Among the many books I have been reading lately (the stack beside the bed was about a foot high when I settled down to sleep last night) is Daring Steps Toward Fearlessness: The Three Vehicles of Buddhism by Ringu Tulku. In typical Tibetan fashion, he explains the core concepts of the Three Vehicles (the Sanskrit word is “yana”) by commenting on existing texts. Also in typical Tibetan fashion, he devotes about 23% of the book to the Individual Vehicle, the Shravakayana (more commonly referred to as the Hinayana), about 27% to the Messianic Vehicle, the Mahayana (I’m borrowing Robert Thurman’s designations of the vehicles), and fully half the book to the Vajrayana, the Apocalyptic Vehicle. Vajrayana is the particular treasure of the Tibetan Buddhist system; the only other Vajrayana tradition, to my knowledge, is the Shingon Buddhism of Japan. Whereas Shingon is one particular sect or school in Japan, in Tibet the Vajrayana is mainstream and seems always to have been so. Also called Tantra or Mantrayana, it is essentially a magical system intended to accelerate the process of attaining enlightenment and give the practitioner conscious control of death and rebirth.
Ringu Tulku’s exposition of the Vajrayana is the first extended account of Buddhist Tantra that I’ve read. Once my head stopped spinning, I realized all over again that Tibetan Buddhism is a whole religion, a complete system, and that our Western traditions, pagan, Christian, Gnostic, magical, what have you, are instead fragmented, scattered, half-buried, perhaps lost in part. All the pieces may be there, but they are not in order, like shards of a broken stained-glass window. Is it possible to reassemble them according to the pattern? Do we even have a picture of what a complete Western tradition would look like? You can find lots of books on lucid dreaming, for example; Vajrayana teaches those techniques at a particular point in one’s development. Tibetan Buddhism emphasizes that first you take the Individual Vehicle, the basic teachings, and work on yourself; then you establish yourself in the Great Vehicle, the Mahayana, and make the liberation of all other beings your motivation for achieving Buddhahood. Only then are you ready to undertake the advanced disciplines of Tantra. Perhaps some occultists like Dion Fortune emphasized maintaining a Christian devotion, however Gnostic or heterodox, because Christ the Savior was the only Mahayana they knew, and they felt an instinctive need to ground magical development in compassion and service.
Tibetan Buddhism is my religion now, and I hope to make it to studying Vajrayana and practicing it in this lifetime. But I also hope that, given a few hundred years, we will evolve an American Buddhism that has all three vehicles, and that it will help those who aren’t Buddhists put the Western Gnosis back together again. Tibetan Buddhism models for me a religion that has all the best parts of paganism, occultism, and Christianity, combined with a surpassing wisdom and truth. I do think we once had that in Western culture, or could have had it (feel free to blame Constantine), and perhaps we shall have it again, with help from the East.
Sounds like the realization I had a few years ago which I still have to explain to my former magician and pagan compatriots.
Of course, one of my friends who introduced me to the Dharma who used to be a magician has gone back to practicing magic, finding Vajrayana not to be a workable way (at least for him) as a householder, living in the West, who doesn’t speak or read Tibetan.
Thought-provoking, but feel the need to take issue with a couple points.
“Vajrayana is the particular treasure of the Tibetan Buddhist system; the only other Vajrayana tradition, to my knowledge, is the Shingon Buddhism of Japan.”
Vajrayana certainly is present outside the Tibetan and Shingon traditions. It’s very strong in Newari (Nepalese) Buddhism. Tantric elements (esp. mantra or quasi-mantra) are found in most, if not all, Buddhist traditions. E.g., Nichiren/Soka Gakkai movement, Thai Theravada.
“You can find lots of books on lucid dreaming, for example; Vajrayana teaches those techniques at a particular point in one’s development.”
This may be nitpicking, but I would say it depends on the specific Vajrayana tradition one is following. In any case, Vajrayana “sleep yogas” are not reserved for a particular developmental stage.
“Tibetan Buddhism emphasizes that first you take the Individual Vehicle, the basic teachings, and work on yourself; then you establish yourself in the Great Vehicle, the Mahayana, and make the liberation of all other beings your motivation for achieving Buddhahood.”
No–definitely not. One enters the Mahayana from the very beginning in any mainstream Tibetan tradition. One may take the Bodhisattva Vows later, but the basic refuge prayer includes the pledge to attain Enlightenment in order to benefit sentient beings. This effectively puts one in the Mahayana vehicle.
(This is understandable since the three vehicles are often separated for clarity of explanation, but this should not be taken to imply that one must take only Hinayana teachings first, before Mahayana study.)
Patrick,
I happily stand corrected by your superior knowledge of the spread of Vajrayana. I am all too aware that two years of reading about Buddhism, principally of the Tibetan variety, does not even count as scratching the surface of the topic.
As for what I said regarding Hinayana first, I think it was badly expressed. I practice with a Drikung Kagyu sangha, and even at home I say the opening prayers that include the Bodhisattva Vows though I haven’t taken them formally (I have taken refuge formally). Perhaps what I should have said is that one does not give up the Hinayana for the Mahayana, in the Tibetan view; that the Great Vehicle includes the lesser, and the Diamond Vehicle includes the other two. What is the saying of Padmasambhava? “One’s view should be as high as the sky, but one’s actions should be finer than flour.” Basic shila and the precepts always count, no matter what one’s level of practice.
Al,
I trained in a particular form of Western magic, the New Hermetics. I’ve recently resumed my practice because I find it a good support for meditation and the Dharma; rather than being focused on ritual, NH works mostly as a theatre of the mind. But there remains the weakness that Western magic is still quite separated from orthodox religion and spirituality; even Neopagans often distrust it.
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I’m glad to find your blog!
I’ve practiced Vajrayana (formally :) for about 10 years, and am constantly searching for other unconventional points of view of the Lightning Path :)
I’ve begun blogging about my personal experience in a non-scholarly way, and would be happy to have you take a look!
http://allaboutenlightenment.wordpress.com/
I also have a personal blog, which is linked there…
best wishes!