I'm writing an essay comparing Mahayana bodhisattva and Tantric siddhi, Ask me anything (about them)! Options

[Raijinili]

Soyeah. Do not meta this topic, please.

Mahayana and Vajrayana (or Tantric) are two schools of Buddhism that appeared some few hundred years. The Mahayana bodhisattva and the Vajrayana siddhi are the enlightened masters for their respective schools. Being their ideal beings and their end goals, a comparison between the two masters will tell us a lot about the differences between the two schools.

Buddhists believe that life is suffering, and thus to stop one's suffering and be happy, one must detach from samsara (the world of sensations, or the cycle of rebirth) and achieve nirvana (extinguishment of the self). To detach oneself from samsara, one must realize that the world is not "real". Enlightenment is this deep realization, which is required to lose one's attachment to samsara.

In Mahayana Buddhism, the act of leaving the world behind, and all its people, upon reaching enlightenment is considered selfish. The bodhisattva is first and foremost a creature of compassion. A monk's hope is to achieve enlightenment and then, instead of achieving nirvana, stay in samsara so that he can help others be released from samsara. Thus a bodhisattva can leave the cycle of rebirth at any time, but chooses to be reborn again and again to be able to help others to nirvana.

Vajrayana Buddhism, on the other hand, expands on the idea of detaching from samsara. The siddhi is unrestricted by the laws of the world that we would take for granted, such as gravity, and has magical powers after enlightenment. The siddhi also has no need for inhibitions, and even murder is not a problem as the world is just Mara (illusion). The Vajrayana monk, in pursuit of this, may engage in ritual sex, which is typically forbidden to other Buddhist monks, and other acts which are considered impure, using impurity to create purity. In fact, one text of the school compares it to washing away dirt with more dirt, or using venom to expel venom from a wound.