💎 The Product Mindset & Vajrayāna Buddhism: Cutting Through Illusion, Attachment & Fear

What Tantric Buddhist Masters and great Product Minds have in common: Letting go, moving fast, and seeing clearly

Most people hear “Buddhism” and think of calm monks meditating under trees, gently detaching from worldly concerns, floating in some serene Zen-like state.

🚫 Vajrayāna isn’t that. 🚫

It’s the direct, unapologetic, cut-through-the-illusion path to seeing reality as it is — not as we wish it to be. It’s called the Diamond Vehicle for a reason:

💎 It shatters preconceptions, cuts through ego, and forces you to confront your own mind with ruthless clarity.

Unlike other Buddhist paths that take lifetimes to reach enlightenment, Vajrayāna is for those who are ready to do the work 🔥 here and now. It doesn’t coddle. It doesn’t ease you in. It throws you into the deep end and says, “Swim.” 🏊‍♂️

My journey into Vajrayāna started years ago, long before I formally received empowerment. But the real turning point came when I realized that what I was wrestling with in my work as a product leader — the chaos, control, urgency, and obsession with outcomes — was the exact same illusion the Dharma was asking me to face.

It was in that moment that I truly understood the broadness of the bodhisattva path (higher paths of trainings leading to Buddhahood) — not just in the quiet of meditation, but in the middle of Jira boards, strategy meetings, and 100 Slack messages a day.

It wasn’t just a shift in mindset. It was a radical rupture — a clarity that cut through everything I thought I knew about control, planning, and execution.

That clarity is what Vajrayāna teaches. And it’s the same clarity that makes great product leadership possible.

And that’s exactly why it’s the perfect parallel to the product mindset. 🚀

A quick intro to Vajrayāna Buddhism

Vajrayāna Buddhism, often called the “Diamond Path” or “Thunderbolt Vehicle,” is a powerful and esoteric tantric branch of Buddhism that originated in India and later flourished in Tibet, Bhutan, and Mongolia. It is considered the fastest path to enlightenment, designed for those who are ready to confront their own mind and attachments head-on.

Unlike other Buddhist paths, which focus on gradual cultivation over many lifetimes, Vajrayāna practitioners seek awakening in a single lifetime by using direct methods — rituals, visualization, mantras, and meditation — combined with a deep understanding of emptiness and interdependence.

At its core, Vajrayāna is about cutting through illusion — recognizing that our perception of reality is shaped by attachments, fears, and habitual patterns. Through rigorous mind training, it aims to break these self-imposed constraints, enabling a practitioner to navigate life with clarity, presence, and fearlessness.

🔍 The Moment of Clarity: Seeing the Stress, the Control, and the Fear

For a long time, it wasn’t clear at all to me why the product mindset often clashed with traditional ways of operating. 🤯

Across industries, even brilliant, experienced professionals were stressed, overwhelmed, and caught in rigid ways of thinking — always chasing quick wins and immediate ROI 💰⚡ with little space for mid- or long-term strategy.

At first, this seemed like an unavoidable reality. Product is complex. Business moves fast. Pressure is constant. ⏳🔥

But looking deeper, a pattern emerged.

When faced with uncertainty, teams often default to control — relying on fixed plans, rigid roadmaps 📍, and full-scale tests rather than iterative learning 🔄.

• 🚫 Instead of isolating variables and testing incrementally, trying to release and test entire experiences at once, skipping the small, targeted adjustments that drive clarity.
• 🚫 Instead of prioritizing with discipline, trying to force everything in, hesitating to commit to less but better. 🎯
• 🚫 Instead of thinking long-term, optimising for immediate ROI 📈, often at the expense of sustainable strategy.

And then it becomes clear:

⚡ This is just about process. It is about attachment. It is about fear.

Fear of uncertainty. Fear of not being in control. Fear of letting go of comforting illusions. 😨

And that’s when everything clicked. 💡

This is not just a product mindset. This is Vajrayāna in action. 🔱

🧠 Core Vajrayāna Concepts That Make It the Ultimate Product Mindset

🪞 The Guru as a Mirror → The Best Product Leaders Don’t Dictate, They Reflect

In Vajrayāna, the teacher isn’t there to spoon-feed you wisdom. They are a mirror — a sharp, honest one that forces you to see your own blind spots. The best product leaders do the same. They don’t hand out answers. They make you think, question, and see the deeper patterns yourself. 🔍

🗣 The Guru & The Product Leader: A true leader, whether in Vajrayāna or Product, isn’t a dictator but a facilitator of transformation.

🛠 Skillful Means (Upaya) → Ruthless Prioritization in Action

Vajrayāna teaches that you don’t treat every problem the same way — you adapt, using whatever tool works best in the moment. Great PMs do the same. There’s no universal roadmap, no “best practice” that fits all cases. You cut through noise and adjust to what moves the needle now. 🎯

⚡ Rapid Iteration & Enlightenment in One Lifetime → Lean Execution Without Waste

Vajrayana cuts through inefficiencies with rapid, high-impact actions — you don’t wait lifetimes for results, you transform in real time. ⚡

Great product teams do the same. No bloated roadmaps, no wasted effort — just fast learning, tight feedback loops, and focused execution. Speed alone is chaos, but speed with clarity is momentum. 🔄🚀

🛠 Rituals & Systems for Stability in Chaos → Structure as a Tool for Clarity

Vajrayāna’s rituals and visualizations aren’t rigid — they create stability in uncertainty, keeping focus sharp. 🌀

Sprints, OKRs, and retrospectives serve the same purpose in product. They aren’t bureaucracy; they’re anchors. Without them? Chaos. Used well? They turn uncertainty into clarity and motion into progress. 🎯🔄

👁 Visualization & Manifestation → Roadmaps, Prototypes, and Seeing the Future

Vajrayāna uses visualization as a tool for transformation — you don’t just think about being enlightened, you train your mind to experience it. In product, roadmaps and prototypes do the same thing. If you can’t see the end state clearly, you can’t build it. 🏗

⚖️ Tantric Union = Balancing Opposites → The Art of Strategy & Execution

Vajrayāna unites wisdom and action — without both, you achieve nothing.

Great PMs balance strategy (vision) and execution (action).

• Too much vision? Nothing ships.
• Too much execution? Direction is lost.

The best leaders hold both — seeing the long-term while making immediate, high-impact decisions. 🔥🏗

☯️ Embracing Paradox → The Art of Holding Contradictions Without Losing the Plot

Vajrayāna is full of contradictions — form and emptiness, self and no-self, action and stillness.

The best PMs operate in this exact space.

You need a strong vision but extreme flexibility. Data-driven decisions but deep intuition. Ruthless focus but openness to change.

🔗 The Illusion of Control → Influence, Adaptation & Emergence

Vajrayāna teaches that control is an illusion — everything is interconnected, and grasping too tightly only creates friction. 🌊

PMs don’t control engineers, stakeholders, or markets — they influence patterns, adapt to change, and move with clarity.

☝🏻 The second you think you have total control? You’ve already lost. 🌀

⚔️ The Wheel of Sharp Weapons → Seeing Problems as Reflections of Your Own Patterns

This text doesn’t pull punches. It tells you straight up: Your struggles aren’t random. They are the result of your own mindset, attachments, and bad habits.

Same in product.

• Dysfunctional teams? Misalignment is a mirror of poor clarity. 🔄
• Roadmap chaos? Fear of making hard cuts. ✂️
• Endless debate cycles? Attachment to certainty instead of learning through action.

⚙️Nothing is external. It’s all a reflection of what hasn’t been addressed at the root. 🌱

🔪 The Wheel of Sharp Features: Ego, Destruction & True Growth

When I first encountered The Wheel of Sharp Weapons, it wasn’t just a casual read. I spent months in a deep, immersive study of the text through the Spanish Paramita organization, guided by Lama Rinchen, who broke down each section with razor-sharp clarity. 🔥

The more I studied, the more it became clear: this wasn’t just about spirituality — this was a direct, brutal playbook for cutting through illusion, attachment, and the traps of ego. 💀

And suddenly, I saw the same patterns everywhere in product management.

• 👉 Ego-driven decision-making → Clinging to “our” ideas instead of what actually serves the product. 🧱
• 👉 Resistance and misalignment → In Vajrayāna, obstacles aren’t “bad luck” — they’re reflections of your own unresolved patterns. 😵‍💫 In product? The pushback from engineering, the tension with stakeholders, the lack of buy-in? All mirrors of how well you’ve communicated, prioritized, and led. 🪞
• 👉 Attachment to specific outcomes → The hardest lesson: Wanting something to succeed doesn’t make it valuable. 😬 You have to see clearly if it actually is. 🔍

But the most brutal, transformative realization?

💥 Destruction is part of the process.

Vajrayāna doesn’t just seek to reduce ego — it obliterates it through ruthless self-examination. 🧨

The best PMs do the same: they kill bad ideas without hesitation — even their own. ⚔️

This is Ruthless Prioritization in action. 🚀

You cut through the unnecessary, the distracting, the ego-driven.

You let go of attachment to anything that doesn’t serve the core goal.

And just like in Vajrayāna, the more you let go, the clearer — and stronger — you become. 💎🔥

🔥 Why This Mindset Makes You a Better Leader, Not Just a Better PM

Right now, we focus a lot on cutting through illusion, ruthless prioritization, and clarity — which is perfect. But what does that actually create in the long run?

• The most dedicated Vajrayāna practitioners aren’t just detached warriors — they are fiercely compassionate because they see beyond their own ego. 🕉
• The best product leaders don’t just cut things — they guide their teams with clarity, purpose, and trust. 🔥

Ruthless prioritization isn’t just about killing bad ideas — it’s about creating space for the right ones to thrive. The same way Vajrayāna teaches you to let go of ego-driven illusions, this mindset teaches your team to let go of distractions, wasted energy, and unnecessary complexity.

So how does this play out in real leadership?

• 👉 Your team feels safer, not more restricted. Because prioritization isn’t about control — it’s about removing noise so everyone can focus on what truly matters. They stop drowning in endless debates and start moving with confidence.
• 👉 Your influence comes from clarity, not authority. You’re no longer caught up in micromanaging or proving yourself. You set the direction, create alignment, and let the momentum build naturally.
• 👉 You make fewer decisions, but they’re the right ones. Instead of firefighting or reacting to every stakeholder demand, you have the discipline to step back and make high-impact moves.
• 👉 Your team learns to embrace uncertainty instead of fearing it. When they see you staying calm and focused — unshaken by chaos or pressure — they start to operate the same way. Instead of clinging to false certainty, they adapt, iterate, and trust the process.
• 👉 Your leadership becomes about transformation, not execution. A great PM builds products. A great product leader builds people, vision, and momentum.

This is where ruthless prioritization stops being a tactic and starts being a way of leading.

😰 Why Vajrayāna Buddhism — and the Product Mindset — Make People Uncomfortable

Because they remove the safety net. ❌

Most people don’t want clarity. They want control. They want certainty. They want to believe they can force the world to bend to their expectations.

Vajrayāna shatters that illusion. 💥

So does the product mindset. 🚀

• People resist iterative learning because they want big, sweeping, obvious wins. They fear the messiness of real progress. 😵‍💫
• They A/B test full experiences instead of breaking variables apart because they hate the idea of learning in steps. They want the answer handed to them, now. ⚖️
• They chase immediate ROI instead of sustainable strategy because thinking long-term is uncomfortable and uncertain. 🕰
• They avoid hard prioritization decisions because cutting things means facing the reality of what actually matters. 🔪

But for those who let go of control, stop resisting uncertainty, and start cutting through illusions?

Clarity. Power. Momentum. ✨

Vajrayāna isn’t just a spiritual path. It’s the ultimate product mindset upgrade.

— And once you see it, you can’t unsee it. 👀

💭 So the Real Question Is: Can You Handle It?

At this point, you know the truth:

📌 The illusion of control is comforting — but it’s still an illusion.

📌 Holding onto everything means moving nowhere.

📌 Ruthless clarity isn’t just for prioritization — it’s for leading, influencing, and growing.

So now the real question is:

⚡ Are you willing to cut through illusion?

⚡ Can you handle seeing things as they truly are?

⚡ Or will you stay attached to the comforting lie of control?

Because this mindset? It changes everything.

• Because this isn’t a game.
• It’s not another framework.
• It’s not a comfy productivity hack.
• It’s a radical shift in how you see and operate.

So — are you still clinging to control?

Or are you ready to cut through the noise and move with ruthless clarity? ⚔️

But only if you’re truly willing to see. 👁️🔥

And remember:

— Once you see, you cannot ‘unsee’

I’m not a teacher, nor do I claim to have the answers. But if my practice, my work, and my experience can light even a small flame of curiosity or recognition in someone else walking both paths — then this is worth sharing.