The Vajrayāna in Tibet

The terms Vajrayāna, or Tantric Buddhism, are often used loosely for Tibetan Buddhism as a whole. Properly speaking, Tibetans and Mongols are Mahāyāna Buddhists, of whom many, but not all, observe the Vajrayāna practices derived from a special additional section found only in the Tibetan Buddhist canon.9 Otherwise, that version of the canon contains the usual Vinaya (rules of conduct), Sūtras (discourses), and the equivalent of Abhidharma (advanced doctrines). The part played by the Tantras in Tibetan spiritual life varies. Lamas of the Gelugpa (Yellow Hat) sect are expected to spend twenty years on Sūtra and scholastic study before starting on the Tantras; many of them do not get that far and never become Tantric adepts. At the opposite extreme are the Nyingmapas (one of the Red Hat sects), who are initiated into the Tantras early and spend little time on other sacred studies. However, it is true to say that all Tibetan Lamas, and most laymen too, do follow some degree of Tantric practice, even if it amounts to no more than the visualization that is attached to the mantra Og Mazi Padme Hūg.

nothing exists outside the mind. The common view that external things exist is due to an error or misconception that is removable through a meditative or yogic process that brings a complete withdrawal or “revulsion” from these fictitious externals and an inner concentration and tranquility. 9 Translated from the Sanskrit canon, much of which no longer exists in the original.

Og Mazi Padme Hūg

Buddhism was introduced into Tibet some twelve hundred years ago in a form which included the Vajrayāna. The first Lamas were Indians and Tibetans who had studied at northern India’s great University of Nālandā, which then had some thirty thousand students. That this form of Buddhism has persisted in Tibet and neighboring Mongolia until today, despite Chinese rather than Indian influence on other aspects of their cultures, is because mountains and deserts offer admirable soil for the cultivation of the flowers of the Vajrayāna.

The most striking characteristic of those two countries is the cruel inhospitality of their terrain. Tibet consists of high plateaus scourged by icy winds and of range upon range of mountains, where frightful thunderstorms and murderous hail seem like the manifestations of demons thirsty for blood. Mongolia’s wideflung deserts are strewn with bleached bones, and its grasslands are comfortless wastes where nomads roam. Children reared in those frightful windswept regions soon learn that life is a battle against remorseless nature. People there live in close proximity to disaster and sudden death. Being constantly menaced by danger, they have developed admirable courage and are easily moved to joviality, but there is no shrinking from recognition of life’s inherent bitterness. Man’s spiritual thirst arises from two causes: intimations of a splendidly luminous, quiescent state lying beyond the weaving mists and murky

clouds of the cosmic flux; and a longing to escape from an existence compounded of fleeting joys intermixed with inevitable boredom and suffering. Dwellers in a wilderness are brought face to face with both of these. They have a more intense awareness of the contrasting splendors and terrors of the universe than city dwellers pent within walls and living in cushioned ease; and, in Tibet especially, intimations of an all-encompassing glory are of almost daily occurrence, as when the sun dances upon pinnacles of snow; or when the traveler, after fighting his way through blizzards howling amidst slippery crags and echoing caverns, crosses the pass and gazes down upon a lake flashing turquoise and emerald amidst the shining rocks of the sunlit valley. At those high altitudes and in that pure air, the richness of nature’s colors is marvelously enhanced; so, also, is man’s perceptiveness. Intuitions of the dazzling reality that is their source are doubly welcome on account of present pains and terrors, which include laboring from dawn till evening to wrest a meager harvest; seeing the ripening crops flattened to the ground by hailstones large enough to smash a man’s skull, floundering amidst the ruins of homesteads toppled by earthquakes or torrential rains, and knowing that loved ones, while yet within a bowshot of home, may be devoured by famished beasts or perish miserably in a blizzard.

Thus, in Tibet, all conditions are fulfilled for naked displays of violent contrasts between the forces of good and evil that elsewhere, though just as active, are less visible. The Vajrayāna’s vivid symbolism marvelously depicts the interplay of contrasting forces. Strangers entering a Tibetan milieu may be inclined to doubt the loftiness of a religion in which rites and symbols play so great a part. They may carry away impressions of temples overstocked with images and sacred pictures, of people fingering their rosaries and whispering Mantras even when window-shopping, of old women twirling their prayer wheels and intoning Og Mazi Padme Hūg while riding in buses, and of processions of monks striding along to the thunder of mighty horns. There is seldom anyone at hand who can properly explain the significance of these things in English. How are they to know that the benign and nightmarish figures in the sacred pictures, unlike gods and demons elsewhere, are recognized by the faithful as the products of their own minds, as symbolic representations of the phantasmagoria that haunts the threshold of human consciousness, and as personifications of the forces of passion called into being by the everlasting play of mind?

The symbols are often of great beauty, especially the thangkas (religious paintings). The artists take great pains, grinding their own colors from mineral substances and performing the brushwork with infinite skill and patience. The mountings of the thangkas are of rich brocade, and the rollers tipped with heavy ornaments of silver filigree. Besides these, the many ritual objects and some personal and household articles are fashioned with exquisite artistry. The reason why so many of the figures of “deities” and other symbols are reminiscent of the Hindu and Tibetan Bön religions is that, in the old days, Buddhists used the outward forms of local faiths to make the transition to Buddhist concepts easier. This has always been the way. If Buddhism had spread through medieval Europe, we should have had Bodhisattvas and Arahants looking like Christian saints. The borrowing of externals to suit local needs does not involve any departure from Buddhist principles. In the early centuries of the Catholic Church, the same method was used. Christmas and at least one of the festivals connected with the Virgin Mary are celebrated on days that were once the feasts of pagan divinities; and, in Italy, one sometimes sees depictions of the Virgin with several attributes of the Goddess Diana: a sickle moon, a stag, and so forth.

Of special interest to Western scholars is the faithfulness with which the system of instruction formulated at Nālandā some fifteen hundred years ago has been preserved in Tibet. Right up to the Chinese occupation, the courses given at Lhasa’s monastic universities in such subjects as Buddhism, metaphysics, astrology, grammar, logic, and medicine, as well as the manner of student debating, remained much the same as they had been at Nālandā fifteen centuries earlier. The world provides no example of another teaching system continued for half as long. The content of the courses should be of profound interest to students of India’s and mankind’s past.

Advanced degrees from Lhasa’s universities were not recklessly bestowed. The Geshe degre e (roughly equivalent to a Ph.D.) took some twenty years to complete, and there were others that took even longer. Years of study principally devoted to methods of mind control resulted in the development of remarkable powers of extrasensory perception, of which telepathy is so common as to excite no comment in Tibet. Such powers, though deemed unimportant by-products of Buddhist meditational and yogic practices, do provide a kind of evidence of the efficiency of the Vajrayāna techniques.

For a deep study of Tibetan Buddhism, some knowledge of the different “lineages” of the Lamas, or sects, is important; here, a brief note will suffice, all the more so as differences among the sects are not doctrinal but largely a matter of what emphasis each gives to certain aspects of the Vajrayāna teaching. Of the four main sects, three are grouped together as Red Hats; the fourth and largest is nicknamed the Yellow Hat sect.

Of the Red Hats, the Nyingmapa is the oldest and the most faithful to the ancient traditions. Its spiritual lineage is traced back through Padmasambhava, who was the first great Nālandā scholar to reach Tibet, where he arrived (747 C.E.) a few years after King Songtsen Gampo had been converted to Buddhism by his Chinese and Nepalese wives. On this account, he is venerated by all Tibetans as [[Guru Rinpoche]], the Precious Teacher. Nyingmapas are expert Tantrists, but less well-schooled in Mahāyāna scriptural studies. Few of the Nyingmapa Lamas take monastic vows; they wear a special habit, but are married clergy, not monks. (The supposition that Lama means monk has led to the charge that there are in Tibet “married monks” — an absurd contradiction in terms. The word for monk is “gelung”; Lamas may be gelung or married clergy or laymen; gelungs, of course, observe their monastic vows.)

The Kargyupa (Kagyupa) sect traces its spiritual lineage back through Milarepa, Tibet’s poet-hermit-saint, and through him to the Lama Marpa (eleventh century C.E.) and his Indian teacher Naropa. Many of its members pass much of their lives in lonely caves absorbed in Tantric meditations. Kargyupas tend generally to be austere; they adhere more strictly to the Buddhist rules of discipline (Vinaya) than do the Nyingmapas and often practice a type of meditation that is almost identical with that of Zen. The Sakyapas trace their lineage back through Atīśa,13 an Indian sage who spent his last years in Tibet (died 1052 C.E.). At one time, this “reformed” sect exercised temporal power in Tibet. Of the Red Hat sects, it is nearest to the Gelugpa.

The Gelugpas trace their spiritual lineage back through Tsongkhapa (fifteenth century C.E.) and beyond him to Atīśa. Tsongkhapa was a reformer who gave the sect its present form. It encourages monastic discipline and learning, postponing the Tantras until the end of a long course of study. Most of its Lamas are monks. Since 1642 C.E., its leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, has been the temporal leader of Tibet and the spiritual leader of the Gelugpa sect. In Mongolia, almost everyone is a Gelugpa. The sect’s admirers point to the excellence of its discipline and learning; but there are some who fear that the Venerable Tsongkhapa,14 in his zeal to eliminate existing abuses, may inadvertently have cast out some hidden jewels — as generally happens with zealous reformers everywhere. In any case, his reforms were beneficial, and no real loss occurred since Tibetans have free access to the teachers and teachings of all the sects.

A rare phenomenon peculiar to Tibet and Mongolia is the prevalence of Tulkus — the recognized incarnations of departed Lamas. Elsewhere, even Buddhists find this strange; all of them accept the fact of rebirth as a matter of course, but that a child can be recognized as the incarnation of a particular individual strikes them as debatable. The Tibetans hold that a Lama far advanced along the path is able to choose the

are more conservative in their sound systems, having best preserved the initial consonant clusters and the final stops (sounds formed with complete closure in the vocal tract) of Old Tibetan and having less development of tones than the other dialects. 13

Indian Buddhist scholar-monk whose teachings formed the basis of the Tibetan Kadampa (“Those Bound by Command”) sect of Buddhism, founded by his disciple ’Brom-ston. Traveling to Tibet in 1038 or 1042 C.E. from Nālandā, a center of Buddhist studies in India, Atīśa established monasteries there and wrote treatises emphasizing the three schools of Buddhism: the Theravāda, the Mahāyāna, and the Vajrayāna. He taught that the three stages follow in succession and must be practiced in that order. He died at Nyethang Monastery in Tibet, where his tomb still exists.

Tibetan Lama and religious reformer who founded a new Tibetan Buddhist sect known as the Gelugpa, literally “Model of Virtue,” but more commonly referred to as the Yellow Hat sect. Hoping to restore monastic discipline, Tsongkhapa enforced celibacy, required the wearing of yellow robes, and insisted on adherence to a rigorous routine. The sect eventually gained considerable influence in Mongolia; with Mongol aid, Tsongkhapa’s successors were eventually (1642) installed as the rulers of Tibet with the title Dalai Lama.

circumstances of his next incarnation and, before his death, foretell where his rebirth will take place — not with great accuracy but with enough detail to enable his colleagues to discover his new incarnation at the age of about four or five. Many tests have to be applied before the new incarnation is accepted and invested with the deceased Lama’s titles and functions. For example, some thirty objects are placed before a child who seems likely to be the one for whom a search is being made; of these, half once belonged to the late Lama and half to strangers. If the child unerringly picks out the right objects and rejects the others, a high degree of probability is established and other tests follow until no doubt remains. Then he is publicly recognized and conveyed to his own monastery where he will remain under the care of tutors until he is old enough to govern its affairs again. Child Tulkus are remarkable boys, generally exceedingly good-looking, cheerful, and intelligent. Receiving the very best teaching available, they soon become outstanding scholars, which makes it difficult to judge how much of their talent has descended from the previous incarnation.

The Dalai and the Panchen Lamas are the most famous of the three hundred-odd Tulkus. In Chinese and English, the word Tulku is sometimes translated “Living Buddha.” This is a misnomer. However, in the case of the Dalai and Panchen Lamas, it has some cogency, as both of them are held to be the reincarnations of beings who in the distant past were emanations of Avalokiteśvara15 and Amitābha Buddha respectively.

15 The Bodhisattva (“Buddha-to-be”) of infinite compassion and mercy, possibly the most popular of all Mahāyāna deities, beloved throughout the Buddhist world. He supremely exemplifies the Bodhisattva’s resolve to postpone his own Buddhahood until he has helped every being on earth achieve emancipation. His name has been variously interpreted as “the lord who looks in every direction” and “the lord of

what we see” (that is, the actual, created world). In Tibet, he is known as Chenrezig (“With a Pitying Look”) and in Mongolia as Nidü-ber üjegci (“He Who Looks With the Eyes”). The title invariably used for him in Indochina and Thailand is Lokeśvara (“Lord of the World”). Avalokiteśvara is the earthly manifestation of the self-born, eternal Buddha, Amitābha, whose figure is represented in his headdress, and he guards the world in the interval between the departure of the historical Buddha, Gautama, and the appearance of

the future Buddha, Maitreya. Avalokiteśvara protects against shipwreck, fire, assassins, robbers, and wild beasts. He is the creator of the fourth world, which is the actual universe in which we live. According to legend, his head once split with grief at realizing the number of wicked beings in the world yet to be saved. Amitābha Buddha caused each of the pieces to become a whole head and placed them on his son in three tiers of three, then the tenth, and topped them all with his own image. Sometimes, the eleven-headed Avalokiteśvara is represented with thousands of arms, which rise like the outspread tail of a peacock around him. In paintings, he is usually shown white in color (in Nepal, red). His female consort is the goddess Tārā. His traditional residence is

the mountain Potala, and his images are frequently placed on hilltops. The height of the veneration of Avalokiteśvara in northern India occurred in the 3rd—7th century. His worship (as Guan-yin [[[Kuan-yin]]]) was introduced into China as early as the 1st century C.E. and had entered all Buddhist temples by the 6th century. Representations of the Bodhisattva in China prior to the Sung dynasty (960—1126) are unmistakably masculine in appearance. Later images display attributes of both genders. One interpretation of this development contends that the Bodhisattva is neither male nor female but has transcended sexual

distinctions, as he has all other dualities in the sphere of Sagsāra (the temporal world). According to this opinion, the flowing drapery and soft contours of the body seen in statues and paintings have been intentionally combined with a visible moustache to emphasize the absence of sexual identity. Furthermore, the Lotus Sūtra relates that Avalokiteśvara has the

ability of assuming whatever form is required to relieve suffering and also has the power to grant children. Another point of view, while accepting the validity of this philosophical doctrine, holds that, from at least the 12th century, the popular devotional cult of Guan-yin (Kuan-yin) has superimposed onto the Bodhisattva qualities of a mother-goddess. Among the followers of the Pure Land sect, who look to rebirth in the Western Paradise