Recently Joy was explaining Tantric Buddism to me while we were drinking beer and eating some tasty pizza (Northlake Tavern in Seattle).
To summarize:
Buddists work hard to fully understand that life is an illusion and to transcend out of the illusion.
Tantrists also know life as an illusion, but instead embrace and enjoy the illusion for what is has to teach.
An old Chinese friend of mine once explained Buddism to me this way (althoug he was actually explaining Karma):
A priest was sacrificing a goat, and the goat because to laugh loudly.
"Goat, why do you laugh?", said the priest. "I am about to kill you".
The goat continued laughing and said, "Because in my last life, I was you. In your next life you will be me".
And I realized a similar story-lesson about Tantra would be:
A priest was fucking a goat ...