The Kalachakra Tantra

The word Kalachakra means “Cycle of Time”. The Kalachakra Tantra is a profound Buddhist system of teaching and practise which encompasses three aspects:

• Outer Kalachakra: The external environment, the universe and its cycles of arising and disintegrating. Our world system and its cycles of sun, living in the universe, and the cycle of death and birth and internal flows of breath and energy.
• Inner Kalachakra: The sentient beings living in the universe, and the cycles of death and birth and internal flows of breath and energy;
• Alternative Kalachakra: The practice of purification undertaken by an individual so that ordinary death, birth, and manifestation on both an individual and universal level, which are usually uncontrollably subject to the passage of time, become purified into the fully Enlightened state of complete Buddhahood.

The Kalachakra Tantra has particular relevance for our world system. The Tantra was taught by the Buddha in India two and half thousand years ago at the request of the King of Shambala. Shambala is a place variously viewed as having been an actual historical kingdom which existed beyond the Himalaya, or as a pure land existing on another planet not generally accessible but nonetheless strongly connected to our world. Predictions concerning Shambala have particular relevance to world events of today, being especially concerned with peace on this planet, and can also be compared with the predictive literature of other religions.

All Buddhist teachings are based on the Four Noble Truths: The recognition that every sentient being experiences suffering; the understanding of the causes of this suffering; the recognition that if the causes are removed there will be an end to the suffering; and the practical methods by which to achieve Liberation from suffering, or full Enlightenment or Buddhahood. Within the Buddhist Tantras, the practice of Highest Yoga Tantra leads to perfect Buddhahood. The Kalachakra Tantra is a Highest Yoga Tantra, and such can be said to epitomize the apex of Buddhist Teachings. Only in Tibet were the Highest Yoga Tantras preserved and practised as a living tradition after the decline of Buddhism in its native land of India.