icarus | I'd like to know who's interested in being on my Buddhist filter.

Reply to this post if you'd like to be 'in on' my Buddhist musings.

The history of the Tibetan Buddhist and Bonpo religion is that a past king of Tibet in the 8th century, Songtsen Gampo, had to consult with Bon religious leaders before he so much as wiped his ass, and in certain regions of Tibet (about 2/3rds of the country) the Bonpo priests had more authority than he did. To unify the country under his leadership he sought to create a national religion -- one that replaced the Bonpos. He interviewed a variety of religious leaders before he picked one: Buddhism. There a thick gloss laid over his reasons for choosing Buddhism, but given his political goals I would guess Buddhism's tradition of a separation between religion and state ("State? What state? We're just monks.") was appealing.

Naturally, there was a great deal of resistance to the arbitrary replacement of their religion. Simply installing monks from India didn't work. The Tibetan farmers and herdsman were largely illiterate and unimpressed with fancy Indian philosophical debates -- the lifebreath of religion in India (India of the time in the upper castes was very intellectual). It didn't relate to their world. The building of Samye monastery in Tibet was frequently disrupted. Work done during the day was torn down at night, with no one taking credit for the damage. *whistles* Bonpo priests declared that this was proof that Buddhism was impotent against their powers in Tibet.

Songtsen Gampo called for help from India and a Buddhist tantric practitioner, Padmasambhava, responded. He didn't even go to the king first. He started from the western side of Tibet, and "out-Shaman-ed" the Bonpo Shamans. He went to each of the Bonpo sacred places (a rock here, a stream there, a cave or a mountainside over there) and displayed impressive feats, meditated, claimed each little sacred spot, hamlet and town for Buddhism... and generally impressed the people. They were like, "well yes, the Bonpo priests are great but whoa-nellie...."

The Bonpo priests were a little annoyed with the Tantric hotshot who was doing a grassroots conversion of their followers, so they cosied up to Songtsen Gampo and said that he should have this Padmasambhava killed before he made himself a god-king. They, er, had already sent their own assassins without the king's permission (which according to them they didn't need).

The assassins weren't successful, and Padmasambhava embarrassed them publicly. The Tibetan people were not pleased with the Bonpo priests and it was a public relations disaster. Western Tibet had been all but won by Padmasambhava (eastern Tibet was another story).

Not knowing about the Bonpo assassins or their failure (news travelled slow) the king sent his own. They also were foiled -- even more easily, because by this time Padmasambhava had most of the countryside on his side.

By the time Padmasambhava arrived in the capital city of Lhasa, king Songtsen Gampo was afraid he had a conquerer on his hands. He was much relieved when Padmasambhava approached him humbly and recognized his secular authority (which was surprising since the king had just recently tried to have him killed). So when Padmasambhava told the king that he didn't know shit about religion and that Buddhism would never be his tool, Songtsen Gampo said, "yeah, sure, sure, no problem... here's a pile of treasure and I've got a spare wife around here too if you like," (wiping the sweat off his brow). The Bonpo priests stepped forward to have Padmasambhava recognise their authority as well, and Padmasambhava said the equivalent of "you gotta be kidding. *He* at least invited me." This endeared him to the king, who threw more treasure at his feet.

Padmasambhava handed the treasure over to the Indian monks with a "I dunno what to do with this, I left my inheritance years ago -- build a monastery or something." But he kept the spare wife, which appalled the monks. They pointed out that "you know, your so-called form of Buddhism is hotly debated in India. Challenge us to an intellectual debate and we'll prove to the king we're superior." Padmasambhava said, "phht. Good luck on building your monastery" and started teaching Buddhism to his new wife (who later became one of the main writers of Buddhism in Tibet). The Indian monks disapproved of his teaching women, given they were lesser beings, which Padmasambhava also ignored.

The king posted guards, the monks hired people to watch. But Samye monastery was torn down again. And again. And again.

Finally the Indian monks came to Padmasambhava, hat in hands and said, "could you take care of this?"

"Sure." Padmasambhava performed a bunch of tantric rituals, blessed the land, impressed the socks off the Tibetans -- and Samye monastery had no more problems. By this time Eastern Tibet was dead-set against this foreigner. So the king asked "you mind doing that conversion thing over on the east side?" So Padmasambhava left, and the Bonpos, the king and the Buddhist monks all breathed a sigh of relief. If the Eastern warriors didn't take care of him, the weather over there certainly would -- because that's the Tibetan plateau which connects to Mongolia and about as hospitable as Siberia. The only person who was upset was his wife, who was certain that if he survived there'd be another assassination plot by the time he got back. He said, "Yep," and left.

Padmsambhava wowed the tough guys in Eastern Tibet (Kham and Amdo Golok). They became his most die-hard supporters, disassociated from the politics of Lhasa. He created a form of Buddhist practice that was accessible for people who couldn't spend years in intellectual study, or even read, that relied on confidence in the source, concentration -- and then went straight to a mystical experience. His style was "you can either talk about spiritual life or do it."

Tibetans were used to going to their priest for rituals to solve their problems, not someone who expected them to do spiritual stuff themselves. So this was revolutionary. And he didn't ask them to change their culture, instead he Tibetanized Buddhism. Educated at Nalanda University in India, he reached into philosophical texts and explained Tibetan ritual based on Buddha Nature (the Uttaratantra), emptiness (the Madhyamikavatara and the Prajnaparamita), six perfections, wisdom and compassionate motivation (the Bodhicharyavatara), and pure view (Guyhagarbhatantra).

The visualizations are from the Buddhist Guhyagarbhatantra (we still have pieces of it saved in Longchenpa's commentaries... it's similar in many places to the Hevajratantra of which we have four pieces left, and the Guhyasamajatantra which is still extant).

The ritual music, poetry, chants, dance and arts are from Bonpo tradition.

I bet you're getting the idea that I like this guy. I do. He was totally unworldly. Even when you read between the lines and through the gloss, he was nuts (I mean, who hears of an invitation of a king and just heads out into the countryside without even checking with anyone?) and really tough (Tibetan plateau? Teaching with spears aimed at your throat?) but genuine.

Anyhow, I told you this whole story because this practice of Medicine Buddha is from Padmasambhava and it can be practiced without a whole hell of a lot of theoretical knowledge *if* you feel if he has some credibility, because it depends on confidence, concentration and visualizaton.

When he got back from Eastern Tibet, what, a year later? (think third world country, huge territory to cover + bandits + poor infrastructure) -- sure enough, there were more unsuccessful assassination attempts, the Indian monks challenged him to a debate again only to discover that, whoops, he's a Nalanda University scholar but never bothered to tell them.

Eventually a monk by the name of Vimalamitra who understood the tantric Buddhist tradition was sent from Nalanda University to Tibet, and Vimalamitra resolved the problems between the Buddhists. He straightened them out and focused them on translating Indian Buddhist texts into Tibetan and creating a scholarly monastic tradition. Songtsen Gampo stopped waffling between the Bonpos and the Buddhists, and the Bonpos drew a line in the sand that the Buddhists stay out of their business --- and there was a sort of uneasy truce.

As for Padmasambhava, at long last when things were settled, he took off. At the height of his power and influence he handed over the last of his teachings to his wife Yeshe Tsogyal and said, "I'm done here." When asked where he was going he said, more or less, "South." There are various legends where he went next, but he basically left in same manner he arrived.

Eventually after the death of Songtsen Gampo, the Bonpos assassinated the next king and installed a Bonpo puppet ruler, Langdharma. He did a sort of "religious cleansing" killing all the monks, destroying any trace of Buddhism and forcing monks to flee into China with whatever they could take with them. His 30-year rule was so brutal, he turned the last of the Bonpo-sympathizers towards Buddhism and actually ensured its success as the *only* religion in Tibet after he was assassinated in turn. But Buddhism was in a shambles and Tibet once again sent to India for Buddhist teachers.

Some were sent, but it was a much stickier process. There was no one charismatic teacher, and Padmasambhava's acceptance of Bonpo ritual was hard to sort out from the Bonpo beliefs. And it seemed some of the Bonpos -- to confuse things even further -- had adopted Buddhist philosophy as being the same as or similar to their beliefs. So one group assembled all the teachings and traditions of Padmasabhava (the Old School), travelling to China to bring back the monks who'd fled. What had weathered the storm best was the visualizations like the one I'm giving here, because they were taught to non-monks and people could visualize without the death squads knowing. Another group started over from scratch (the New School).

ETA: for some reason LJ is not taking all of my replys to your messages. But everyone who asked is in the filter. Not to worry, my 'public' journal is the Harry Potter stuff.

Current Mood: refreshed
Current Music: and scholarly.