schools: Madhyamika, the Middle Way, and Yogacara, Mind Only.
Nagarjuna, the founder of Madhyamika, was considered one of the greatest Mahayana thinkers. He reinterpreted the Middle Path by stating that it is not simply a choice between luxury and austerity, but rather something that should be viewed more philosophically. The Middle Way is a path between, on the one hand, the belief in the existence of things, and on the other hand, the belief that nothing exists. The first is based on superstition and faith, the second is founded on nihilism.
Nagarjuna pointed out that no position is certain. What we are left with is a path that takes us between existence and nonexistence, reality and illusion: neither and yet both. In this way, we escape from the delusion of dualistic, either/or thinking. Unlike Aristotelian logic, which says that either a thing is (it exists) or is not (it does not exist), Buddhist logic says things are and they are not. From the perspective of enlightenment, this paradox disappears. On the relative, everyday level of reality, things do indeed exist. But from the enlightened perspective of the absolute, everything is empty of any real, lasting existence. Both and neither are true at the same time.
The other major Mahayana sect in India, the Yogacara school, was founded by two brothers, Vasubandu and Asanga, in A.D. 400 and had a profound influence on Mahayana, and later, Tibetan Buddhism. The word cara means practice. Thus, the Yogacara school used yoga in its attempts to reach enlightenment.
The Yogacarins believed that everything we know and experience is a manifestation of the mind—their famous formula was Mind Only. There is no objective world outside of the mind that perceives it. The very intelligence that we use to perceive our world is our own little drop of universal mind. The world is entirely illusory. All the methods we use to measure it and conceptualize it are like trying to grip air in your hand. The real nature of the world is empty, nothingness. This can be very liberating, because if the world is illusion, then the enlightened mind has no boundaries. It can deconstruct what seems to be indestructible. Nothing is there to obstruct us; nothing stands in our way.
Consciousness is like the ocean, vast and deep. Waves are like thoughts. They are not different from the ocean, yet they are not the entire nature of the ocean either. They are simply one part of it. Similarly, our thoughts are never all of consciousness, of Mind, yet they are always part of it. Thus we cannot hope to understand the ocean if we only know waves.
Enlightened wisdom is described in positive terms as pure thought. This differed from the earlier Hinayana idea of nirvana as extinguishing desires. If reality is nonreality, then it is an ultimate state of nonstate. This is a positive conception. There is an Absolute Mind, even if it is empty of substance.
THE VAJRAYANA: A NEW WAY
The Vajrayana, or Diamond Vehicle, was absorbed by the Tibetans into their form of Buddhism, and incorporates both Hinayana and Mahayana. It uses rational thinking and one-pointed concentration to open the mind to new abilities and to the fuller development of potential. According to the Dalai Lama,
What is unique about the third turning is its presentation of particular meditative techniques aimed at enhancing the wisdom realizing emptiness and its discussion, from a subjective perspective, of various subtle factors involved in a person’s experience of that wisdom. (Tenzin Gyatso 1995, 27)
In Tibetan Buddhism, enlightenment is the goal, but an enlightenment that is based in this life, now, as symbolic. We can partake of the Universal Mind through the mind and body that we are. Tibetan Buddhism guides people toward this positive conception of nirvana by using special meditations. Ritual and visualizations give the practitioner an experience of the enlightened state of mind.
Tibetan Buddhist doctrines unite a seemingly diverse group of practices so as to offer a variety of ways to truth and enlightenment. These practices involve the use of tantras and yoga. The word tantra refers to a varied set of practices that foster the realization of enlightenment, but it is also used to describe the sutras on tantric practices. Yoga, on the other hand, is a way to focus concentration while performing tantras to enhance Buddhist practice even more. These methods employ all the senses, training and developing them into tuning forks for enlightenment. Sounds (mantras), visual symbols (mandalas), and gestures (mudras) help direct and intensify the Way.
Tibetan Buddhists do not avoid words or concepts. Thoughts and ideas, for them, are linked to a higher reality. In Zen Buddhism, enlightenment is wordless, beyond knowledge and thought. By contrast, Tibetan Buddhists utilize thought and ideas to lead to the experience of a higher reality.
The individual mind, seen as an individual symbolic essence, is a function of the Universal Mind. All practices are intended to lead to this transformation, the gemstone, or jewel, of higher consciousness.
Avalokitesvara, the patron Buddha of Tibet, Four-armer Avalokitesvara, Buddha of Mercy, Applied Thangka, 18th century, Tibet, Silk and glass beads, The Newark Museum/Art Resource, N.Y.
CHAPTER 2
Buddhism Turns Toward Tibet
One mind pervading all life. It is the primal state, that goes unnoticed. It is brilliant, boundless intelligence that is ignored. It appears everywhere and always, but is not seen.
—Padmasambhava in T. Freke, The Wisdom of the Tibetan Lamas
The tapestry of Tibetan history interweaves myth with fact, religion with politics. Primary in this tapestry is Buddhism. Tibetans mark their important events around the time of the introduction and development of Buddhism in their country. Religion is so closely woven into everyday life that Tibetans consider spiritual realms just as real as material ones. They think symbolically and metaphorically, readily moving between relative and absolute levels of reality, often without making any distinctions. Such interlacing may be unfamiliar to Westerners, but it presents new possibilities for interpreting this interesting and colorful people.
MYTHIC BEGINNINGS
The true origin of the Tibetan people is uncertain, but the myth is clear. Originally, Avalokitesvara (Kannon to the Japanese and Kuan Yin in Chinese), a bodhisattva of compassion, lived alone in Tibet, incarnated as a monkey. Far away, in another part of Tibet, lived a wildly emotional and lustful ogress. When the ogress discovered she was alone, she cried loudly. The monkey heard her pitiful cries and felt compassion for her suffering. He found her, and they had six human children. These offspring were the first Tibetans. In mythical terms, Tibetans are the missing link in evolution, from ape to human.
Tibetans believe that much of their early cultural and political evolution came from India. According to legend, the first king of Tibet grew up in India. He was slightly deformed at birth and felt rejected by his family. So he left home as a young man and journeyed all the way to the Yarlung valley in Tibet, located southeast of Lhasa. The Tibetans noticed his gentle spirit, not his deformed body, and asked where he came from. Not speaking their language, he tried to communicate with gestures and pointed up to the sky. They interpreted this to mean he was sent from heaven to rule them. They made him their chief and gave him the name Nyatri Tsenpo, heavenly born lord. Nyatri Tsenpo introduced many advances from Indian civilization, including building the first house. He is known as the first ruler of the first dynasty, the Yarlung dynasty.
BUDDHISM TAKES HOLD
The early people of Tibet were warring tribes who personified nature and the forces of life in spirits and deities, both friendly and threatening. Their Bon religion gave these spirits form in roles and rituals. By the seventh century, the Yarlung king Songsten Gampo (A.D. 618-650) united the tribes into an empire. The Tibetan army ventured outside its borders to conquer parts of China, India, and Burma (in A.D. 635). In all the countries they attacked and conquered, the troops noticed two things: the countries were more advanced than Tibet and Buddhism flourished. The king decided that Buddhism was the key.
To remedy this, the king imported two wives for himself, one from China and the other from Nepal. Both were devout Buddhists. Through these marriages, he brought Buddhism to Tibet and a spiritual conversion for himself. He built the Jokhang Temple for his Nepalese wife and the Rampoche Temple