From the Opinion article today, it stated the Gelugpa tradition had in the past razed rival monasteries. I found the entire discussion of Buddhist violence informative. I suppose even monks are humans, subject to our own biases.
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A tradition in Tibet, Hidden Treasure Texts are a phenomenon where Buddhist monks recover lost texts from older times by writing from memory while in meditation. The texts recovered are from previous gurus, thus re-establishing a severed lineage. to the Buddha, which is crucial.
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According to P.O. Skjaervo's Introduction to Manichaeism, "The farther we come from Persia, the more common also is Buddhist terminology." Mani claimed to not only be the successor to the Buddha, Jesus and Zarathustra, but he saw himself as Maitreya, the future savior Buddha.
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The human realm is the only realm where the Buddha received enlightenment and thus the only realm for which Buddhism exists. But can one escape nirvana in another realm?
If not, what is unique to humans that only we can do this?
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The name Avalokiteśvara keeps coming up in class. This bodhisattva is very important to the Tibetan people; they even relate their origin to him. The Potala Palace, that we spoke of on Friday, is named after Mount Potalaka, Avalokiteśvara's mythical abode.
Source: ASIA 188
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I found this prayer flag in a Tibetan shop in Switzerland last winter. I thought of this because our reading for today mentions the mantra "om mani padme hum". This is that in Tibetan.
This flag has 7 syllables, not the 6 in that mantra. There is an additional "hrih" at the end!
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Today in class while we were discussing Guanyin, the professor had mentioned that she was the "Bodhisattva of Compassion". I was curious about this title. Is she special? Are there others? Do all Bodhisattvas have an epithet, and if not, why did she earn hers?
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