A brief historical introduction to Tibetan Buddhism Gautama the Buddha was born in Northern India in the fifth century BC, the son of a king who brought him up as heir to the throne His birth and youth were remarkable, and it was clear from the beginning that the young prince Siddhartha was destined to be an extraordinary being His early life was spent in palatial luxury, with few worries or cares, and he excelled in all the pursuits of his time, both academic and athletic Before long, however, he began to doubt the validity of his worldly life Fleeing his father's palace, he sought a more meaningful life, studying under a number of highly regarded masters of philosophy and meditation Such was the sincerity of his quest that he rapidly achieved the highest meditational accomplishments that these masters could teach him, but he was still not satisfied Despite years of strenuous ascetic practice, he found that none of these systems could take him beyond the limits of conditioned existence He decided to continue his search alone, and through his own efforts finally attained enlightenment at present-day Bodh Gaya What he discovered was so profound and vast that at first he was reluctant to reveal it to anyone else, fearing that none would understand it Later however he began teaching, and quickly attracted a large following of disciples, many of whom became highly accomplished in meditation The diversity of people who came to the Buddha to receive his teaching and practise his path called for a corresponding diversity in the way in which he taught, and different individuals or groups received different instructions appropriate to their respective temperaments and intellectual abilities The teachings that the Buddha taught during his lifetime can therefore be broadly divided into three categories-those that were eventually collected together in the Pali Canon and form the basis for what is now known as the Theravada School, emphasizing moral discipline and ethics; the teachings of the Mahayana, or Great Vehicle, which stress compassion and concern for others; and the tantric teachings of the Vajrayana or Secret Mantrayana, which use an enormous variety of skilful methods to bring about profound realization in a relatively short time The latter were given by the Buddha himself only on a limited scale, but he predicted that they would be spread in this world by other enlightened beings, who would appear later This is why the Vajrayana is no less a Buddhist teaching than the other two schools, even though it was not xi HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION widely taught in the Buddha's lifetime After his death the differences between the various teachings that he had given became more rigidly apparent as different schools and traditions took shape The present Theravada tradition, for example, has its beginnings in a group of the Buddha's disciples which later divided into eighteen schools The Mahayana similarly diversified into a number of traditions, each with their own subtly individual philosophical differences The same is true for the Vajrayana, in which there is an immense variety of practices, many of which were originally taught only to a single individual During the centuries that followed, these different traditions were gradually propagated all over India and further afield, until Buddhism had extended its influence through much of Central, Eastern and Southern Asia, even as far as Indonesia Some traditions were lost entirely, others merged into newer forms of Buddhism By the thirteenth century AD, the arrival of Islam and political changes in Indian society had driven the Buddhadharma from its land of origin, and it was in other countries that the teachings were preserved-the Theravada in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand and Cambodia, the Mahayana in China, Japan, Korea and Indo-China, and the Vajrayana mainly in Tibet Tibet was doubly fortunate Not only was it one of the few countries in which the Vajrayana continued to be practised, it was also the only one in which the full range of teachings, from all three traditions, was transmitted and preserved Over the centuries these many strands of the Buddha's teaching have been handed down from master to student in the numerous lineages which comprise the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism we know today The members of these lineages were not simply learned scholars whQ studied the teachings they received, but fully realized individuals who had practised and mastered what had been transmitted to them, and were thus fully qualified to pass on the teachings to their students Of these four, the Nyingma school (whose name derives from the Tibetan for "old") follows the traditions which were originally introduced in the eighth century by such Indian masters as Santarak~ita, Vimalamitra and Padmasambhava, whom the Tibetans refer to as Guru Rinpoche, "the Precious Master," and handed down through fully realized Tibetan masters such as Longchenpa, Jigme Lingpa and Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo The lineages which have been passed down to the other three main schools-the Kagyupa, Sakyapa and Gelugpa-were introduced into Tibet after the tenth century following the attempts by an anti-Buddhist king to destroy the Dharma in Tibet Just as the different forms of xli INTRODUCTION teacher in the very tide of this book, Kunzang Lamai Shelung, which we have freely translated as The Words of My Perfect Teacher Kunzang means "everywhere perfect" or "always perfect." It is the abbreviated form of Kuntuzangpo (in Sanskrit, Samantabhadra), the primordial Buddha, source of all lineages Kuntuzangpo is shown iconographically as a naked Buddha, the deep blue colour of the sky However this symbol does not represent a person, but the Buddha-nature itself, the unchanging purity of the mind which is the fundamental nature of all beings Normally this nature is hidden, and it is the teacher who has realized it himself who can lead us to discover it within ourselves, in all its glorious nakedness Lama literally means, "there is nothing higher." This is the Tibetan expression for the Indian word Guru Both these words have become overused in common speech, but, as Patrul Rinpoche explains, for us, the spiritual teacher is like the Buddha himself He brings us the transmission of the Buddhas of the past, embodies for us the Buddhas of the present, and, through his teaching, is the source of the Buddhas of the future Patrul Rinpoche says that the Guru Yoga is in a sense superior to the generation and perfection phases, because it directly opens the way to ultimate wisdom through the teacher's blessings The origins of this translation The Tibetans have preserved all aspects of Indian Buddhism intact from the eighth century to the twentieth This has not been, however, a mere static preservation of sacred treasures The Buddha Dharma was the main preoccupation of Tibet's best minds for centuries, giving rise to an extraordinary range of philosophical, poetic, academic and inspirational literature, as well as a distinctive and magnificent artistic and architectural heritage But above all, the Tibetans used the Buddhist teachings for their true purpose, as a tool for transforming the human mind, and thousands of practitioners, some of them famous teachers, others unknown yogis, accomplished their final goal One might imagine that Tibet's greatest glories belong to the remote past, and that recent centuries represent a period of decline, but this is by no means the case In fact each century (including the present one) and each generation has produced its share of spiritual giants The nineteenth century, for example, saw a particular kind of renaissance Patrul Rinpoche was a participant in the rime or non-sectarian movement, inaugurated by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, Jamgon Kongtrul and others, which sought to break down the barriers that had crystallized between the different Buddhist schools, by studying and teaching them all impartially xxxviii INTRODUCTION This spirit is still alive today, exemplified by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and the late Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, who was the incarnation of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, like Patrul, came from Eastern Tibet He spent twenty years of his life in meditation retreats, often in the simplest conditions He studied with a vast number of teachers, even meeting some of Patrul Rinpoche's own disciples in his youth He responded to the terrible destruction in Tibet in the nineteen fifties and sixties by working tirelessly to find, preserve and reprint lost texts, to establish monastic communities in exile, and above all to teach and inspire the new generation He considered Patrul Rinpoche to be the perfect example of a Dzogchen practitioner, and encouraged and helped the translators of this book, which he considered to be the perfect guide for students embarking on the Buddhist path Our translation comes directly from within the tradition In a sense it has its own lineage Dudjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Kangyur Rinpoche, Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche, and the other lamas who taught us the entire text orally-and during the translation gave us their advice on the difficult points of the book-are realized holders of Patrul Rinpoche's teaching Although close adherence to the exact words of an original text commands a certain respect in Tibetan circles, we have found that such translations often make ideas which are perfectly lucid and reasonable in Tibetan seem unnecessarily obscure and even bizarre in English For this book in particular, such a method could never reflect the extraordinary lively vernacular style and humour of the original So although we have tried to be consistent in our translation of technical terms, we have aimed to reflect not only the words, but also the atmosphere and style, by ren'aering the ideas in a natural English, keeping as close to the Tibetan as possible, but not at the expense of the clarity and flow of the whole Brief explanations that we felt might be helpful to many readers appear as footnotes There are also a large number of endnotes, not all of which will be of interest to the general reader However we felt it important to include them, since they contain fascinating comments from the notes of Patrul Rinpoche's disciples, and interpretations of the more difficult points given by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and other teachers They will help the reader to avoid some common misunderstandings about Buddhist ideas; and for the Buddhist practitioner with some previous knowledge of the subject, these comments give a revealing extra dimension to the book XXXIX HISTORICAL INfRODUCTION Buddhism in other parts of Asia had been adopted and had evolved to meet the needs of different peoples and cultures, each of these four schools had its origins and development in widely diverging situationshistorical, geographical and even political-which served as a prism to split the light of the Buddha's teaching into a many-coloured spectrum of traditions and lineages (Sadly, some Buddhists have tended to forget that this light has one source, and, as in the world's other great religions, sectarian divisions have sometimes masked the true message of Buddhism.) The teachings preserved in the lineages of Tibetan Buddhism are contained in the enormous sacred literature of that tradition The Kangyur, consisting of more than a hundred volumes, contains the scriptures originating from the time of the Buddha, and is divided into the Vinaya, dealing with ethics and discipline, the Siitras, which are concerned with meditation, and the Abhidharma, which covers Buddhist philosophy The numerous commentaries on these, and other major Buddhist works written later make up over two hundred volumes of the Tangyur Both the Kangyur and T angyur were translated into Tibetan mainly from Sanskrit and comprise the Tibetan Buddhist Canon In addition to this, a vast number of other works exist: teachings introduced into Tibet from India from the eighth century onwards (including many of the Vajrayana teachings), and countless commentaries on all three vehicles (Sravakayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana) written by Tibetan masters The enormous range of teachings to be found within Tibetan Buddhism can nevertheless be summarized by the Four Noble Truths, which the Buddha expounded shortly after his enlightenment The first of these points out that our conditioned existence is never free from a state of suffering, never truly satisfactory Any happiness we have is only temporary and in due course gives way to suffering The reason for this, as explained by the second truth, is that any action one may do, say or think gives rise to a result which has to be experienced either later in one's life or in a future life Indeed, rebirth is the result of one's actions, and the conditions into which one is born in one life are directly dependent on the actions one has done in previous lives, and particularly the motives and attitudes involved This, the principle of cause and effect, explains why, for example, some people remain poor all their lives despite their efforts to become wealthy, while others have everything they could want even though they nothing to gain it The second truth goes on to show that the driving force behind our actions is the nt1gative emotions such as hatred, attachment, pride, jealousy and, especially ignorance, which is the xlii ... like the Buddha himself He brings us the transmission of the Buddhas of the past, embodies for us the Buddhas of the present, and, through his teaching, is the source of the Buddhas of the future... fascinating comments from the notes of Patrul Rinpoche's disciples, and interpretations of the more difficult points given by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and other teachers They will help the reader to avoid... involved This, the principle of cause and effect, explains why, for example, some people remain poor all their lives despite their efforts to become wealthy, while others have everything they could