If you've received meditation instruction at a Shambhala center, or at an Insight Meditation Center, a zendo, or the ID project, the very first thing you probably learned was that it is possible to look directly into your own experience, using your breath to stabilize your attention somewhat and as a jumping off point. This technique is endorsed by Śākyamuni Buddha himself, right there in the Satipatthana Sutta (Sanskrit: Smṛtyupasthāna Sūtra), so it has to be just basic, foundational Buddhism, right?
Well, yes . . . and no. Perhaps it should be, but it isn't always. As scholar Leah Zahler explains in Study and Practice of Meditation: Tibetan Interpretations of the Concentrations and Formless Absorptions, all Tibetan traditions practice śamatha using the breath as a means of settling the mind. But in the largest tradition, the Geluk, it was viewed as a mere precursor to the real work of analytic reasoning, and the profound potential of the practice itself was not recognized. In other traditions--particularly the Kagyu and Nyingma--the profundity of the practice was recognized, but the practice itself was sort of "kicked upstairs" by both. It was taught in the context of Mahāmudrā and Dzogchen Semde (respectively), and as such it was often accessible only after one had completed hundreds of thousands of repetitions of ritual practices and committed to a personal guru.
Recently I came across a passage in one of Stephen Batchelor's earlier books, The Faith to Doubt, in which he described his personal experience of this state of affairs. Batchelor was a monk for a number of years in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition in India. He writes:
. . . the institute in which I was studying hosted an insight meditation (vipassana) retreat led by U Goenka, the well-known Indian teacher from the Burmese tradition of U Ba Khin. The method of meditation taught by Goenka is a highly effective technique of developing concentrated mindfulness of body-sensations and feelings, viewed in their aspects of being impermanent, unsatisfactory, and selfless. This retreat had an overwhelming impact on me. Within the short period of ten days my consciousness was unquestionably altered, and I gained direct experiential insights into the meaning of the Buddhist teachings unlike anything I had ever realized through the methods taught by my Tibetan teachers.
Chogyam Trungpa, the late Tibetan Buddhist master, recognized this problem, and for this reason he introduced the profundity of the "direct experience" approach to the very beginning of his path. It is given pride of place as the cornerstone of practice in Shambhala centers today. This departure from the Tibetan Buddhist norm was one of his most valuable contributions, in my opinion. Although it was radical in the Tibetan context, to me it seems clear that it was a longer overdue return to the core instructions of the Buddha. A number of younger Kagyu and Nyingma lamas--Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Traleg Rinpoche, Mingyur Rinpoche, and Tsokyni Rinpoche, to name a few--have since followed his example in this regard.This experience made me question some of the basic claims of the Tibetan lamas. The Tibetans maintain that their tradition alone preserves all the teachings of Buddhism: Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. . . [However, the] systematic practice of mindfulness was not preserved in the Tibetan traditions. The Gelugpa lamas know about such methods and can point to long descriptions of mindfulness in their Abhidharma works, but the living application of the practice has largely been lost. (Only in dzog-chen, with the idea of "awareness" [rig pa] do we find something similar.) For many Tibetans the very term "mindfulness" (sati in Pali, rendered in Tibetan by dran pa) has come to be understood almost exclusively as "memory" or "recollection.". . . What I was looking for was a practice of formless meditation and a place to train over an extended period of time. But at that time I could not find a teacher within any of the Tibetan traditions who taught such a practice without the embellishments of guru-devotion, tantric ritual, mantra, visualization, and so on for which I felt little affinity. The Tibetan argument that such practices were necessary as a basis for proceeding into the formless meditations of mahamudra or dzogchen were unconvincing. I only had to look at the Theravada or Zen systems to see that a formless meditation was quite happily practiced without that basis. By this time I found it quite impossible to accept the Tibetans' critique of the other traditions and their own claims to superiority. The lamas persisted in refuting only antiquated notions of the other Buddhist traditions- notions which had been preserved in Tibet for centuries-but had little understanding of the current condition of the schools they were criticizing (pgs 8, 13).
I consider myself a practitioner in the Indo-Tibetan tradition in which I've been trained by Tibet lamas and their close disciples. I've put in a great deal of study and practice in that tradition over the last eight years. But over the last couple of years or so I've undergone a subtle realignment in my approach to and understanding of Buddhadharma, based on the realization that "Tibetan Buddhism" is not quite as all-encompassing of the Indian Buddhist tradition as it believes itself to be. I have a new appreciation for the Theravāda tradition and the value to all Buddhists of the common Buddhist heritage that it has carefully preserved.
Today, many of us are in the enviable position of being able to access nearly the full range of Buddhist teachings that have been preserved. Some people worry that this opens the door to a sort of promiscuous "mixing" of distinct lineages into an ill-advised mess. To some degree this concern is well-founded. But it should be remembered that in India there was an enormous amount of diversity of thought and practice which often mingled in the same monasteries--Śrāvakas of various views, Yogācārins, Mādhyamikas. To some extent the perceived separation of the various Buddhist traditions today is based more on geography and culture than on any fundamental incompatibility. There are real differences, to be sure, but those differences don't necessarily all break down cleanly along recognizable "lineage" lines. The contemporary rapprochement can potentially benefit all Buddhists. We also have the modern disciplines of academia at our disposal, and they are of immense potential benefit to this great sorting out process.
Sangharakshita has been a pioneer in conceiving and implementing this approach, and I admire his work in this area. An Englishman, the founder of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, he calls it "back to basics"--an effort "to clarify what all Buddhist schools held in common: the essential principles and practices that run through the whole tradition." I have no experience of his organization, but I've read a number of his books, and they are a very rigorous effort to do just that. I highly recommend them.
This is also the approach Ethan tends to take at the ID project. We've talked about it a great deal over the years, and I think the results speak for themselves.
So the glib answer to the question of why I'm not a "Tibetan Buddhist" is because I am, of course, not a Tibetan. But even the glib response makes a point that, unfortunately, seems to be often overlooked as the various Buddhist traditions are transmitted to the west--we are not living in premodern societies, and (despite how mind-bogglingly extensive the Tibetan tradition is) our opportunities for study and practice are in some respects more vast than those of pre-1959 Tibet. Our practice of dharma can benefit by reflecting this reality. Thankfully, as more and more people become accomplished, this will happen to a greater and greater degree.
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@David Chapman - thanks for your remarks. I've read your site over the last year and I've enjoyed many of your thoughtful posts. I too have been reading a lot of scholarly work, and I couldn't agree more about the value therein.
I do very much remain a practitioner in the Indo-Tibetan tradition, and the approach you consider reasonable is very much the one I recommend. I think in this case it is only the label "Tibetan Buddhism" that I would reject, along with the incuriosity and triumphalism that so often seem to go with it.
Curious about Buddhist scripture, particularly the most esoteric. What is a good source? And how many are belived to be still untranslated/or unavailable in English?
@Crazy Wisdom
Harunaga Isaacson, who seems to be one of the two leading scholars in the field, has written:
". .though we do not know precisely at present just how many Indian tantric Buddhist texts survive today in the language in which they were written, their number is certainly over one thousand five hundred; I suspect indeed over two thousand. A large part of this body of texts has also been translated into Tibetan, and a smaller part into Chinese. Aside from these, there are perhaps another two thousand or more works that are know today only from such translation. We can be certain as well that many others are lost to us forever, in whatever form. Of the texts that survive a very small portion has been published; an almost insignificant percentage has been edited or translated reliably."
The article can be read here:
http://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/fileadmin/pdf/digitale_texte/Bd2-K02Isaacson.pdf
If you just want an overview of Vajrayana, however, you would be better off reading a more general book like Reggie Ray's.
There are 84,000 different dharmas because of the diverse needs of beings to be tamed. (In the wheel of life there's a bodhisattva manifesting in each of the six realms according to the needs of beings.) Tibetan Buddhism most resembles Catholic and Orthodox Christianity because of the same human needs. Mudra, mantra, rosaries, rituals, holy days of obligation, novena-ish accumulations of recitations, integration of native practices and superstitions, saints and iconography... These are all skillful means to help us realize wisdom. Sanghas that emphasize sitting meditation first and foremost remind me of Protestant Christians. I'm glad it works for them, but it feels emotionally cold to me. I need more to work with.
"The main practice of devotion is taking refuge and the main practice of compassion is to generate bodhichitta. If we investigate, we will not find a single Vajrayana practice without those two, taking refuge and generating bodhichitta. Look at it this way: once we have a heavy investment in taking refuge and generating bodhichitta, we have the capital to be able to do the business of the higher practices and gain the profit of the development stage, the completion stage, and the three great practices - Mahamudra, Dzogchen, and Madhyamika. Without the capital, we won't be able to do any business at all. Devotion and compassion are the basic capital for Buddhist practice." - Tulku Urgyen
I studied with Nyingma lamas, and although they keep telling you Dzogchen comes last after all these other arduous practices, it's always being transmitted from your very first teaching. They throw you right in the deep end of the pool. The preliminary practices, the ones you hope to get past so you can get the real practices? They keep telling you they're actually the most profound, and they mean it:
http://www.jnanasukha.org/pdfs/dzogchenviewofngondro.pdf
The difference between the old translation school (Nyingma) and the new translation schools (Sarma), Lama Tharchin once said, is that they are aiming for clarity of visualization - all the tiny details. We are aiming for vajra pride: "I *am* Vajrakilaya!!!" is what's important, not whether you're good at visualizing details.
My problem with Tibetan Buddhism has been how to practice devotion sincerely, since it's usually tied up with notions of obedience to the human guru. The other day on the BART, a gospel song on my ipod brought tears to my eyes, a lump to my throat, and made my hair stand on end. I was so embarrassed. I switched to Battlehooch so I wouldn't start sobbing.
Thinking about it I remembered those are the signs of devotion. I started to wonder whether it's the feeling of devotion upward that's important, not its purported object, not the prescribed ritual. Tulku Urgyen says, "The most perfect circumstance for realizing the correct view of emptiness is upwardly to generate devotion to all the enlightened ones and downwardly to cultivate compassion for all sentient beings."
http://www.purifymind.com/DevotionCompassion.htm
Can we do guru yoga with our ipods, playing music that makes us feel devotion and compassion? This works for me, in some weird cafeteria Buddhist kinda way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApjyAnt4-qE
In my mind, one need only to justify one's spiritual path to one's self and it is not for me to judge Greg's chosen path. I am a firm believer in the old adage, "Paths are many, truth is one." However, I do question the validity of Greg's speculation that, "'Tibetan Buddhism' is not quite as all-encompassing of the Indian Buddhist tradition as it believes itself to be."
For whatever reason, Greg has publicly decided to rationalize why he is no longer a Tibetan Buddhist, but it is a rationalization that is based, at least in part, not so much on fact as upon faulty perception. This is not to say that his path is invalid, only that his stated reason for "leaving the fold" is, from my perspective at least, based on ignorance.
"It just wasn't working for me," would be, for a variety of reasons, more accurate than conjecture based on a mere eight years study of the Tibetan Buddhist path.
Most dedicated students of Tibetan Buddhism who have practiced for considerably longer than eight years will recognize that eight years of study in this discipline is but a beginning.
While Greg's choice is unquestionably correct, since he made it, his rationalization, as evidenced by his own words, is based upon inaccurate conjecture and insufficient study and not on demonstrable or even generally accepted fact.
Or so it seems to me.
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