Tantra

Driving the frozen north last week I was looking out my windshield, pondering the sensation of pleasure.  I have fun watching leaves blow, and clouds move, and the movement of light in the sky, and just about everything.  And it occurred to me that behind EVERYTHING you see there is God.  When you reach out to an object, God is behind it.  When you draw your emotions out in objects, you are already moving towards the worship–the connection with, the recognition of–God.

In Asian traditions Tantrism consists in many specific practices, but what I would submit is that the essential one is sensuality.  It invokes emotion, and connection. It is not an ascetic austerity, devoid of humor and blood, but on the contrary the pursuit of wisdom through sensation, through pleasure.  Perhaps most famously, sexual intercourse is made a ritual act of worship.

Idolotry is what you get when you focus on an object.  What I realized is that the whole point of their practice is to see that we exist in a web–the meaning of the word, as I recall–of connections.  Traditional meditation tends to cut off connections.  It tends to frown on emotional expression.  But I feel that this also curtails all the natural happy energies of life, those that make it enjoyable.  And I can’t see how anyone unable to live happily in this life has in any way warranted heaven.  On the contrary: who can give who is miserable, who is punishing themselves all the time?