Most Basic Tantric Practices for Pagans
An entry-level set of tantric practices adapted for Pagan practitioners.
A practice sheet rather than an essay — the minimum set of tantric practices, put into a form Pagans can actually use, and offered as a free PDF download on the original page. Sam is careful about what he means by translation here: not linguistic transposition but bringing the technology across into another culture. His justification is one a Lama gave him, that Vajrayana practice is not culturally bound and has to be recreated in each culture that takes it up, which is also why he works from Buddhist rather than Hindu tantra — the latter being both culture-bound and, in its literature, more pious than analytical.
The sequence runs in order. Refuge opens it, sounded on three long A's. Then the bodhichitta statement, a short commitment to the recognition that all is pure and present and always has been. The Four Immeasurables follow — loving kindness, compassion, joy in others' joy, equanimity — extended outward from those closest to you, to everyone you know of, and finally to the whole unobjectified world. Empowerment comes next: the teacher visualised in front of you, marked at brow, throat and heart with HAD in white, RAY in red and NU in blue, each syllable sounded and each beam drawn in to empower body, speech and mind in turn.
The core of the practice is dissolution and re-arising. Sounding Ah, the universe dissolves into the body; again, the body dissolves into a white letter A at the heart; again, that letter dissolves from the feet upward into sheer openness — and then one rests. Arising reverses it: on AL the golden syllable comes out of the void, radiates through it, and draws the light back to become a sphere. The practice closes with a formula naming Abrahadabra as the ending of the words, and the practitioner returning to ordinary form as the union of appearance and openness.
Three short pieces round it off. An offering verse — form, sound, smell, taste and touch, the whole of space, the fruit of existence — invites the god and its host to come and enjoy. A verse on behaviour after transformation asks that this play of manifestation develop body and mind toward complete realisation, and that others be led there too. And the dedication of merit gives away the benefit of the act, and of all acts, to the complete liberation of every being everywhere across space and time. Sam adds that although he is no Lama, he teaches this material to improve Pagan spirituality and the ability to invoke.
Originally published at samwebstermage.com →