What are Tantric Tricks?

The tantric tradition expounds and embodies the understanding that an infinite, living Substance is the irreducible essence of all that exists. This alive infinity is the Substance of our Self, and of the mind, body and kosmos that appear to us. Therefore, this infinity is being experienced right now, as the Substance of these very words, and of the one who is Aware of the words. It is not far away. In fact, it is no distance at all from our Self.

In this regard, tantra expounds a direct path to this present Experience - a pathless path - which not only reveals with absolute clarity the Reality of this unitary Substance, but also goes further to awaken a feeling of this Substance manifesting as our body, all bodies and the kosmos at large.

Tantric tricks are playful invitations, experiential portals through which one can merge the feeling of 'me' with the felt totality of life. Each trick is not an escape route from the world, but a seamlessly intimate dance with its topology.

If we look at the broad message and essence of the massage that tantra gives to us, in its expression as contemplative explorations or 'tricks', we discover a way of enlivening the primal feeling of unity between the apparent interiority of the body-mind and the apparent exteriority of the foliage, animals, people, planet, and the whole panorama of existence. We recognise, viscerally, that only one Experience is present now; that the interior and exterior are made of one Substance.

A hallmark of tantra is that we are invited not to merely recede into the caves of a one-pointed-attention practice, into the landscape of our closed eyes, maintaining a perfectly still posture of solitude; instead we are invited into the vibrancy and earthy texture of daily living, through all its rugged trails and trials, with eyes and attention fully open, embracing our humanity with a wild passion.

Tantra has been designated as 'the householder path' because it can be walked efficaciously by anyone with a job, an intimate lover, active social engagements, a large family, without veering away from any of these interests. We can live in a tantric way whilst typing at our laptop, kissing our lover, eating in a restaurant, lifting weights in the gym, conversing with friends, whatever! All that is necessary is the enthusiasm to apply the understanding of our omnipresent Oneness to the feeling and perception we have of everything that we meet.

Through its various practices, tantra emphasises the power of embracing the total panorama of life in our meditation. It is not - as many believe - a method solely circumscribed to the utilisation of sexual energy to excite refined states of mind. Indeed, there are many fun exercises with which to play; transmuting sexual energy into a whole host of beautiful states; merging our feeling of Self with the feeling of our lover and the kosmos around us. However sexual energy is not the only channel through which that merging can be realised. Our body-mind-system is a plenum of living energy. As such, we can use this energy - specifically that of sensations and imaginations - for shifting our sense of separation into an Experience of all-pervasive union.

How does this look practically? As an initiation in the moment, we start by noticing the fact that there is only one Reality to all existence, or at least, we start by opening our mind to the possibility of such a Oneness, and from that noticing or opening we play with the content of Experience, to bring about a shift in the way we feel our Self and the totality. And this noticing or opening can be as swift and undramatic as, "ah-ha, yes Oneness is the true nature of Reality", or "yes, I'm open to that." Then, just for fun, we pick up a toy in our play-box, that is, we pick up any of the tantric tricks, and go wild!

For example, we are walking along a path in the forest, and we ask our Self; is there more than one Experience present now? Leaving a sufficient pause to directly tune-in to the Reality of the now. In this pause, we proceed to tune-in to Awareness, the mind, the body and the landscape simultaneously, feeling them all together as one Experience. This 'tuning-in' is invoked simply by inviting attention to cease focusing, with a seeming exclusivity, on a particular aspect of the current Experience. Instead of this exclusivity, we enliven a feeling of full inclusivity; expanding our attention into the totality, feeling our attention like a fluid mixing with the fluid of the whole intermixing scope of the mind-body-kosmos, until we palpably sense one smoothie of Experience. From here we silently taste the flavour of this delicious smoothie, and know the quality of the moment by the flavour that it bares.

If we somehow feel a separation between some of these fluids, say between the sensation of the body and the perception of the landscape, we play with that wobbly, fluid boundary; by intentionally feeling the sensation of the body merging with the perception of the landscape. We imagine that merging and then potentiate a feeling of that merging. A way to do this is to feel the sensation filled to the brim with Awareness, made of fluid Awareness, and allow that fluid fullness to pour over the brim into the surrounding space, blending sensations with the textures of sights, sounds and whatever our attention cares to caress with its sensitivity. This exercise, as simple as it may seem, gradually stabilises a feeling of being everywhere in the space concomitantly. It restores the sacred unity of the kosmos as our true body.

Amazingly, we all enact this expansion into the space of the landscape regularly; in most cases without recognising it. When we enter a room or view a vista for the first time, our body of sensations expands to feel into the space, to assess its size, the comfort of the atmosphere, the aesthetic quality of the topography, whether the Feng-Shui is right for our sensibilities, etc. This is why we feel a natural Love for wide open spaces, like the panorama of the sky or the sea touching the horizon, and this is why, most of us, feel an aversion for narrow, messy, dirty, cluttered spaces. We actually feel our Self, to a greater or lesser extent, filling the space, and becoming the space. This feeling is, in fact, not a special state that requires effort to maintain. It is, rather, the natural state of our body. Openness to and relaxation into the earth and ecosystem is our default condition. That is how we experienced our body as infants; one with the earth, one body of earth.

Through socialisation and psychosomatic programming, we learned to feel our body as if it were separate from the planet and the kosmos. This feeling is not natural or essential to us. We acquired it, just as we acquired the inclination to prefer playing rugby, watching sci-fi movies or listening to classical music. Such inclinations for feeling are not intrinsic to us. They arise as a precursive impulse at a specific time in our early development, and are cultivated through repetitive reinforcement. We were not born a fan of rugby, (even though our parents may be convinced we were). Nor were we born feeling separate from the totality. In our original condition, we felt our Self as the totality of what is. That feeling can be revealed in the nakedness of our essential Being, just as our naked bodies are laid bare when they're stripped of all their clothing.

The value in understanding this separative feeling as an addition, like a shirt or skirt we wear from time to time, is that we understand it can be removed from us, just as every thought and feeling is removed from us at the moment of its disappearance. And the beauty is that it can be removed just as easily as we acquired it. In fact, in practice, releasing it is much easier, for in the release we simply relax into the effortless Experience of Oneness that resides underneath it. The effortlessness of feeling unity is our natural state.

Much like we would relax into the underlying rest of deep sleep, we can relax this effort to create the interpretation of separation. However, instead of dropping into a state that is devoid of thought or cognitive processes, a state of deep absorption in pure Awareness where thought, sensation and perception cease to appear, the intention of tantric tricks is that we Experience the whole gamut of cognitive and sensory phenomena, yet remain in touch with the feeling of the essential unity of all that exists. We simply cease overlooking that unity, and rest into what is referred to in the classical spiritual scriptures of India as 'sahaja samadhi.'

Fortunately for us, an effort is required to maintain a feeling of separation. And so, as the effort ceases, the feeling wholly vanishes. The question verily comes: how do we cease the effort of maintaining the feeling of separation? The answer is simple: the moment we recognise this effort to be superfluous and unnecessary, letting go becomes easy and spontaneous. We just need to experientially understand that making this effort is not necessary. Such a separative dynamic of perception is only one option available to us, and we can choose a different option, that is, we can reeeeellaaaaaaxxx all unnecessary perceptual overlays, and reveal the ground of Peace that abides beneath all perceptions.

Our human body and mind can function perfectly well without such a feeling of separation. Indeed, we will find that we function with a greater accessibility of grace and ease than before, for now our energy can settle and relax into a concordant flow with the totality, rather than erecting and maintaining illusory boundaries and resistances.

Those boundaries and resistances arise because the mind fabricates an image of a boundary around the body, an image that requires effort to keep in place; because in Reality such a boundary is not fundamentally there. The mind needs to repeatedly superimpose the image of separation onto our sensations, to continually bolster the effort in order to maintain a hallucination. This repetitive strain consequently conditions the tissue of the body through the nervous system to contract, giving the impression of a thick wall between it and the 'outside world.' We feel these tensions vibrate across the skin, around the outer surface of the body, resisting the supposedly 'outside world', and often impeding the freedom of bodily movement.

The potency and gentleness of the tantric approach is in the understanding that when these tensions and imaginations are recognised to be incapable of truly separating the body from the totality, that their role is verily useless, the inherent intelligence of the body automatically flushes them out. Just as we would naturally relax our shoulders upon noticing an unnecessary tightness therein, the body relaxes by itself in the context of our tantric play. We don't need to actuate any special, forceful purging process. The body knows what to do all by itself.

Once it is clear that no separation is really being experienced - and that the effort and tension to create the illusion of separation is felt to be unnecessary - we leave the body alone, letting it revert back to its natural state, all of its own accord.

Separation is a learned contraction. Unity is our native, effortless condition. And tantric tricks are ways of relaxing back into that effortlessness.

Tantric ticks are a way of knowingly employing a similar process of conditioning we received in our upbringing, that of cultivating psychosomatic tendencies. However here, instead of acquisitive learning, we precipitate an unlearning and relaxation of the tendencies we have already acquired. We no longer rehearse the old ways of feeling. Rather we explore true ways of feeling - ways of feeling that reflect the ever-present Reality of Experience - and in that exploration an automatic letting go and relaxation happens, whereby the superfluous layers fade out, and our body awakens its instinctive cellular memory, that of a seamless intimacy with the totality.

We have not lost our innate cellular memory of Oneness. It is still there, and arises quite spontaneously as we reflexively, and often unknowingly, allow our sensations to expand into the space of a room or vista, and as we feel a Love flow connecting our Self with our dear friends.

A feeling of Love or Beauty - between our Self, people, animals, landscapes, any form of life - is a glowing symptom of Experiencing this unity. We know our exploration of tantra is serving us well when we are feeling Love for and seeing Beauty in everyone and everything. Love and Beauty are, in truth, the Experience of feeling our Self and the apparent 'other' as one indivisible, infinite Being. There is no resistance in a true moment of Love and Beauty. As such, if we are feeling Love and seeing Beauty as this very moment, that is perfect, there is nothing more to do. We purely enjoy life for the sake of it.

Just as the Buddha described his teaching as a 'vehicle' or 'conveyance' that can be left aside once you have arrived at your destination, the tricks of tantra are another such vehicle that can be left aside once we feel clearly the absence of distance between our Self and the totality. In that absence of distance, Love, Beauty and unity are experienced as our Reality.

If, however, it seems in the moment that we are not feeling a Oneness of Reality, we can hop in the vehicle again and enjoy one of the many playful trips of tantra. The Love, Beauty and Oneness of our Being are always available. They are only ever a short, playful trick away, no distance from the Self.