Milarepa Sings Again: Tsangnyön Heruka’s ‘Songs with Parting Instructions’

2021 ◽  
pp. 67-92
Author(s):  
Stefan Larsson
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Religious Poetry ◽  
Dalai Lama ◽  
Canonical Texts ◽  
Point Of Departure

Although Tibetan Buddhism is often associated with monks and canonical texts, other types of Buddhist practitioners and other kinds of texts are also of importance. Before the 5th Dalai Lama came to power in 1642 and Tibetan Buddhism became increasingly systematized and monastically oriented, Tibetan charismatic yogins composed and printed religious poetry (mgur) and hagiographies (rnam thar) to promote a non-monastic ideal with remarkable success. They modelled their lifestyle upon Indian Tantric siddhas and on the Tibetan poet-saint Milarepa (c. 1040–1123). Like them, they adopted a wandering lifestyle and used religious poetry as a means for spreading their message. By expressing themselves through poetry, which they also composed, these yogins could present Buddhism in an innovative way, adapted to the needs of their audience. Taking the ‘songs with parting instructions’ (’gro chos kyi mgur) of the ‘crazy yogin’ (rnal ’byor smyon pa) Tsangnyön Heruka (1452–1507) as the point of departure, this chapter explores how these colourful figures attempted to vitalize Buddhism in Tibet by creating an alternative religious infrastructure outside of the monastery.

scholarly journals Bioethical Threads in the Reflection of Tibetan Refugees in India

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 436
Author(s):  
Marcin Lisiecki
Keyword(s):  
Medical Practice ◽  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
The State ◽  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Sex Reassignment ◽  
Dalai Lama ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
Tibetan Refugees ◽  
Medical Traditions

This article aims to trace and describe the bioethical threads in medical practice and the understanding of medicine among Tibetan refugees living in India. Taking up such a task results mainly from the fact that only traces of bioethical reflection are visible in Tibetan society, but without the awareness that it requires systematic reflection on its essence and changes that accompany modern medicine. I define the state of the discussion on Tibetan bioethics as preparadigmatic, i.e., one that precedes the recognition of the importance of bioethics and the elaboration of its basic concepts. In this paper, I will show how the Tibetan refugees today, in an unconscious way, approach bioethics, using the example of life-related topics, namely beginning and death. To this end, I chose topics such as abortion, fetal sex reassignment, euthanasia, and suicide. On this basis, I will indicate the main reasons that hinder the emergence of bioethics and those that may contribute to systematic discussions in the future. An introduction to Tibetan medicine will precede these considerations. I will show how medical traditions, especially the Rgyud bzhi text, are related to Tibetan Buddhism and opinions of the 14th Dalai Lama.

The Oriental Monk in American Popular Culture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Naomi Iwamura
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Current Image ◽  
Dalai Lama ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
Asian Religions ◽  
History Of

This chapter analyzes the history of representation that has contributed to the current image of the Dalai Lama. We “know” the Dalai Lama, not simply because of the fact that we may understand his views and admire his actions, but also because we are familiar with the particular role he plays in the popular consciousness of the United States—the type of icon he has become—the icon of the “Oriental Monk.” To get a sense of what makes the Dalai Lama so popular, we need to get a sense of the history of this icon and how it has been used to express and manage our sense of Asian religions. The chapter asks: How did the Dalai Lama come to represent all that he does for Americans? Indeed, what exactly does he represent? How have we come to “know” him? Is our ability to embrace someone and something (Tibetan Buddhism) once considered so foreign, anything other than a testimony to a newfound openness and progressive understanding?

The Tibet-Mongolia Political Interface in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergius L. Kuzmin
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Local Resistance ◽  
Dalai Lama ◽  
The Relationship

Sergey Kuzmin’s paper draws on Russian and Mongolian archives to discuss the relationship between the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and the Jebtsundamba Khutagtu in the context of their joint hopes for future independence. This was promoted by the prevalence of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia, the leadership of the Tibetan-born Jetsun Dampa Khutuktu, the influential Tibetan colony in the Mongolian capital of Niislel Khuree, and permanent contacts between Mongols and Tibetans. It demonstrates how the two states co-ordinated their independence struggle during the first half of the twentieth century. This association continued after the two states had broken away from China and continued into the 1930s, with individual Tibetan hierarchs becoming involved in local resistance to the Socialist suppression of Buddhism in Mongolia.

Contemporary Tibetan Buddhism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham Zablocki
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Himalayan Region ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Dalai Lama ◽  
Vajrayana Buddhism ◽  
Modern Form

This chapter examines contemporary Tibetan Buddhism through an exploration of its transformation from a pre-modern form of Vajrayana Buddhism that was localized in Tibet and the wider Himalayan region, to its modern paradigm within the framework of Global Buddhism. In the contemporary period, Tibetan Buddhism inside Tibet is examined in relation to the imposition of Chinese political authority, while Tibetan Buddhism outside Tibet is examined in relation to the activities of the fourteenth Dalai Lama and the participation of Western, Chinese, and South Asian converts to Tibetan Buddhism in the efforts of Tibetan exiles to rebuild their religious institutions in diaspora.

Some Dimensions of the Recent Work of Raimundo Panikkar: A Buddhist Perspective

1991 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Williams
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Interreligious Dialogue ◽  
Dalai Lama ◽  
Spiritual Path ◽  
Spiritual Leader ◽  
Indian Buddhism ◽  
Important Direction ◽  
Tsong Kha Pa ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Buddha

The Dalai Lama is fond of quoting a statement in which the Buddha is said to have asserted that no one should accept his word out of respect for the Buddha himself, but only after testing it, analysing it ‘ as a goldsmith analyses gold, through cutting, melting, scraping and rubbing it’. The Dalai Lama is often referred to as the temporal and spiritual leader of Tibet, but in truth as a spiritual figure His Holiness, while respected, indeed revered by almost all Tibetans, usually speaks from within the perspective of one particular tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, that of the dGe lugs (pronounced ‘Geluk’). Founded in the late fourteenth century by Tsong kha pa, the dGe lugs has always stressed the importance of reasoning, analytic rationality, on the spiritual path. This dGe lugs perspective is by no means shared by all Buddhists, at least not in the form it there takes. Nevertheless it does represent an important direction in Buddhist thinking on reasoning and the spiritual path which can be traced back in Indian Buddhism a very long way indeed, and it is in the light of dGe lugs thought that I want to contemplate two points which seem to be crucial in Raimundo Panikkar's approach to interreligious dialogue and understanding: first, that Reality, Being, transcends the intelligible, the range of consciousness, and second, that understanding this is the only basis for tolerance, not seeking in one way or another to overcome the other.

Buddhism and Science in the Perspective of Intercultural Philosophy

2021 ◽  
pp. 168-178
Author(s):  
Vlada S. Belimova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Western Science ◽  
Dalai Lama ◽  
Equal Status ◽  
Language Of Science ◽  
Consciousness Studies ◽  
Intercultural Philosophy

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the dialogue between Tibetan Buddhism and Western science which began in the second half of the 20th century on the ini­tiative of the 14th Dalai Lama and is actively developing today. The paper pro­vides examples of the interaction between the Western (as well as Russian) scien­tists and the leader of the Tibetan Buddhists and Buddhist monks, especially in the field of consciousness studies. During this dialogue some new areas of possible interaction have emerged which involved both – Western scientific method, the Buddhist traditional forms of meditation and philosophy of mind. For all its participants, it becomes obvious that a common philosophical platform is needed to better understand each other and to develop further on their mutu­ally beneficial cooperation. Contemporary philosophers involved in this dialogi­cal process offer a number of approaches to serve this purpose. The article dis­cusses philosophical approaches of Alan Wallace (empiricism), Michel Bitbol (transcendental phenomenological epistemology), and advocates of intercul­tural philosophy (Jay Garfield, Mark Siderits, Victoria Lysenko). It is the inter­cultural approach, the basis of which is the equal status of all participants (the concept of “polylogue”), and their shared good knowledge of the language of science along with concepts elaborated in both – Western and Buddhist philo­sophical traditions, is presented in this paper as the most promising methodologi­cal foundation for the interaction of “multicultural rationalities”.

The Inherent Dignity of Empty Persons

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Dalai Lama ◽  
Middle Way ◽  
Inherent Dignity ◽  
Inalienable Rights ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
The One

The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, has expressed strong support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While this may seem to be consistent with his outspoken promotion of basic human values and universal responsibility, there is an unresolved metaphysical conflict between his endorsement of the UDHR and concomitant ideas like inherent dignity and inalienable rights, on the one hand, and, on the other, his espousal of the Buddhist Middle Way or “centrist” (Madhyamaka) thesis that all phenomena (i.e., persons, things, and ideas like human rights) lack “intrinsic existence” (svabhāva). This chapter explores the possibility of an unforced consensus on rights between Tibetan Buddhism and the Western human rights tradition through a novel application of Madhyamaka Buddhism that can help us make sense of the metaphysics of rights in the 21st century, as well as combat the fundamentalist mind-set that contributes to human rights violations.

Beyond the People

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoran Oklopcic
Keyword(s):  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
The People ◽  
Sovereign Equality ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The One ◽  
Canonical Texts ◽  
Point Of Departure

Who is ‘the people’? How does it exercise its power? When is the people entitled to exercise its rights? From where does that people derive its authority? What is the meaning of its self-government in a democratic constitutional order? For the most part, scholars approach these questions from their disciplinary perspectives, with the help of canonical texts, and in the context of ongoing theoretical debates. Beyond the People is a systematic and comprehensive, yet less disciplinarily disciplined study that confronts the same questions, texts, and debates in a new way. Its point of departure is simple and intuitive. A sovereign people is the work of a theoretical imagination, always shaped by the assumptions, aspirations, and anticipations of a particular theorist-imaginer. To look beyond the people is to confront them directly, by exploring the ways in which theorists script, stage, choreograph, record, and otherwise evoke the scenes, actors, actions, and events that permit us to speak intelligibly—and often enthusiastically—about the ideals of popular sovereignty, self-determination, constituent power, ultimate authority, sovereign equality, and collective self-government. What awaits beyond these ideals is a new set of images, and a different way to understand the perennial Who? What? Where? When? and How? questions—not as the suggestions about how best to understand these concepts, but rather as the oblique and increasingly costly ways of not asking the one we probably should: What, more specifically, do we need them for?

scholarly journals Grand Union between Tibet and Mongolia: Unfulfilled Dream of the 13th Dalai Lama

2013 ◽  
pp. 75-80
Author(s):  
Tsedenbamba Batbayar
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Spiritual Leaders ◽  
Dalai Lama ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Common

Since the late sixteenth century when Altan Khan of Tumed in Southern Mongolia adopted the Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism and sup­ported it as the common faith of the Mongol people, the teaching and discipline of Buddhism greatly influenced the customs, society, and various ac­tivities of the nomadic Mongols. The Mongolian version of Tibetan Buddhism was called Lamaism, and the Buddhist monks were known as lamas. The highest ranking lama of Northern or Khalkha Mongolia was the well-known Jebtsundamba Khutagt. His first and second incarnations were born in the house of Tusheet Khan, the most influential one of four Khans of Khalkha Mongolia. They were recognized as spiritual leaders of Mongolia with high pres­tige in Mongolian politics. Consequently, the Manchu court in Peking became anxious of the prospects of a reunified Mongolia under their leadership. In order to prevent such perspective the Manchu emperor issued the unwritten regulation by which the third and its subsequent incarnations of the Jebtsundamba Khutagt were to be found in Tibet instead of Mongolia.1 The 8th Jebtsundamba Khutagt, who played an important role in the political life of modern Mongolia, was found as a boy in Tibet, and was brought to Mongolia in 1875 as a reincarnation of his predecessor. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5564/mjia.v0i17.83 Mongolian Journal of International Affairs, No.17 2012: 75-80

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