07 The Stages of the Path: The Vajrayana

Clarifying the Vajrayana
"Based on what the buddhas have taught in the tantras, such as the Hevajra Tantra, the standpoint is that actually buddhahood already exists within all beings: as it says in Hevajra Tantra, all beings are already Buddhas, but this is temporarily obscured. When the obscuration is removed, they are Buddhas. The fruition, the goal of the path, Buddhahood, the level of Vajradhara is actually already, in a sense present within our mindstream now. That is, the standpoint of the Vajrayana. So that rather than thinking enlightenment is something to be produced through accumulating the necessary conditions the necessary factors of merit and wisdom, it has to, in a way simply be realized, to be taken hold of. So the relationship between the basis, the starting point, the path, and the fruit is very special, and very significant in the Vajrayana."