Introductory Comparison of the Five Tibetan Traditions of Buddhism and Bon

Alexander Berzin

Bon as the Fifth Tradition of Tibet

Most people speak of Tibet as having four traditions: Nyingma,Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelug, with
Gelug being the reformed continuation of the earlier Kadam tradition. At the nonsectarian
conference of tulkus (incarnate lamas) and abbots that His Holiness the Dalai Lama convened in
Sarnath, India, in December 1988, however, His Holiness emphasized the importance of adding
the pre-Buddhist Tibetan tradition of Bon to the four and always speaking of the five Tibetan
traditions. He explained that whether or not we consider Bon a Buddhist tradition is not the
important issue. The form of Bon that has developed since the eleventh century of the Common
Era shares enough in common with the four Tibetan Buddhist traditions for us to consider all five
as a unit.
Hierarchy and Decentralization
Before we discuss the similarities and differences among the five Tibetan traditions, we need to
remember that none of the Tibetan systems forms an organized church like, for example, the
Catholic Church. None of them is centrally organized in this manner. Heads of the traditions,
abbots, and so on are mainly responsible for giving monastic ordination and for passing on
lineages of oral transmissions and tantric empowerments(initiations). Their main concern is not
with administration. Hierarchy mostly affects where people sit in the large ritual
ceremonies (pujas); how many cushions they sit on; the order in which they are served tea; and
so on. For various geographic and cultural reasons, the Tibetan people tend to be extremely
independent and each monastery tends to follow its own ways. The remoteness of the
monasteries, huge distances between them, and difficulties in travel and communication have
reinforced the tendency toward decentralization.
Common Features
The five Tibetan traditions share many common features, perhaps as much as eighty percent or
more. Their histories reveal that the lineages do not exist as separate monoliths isolated
within concrete barriers, without any contact with each other. The traditions have congealed into
five from their founding masters having gathered and combined within themselves various lines
of transmission, mostly from India. Byconvention, their followers have called each of their
syntheses "a lineage," but many of the same lines of transmission form part of the blends of other
traditions as well.
Lay and Monastic Traditions
The first thing the five share in common is having both lay and monastic traditions. Their lay
traditions include married yogisand yoginis engaged in intensive tantric meditation practice and
ordinary laypeople whose Dharma practice entails mostly reciting mantras, making offerings at
temples and at home, and circumambulating sacred monuments. The monastic traditions of all
five have the full and novice monk ordination and the novice nun ordination. The full nun
ordination never came to Tibet. People normally join the monasteries and nunneries around the
age of eight. Monastic architecture and dcor are mostly the same in all traditions.
The four Buddhist schools share the same set of monastic vowsfrom India, Mulasarvastivada.
Bon has a slightly different set of vows, but most of them are the same as the Buddhist. A
prominent difference is that Bonpo monastics take a vow to be vegetarian. The monastics of all
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traditions shave their heads; remain celibate; and wear the same maroon sleeveless habit, with a
skirt and a shawl. Bon monastics merely substitute blue for yellow in the central panels of the
vest.
Sutra Study
All Tibetan traditions follow a path that combines sutra andtantra study with ritual and
meditation practice. The monastics memorize a vast number of scholarly and ritual texts as
children and study by means of heated debate. The sutra topics studied are the same for both
Buddhists and Bonpos. They includeprajnaparamita (far-reaching discrimination, the perfection
of wisdom) concerning the stages of the path, madhyamaka (the middle way) concerning the
correct view of reality (voidness),pramana (valid ways of knowing) concerning perception and
logic, and abhidharma (special topics of knowledge) concerning metaphysics. The Tibetan
textbooks for each topic differ slightly in their interpretations not only among the five traditions,
but also even among the monasteries within each tradition. Such differences make for more
interesting debates. At the conclusion of a lengthy course of study, all five traditions grant a
degree, either Geshe or Khenpo.
The four Tibetan Buddhist schools all study the four traditions of Indian Buddhist philosophical
tenets Vaibhashika,Sautrantika, Chittamatra, and Madhyamaka. Although they explain them
slightly differently, each accepts Madhyamaka as presenting the most sophisticated and precise
position. The four also study the same Indian classics by Maitreya, Asanga, Nagarjuna,
Chandrakirti, Shantideva, and so on. Again, each school has its own spectrum of Tibetan
commentaries, all of which differ slightly from each other.
Tantra Study and Practice
The study and practice of tantra spans all four or six classes of tantra, depending on the
classification scheme. The four Buddhist traditions practice many of the same Buddhafigures(deities, yidams), such as Avalokiteshvara, Tara, Manjushri, Chakrasamvara (Heruka), and
Vajrayogini (Vajradakini). Hardly any Buddha-figure practice is the exclusive domain of one
tradition alone. Gelugpas also practice Hevajra, the main Sakya figure, and
Shangpa Kagyupas practice Vajrabhairava (Yamantaka), the main Gelug figure. The Buddhafigures in Bon have similar attributes to the ones in Buddhism for example, figures
embodying compassion or wisdom only differentnames.
Meditation
Meditation in all five Tibetan traditions entails undertaking lengthy retreats, often for three years
and three phases of the moon. Retreats are preceded by intensive preliminary practices, requiring
hundreds of thousands of prostrations, mantra repetitions, and so on. The number of
preliminaries, the manner of doing them, and the structure of the three-year retreat differ slightly
from one school to another. Yet, basically, everyone practices the same.
Ritual
Ritual practice is also very similar in all five. They all offer water bowls, butter lamps, and
incense; sit in the same cross-legged manner; use vajras, bells, and damaru hand-drums; play the
same types of horns, cymbals, and drums; chant in loud voices; offer and taste consecrated meat
and alcohol during special ceremonies (tsog); and serve butter tea during all ritual assemblies.
Following the originally Bon customs, they all offertormas (sculpted cones of barley flour mixed
with butter); enlist local spirits for protection; dispel harmful spirits with elaborate rituals; make
butter sculptures on special occasions; and hang colorful prayer flags. They all house relics of
great masters instupa monuments and circumambulate them Buddhists clockwise, Bonpos
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counterclockwise. Even their styles of religious art are extremely similar. The proportions of the
figures in paintings and statues always follow the same set guidelines.
Tulku System of Reincarnate Lamas
Each of the five Tibetan traditions also has the tulku system. Tulkus are lines of reincarnate
lamas, great practitioners who direct their rebirths. When they pass away, usually in a special
type of death-juncture meditation, their disciples use special means to look for and locate their
reincarnations among young children, after an appropriate time has passed. The disciples return
the young reincarnations to their former households and train them with the best teachers.
Monastics and laypeople treat the tulkus of all five traditions with the highest respect. They often
consult tulkus and other great masters for a mo(prognostication) about important matters in their
lives, usually made by tossing three dice while invoking one or another Buddha-figure.
Although all Tibetan traditions include training in textual study, debate, ritual, and meditation,
the emphasis varies from monastery to monastery even within the same Tibetan school and from
individual to individual even within the same monastery. Moreover, except for the high lamas
and the elderly or sick, the monks and nuns take turns in doing the menial laborrequired
to support the monasteries and nunneries, such as cleaning the assembly halls, arranging
offerings, fetching water and fuel, cooking, and serving tea. Even if certain monks or nuns
primarily study, debate, teach, or meditate; still, engaging in communal prayer, chanting, and
ritual takes up a significant portion of everyone's day and night. To say that Gelug and Sakya
emphasize study, while Kagyu and Nyingma stress meditation is a superficial generalization.
Mixed Lineages
Many lineages of teachings mix and cross among the five Tibetan traditions. The lineage of The
Guhyasamaja Tantra, for example, passed through the translator Marpa to both the Kagyu and
the Gelug schools. Although the mahamudra (great seal) teachings concerning the nature
of mind are usually associated with the Kagyu lines, the Sakya and Gelug schools also transmit
lineages of them. Dzogchen (the great completeness) is another system of meditation on the
nature of the mind. Although usually associated with the Nyingma tradition, it is also prominent
in the Karma Kagyu school from the time of the Third Karmapa and in the Drugpa Kagyu and
Bon traditions. The Fifth Dalai Lama was a great master of not only Gelug, but also of dzogchen
and Sakya, and wrote many texts on each. We need to be open-minded to see that the Tibetan
schools are not mutually exclusive. Many Kagyu monasteries perform Guru Rinpoche pujas, for
example, although they are not Nyingma.
Differences
Usage of Technical Terms
What are the major differences, then, among the five Tibetan traditions? One of the main ones
concerns the usage of technical terms. Bon discusses most of the same things as Buddhism does,
but uses different words or names for many of them. Even within the four Buddhist traditions,
various schools use the same technical terms with different definitions. This is actually a great
problem in trying to understand Tibetan Buddhism in general. Even within the same tradition,
different authors define the same terms differently; and even the same author sometimes defines
the same terms differently in his various works. Unless we know the exact definitions that the
authors are using for their technical terms, we can become extremely confused. Let me give a
few examples.
Gelugpas say that mind, meaning awareness of objects, is impermanent, while Kagyupas
and Nyingmapas assert it is permanent. The two positions seem to be contradictory and mutually
exclusive; but, actually, they are not. By "impermanent," Gelugpas mean that awareness of
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objects changes from moment to moment, in the sense that the objects one is aware of change
each moment. By "permanent," Kagyupas and Nyingmapas mean that awareness of objects
continues forever; its basic nature remains unaffected by anything and thus never changes. Each
side would agree with the other, but because of their using the terms with different meanings, it
looks as if they completely clash. Kagyupas and Nyingmapas would certainly say that an
individual's awareness of objects perceives or knows different objects each moment; while
Gelugpas would certainly agree that individual minds are continuums of awareness of objects
with no beginning and no end.
Another example is the word "dependent arising." Gelugpas say that everything exists in terms of
dependent arising, meaning that things exist as "this" or "that" dependently on words
andconcepts being able to validly label them as "this" or "that." Knowable phenomena are what
the words and concepts for them refer to. Nothing exists on the side of knowable phenomena that
by its own power gives them their existence and identities. Thus, for Gelugpas, existence in
terms of dependent arising is equivalent to voidness: the total absence of impossible ways of
existing.
Kagyupas, on the other hand, say that the ultimate is beyond dependent arising. It sounds as if
they are asserting that the ultimate has independent existence established by its own power, not
just dependently arising existence. That is not the case. Kagyupas, here, are using "dependent
arising" in terms of the twelve links of dependent arising. The ultimate or deepest true
phenomenon is beyond dependent arising in the sense that it does not arise dependently
from unawareness of reality (ignorance). Gelugpas would also accept that assertion. They are just
using the term "dependent arising" with a different definition. Many of the discrepancies in the
assertions of the Tibetan schools arise from such differences in the definitions of critical terms.
This is one of the major sources of confusion and misunderstanding.
Viewpoint of Explanation
Another difference among the Tibetan traditions is the viewpoint from which they explain
phenomena. According to the Rimey (nonsectarian movement) master Jamyang-kyentse-wangpo,
Gelugpas explain from the point of view of the basis, namely from the point of view of ordinary
beings, non-Buddhas.Sakyapas explain from the point of view of the path, namely from the point
of view of those who are extremely advanced on the path to enlightenment. Kagyupas and
Nyingmapas explain from the point of view of the result, namely from a Buddha's viewpoint. As
this difference is quite profound and complicated to understand, let me just indicate a starting
point for exploring the issue.
From the basis point of view, one can only focus on voidness orappearance one at a time. Thus,
Gelugpas explain even an arya's meditation on voidness from this point of view. An arya is a
highly realized being with straightforward, nonconceptual perception of voidness. Kagyupas and
Nyingmapas emphasize the inseparability of the two truths, voidness and appearance. From a
Buddha's viewpoint, one cannot possibly talk about just voidness or just appearance. Thus, they
speak from the point of view of everything being complete and perfect already. The Bon
presentation of dzogchen accords with this manner of explanation. An example of the Sakya
presentation from the point of view of the path is the assertion that the clear-light mind (the
subtlest awareness of each individual being) is blissful. If that were true on the basis level, then
the clear-light mind manifest at death would be blissful, which it is not. On the path, however,
one makes the clear-light mind into a blissful mind. Thus, when Sakyapas speak of the clear-light
mind as blissful, this is from the point of view of the path.
Type of Practitioner Emphasized
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Another difference arises from the fact that there are two types of practitioners: those who travel
gradually in steps and those for whom everything happens all at once. Gelugpas and Sakyapas
speak mostly from the point of view of those who develop in stages; Kagyupas, Nyingmapas,
and Bonpos, especially in their presentations of the highest class of tantra, often speak from the
point of view of those for whom everything happens all at once. Although the resulting
explanations may give the appearance that each side asserts only one mode of travel along the
path, it is just a matter of which one they emphasize in their explanations.
Approach to Meditation on Voidness in Highest Tantra
As mentioned already, all the Tibetan schools accept Madhyamaka as the deepest teaching, but
their ways of understanding and explaining the different Indian Buddhist systems of
philosophical tenets differ slightly. The difference comes out most strongly in the ways in which
they understand and practice Madhyamaka in highest tantra. As this is also a very complex and
profound point, let us try here just to get an initial understanding.
Highest tantra practice leads to gaining straightforward nonconceptual perception of voidness
with the subtlest clear-light mind. Thus, two components are necessary: clear-light
awareness and correct perception of voidness. Which one receives the emphasis in meditation?
With the "self-voidness" approach, the emphasis in meditation is on voidness as the object
perceived by clear-light awareness. Self-voidness means the total absence of self-existent natures
giving phenomena their identities. All phenomena are devoid of existing in this impossible way.
Gelugpas, most Sakyapas, and Drigung Kagyupas emphasize this approach; although their
explanations differ slightly concerning the impossible ways that phenomena are devoid of
existing in.
The second approach is to emphasize meditation on clear-lightmind itself, which is devoid of all
grosser levels of mind or awareness. In this context, clear-light awareness receives the name
"other-voidness"; it is devoid of all other grosser levels of mind. Other-voidness is the main
approach of the Karma, Drugpa, and Shangpa Kagyupas, the Nyingmapas, and a portion of the
Sakyapas. Each, of course, has a slightly different way of explaining and meditating. One of the
major areas of difference, then, among the Tibetan schools is how they define self-voidness and
other-voidness; whether they accept one, the other, or both; and what they emphasize in
meditation to gain clear-light awareness of voidness.
Regardless of this difference concerning self-voidness and other-voidness, all Tibetan schools
teach methods for accessing clear-light awareness or, in the dzogchen systems, the
equivalent:rigpa, pure awareness. Here, another major difference appears. Non-dzogchen
Kagyupas, Sakyapas, and Gelugpas teach dissolving the grosser levels of mind or awareness in
stages in order to access clear-light mind. The dissolution is accomplishedeither by working with
the subtle energy-channels, winds, chakras, and so on, or by generating progressively more
blissful states of awareness within the subtle energy-system of the body. Nyingmapas, Bonpos,
and practitioners of Kagyupa lineages of dzogchen try to recognize and thereby access
rigpa underlying the grosser levels of awareness, without actually having first to dissolve the
grosser levels. Nevertheless, because earlier in their training they engaged in practices with the
energy-channels, winds, and chakras, they experience that the grosser levels of their awareness
automatically dissolve without conscious further effort when they finally recognize and access
rigpa.
Whether Voidness Can Be Indicated by Words
Yet, another difference arises concerning whether voidness can be indicated by words and
concepts or whether it is beyond both of them. This issue parallels a difference
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in cognition theory. Gelugpas explain that with nonconceptual sensory cognition, for example
seeing, we perceive not only shapes and colors, but also objects such as a vase. Sakyapas,
Kagyupas, and Nyingmapas assert that nonconceptual visual cognition perceives only shapes and
colors. Perceiving the shapes and colors as objects such a vase occurs with conceptual
cognition a nanosecond later.
In accordance with this difference concerning nonconceptual and conceptual cognition, Gelugpas
say that voidness can be indicated by words and concepts: voidness is what the word "voidness"
is referring to. Sakyapas, Kagyupas, and Nyingmapas assert that voidness whether self- or
other-voidness is beyond words and concepts. Their position accords with the Chittamatra
explanation: words and concepts for things are artificial mental constructs. When you think
"mother," the word or concept is not really your mother. The word is merely a token used to
represent your mother. You cannot really put your mother into a word.
Use of Chittamatra Terminology
In fact, Sakyapas, Kagyupas, and Nyingmapas use a lot of Chittamatra vocabulary even in their
Madhyamaka explanations, particularly in terms of highest tantra. The Gelugpas rarely ever do.
When non-Gelugpas use Chittamatra technical terms in highest tantra Madhyamaka
explanations, however, they define them differently from when they use them in strictly
Chittamatra sutra contexts. For example, alayavijnana (foundation awareness) is one of the eight
types of limited awareness in the sutra Chittamatra system. In highest tantra Madhyamaka
contexts, foundation awareness is a synonym for the clear-light mind that continues even into
Buddhahood.
Summary
These are some of the major areas of difference concerning profound philosophical and
meditation points. We could go into tremendous detail about these points, but I think it is very
important never to lose sight of the fact that about eighty percent or more of the features of the
Tibetan schools are the same. The differences among the schools are mostly due to how they
define technical terms, which point of view they explain from, and what meditation approach
they use to gain a clear-light awareness of voidness.
Preliminary Practices
Further, the general training practitioners receive in each of the traditions is the same. Merely the
styles of some of the practices are different. For example, most Kagyupas, Nyingmapas, and
Sakyapas complete the full set of preliminaries for tantra practice (the hundred thousand
repetitions of prostrations, and so on) as one big event early in the training, often as a separate
retreat. Gelugpas typically fit them one at a time into their schedules, usually after they have
completed their basic studies. Practitioners of all traditions, however, repeat the full set of
preliminaries at the start of a three-year retreat.
Three-Year Retreats
In a three-year retreat, Kagyupas, Nyingmapas, and Sakyapas typically train in a number of sutra
meditation practices and then in the basic ritual practices of the main Buddha-figures of their
lineages, devoting several months successively for each practice. They also learn to play the
ceremonial musical instruments and to make sculpted torma offerings. Gelugpas gain the same
basic meditation and ritual training by fitting each practice one at a time into their schedules, as
they do with the preliminaries. The Gelug three-year retreat focuses on the intensive practice of
just one Buddha-figure. Non-Gelugpas normally devote three or more years in retreat to one
tantra practice only in their second or third three-year retreats, not in the initial one.
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Participation in the full monastic ritual practice of any Buddha-figure requires completion of a
several-month retreat entailing repetition of several mantras hundreds of thousands of times. One
cannot perform a self-initiation without having completed this practice. Whether Gelugpas fulfill
this requirement by doing a several-month retreat on its own or non-Gelugpas do it as part of a
three-year retreat, most monastics in all the traditions complete such retreats. Only the more
advanced practitioners of each tradition, however, do intensive three-year retreats focused on
only one Buddha-figure.
Conclusion
It is very important to maintain a nonsectarian point of view with regard to the five Tibetan
traditions of Buddhism and Bon. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama always stresses, these different
traditions share the same ultimate aim: they all teach methods for achieving enlightenment to
benefit others as much as is possible. Each tradition is equally effective in helping its
practitioners reach this goal and thus they fit together harmoniously, even if not in a simple
manner. In making even an introductory comparative study of the five traditions, we learn
to appreciate the unique strong points of our own tradition and to see that each tradition has its
own outstanding features. If we wish to become Buddhas and to benefit everyone, we need
eventually to learn the entire spectrum of Buddhist traditions and how they all fit together so that
we are able to teach people of different inclinations and capacities. Otherwise, we risk the danger
of "abandoning the Dharma," which means discrediting an authentic teaching of Buddha, thereby
disabling ourselves from being able to benefit those whom Buddha saw that the teaching suits.
It is important eventually to follow only one lineage in ourpersonal practice. No one can reach
the top of a building by trying to climb five different staircases simultaneously. Nevertheless, if
our capacities allow, then studying the five traditions helps us to learn the strong points of each.
This, in turn, may help us to gain clarity about these points in our own traditions when they
receive less elaborate treatment there. This is what His Holiness the Dalai Lama and all the great
masters always emphasize.
It is also very important to see that for anything that we do be it in the spiritual or the material
sphere there are perhaps ten, twenty, or thirty different ways of doing the exact same thing.
This helps us to avoid attachment to the way in which we are doing something. We are able to
see the essence more clearly, rather than becoming caught up in "This is the correct way of doing
it, because it is my correct way of doing it!"
What questions would you like to ask?
Questions
Question: Which tradition do you follow?
Alex: His Holiness the Dalai Lama and one of his teachers, Serkong Rinpoche, my main spiritual
guide, have always encouraged me to follow their examples, which is to study and practice all
the Tibetan traditions as much as I can, while keeping the main emphasis on Gelug. I have tried
to follow this guideline to the best of my ability.
Question: Isn't it confusing to do meditation practices from many different traditions? Isn't it
confusing even to do the practices of many different Buddha-figures within one tradition?
Alex: There are different ways of approaching Buddhist practice, particularly tantra. One Tibetan
saying goes, "Indians practiced with one Buddha-figure and were able to realize a hundred; while
the Tibetans practice a hundred figures and are not able to realize any!" The import of this saying
is that it is important to go into depth in one practice if we are to get anywhere with many. The
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extent of our practice depends on our individual capacities. To assess our capacities, we need
both to look honestly at ourselves and to consider our teachers' advice.
If we are capable of engaging in tantra practices from several Tibetan lineages, it is important, as
His Holiness warns, not to make a stew out of them. We need to do each practice individually,
according to its own tradition, in its own way. If we find doing many practices confusing, His
Holiness advises that it is best not to put equal emphasis on all of them. If we have received
empowerments and practices from many lineages or even for many Buddha-figures within one
lineage and we find it confusing, we can just maintain the karmic connection with some of them
by reciting the mantra three times daily. We can then go into depth with merely the practices for
which we have the most understanding, and with which we feel the strongest links.
I believe that the ability to engage in many practices depends on how well we understand the
general theory of tantra. If we understand the theory correctly, we can see how each particular
practice fits with the others. Otherwise, our practice of tantra runs the risk of becoming
schizophrenic.
Question: Can you please elaborate on His Holiness the Dalai Lama's advice against mixing
practices?
Alex: One reason for not mixing or adulterating practices is to show respect for lineage and
tradition. To mix would be like to walk into a Catholic Church and make three prostrations to the
altar, while everyone else was genuflecting and crossing themselves. The Fifth Dalai Lama is a
good example of someone who mastered several traditions, but never mixed them. When he
composed Gelug texts, he wrote them completely in Gelug style; when he composed Sakya texts,
they were in Sakya style from start to finish; and when he wrote Nyingma texts, the style was
totally Nyingma. In Nyingma texts, one praises Padmasambhava at the start, not Tsongkhapa.
Another reason for keeping each practice pure is that within thesadhana visualization practice of
one tradition, for instance, the component parts of the practice, the vocabulary, and the manner of
expression are all consistent. They fit harmoniously together like the component parts of a
particular make and model automobile. Within the Sakya tradition of Hevajra practice, for
example, the seven-limb prayer omits beseeching the Buddhas not to pass away. This is because
the Sakya teachings of lamdray(the paths and its results) emphasize the
Buddhas'sambhogakaya manifestations, which remain until every being has become free from all
suffering, rather than the nirmanakayaappearances that teach impermanence by passing away.
The sambhogakaya emphasis also reflects in the way one stabilizes the visualization of oneself as
the Buddha-figure and receives the empowerments. To mix into a Sakya lamdray practice a
Gelug-style seven-limb prayer, which includes beseeching the Buddhas not to pass away, would
be like trying to fit a Volkswagen part into a Ford engine. It simply won't work.
Question: Aren't there examples in which practices from different lineages have combined?
Alex: In some cases when practices have been introduced into one lineage from another, they
have been kept purely in their original forms. For example, the Gelug practice of Hayagriva
Yangsang from the treasure texts revealed by the Fifth Dalai Lama is purely in the same style of
practice as that of any Nyingma sadhana.
In some cases, one part of a practice has been changed to that of the lineage into which it has
been introduced. For example, the Vajrayogini practice brought into Gelug from Sakya shares
most features in common with typical Gelug sadhanas. It merely substitutes Gelug-style voidness
meditation for Sakya-style.
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Sometimes, however, we do find hybrids. The Karma Kagyu practice of Guru Rinpoche, for
example, contains most of the components of a Nyingma sadhana, but typically Karma Kagyu
terminology and approach to voidness meditation. In the sadhana practice of Karma Pakshi (the
Second Karmapa), although Guru Rinpoche sits in Karma Pakshi's heart and one of the offerings
resembles Nyingma style, most of the rest of the practice is typically Karma Kagyu. The main
hybrid feature is visualization of oneself as a Buddha-figure in the form of a great lineage master.
Someone must be a very great master with far-reaching wisdom, however, to make any
synthesis. It is not taboo, but requires great care. For ordinary beings such as ourselves, making
new syntheses will probably lead merely to confusion.
Question: If our main practice is Gelug, but we also like to practice dzogchen, what would be the
best way of doing this?
Alex: The best way is to practice dzogchen as a separate meditation. It is like in school: when we
do math we do math, when we do composition we do composition. We attend one class at a time,
separately. In the end, everything we learn fits together in our own development.
For many people, practicing a variety of methods is too much, so there is no need to do this.
Better to stick to one style of practice, while appreciating the validity of the wide diversity of
Buddhist methods. Otherwise, we might go to another Dharma center, meet other practitioners,
and see that they are doing something slightly differently from the way that we do. As followers
of a Tibetan tradition, for instance, we might go to a Zen center and see the way the members
make prostration. Our ears go up like a rabbit in front of a car light and we gasp, "That is wrong!
They have palms up on the floor, not down; they are going to go to hell!" Our shock and horror
are the fault of not having a broad enough Buddhist education. Chinese Buddhists all prostrate
that way. Although some Tibetan masters may take a fundamentalist stance regarding their
traditions, there is no need to follow their examples.
Question: How do we know which tradition suits us the best?
Alex: It is not easy. In Tibet, people went to whatever monasteries and teachers happened to be in
their valleys. Those who felt that was not enough and who wished to study further, went
elsewhere after their basic Buddhist educations. One of my teachers, Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey,
for example, entered a local Sakya monastery as a young child, but when he grew older, pursued
his main studies in Gelug monasteries, first in his district and then far away in Lhasa.
The situation here in the West is much different now. In many cities, a wide variety of options is
available, so it is possible to shop around at the various Dharma centers. Eventually, however, we
need to choose a lineage within which to focus our main study and practice. To spend all our
time shopping and never to buy anything would be sad. If we automatically feel familiar and
comfortable with a particular lineage or teacher, this is a good sign that we have a karmic
connection. It "feels right."
In choosing a lineage or a teacher, it is important to remain open-minded and not to have
the attitude, "I am only going to go to my Dharma center. I am not going to set foot into any
other center or listen to any other teacher." This, I think, deprives us of many excellent
opportunities to learn more. On the other hand, it is not necessary to go to everything. Better to
exercisediscriminating awareness and follow a "middle path."
If we live in a remote area, with very few options for Dharma study available, we probably need
to follow the traditional Tibetan example. We can start by going to whatever centers and teachers
are the closest and most convenient. If they suit us, this is wonderful. If we find them
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unsatisfactory, we respectfully learn as much as we can and, if the opportunity presents itself, we
may pursue further study and practice elsewhere.
If this is the pattern we follow, it is important to dismiss any feelings we might have that our
going on to other teachers, centers, or even lineages is an act of disloyalty and betrayal to our
home centers or teachers. Going from high school to college is not a betrayal of our high school
or of its teachers. The same is true with transferring to another university if we find that the one
we first entered does not provide the program or level of study we want. If we maintain respect
and appreciation for the teachers we had and their instruction, there is no guilt or blame.
Question: What is the best way to regard the refutations of the philosophical positions of other
traditions that we find in the texts of each of the Tibetan schools?
Alex: His Holiness the Dalai Lama and some of the greatest masters of the past have stressed that
although the Tibetan schools and even within one school, the various monastic textbooks
have differences of opinion on minor points, their positions are not contradictory regarding the
most important issues. Moreover, as His Holiness also points out, several great masters of the
past were not especially gifted in explaining their meditation experiences in a logical or a
consistent manner. Yet, if we examine their practices and accomplishments impartially, we must
conclude that they achieved authentic results.
Many texts contain heated debates between various scholars, not only from one school to
another, but also even within one school. Sometimes, rude inflammatory remarks punctuate the
texts. We can regard these debates like battles between hostile sides, but such an attitude prevents
us from benefiting from the contents of the debate. If we look from a more detached viewpoint,
we can hear their words implying, for example, "If you say that mind is permanent, without
clearly defining what you mean by permanent, then some people will understand the term with
my definition. They will then become extremely confused, because this and that absurd
conclusion and inconsistency follow when you define permanent as I do and ascribe that to
mind." I think that this is one type of unbiased conclusion we can reach from these strongly
worded debates.
Question: Many Tibetan Buddhist lamas have spoken or written very negatively about the Bon
tradition. Can you comment on that?
Alex: Prejudice against the Bonpos stems back to the ancient conquest of Zhang-zhung, the
homeland of Bon in Western Tibet, and its incorporation into the first Tibetan Empire in Central
Tibet. Originally, the term "Bonpo" referred to ministers and other officials who came from
Zhang-zhung, not to those who carried out the Zhang-zhung rituals at the imperial court.
Prejudice against the Bonpos was originally motivated by politics, not by religious beliefs or
practices. His Holiness emphasizes that this prejudice is divisive and negative. It would be best if
Tibetan Buddhists worked to eliminate it from their mentalities.
If we look from the viewpoint of Jungian psychology, I think we can gain insight into the
historical development of the anti-Bon prejudice. Over time, the practice of seeing the spiritual
teacheras a Buddha received growing emphasis. As the intensity of so-called "gurudevotion" increased, many practitioners who had not yet achieved stable levels of emotional
balance were unable to digest the practice in a healthy manner. The more they stressed and
projected the side of perfection onto their teachers, the more they empowered the hidden
negative side what Jung called "the shadow." They projected this onto the so-called "enemies
of the Dharma." Much of the projection fell on the heads of the Bonpos.
10

As my good friend, Dr. Martin Kalff, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher and Jungian psychologist,
pointed out to me, the account ofShakyamuni Buddha meditating under the bodhi tree and being
attacked by Mara, the embodiment of interference and negativity, indicates this psychological
principle. Conscious focus on our positive sides brings unconscious focus on our negative ones
as a counterbalance. Only when Shakyamuni demonstrated that Mara could no longer affect him,
did he attain enlightenment.
It is significant that the Buddhist lineages with the most fanatic guru-devotion often are the ones
with the most ferocious and gory protector practices. The more they seemingly worship their
gurus, the more fixated they seem to become on destroying the enemies of the Dharma. This
polarization is very unhealthy. It is very important that, as Western practitioners, we take care not
to fall prey to this tendency to make our lineage gurus into gods and the teachers of other
lineages and religions into the devil.
Question: Which Tibetan lineage is the largest?
Alex: The Gelug tradition has the largest following in Tibet and Mongolia. Among the Tibetans
in exile, Gelug also has the highest number of adherents. Among Westerners and East Asians
who were not traditionally Tibetan Buddhists, Karma Kagyu seems to be the largest group. In the
Tibetan Government-in-Exile, however, each of the Tibetan traditions has equal representation.
Question: Has His Holiness ever expressed any thoughts about the usefulness of preserving the
five Tibetan traditions or the benefits of combining them into one tradition?
Alex: Neither the Dalai Lama nor any other Tibetan spiritual leader has the power or authority to
make such changes. His Holiness always welcomes a diversity of spiritual traditions in order to
suit people's varying tastes. Nevertheless, at the nonsectarian conference I mentioned earlier, His
Holiness recommended establishment of a committee to select a body of common prayers from
among the Tibetan translations of Indian Buddhist prayers for instance, Shantideva's prayer that all Tibetan traditions could accept as a common liturgy when they meet together. The ability
to pray together would not eliminate the traditions, but rather bring them closer together. His
Holiness's suggestion would undoubtedly be helpful also for Buddhist centers in the West.
Thank you.
The Four Traditions of Tibetan Buddhism: Personal Experience, History, and
Comparisons
Session One: Personal Experience and History
Unedited Transcript
Tonight Ive been asked to speak about the four traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. I was asked also
to speak a little bit about my own personal experience with them as a way to start. So, lets do
that.
I have a bit of an omnivorous mind and Ive always been interested in almost everything and
like to understand and study everything. When I originally became involved with Buddhism and
studying it that was in university about forty years ago I became turned on by one particular
lecture which spoke about how Buddhism went from one civilization to another and how it was
11

reinterpreted and redefined in terms of the cultures of each of these civilizations. It sort of
went Boing! and I really was turned on very much by that and that was what I wanted to study
and become involved with and I pretty much have followed that for the last forty years.
And that led to studying a wide variety of Asian religions and philosophies. First I was involved
with China and how Buddhism came into China, the whole process with which Chinese
philosophy influenced it, and how after Buddhism became less prominent in China, how it
influenced the philosophy that followed that. After that I wanted to fill in the Indian side: where
did Buddhism come from? How did that fit into all the different philosophies that were going on
at the inception of Buddhism and during the development of Buddhism in India? There is a lot of
debate and interaction back and forth between the Buddhist and Hindu Schools. And then that led
to Tibetan Studies, how Buddhism went there and what happened.
So when I originally went to India back in 1969 on the Fulbright program to do my doctorate
dissertation, I was not coming from a sectarian background, from one tradition of Buddhism. In
fact, the whole approach that was followed at university in the sixties was that this was a dead
subject, like Ancient Egyptian Studies, And here we have the commentaries and you learn the
language, you learn the grammar and try to figure it out, like a grand crossword puzzle.
I had met Geshe Wangyal a great Kalmyk Mongol Geshe, one of the first of the people from
the Tibetan tradition in the United States earlier during my university times. But I never really
had an opportunity to study with him, so I didnt identify with the Gelug tradition that he came
from. But I went to India and, through connections from Geshe Wangyal, then I met with Sharpa
and Khamlung Rinpoches, who had been with him in America and started eventually studying
with their teacher, Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey.
Back in 1969, I met His Holiness and was very, very impressed by His Holiness Everything
that I had studied was for real, this is what really struck me, and it wasnt a matter of guesswork
and it was really a living tradition and you could really become involved in the practice, rather
than just my own approach, which was to try to figure it out myself what the practice might be
like; this type of thing. So I got involved in the practice and it was the Gelug tradition and I
studied that; thats the main thing that I have studied.
But eventually, when His Holiness built the Library in Dharamsala and invited Geshe Ngawang
Dhargyey to be the teacher there and Sharpa and Khamlung Rinpoches to be the translators, then
I asked if I could also be of help. And His Holiness said, Yes, but hand in the dissertation first
and then come back. So I did that and moved over to Dharamsala from Dalhousie. His Holiness
always encouraged me from the very start to study in all the Tibetan traditions. As I said, I have
an omnivorous mind. And if that is something that you can deal with and handle without getting
confused, its very beneficial and its certainly the approach that His Holiness has. His Holiness
has trained and is quite an expert in all the Tibetan traditions.
Even before I started studying with Serkong Rinpoche, I used to go to Bodh Gaya in the
winters and there was a Karma Kagyu teacher, Beru Khyentse Rinpoche, who used to teach in
12

the seventies, the early seventies, mid-seventies in Bodhgaya. Hes continued to do that. I dont
know if he does that still today, but he used to teach there every winter and I would go every
winter, for either His Holiness would teach there or usually Ling Rinpoche, the Senior Tutor,
would teach in Bodh Gaya. And it was too cold up in Dalhousie anyway, or in Dharamsala. And
Beru Khyentse Rinpoche was teaching, teaching mahamudra and various other Karma Kagyu
things.
And he asked me if I would translate for him, because he needed a translator for the classes. I
think it was he who asked me, actually I cant remember so exactly. And I sort of checked it out
and decided that this would be a great thing to do, to not only translate for him, but to be able to
learn the Karma Kagyu side. And he was really a very, very wonderful teacher at that time,
because he really was able to explain things in depth. I tend to ask lots of questions and want
things pretty precise and he was able to help me with that. That was my introduction to the
Kagyu side, starting to expand out beyond just one tradition.
Then I started to study with Serkong Rinpoche, who became my main teacher, the late Assistant
Tutor of His Holiness. Serkong Rinpoche also was a master, like His Holiness, of all the different
traditions, particularly, like His Holiness, the second one after Gelug being Nyingma. Serkong
Rinpoche one of his main responsibilities all along was to attend all the classes that His
Holiness attended and be able to debate with him; and he also taught him and gave many
lineages and initiations to His Holiness. But one of his main functions was to have the entire
scope of His Holinesss teachings, so that there was at least somebody else who had as large a
scope as His Holiness that His Holiness could bounce ideas back and forth with and so they
could discuss and refine His Holinesss understanding.
So this whole movement that is so important to His Holiness, which is the grand unified theory
of all the Tibetan traditions, is the main framework in which my entire training and my entire
work has been evolving from many decades already. Serkong Rinpoche continued to encourage
me very much in this direction. His Holinesss part of the policy at the Library in Dharamsala
had Geshe Dhargyey as well teach texts from other traditions besides Gelug. He taught
Gampopas Jewel Ornament of Liberation; he taught a Nyingma text by Longchenpa.
And from... even back in Dalhousie, His Holiness had had asked us as a team myself with
Sharpa and Khamlung Rinpoche and Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey to translate little pamphlets for
him. His Holiness wanted them from the various different traditions. And when he asked us to
translate a particular dzogchen text of Longchenpa, that gave me the opportunity to start to study
with Nyingma masters. And I worked some with Dudjom Rinpoche, the late head of the
Nyingma tradition and was able to study privately with him to get a bit of the dzogchen side. I
think thats where that started, but then later on I was able to do quite a bit of Nyingma and
dzogchen studies with His Holiness, who teaches it quite frequently, and with Serkong Rinpoche
as well, who was a great master of that tradition.
It was very interesting with Serkong Rinpoche: he was very special in terms of giving advice,
to me at least, in terms of not trying to rule anybodys life or anything like that, but he did point
13

out two things. One was that I should study Tibetan astrology; he was the Kalachakra teacher of
His Holiness and astrology is a big part of Kalachakra, or at least a significant part of
Kalachakra, although you dont have to study it order to get into Kalachakra. But in order to be
able to understand certain aspects of the texts and sort of esoteric things it makes your
understanding a bit fuller; so he encouraged me to do that.
And so I did, and in addition to that, he encouraged me that I must get the Sakya Hevajra
empowerment and study in the Sakya tradition with Chogye Trichen. Dagchen Rinpoche and
Sakya Trizin and Chogye Trichen are the heads of the three lineages of Sakya. So, he suggested
that I really must do that. Serkong Rinpoche died in 1983 and he had told me this just some
months or within a year of when he passed away. And so after he had passed away, I made a very
strong effort to go to Nepal and to be able to study with him.
Chogye Trichen was really wonderful, he gave the initiation privately to me; there were a
couple other people who happened to be there that he invited in, but because it had been
requested by Serkong Rinpoche for me, he did that quite especially, which was awfully nice. So,
that was sort of my entry into the Sakya side. And I must say, with all of that and trying to
practice as best I can, in a little bit, at least in the styles of the other traditions and working to try
to fit them together and see how they go together, this has really, really been very wonderful and
very rewarding.
As His Holiness always says, even within one lineage, if you study different practices, theres
going to be emphases placed in different areas. He is always talking quite specifically about
anuttarayoga tantra practice, but in the different deity systems therell be more emphasis on clear
light practice, or more detail on the four blisses, or more detail on the wind yogas, or this or that.
And although all of them are complete; by studying different ones, you get more detail on a side
that then you can somehow fit in and fill in. Also you get a different angle on your meditation if
you can see many different angles of approaching it.
This I found to be really, really the case, particularly in voidness meditation, because the style
of doing voidness meditation is quite different in each of these traditions. So, you have in the
Gelug tradition the four-point analysis and all of that. But in the Sakya tradition, for instance,
you refine your understanding by working in the standard line of reasoning that you use in the
short voidness meditation, like in a tantra sadhana. You start first with Chittamatra and the
Chittamatra understanding, and then all appearances are cognitive appearances the mind gives
rise to, all of that comes from karma, This is very much a Chittamatra type of thing, coming
from the mind.
And then the voidness of the mind and they have a slightly different presentation of voidness,
of how you describe conceptual and nonconceptual understanding of voidness. Looking at it that
way and meditating on voidness in that way is not contradictory at all to the Gelugpa way of
doing it, but it makes it much more full, because youre approaching it from a different angle.
This I found extremely, extremely helpful. There are many other examples, but I think one is
sufficient to get the idea.
14

The big project that Im doing now and for hopefully the rest of my life, unless my attention
turns to something else is this Berzin Archives website. With that, one of the main ideas, of
course, is to preserve all the teachings that Ive received. Ive had the good fortune to study with
so many of the greatest teachers of the last generation, most of whom are gone almost all of
them are gone, except His Holiness. And I have about thirty thousand pages of unpublished
material, of all the lecture notes and the transcriptions of teachings that I translated for and my
own teachings and extensive reading notes, and anything that I ever studied with my teachers I
usually did a rough translation of the text. So theres tons and tons of material, and of course it
keeps on growing from what Im doing now.
One of the things that I want to do aside from preserving that because its much too much to
put into books and it would be all be thrown away in the garbage when I die if something isnt
done with it, because a lot is in my handwriting. But one of the things that I try very much to
emphasize in it is the approaches of the different traditions. I really dont like whether were
talking in terms of Buddhist traditions, or were talking in terms of cultures to be limited to
one. Im a very, very international person. Ive traveled to more than a hundred countries and
taught in about seventy countries or more. So Im very, very aware of different approaches; and
when I teach, Im always trying to learn the culture of the people that Im teaching and I try to
suit things to that. Similarly with the Dharma, I try to expand and give different approaches.
Even now when Im teaching Shantideva in Berlin the ninth chapter of Shantideva were at in
the moment, thats on the discriminating awareness of voidness, the wisdom chapter then it
goes through the various tenets and I like to bring in the Theravada position as well in terms of
the evolution. The Mahayanists dont address the Theravada in this context, but for a lot of
people that is a background that theyre a little bit familiar with and they would like a little bit of
clarity. Well, what do the Theravadins say about the two truths? What do they say about these
various issues that are discussed? So, I like to bring all of that in and see how it all fits together.
Because I think its very important to get the large picture, the grand context of everything,
especially nowadays in the West, where we have a very unique situation in the history of
Buddhism, which is that we have access to all the different forms of it. Almost anywhere you go
you have access. And even if you dont have thirty centers in your city, which so many cities
have now, from all the various traditions its almost like restaurants from the different cuisines,
so you have Buddhist schools from different traditions you at least have access for that on the
Internet. And so it is important, I think, to try to get some idea of how they fit together.
Im always looking in terms of history; Im very fond of history and I think that history is
essential, actually, for understanding the development of Buddhism. Not just the history of
Buddhism itself, that is often studied out of context, but the whole history and evolution of
Buddhism is very much influenced by the political and economic histories of the countries that it
took place in and the histories of the interactions of the countries through which it was being
transmitted. And unless you see that and fit that together with history of Buddhism, it doesnt
really make sense.
15

Similarly I look in terms of the future. History doesnt just end now, but its an ongoing
process. So, I look at the future of Buddhism from a historical perspective of many centuries,
because its just one little dot on the time scale. And it really is unsustainable the way that it is
now in the West. It is absolutely doomed if the situation doesnt change, because you cant
sustain three hundred brands of Buddhism far too fragmented. Its really very unfortunate that
almost every teacher has to have their own center, their own organization, and their own party
line, as it were. Peoples loyalties are much too limited just to that particular group and this is
very, very unhealthy.
And it doesnt bode well for the future, because how can you sustain that? New people come
along and how do they choose? Its bad enough having to choose between four or ten brands, but
how do you choose between three hundred? This is too much. The only way in which I think it
can be sustained is for the different groups to combine in some way. It doesnt mean that
everybody gets subsumed into one more powerful group like sort of East Germany being
swallowed by West Germany and everything that was East German was bad and so it just now
becomes a larger West Germany, which is rather sad. But a way of putting things together thats
very respectful.
There is a historical precedent for that in terms of how the Tibetan traditions well look a little
bit at the history came together. Because there were no such things, no such entities in India as
Gelug, Kagyu, Nyingma, and Sakya. But rather there were many teachers who came to Tibet,
and many Tibetans who went to India and then went back and taught in Tibet, just as we have
now maybe not as many as we have now, but certainly there were quite a lot. And they all
started lots of different monasteries all over the place, and each particular teaching had its
lineage and this tantra practice or that tantra practice, this sutra lineage or whatever. So you had
all these strands and they were put together and they did coalesce into these new groupings, these
new clusters, as it were, of traditions.
And it wasnt that if you had one line, it just went exclusively into one Tibetan tradition. Like
the Guhyasamaja line from Marpa thats in both the Kagyu but it also goes into the Gelug
tradition, so many of these lines were shared. So its not a simple process; if you had to map it
graphically, it would be a very complex representation of all these hundreds and hundreds of
different lines and how they went together in different combinations. And I think that its going
to have to become that way in the West eventually. But it will take great figures like Tsongkhapa,
or of that type of caliber, to put them together.
And they will be put together undoubtedly in different combinations than they have ever
existed before, particularly now when there are just so many brands of Buddhism available, its
not just Tibetan. I think that there will be very interesting and exciting new combinations I
hope there will be. In order to put them together though, it requires knowledge and
understanding and meditative experience in them all, or at least a large number of them, to see
how they all fit together and to see what can be put together in a meaningful type of way, or at
least which groups can go together in a meaningful type of way.
16

It really becomes pathetic when you have a number of different Geshes, for instance, from
exactly the same monastery, teaching pretty much exactly the same thing, each having their own
totally separate organizations and people not having anything to do with each other. So, the study
of the different traditions, I think, is essential as a step in being able to preserve Tibetan
Buddhism in the future in the West not only Tibetan, but all of the Buddhist traditions. This has
been my experience, and so I try to do that with the website, various topics that Im writing about
there and teaching.
What I find very interesting through my development is to see how much of what I took for
granted as being generic Buddhism Well, everybody must accept that the Prasangikas teach
this or that, for example is Gelug-limited, Gelug-centric. Its the same process of leaving your
country, like I left the United States, and you go start living in Asian countries and you learn that
so many things that we took absolutely for granted and the most fundamental things like
symmetry, just absolute basic things are ethnocentric, ethno-limited; thats not the word, but
anyway you have some idea of what I mean by that, its ethnically specific.
And by having that experience of living most of my life in Asia and traveling to so many
countries and so many cultures in the world and always living in peoples homes I never stayed
in hotels really learning that you cant take anything for granted as being generic to everybody.
Different ways of doing things, even.
One of the most astounding things was to learn a completely different way of doing arithmetic.
The Tibetans, the type of math thats done in Tibetan astrology, the way they multiply, the way
they add, the way they subtract is different from the way that we do. I remember when Serkong
Rinpoche was teaching me that, and my reply, my offhand comment to it was Wow! This is
really strange really weird is how I would have said it in English, but I used the Tibetan
word strange. And he scolded me he scolded me all the time he scolded me and he said,
Its not strange; its different. Dont be so arrogant. Its different, its not strange.
So in the Buddhist teachings then as well, this experience has carried over. And Ive been very
open to trying to learn as I was studying the Gelug tradition. And the way that it was presented
was this is Buddhism. It wasnt even this is Tibetan Buddhism, this is Buddhism. And
although the general topics are the same in all the traditions, theres many, many different ways
of presenting them. So Ive been very excited to try to learn these different ways by either
studying with Tibetan teachers or reading books, these type of things.
Serkong Rinpoche encouraged me very, very much to learn how to read comfortably in Tibetan;
I had studied Tibetan for many, many years. And his point was, and he said it very explicitly, was
that Youre never going to find teachers who are going to teach you everything that you want to
study. Thats unrealistic. The best that you can do is to ask various teachers to suggest to you
what texts to read; you read them yourself; and then ask questions. See if they would be open to
answering questions on the texts. That was very, very wise advice, and advice that I had the
language background to be able to do that. And so I followed that type of approach in my studies.
17

It still continues now, Im very interested to learn the different approaches and the different
traditions to these familiar topics, perception theory and all of that. Because again, you get very
different pictures. So I try to do that in the Archives on the website and this is mostly new
writing.
Thats why its becoming a bit hopeless, because I have thirty thousand pages of this old
material and Im hardly getting to any of that, because Im constantly writing new stuff. And
when I teach, I really dislike teaching the same thing that Ive taught over and over again; thats
not only boring, but it doesnt really present an opportunity for adding new stuff to the website
and the Archives. So, like I was saying the other day, working on this Archives project has
helped me very much to become a person of initial scope motivation, finally, to at least start on a
more sincere level of lam-rim, thinking in terms of preparing all this material for my next
lifetime. I want to be able to access this in my next life, so that I can reconnect with Buddhism.
But its been helpful not only in that respect, but also in terms of the Mahayana teaching that
when you practice or when you teach, imagine that youre teaching to all sentient beings. So,
now when I teach Im never thinking of just the people in the room. The people in the room, fine,
but theyre just the people in the room. Im really thinking of the audience of people who would
read this on the website. So, it becomes to me much more meaningful, whether I can visualize all
sentient beings sitting in the bleachers on the side here of the ballpark or not.
I dont think thats whats so crucial, your visualization of all sentient beings around you. If you
can visualize it, great, but thats not the point. The point is really to have it sincerely be for a
larger scope, as large a scope of beings as possible that you can see benefiting from what youre
doing; and youre extending out the benefit to all of them. Working on this website has been
really very, very helpful in that respect, in my teaching and sitting at the computer or whatever
Im doing.
And of course, anybody who likes to volunteer to help with transcribing or especially typing
my handwritten stuff... because all of that is not so easy to do. And fortunately, theres one thing I
can claim with confidence that Im the worlds expert in, and that is in reading my own
handwriting. I think were all world experts in that. And so that needs to be done while Im still
around to be able to correct it. Otherwise, theres just too much that could be undecipherable. So,
volunteers are always welcome.
Lets go to the main topic then; the main topic here is these traditions. Id like to speak a little
bit about the history we dont have so much time left, so a little bit about the history. Lets try
to exercise some self-control not to get passionate about the history, because its a very, very
fascinating topic, to me at least. And then speak a little bit about the common features and the
differences. So, Ill just go through the history a little bit briefly this time.
In the seventh century of the Common Era, King Songtsen-gampo of Tibet I guess youd call
him an emperor; I call him an emperor on the web site; I think thats more appropriate he
established a huge empire in Tibet. He conquered Zhang-zhung, which was this kingdom to the
18

west, which was where the Bon tradition came from, and he unified Tibet and made this
enormous empire. And he had three wives among many, he probably had more but he had a
Chinese wife and a Nepalese wife and a princess from Zhang-zhung as his wife. And that was the
custom, of course, in ancient times. You conquered places and made alliances by marriage, so he
did that. And these various princesses brought to central Tibet with them texts from their
traditions.
Usually the beginnings of Buddhism in Tibet are traced from that, although there is also a
mythical thing that some text fell from the sky about 100 BCE, but this is more historically
accurate. But there was very little influence from that early period.
And he sent his minister Tonmi Sambhota to Khotan, actually, to get a written language. This is
a kingdom which was a strong Buddhist kingdom to the north of western Tibet, where the high
Tibetan mountains and plateau ends and the mountain range goes all the way down to below sea
level from the Tibetan plateau its pretty high, a pretty drastic drop. And then you get into the
Taklamakan desert taklamakan is a lovely Turkic word meaning go in and not come out. Ive
been to this area; it is really quite formidable. So thats Xinjiang province in China now, East
Turkistan. And just at the base of those mountains where the desert begins was Khotan; its a
beautiful area.
And this was a very strong Buddhist region, coming from basically Iranian influence, Iranian
people; the language was related to Iranian languages. And they had a big influence on Tibet
thats usually not emphasized so much or indicated in the histories. They had a big influence and
the Tibetan alphabet actually comes from their script, their adaptation of the Sanskrit alphabet. It
just so happened that the teachers that they were going to meet in Khotan were in Kashmir at the
time. And you had to go through Kashmir to get to Khotan. That was the most convenient way of
getting there. And Tonmi Sambhota happened to meet them there, so for that reason they say that
the script comes from Kashmir it doesnt, according to analysis.
Anyway, then the whole way of translating into Tibetan was very much influenced by this
Khotanese way of breaking up words and giving the meanings of the individual syllables. But, as
I said, not too much happened with Buddhism at that time; basically, they built some temples.
But they built temples in thirteen places from the Chinese influence, Tibet was conceived as a
demoness lying flat on the ground and in order to somehow quiet the harmful forces they chose
acupuncture points on the body of this demoness and built temples on them like you would do
acupuncture, so that it would somehow tame the wild spirit of Tibet, which I find really a far-out
story. I would like it to be true; whether it is true or not, I dont know, but thats the historical
account from various scholars.
So they built these temples and it was over a pretty large geographic area. Thats all that you
got in the very beginning: a couple of texts, a couple of statues that the queens brought. But
afterwards there was a lot more contact with both China and Khotan, and then later contact with
India. From India, that was coming from the Nepalese princess; the Chinese from the Chinese
princess; and from the Zhang-zhung princess you got the Bon rituals for the state. I dont want to
19

go too much into that, as I said, I can be quite passionate about the whole topic, but it was
different from what we would call Bon today. Anyway, they had a lot of rituals that came from
that area.
Then, about roughly a hundred, hundred forty years later, in the middle of the eighth century,
you had another great emperor, Emperor Tri Songdetsen. And he also was into expanding the
empire and lots and lots of fighting with China and various Central Asian Turkic kingdoms and
so on. And he invited Shantarakshita from India, a great abbot, to come. This was due to a
prophecy that he invited him to teach in Tibet.
And at that time you had a very conservative faction a lot of political factions in the
government, thats why I say you have to look at really the political history as well to understand
what was going on. And the conservative faction was very xenophobic, anti-foreign and so they
didnt like at all this Shantarakshita coming. And there just happened to be a smallpox epidemic
that broke out at that time, so Shantarakshita became the scapegoat for that, He brought it from
India, and Get rid of it, get rid of him! So he was blamed and he was kicked out of Tibet.
So, he went back to India and through the influence of the king, who was still very in favor of
Shantarakshita, he invited Guru Rinpoche to come back up to Tibet. The standard story was that
he came to tame the demons. Well, basically, it was to get rid of the smallpox epidemic to
somehow tame the demons that were causing the interferences with the smallpox. So, all of this
has historical references; its not just a story. So he came and did that and then they re-invited
Shantarakshita and he came back up. And Guru Rinpoche and Shantarakshita and the king built
the first monastery, Samyay.
They had Buddhist temples before, but they didnt have a monastery. Monastery means monks,
ordained monks. And Guru Rinpoche found people not so receptive, not quite ripe yet for the
more advanced teachings, and so he hid buried in the wall of Samyay, or in the pillars, or in
various other places around Tibet and Bhutan various texts dealing with dzogchen, the highest
class of tantra teachings from his tradition. That was the Nyingma tradition that derives from
him.
So at Samyay monastery you had the three groups the Chinese, the Indians, and the Zhangzhung people from West Tibet making various translations of their materials translating
things into their language, out of their language, this sort of stuff. And Buddhism was made the
state religion. And the Chinese emperor then sent two Chinese monks every other year to
Samyay. And Shantarakshita predicted that there would be conflict that would arise over this.
And he said that, In the future you must invite my student Kamalashila to help with these
conflicts and controversies that will come.
More teachers meanwhile were sent to India and more of them came to Tibet and many of them
also buried texts there. Then this conservative, xenophobic faction was really becoming very
upset about the whole development of what was going on and there was a big persecution of
Bon, which again was not a religious persecution the way that its presented in the Buddhist
20

religious histories, but was much more of a political persecution. Bon there was referring to a
group of people actually in the state, so it was sort of an anti- Zhang-zhung faction. Thats a very
important point that is needed to be stressed when you study history.
One of the things that has just gone on the website is this book that I wrote that I never
published, its in the e-book section, its called The Historical Interaction between the Buddhist
and Muslim Cultures Before the Mongol Period. And one of the things that I point out in the
introduction is that histories always have an agenda from the culture that writes it. So, for
instance the British version of the history of India painted the Mughals who were before them as
horrible, so All the Muslims and the Mughals were these horrible exploiters that just ruined
your country and here we British are now on the scene to save you, in a sense to liberate you.
And many peoples do that, communist Chinese liberate the Tibetans, they write their history
like that. The British have their agenda in writing history, the Chinese had their agenda. The
ancient Chinese as well, everybody was paying tribute to the emperor; any sort of trade that was
ever done was described as tribute to the emperor from a vassal state it was just trade, thats all
it was. Likewise the Buddhist histories, they have their agenda, the Islamic histories have their
agendas, and so on. And one has to wade through all of that and factor out the baggage, the
agenda that theyre trying to prove, to get down to the actual facts.
So, its the same thing here, the Buddhist presentation of the history and the Bonpo presentation
of the history was that this was a religious persecution it certainly was not. Because if you look
at the rituals which were done in the state, they continued the same old so-called Bonpo rituals
in the state afterwards, so it was a political thing. But these guys left and they buried texts as
well, so obviously they felt very threatened a lot of things from their tradition.
And they buried texts, not like the Nyingmas, which were just dzogchen texts, but they buried
everything for safekeeping. Its interesting to look at that. I traveled in Tuva in Siberia. This is an
area of Turkic people that followed Mongolian Buddhism; its just to the North of Western
Mongolia. And they pointed out to me how they had, in fact, buried all their texts in mountain
caves at the time of Stalin. So, one can get a little bit of an appreciation that these things of
burying texts actually must have happened. Its not just a myth.
So, the Zhang-zhung faction was kicked out. And then they had this debate everybody was
very suspicious of the Chinese as well and itchy to get them away too and, lo and behold, the
Indians won the debate and they chose Indian Buddhism. Well, if you look at it, the best debater
of the debate logic tradition of India debating against a Zen monk who has no training at all in
debate with a Tibetan as the translator who wanted the Indian side to win because everybody
wanted to kick the Chinese out it was a pretty loaded decision as to who was going to win this
debate. Anyway, the Indian won they had called Kamalashila up to debate as Shantarakshita
had recommended and the Chinese left and the Indian tradition was adopted in Tibet.
So, they did a lot of translations they continued, they had been doing some translations before
already. Some texts had to be translated from Chinese, they werent there in Sanskrit, but most
21

came from Sanskrit. And in the early ninth century they made a dictionary and they standardized
the terms and the styles. One of the great kings, Emperor Relpachen did that. And in that early
dictionary and style sheet, the king decreed that they wouldnt include any tantra material in this,
because it was open to so much misunderstanding, And so the tantra stuff wasnt really
standardized so much at that time, although some was coming in.
Then what happened in the mid-ninth century, the same king that sponsored the dictionary
project youd have to call him in objectivity a religious fanatic made like seven households
responsible for supporting each monk. So instead of going into the government with taxes, all the
money went to supporting the monks and supporting the monasteries; and he appointed monk
ministers and all this sort of stuff. And the monasteries were becoming way too powerful and it
was economically devastating for the country and for the government.
And so the next king, Emperor Langdarma, the real horrible bogeyman of Tibet, instituted this
persecution against Buddhism. Well, actually, if you look at it objectively, he only basically shut
down the monasteries because they were too powerful and kicked the monk minister off of the
government counsel, but he didnt destroy the libraries of the monasteries. Because when Atisha
came, about a hundred fifty years later, he was very impressed by the libraries that were there, so
thats clear evidence that it wasnt this type of severe religious persecution that the histories
would make it out to be.
But anyway, he pretty much closed the monasteries and he closed them all and that was very,
very difficult for Buddhism. And then the country fragmented and there were difficult times.
Question: Did he laicize the monks?
Alex: Yes, he laicized the monks, so the monastic lineage was broken as well; that had to be
renewed. It was that whole monastic institution had become just... it was going in the wrong
direction, becoming too political and too economic and too powerful.
So, the basic teachings and practices didnt have a monastic institution to support it and it was
just sort of carried on a bit underground or privately. And a lot of misunderstanding arose and a
lot of abuse, particularly concerning tantra, which the king had been cautious about to start with.
They were taking a lot of the stuff terribly literally, particularly about the sexual aspect and the
aspect of liberation of consciousness. They took it to get back into this whole sort of sacrifice
number and assassination number, which often happens.
And in the beginning of the tenth century, the Bonpos started to recover their texts and the Bon
texts were buried in a lot of places where the Buddhist texts were buried; in the beginning of the
tenth century they started to recover them. Thats quite interesting that that phenomenon began in
the Bon tradition, not in the Buddhist tradition.
In the end of the tenth century, then a more organized kingdom in western Tibet arose and they
were interested in clarifying the teachings, because there was so much misunderstanding in
22

Nyingma, and they sent more translators to India and Nepal to clarify. This was the beginning of
the new translation period and from this new translation period its actually more the new
transmission period, in many ways thats a better way of looking at it you get the Kadam and
Sakya and Kagyu traditions.
Often you hear the word pa at the end Kagyupa, Gelugpa that is referring to a person who
follows those traditions a Kadampa but the tradition itself is Kadam and Nyingma and Kagyu
and Gelug.
The Kadam tradition comes from Atisha, a great master from Bengal let me just go fairly
briefly through these if I can and it emphasized lojong teachings. These are the teachings
sometimes translated as mind-training, which is a terrible translation, because that sounds like
training the intellect. It actually means cleansing of attitudes, its dealing with your
attitudes. Lo is attitudes and jong is to cleanse, to purify negative ones that we might have;
its not how you learn to memorize or something like that, like mind-training. Anyway, it
emphasized that very much. And some of the early debate things were developed very much in
that tradition as well.
It split into three separate lineages and was reunified by Tsongkhapa with much reform in the
late fourteenth century and early fifteenth century. Well speak about this a little bit later, but
Tsongkhapa was really, really radical; he made the greatest, hugest changes of anybody. It wasnt
a matter of reform in the sense of people werent following the monastic rules very well and so
he got them back to following the vinaya, thats a very, very small aspect of what he was all
about. But the whole interpretation of almost everything in philosophy he redid.
What you find is that the other traditions Sakya, Nyingma, and Kagyu pretty much follow
one style of interpretation of things with minor variations. But Tsongkhapa went in and he was
incredible in terms of his scope of what he read and what he remembered; obviously he had an
incredible photographic memory. And he would look at everything and all of the translations
most things were translated many, many times and hed say, This translation is wrong and that
translation is wrong and this interpretation of it is wrong, and hed prove them all by logic and
by putting together various other scriptural sources.
So, an incredible critical editing of things; and unlike any of the authors in the past, he didnt
skip over the difficult pieces; the most difficult passages were the ones that he delighted in trying
to figure out and explain. In this way he came up with a radically different interpretation of
almost everything. This has been very mind-opening to me in my own studies, because it was
always presented as though, This is what everybody in Tibetan Buddhism thinks, and The
Prasangikas say this, and so on its absolutely not.
So, Tsongkhapa was a great revolutionary. Among many disciples, from our point of view now,
one big-name person was the master who later became known as the First Dalai Lama, although
that name was given to him posthumously at the time of the Third Dalai Lama by the Mongols.
Its a Mongol name; dalai means ocean, actually after the Dalai Khan, who also had the name
23

of the ocean. Mind you, the Mongols never saw the ocean, so ocean is a pretty far-out thing from
a Mongol point of view.
The Fifth Dalai Lama there was a civil war for about a hundred and fifty years in Tibet, a
terrible civil war and the Mongols came in and put an end to it thats a whole nother history of
Buddhism in Mongolia and the interaction with Tibet and they made the Fifth Dalai Lama
the political ruler of Tibet they made him the spiritual leader also. And his teacher at that time
became known as the First Panchen Lama. So the line of Panchen Lamas comes from his teacher.
Thats enough about the Kadam and then the Gelug tradition that came from that. The second
tradition from that new translation period, coming from the end of the tenth century, was the
Sakya tradition. The Sakya tradition comes mainly from Virupa and a few other translators. Their
main teaching coming from Virupa is known as lamdray lam is the path and dray is the
result, so the path and its results which is a combination of sort of lam-rim type of stuff with
Hevajra. A very special teaching.
And you get a line there of five early masters, five great Sakya masters, and they form a family
lineage; its within a family over several generations of uncles and nephews and that sort of
thing. The Sakya line has always been a family-inherited type of thing. Originally they had the
political rule of Tibet. This was when Tibet finally got reunified after this period of it being all
broken up. This was in the thirteenth century with Sakya Pandita, who was probably the most
well-known of the Sakya masters. Sakya Pandita and his nephew Pagpa, they became the tutors
of Kublai Khan.
The Tibetans, like the Uighurs, the Turkic people north of Tibet, were the only ones that didnt
fight Chinggis Khan. So because they didnt fight Chinggis Khan, then they werent destroyed
by Chinggis and the Mongols. The Uighurs gave the Mongols their first taste of Buddhism, but
basically their writing system and administrative things and how to organize a state and so on,
and the Tibetans gave them a more organized form of Buddhism.
And they [Pagpa and the following Sakya lamas] were given the political rule of Tibet at that
time. So, you get the Sakya lineage and that also has some sublineages, the Ngor and Tsar
sublineages. So you get different masters of that.
Within Kagyu, the other new translation period, there are two main lines. There is the Shangpa
Kagyu and the Dagpo Kagyu.
Shangpa Kagyu comes from a Tibetan by the name of Kyungpo Neljor, Garuda Yogi that
translates as. Basically, he had gotten the lineages of youve heard of the six yogas of Naropa
the word isnt yoga, its the six dharmas of Naropa, but there is a set of six and these have to
do with highest class of tantra, anuttarayoga practices. And theres actually three sets of these:
one from Naropa, but the other two are from great women practitioners, Niguma and
Sukhasiddhi. So, the Shangpa Kagyu lineage transmits these three sets of six teachings from
24

these three great masters and that came through this Tibetan master Kyungpo Neljor. The late
Kalu Rinpoche, who was very well known in the West, was from that tradition.
The other tradition, the Dagpo Kagyu tradition is the one that goes through the line of Tilopa,
Naropa, Marpa, Milarepa, Gampopa. Thats a much more well-known line to many in the West.
And Gampopa combined mahamudra and lojong lojong were these cleansing of attitudes
teachings from the Kadampa and mahamudra were teachings that came from various
mahasiddhas, great accomplished beings like Tilopa and Naropa and there was a whole bunch of
other ones as well in India. So he combined that. So you see that the lojong lineage didnt only
stay in the Kadam, but it went into the Kagyu as well.
And from Gampopa you get twelve lines of Kagyu; it divided into twelve Kagyu traditions
from his students and the students of one of his students, Pagmo-drupa. So you get the twelve
lines. And the most widespread of those are the Karma Kagyu that the First Karmapa was one of
the major figures of and the Drugpa Kagyu and the Drigung Kagyu. Those are the ones that we
find even in the West now as well.
The Nyingma tradition, as I said, it was that old period, but they had buried the dzogchen texts
and the other texts were sort of transmitted still through all this period, but it wasnt so totally
clear, a lot of misunderstanding even there. And they started to uncover their texts in the early
eleventh century; thats about a century after the Bonpos started to uncover their texts, unearth
them. And this happened when the new teachers were arriving, this new wave of teachers from
India.
And it was pretty bewildering what all these texts were that were being uncovered and how
they fit together and all of that. And they were codified which means put together and
standardized in the thirteenth century by the great Nyingma master Longchenpa. And he really
was the so-called father of Nyingma in the form that we find it now. And that is basically divided
into a Northern Treasure Lineage and the Southern Treasure Lineage. And the Nyingma tradition
is actually much more fragmented than the other three lineages, not as together in one sort of
style.
The other major thing in the history what needs to be mentioned is the Rimey movement (rimed, nonsectarian). It was started in the nineteenth century by a number of different figures, but
the most outstanding one was Kongtrul Rinpoche, the great Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Tayey was
his name, but Kongtrul is sufficient to remember. And this was intended to try to preserve the
obscure lineages that were dying out or not so available from all four traditions.
But what was quite emphasized was the Jonangpa lineage, which was a minor Sakya lineage,
that without going into great detail was persecuted and suppressed, from the Buddhist history
point of view, for its doctrinal view. But if you look a little bit more objectively, I think it was for
its political association with the other side in that big civil war that was going on. Anyway, they
revived a lot of that tradition.
25

And in many ways the Rimey movement was a political thing to counter the growing influence
of the Gelug lineage in the central government. The Rimey thing was more in Kham and that
whole history and the interaction and Pabongkas involvement and all of this and his very radical
sectarian moves that he made were very much within the context of this rivalry in terms of
political influence and paying taxes and all these sort of very mundane types of things.
So anyway, thats a little bit of the history in brief; a lot more that one could look at.
Session Two: Comparisons
If we look at these four traditions, if we speak of them just in general, then if we ask what are the
common features, theres a lot in common. First of all, the full and novice monk vows and the
novice nun vows are the same, come from the same tradition in India. It had to be revived after
Langdarmas suppression and so one line was revived from three refugee monks who had fled to
eastern Tibet and another line was reintroduced from India. Both come from whats called the
Mulasarvastivadin tradition of vinaya.
There were eighteen different schools of Hinayana that had developed in India Hinayana
being a derogatory term that was coined by the early Prajnaparamita Sutras, the Mahayana
sutras. But there is no convenient term that really is used for covering those eighteen and you
have to call them something, so we call them Hinayana. Because Shravakayana, that some
people like to use, is also very misleading, because Mahayana presents a Shravakayana path and
their version of what the Shravakayana path is is different from what any of the Theravadins or
those eighteen schools would say what the Shravaka path is so you cant really call it
Shravakayana either.
So, one just has to say, This is politically incorrect, but were going to do it anyway, so dont
take offense. There is no other word, unless we just make up a word. No need to be
oversensitive about it, although of course one could argue back and forth on the whole political
correctness of it. But anyway, we call it Hinayana for the moment.
[See: The Terms Hinayana and Mahayana.]
Of those eighteen traditions, the main vinaya lineages that have survived are the Theravada,
which you have in Southeast Asia, the Dharmagupta, which is sort of the Chinese line, and the
Mulasarvastivadin, which the Tibetans have. So all the four traditions share that. Only the
Dharmagupta has the full nuns ordination. In the Mulasarvastivadin and Theravada traditions, it
was broken and is no longer extant. But they all have the full and novice monk and the novice
nun. And all four traditions have monastics and lay practitioners.
In the Nyingma tradition you have the ngagpa (sngags-pa) type of practitioner ngagpa is from
the word ngag, which means mantra. These are tantra practitioners that are basically engaged in a
lot of tantra ritual. There arent so many of them. It wasnt as though everybody can become a
ngagpa, and then its a big lay movement. It wasnt; it was very specialized. They didnt teach
26

everybody; they taught basically their patrons it went from big wealthy household to another
and maybe taught the children in the household and got a few disciples, but that was about it.
So it wasnt really a major alternative to the monastic institution, which of course you had in
the Nyingma as well. And as has been the case in Buddhism for most of its history, it has been
pretty much a monastic tradition in terms of actual study and meditation practice. Lay people
were primarily to support the monastic Sangha. Except for some lay doctors and government
officials, the population was all illiterate; you could only learn to read if you went to a monastery
or a medical school or a school for training the bureaucracy. And the lay people would invite
monastics to their homes and after feeding them, like with Buddha, they would get teachings, but
general teachings Jataka stories of previous lives of the Buddha and so on I mean you have
to think in terms of a mostly uneducated population.
And its only fairly recently, it started in Burma actually in the nineteenth century, where you
had meditation taught to lay people. And in general, not much is done. Even nowadays, to the
shame of the Tibetans and the horror of His Holiness, still lay Tibetans get very, very little
Buddhist education and very little opportunity to study Buddhism. Even in the schools in India, a
monk may be there to lead the kids in prayers in the morning, but its no more profound than
reciting Our Father in school when I was a kid they did that and not much more.
So, lay people really studying Tibetan Buddhism in depth is very much a Western phenomenon
and we shouldnt be naive about that, that is the case. So, when I say you had both monastics and
lay practitioners, we shouldnt think that lay meant really super-advanced practitioners.
Although you did have the ngagpa tradition within the Nyingma, but that, as I said, wasnt open
to the big population, that was very small.
All of them have a combination of sutra and tantra teachings and practice all four classes of
tantra; all of them study the four schools of Indian tenets, but their understanding of them is
radically different. It falls into two general categories: the Gelug and non-Gelug. As I said,
Tsongkhapa reformed it very, very much. One example of that is this whole thing in
Madhyamaka.
According to the earlier version, the main philosophical position is Svatantrika in terms of sutra
and this was because Shantarakshita and Kamalashila, the great Indian masters, basically
followed the Svatantrika tradition. The only difference between Svatantrika and Prasangika, and
why they always said Prasangika was superior, was in terms of logic. They used Prasangika to go
beyond logic and categories and things like that, because it just pointed out all the absurdity of
any position that you could possibly make.
But it didnt actually present a system of its own; their version of it is that Prasangika doesnt
present anything; it just tears away all conceptual frameworks. So the conceptual framework of
the sutra voidness teachings again, it gets a little bit tricky when we get into tantra, but the
basic teachings: how you follow the paths and the division of the two obscurations, whats
27

defined, and what you get rid of on each of the paths, and all of that, and the analysis of
voidness, and so on is strictly Svatantrika there.
Whereas Tsongkhapa made a radical difference between Svatantrika and Prasangika and came
up with a completely different Prasangika interpretation of everything their own version of
how you go through the paths and what you abandon where and whats in each obscuration and
all of that thats uniquely Gelug. So whenever I teach that, I always have to say Gelug
Prasangika; if you just say Prasangika, thats being a bit arrogant. That genesis is with
Tsongkhapa. Tsongkhapa was the late fourteenth, early fifteenth centuries.
They all train in debate, in all the traditions. The emphasis may be more in the Gelug tradition
and second in the Sakya tradition, but they all do it. They study mostly the same texts. The main
text that is studied the longest is Abhisamaya-alamkara (mNgon-rtogs rgyan) by Maitreya and
thats the text that discusses all the stages and the paths and what you abandon on each. It is
incredibly complex and organizes the Prajnaparamita Sutras, basically, and its taught from the
Svatantrika point of view.
And that is emphasized so tremendously in the Tibetan systems; all of them emphasize it. Its
studied for five years in the Geshe training, because again, going back to Shantarakshita:
another of his major disciples was Haribhadra, who wrote the major commentary on it and thats
what everybody studies in Tibet. So, the legacy of that is the emphasis on this, because its
certainly not a major text studied by any other tradition of Buddhism in any other country.
So, they all have training in debate; they all get degrees at the end, whether you call it Geshe or
Khenpo. The non-Gelug tends to use the title Khenpo, that means abbot, thats the title thats also
used for abbot, so its confusing. But the word khen means learned one, so khenpo, someone
whos learned. And they all do an awful lot of ritual, everybody. And in the ritual they all do
chant and they all do music and make tormas, these little cones out of barley grain. Those cones
come from the Bon tradition originally. There are many elements in Tibetan Buddhism that come
from Bon.
The chanting style and music style is fairly similar [in all four traditions]. The super-deep
chanting you find much more in the Gelug tradition than in the other traditions, but the basic
style is pretty much recognizably the same. You find differences from one monastery to another,
even within one lineage, so its very hard to characterize any particular lineage as having just one
chanting style or ritual style.
All of them have the tulku system, including the Bon tradition. The Bon tradition, by the way,
has all of this as well. And none of them are monolithic, as I said. As we were talking about
mahamudra, you find that in the Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelug traditions.
The main differences are in terms of... what I think is the most important to realize is the
difference in the use of technical terms. Whenever you study the different lineages, you have to
really, really be certain of the definitions of the terms that are being used. That is very important,
28

even if youre studying within one tradition. The debate tradition is not called debate; its
called tsennyi (mtshan-nyid). That means definitions. Thats what you study you memorize the
definitions of everything so that its clear what youre talking about.
Thats even more important when were dealing with this in English or any other nontraditional
language, because it gets even more distorted and in many cases our words dont mean at all
what the original word meant, so its very important to learn the definition. And of course every
author in every tradition has different definitions, even within one lineage you can have different
definitions. Even one author is going to define it differently in different texts.
So you really always have to find out: what are they talking about? How are they defining it in
this tradition? Two examples:
One example is the word permanent permanent and impermanent could have two very
different meanings: either its talking about the issue of something being only temporary or
forever, or it could be talking about whether it is static or nonstatic, whether it changes or not,
regardless of how long it exists, whether for a short time or forever. The Gelug tradition, when
you speak about mind, says mind is impermanent, because its nonstatic, its changing from
moment to moment; it has a different object from moment to moment, so you have to say its
impermanent.
Whereas the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions would typically say that mind is permanent. And
by permanent they mean that its eternal, it has no beginning and no end to which of course the
Gelugpas would agree. And of course the Kagyus and Nyingmas would agree that the mind has a
different object each moment. So, theres really no contradiction, although if you just read the
sentences, mind is permanent, and mind is impermanent, it seems as though theyre totally
contradictory. So its absolutely essential to learn what it means.
Or dependent arising. From the Gelug point of view everything is a dependently arising
phenomenon, arises dependently on causes and circumstances, but more specifically, it arises
dependently on mental labeling, what words refer to. Whereas in the Karma Kagyu tradition we
say that the deepest truth is beyond dependent arising. The Gelugpas read that and freak out and
think that theyre saying that voidness or the clear light mind is truly existent, that theyre
asserting true existence because its not a dependently arising phenomenon.
And thats not at all the way that theyre defining the word and using the word dependently
arising. Theyre using it in the sense of the twelve links of dependent arising, which describes
the mechanism of samsara and what arises from unawareness or ignorance, which is another
usage that even the Gelug uses dependent arising for. And so when they say the clear light
mind or deepest understanding and all these things are beyond dependent arising, that means its
beyond the twelve links of dependent arising of samsara, which is perfectly acceptable. So it
really is very, very crucial to look at the definitions. So, they use their terms differently.

29

All of them accept that Madhyamaka is the ultimate deepest point of view, but their
understanding and way of explaining it is slightly different. As I was saying, it is quite different
in many ways in terms of Svatantrika and Prasangika. So one has to be a bit sensitive to that. The
whole issue is: how do you not only describe nonconceptual cognition of voidness as opposed to
conceptual, but what terms are you going to use for it:
This word sherab (shes-rab, discriminating awareness), in the Gelug position its used for
both conceptual and nonconceptual cognition of voidness. From the non-Gelug point of view, its
impossible to have a nonconceptual cognition of voidness separate from the two truths; from
their point of view: no way, its conceptual to cognize voidness by itself, because voidness is not
by itself which is a very reasonable point of view as well. And so they use sherab only for
conceptual.
And if its nonconceptual, its yeshey (ye-shes, deep awareness), sometimes translated as
pristine awareness, and that is always of the two truths. And Gelug uses yeshey for the
cognition of the two truths as well. So where you use the term sherab, where you use the
term yeshey, what does an arya actually absorb into? Is it voidness by itself, or is it the two truths
together, but one more prominent than the other, which is how the non-Gelug describe it. This is
quite different and thats where you see that difference and obviously its arising from different
masters actual meditation experience.
So, you have these differences in Madhyamaka. Thats why, by the way, in the non-Gelug
traditions they always speak of the deepest truth being beyond words and beyond concepts to
refer to this thing that you cant even speak in terms of cognizing voidness by itself. So, beyond
words and beyond concepts is just another way of saying nonconceptual. So again one has to
understand.
Another major difference is the point of view from which they explain. This was pointed out by
Jamyang-kyentsey-wangpo, a great Rimey master of the last century His Holiness always
points this out that the Gelug tradition emphasizes and explains from the point of view of the
basis and the Sakya tends to explain from the point of view of the path and the Kagyu and
Nyingma from the point of view of the result. And so which angle are you looking at the whole
process of becoming enlightened and how are you explaining it?
Gelug always emphasizes looking at it from the point of view of the basis, the most common
denominator. The ordinary person can only see one truth at a time, so it explains from that point
of view.
The basis, path, and result comes from the text Gyu lama (rGyud bla-ma,
Skt. Uttaratantra, Furthest Everlasting Stream). Its another text by Maitreya, the main text that
the Buddha-nature teachings come from. And so the basis is totally unpurified; the path level is
partially purified, partially unpurified; and the resultant level is totally purified, referring to the
states of Buddha-nature.
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And so its using that basis or the path. From the basis point of view ordinary people,
unpurified you only see one truth at a time.
From the Sakya point of view, they speak in terms of the path, so that their main theory is
inseparable samsara and nirvana. Put in very simple Western type of terms, its like two
quantum levels are coexisting and our energy can vibrate on either of those levels. I find this an
extremely beneficial way of explaining things, particularly in terms of visualization of ourselves
as Buddha-figures or deities.
Our energy can manifest in our usual form, but also in a deity form and its not that its a
visualization; its not that its some imaginary type of thing. That is a definite quantum state that
our energy is vibrating on; its just that were not really aware of that, like quantum states; so its
just a matter of probability and how you work with that. So, its very modern in its approach and
its also extremely useful in terms of seeing the teacher as a Buddha. In general its a very, very
helpful system. So, thats this inseparable samsara and nirvana point of view from the path, sort
of like half purified, half unpurified path point of view.
And then the Kagyu and Nyingma explain from the resultant point of view; in other words, how
it looks like from the point of view of a Buddha, in which everything is complete already and
enlightened and you just have to discover whats always been the case, all this sort of stuff. Well,
thats from a Buddha point of view, and so one has to appreciate that in order to not take things
too literally. From a Buddha point of view of course youre always seeing the two truths
simultaneously, so you have to explain everything in terms of simultaneous two truths:
Svabhavakaya, the Nature Body.
Well, Gelugpa has it just the voidness of the mind of a Buddha, of Jnana-dharmakaya,
Wisdom-dharmakaya its sometimes translated. From the other schools point of view, the
Svabhavakaya is sometimes explained as the inseparability of the other three bodies. What does
that mean? Its the inseparability of the two truths; its the two truths together, not just the
deepest truth, voidness, but the two truths together of the Buddha-bodies, so all of them together
inseparably, because the two truths are inseparable. So its obviously looking at it from the point
of view of a Buddha. You cant really differentiate voidness as the mode of existence of
something from that thing which it is the mode of existence of, if you pardon the grammar. So,
theres that difference.
Now, in the highest class of tantra theres a difference in the classification of that: the highest
class is anuttarayoga in the Gelug system and in Sakya and Kagyu. But in Nyingma, in the old
system, whats covered by that range of anuttarayoga would be divided into three different
vehicles: mahayoga, anuyoga, and atiyoga or dzogchen. And roughly they correspond to different
stages of the anuttarayoga path. Its a different classification system.
But what you want to gain is the clear light cognition of voidness. Clear light mental activity is
the subtlest level of mental activity. And that subtlest level is more subtle than the level that
makes appearances of true existence; its more subtle than the level that grasps at true existence,
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more subtle than the level that conceptual thought works at or arises on, or more subtle than any
of the levels that the disturbing emotions occur on. If you can get to that level and cognize
voidness, youre pretty good, very, very efficient.
Of course that level still has the habits of grasping for true existence, and appearance-making of
true existence recurs until youre able to stay there forever. And it doesnt necessarily have
understanding. It can be without understanding, it can be dull. Thats why the word clear is not
so helpful here for clear light.
Its slightly different from rigpa: rigpa is pure awareness in dzogchen and thats referring to that
clear light mental activity which is free of the habits of grasping for true existence as well, so the
totally unstained state of that; so its speaking of a little bit more subtle level. In any case,
whether we speak of clear light mental activity or this rigpa level of mental activity, we want that
to have the understanding of voidness. And of course its going to be nonconceptual, just by its
nature.
And there is a big difference in the style of meditation here in the four traditions of Tibetan
Buddhism. In the Gelug tradition and most of the Sakya tradition you have the emphasis on
meditating on voidness as an object. In other words, you try to access that mind, but meditation
on voidness is discussed in terms of the voidness itself, thats voidness of inherent existence, or
the voidness beyond words and concepts, as you would have in Sakya.
Gelugpa, when they say devoid of true existence, whats included in that term is the four
extremes: existence, nonexistence, both, or neither. When the Sakyas use that and Kagyus and
Nyingmas as well use that devoid of true existence only means the first extreme of existence.
So if you talk about what is beyond words and beyond concepts, that type of voidness, which is
what you would know nonconceptually, its only that which is beyond the four extremes. So if
you use that term voidness of true existence, they say, Well, thats only one extreme.
Gelugpas say, No, we use it to mean the four extremes. Its different there.

Though whether you do that emphasis of voidness Gelugpa style or the Sakya style, if you do
that as an object, then thats called the rangtong (rang-stong, self-voidness) position.
You also have the zhantong (gzhan-stong, other-voidness) position. Other-voidness means
devoid of all other levels of mental activity, thats what its devoid of, so of other, of these other
things. So thats referring to either this clear light mental activity or rigpa, depending on whether
were speaking about the Nyingma system or the Kagyu and some of the Sakya and you cant
actually say all of the Kagyu as well; here its primarily Karma Kagyu and I believe Drugpa
Kagyu as well. Drigung tends to be more rangtong, self-voidness.
These other schools where you get the emphasis on other-voidness well as I say, you want the
combination of this clear light activity understanding voidness, so what are you going to
emphasize in your meditation? Are you going to emphasize the voidness, or are you going to
32

emphasize that clear light mind which is devoid of the grosser levels, that other-voidness thing?
So when theyre doing other-voidness, theyre always speaking about the clear light mind.
How that clear light mind exists, that is something else. The Nyingmas would say its devoid of
the four extremes; and the Karma Kagyus would agree that its devoid of the other four extremes,
but theyd also say that it is beyond dependent arising, which means its beyond twelve links of
samsara; so the Gelugs freak out at that and say, Ah, theyre making it truly existent, they say
its beyond dependent arising, which theyre not, thats not their intention.
But things certainly have to be beyond being void of true existence, because to be devoid of
true existence by the non-Gelug position means that youre only past one of the four extremes.
So you have to go beyond that and thats where your differences come in. Its very confusing if
its not clear to you how theyre using the terms, very confusing.
So you have that self and other-voidness division. So, are you speaking about a mind as your
deepest truth, the mind that understands that voidness? Or are you speaking about that voidness
as understood by that mind? Ultimately it doesnt make any difference because both of them say
you need both. Thats sort of the grand view of unifying them, putting them together.
Another point of difference is: how do you get to this clear light level or rigpa level? And the
difference divides here between Nyingma on one side and the Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelug on the
other side. The non-Nyingma schools work with dissolving the grosser levels of mental activity
and the grosser levels of energy, working with the winds, the chakras, and various types of breath
yoga thats involved with that, different levels of bliss within the central channel, blissful
awareness, all sorts of methods like that, like what you find in the six yogas of Naropa. So, you
have to dissolve those levels in order to get to the clear light level.
Whereas the Nyingma says, No, you dont have to do that. But again, you have to look at that
more carefully. They say youre able to access it in each moment because this rigpa is underlying
each moment of mental activity although thats unbelievably difficult to distinguish. The
Nyingma tradition, however, they say when you see that, then you get down to that subtlest level
when you can distinguish that rigpa. But of course they do a tremendous amount of practice
with the winds and the chakras and the channels and visualization and the blisses and all that sort
of stuff anyway as a prerequisite.
Theyre just talking from the point of view of the result when the result happens, that you
dont actually have to do that at that time in order to get the result. Because of all your practice
before, then its not when youre actively doing those chakra practices that you get to the clear
light level. Youre doing another method, this working with rigpa, seeing it in each moment. But
because of the legacies that youve laid from the previous practice with the channels and the
blisses and the visualization and all of that, then automatically its all going to happen. Youve
greased the network, as it were. It works like that.

33

Also another difference that I find interesting is this whole thing of words and concepts. Gelug
says that everything exists in terms of mental labeling, which means concepts. And all the other
schools say everything is beyond concepts, beyond words, beyond concepts. That also looks
like a bit of a contradiction, but its not. One has to make a differentiation: in the Gelug tradition
when we talk about mental labeling, there its talking about what things are. Since there is
nothing on the side of the object that by its own power makes it what it is, all you can say in
order to specify anything is that its what the word for it refers to.
So, thats what mental labeling is talking about. Its not that when you mentally label
something, like say cup, that you actively create it or it makes it. Nobody has to be actively
mentally labeling anything; thats not at all what mental labeling means. All that it means is:
what is something? All you can say is that its what the word for it refers to, or the concept for it
refers to, on the basis of some basis for labeling.
Now, when the non-Gelug are talking about things being beyond words and concepts, theyre
saying that things do not correspond to words or concepts. Its a big difference between things
dont correspond to words but things are what the words refer to. Correspond means that
actually the universe is divided into boxes and something is either in this box or in that box. Its
either a table or a chair. This couldnt also be a chair, but obviously you could sit on it.
For me that insight was most pronounced by experiments that were done with color
recognition. At Harvard when I was there, they showed patches of colors to people from different
cultural backgrounds and asked them, What color is this? And what they found was that the
boundaries between red, yellow, orange, brown on the one side and between blue and green were
very, very different in different cultures. The Chinese have three colors that span our two of blue
and green, for example; and they only have yellow and brown and we have orange and these sort
of things.
So theres differences, so you cant say that things correspond to words; correspond to words
means that theyre definitely in one category, this word, defined by and enclosed by this word.
So thats also perfectly reasonable. If one looks, again, a little bit more closely What are they
actually talking about? then although the words might seem quite contradictory, in most cases
theyre not. Obviously, in some cases they are just different assertions, but in most cases you can
resolve the conflict if you look more deeply and get into the definitions.
So, its very important to follow a nonsectarian approach, I think. And certainly this is what His
Holiness emphasizes a great deal. And not to get into a football team mentality with the lineages,
my team versus your team, and mine is the best. Although of course many traditional
masters, both in the past and in the present, do approach things in a sectarian manner, that
doesnt mean that we have to, and in a football team manner. And His Holiness says the best
antidote to sectarianism is education. The more you learn about the different traditions and the
more you learn about how they do fit together, although they describe things differently, then the
more respect you have for them.
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And I think that also its important to recognize that these different ways of describing and
explaining derive from somebodys meditational experience. It wasnt that they just made it up,
Oh here is an interesting theory, lets make up something. These great masters, these lineage
founders had actual realizations and theyd describe things from their realizations.
As His Holiness says, if one is objective, you have to say that some were better able to express
themselves than others and wrote and explained more clearly than others, but thats human, thats
only human that thats the case. So sometimes even the great masters didnt write it that clearly.
Of course you could be picky and fault them for that. But, in any case, they all arose from valid
experiences. They were tested over time and thats how these different positions arose.
Even in terms of perception theory and it is a bit late, but I wanted to mention that because I
find that so fascinating, the very basic difference. What do you actually see? And the non-Gelug
say, what you actually see is just sensibilia sensibilia means like sense data of one sense. All
that that you cognize is either colored shapes that is nonconceptual, sense perception colored
shapes. Or when you hear words, all you perceive is one second at a time.
This is in the non-Gelug that are very much into moment-to-moment, they take that very
literally. You only perceive one moment at a time. A word, if you think about it, what do you
hear? You only hear the sound of one vowel or one consonant at a time. You never hear a whole
word at the same time, let alone a whole sentence, and so putting it together is a mental
construct; thats conceptual, and so commonsense objects are only known conceptually.
An orange. What is an orange? Well, I see an orange circle or an orange sphere. Thats all you
see. Now, an orange isnt a colored shape, there are other sensibilia about it you could have
your eyes closed and youre holding an orange in your hands, so there is that sensibilia; you can
have the smell; you can have the taste. And all you perceive is one moment, so it is a construct: it
is known conceptually that there is a commonsense object, the orange, thats the locus for all
these different sensibilia of the different senses and that endures over time, because you never
perceive it nonconceptually through your senses.
Thats perfectly reasonable, isnt it? Tsongkhapa says Well, yes, but... Gelugpa always says
that you cant be too radically contradicting convention. Youd have to say, Yes, what you say is
true, but conventionally you do see the orange. Its not that you just see colored shapes; you see
commonsense objects nonconceptually. Because you see commonsense objects
nonconceptually, Gelugpa says that you have an appearance of true existence even in
nonconceptual sense perception and that you have the appearance of true existence every
moment a big Tsongkhapa thing.
Non-Gelugpa says no, appearance of true existence means an appearance of truly existent
commonsense objects that endure over time thats only conceptual. In nonconceptual cognition,
theres no appearance of true existence; theres appearance of non-true existence. These are the
other three extremes of the four extremes. Theres an appearance of not the voidness of true
35

existence, but theres an appearance of something not appearing truly existent as a commonsense
object. This isnt contradictory; these are just making the dividing line different.
I always find with the Gelug tradition, because they assert that you actually see commonsense
objects with sense perception, you sort of get a flavor that theres more emphasis on detailed
presentation of bodhichitta and compassion type of practices the eleven stage bodhichitta
meditation and all these sorts of things they go into much more detail. If you look in the other
traditions texts, of course they have these teachings, but not so much detail, not so elaborate. I
always get the feeling that thats a little bit because of this emphasis, Hey, lets not negate too
much commonsense reality; be careful there! We get that slight difference in flavor; its a very
subtle difference in flavor.
To learn that in fact quite different explanation of perception, I found very, very helpful. If you
say that all commonsense objects are conceptual, then the whole emphasis in Nyingma and
Kagyu ofnonconceptual and meditate nonconceptually on this or that and so on takes on a
whole different meaning.
It certainly doesnt mean just quiet the voice in your head, which is the trivial level, sort of
Dharma-Lite level of nonconceptual meditation in these traditions, Just sit there and quiet your
mind and dont have the voice going, which is an extremely difficult thing to do; were not
minimizing that, but were talking about nonconceptuality. Thats going much, much deeper in
those traditions. So you have to understand their whole perception theory in order to be able to
actually understand their method of meditation; and often its not presented, which is a shame.
So I think that its very important to be educated in all the different traditions not only for
nonsectarianism, but I think its very important for following ones own tradition with
appreciation for its profundity. I think that this is only gained by learning what is unique in your
tradition and how does it differ from the other traditions, so that you really appreciate the value
of what it offers. Then you can really say, Yes, I am inspired by this lineage founder or this
figure, for a reason, not just because They look so great, or My teacher said so, or Well,
were constantly chanting the praises to them in the lineage prayers, so I sort of fake it and say I
feel something, but I have no idea of who this figure is or what they actually did.
Thats a little bit about the four traditions. What questions do you have?
Question: [inaudible]
Alex: The question is about semnyid (sems-nyid), mind-itself.
This is discussed not only in the Sakya tradition, you find that term in Kagyu and Nyingma,
especially Kagyu. That refers to the nature of the mind. So you can be speaking about that from
the point of view of the self-voidness or other-voidness nature of the mind whether youre
talking about its being beyond the four extremes, beyond words and concepts, or if youre
36

speaking of it in terms of the clear light mind, which is the mind itself, the essential mind, theres
the subtlest mind. So it can have two meanings.
Question: [inaudible]
Alex: The question is: did I ever think of becoming a monk?
Yes, I thought of becoming a monk and I was never encouraged by my teachers; they never
pushed me to do that. And I decided not to become a monk. Ive not had a family either, so Ive
lived a life similar to a monk, certainly not in all respects, but in some respects.
There are several reasons for that. One is that I put in a great deal of time and effort to get a
Harvard Ph.D. and its been very, very useful to me in my life, in my career. In trying to help His
Holiness and the Tibetans, one of the things that I did was I went around and opened up the more
remote areas of the world for the Tibetans, for His Holiness. The Tibetans in exile travel on these
Indian refugee papers and they cant get a visa for any country unless somebody invites them and
if they dont know anybody in a country, they can never start to develop relations with anybody
in that country. And so I took on that task.
And the Harvard Ph.D. allowed me to go everywhere and to be invited to universities and to
lecture and to meet top strata people and to meet all Dharma people, the underground people. I
first started doing this in most of the communist countries while they were still communist and
then I did that all over Latin America, South America, a little bit of Central America, then in big
parts of Africa, then the Middle East, the Islamic world, and when the Soviet Union broke up,
then in a lot of the republics. That was facilitated by having that doctorate.
If I were a monk in robes, then that would invalidate for most people my scholarly background.
Id gone native; I was no longer really somebody that was reliable from their point of view.
And for me to be a monk, but to be a plain-clothes monk and not follow any of the rules of
discipline except the ones that were a little bit convenient, that you could hide, seemed to me
hypocritical. If youre going to do it, do it properly. So I didnt do that.
Also, I think that not just my opinion, but having spoken with many people the main reason
for becoming a monastic is to gain discipline through the ethical training of the discipline and
living in a community. I think its very unfortunate that many Western monastics, almost all of
them, have no community. The monastic tradition was never intended for solitary practitioners; it
was always intended for a monastery, for a community. The whole organization of it, most of the
vows are dealing with that, and how you beg food. For me this was not the case; in terms of
discipline, Im a very, very disciplined person and it didnt seem to me that I needed the monastic
discipline to teach me more discipline.
And Im also a very, very independent person, and I dont mean in an arrogant way sure
theres some arrogance, but independent in the sense that Ive always structured my own time my
whole life and I have the discipline to do that and I didnt particularly want my time structured
37

by a monastery. Theres much too much other things that I want to do with my time, constructive
things in terms of Dharma, so I didnt want that restriction of a monastic community discipline,
You have to go to this ritual and that ritual and this and that, so I never ordained.
Question: [inaudible]
Alex: The question is about the nuns lineage was there a nuns lineage at the time of the early
transmission, and the nunneries were destroyed the same as the monasteries?
I dont know whether or not there were nunneries in the early tradition, that I really dont know.
But the full nuns ordination never came to Tibet. The excuse that is given in the histories was
that the journey was too difficult for them. Whether thats true or not, I really dont know, but it
never made it to Tibet. So women have not had the full vinaya in Tibet and they certainly did not
have the same training as the monks had. Thats just a fact, not something that complaining about
or criticizing does any good. His Holiness at present has instituted the same type of debate
training and learning within the nun community as the monks have, but thats very, very recent.
Traditionally, it wasnt the case.
Question: [inaudible]
Alex: Am I envisioning a future of Western Buddhism thats not so fragmented?
Im wishing for that. Im not overly optimistic, but Im not an overly optimistic person in terms
of my general outlook. Im pretty weathered and have seen a lot of things get a bit messed up.
But I think theres a great deal of good will. You see, its a difficult issue. I think that the critical
issue in the future of Buddhism in the West, at least the Tibetan lineage is they have all these
charismatic teachers, Asian teachers who come over, Tibetan teachers and they start these centers
and these big organizations and so on and they pass away.
We have to realize that most of them are not the major teachers, not major figures; they would
be rather secondary if they were just in Tibet in the West they become real big deals, because
theyre very special to us so you would never have these people generating a line of tulkus, of
reincarnations, that people would look for. Westerners take this so-called guru devotion so
literally and have such misunderstanding of it, generally, that they think, My guru is a Buddha
and so of course we have to find their reincarnation; because if we dont look for them, then that
means that we are not only not loyal, but that we didnt believe that they were a Buddha.
Therefore they feel obligated that they have to look for the incarnation. Now, many of them do
ask His Holiness, Will it be beneficial or not to look for the incarnation? And if His Holiness
says yes, then they go ahead; so thats fine. But I think that when you start to get the next
generation tulkus of those founders... well, statistically an awful lot of them drop out. So then
whats going to happen to these lines? I think thats when youll start to see some things at least
have the possibility of combining.
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But one thing which is not so promising is that there are up-and-coming charismatic young
teachers in the Tibetan community that are also going out and starting their own new centers so
the phenomenon is continuing. And then you have to look at their incarnations. I dont know how
long that will last. Now, Westerners as teachers, also many of them are wanting to create their
own dynasties and empires. Thats unfortunate, but I think among us as Westerners we might be
open to reasoning with each other a little bit more easily.
But it becomes very difficult when you start to get like a power struggle and joining
organizations with each other and people are suspicious... its really, really difficult, really
difficult, so Im not overly optimistic.
But I think that the approach, the argument that you have to use is the unsustainability of it and
then appeal to the whole environmentalist sympathy to having sustainable development and
that we need a sustainable development of Buddhism. And I think if we can be so gross that
is a good way of marketing this idea that I have, the sustainable development of Buddhism,
because otherwise itll become extinct because its too fragmented.
But how to actually do that is difficult. You need great masters among Westerners of the caliber
of Tsongkhapa or Sakya Pandita... and theres no reason why those wont come along at some
time who are able to put together things, not just start yet another brand so that people will join.
Maybe thatll come. It came in Tibet. We can only hope, as they say in India. Will the train be
on time? We can only hope.
We can create the causes; thats true. We can create the causes and I think the main cause for it,
as I mentioned, is education learning about the other traditions and realizing even all the
different fragments within our own tradition if were following Gelug or Karma Kagyu or
Nyingma or whatever it is. We dont need to be so fragmented on this Rah, rah, rah, my guru...
So again, a lot really falls back to a better understanding of this whole issue of the relation to the
spiritual teacher.
So, we try. I wrote the book on that, Relating to a Spiritual Teacher, as an effort to try to clarify
that issue, because I think its so important, so utterly vital. And if one can somehow bring this
whole the guru is a Buddha back on earth, then theres some hope. But while people are still
making the guru into God Almighty, then its very difficult, that just encourages the
fragmentation.
So, like that. If theres nothing else, lets end here for this evening with the dedication.

39