Buddhist website

[icarus]

I've been putting together the Tibetan Buddhist section of my website. Two pages up so far:

A Brief (Unvarnished) History of Tibetan Culture

Tibetan Language Programs

Comments

[kalpurna.livejournal.com]

I took Classical Tibetan at Harvard one summer (not that I remember how to say anything but "The good brahmin salutes the wise king"). That is a difficult language to learn.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh really-? I found it rather easy, but then again I'm not even close to fluent.

Now, Japanese. Japanese is hard.

Harvard... that's Robert Thurman's program, right?

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh wait -- Classical Tibetan. That's literary Tibetan and quite a bit harder than the colloquial, yes.

Icarus

[mkcs.livejournal.com]

Very interesting; not much that I knew, lots that fitted into what I knew; and very clear.

Thanks!

P.S. Typo: 'razed to the ground', not 'raised to the ground'.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

LOL! Thank you, that's a bit of an oxymoron, isn't it? (God, I'm almost tempted to leave it.)

So you know a bit about Tibet?

Icarus

[mkcs.livejournal.com]

Really not that much. My last boyfriend went there ten years ago, while we were still going out, and brought back a very cool metal-decorated goat skull, and I hear about some of the issues to do with Chinese (mis)rule occasionally, due to having a fairly politically interested family, but most of my information is drawn from a few TV documentaries, so I feel quite ignorant.

That's what I really liked about your pages: they were great for filling me in so that the very basic things I did know about (rebirth of lamas, mix of Buddhism with shamanistic traditions, very, very hilly areas, mix of nomads and farmers) suddenly had context and history -- the good kind of history with actual people and motivations, not the unmemorable kind with dates and no real idea of why stuff happened. It was a great starter for having a better understanding of the area.

The attitude toward Buddhism you described was particularly interesting: the way Tibet actually returned several times to get information 'from the source' rather than simply adapting the whole tradition a la Japan and China to fit in entirely with the local systems.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Cool, you're welcome.

the way Tibet actually returned several times to get information 'from the source' rather than simply adapting the whole tradition a la Japan and China to fit in entirely with the local systems.

Well, Tibet would have happily adapted Buddhism to the local customs like everyone else, but because of the way it was decimated the local traditions lacked credibility. It was obvious they had big gaps because they knew what they once had.

It's similar to what Cambodia is going through now after Pol Pot, trying to re-establish their culture. The difference is that Tibet had a resource to turn to: India. In Cambodia, a lot has been irretrievably lost.

Icarus

[fractalreality.livejournal.com]

Excellent, I will take a look after dinner!

I love that you are immersed in this; my friend's father is Tibetan, so it's great I know I have somewhere to go that's reliable if I want any questions answered but don't want to ask him... :)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Well some of this... let's put it this way. When Tibet was the cause celebre for the Hollywood set, the Tibetans were a little nervous. Because they knew that if someone dug deep enough (oh, say, three inches?) they wouldn't be quite as impressed.

Icarus

[fractalreality.livejournal.com]

Yeah, is always the problem when people look for trends and not for beliefs.

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how I found this but I'm very glad I did. Thank you so much for all this hard work.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Nah, this wasn't hard work, this was off the cuff. But you're welcome. I've a few more pages I need to write.

Icarus