Vajrayana · Skt: vajrayāna

Vajrayana names the tantric wing of the Mahayana. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes “the Vajrayāna, or ‘Diamond Way,’” as a path “practiced by Buddhists in the Himalayas and parts of Central Asia, including Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and Mongolia”, and adds that it “can be seen as a branch of the Mahāyāna, since it shares the same spiritual goal”. That goal is the ordinary Mahayana one, since “all serious Mahāyānists take the bodhisattva vow, promising to become Buddhas in order to help all beings”. What sets Vajrayana apart is method: its practitioners “seek to attain Mahāyāna goals using Tantric means”, and the differences from other forms of Mahayana “concern ritual, iconography, and meditation techniques”.

Its scriptures are the tantras. 84000’s survey of the tantra collection sorts them into four classes: Action tantras, which “make up the third and largest group” and “focus on worship of deities external to the practitioner and the practice of a wide variety of rituals for specific purposes”; Conduct tantras, “the second and smallest group”, centred on Vairocana and Vajrapāṇi; Yoga tantras, of which “the best known is the Tattvasaṃgraha”; and the Unexcelled Yoga tantras, “tantras of the highest class according to the New Schools”, including Kālacakra, Cakrasaṃvara, Hevajra and Guhyasamāja.

Usage differs by tradition. The tantras belong to Tibetan Buddhism and the other Himalayan and Central Asian traditions rather than to the whole Buddhist world, and 84000 describes them as “the scriptures of the Vajrayāna intended for experienced practitioners, often cryptic and hard to understand without commentary”. Because Vajrayana sits inside the Mahayana rather than beside it, the honest contrast is not Vajrayana against Buddhism but one Mahayana method against another.