Tantra vs Vipassana
Contrasting meditative approaches to better understand them both
As I’m putting together my upcoming Comparative Meditation course, I’m really enjoying reflecting on how different traditions, teachers, and approaches to transformation have impacted me.
The two that really stand out in the meditative world are Vipassana and Tantra.
You’ve likely heard these terms before and it’s also likely you don’t quite know exactly what they mean.
You’re not alone. These are two broad categories that encompass countless lineages and endless volumes of scripture. Ask different Vipassana practitioners and teachers what it’s all about and you’ll get a variety of answers. And Tantra is even more diverse in its teachings and practices.
In many ways, these two approaches couldn’t be more different. And yet they are both highly effective systems that lead to the same goal.
Let’s dive in!
What is Vipassana?
Also known as insight meditation or mindfulness meditation, Vipassana roughly translates to “super seeing”, and is really at the heart of what the Buddha taught as a means to liberation.
You see, the Buddha claimed we’re are all deluded, that we don’t experience reality as it really is. Modern science backs this up, with a lot of studies showing that most of what we experience is actually constructed by our brain.
In short, we take in pieces of sensory experience and our brain puts together the bigger picture based on what it expects to see, hear, and feel.
Like a line in a song that our brain interprets in a certain way that we can’t unhear — even though we know it’s not the correct lyric — our brain is constantly guessing at what we’re experiencing and then filling in the blanks. (There’s a whole page of Ted talks dedicated to this topic, and you can find a lot of papers and books on the topic if you search.)
So why is this important?
Well, the Buddha taught that this misconception is actually the primary cause of our suffering, and keeps us from finding lasting contentment. He laid out a path to overcome this ignorance, and see ourselves and the world more and more for what they actually are.
Seeing things more clearly brings about “insight”, and these insights change us.
They bring about a sense of relief. A feeling of timeless freedom. Contentment. A pervasive sense that everything, without exception, is somehow fundamentally ok.
Many of these insights that liberate us are related to what the Buddha called The Three Characteristics (often referred to as the three marks of existence).
These are fundamental truths about the nature of existence that due to the nature of our conditioned mind, we typically don’t perceive accurately.
They are impermanence, suffering or unsatisfactoriness, and no-self. Or as Vipassana teacher Daniel Ingram puts it “things come and go, they don’t satisfy, and they ain’t you.”
When we really practice looking — observing the fine detail of our experience and seeing our projections for what they are — these truths become more and more self-evident.
So we can say that the practice of Vipassana is to really look. To notice that much of our experience is a self-imposed limiting construct, and that seeing things more and more as they are internally untangles us and brings about a fundamental and unconditional sense of wellbeing.
What Is Tantra?
Tantra originated in India, dating back as far as the 5th century, but really established itself around the 8th century. It was born out of the Hindu culture at the time (and soon made its way into Buddhism as well), and was considered a reaction to the rigid institutionalized form of religion that had come to dominate those times.
You see, there’s this natural cycle of ingenuity and reformation that happens in spiritual traditions the world over. It follows this basic pattern:
There is a prophet, saint, or highly realized master that teaches a fresh pathway to liberation.
This pathway is effective and therefore becomes institutionalized and widely taught.
This pathway is seen as being sacred or holy and therefore must be rigidly followed.
The rigidity of the approach makes the path dull and formulaic.
A new prophet, saint, or realized master comes along and challenges the old guard, teaching a new pathway to liberation that re-emphasizes freedom and realization over systematic rule following, starting the cycle over again.
The dominant view at this time was that liberation is only for holy people (Brahmans) who renounced worldly pleasures and committed to a life of purity, living and rigorously practicing in ashrams.
Tantra challenged the idea of renunciation.
Tantric masters were radically inclusive, claiming that realizing ultimate truth is available to everyone, not just those who have taken vows and sworn off material pleasures.
At this time, the material world was thought to be inherently problematic or lowly. The ambition of spiritual practitioners was to reject and transcend the normal world in an effort to realize ultimate oneness.
But if everything is one, then how can we make a distinction between these worlds?
Buddhism at the time claimed that everything was inherently empty. Not in the way we normally think of empty, but what is often described as a luminous or radiant emptiness.
That the entire universe is actually one undivided field of awareness itself, and therefore everything, without exception, can be experienced as that undivided awareness.
When everything is experienced as this awareness, we no longer perceive things as having any unique or distinct nature of existence on their own. Our brain is again playing a trick on us, making us perceive the world as being made of many separate, unrelated parts, instead of seeing it as one field of interconnected undivided luminous awake awareness.
Realizing emptiness became the goal in Buddhism, and the world of form was rejected as illusion.
Tantra’s radical reformulation at this time can be summed up in the iconic line from one of the most utilized Buddhist texts, the Heart Sutra:
“Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.”
This is true non-duality, where it’s realized that seeking and celebrating oneness and rejecting duality is its own form of duality.
So instead of rejecting the world and its contents, we can instead use these things, use anything and everything, as vehicles for liberation.
This is why Tantra, in some circles, became synonymous with sex. Previously sex and sexual energy was seen as a distraction from realizing ultimate truth, but now it was seen as a potent avenue for realization.
Tantra utilizes all the energies, our sexual energy as well as the energies of nature and the archetypal universal forces — usually in the form of deities — to fuel our realization. And we can harness these energies through the use of our imagination.
The Differences
While Vipassana is all about practicing seeing through projection to better perceive things as they are, Tantra leverages our imagination to evoke transformative energies.
While there are many Tantric traditions and countless forms of Tantric practice, we commonly see the use of mantras with visualization of mandalas or Yantras (sacred geometry representing universal forces), and deities.
In Tibetan Buddhism, deities are not viewed as creator gods, but as pure awakened qualities of mind.
When we practice Tantra in Tibetan Buddhism, we imagine ourselves becoming the deity and embodying (and radiating) these awakened qualities of being. We use our imagination to cultivate — or more accurately reveal — our true awakened nature.
To put it simply, imagining yourself as your best self helps you become your best self.
While Vipassana practice deconstructs our perception of reality to reveal its true nature, Tantra uses imagination and visualization to shift our self-perception and bridge into a more luminous reality.
The Similarities
While these approaches seem radically different on the surface, they actually have a lot in common.
Both are focused on expanding our perceptual capacities.
In Vipassana we focus on sensory experience, learning to experience sensations in more detail, but also allowing more information in.
For example, look at the chart below.
Both Vipassana and Tantra train us to expand our awareness, to open up our perception beyond our conventional limitations.
Whether we are expanding our perception of “the real world” or an imagined one doesn’t make all that much difference, as from the non-dual perspective, there is no difference between real or imagined, between our inner and outer worlds. Real or imagined, it’s all empty, luminous awareness.
While this exercise focuses on the visual field, we can apply this same principle to all fields of awareness. How much can you take in at once? Not just in one field like hearing or seeing, but can you see, hear, and feel all at once?
These exercises illustrate how fractured our sensory experience is; how our attention jumps around, seeing, hearing, and feeling; often getting lost in thought, losing track of what’s really happening.
In both Vipassana and Tantra, we are practicing to open our perceptual capacities, to “wake up” out of our narrow focus and perceive the world as inherently more complete and whole.
We do this through focused relaxation. Instead of bouncing around between sensory channels, we learn to rest in them.
So in both Vipassana and Tantra, we are learning to open our sensory perception by relaxing our mind and attuning to a natural, more expansive state of awareness.
Come Explore (it will be fun!)
For my upcoming Comparative Meditation course we dive deeper into these philosophies and practices. I’m putting together simple and straightforward meditations that allow you to get a real sense of Tantra and Vipassana practice, and providing accessible resources should you choose to explore further.
We will also explore Shamatha aka calm abiding meditation, where we learn to surrender to the peace and beauty of a simple relaxed focus, building a steady foundation that serves all forms of meditation and mindfulness practice.
We will also explore Non-Dual or direct path approaches, where we practice inquiry and shifting our awareness in ways that provide glimpses into the true nature of reality.
And we’re doing it all with heart! Cultivating compassion and good will in creative ways throughout.
And it will all be in community on the Grokkist platform, where we can share our perspectives, experiences, and supporting one another on this journey.
This course is pay-what-you-can with a suggested tuition of $220 (USD), but really I’d just be happy for you to come at whatever rate works for you.
Hope to see you there!
Jude
Thank you for this work of yours!