Within the Sakya tradition, sutra and tantra are not treated as separate tracks but as a single, graded path in which tantric practice is always grounded in sutra-based view and ethics. The heart of this integration is the Lamdré, “Path and Its Fruit,” which presents the entire journey from renunciation, bodhicitta, and emptiness to tantric fruition as one continuum. Sutra teachings provide the framework of ethical discipline, philosophical understanding, and meditative stability, while tantra supplies the profound methods that actualize what sutra has already established conceptually. In this way, the path and its result are seen as inseparable, rather than as two different vehicles.

A distinctive feature of this approach is the insistence that sutra forms the indispensable foundation for all tantric activity. Vinaya discipline, bodhisattva vows, and a clear understanding of emptiness—articulated through Madhyamaka reasoning—are treated as prerequisites for authentic engagement with highest yoga tantra. The view is clarified primarily through sutra-style analysis of emptiness, dependent arising, and non-duality, while the methods of deity yoga, mantra, and subtle-body practices are drawn from tantra. These methods are interpreted so as never to contradict the sutra view, but rather to deepen and accelerate its realization.

This integration is reflected in the Sakya scholastic curriculum, where classical sutra subjects such as logic, Prajñāpāramitā, Madhyamaka, Abhidharma, and Vinaya are studied alongside tantric texts like the Hevajra Tantra and Lamdré commentaries. Tantric doctrines are examined with the same rigor as sutra, using formal reasoning and debate, so that esoteric practice does not float free of critical understanding. The generation and completion stages of tantra are explicitly related to the three higher trainings of ethics, concentration, and wisdom, showing how deity yoga refines attention and perception while subtle-energy practices support direct insight into emptiness.

Underlying this whole system is a non-dual perspective in which samsara and nirvana are understood to share a single ultimate nature. That non-dual view is clarified through sutra-based reasoning yet is experientially accessed through the yogic methods of tantra. Thus, Sakya presents a path where sutra and tantra are two aspects of one realization: sutra establishes the correct orientation and view, and tantra serves as the powerful means by which that view is brought to full fruition.