this is my understanding. And when when you enter a tantric initiation, you are making an unbelievably profound commitment that most of us don’t even know what we’re doing, what we’re doing. Anyway, I’ll go into that in some more detail this afternoon.
Yes. You bet. It is merit, an indissoluble one that you can’t get divorced at all. No way. Okay, thank you very much.
Let me just quickly or slowly dedicate the merit.