Tantra is concerned with direct experience
We saw that Tantra developed partly in response to the Mahayana tendency to lose touch with the everyday world. Tantra is pragmatic. It has a critical 'how does it actually help?' approach to spiritual teachings.
However fine your ideas, however beautiful your imaginative fantasies, if some aspect of Buddhism makes no difference to your actual experience, the Tantra is not interested. It tries to make everything directly accessible and usable.
If you have not had a particular spiritual experience, it asks you to find whatever in your personal experience corresponds with it. For example, it is as though the Tantra says, 'You say you take Refuge in the Buddha. But Sakyamuni Buddha died 2,500 years ago.
If you were very highly spiritually developed you might still feel his spiritual influence, but what if you're not? You need direct contact to inspire you, not just books. So if you've missed out on Sakyamuni, who in your own experience comes closest to being Enlightened?
Who are you in actual contact with who is most like a Buddha?... Your guru? All right then, as far as you are concerned your guru is the Buddha, your Buddha Refuge.' The Tantra does the same with the other refuges, as we shall see in Chapters Five and Six. Tantra, then, aims to enable you to experience the truths of Buddhism directly.
It is not interested in theories and ideas (per se). Like Zen, it asks to be shown, here and now in this room, non-duality, Sunyata, compassion, and all those other fine-sounding ideas. A Buddhist teacher once produced an aphorism 'work is the Tantric guru'. If you are building a wall, it is either there at the end of the day or it is not. Your ideas about what lovely walls you could build count for nothing.
Hard work gives you objective feedback on your capacity to mobilize your energy and get things done. It demands a great deal of you. You really have to give yourself to it. All these things are true also of the Tantric guru, and the Tantric approach.
It demands hard work and dedication to actualize the Tantric path. Tantra is often said to be a quick path to Enlightenment. People become excited by this, but in the spiritual life you never obtain something for nothing. Unless your karma is exceptionally good, before you can truly enter upon the Vajrayana you need long preparation in the Sutrayana.
In addition, the practice of Tantra requires great effort, energy, and determination. As another aphorism says, 'The Tantra is quick and easy, if you work long enough and hard enough!'
