Padmasambhava or Guru Rinpoche. Founder of the
Nyingmapa, the earliest school of Tibetan Buddhism. Note the wide-open eyes, characteristic of a particular method of meditation.
is the body of
Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of
Tibet and certain regions of the
Himalayas, including northern
Nepal,
Bhutan, and
India (particularly in
Arunachal Pradesh,
Ladakh and
Sikkim). It is also practiced in
Mongolia and parts of
Russia (
Kalmykia,
Buryatia, and
Tuva) and
Northeast China.
It includes the teachings of the three
vehicles of Buddhism: the
Foundational Vehicle,
Mahayana, and
Vajrayana.
In the wake of the
1959 Tibetan uprising, a Tibetan diaspora has made Tibetan Buddhism more widely accessible to the rest of the world. Tibetan Buddhism has since spread to many Western countries, where the tradition has gained popularity.
The Tibetan Buddha Ideal
The goal of spiritual development in Tibetan Buddhism, a
Mahayana tradition, is to achieve enlightenment (
Buddhahood) in order to most efficiently help all other sentient beings attain this state.
Buddhahood is defined as a state free of the obstructions to liberation as well as those to omniscience. When, in Buddhahood, one is freed from all mental obscurations, one is said to attain a state of continuous bliss mixed with a simultaneous cognition of emptiness, the true nature of reality. In this state, all limitations on one's ability to help other living beings are removed.
It is said that there are countless beings who have attained Buddhahood. Buddhas spontaneously, naturally and continuously perform activities to benefit all sentient beings. However it is believed that sentient beings'
karmas limit the ability of the Buddhas to help them. Thus, although Buddhas possess no limitation from their side on their ability to help others, sentient beings continue to experience suffering as a result of the limitations of their own former negative actions.
Tibetan Definitions of "Buddhist"
Introspection as the mark of a Buddhist is embodied in the Tibetan term for Buddhist: literally, "internalist".
More precisely, Tibetans specify two alternative criteria for being Buddhist: a) formal: having taken refuge and b) in belief: acceptance of the
three (sometimes four) marks of existence.
General Methods of Practice
Transmission and Realisation
An emphasis on oral transmission as more important than the printed word derives from the earliest period of Indian Buddhism, when it allowed teachings to be kept from those who should not hear them. Hearing a teaching (transmission) readies the hearer for realisation based on it. The person from whom one hears the teaching should have heard it as one link in a succession of listeners going back to the original speaker: the Buddha in the case of a sutra or the author in the case of a book. Then the hearing constitutes an authentic lineage of transmission. Authenticity of the oral lineage is a prerequisite for realisation, hence the importance of lineages.
Merely reading about a teaching is helpful but no substitute for receiving a transmission on it. Having a text recited aloud by someone who holds the lineage for transmission of that text makes oneself also a holder of that lineage and the more ready for realization of the teaching in it. Oral transmissions by lineage holders traditionally can take place in small groups or mass gatherings of listeners and may last for seconds (in the case of a mantra, for example) or months (as in the case of a section of the
canon). A transmission can even occur without actually hearing, as in Asanga's visions of Maitreya.
Analytic Meditation and Fixation Meditation
Spontaneous realisation on the basis of transmission is possible but rare. Normally an intermediate step is needed in the form of analytic meditation, i.e., thinking about what one has heard. As part of this process, entertaining doubts and engaging in internal debate over them is encouraged in some traditions particularly.
Analytic meditation is just one of two general methods of meditation. When analytic meditation achieves the quality of realisation, one is encouraged to switch to "focussed" or "fixation" meditation. In this the mind is stabilised on that realisation for periods long enough to gradually habituate it to it.
A person's capacity for analytic meditation can be trained with logic and that for successful focussed meditation through
calm abiding. A meditation routine may involve alternating sessions of analytic meditation to achieve deeper levels of realisation and focussed meditation to consolidate them. The deepest level of realisation is Buddhahood.
Skepticism and Devotion to the Guru
Of all aspects of Tibetan Buddhism, none more than skepticism and devotion to the guru have led it into conflict with Chinese socialism and so invited the destruction of the Tibetan intelligentsia under Mao. An attitude of critical skepticism is encouraged to promote abilities in analytic meditation. However, as in other Buddhist traditions, an attitude of reverence for the teacher is also highly prized.
In favour of skepticism towards Buddhist doctrines in general, Tibetans are fond of quoting sutra to the effect that one should test the Buddha's words as one would the quality of gold. On the other hand, at the beginning of a public teaching, a lama will do prostrations to the throne on which he will teach due to its symbolism, or to an image of the Buddha behind that throne, then students will do prostrations to the lama after he is seated. Merit accrues when one's interactions with the teacher are imbued with such reverence in the form of guru devotion, a code of practices governing them that derives from Indian sources. By such things as avoiding disturbance to the peace of mind of one's teacher and wholeheartedly following his prescriptions, much merit accrues and promotes one's practice.
There is a general sense in which any Tibetan Buddhist teacher is called a lama. A student may have taken teachings from many authorities and revere them all as lamas in this general sense. However, he will typically have one held in special esteem as his own root guru and is encouraged to view the other teachers who are less dear to him, however more exalted their status, as embodied in and subsumed by the root guru. Often the teacher the student sees as root guru is simply the one who first introduced him to Buddhism, but a student may also change his personal view of which particular teacher is his root guru any number of times.
The opposing principles of skepticism and guru devotion are reconciled with the Tibetan injunction to scrutinise a prospective guru thoroughly before finally adopting him as such without reservation. A Buddhist may study with a lama for decades before finally accepting him as his own guru.
Preliminary Practices and the Tibetan Approach to Vajrayana
Vajrayana is said to be the fastest method for attaining Buddhahood but for unqualified practitioners it can be dangerous. To engage in Vajrayana one must receive an appropriate initiation (also known as an "empowerment") from a lama who is fully qualified to give it. From the time one has resolved to accept a Vajrayana initiation, the utmost sustained effort in guru devotion is essential.
Just as Sutrayana preceded Vajrayana historically in India, so sutra practices constitute those that are preliminary to tantric ones. Preliminary practices include all Sutrayana activities that yield merit like hearing teachings, prostrations, offerings, prayers and acts of kindness and compassion, but chief among the preliminary practices are realizations through meditation on the three principle stages of the path: renunciation, the altruistic
bodhicitta wish to attain enlightenment and the wisdom realizing emptiness. For a person without the basis of these three in particular to practice Vajrayana can be like a small child trying to ride an unbroken horse.
While the practices of Vajrayana are not known in Sutrayana, all Sutrayana practices are common to Vajrayana. Without training in the preliminary practices, the ubiquity of allusions to them in Vajrayana is meaningless and even successful Vajrayana initiation becomes impossible.
The merit acquired in the preliminary practices facilitates progress in Vajrayana. While many Buddhists may spend a lifetime exclusively on sutra practices, however, an amalgam of the two to some degree is common. For, example, in order to train in
calm abiding, one might use a tantric visualisation as the meditation object.
Esotericism
In
Vajrayana particularly, Tibetan Buddhists subscribe to a voluntary code of self-censorship, whereby the uninitiated do not seek and are not provided with information about it. This self-censorship may be applied more or less strictly depending on circumstances such as the material involved. A depiction of a mandala may be less public than that of a deity. That of a higher tantric deity may be less public than that of a lower. The degree to which information on Vajrayana is now public in western languages is controversial among Tibetan Buddhists.
Buddhism has always had a taste for
esotericism since its earliest period in India. Tibetans today maintain greater or lesser degrees of confidentiality also with information on the
Vinaya and emptiness specifically. In Buddhist teachings generally, too, there is caution about revealing information to people who may be unready for it. Esoteric values in Buddhism have made it at odds with the values of Christian missionary activity, for example in contemporary Mongolia.
Native Tibetan developments
Some commentators have emphasised Tibetan innovations such as the system of
incarnate lamas, but such genuine innovations have been few. True to its roots in the Pala system of North India, however, Tibetan Buddhism carried on a tradition of eclectic accumulation and systematisation of diverse Buddhist elements, and pursued their synthesis. Prominent among these achievements are the
Stages of the Path and
motivational training.
Proper preparation for death and techniques and ceremonies for producing the ability to transfer one's spiritual attainments into another body (
reincarnation) are subjects of detailed study in Tibet, and many of these techniques and practices are clearly Tibetan in origin.
Schools
Tibetan Buddhism comprises many distinct schools, but is primarily divided into four main traditions:
Nyingma,
Kagyu,
Gelug, and
Sakya. All schools categorize their teachings into three "
vehicles":
Hinayana,
Mahayana, and
Vajrayana, although some schools, the Gelug for example, consider Vajrayana a part of Mahayana. The Nyingma tradition classifies the corpus of Buddhist teachings into Nine Yanas, among the highest of which is known as Atiyoga or Dzogchen (Great Perfection). .
Tibetan Buddhism has four main traditions:
- Kagyu(pa), Lineage of the (Buddha's) Word. This contains one major subsect and one minor subsect. The first, the Dagpo Kagyu, encompasses those Kagyu schools that trace back to Gampopa. In turn, the Dagpo Kagyu consists of four major sub-sects: the Karma Kagyu, headed by a Karmapa, the Tsalpa Kagyu, the Barom Kagyu, and Pagtru Kagyu. There are further eight minor sub-sects, all of which trace their root to Pagtru Kagyu. Among the eight sub-sects the most notable of are the Drikung Kagyu and the Drukpa Kagyu. The once-obscure Shangpa Kagyu, which was famously represented by the 20th century teacher Kalu Rinpoche, traces its history back to the Indian master Niguma, sister of Kagyu lineage holder Naropa. This is an oral tradition which is very much concerned with the experiential dimension of meditation. Its most famous exponent was Milarepa, an eleventh century mystic.
- Sakya(pa), Grey Earth, headed by the Sakya Trizin, this tradition was founded by Khon Konchog Gyalpo, a disciple of the great translator Drokmi Lotsawa. Sakya Pandita 1182–1251CE was the great grandson of Khon Konchog Gyalpo. This school very much represents the scholarly tradition.
- Gelug(pa), Way of Virtue, whose spiritual head is the Ganden Tripa and whose temporal head is the Dalai Lama. Successive Dalai Lamas ruled Tibet from the mid-17th to mid-20th centuries. This order was founded in the 14th to 15th century by Je Tsongkhapa, based on the foundations of the Kadampa tradition. Tsongkhapa was renowned for both his scholasticism and his virtue. The Dalai Lama belongs to the Gelugpa school, and is regarded as the embodiment of the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
Texts recognized as scripture and commentary are fixed by the
Tibetan Buddhist canon.
These major schools are sometimes classified into
Nyingma ("Old Translation") and
Sarma ("New Translation") traditions according to translations and lineages of various Tantric texts. Another common way of classification is the differentiation into "
Red Hat" and "
Yellow Hat" schools:
Besides these major schools, there are a number of minor ones like
Jonang. The
Jonangpa were suppressed by the rival
Gelugpa in the 1600s and were once thought extinct, but are now known to survive in
Eastern Tibet.
There is also an
ecumenical movement known as
Rimé.
Study of tenet systems in Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhists practise one or more understandings of the true nature of reality, the
emptiness of inherent existence of all things. Emptiness is propounded according to four classical Indian schools of philosophical tenets.
Two belong to the older
Hinayana path (Skt. for
Lesser Vehicle, Tib. theg dman). (
Hinayana is sometimes referred to as
Śravakayāna (Skt.
Vehicle of Hearers) because "lesser" may be considered derogatory):
The primary source for the former is the
Abhidharmakosha by
Vasubandhu and commentaries. The Abhidharmakosha is also an important source for the Sautrantikas.
Dignaga and
Dharmakirti are the most prominent exponents.
The other two are
Mahayana (Skt.
Greater Vehicle) (Tib.
theg-chen):
Yogacarin base their views on texts from
Maitreya,
Asanga and
Vasubandhu, Madhyamikas on
Nagarjuna and
Aryadeva. There is a further classification of Madhyamaka into
Svatantrika-Madhyamaka and
Prasangika-Madhyamaka. The former stems from
Bhavaviveka,
Santaraksita and Kamalashila, and the latter from
Buddhapalita and
Chandrakirti.
The tenet system is used in the monasteries and colleges to teach Buddhist philosophy in a systematic and progressive fashion, each philosophical view being more subtle than its predecessor. Therefore the four schools can be seen as a gradual path from a rather easy-to-grasp, "realistic" philosophical point of view, to more and more complex and subtle views on the ultimate nature of reality, that is on emptiness and
dependent arising, culminating in the philosophy of the Madhyamikas, which is widely believed to present the most sophisticated point of view.
Monasticism
Although there were many
householder-
yogis in Tibet, monasticism was the foundation of Buddhism in Tibet. There were over 6,000 monasteries in Tibet, and nearly all were ransacked and destroyed by the Chinese communists (many of them young ethnic Tibetan
Red Guards), mainly during the
Cultural Revolution. Most of the major ones have been at least partially re-established but many still remain in ruins.
In
Mongolia during the 1920s, approximately one third of the male population were monks, though many lived outside
monasteries. By the beginning of the 20th century about 750 monasteries were functioning in Mongolia. These monasteries were largely dismantled during Communist rule, but many have been reestablished during the Buddhist revival in Mongolia which followed the fall of Communism.
Monasteries generally adhere to one particular school. Some of the major centers in each tradition are as follows:
Nyingma
The
Nyingma lineage is said to have "six mother monasteries," although the composition of the six has changed over time:
Also of note is
Kagyu
Many
Kagyu monasteries are in Kham, eastern Tibet. Tsurphu, one of the most important, is in central Tibet, as is Ralung and Drikung.
Sakya
Gelug
The three most important centers of the
Gelugpa lineage are
Ganden,
Sera and
Drepung Monasteries, near Lhasa:
Three other monasteries have particularly important regional influence:
Great spiritual and historical importance is also placed on:
History
Geographical history
Chandra,
et. al. (1902: p.34) relate in their Dictionary that the text the 'Sambalai Lamyig' () states that in ancient times many
Tantriks resided in 'Koka' () a locality within
Bengal.
General history
According to a Tibetan legendary tradition, Buddhist scriptures (among them the Karandavyuha Sutra) and relics (among them the
Cintamani) arrived in southern Tibet during the reign of Lha
Thothori Nyantsen, the 28th king of Tibet (fifth century). The tale is miraculous (the objects fell from the sky on the roof of the king's palace), but it may have a historical background (the arrival of Buddhist missionaries).
The earliest well-documented influence of Buddhism in Tibet dates from the reign of king
Songtsän Gampo, who died in 650. He married a Chinese
Tang Dynasty Buddhist princess,
Wencheng, who came to Tibet with a statue of Shakyamuni Buddha.
[Powers 2004, pg. 39] According to a Tibetan legendary tradition, Songtsän Gampo also married a
Nepalese Buddhist princess,
Bhrikuti; but Bhrikuti, who bears the name of a goddess, is not mentioned in reliable sources. Songtsän Gampo founded the first Buddhist temples. By the second half of the 8th century he was already regarded as an embodiment of the bodhisattva
Avalokiteshvara.
The successors of Songtsän Gampo seem to have been less enthusiastic about the propagation of Buddhism. But in the 8th century, King
Trisong Detsen (755-797) established Buddhism as the official religion of the state. He invited Indian Buddhist scholars to his court. In his age the famous tantric mystic
Padmasambhava arrived in Tibet according to the Tibetan tradition. In addition to writing a number of important scriptures (some of which he hid for future
tertons to find), Padmasambhava established the
Nyingma school ("the old school").
Tibetan Buddhism exerted a strong influence from the 11th century CE among the peoples of
Central Asia, especially in
Mongolia and
Manchuria. It was adopted as an official state religion by the
Mongol Yuan dynasty and the
Manchu Qing dynasty that ruled
China.
Transmission of Chan to the Nyingmapa
According to A. W. Barber of the University of Calgary,
Chan Buddhism was introduced to the
Nyingmapa in three principal streams: the teachings of Master Kim,
Kim Ho-shang, (Chin ho shang) 金和尚 transmitted by
Sang Shi in
ca. 750 CE; the lineage of Master
Wu Chu (無住禪師) of the Pao T'ang School was transmitted within Tibet by
Ye shes dbang po; and the teaching from
Mo Ho Yen, 和尚摩訶衍 (Tibetan:
Hwa shang Mahayana) that were a synthesis of the Northern School of Chan and the Pao T'ang School.
Tibetan king
Khri srong lde btsan (742–797) invited the Ch’an master Mo-ho-yen (whose name consists of the same Chinese characters used to transliterate “
Mahayana”) to transmit the Dharma at Samye Monastery. Mo-ho-yen had been disseminating Dharma in the Tun-huang locale, but, according to Tibetan sources, lost an important philosophical debate on the nature of emptiness with the Indian master Kamalashila, and the king declared Kamalashila's philosophy should form the basis for Tibetan Buddhism. However, a Chinese source says their side won, and some scholars conclude that the entire episode is fictitious. According to some scholars, Hwashang's ideas of the Chan school are preserved by the Nyingmapas in the form of
dzogchen teachings.
Whichever may be the case, Tibetan Buddhists today trace their spiritual roots from Indian masters such as
Padmasambhava,
Atisha,
Tilopa,
Naropa and their later Tibetan students.
Tibetan Buddhism in the contemporary world
Today, Tibetan Buddhism is adhered to widely in the
Tibetan Plateau,
Nepal,
Bhutan,
Mongolia,
Kalmykia (on the north-west shore of the Caspian),
Siberia (central Russia, specifically
Buryatia and
Chita Oblast), and the
Russian Far East (concentrated in
Tuva). The
Indian regions of
Sikkim and
Ladakh, both formerly independent kingdoms, are also home to significant Tibetan Buddhist populations. In the wake of the
Tibetan diaspora, Tibetan Buddhism has gained adherents in the West and throughout the world; there are estimated to be tens of thousands of practitioners in Europe and the Americas. Celebrity Tibetan Buddhism practitioners include
Brandon Boyd,
Richard Gere,
Adam Yauch,
Jet Li,
Sharon Stone,
Allen Ginsberg,
Philip Glass, and
Steven Seagal (who has been proclaimed the reincarnation of the
tulku Chungdrag Dorje).
See also
