Vajrayāna presents a vision in which the apparent gap between the individual and the universe is ultimately illusory. The distinction between “self” and “world” is understood as a conceptual construction that obscures their shared ground in emptiness (śūnyatā) and interdependent origination. Both the individual and the cosmos arise within a single web of conditions, without any phenomenon possessing an independent, self-existing essence. In this light, the individual is not a separate island within a foreign universe, but a particular manifestation of the same fundamental reality that pervades all things.

This relationship is often expressed through the language of Buddha-nature and the microcosm–macrocosm correspondence. Every sentient being is said to possess Buddha-nature, an enlightened essence identical in nature to the ultimate reality of the universe. The body, speech, and mind of the practitioner are seen as a microcosm that reflects the macrocosm of all phenomena and cosmic principles. From this perspective, the universe is not merely an external environment but a vast mandala, a sacred field in which awakened qualities are already fully present.

Tantric practice in Vajrayāna is designed to make this non-dual relationship directly experiential. Through deity yoga, mantra, and visualization, practitioners train to recognize that their own body, speech, and mind are not different in essence from the body, speech, and mind of the buddhas. Visualizing oneself as a deity at the center of a mandala symbolically dissolves the boundary between individual identity and the enlightened universe, revealing a continuity of awareness and energy rather than a confrontation between subject and object. In this way, ordinary perception is gradually transformed into pure perception, in which all phenomena are seen as expressions of Buddha-nature.

From the highest standpoint articulated in Vajrayāna, what is called saṃsāra and what is called nirvāṇa are not two separate realities but two modes of experiencing the same universe. When filtered through ignorance and clinging, this universe appears as confusion and suffering; when seen through awakened wisdom, the very same field of experience is recognized as a pure realm, a mandala of enlightened presence. Spiritual realization, therefore, does not consist in escaping the universe or acquiring something new, but in recognizing that the enlightened qualities of the whole cosmos are already present within one’s own continuum.