Buddhist tantra and Vajrayana

Vajrayana — the Diamond Vehicle — is the form of Buddhism that emerged in India and spread to Tibet, Bhutan, and parts of East Asia, teaching that awakening can be accelerated through the use of mantra, mudra, visualization, and the transformation of the ordinary energies of mind and body into vehicles of liberation. Where other forms of Buddhism emphasize gradual path and renunciation, Vajrayana insists that nothing need be abandoned — that even desire, anger, and confusion contain within them the seeds of wisdom. The Tibetan tradition in particular has preserved a complete civilization of contemplative technology, including the Bardo Thodol's guidance for the experience of dying, that has no parallel in any other tradition.