Religion of Tibet

Overview

A basic understanding of Buddhism is essential to getting beneath the skin of things in Tibet. Buddhism's valuew and goals permeate almost everything Tibetan. Exploring the monasteries and temples of Tibet and mixing with its people, to be sure, it will be an awe-inspiring experience.

Tibetan Buddhism's reaction with existing Bon spirit worship and the Hindu pantheon created a huge range of deities, both wrathful and benign. Apart from a whole range of different buddha aspects there are also general protector gods called Dharmapalas and personal meditational deities called Yidams (either Male Herukas or Femal Dakinis), which Tantric students adopt early in their spiritual training. Yet for all its confusing iconography the basic tenets of Buddhism are very much rooted in daily experience. Even high lamas and monks come across as surprisingly down-to-earth.

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A brief history

Buddhism originated in the north-east of India around the 5th century B.C, at a time when the local religion was Brahmanism. Some Brahmin, in preparation for presiding over offerings to their gods, partook of an asceticism tha took them to remote places where they fasted, meditated and practiced yogic techniques.

The teachings of some of these ascetic Brahmin have their base in the underlying principle of the cosmos known as the brahman. This principle had its equivalent in the human mind, and was referred to as atman, the universal self. The yogic practitioner who achieved identity with atman achieved liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth and merged into brahman.

Thus, many of the fundamental concepts of Buddhism find their origin in the Brahmin society of this time. The Buddha himself was one of many wandering ascetics whose teachings led to the establishment of rival religious schools. Jainism, a religion that found a basic life principle in all objects and aimed to attain identity with that principle through ascetic practices and even self-mutilation, was one these schools. Buddhism was another.

Life of the Buddha

The historical dates for the life of the Buddha are much debated, and recent scholarship has put previously long-held beliefs into question. A commonly accepted compromise is something like 480-400 B.C, give or take half a century.

The Buddha was born Siddhartha Gautama in the small kingdom of Sakka on the border of contemporary Nepal. The name Sakyamuni (Sakya Thukpa), given to him in the Mahayana tradition, has its origin in the kingdom of Gautama's birth; Sakyamuni (Sakya Thukpa) means ' Sage of Sakya'.

At 29, Sakyamuni left his home, his wife and his newly born son. This action is explained as having been for the benefit of all sentient beings and having set a precedent for the renunciation of domestic life by the members of later monastic communities. He studied with many of the great teachers of the day, passing up opportunities to be come a teacher himself. Later he embarked on a course of intense asceticism, before he concluded that such a path was too extreme.

At this point, rather than give up his quest, Sakyamuni recalled an earlier meditative state he had once achieved, a state of great bliss and great peace. In the place that is now known as Bodhgaya, he sat beneath a bo tree and meditated. Over the course of three moonlit nights he achieved knowledge of the final obstacles to his enlightenment, and at the break of dawn at the end of the third night he became a buddha.

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