: Tibetan Buddhist Medicine and Psychiatry: The Diamond Healing . Terry Clifford.

This article focuses on the main contemplative principles of the ‘Heart Essence’ (sNying thig), a Tibetan Buddhist tradition that is characterized by a vision of non-duality and primordial wholeness. Due to this vision, which asserts an original reality that is not divided into perceiving subject and perceived object, the ‘Heart Essence’ advocates a contemplative practice that undermines the usual intuitions of temporality and enclosed selfhood. Hence, unlike the common principles of intentional praxis, such as deliberate concentration and gradual purification, the ‘Heart Essence’ affirms four contemplative principles of non-objectiveness, openness, spontaneity and singleness. As these principles transcend intentionality, temporality, and multiplicity, they are seen to directly disclose the nature of primordial awareness, in which the meanings of knowing and being are radically transformed. Therefore, the article will also consider the role of these non-dual contemplative principles in deeply changing our understanding of being and knowing alike.

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Tartan Buddhists

Fieldwork in Religion ◽

10.1558/firn.v7i1.8 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 8-28 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

John McKenzie

Keyword(s):

Potential Utility ◽

Tibetan Buddhist ◽

The West ◽

Dependent Relationship ◽

Different Types

The purpose of this article is to provide a sociological typology for understanding the different types of practitioners within the Tibetan Buddhist organization, Rokpa International, in Scotland. It will be argued that the empirically derived criteria and Weber’s (1978) sociological concepts of authority, power and status allow us to understand the tensions and mutually dependent relationship between the different types. In conclusion, it will be argued that, while this typology is not presented as a challenge to existing typologies, this article demonstrates the potential utility of these sociological concepts for understanding the practice and development of Buddhism in the West.

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Seeing, Touching, Holding, and Swallowing Tibetan Buddhist Texts

Postscripts The Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds ◽

10.1558/post.32531 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 8 (1-2) ◽

pp. 137-160 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Cathy Cantwell

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Buddhism ◽

Sensory Experience ◽

Tibetan Buddhist ◽

Sacred Texts ◽

The Senses ◽

Rich Material ◽

Scholarly Attention ◽

Book Culture

The iconic dimension of holy books has drawn increasing scholarly attention in recent years (e.g. Iconic Books and Texts, James Watts, ed., London, Equinox, 2013). Asian Buddhism provides rich material for considering the ritualization of engagement with sacred texts. In Tibetan Buddhism, this aspect of book culture is perhaps especially pronounced (see, for instance, Schaeffer 2009, especially Chapter 6; Elliott, Diemberger and Clemente 2014). This paper explores the topic in relation to the engagement of the senses in Tibetan context, through seeing, touching, holding and tasting texts. It would seem that it is not the sensory experience in itself, but rather the physical experience of a transmission and incorporation of the sacred qualities from the books into the person which is emphasized in these practices. Parallels and contrasts with examples from elsewhere are mentioned, and there is some consideration of the breadth of the category of sacred books in the Tibetan context in which Dharma teachings may take many forms.

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Macho Buddhism: Gender and Sexualities in the Diamond Way

Religion and Gender ◽

10.1163/18785417-00101005 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 85-103

Author(s):

Burkhard Scherer

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Buddhism ◽

Gender Stereotyping ◽

Sexual Ethics ◽

Tibetan Buddhist ◽

Historical Source ◽

The West ◽

Cultural Attitudes ◽

Continuity And Change ◽

And Performance ◽

Previous Scholarship

Western Tibetan Buddhist movements have been described as bourgeois and puritanical in previous scholarship. In contrast, Ole Nydahl’s convert lay Karma Kagyu Buddhist movement, the Diamond Way, has drawn attention for its apparently hedonistic style. This article addresses the wider issues of continuity and change during the transition of Tibetan Buddhism from Asia to the West. It analyses views on and performances of gender, sexual ethics and sexualities both diachronically through textual-historical source and discourse analysis and synchronically through qualitative ethnography. In this way the article demonstrates how the approaches of contemporary gender and sexualities studies can serve as a way to question the Diamond Way Buddhism’s location in the ‘tradition vs modernity’ debate. Nydahl’s pre-modern gender stereotyping, the hetero-machismo of the Diamond Way and the mildly homophobic tone and content of Nydahl’s teaching are interpreted in light of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist sexual ethics and traditional Tibetan cultural attitudes on sexualities. By excavating the emic genealogy of Nydahl’s teachings, the article suggests that Nydahl’s and the Diamond Way’s view on and performance of gender and sexualities are consistent with his propagation of convert Buddhist neo-orthodoxy.

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Anatomy of a Ḍākinī: Female Consort Discourse in a Case of Fourteenth-Century Tibetan Buddhist Literature

Journal of Dharma Studies ◽

10.1007/s42240-021-00094-2 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Kali Cape

Keyword(s):

Fourteenth Century ◽

Tibetan Buddhist ◽

Buddhist Literature

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Pearls From Bones: Relics, Chortens, Tertons and the Signs of Saintly Death in Tibet

Numen ◽

10.1163/156852794x00157 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 41 (3) ◽

pp. 273-324 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Dan Martin

Keyword(s):

Historical Perspective ◽

Religious Studies ◽

Religious Culture ◽

Tibetan Buddhist ◽

Devotional Practice ◽

Cultural Pattern ◽

Other Substances ◽

Critical Links ◽

Point Of Departure

AbstractAlthough there has been much work, in recent years, on the sacrum of Christianity, and some important studies have appeared on Buddhist relic cults and related facets of Buddhism, so far very little has been written on Tibetan Buddhist relics. This paper, while offering some material for a historical perspective, mainly seeks to find a larger cultural pattern for understanding the interrelationships of a complex of factors active in Tibetan religious culture. Beginning with problems of relic-related terms and classifications, we then suggest a new assessment of the role of the Terton ('treasure revealer'). Then we discuss 'miracles' in Tibet, and the intersection of categories of 'signs of saintly death' and relics. Much of the remaining pages are devoted to those items that fall within both categories, specifically the 'pearls' that emerge miraculously from saintly remains and images that appear in bodily or other substances connected with cremations. After looking at a number of testimonials on these miraculous relics, we examine the possibility that these items might be 'deceitfully manufactured', looking at a few Tibetan polemical writings which raise this possibility. In the conclusion, we suggest that there are some critical links between three spheres of Tibetan religiosity: 1. sacrum which are not relics, 2. relics, and 3. signs of sainthood. Finally, we recommend an approach to religious studies that takes its point of departure in actual practices, and particularly the objects associated with popular devotional practice.

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