The Role of the Senses in Tantric Buddhism

Tantric forms of Buddhism suggest that the interaction between self and world holds the key to enlightenment. As “windows to the world,” the senses become an essential consideration. If we begin to observe interactions carefully, we find they tend to unfold in the following way: subject and object make contact (sparśa); a smell, flavor, color, sensation, or sound arises; and then we decide whether we are attracted to it, averse to it, or we remain indifferent (vedanā). These impressions begin to form constellations of concepts, which evolve into narratives, identities, and belief systems and influence the way we experience the next moment. And yet beyond this conventional process of noticing, judging, and affirming categories and preferences, there’s the potential for much more to happen. 

Just because we experience something a certain way does not mean this is the only possible way of experiencing it. We all know that different people can have different reactions to the same object or event, and that what is pleasing to us in one moment isn’t always pleasing to us in another. Whether the smell of coffee invites comfort or craving, whether the letters on the page appear as meaningful words or arbitrary shapes, or whether a rapid heartbeat is experienced as an anxiety attack or as arousal, all will depend on the context. The idea that anything exists intrinsically or independently is an inaccurate worldview from the Buddhist perspective, and the senses are no exception. Sense perceptions are not fixed processes, with permanent outcomes, but can fluctuate and transform as subject and object do. In other words, they arise co-dependently (pratītyasamutpāda). They are influenced by past thoughts, words, and actions (karma); and more specifically by time, place, culture, class, family dynamics, relationships, traumatic events, and so forth. We often forget that what we sense is the result of an interaction; it is something we participate in, rather than something we passively receive. The smell of the coffee, the appearance of letters, and the sensation of the heartbeat may all be real, but they are never experienced in a single, permanent way.   

If the senses themselves are also characterized by emptiness (śūnyatā), this implies that their recontextualization can transform how they function for us. They can either keep us locked into cyclical, dualistic thinking, or they can liberate us completely. In more traditional Buddhist knowledge systems, there is an emphasis placed on how sense perceptions trigger us to perceive a reality split into subject and object. This split gives rise to the dualistic, egocentric orientation which drags us along the familiar and habitual process of grasping and avoiding⁠—the cause of our samsaric suffering. Instead of viewing the senses as hindrances to our meditation practice and spiritual path, practices grounded in a tantric worldview place sensory experiences within a new framework. In that framework,the senses become opportunities to liberate ourselves from cycles of thinking that suggest we are separate, isolated, and alone. Since the colorful and sensuous can give rise to feelings which bridge the outer with the inner worlds, they can become tools to understand nonduality. Emerging out of the unification of subject and object, they show us how the interior and exterior landscape are ultimately linked. A true exploration of feeling and sensation leads to a dissolution of boundaries and an expansion of oneself beyond the immediate body. This provokes a widening of our identity and encourages us to live in an enlightened relationship with whatever is present.

Our suffering comes from not understanding the participatory nature of experience – from simplistically thinking that something outside of us is alone causing our inner experience, while failing to see how it could be the other way around. Under the right conditions, the senses become gateways to experience the inseparability of self and world; they provide proof that we are enmeshed in something much larger than ourselves. They show us that we are inextricably bound to others –everything connected,  rising and falling together. Some forms of Buddhist Tantra maintain that unifying sense experiences can subvert the self-other power dynamic at the root misunderstanding, ultimately leading us towards the wisdom of interdependence. 

To engage with the senses in this way takes practice, patience, and resilience, but through careful cultivation we can gain access to wider horizons of possibility. The tantric practice of working with a maṇḍala is a perfect example, where shape, color, and symbol are all carefully used to reorient our mental space and reconfigure our relationship to the world around us. Thangkas with vibrant images of buddhas and bodhisattvas (Tib. yidam) likewise serve as templates for reconstituting one’s sense of self, and like other visual aids and forms of visualization common to Vajrayana Buddhism, begin to undo the tendency to perceive things as solid or concrete. Physical postures, gestures (mudrā), syllables or phrases (bīja, mantra), breathing techniques, and focused gazes are just a few examples of how sensory experiences are used in tantric practice to demonstrate the empty or unfixed nature of reality. These embodied practices rely upon the senses to bring a type of knowledge and understanding of interdependence that demands to be felt, rather than just conceptualized.

In tantric forms of Buddhism, that which may keep us bound may also set us free. It is ultimately up to us—do we use feelings to experience emptiness, to witness the nature of our own minds, or do we use them to perpetuate dualistic thinking? The next time subject and object make contact, and a smell, flavor, color, sensation, or sound arises, instead of being instantly pulled along the familiar path of judgment and “othering,” we may instead feel ourselves opening and our edges expanding. We may allow feelings to arise without forcing them to last or to take any particular shape (aparigraha or non-grasping), instead simply leaning into the point of contact as a reminder of our togetherness. Instead of creating a barrier between subject and object, sensory perception also holds the potential to reveal just how much division and rigidity remains in our minds, while persistently inviting us to come back to the undefinable meeting place between self and world. Fortunately, no matter how long we’ve been lost in discursive thought, we can always come back to our senses.

Appendix:
A Sensory Thought Experiment

When you close your eyes
Can you tell where your body ends
And where the rest of the world begins?
Take the sense of hearing, for example.
When you experience sound,
Where does the experience happen?
Is it in the ear drum?
Is it in the thing producing noise?
Or is it where the two meet?
But where exactly do the two meet?
Can you locate the merging point?
Does it have a center? Or a circumference?
What if you apply this to what you feel?
To what you see? To what you smell or taste?
Can we entertain the idea that maybe our sense perceptions exist beyond location
Because they are edgeless – beyond inner and outer?