When karma activates, inner winds are generated. Impure winds kick up waves of contaminated appearances or reflections on the ocean of our mind, pure winds kick up waves of pure appearances. Contaminated appearances are mirages that appear to be things that exist separately from the ocean. Pure appearances are seen and understood directly to be karmic waves inseparable from the ocean of our mind.

The winds carry the wave-like appearance a certain distance depending upon the intensity of the karmic wind activated, but they eventually dissipate and the wave returns back into the ocean and the reflected appearance disappears with it. This is why all karma has a duration to its appearance.

When we engage in actions motivated by delusion or the engaged object of our mind is contaminated, we create contaminated karma that has the potential to generate impure winds. When we engage in actions motivated by renunciation or bodhichitta or the object of our mind is one that exists outside of samsara, such as visualized Buddhas, we create pure karma that has the potential to generate pure winds. Our tantric practices create huge collections of pure karma because both the motivation and the objects of mind are all pure. This is one of the main reasons why they are the quick path.

Mantra recitation is a special type of action that functions to directly purify all our winds. It does so by mixing subtle emanations of Buddhas with our root and branch winds, much like body mandala meditations do for our subtle channels and drops, from which all our other inner winds arise. By purifying our root and main branch winds directly, we indirectly purify all our other winds, making all waves of appearance pure. We want to mix our mantra recitation with our gross, subtle, and very subtle root and branch winds. We do this through verbal, mental, and vajra recitation of mantras respectively.

Our Mahamudra practices are the real quick path because through them we purify our gross, subtle, and very subtle minds directly. Sutra Mahamdura settles the waves of our gross mind. Tantra or Vajrayana Mahamudra settles the waves of our subtle and very subtle minds. This is like purifying the ocean itself of all contaminated currents flowing within it (delusion obstructions) and all contaminants in the ocean itself (obstructions to omniscience). By purifying our mind itself – the ocean – all the waves themselves settle into the ocean, causing all the reflections on the waves we normally see to disappear and we are left with only the completely still ocean of the emptiness of our very subtle mind.

This experience is extremely blissful. It’s a feeling of sustained release from all suffering of all beings because the pain of samsara itself has vanished. This is also why the substantial cause of the tantric mind of great bliss is the sutra mind of great compassion. And the nature of this mind itself is so subtle and so pure, it is blissful. Moksha in Sanskrit means release from samsara. Bliss is what moksha feels like. Training in bliss through our tantric practices helps us tune into or connect with this underlying moksha. It is a way of getting to the enlightened experience through our aggregate of feeling. Our wisdom meditations bring us to the enlightened experience through our aggregate of discrimination, which is also why we can say bliss is what emptiness feels like.

When all our conceptions are pure we understand ourselves to be in the pure land, but it still appears ordinary due to impure karmic legacy. We are generating no new contaminated winds and waves, but the ones that had previously been activated haven’t yet exhausted themselves, much like when the wind stops blowing waves continue to rise and fall on the ocean, but eventually they settle down into perfect stillness. When all our appearances are pure, we see ourselves in the pure land. When all these pure appearances are seen to be one with emptiness, we attain enlightenment.