and bottles. Of course, scholars remind us that Buddhism is the religion that has proved it can be rendered schismatic over the drape of a robe, or whether it covers one shoulder or two.
Tantric Buddhists view the history of Buddhism as a progression leading upward to the highest, most complex, and most sophisticated form of the faith—theirs. “The Hinayana should be taken as basic knowledge,” said Rigzin Dorji, the Bhutanese scholar. “The Mahayana should be taken as attitude. Tantra means practice. In the Western concept this is called mysticism. Tantra is risky. It’s very difficult also because lamas do not teach immediately. A lama has to judge the student, whether he can uphold the vows or not. Without testing the student, he will not impart any teaching on tantra. He may simply say, why don’t you study the basic Buddhist texts: the Hinayana, the Mahayana? The student, once accepted by a lama, must strictly follow all of his instructions. The student has to find a suitable teacher; the teacher must select a suitable student—but only after a few years, when they know each other very well, like father and son.” Rigzin Dorji, who compared Tantra to “a rocket going to the moon,” added that we must remember “there can be terrible accidents in space.” This religion is not for the timorous or half-hearted. Its monks live, Rigzin Dorji said, by no fewer than 345 rules.
Most simply described, the perfection of Tantric practice is “like building a house,” suggests Chogyam Trungpa, a reincarnation of a leading Tibetan lama who became a monastic abbot at the age of eighteen months. “First you put down the foundation, then you build the first story, then the second. Then you can put a gold roof on if you like.” In other words, first the Hinayana, then the Mahayana, then the Tantra.“Looked at in this way,” he says in
The Dawn of Tantra
, “the whole of the practice of Buddhism can be regarded as tantra, although all Buddhists outside the historical tradition of tantra might not agree with this.”
“The basic idea of tantra is, like any other teaching of Buddhism, the attainment of enlightenment,” he wrote. “But in tantra, the approach to enlightenment is somewhat different. Rather than aiming at the attainment of the enlightened state, the Tantric approach is to see the continuity of the enlightened mind in all situations, as well as the discontinuity of it.” The achievement of the Tantric ideal, he later says, requires a student to pass through increasingly difficult stages of study. In the end, the student “has related to his body, learned to slow down the speed of muscles, veins, emotions, blood.” With everything in low gear, “the student is able to relate to the ultimate space through his relationship and union with the teacher.” Slowing down or altering the mechanisms of the body probably explains the superhuman abilities of certain great lamas.
Across the Himalayan landscape, stories persist of lamas who have the power to transform themselves into wild creatures. “Some people believe these lamas can assume the forms of animals or birds,” a well-educated government official told me in Tashigang. “As birds, they can fly away and return to caves in the northern mountains where they meditate.” Most modern Buddhists treat such accounts with derision or, to be on the safe side, say that today’s lamas and monks no longer possess these special powers enjoyed by earlier generations of holy men. Himalayan Buddhists have for centuries been asked to explain not only occult practices but also the ability of holy men and women to meditate without food or clothing in bitter winter weather in the shelter of caves or exposed rock formations, sometimes at altitudes high and inaccessible enough to defeat mountaineers.
Alexandra David-Neel, a remarkable French Tibetologist and a recognized lama, noted in her 1931 book
Magic and Mystery in Tibet
that the
lung-gom-pa
lamas—those
Tantric Buddhists view the history of Buddhism as a progression leading upward to the highest, most complex, and most sophisticated form of the faith—theirs. “The Hinayana should be taken as basic knowledge,” said Rigzin Dorji, the Bhutanese scholar. “The Mahayana should be taken as attitude. Tantra means practice. In the Western concept this is called mysticism. Tantra is risky. It’s very difficult also because lamas do not teach immediately. A lama has to judge the student, whether he can uphold the vows or not. Without testing the student, he will not impart any teaching on tantra. He may simply say, why don’t you study the basic Buddhist texts: the Hinayana, the Mahayana? The student, once accepted by a lama, must strictly follow all of his instructions. The student has to find a suitable teacher; the teacher must select a suitable student—but only after a few years, when they know each other very well, like father and son.” Rigzin Dorji, who compared Tantra to “a rocket going to the moon,” added that we must remember “there can be terrible accidents in space.” This religion is not for the timorous or half-hearted. Its monks live, Rigzin Dorji said, by no fewer than 345 rules.
Most simply described, the perfection of Tantric practice is “like building a house,” suggests Chogyam Trungpa, a reincarnation of a leading Tibetan lama who became a monastic abbot at the age of eighteen months. “First you put down the foundation, then you build the first story, then the second. Then you can put a gold roof on if you like.” In other words, first the Hinayana, then the Mahayana, then the Tantra.“Looked at in this way,” he says in
The Dawn of Tantra
, “the whole of the practice of Buddhism can be regarded as tantra, although all Buddhists outside the historical tradition of tantra might not agree with this.”
“The basic idea of tantra is, like any other teaching of Buddhism, the attainment of enlightenment,” he wrote. “But in tantra, the approach to enlightenment is somewhat different. Rather than aiming at the attainment of the enlightened state, the Tantric approach is to see the continuity of the enlightened mind in all situations, as well as the discontinuity of it.” The achievement of the Tantric ideal, he later says, requires a student to pass through increasingly difficult stages of study. In the end, the student “has related to his body, learned to slow down the speed of muscles, veins, emotions, blood.” With everything in low gear, “the student is able to relate to the ultimate space through his relationship and union with the teacher.” Slowing down or altering the mechanisms of the body probably explains the superhuman abilities of certain great lamas.
Across the Himalayan landscape, stories persist of lamas who have the power to transform themselves into wild creatures. “Some people believe these lamas can assume the forms of animals or birds,” a well-educated government official told me in Tashigang. “As birds, they can fly away and return to caves in the northern mountains where they meditate.” Most modern Buddhists treat such accounts with derision or, to be on the safe side, say that today’s lamas and monks no longer possess these special powers enjoyed by earlier generations of holy men. Himalayan Buddhists have for centuries been asked to explain not only occult practices but also the ability of holy men and women to meditate without food or clothing in bitter winter weather in the shelter of caves or exposed rock formations, sometimes at altitudes high and inaccessible enough to defeat mountaineers.
Alexandra David-Neel, a remarkable French Tibetologist and a recognized lama, noted in her 1931 book
Magic and Mystery in Tibet
that the
lung-gom-pa
lamas—those
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