Introducing Tibetan Buddhism

Introducing Tibetan Buddhism

Chapter 5:Tibetan Buddhism as a system of knowledge

Main topics covered• Introduction• Basic understandings of the universe• The Indian monastic universities, their curriculum and its adoption by the Tibetans• Philosophy• Other classical fields of Indian learning• Non-Buddhist aspects of Tibetan knowledge• Medicine

Key points 1• Buddhist knowledge was not dogma in the sense that belief in it was required. However, a major source of knowledge for the Tibetans was India, and it was closely associated with Buddhism and the great educational institutions of Buddhist India – thus there was no sense of an opposition between religion and science, more of a close affinity between them. Much of the curriculum of these institutions was continued and developed further in the great Tibetan monasteries.

Key points 2• The basic parameters for understanding the structure and nature of the world, however, were largely derived from India. They included the idea of human life consisting of a continuing series of rebirths, the six kinds of rebirth, and the law of karma linking action in one life with result in future lives, as well as the structure of the earth and the heavens and hells above and beneath it.

Sipé Korlo (Wheel of Life)

Paro Dzong, Bhutan, photo 2009

Human realm


Realm of gods


Realm of Asuras


Animal realm


Realm of Hungry Ghosts (preta)


Hell realms


Three roots: desire, hatred, delusion


Key points 3• Buddhist philosophy is an important adjunct to Buddhist practice. It was and continues to be taught on the basis of Indian and Tibetan texts as a series of different philosophical positions leading to the insight of sūnyatā or ‘emptiness’, the lack of ultimate reality in any assertions about the nature of the universe. Buddhist philosophy thus tends to relativize systems of knowledge, so that different ways of thinking about the world appear less as logically inconsistent alternatives and more as provisional and partial attempts to grasp a reality beyond our comprehension.

The universe

Trongsa Dzong, Bhutan , photo from 2009

Mount Meru


Dzambuling


Heavenly realms


Key points 4• Tibetan society in the past was comfortable with a variety of kinds of knowledge about the world from the religious and academic to the folkloric and legendary, all of which coexisted without direct conflict. Empirical investigation was also common, for example in areas such as geography and medicine. Medicine is also characteristic of much Tibetan practical knowledge in that it is a synthesis of elements taken from many sources, including Indian, Greco-Arabic and Chinese medical traditions, developed in Tibet into a new synthesis adapted to Tibetan needs and resources.

Tibetan medicine

Tibetan medical dispensary, Delhi, photo from 1996

Key points 5• The Tibetan world was full of meaning. Events of all kinds were seen as significant and meaningful rather than as resulting from coincidence. Signs and connections could be read by those with the relevant skills, and divination and astrology were important.

The end

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Introducing Tibetan Buddhism