Great-Bliss-Tantric-Sex-and-the-Path-to-Inner-Awakening

The Solution: The End of Suffering in Permanent Peace and Bliss
Nirodha is the cessation of suffering. It leads to nirvāṇa (lit. blown out), an endless state of peace
and bliss. You are completely free of the fever of desire, aversion, the ignorance of an illusory
self, the Five Aggregates, and karma. It is absolute release, purity, stability, truth, freedom from
cyclic existence, unconditioned and without attachment. It is awesome and inconceivable.
Attaining it, you never experience the suffering of birth, old age or death again.
The Method: The Path
Once you recognize suffering as a pervasive part of life, you see that it has a cause, and that it is
possible to be without suffering, the path (marga) to liberation is through cultivating wisdom,
ethical conduct, and meditative stability. On a very deep level, you realize the true nature of
yourself as composed of the Five Aggregates, and that these are impermanent and continually
subject to karmic conditioning through the cycle of Dependent Origination. You extinguish
desire, release your clinging to a self that never really existed, and you are free.
Path
“When a monk gives attention to stilling the thoughts, the mind becomes
internally steadied, composed, unified, and concentrated.”
- The Buddha, The Relaxation of Thoughts Sūtra
Lay and Monastic Paths
Traditionally, the majority of Buddhist adherents are lay people, who offer devotion and
financial support to the community of monks and nuns, and continue to pursue worldly pleasures
responsibly. The monastics, renouncing all worldly desires, give up their posessions, take robes,
take 200-300 vows depending upon the ways of their particular ordination lineage, and live a life
of practice and contemplation. Originally only monastics were instructed in the Noble Eightfold
Path. Today, lay followers develop in the Buddha’s quieting the mind practices of Tranquility
Meditation, and Insight Meditation is taught exclusively to monks.
Levels of Attainment
Buddhism is a graded path to liberation. Once you understand the Dharma, take the vows, and
practice, you are called a noble disciple (ārya śrāvaka is male, and ārya śrāvakā is female). Four
levels in the Common Vehicle are marked, based on the degree to which you overcome the Ten
Fetters (Saṃyojana), inner obstacles that prevent you from progress. The five lower fetters are:
1) false views, especially about a self, 2) doubt, 3) heretical practices, relying for liberation on
rituals that cannot bring liberation, 4) desire, and 5) aversion. The five higher fetters are: 1)
desire for the Realm of Form, 2) desire for the Realm of Formlessness, 3) agitation, such as guilt
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