Tibetan Buddhism Overview

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Tibetan Buddhism Overview

Tibetan Buddhism Overview

Tibetan Buddhism consists of Mahayana Buddhist teachings that incorporate some yoga teachings, all from India from the late 700s AD and some four hundred years on.
Tantra practices are acknowledged as a path to transcendence. Another practice is based on morality, concentration, and wisdom. The two main approaches are blended.
Tantric systems serve to transform human desire to advance spiritual growth. Over time and with skill such cultivation seems able to produce their results.
Tibetan Tantra is also known as the Vajrayana. It incorporates both Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhist teachings. Theravadin Buddhism, known for its Insight meditation, is a Hinayana teaching, and Zen is of Mahayana, and its dominant teachings are close to some Tibetan schools too.
The tantric path contains several prerequisites as divided into steps. Using life for something valuable is a part of it. Integrating spiritual understanding and values is vital, and the ability to accept good and bad past experience with some equanimity. To deserve greater happiness, live up to it. One way is to cherish one's self as much as the self of another. To relieve others may work well too, within limits. Developing advanced stages of deep meditation and tranquillity is basic. Basic visualisation and mantra recitation is to be mastered, and one is to go for merit gains.
Sound morality is considered very helpful; a proper moral basis is to be firmly built into in one's life. One's way of living had better be well-rounded, and there are many traps to guard against for the ones who work on inner perceptions and energies. A way to balance this at times tedious work is to go on being grounded here and now – not neglecting sights, sounds, tastes and thoughts of common experience.
To remain within one's limits may work all right. Going too far and too fast may not be auspicious. "Too much of a good thing is a bad thing" is a proverb. A neat balance is fine to work for. Try to incorporate the best elements into your regular lifestyle of coping, and inner progress may follow. Along with one's experiences of the subtler realms of mind, there is room for being very mindful, so as to escape being ensnared and victimised.

Three Realms and Enlightenment

In the Tibetan scheme there are three realms to consider: The physical world, the astral realm, and a dimension that is far deeper and subtler, called the Truth Body (part) of the universe. The realms open up as the consciousness of the meditator becomes attuned to subtler strata of consciousness. One focus of meditation (contemplation) is to develop Subtle Insight, also called Inner Wisdom, also termed the experience of Oneself, or Enlightenment, in proficient Zenlike mediation. Along this process Deep Enlightenment may be had.
In advanced meditations one makes use of subtle energies known as winds (also known as prana and chi). By mental focus prana can be gathered into a central place for advancing sound, mental clarity.
The soul or inner Self enjoys, and soon may become a living entity to the meditator. One is to be attuned to it. The deeper, inner, subtler levels of the soul mouth the Truth Body. Another way of putting it is that the soul's inner side is Essence, also called Deep Mind, which is Truth Itself, also called Reality "The dear child is called by many names" is a proverb.
A typical feature is that the psychic life is represented by symbolic representations.

In the World

There are many orders of teachings, also called sects. One of them is the Yellow Hats, the predominant Buddhist order among Tibetans, and the one of the Dalai Lama. Kagyupa (Kagyu) is another order, the one Milarepa entered. In this tradition one dispenses with awkward visualizations and rituals of Tantra and focuses on the natural state of mind. And as for what is called Dzogchen, the "great completion", it is practised by all the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Its main practice is similar to Zen meditation and consists of holding a constant perceptual openness to one's experiences. Some Dzogchen meditations are similar to tantric visualisation and energy practices.
By the 1300s the Tibetans had succeeded in translating all available Buddhist literature in India and Tibet. The Tibetan canon consists of supposedly canonical texts and commentaries by Indian masters. Tibetan religious groups in the West include both communities of refugees and groups of occidentals headed by Tibetans.

Literature

I have drawn heavily on books edited by Dr Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz in this section (below).

Literature
Lik: Evans-Wentz, Walter Yeeling, ed. The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation or the Method of Realizing Nirvana through Knowing the Mind. London: Oxford University Press, 1968.
Til: Evans-Wentz, Walter Yeeling, ed. The Tibetan Book of the Dead: After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, according to Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup's English Rendering. London: Oxford University Press, 1927.
Tiy: Evans-Wentz, Walter Yeeling, ed. Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines. 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1967.
Tm: Evans-Wentz, Walter Yeeling, ed. Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa. 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1969.

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