Re Sentient:
"What about people who really use it [ tantra ] as a meditation, who learn to raise energy for psychic or spiritual practices?"

Tantra means several things. It means "integration", "wholeness", as in integration / wholeness of psychophysical experience, through integrative yogic discipline, and in the Buddhist usage it also means
"primordial pure awareness", specifically the Basis Path and Result of Awareness Yoga. Awareness yoga is in one of two major categories, Atiyoga / Dzogchen / Great Perfection, and Mahamudra / Chagyachenpo / Great Seal.

In each of these three sets of terms, the first term is Sanskrit, the second is Tibetan, and the third is an English language approximation. In either Buddhist system, the basic idea is that Basis = Path = Result, or
Basis Buddha = Path Buddha = Result Buddha.

Basis Buddha is you, specifically your own primordially pure awareness, or mine for that matter, which is temporarily obstructed or limited, resulting in a lower energy, divided state of awareness. But the original pure awareness within each individual is never lost nor can it be destroyed, even by physical death.

From one perspective, the teacher known as Guru Sakyamuni Buddha developed or realized his own pure Buddha nature over a period of one thousand lifetimes, with five hundred "impure" lifetimes and five hundred pure lifetimes.

This resulted in an extraordinary event which is the refounding of Buddhist yoga in the current world age. The current founder Buddha Guru Sakyamuni Buddha manifested three defining attributes
1) wholeness and completeness of awareness
2) wholeness and completeness of compassion
3) wholeness and completeness of power, meaning spiritual power.

You asked about spiritual power, so I will give you a concrete, specific historical act of power manifested by Guru Sakyamuni Buddha.

Once, about twenty five hundred years ago or so, the historical Guru Sakyamuni was attacked by a large, wild, ferocious stampeding elephant. This elephant was specifically provoked by Guru Sakyamuni's cousin Devadatta in hopes of killing Guru Sakyamuni.

The elephant was charging straight towards Sakyamuni, and as I understand matters, some people nearby were trying to flee, since a raging elephant is a powerful and unpredictable force, that might turn in any direction.

Guru Sakyamuni saw the elephant charge straight towards him, and he just stood there. This was not because he was lacking attentiveness, nor because he was frozen with fear. He was standing there to address a problem, not only for himself, but for others present.

So, the elephant is making a straight line for Guru Sakyamuni, and Sakyamuni is standing there for a long moment considering the elephant. Then Sakyamuni raises his right hand palm forward in the Abhaya hasta mudra, the Sacred Hand Gesture of Fearlessness. Then the crazed elephant stops dead in its tracks right in front of Guru Sakyamuni, becomes completely calm, and the problem is solved.

Now in Honolulu Hawaii, it took a lot of effort to stop a rmapaging elephant thaw was tearing up a main downtown avenue some twelve years back. It took a lot of firepower to bring that elephant down, to cripple and kill it.

But to all appearances, all that Guru Sakaymuni did when he was attacked, was to make a simple hand gesture, and the huge and dangerous problem was resolved in the space of one breath.

This is a definite expression of spiritual power, of the power of a great mystic and yogi and indeed a true Buddha. It's not a magic trick nor any kind of swindle nor rumor of what may have happened. It is simply put, a direct manifestation of jnana ( wisdom ) karuna ( compassion ) and bala ( power ).

The overall tradition of Buddhist yoga remains alive today, at varying levels of effectiveness and completeness. Great acts of power have been performed over the centuries since Guru Sakyamuni originally taught. I myself have seen and experienced some real acts of power in the Buddhist tradition, as well as in some other traditions.

For example, I once saw a native American bring a lame woman to ( begin to ) walk in one very short healing session, back in 1983. She actually was beginning to lift her legs. The teacher, Rolling Thunder, said
"I did not expect this to happen in one session. I thought it would take three sessions. I did not perform this healing. It wasn't me. You healed yourself."

So here is the real teaching on wisdom compassion and power: wisdom compassion and power are already within us. That is the core meaning of tantra in the Buddhist tradition. There is an equally important core meaning known as Lineage and Transmission, which means connecting with an authentic guru and receiving abhisekha, or transmission/ empowerment. And also there is samaya, which means maintaining the sacred connection, through ethics and self-reflection.

In the mid 1980s Buddhist tantra saved my life, through a series of major transmission cycles and several million mantra recitations, and so forth. The abhisekha/ transmissions were mainly from
- HE Luding Khen Rinbochay ( the principal Sakya Tibetan Ngor lineage holder )
- HH Kalu Rinbochay ( the principal Shangpa Kagyu Tibetan lineage holder ) and
- HH Chetsang Tulku Rinbochay, one of the two principal Drikung Kagyu Tibetan lineage holders
- Longchen Nyingtik Breakthrough from Ven. Lama Terton Sogyal Tulku ( Nyingma, Rigpa Fellowship ).

This includes three primary cycles of transmission from HH Kalu Rinbochay.

I was therefore able to receive power, healing and purification, and so able to develop some power, healing, and complete some purification, when these were most needed to save my own life.

There was no way a western muggle doctor or shrink could address the kind of problem I faced, which in retrospect seemed about as easy to handle as a wild charging elephant. So I didn't talk to any. I took the medicine of Buddha Dharma, the Discipline or Awareness.

I have never believed in "faith healing." When I was very young, a little girl died because her parents provided her only Christian faith healing. She had appendicitis and her abdomen ruptured. Over forty years later, I still do not believe in faith healing, certainly not as the muggles do.

But there is spiritual power, there is yoga, and there is healing. At least, these are present as possiblities.

I myself am a medical yogi, an inner medical tantrika. I took my final exams over twenty years ago. In all that time, I have never believed in a personal creator God, nor in faith healing, nor really in any of what the yogically illiterate call "religion".

I don't have a personal religious belief to espouse. I study and practice yoga, mainly Buddhist tantra, along with a large set of related and similar practices from across Asia, plus various protocols for high level wellness from all over, including Native American teachings.

There are many many classical and and traditional practices that really work. My own experience is that the tantra - considered in the broader sense - is the deepest and most powerful and most broadly acting spiritual discipline. A lot of it has to do with breathing techniques ( pranayama ) and visualization, based on lineage transmission and sacred commitments as mentioned earlier.

Vajradhara Kalu Rinbochay wrote a book:

"The Dharma: That Illuminates All Beings Impartially Like the Light of the Sun and the Moon"
by Kalu Rinpoche (Author)
# Paperback: 222 pages
# Publisher: State University of New York Press (October 1986)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0887061575
# ISBN-13: 978-0887061578

There is also

"The Crystal and the Way of Light: Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen" (Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy) by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu and John Shane

# Paperback: 176 pages
# Publisher: Snow Lion Publications (October 25, 1999)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1559391359
# ISBN-13: 978-1559391351

For general purposes, these are two books I have been recommending to many here and there over the years. They are both very accessible and together provide a good foundation for further study in more technical areas of Buddhist tantra. ( My own core Buddhist stack of books and materials and sadhanas and notes is over sixteen feet tall, but you don't need more than a small functional set of teachings and transmissions and texts to engage this path. )

I am really thankful for the efforts of these two Buddhist gurus, as well as many others ( over sixty Buddhist gurus in fact ). I have benefited greatly thereby. Perhaps you can too. It's mostly about doing your homework, it's mostly about effective yoga sadhana.

It's mostly about awareness and responsibility and caring enough. . . and prioritizing what matters in the long term.

You have been helped.

Sarva mangalam. Siddhi rastu.

KT