Toh 1661Untitled

Exposition of Yoga Tantra — Toh 1661

Background

Yoga Tantra belongs to the class of advanced Tantric scriptures in the Vajrayāna tradition, classified as Yoga Tantra, the third of the four classes of Tantra according to the classification of Tibetan Tantra. These scriptures arose in the final period of Indian Buddhism, around the eighth to eleventh centuries, when Tantra had fully developed with complex doctrines on the cultivation and transformation of the mind.

Yoga Tantra differs from the lower tantras in that it emphasizes the decisive role of the practitioner’s consciousness. If the lower tantras primarily depend on complex rituals, mantras, and sacred materials, then Yoga Tantra focuses on inner yogic practice, the regulation of subtle energy within the body’s channels in order directly to witness the emptiness of the true self.

This Yoga Tantra scripture is preserved in the Kangyur of the Tibetan tradition under the number Toh 1661, representing one of the important works that teach the Tantric yoga path, in which the practitioner learns how to use the mind to transform existence (saṃsāra) into awakening (bodhi).

Main Content

Although the official title has not been fully published, Yoga Tantra in general guides the practitioner through three principal stages: the generation stage, the completion stage, and the union stage.

In the generation stage, the practitioner learns to visualize himself or herself as a manifest deity (iṣṭadevatā). This is not a mythological belief, but a method of replacing habitual self-identification with clear awareness of the nature of mind. The practitioner imagines that the universe disappears, and then from empty space a sacred palace arises with the deity at its center, which is the practitioner’s own disciplined mind.

The completion stage teaches how to subdue and regulate the subtle currents of energy (prāṇa) that run through the central channel (suṣumṇā nāḍī).