Vajrayāna is often described as a “swift path” because it treats the energies that usually bind beings to cyclic existence as the very fuel for awakening. Where the more gradual sūtra-based approach emphasizes weakening and abandoning afflictive emotions over vast stretches of time, tantric methods aim to transform those same emotions directly into wisdom and compassion. This shift from renunciation alone to transformation allows desire, anger, and other kleshas to be worked with as potent energies rather than simply obstacles. The path thus does not wait for a distant purification before engaging fully with reality; it seeks to reveal the awakened dimension already implicit within present experience.

A central method here is deity yoga, in which practitioners visualize themselves as fully enlightened Buddhas and their surroundings as a pure mandala. By repeatedly assuming this enlightened identity and “pure perception,” the practitioner trains in taking the result—Buddhahood itself—as the path. Mantra recitation and ritual further reinforce this orientation, integrating body, speech, and mind through gestures, sacred sound, and visualization. In this way, ordinary perception is gradually displaced by a vision of all phenomena as expressions of Buddha-nature, which is regarded as primordially pure.

Another distinctive feature is the emphasis on direct transmission and introduction to the nature of mind through the guru. Empowerments, blessings, and pointing-out instructions are said to condense and catalyze what might otherwise require long periods of conceptual study and gradual accumulation of merit. Subtle-body practices that work with energies (prāṇa) and channels are likewise presented as sophisticated skillful means, designed to clear obscurations and evoke nondual awareness more rapidly than conventional methods of concentration and analysis alone. Because these techniques address body, speech, and mind simultaneously, they are portrayed as a complete methodology that can, for those properly prepared and guided, compress the path that would otherwise extend over countless eons.

Traditional presentations therefore speak of the possibility of attaining full awakening within a single lifetime, or within a relatively small number of rebirths, provided the practitioner has the necessary capacity, devotion, and adherence to vows. The promise of speed is not framed as a shortcut that bypasses ethical discipline or wisdom, but as an intensified way of generating them by consecrating virtually every aspect of life as practice. By transforming emotions instead of merely suppressing them, by adopting the enlightened form and view from the outset, and by relying on direct transmission and subtle energetic methods, Vajrayāna articulates a path that seeks to make every moment spiritually consequential and thus dramatically accelerates the journey toward Buddhahood.