Some Highlighted Passages from Wedemeyer's 'Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism'
I've finally finished reading 'Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism' by Christian Wedemeyer. I started on the book the better part of a year ago, making steady progress until classes resumed. Now with Thanksgiving, I've been able to give it the time it deserved. This is the first scholarly work on Tantra I've yet read (also the first scholarly work of history and semiology, so there was a period of adjustment there), and this book is a good antidote to misinformation from other sources. Wedemeyer is especially concerned with errors of history and interpretation of Tantra, and he lays out some very, very large errors in the current literature, some of which I had absorbed second-hand through the writing of David Chapman. I'll be writing up a reflection on these disagreements swiftly. Definition and Elaboration of Tantra, and the Setup for his ultimate Thesis As the term will be used in what follows, Tantric Buddhism comprehends those forms of esoteric Buddhism that