Vajrayāna receives the general Buddhist teaching on karma and rebirth, yet treats it as a field for deliberate, accelerated transformation rather than something to be merely endured. Karma is understood as the imprints of body, speech, and mind that shape future experience and drive the continuity of rebirth, but tantric methods are said to compress and ripen these imprints with unusual speed. Through deity yoga, mantra recitation, visualization, and related practices, negative karma that would otherwise take vast stretches of time to exhaust is addressed more rapidly. The emphasis falls not only on creating powerful positive karma, but also on purifying and transforming existing karmic tendencies so that they become fuel for awakening instead of further bondage.

This transformative orientation extends to the handling of afflictive emotions and ordinary perception itself. Rather than simply suppressing anger, desire, or jealousy, Vajrayāna methods aim to transmute such energies into wisdom and spiritual power, often in conjunction with subtle-body practices involving channels, winds, and drops. By visualizing oneself as an enlightened deity and the environment as a pure mandala, practitioners work to dissolve entrenched karmic patterns and counter the dualistic habits that perpetuate karmic causality. Pure perception in this sense is not an escape from karma, but a radical reconfiguration of how karmic appearances are experienced and responded to.

Rebirth, in this framework, remains the ongoing cycle propelled by karma and attachment, yet it is also treated as a domain where skillful means can operate very precisely. Teachings on the bardo, the intermediate state between death and rebirth, describe how consciousness passes through post-mortem phases in which recognition of the nature of mind can bring liberation or at least influence the direction of the next birth. Practices such as bardo yoga, the Six Yogas of Naropa, and related instructions train practitioners to recognize the clear light at death and to navigate these transitions with awareness. The ideal of consciously steering rebirth, whether toward liberation or toward circumstances favorable to practice, reflects the conviction that karmic momentum can be met with lucid, trained responsiveness.

Within this vision, the guru-disciple relationship and formal empowerments are regarded as especially potent means of karmic transformation. Authentic transmission is held to plant powerful seeds for rapid spiritual development and favorable future conditions, intensifying both the possibilities and the responsibilities of the path. Ethical discipline and the careful keeping of tantric commitments remain indispensable, since misuse of these powerful methods is said to generate particularly heavy karmic consequences. Yet the overarching confidence of Vajrayāna is that, through such integrated methods, complete awakening and freedom from cyclic rebirth can be realized even within a single lifetime.