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

Chapter 2.
The Path of Purification:
The Mahāyāna
“All the suffering in the world arises out of wanting happiness for yourself.
All the happiness in the world arises out of wanting happiness for others.”
- Śāntideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva
The Allure of Nālandā
By the time the young man arrived
at Nālandā, the university was
already hundreds of years old,
renowned as the greatest seat of
learning in the world. With ten
thousand students and two thousand
teachers, every field of knowledge
was represented. It was filled with
beautiful temples, meeting halls,
classrooms, an enormous library,
lakes and parks.
Yet for all this success, for the first
time in the university’s history, an
unmistakable insecurity hung in the
air. Since the time of the Buddha,
the scholar-monks had been the
undisputed leaders of the Saṅgha.
Now a new class of leaders arose
who overshadowed their wisdom
and abilities: the siddhas. As radical
liberators, they both inspired and
discontented the community. The
siddhas rejected the standards of the
monastics, laughed at their celibacy
and scholarship, dazzled crowds
with their magical feats, and dared
the monks to stop talking about
enlightenment and actually attain it.
One day, students of the Siddha
Śabara came to the university to
visit. Determined to meet him, the
young man left Nālandā early one morning and hitched a ride on a bullock cart to the southeast.
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