About “Approaching Aro”

This site is meant as a resource for anyone who is considering involvement in Vajrayana Buddhism.

At first, Vajrayana seems confusing, complex, and difficult. It is time-consuming and requires commitment. It may appear frightening or crazy. On the other hand, it is fascinating, beautiful, and inspiring too.

One can practice Sutrayana (the most common forms of Buddhism) in a general or eclectic way. For Vajrayana, however, one must choose a school, tradition, lineage, and teacher. I use the word “approaching” to refer to the gradual process of learning more about Vajrayana and its subdivisions, beginning tentatively to practice, selecting a teacher, and taking on increasing responsibility within and for the Sangha.

I am an “apprentice” in the Aro lineage. Aro is a lineage within the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Aro particularly emphasizes Dzogchen. What I have to say will be most relevant to those interested in Aro specifically, and to those intrigued by Dzogchen. I hope much will also be relevant to approaching other Nyingma lineages, and to approaching Vajrayana generally.

I aim to:

• describe my experience with Aro;
• suggest ways in which you can investigate whether a particular lineage or teacher is a good “fit” for you;
• correct some common misconceptions about Dzogchen and the Aro teachings; and
• provide a moderated space for questions about these topics.

About the author

My name is David Chapman. I have been an Aro apprentice since 1997. I am quite knowledgeable about Aro and related Buddhist lineages, and will do my best to write carefully and accurately. However, I am not ordained, am not a teacher, and have no particular role in Aro other than as one of the team that maintains the Aro web sites.

I was educated, and have worked, as a scientist, engineer, and businessman. Those disciplines teach one to ask skeptical questions:

• The scientist asks “Is it true? How do we know? What is the evidence? What are the alternative possibilities?”
• The engineer asks “How well does it work? In what circumstances does it work well or not so well? How and when and why does it fail?”
• The businessman asks “How useful is it? What sort of person will find this valuable?”

These might seem unusual questions to ask about a religious tradition, but I think they are good ones. I will ask them about Aro and do my best to answer them. Of course, in a religious context, the questions must be asked a little differently than in these fields:

• Different disciplines have their own notions of truth and different rules of evidence. Buddhism has its own distinctive conception of truth. I will be asking “is it true” questions with respect to both Buddhist and Western criteria.
• “How well does it work” in engineering generally has a numerical answer, and is meant to apply universally. About Buddhism, we will ask instead “how well can this work for me.”
• “How valuable is it” leads a businessman to “how much profit can I make.” Buddhism is not a product, is not for sale, and generates no profit. It is still useful to ask “to what sort of person is this Buddhist tradition valuable,” and also “how valuable is this to me?”

Asking these questions leads quickly into the fundamental logic of the Dharma. In the case of Aro, it leads straight into the heart of Dzogchen—which is considered the most subtle and advanced of all Buddhist teachings.

As I mentioned, I am not qualified to teach Buddhism at all, much less Dzogchen. So by what extraordinary arrogance do I attempt to explain it?

I see my role here as analogous to that of a science journalist. Science journalists are generally not qualified to practice scientific research, much less teach it. However, good ones know enough to explain it accurately in lay terms. They know what they don't know, and ask actual scientists when they aren't sure, and are able to present science in a way that is easier for most readers to understand. This is hard to do well, and many do it badly, but good ones are almost always accurate and are helpful in educating the public (and inspiring a few teenagers to go on to become professional scientists).

I hope to explain Vajrayana Buddhism, particularly Dzogchen and Aro, clearly and accurately enough to help you in deciding whether to pursue them further. I hope also to communicate enough of my enthusiasm that you may be inspired to do so.

I also write the web sites Buddhism for Vampires and Meaningness, and contribute to Ngakpa Update. I have a blog, which is sometimes about Buddhism and sometimes entirely different things.

You can reach me by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Comment policy

I want this site to be useful to you. But I don’t know for sure what you will find most useful. I have an outline with dozens of pages that I may never get to write. What I say, and how, and when, will depend on your questions, suggestions, and interests.

Most of the pages on this site have an “add new comment” link at the bottom. Please use it; that will be helpful to me, to you, and to other readers. Please let me know if you have any technical problems posting comments.

Web discussions somehow tend to produce vicious shouting matches. For that reason, and to eliminate spam, comments appear only after a delay. Please practice the fundamental Buddhist commitments of kindness and openness. Paul Graham’s excellent essay on how to disagree productively could be helpful. Tough questions are welcome; I will try to give real answers. (Writing each web page of content takes me a full day, so I will not be able to provide detailed responses to every issue at once.) I may delete comments that are “mi kha” in Tibetan. Mi kha includes one-upmanship, put-downs, gossip, slander, defamation, harassment, abuse, and so forth.

Most bloggers, and most forum participants, are anonymous, hidden behind “nyms.” Originally I intended to publish this site anonymously. The infinitely wise Lama Shardröl Du-nyam Wangmo persuaded me to use my real name instead. That makes me clearly accountable for what I say here; my personal reputation is at risk. Commenters may wish to do likewise—but that is optional. The comment form will prompt you for an email address. If you supply an email address, it will not be publicly displayed. You are also free to leave it blank.

Aro apprentices might do well to identify themselves as such. (I do not want a pseudonymous cheering section.)

I use the Mollom anti-spam service, which reads comments and tries to filter out spam automatically. See their privacy policy, which basically says that they may read and/or store whatever information you enter.

For general questions and comments on this site, you can add comments at the bottom of this page.

You can reach me by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Acknowledgements

Although this web site is entirely my responsibility, many people have contributed in various ways, for which I would like to give thanks.

Each of the Aro Lamas gave me specific, valuable advice. They have substantially improved the work. (Their involvement does not imply endorsement, however. Each of them also made suggestions that I chose not to follow, and they would each prefer that I had done some things differently.)

Many Aro apprentices have contributed encouragement, photographs, on-site comments, and comments on unpublished page drafts. Naljorma Rin’dzin, especially, has read drafts of about a third of the pages before publication, and vastly improved many of them.

Eyewitness accounts were key to writing the historical section of this site. I am grateful to the many people who patiently answered my innumerable boring questions.

Most of the images on this site came from stock.xchng. Its remarkable collection is generously made free by the photographers.

Buddhism for Vampires

Buddhism for Vampires is a new (as of May 2010) site, presenting Buddhism in an unusual new way. Or, not so new: because it turns out that the undead have been a part of Buddhism since ancient times.

Most of a year ago, I suggested here that explaining Buddhism in the language of the undead might be a way around the problem of Buddhism’s hijacking by New Age psychotherapeutic political correctness. That might make Buddhism attractive to a new audience. I wasn’t really serious then; but after thought and research, I realized that the connections between vampires and Buddhism are substantial and significant.

Vampires provide a set of metaphors for communicating aspects of Buddhism that are otherwise difficult to talk about. Wavering on the threshold between living and dead, the undead embody the unavoidable ambiguity of experience. Seductive and horrifying, vampires mirror our constantly-flickering reactions of desire and revulsion.

I have added a “My other sites” section in the right margin of the pages of Approaching Aro. This currently lists the most recent pages from Buddhism for Vampires. I expect to be creating at least one more site, “Meaningness”, in the next few months. It will explore the philosophy of nihilism and eternalism, and its new pages will also appear in that list. If you are interested in following these sites, it would be best to sign up for updates directly on them, though. You can get updates by email or RSS.

It has been many months since I have written much on Approaching Aro. I do plan to write more; especially about the process of choosing a spiritual path, organization, and teacher. I have drafts of a dozen new pages. I write slowly, however, and the new sites are taking priority for now.

Although they are quite different in style, I hope some readers of Approaching Aro will find the new sites to their liking—and vice versa!

Ngakpa Update

Naljorpa Ögyen Dorje and I write the site Ngakpa Update.

Ngakpa Update presents news and notes on the Tantric system of non-monastic ordination. This system is central in the Aro lineage.

The Aro teachers are not monks and nuns. Instead they are ordained as ngakpas, ngakmas, naljorpas, or naljormas. These ordinations are just as rigorous as monastic ordination, but are compatible with careers and family life. We believe that this system has great promise, in a time when few wish to be monks, but some Buddhists wish to dedicate themselves wholly to practicing and propagating Vajrayana.

Much is unclear about the role of non-monastic Tantrikas in Tibetan Buddhism. Although historically important, the tradition has dwindled in recent centuries, and there are now relatively few Tibetan ngakpas. This appears to be due at least in part to intense political pressure from the monastic establishment. We do not fully understand the nature of this antagonism. We report on current historical research, particularly on Tibet’s “Dark Age,” a time when it seems the ngakpa tradition was at its peak.

Meanwhile, non-monastic ordination seems unusually well-suited to contemporary conditions. It is undergoing a revival both in the West and, apparently, in the eastern end of the culturally-Tibetan region. Anthropologists are finding fascinating developments in the role of living ngakpas in Kham and Amdo. (Perhaps there are also interesting anthropological opportunities for study of Western ngakpas?)

Ngakpa Update has a quasi-academic viewpoint. Ögyen Dorje and I are not academic Tibetologists, but we do read the current journal literature. Our intention is to summarize articles we find particularly interesting, for the benefit of Western Vajrayana practitioners. Occasionally, we write essays presenting overviews, and our opinions about recent scholarly work.

“Fit”

Within a major religion such as Christianity or Buddhism, there are hundreds of lineages or sects to choose among.

In Western religion, seeking a spiritual home is often thought of in terms of truth. One looks for the right sect that has the true answers.

Finding a home within Buddhism is a matter of individual “fit” rather than ultimate correctness. Buddhism is a pragmatic religion. It is concerned mainly with methods, rather than truth. Because we are all different, different methods will be useful for us.

I believe that all Buddhist sects are valid. However, they offer different teachings and practices, and have different styles or “flavors.” What matters is finding one that offers what you need, as a unique individual, to move in the direction you want to go.

This typically takes several years of exploration. It involves finding out:

• What style of teaching and practice do I find inspiring? What motivates me to practice?
• Where am I at, spiritually? What am I currently capable of? What are my strengths and weaknesses?
• What are the different directions I can go from here? Among those, which direction do I want to go?
• What tools are available to take me from where I am to where I want to go?
• Which Buddhist teachers and lineages offer those tools? Where do I feel a heart connection? What do I like?

I will discuss these questions further in the next few pages. But you might like to stop now and spend a little time thinking about your current answers.

It could be helpful to write them down, perhaps in a diary, and save them. When you read them again in a few months or years, you will learn something about yourself. You will see that your answers have changed. You will have moved, in a direction. That will help understand where you want to go next.

An advice vacuum

I have some confessions to make. And I would like to ask for your help.

When I first started writing Approaching Aro, my outline called for a page on the topic of “approaching” in general. By that I mean the process of looking around for a spiritual system that is a good personal fit, evaluating alternatives, gradually getting more involved, asking sensible questions at each step.

“Spiritual shopping,” some call it; but that sounds disparaging. I think this “shopping” is something everyone ought to do, before getting seriously involved with any religious system.

I expected that writing the “approaching in general” page would be quick and easy—because I expected to steal the content. (That’s my first confession.) I didn’t know of anything about this written specifically for Buddhists, so I planned to read a couple of books aimed at a mainstream audience, extract the main points, make some minor changes to reflect the Buddhist context, write it up quickly and move on.

I kept putting it off, because I had trouble finding the “how to choose a sect” books written for a general audience. It didn’t seem pressing.

I kept an eye out. I asked around. I googled.

I asked some more people. I googled again.

Nothing.

I feel stupid. (That’s my second confession.) Three years have gone by. I still think that there must be something worthwhile written about this—but I haven’t found it yet. For instance, there are high school and college religious guidance counselors—surely there is something written for them, explaining how to help students clarify their religious orientation and aim them toward a suitable tradition? If so, I haven’t found it.

There are some things written on “how to choose a religion”—but the ones I have found make it a joke. They ridicule the process, more or less good-naturedly; the implication is that any comparison or evaluation is obviously silly. I don’t understand this.

There is quite a lot of serious writing on “how people do choose religions.” What I have read falls into two categories.

• Some is sociological or anthropological, and looks at the social and cultural bases for choice. Most people choose religious groups mainly on the basis of “do I feel comfortable with these people.” But I think this should be only one of many criteria, and not the most important.
• The rest is written from the standpoint of an author’s own religious tradition, which he assumes is the only right one, for everyone. He explains to a general audience why you ought to convert to his tradition. Or, to the church leadership, he explains how to convince seekers to convert. I find this unhelpful. What’s needed is neutral advice on how to find a good personal fit, not justification for the One True Way.

The only advice genre I’ve found explains “how to spot a dangerous cult.” There’s lots written about that, and it’s worth reading some. But it addresses the question “is this religious group good for anyone.” The question I am more interested in is “supposing this group is basically OK and useful for someone, how do I figure out whether it is a good fit for me?”

Through most of history, the question “how do I go about choosing a religion” has rarely come up. In most times and places, there were few options—often only one. Where religions coexisted, almost everyone adopted the religion of their family/tribe/ethnic group, without question.

But the “spiritual supermarket” has been open in the West for decades. Tens of millions of people do deliberately look about and comparison-shop. That is a daunting process. Wouldn’t some advice be helpful?

I have been through this myself, and I have talked with many other people in various stages of the process. I have quite a lot to say about it.

I feel completely unqualified and inadequate, though. Choosing a religion is a serious and important business, and the advice I can give is based just on off-hand observations.

I am hesitant to say anything. On the other hand, if it is really true that nothing has been written about this, then I feel I have a responsibility to do the best I can. (Maybe that will provoke someone better-qualified to do a better job.)

Can you help?

So I would like to ask for two kinds of help from you.

• If you know of anything written about this, which you have found helpful, could you point me to it?
• If you have thoughts or advice about looking for, comparing, evaluating, selecting, or getting involved with spiritual or religious systems or traditions or groups—based on your personal experience or observation—I’d love to hear about it.

For either of these, you could leave a comment below, so everyone will have the benefit of it. (You can do that anonymously if you like.) Or you could contact me privately.

Thank you. I will credit any suggestions I use, unless you’d rather be anonymous.

Whatever help you provide, and whatever else I may find, I will write several pages of advice on “approaching.” It seems too important a topic not to address, however unqualified I might be for the job. (Please be patient, though—it may be a few months before I get my thoughts in order.)

Approaches to religion

There are different ways of relating to religious or spiritual systems. I relate to Buddhism as a path.

On following pages, I will offer some thoughts about how to find a path that is a good fit for you personally. My advice assumes that you, too, take a path approach to religion or spirituality.

That is actually not usual. Other relationships are more common. All are perfectly valid, at least for some systems. Some may not go well with Buddhism. In any case, this web site might not be useful if you relate in one of the other ways.

So this page briefly compares the path approach with some alternatives: social group, faith, worldview, toolbox, and tradition. I also explain briefly why the path approach seems to work best for Buddhism. The next page explains “path” in more detail.

Path

What makes something a path is that you can follow it.

When you are on a path, you have a direction. You can always see the right place to put your foot next. (Except at trail junctions, where you have to choose.) You can see some distance ahead along the path, and where that will take you.

If you don’t like the direction the path is taking you, you can go back to the last junction and try a different route, or you can walk off the path altogether.

A path may have a destination. Not all do; you may just be walking to enjoy the scenery.

Paths often have a sign at the start saying where they will take you. Sometimes the sign is wrong. That is rare for a city park, but not uncommon in the wilderness. My guess is that it is usual for spiritual paths to be mislabelled. (However, it is impossible to be certain without following them all the way to the end.)

Until you get to the destination, you can’t really know what it is like.

Even if a path has no destination, or the destination is not as claimed, it allows movement. If you can’t take the next step, or if stepping doesn’t change anything, there is no path.

Paths don’t appear spontaneously; they are made by other people. When you follow a path, you go where others have gone before. Some may have written about the route. Some may give you advice along the way.

Social group

When people deliberately look for a religious organization, often it seems their real goal is to find a comfortable social group. They look for “people like us” who share their values, social class, interests, and lifestyle. Such a group can be emotionally supportive, provides some intellectual entertainment, and confirms the rightness of your life choices.

This is probably a fine reason to join many religions. I think it’s a bad reason to join a Buddhist group—although it’s probably the most common one.

It is true that you need to get along reasonably well with your sangha (Buddhist community). However, for Buddhism to be effective, it needs to undercut your basic assumptions about life—your “reference points.” An excessively comfortable group, which constantly validates your reference points, is an obstacle.

A sangha should be irritating. It should include many people whose experience and understanding of life is quite different from yours. They will rub you the wrong way, because the things they take for granted without thinking about them are different from the things you take for granted without thinking about them.

I recommend Mormonism

I would like to actively discourage you from joining a Buddhist group for social support, or as a source of like-minded friends. That wastes other people’s time and emotional energy, and diverts the group from its proper purpose.

Buddhism is probably a lousy religion if you are looking for a social group, anyway. Some of my best friends are Buddhists, but on average we Buddhists are a tiresome lot. I recommend Mormonism. The Mormons I know are all kind, friendly, reliable people.

Faith

For some religions, the important thing is that you believe in them. Faith is sufficient to make you a member. This is true of some Christian sects, for instance.

Some people approach Buddhism this way. They read Buddhist books and agree with what they say. They think of themselves as Buddhists, without wanting to join a Buddhist group, and without doing Buddhist practice.

There’s nothing really wrong with this; but it misses almost everything about Buddhism that matters to most serious Buddhists. Buddhism is primarily about doing, not believing. It is a religion of “methods, not truths.”

Worldview or philosophy

A worldview (or “philosophy”) is a system for understanding meaningness: life, the universe, and one’s place in it. A worldview is not necessarily a faith; it can be a method for looking, rather than a set of claims you are supposed to believe.

Some religions and related systems mainly provide a worldview. This includes particularly ones described as “spiritual but not religious.” A current example might be the work of Ken Wilber and his associates.

Buddhism is sometimes said to be “a philosophy, not a religion.” Buddhism is certainly atypical as a religion, and might not be one at all (depending on how you choose to define “religion.”) It’s not really a philosophy (or worldview) either, though.

A worldview is not—by itself—a path. It is not a path because it does not show you where to put your foot next. It might provide some overall sense of direction (“the purpose of life is the positive evolution of consciousness”). It does not answer the question “what can I do for the next fifteen minutes that takes me that way?”

Toolbox

An almost opposite approach to “faith” is “toolbox.” “Faith” is belief without method; “toolbox” is methods without belief. A toolbox provides various methods that take you in different directions.

Nowadays, many people take a toolbox approach to spirituality. They learn techniques from many different systems and apply them as they seem useful. Some quasi-spiritual systems—human potential seminars, neurolinguistic programming, and workshops rooted in psychotherapeutic ideas—are probably best approached this way.

The toolbox approach can show you where to put your foot next—it includes methods that produce local movement. What it does not provide is an overall sense of direction.

A toolbox is smaller than you are. It becomes a part of you. Religion is mainly about relating to things bigger than you are. You become a part of a religion.

Buddhism does provide a toolbox. (Its Nyingma branch, to which I belong, provides an unusually, overwhelmingly vast smorgasbord of methods—so large that you actually can’t make it part of you, and you can easily get lost wandering between the buffet tables, if you don’t have guidance.)

But Buddhism also provides a worldview for direction, social structures for guidance, and a tradition that may give some confidence. Together, those add up to a path.

Tradition

Most people inherit their religion from their parents or ethnic group. They see no reason to switch. That may be inertia, or the legacy may be a positive reason to stick with the religion.

This is usual for Buddhists in Asia. It has been rare in the West, because Buddhism isn’t traditional here.

However, it is increasingly an issue for second-generation Western Buddhists, who have to ask whether they want to keep the religion of their parents.

The most interesting answer is “Buddhism, yes, but not my parents’ Buddhism.” That answer is starting to lead to new approaches, which may be valuable in current cultural conditions.

Off the path

The last page explained what spiritual paths are good for, a little about how to choose one, and the value of trekking clubs and guides—that is, a religious community and teachers. This page is about the costs, risks, and benefits of going off-path.

“Following your own path”

I have often heard people say things like “I don’t want to join a group—I am following my own path.” If you think for a moment, this makes no sense. You cannot follow your own path. If you are on a unique path, you will always be at the front of it. If you want to go further, you will have to extend the path yourself, not follow one that already exists.

There are three things “following your own path” might actually mean. The first is that you are wandering in the wilderness, off of any path. This is fine—I do it myself sometimes, both literally and metaphorically—but it has costs and risks. It’s important not to think of this as “following a path.” Doing so blinds you to the advantages paths provide when you do choose to follow one.

The second possibility is that you are blazing a trail, building a new path for other people where there has not been one before. This is also not “following” a path. It could be hugely useful, but it rarely seems to be what people mean when they talk about “following their own path.”

In practice, what they almost always mean is “aimlessly jumping from one path to another, taking only a few steps on each one.” They mean “doing a bit of this and a bit of that, depending on what looks attractive at the moment.” This doesn’t take you far enough along any path to be useful, and also doesn’t take you into genuinely unexplored territory. Without a specific direction, you are unlikely ever to get far from your starting point.

People who “follow their own path” are frequently excited about their latest approach: last week quantum aura balancing, this week holistic aromatherapy. But ten years later they are dealing with the same emotional problems in the same ways, and their lives don’t look different. They haven’t followed a path; they have been milling around in the paved parking area at the bottom of the mountain, reading the sign posts that point to the different trails that lead up.

It is helpful to learn a little about many systems, and give several a try, when you are first investigating spiritual matters. At some point, you have to go far enough in a single direction to bring about real change. If a path has any value, following it for a few years will make the world, and your life, seem significantly different. And this change will be stable—not the excitement of the week.

Bushwhacking

A path is not a tunnel. It is possible to head off it at almost any point. In the wilderness, there is no one to tell you not to. You can go wherever you want. Hikers call that “bushwhacking.” Bushwhacking can be the only way to reach some remarkable scenery. It can provide a sense of freedom and exhilarating solitude. It is a way of testing your own skill and determination. Bushwhacking is not wrong, but it has implications you need to know about.

Walking on a path is usually much faster than bushwhacking. If you want to get somewhere, and there is a path that goes there, bushwhacking makes no sense. I think this is true in the spiritual realm as well. You can move much quicker with established methods, teachers, and a supportive social group than you can on your own. The main question is whether their path leads in the direction you want to go.

The most common reason to bushwhack is that no path that leads where you want to go—or the available path seems obviously bad. This applies in the spiritual realm as well.

Bushwhacking is risky and uncertain. Off-trail, the ground is rougher, and you are more likely to break a leg sliding off a rock. If you are injured on a path, someone is likely to come along within a few hours and help. If you are injured off-path, you may die before anyone finds you. There are real risks in the religious realm as well. If you are following a path, help is available when you get into trouble.

When bushwhacking, it often turns out that your improvised route can’t go where you wanted. You hit a cliff, river, swamp, or dense thicket. Then you have to double back and try an alternate route. I have often spent a day in the wilderness trying to reach a particular peak or high lake, eventually giving up. Religious exploration off-path is also likely to bog down and get you nowhere. You thought you could see a spiritual destination—but the obstacles are insurmountable.

It rarely makes sense to drive to the mountains, get out of your car, and start bushwhacking immediately. Almost always, you will want to go a few miles at least along a path to cover ground quickly, before starting off-trail. The area near where you parked is likely to be boring and well-explored. Spiritual bushwhacking, too, usually only makes sense when you have followed a path far enough that untracked territory lies nearby.

There are places where stepping off the path is suicidal—for instance where it is a narrow ledge on a cliff-face. There is religious terrain in which deviating from the path is also suicidal (in religious terms at least, and possibly literally as well). In some Tibetan traditions, following the path of Tantra is likened to a snake entering a bamboo tube. Snakes cannot wriggle backward (apparently), so they cannot back out. The only possibility, once their head is in the tube, is to go all the way through.

On the path

Wilderness adventure

Buddhism and other spiritual systems often speak of a “path.” This metaphor is usually used briefly and vaguely. Considering walking paths in detail provides insight into spiritual paths, and why you might choose to follow one.

Spiritual paths are not much like the paths in a garden or city park. Instead, I want to compare them with hiking trails in remote, rugged mountains. The terrain of religious experience can sometimes be uncertain, difficult, or even dangerous, making this an apt analogy. (It is also a metaphor I enjoy because I live in mountains and spend a lot of time walking in rough places.)

I will explain what paths are good for, how to choose a path, and the value of trekking clubs and guides—that is, a religious community and teachers. On the next page, I will talk about the costs, risks, and benefits of going off-path.

Walking on the shoulders of giants

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
—Isaac Newton

A path allows you to borrow the insight and hard work of many people. Getting about in untracked terrain is slow, risky, and uncertain. Following a path is faster, safer, and more predictable.

Sometimes a wilderness path is nothing more than a series of cairns (piles of rocks) or blazes on trees (bright paint spots a few inches around, six or so feet up the trunk). Those mark the way. They are set close enough that you can just see the next one from each—perhaps one every thirty feet. Even when there is no visible path on the ground, simply knowing which direction you should be heading lets you walk a lot faster. You don’t have to keep stopping to look about and wonder if you are lost, or which is the easiest and safest way to cross the mountainside.

A spiritual path, similarly, has a sequence of way-points that let you know you are going in the direction the path-makers have worked out. To count as a path, a spiritual system has to have stages or a defined curriculum. First you do this, then you do that; and there is some way of knowing whether you have accomplished each stage.

Usually a walking trail is visible on the ground, because the path-makers have cleared the way. They have removed boulders and fallen trees. They’ve cleared away loose stones and roots. They’ve leveled out the bumps. This too speeds your way.

A well-maintained spiritual path also clears away many small obstacles. Usually this takes the form of rules-of-thumb antidotes to specific problems you may encounter on the way. (Plug: the free Aro meditation course has a lot of down-to-earth advice of this sort: how to deal with back pain, sleepiness, dry mouth, and stupid songs playing over and over in your head.)

Knowing where you are going, and a smooth path, both make walking safer. A hiking trail avoids, or clearly marks, cliffs and thorny or poisonous plants. It bridges streams that would be treacherous to ford. You are much less likely to twist an ankle walking on a level path than over a mountainside covered in loose stones.

A path always takes you somewhere; and it is in a direction the people who made it thought useful. That makes walking on a path much more predictable than walking off-trail. As long as there is a path stretching out ahead of you, you can be certain that people have gone that way before, and further progress is possible.

Of course, the path may not take you where you want to get to. (More about that in a minute.) But as you follow it, you can keep checking that it is still heading in roughly the direction you want to go. In the worst case, you will have made progress in that direction. If the path runs out or turns off some other way, you can continue off-path or find an alternate route.

Choosing a path

I choose hiking trails carefully. I have many books that describe the various paths in particular areas.

There are three questions you should ask:

1. Does the path take you somewhere you want to go?
2. Can it actually get you there?
3. Do you have the strength and skills to follow it?

People have different tastes in paths. Some people like walking in forest; I prefer an open landscape. Some people choose paths to lakes; I would rather get to a peak.

I don’t like God

Some spiritual paths are supposed to get you close to God. I don’t like God, and want to stay as far away from him as I can. Some spiritual paths make you holy and serene. I would rather get sweaty and ecstatic.

Some paths do not go where they are advertised to. If they are not regularly traveled, trails vanish. It may be impossible to see where one once was. Or, they may become impassable, due to overgrowth with thicket, landslides, or flooding. It is rare nowadays for a path never to have led where it was claimed to, but that was once more common.

the path to cannibalism

The famously disastrous Donner emigrant expedition was misled by entrepreneurs who sold them an new, supposedly faster route to California. The inventors of this trail stood to profit from traffic, but had not actually traversed their supposed path. In fact, the “shortcut” was a fantasy and virtually impassable. The emigrants were trapped in snowy mountains for the winter. Half the party starved to death, and the others resorted to cannibalism.

I suspect many spiritual paths do not go where their promoters claim. I’ll have more to say about that on a later page.

Some trails are more difficult than others, and you have to know what you are capable of. How many miles can you walk in a day? How steep a slope are you comfortable on? Some paths require special skills and equipment, if they cross difficult terrain.

Some spiritual paths are also tougher than others, and some require particular skills. The strength and skill may be physical (as in yoga), or intellectual (as in the more philosophical forms of Buddhism), or ethical (as in wrathful Tantra).

Clubs and guides

Almost everyone can walk; but walking in rough, remote terrain is a skill. You need to learn how to read a topographic map, the trick of glissading on scree, treatments for common foot injuries, methods for crossing unbridged streams, the self-arrest position that stops you sliding down a steep snowfield, and how to stash food overnight so bears can’t get it.

You can read all that in a book; but in practice walkers learn from other walkers. You can learn the basics from friends who have spent some time in the wilderness. To learn more advanced techniques, though, it’s advisable or even imperative to get instruction from actual experts. Walking clubs usually sponsor talks or guided walks led by such people. Walking clubs here are analogous to religious communities, whose experts are the ordained teachers of the religion.

I am confident on most walkable terrain, but there are exceptions. For example, I don’t walk on glaciers without a professional guide. I don’t have the specialized skills to do that safely. Glacier walking is likely to be fatal if you don’t know what you are doing.

The main value of a guide is not that he or she knows a specific path across the glacier; those keep shifting as the ice melts and slides. The guide knows the methods for glacier walking, and can make sure that you are following them correctly.

Analogously, most spiritual practice is reasonably safe, and if you don’t know what you are doing, the worst outcome is wasted time. But there are religious regions that are actively dangerous (though also worth entering). For instance, any area where religion intersects power is tricky. To walk such terrain without the guidance of a full-time professional—a Lama, for instance—courts disaster.

How I approached Aro

This web site is about “approaching” religious traditions. That is the gradual process of learning about different lineages—and about oneself—to eventually find a spiritual “home.”

This page tells how I came to the Aro lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. My story is neither typical nor atypical. Everyone comes to a religious tradition in their own way. There are some themes and phases that most people experience. It is useful to know about these, and my story includes them. I will write more about those themes on the next few pages.

Approaching spirituality

I had religious experiences starting early in childhood. However, I was raised in a non-religious family, so I had no way of making sense of them. These experiences seemed important, but were not something one could talk about. Instead, I looked for books that had something to say about religious experience. I read about Eastern religions, and a great variety of non-mainstream spiritual paths. I started practicing a muddled meditation partly based on books and partly made up as I went along.

the sacredness of all phenomena

Neopaganism provided my first meaningful experience of organized religion. It had much to offer. It had inspiring ritual practices, group and solo. It celebrated the divinity of all sentient beings and the sacredness of all phenomena. It taught oneness with nature. It upheld the central importance of the feminine. It used romantic love and sex as routes to enlightenment. It provided a religious community and had very little dogma. All these remain important to me. They are on my “must have” list for a spiritual path.

What I could not find in Neopaganism was serious teachers. No one seemed much ahead of me. After a couple of years, I was leading large group rituals. People were looking to me for spiritual teaching. I had enough sense to realize that I was a confused twenty-five-year-old with no spiritual insight whatsoever. If people were looking to me for guidance something was badly wrong. I left.

Over the next few years, I learned a lot from a wide variety of spiritual paths and organizations. Each offered practices and teachings found valuable. Each also had pieces missing, or things I strongly disliked. It was always clear that none of these was “home.”

Shambhala Training

no way could I be a Buddhist

Meditation continued to be important to me. To go further, it seemed I would need to approach Buddhism. That was a problem. From books, parts of Buddhism seemed very right. Unfortunately, other parts seemed quite wrong. Most of it seemed just irrelevant and boring. No way could I be a Buddhist.

Then I discovered Shambhala Training. It was a system of meditation classes developed by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. He described it as “secular,” meaning that it was not part of Buddhism or any other religion. (Later it was converted into Buddhism by others, however.)

rigorous, detailed meditation instructions

Shambhala was exactly what I needed at the time. It provided rigorous, detailed meditation instructions. Those greatly deepened and strengthened my sloppy daily practice. And Shambhala gave me a great blessing: the opportunity to work one-on-one with a skilled and inspiring meditation teacher. (The Aro Members program did not exist then. It provides similar training, and does not require that you be a Buddhist.)

What I found missing in Shambhala was detailed conceptual explanation. That might be more important to me than to some others. I find I need to balance meditation with reading and understanding. So as I progressed with Shambhala I read more and more Buddhist books and attended more and more Buddhist teachings.

Looking for a lama

There were parts of Buddhism that had seemed wrong. In my reading, I sometimes discovered alternate interpretations that made sense. These came mainly from Dzogchen texts. (A later page explains why Dzogchen appeals to me so much.) However, you really cannot learn Dzogchen from books. As I approached the end of the Shambhala Training curriculum, it seemed that to go further I would need to find a Tibetan Buddhist lama. I was quite reluctant to do that. (I will explain the reasons later.) Still, meditation was important enough to me that I had to persist.

Over a year or two, I attended talks, classes, and retreats with about twenty different lamas. I was lucky to live in a place where many famous ones taught often.

no generic lamas

I discovered that lamas are all quite different. There is no such thing as a generic high-quality lama. Each lama appealed hugely to a particular audience and might leave others bored or annoyed.

• Most bored me. They did not seem to have anything to say. I could learn more, quicker, by reading a book.
• One lama insulted her audience. I did not think she was a good person, never mind a good lama.
• A few were exceptional teachers in the same style as my best university professors. They led a group through a complex intellectual subject clearly and precisely. I respect this greatly, but it was not what I was looking for.
• Chögyal Namkha’i Norbu Rinpoche inspired me hugely. He teaches authentic Dzogchen. (I was learning that this is hard to find.) It was obvious that he teaches from personal realization, not from book learning. He is funny and deadly serious and compassionate and unattached and wild and sane. I attended two retreats with him. There was one hitch. He has thousands of students. It was not realistic to hope to receive detailed one-on-one instruction from him.

After that, I actually gave up. What I wanted did not seem to be available.

Approaching Aro

Then accidentally I read that some lama was teaching on vajra romance at the local Shambhala center. Although I was no longer looking for a lama, I was curious. “Vajra romance” seemed such an odd thing for a Tibetan to talk about. I had to check it out.

electric, eccentric, hilarious

The lama—Ngak’chang Rinpoche—wasn’t Tibetan. He was English. He taught on Dzogchen men-ngak-dé. This was just what I wanted to learn—but hardly anyone would discuss. And he was electric, charmingly eccentric, and very funny.

I still had reservations about Buddhism. So I was not in a hurry to apply to become his student. However, I went to all Rinpoche’s classes and retreats over the next eighteen months. And I read practically every page on the Aro web site. (It was not so gigantic then!)

I started attending the local weekly Aro practice group. I found I really liked the sangha (community). They were dedicated meditators. They were kind and open to me as an outsider. They were funny. They didn’t make a fuss about being “serious Buddhists” and holier-than-thou.

Then I had a private conversation with Ngak’chang Rinpoche in which I explained my reservations about becoming officially Buddhist, and my mixed feelings about becoming an Aro apprentice. He clarified for me several points about what it means to be a Buddhist. That was very helpful. He recommended that I spend at least the next six months thinking more about whether I wanted to become an apprentice, and also that I talk with current apprentices about their experiences of apprenticeship.

Six months later I applied for apprenticeship and was accepted.

as sure as the color of my socks

At my first apprentice retreat, I took Refuge as a Buddhist. I had been resisting that for years. But the reality was that this was simply a public statement of what had long ago become true. I was confident that the basic principles of Buddhism are accurate. As confident as I am of the law of gravity or the color of my socks. And I was confident that this confidence would never change.

Mixed feelings

Everyone, when approaching a spiritual tradition, feels a mixture of attraction and repulsion. We feel a pull toward it at the same time we experience resistance and doubt. Every religious system seems to have delightful aspects and irritating ones.

It is important to allow this ambiguity. However, mixed feelings are uncomfortable. We would rather know: is this tradition the right one or not? So it is tempting to jump to a definite conclusion. But to really discover whether there is a good fit takes months or years of investigation. So any quick judgment is likely to be wrong. On the one hand, giving up at the first signs of trouble risks abandoning a system that could work, with more effort and understanding. This results in wandering from one spiritual group to another, always frustrated that none is quite right. On the other hand, suppressing feelings of doubt risks wasting time with a system that isn’t right in the long run. And it is likely to cause emotional upset when the bad fit can no longer be ignored.

In Buddhism, there is a deeper point: ambiguity is an essential aspect of experience. Learning to accept ambiguity is a key Buddhist practice.

Approach gradually

Every religious group has some series of stages that allow increasing involvement as your interest and understanding deepens. (For the Aro lineage to which I belong, these are described as “phases.”)

It is important to move from one stage to the next only when you are ready. Mixed feelings are inevitable at every stage—but each requires a greater level of confidence. Or, put another way, the feeling of repulsion needs to be less at each stage.

It is tempting to “bull our way through” feelings that things about the lineage are not right for us.

• We like the feeling of attraction and dislike the repulsion. We hope we can get rid of the bad feeling by pretending it isn’t there, or shoving it away.
• We want the teachers and students of the tradition to accept and like us. We worry that expressing our doubts will make us unattractive to them.
• Finding a tradition that is a good fit can be time-consuming, hard work, and anxiety-provoking. It is almost like searching for a spouse. We want to believe that we have succeeded.

But this risks harm not only to ourselves, but also to the group we approach. They may invest considerable time and emotional resources in a new student who appears unusually enthusiastic. If the student suddenly leaves upon finding that they can no longer deny their frustrations and fears, it can be wrenching for everyone involved. Students who try to go too far, too fast are likely to become hostile and leave with bad feelings when they finally acknowledge that the group is not exactly what they wanted.

discuss mixed feelings with members of the tradition

It is important to discuss mixed feelings with members of the tradition—lamas, other teachers, and longer-term students—as you approach. They should understand and accept that mixed feelings are inevitable, and not inherently a problem. (I would call it a big red flag if a group did not recognize this, and had an attitude of “accept everything immediately or go away.”)

This conversation needs to start in a respectful and open way. Suppose you say “I like some things about your system, but practice X is obviously wrong.” The only possible reply to this is “I’m sorry you feel that way—but as you know, we do practice X, so maybe you will be happier elsewhere.” Keep in mind that, in Buddhism, we are not searching for the one sect that has the truth but for a tradition that is a good fit personally.

A better approach is “I like some things about your system, but I am bothered about X, because it conflicts with Y. Am I missing something?” Useful replies to this may be: “Yes, it appears to conflict with Y, but actually it doesn’t, because . . .” or “Yes, it conflicts with Y, but Y may not be essential, for this reason” or “Yes, it conflicts with Y, but that isn’t a problem, because we only do X when Y doesn’t apply.” After discussion of this sort, you may realize that X truly won’t work for you, so it would be better to look for another tradition. Or, you may realize that X is not really a problem for you after all.

A discussion of this sort also leads naturally into discussion of the nature of attraction and repulsion, and of ambiguous feelings in general. These are central themes for Buddhism. Discussing specific mixed feelings can be a springboard for profound teachings on the essence of Buddhist view and practice.

Opinions and curiosity

Not-knowing is uncomfortable because it is a kind of emptiness. We try to fill that emptiness by jumping to conclusions. Once we have an opinion, we don’t need to wonder any longer—the matter is closed.

I offended someone recently by admitting that I can't remember which Karmapa is which, and have no opinion about which one is real. I think she was disappointed that we could not establish rapport by violently agreeing about them. She also felt that anyone who cared about Tibetan Buddhism ought to know all about the Karmapa controversy, and to oppose the fraudulent one. Only some “very dubious” Lamas, and their deluded followers, support him, she said. But since the Karmapas do not affect me in any way, I see no reason to oppose either.

Many people feel that they have the right (or even the duty) to “take sides” and express intense opinions about things they are ignorant of. Internet Buddhist forums are full of this. People who clearly know nothing about some lineage feel compelled to express their opinion that it is the cult from hell.

I sometimes read the “yes he is / no he isn’t” arguments about Lama X on a web forum—and my opinion is that I don’t need an opinion. If I am curious enough about Lama X, I read something he or she has written. If I like that, I go to see him or her. Then I may form an opinion—but often not even then. Coming to a meaningful, informed opinion might take a lot of work. There is no need for one unless I am deciding whether to become a student. Otherwise, all that matters is curiosity—or lack of it.

we fill the emptiness of not-knowing with cynicism and blind faith

Fear of the emptiness of not-knowing gives rise to cynicism and blind faith. Although these seem like opposites, they are really the same thing. They are personal rigidity, as a defense against uncertainty. Both are dysfunctional. They cut us off from ambiguous situations.

Non-dual vision—rigpa—enlightenment—is the essence of ambiguity. It is the goal of the Buddhist path. To approach rigpa, we gradually abandon “reference points.” Those are our fixed ideas about ourselves, about others, and about the relationship between self and other.

Curiosity is allowing ourselves to be open to ambiguity. It is enjoying the mixture of form and emptiness: knowing and not-knowing. It means actively seeking uncertainty. It is inviting things to be as they are, and dancing with them. In curiosity, we soften our boundaries, to allow wonderment.

Buddhism in the West

Through its history, Buddhism has traveled from country to country. Each time, some aspects of it have changed to suit the new culture.

Every Buddhist teacher, wherever they were born, now agrees that some aspects of Buddhism will change in the West. However, there are sharp disagreements about what should change, and about how to decide.

The position a Buddhist group takes on this question is one of the most important aspects of “fit”—that is, whether the group will work well for you personally. So I think it is important to understand the spectrum of options. For those interested in approaching the Aro lineage, it is important to know where Aro is placed on that spectrum.

There are two ends of the spectrum. At one end, there is “keep as much as possible of what is done in Asia, because we know that works.” At the other end, there is “keep only what can easily fit into the Western world-view.”

Both of these approaches have much to recommend them. Each is a good fit for some students. However, both also are potentially problematic.

The “take as much as possible” approach may create unnecessary obstacles. There are aspects of Asian Buddhist practice that are inessential. They just reflect Asian secular culture, and cannot function in Western cultures. For Westerners, learning and practicing them is alienating, difficult, and in the end a waste of time.

Also, this approach depends on Buddhism “working” optimally in Asia. I am not convinced of that. Buddhism “working” means that it produces personal spiritual progress—ultimately, full enlightenment. Much supposedly Buddhist practice in Asia does not even attempt that. It serves practical, political, social, and entertainment purposes, not religious ones.

The “take as little as possible” approach risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Some fundamental principles of Buddhism conflict with some fundamental principles of the Western world-view. Without its fundamental principles, Buddhism may be reduced to a technique used in psychotherapy or progressive politics. It might be useful there. But this loses the radical transformative possibilities that Buddhism offers. To realize those possibilities, we have to be willing to give up our unquestioned allegiance to some Western values.

So, for me, the best fit is to be found in a “middle way” between these extremes. My guess is that some middle position will be the most useful for most students of Buddhism. Many Buddhist teachers agree. Most Buddhist groups in the West are to be found at some point along the way between traditionalism and assimilation. The Aro lineage, to which I belong, is an example.

Being in the middle can be uncomfortable. You may get flak from both sides.

Traditionalists may call you “inauthentic.” They may say that your group is no good because it doesn’t teach some practice they think is critical. And that you are not really a Buddhist at all, because you do things somewhat differently than they are done in Japan or Thailand or Tibet.

If you are in the middle, Westernizers may make fun of you for adopting some Asian principles and customs. “Why should Westerners pretend to be Asian?” They say that ordained Western monks and tantrikas are “playing dress-up” when they wear traditional robes. They think it is silly to play Asian musical instruments in religious ceremonies. They may find Buddhist concepts of teacher-student relationships uncomfortably authoritarian. They may say that your Buddhist ideas about negative emotions conflict with principles of psychotherapy and so are unacceptable.

I have a “live and let live” attitude toward ideological conflicts in Buddhism. I think all approaches are valuable for some students. I am not interested in arguing about which is “right” or “best.” That means that I can politely ignore rude comments about my lineage being too traditional or too Western. I guess I do have an opinion about this, though. My opinion is that it would be better if everyone did their own thing, and let other Western Buddhists get on with theirs.

Learning from other traditions

Reading in other traditions

I find it important to keep a balance between meditating and reading Buddhist books. There are times when I am greedy for one or the other. Then I either practice for hours a day, or gobble down every book on Madhyamaka I can find. But it works best when I both read and meditate. Books supply both understanding and inspiration. Without clear understanding of a practice, it’s possible to miss the point. Hard work with the wrong approach goes nowhere. On the other hand, intellectual understanding of a practice without thorough experience like reading the menu without eating the meal.

For Aro students, the books of our own lineage are the most important. But they are still few, and they can cover only a fraction of the ocean of Dharma. All Aro students read widely in other traditions as well. The recommended books page on our public web site includes authors from three of the four major Tibetan Buddhist Schools, plus Zen and Bön. These books are excellent starting points for anyone interested in Vajrayana Buddhism, and especially Aro Friends, Members, and anyone attending our weekend public retreats.

Not only do these cover topics for which Aro books are not yet available, they describe the same material from a different perspective. Aro recommends Lama Yeshe’s Introduction to Tantra, and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, even though they say much the same things about many of the same topics as Ngakpa Chögyam’s Wearing the Body of Visions. It is valuable to read all three because they provide (respectively) Geluk, Kagyüd, and Nyingma perspectives. Each also shows its author’s intense, brilliant, and utterly unique personality display. Each one deepens the understanding provided by the other two. (It is only by coincidence that the Sakya School is not represented on our public reading list; it is included in the list of books recommended for Aro apprentices.)

Classes and retreats in other traditions

For more committed students, such as Aro apprentices, receiving intensive teaching individually and in small-group situations is even more important than study. We attend retreats with our Lamas for most of a week, twice a year. That takes a substantial fraction of time off work for many of us, and it is often not practical to attend any other teachings.

However, classes and retreats with teachers of other traditions can again provide a useful alternate perspectives. The Aro Lamas recommend that their apprentices check with them before receiving such teachings, to clarify in advance possible confusions about apparent yana conflicts. From point of view of Dzogchen, all Buddhist teachings are equally valid; yet they may appear to contradict each other. Once a student has a sufficient grasp of principles and functions, truth and methods, this is no longer a potential problem.

Last week (early May 2008), I attended a retreat with Traga Rinpoche organized by the Drikung Dzogchen Community of Vermont. Traga Rinpoche is a master of the Yangzab Dzogchen lineage of the Drikung Kagyüd. I had been curious for some time about these teachings, because the Drikung Kagyüd are the closest “cousin” tradition to the Nyingma. I found descriptions of their presentation of Dzogchen intriguingly different from and similar to the Nyingma presentations I was familiar with from experience with Chögyal Namkha’i Norbu Rinpoche and with Aro. My Lamas encouraged me to attend a retreat with him to learn more. Although I found the intellectual content familiar, it was inspiring to see the different style of presentation. I will carry that inspiration into the “open retreat” I have planned for the rest of this month.

On quite a different note, for months now I have been attempting to attend classes or retreat with Brad Warner, an unusual Zen master whose blogs I admire. His Soto perspective is quite different from the Nyingma one. Yet, at a deeper level, the two schools seem to point in the same direction. He always manages to be where I am not; but I will catch up with him eventually.

Truth and methods

Buddhism is not big on Truth.

The major value of many Western religions is that they are The Truth. That is why, it is said, you should practice those religions. In many cases, believing in The Truth is the primary form of practice. So long as you believe, God will save you.

Buddhism is an non-theistic religion. If you want to be saved, you have to do it yourself.

For this reason, Buddhism is pragmatic. It is a religion of methods, not of Truth. The methods are ways of approaching enlightenment.

(That is not to say that Buddhism endorses falsehood. One of the Five Precepts—the basic Buddhism ethics—is to tell the truth, rather than lies. But, as usually understood, this concerns primarily everyday truths and lies, not big religious Truths.)

there is only one Truth: non-duality

For Buddhism, there is, actually, only one big-T Truth: the non-duality of form and emptiness.

Any other religious statement is useful only if it helps on the path. That means that they are themselves methods. They are pragmatic approximations.

For any task, there may be many alternative methods. If you have a five-and-an-eighth inch-wide board, and you want a five-inch-wide one, you have several choices. You could use a band saw to cut off the extra eighth-inch. You could use a jack plane. You could use a power sander.

These methods have different characteristics, so they may work better or worse depending on the specifics of the board and what you are trying to accomplish. The band saw is fastest, but it will leave a ragged edge. It’s also dangerous unless you know exactly what you are doing. Using a sander will be slow if the board is thick, but might be quick enough if it is thin. It will leave a smooth edge, but it may be hard to judge the five-inch mark unless you pay close attention.

Often it is best to combine methods. You might take off a bit less than a eighth-inch with a jack plane, and finish the job with the sander, to get a smooth edge.

Methods differ, and it is often impossible to apply more than one at a time, because they have contradictory requirements. Attempting to use the band saw and jack plane simultaneously would be disastrous. They are incompatible, but they do not inherently conflict. The band saw is not right or wrong; the plane is not right or wrong.

What is important is to know when to apply which method.

Buddhism contains innumerable methods. All are valuable, in particular situations. None is right or wrong. Methods cannot contradict. However, they have contradictory requirements. For example, one usually cannot apply methods of Sutra and Tantra simultaneously.

religious statements are not True; they are useful

Buddhism regards religious statements as methods. They are not eternally True. They are approximations to reality that are useful to act on in particular circumstances.

When methods are misunderstood as potential Truths, their seeming contradictions become a problem.

As a slightly silly example, according to Kriya Tantra, onions are religiously impure, and one must never eat them. From point of view of other Buddhist yanas, onions have no religious significance. “Onions are impure—never eat them!” and “Onions are fine—enjoy them!” are superficially contradictory. But both of these statements are pragmatically useful methods. When practicing Kriya Tantra, there are excellent reasons not to eat onions. When practicing Inner Tantra, there are excellent reasons to eat them.

“So, are onions really impure, or not?!” That is not a useful question. Kriyta Tantra and Inner Tantra are like the jack plane and band saw. Both are useful, but you use them differently, and apply different safety precautions. This can be hard to grasp at first when one is familiar only with religions of Truth.

Absolute and relative truth

This explanation of truth and methods is the view of Dzogchen. Dzogchen means “utter completeness” in Tibetan. Dzogchen is the most inclusive of Buddhist approaches. It includes all other forms of Buddhism, as methods, that can be applied when useful.

Each Buddhist yana has its own, distinctive account of truth.

You might be familiar with the account from Sutra, in terms of absolute and relative truth. According to Sutra, the only absolute truth is emptiness. All other truths are relative.

This is absolutely correct. However, it can be misunderstood. The tendency is to equate “the relative truth” with the common-sense consensus view of the world, and to see the absolute truth as something abstract and incomprehensible that is accessible only to Buddhas. This leaves the everyday view of the world completely intact in practice. The truth of emptiness is acknowledged as a holy theory, but may have no effect on one’s view of everyday reality.

The Dzogchen explanation makes it clear that there is not one relative truth, but many, which superficially conflict. Having adopted that explanation, we cannot continue with business as usual. We learn to see the world in many different ways. That breaks up our ordinary way of operating.

Principles and functions

I find emphasis on principles and functions to be the most distinctive aspect of Aro teaching. Different teachers and lineages have different styles. Explanation in terms of “principle and function” is key to the Aro style.

Buddhism is a religion of innumerable methods, which are often incompatible with each other. Different methods are useful in different situations. Buddhists collect a “bag of tricks,” or “toolkit,” of religious practices that we can use when appropriate.

To use the kit effectively, we must pick the right tool for each job. Each practice has its own function, and should be used when that is the function that is needed. The function is the “how and why” of the practice.

Functions can be understood in terms of base, path, and result. The base is the kind of situation in which the practice is useful. (Most practices have prerequisites of various sorts.) The path is the practice itself: what we do in the situation. It leads to its result. Only when we want its particular result does it make sense to apply a practice.

all Buddhist practices follow from simple principles

Each practice, with its function, follows from a broad principle. Principles are the simple, core themes, or fundamental logic, of Buddhism. Principles explain how and why Buddhism works.

The various principles of Buddhism are frequently incompatible. Generally, one can combine practices that share a principle. Simultaneously applying practices whose principles differ is liable to have an unsatisfactory result—because they are pointing in fundamentally different directions.

For example, the fundamental principle of Sutra is renunciation. When practicing Sutra, one may adopt the practice of abstaining from sensual enjoyments. But enjoyment is a fundamental principle of Tantra. One revels in the delight of consumption. It is not possible to apply both these practices simultaneously—but a single practitioner may frequently switch between them, based on a clear understanding of which will be beneficial in particular cases.

We do not have to swear exclusive allegiance to particular principles, yanas, or practices. They are all valid and valuable. We only have to choose which to apply when.

I never stopped asking annoying “why” questions

I was the kind of kid who never stopped asking annoying “why?” questions. And I was lousy at learning facts by rote in school. I had to understand how the facts fit together in order to remember them. Unless a method made sense, I couldn’t use it to save my life. When taught a skill without explanation, I would complain “but it doesn’t get you anywhere!”

I haven’t grown out of this—and that is a large part of why I am an Aro apprentice.

My Lamas constantly refer back to principles when explaining the functions of practices. Once you understand a dozen or so fundamental principles, pretty nearly all of Buddhism makes sense.

And that is why I am a Buddhist. The details of Buddhism follow straightforwardly from the principles. If you accept that the principles are sensible—which I do—then there are no contradictions, and nothing you have to believe just because.

Teaching principles is uncommon

Unfortunately, teaching in this way is surprisingly uncommon. In the modern Aro lineage, it comes from Kyabjé Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche, pictured above. Ngak’chang Rinpoche (the Aro lineage holder) was sent to him by Kyabjé Dudjom Rinpoche to learn Dzogchen. Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche accepted him as a student only after weeks of quizzing about principles and functions.

Too often, the understanding of principles and functions is absent.

When Buddhist principles are lost, Buddhism reduces to a jumbled collection of arbitrary beliefs. There is no rhyme or reason; no real explanations. Buddhism becomes a mass of holy mysteries to be learned by rote and venerated without understanding.

When understanding of functions is lost, Buddhist practices reduce to an arbitrary morality of “thou shalts.” Without a clear presentation of base, path, and fruit, their only justifications are “because Buddha said so.”

Visionary truth, objective truth

The seeming conflict between the Tibetan visionary concept of truth, and the Western objective concept, causes upset and confusion. This is due to mistakenly believing that we have to choose one or the other.

I have explained that each Buddhist yana (approach) has its own concept of truth. For Tantra, “ordinary appearances” are illusions. They are a mistake. “Pure appearances” are real. Ordinary appearances are produced by deluded, ordinary vision. Pure appearances are produced by pure vision. Pure vision reveals that all beings are actually Buddhas with bodies of light; that our surroundings are actually a paradise of crystal palaces and luxuriant gardens; that all sounds are actually mantras, all tastes divine nectar, all smells sublime perfume; and so on. In pure vision, miracles occur constantly. We can walk through stone walls, communicate by telepathy, and see accurately events in the past, in the future, and at great distances.

As a method of Tantra, one actively rejects ordinary appearances, and works to replace ordinary vision with pure vision.

This visionary, Tantric worldview pervades Tibetan culture. For instance, according to Tantric geography, the earth is flat and has five continents arranged in a cross. Tibet and surrounding areas are on the southernmost continent. Grasping this visionary truth is necessary for certain Tantric practices. Confusing it with objective truth could be an obstacle to world travel.

Some Western Buddhists become “true believers.” They are Vajrayana scriptural fundamentalists. Every word in the book is literally true. They argue that the world really is flat. Applied wholeheartedly, this could dramatically accelerate your progress in Tantra. It could also make you stupid and crazy. And, it leads to conflicts between sects, because various Tantras give quite different visionary descriptions. There is no single visionary truth. There are many.

Some Western Buddhists reject anything that seems to conflict with Western common sense. Buddhism, they say, is a religion of rationality, not superstition. I agree with that: Buddhism is perfectly logical, and ought not to conflict with the Western scientific understanding in any way. However, confusing “scientific understanding” with “common sense” closes off the whole of Vajrayana. Nothing in it is “common sense.” To miss out on Vajrayana, because of a fundamentalist belief in Western consensus reality, is a great pity. It throws away the Tantric baby with the superstitious bath water.

The Dzogchen view includes both the visionary truth and the objective truth. According to Dzogchen, neither is the absolute truth. However, both are valuable as methods. We do not have to choose between them. We do need to know when to use which.

Because they are methods, the visionary and objective worldviews have functions. A main function of Tantric pure vision is to produce “divine pride”—the confidence, based on direct experience, that we are actually Buddhas. A main function of the objective worldview is to support practical activity in the physical world.

Some Lamas quote scripture to prove that demons are the cause of AIDS. Although I have not examined the scriptures myself, I have confidence that they are correct that that is the visionary reality. However, this is a case in which clarity about the difference between visionary and objective truth could be valuable:

Reliable precautions against demons may be less effective against viruses.

The futile quest for certainty

What we want from religion is guarantees.

The mundane world is chaotic, risky, arbitrary and confusing. Efforts that should work fail. The good suffer and wrong-doers prosper. Life does not make sense.

What we want is an assurance that all this is an illusion. We want to hear that the real world, after death or in Nirvana or something, is orderly and consistently meaningful. We want answers—sometimes desperately.

We live in a world in which there are hundreds of religions and other ideologies that claim to have those answers. But, they do not agree with each other.

This just adds to the anxiety and confusion: the domain of religion, too, seems to be chaotic and uncertain. Unless—we hope—we can find the one true path that really does have the answers.

Serious spiritual practice does require committing to a single tradition. This is difficult: how do we know which is the right one? (That question is the essence of this web site.) Initially, many seem plausible, and all seem to have some defect or other. The stakes are high; religion is possibly the most important thing in life. Here, more than anywhere, certainty seems critical.

the kind of answers we want cannot be had, anywhere

Buddhism is unique, as far as I know, in insisting that the kind of answers we want cannot be had, anywhere. Emptiness—inherent uncertainty—is at the heart of Buddhism. For this reason, Buddhism is sometimes described as “The Way of Disappointment.” If we follow it sincerely, Buddhism repeatedly crushes our hope that somehow it will satisfy our longing for answers; for ground we can build on; for reliable order.

When our fantasies that we have found absolute answers are threatened by evidence, we may react by armoring ourselves against our own perception. We may deny the obvious. We may also react by attacking the messenger. Anyone who teaches something that might contradict what we believe must be a heretic, who must be silenced.

When we select a Vajarayana lineage, and commit to a lama, our hope that we have found The Right Answer may be accompanied by lingering fear that some other alternative would have been a better fit.

Throughout the world, the most vicious sectarian conflicts are between religious groups that differ the least. It is easy for Buddhists to be tolerant of Christians, because Christianity poses no threats to one’s identity as a Buddhist. It is just obviously a bad fit. Members of one Buddhist lineage may find the existence of other lineages, even (or perhaps especially) those whose teachings are virtually identical, intolerable—if lineage membership is used as a bulwark against uncertainty. This can lead to self-righteousness, self-justification, and witch-hunts.

we cannot use Buddhism to confirm our selves

If we take emptiness seriously, we must realize that we cannot use Buddhism to confirm our selves. There is never any way to be absolutely sure we have found the right lineage or teacher. We cannot rely on Buddhism to provide absolute certainty about anything other than the non-duality of form and emptiness.

The quandry of uncertainty is at the heart of Dzogchen. Dzogchen teaches us how to live joyfully and effectively in a world that is “empty display”—alternately horrifying and perfect, chaotic and crystalline, alienating and supremely meaningful.

That is why I am an Aro apprentice.

Yanas, contradictions, and understanding

“Yanas” are approaches within Buddhism. Different yanas appear to contradict each other. On this page, I discuss some implications of that.

If you are unfamiliar with the three yanas Sutra, Tantra, and Dzogchen, I would recommend the page “An uncommon perspective” on the Aro web site. (It uses the word “yana” only at the end, but its topic is their differing principles.) For a more extensive explanation, I have found this book exceptionally useful.

“Yana” means “vehicle.” A yana takes you from one place to another, spiritually. Which yana you should use depends on where you are and where you want to go. A submarine is a good way to get from shore to the bottom of the ocean. It is a bad way to get from Denver to Chicago. An airplane would be better. You can use an airplane to get to the bottom of the ocean, but I don’t recommend it.

In the same way, yanas are incompatible. They are all valid, but you can only use one at a time. Each yana has a few fundamental principles, which are entirely different.

When you read a Buddhist book or web page, or hear a Buddhist talk, it is critical to know which yana is acting as the framework of the discussion. A statement based on the principles of one yana often appears false or nonsensical if you try to understand it using the principles of another yana. This leads to serious confusion, or even yana shock.

violently insane . . . spaced-out blather

This is especially true when a student understands Sutra (general Buddhism) but not yet Tantra or Dzogchen. Tantra and Dzogchen each have their own beautiful logic. If you do not understand the logic of Tantra, it is likely to sound violently insane. Almost everything in Tantra is forcefully opposite to Sutra. If you do not understand the logic of Dzogchen, it is likely to sound like the spaced-out blather of a stoned hippie.

In order to understand Vajrayana (Tantra and Dzogchen), it is necessary to understand the relationship between truth and methods in Buddhism. The Buddhist perspective is that the contradictory statements of the various yanas are not a problem, because they are methods, not ultimate truths. It is also necessary to understand the principles that underlie each yana.

why it all makes sense

Aro Lamas frequently explain how specific teachings relate to the principles of particular yanas. This is one of the most distinctive features of the Aro teaching style, in my experience. I have found it enormously helpful in getting to understand how the whole of Buddhism fits together and why it all makes sense.

The Aro Lamas teach all the yanas, but especially concentrate on Dzogchen. (On another page, I explain why this emphasis on Dzogchen is important to me.)

fake, crazy, or evil

Lamas of all traditions generally teach mainly one yana. This can lead to unfortunate hostility between students of different Lamas. If one Lama teaches mainly Sutra, his students may understand mainly only Sutra. If another Lama teaches mainly Tantra, her students may understand mainly only Tantra. When students of the two Lamas meet, they cannot understand each other. Practically everything one of the Lamas said appears to contradict what the other one said. Soon the students may be hurling insults at each other and accusing each others’ Lamas of being fake, crazy, or evil. The Lamas themselves might have complete respect for each other, because they understand the principle that yanas do not actually conflict.

Aro teaches mostly Dzogchen, which is the least widely understood yana. That is one reason some people are confused about it. They do not understand that statements by Aro Lamas are perfectly accurate—as Dzogchen—even though they contradict Sutra or Tantra.

Essential Buddhism

This is worth pondering because:

1. It clarifies what you think is most important in Buddhism. There is far more Buddhism to learn than anyone ever could, so we have to pick. In the West, most of us have relatively little time to practice and must concentrate on essentials.
2. Buddhism moving from Asia to the West is similar: unnecessary details just have to be dropped. Much of what worked in Tibet or Japan seems not to function in Finland and America. However, there is little agreement on what is cultural baggage and what is essential to preserve.
3. I believe that Buddhism, world-wide, may be facing a catastrophe comparable to global nuclear war.

“Essential” can mean “unchanging, defining qualities,” or just “most important.” Buddhism teaches us to be skeptical of essences and definitions. Buddhism, like everything else, is empty; it has no defining characteristics. There is probably nothing that all Buddhists could agree on.

So I mean “essential Buddhism” in the sense of “Don’t leave home without it.” Different Buddhists would give entirely different answers as to what in Buddhism is most important—what is worth saving in an end-of-the-world scenario.

The Aro answer is that the fundamental principles and functions are the essential core of Buddhism. The reason is that, when those are understood, everything else makes sense. Without an understanding of principles and functions, Buddhist concepts become meaningless phrases. Buddhist practices become empty rituals.

Put another way, in a catastrophic scenario, a new Buddhism could probably be reconstructed from just the essential principles and functions. Here is an example. In Tibet, there are thousands of yidams (“awareness-beings”). Yidam practice is one of the most important in Buddhist Tantra. Over the course of Tibetan history, many yidams have been lost and forgotten. That’s a damn shame.

However, what really matters is an understanding of the function of yidams, supporting the essential principle of Buddhist Tantra: transformation. If all the specific yidams were lost, it would be tragic, but not a threat to the survival of Tantra. New yidams emerge from the dharmakaya frequently. We could trust that they would continue to do so.

This understanding of “essential Buddhism” is similar to a constitutional legal system. The U.S. Constitution is a short statement of fundamental legal principles and procedures. There are hundreds of thousands of pages of specific laws that derive from it. It would be a disaster if all those were lost. However, if the Constitution itself could be saved (and if it is as well-designed as we hope), then we should be equally happy with a new set of laws produced in accordance with it—even if they were quite different in detail.

Tibetan Buddhism has hundreds of thousands of pages of scripture, commentaries, and liturgy. In a catastrophe, if only a couple dozen pages of essential text survived, plus living lineages of a handful of essential practices—those might eventually develop into a Buddhism which would be quite different in detail, but that we ought to be equally happy with.

The question of how Buddhism should develop in the West is often asked in terms of “how much” of Asian practice should be preserved. From an “essential” perspective, what matters is not “how much,” but “which” and “why” and “for whom.”

Uncontroversial Buddhist lineages

There aren’t any.

That’s a pity. A nice, safe Major Leading Brand, generally considered reliable, would save the trouble of making a choice. Some adventurous souls could try out esoteric minor brands, but most of us wouldn’t bother.

Unfortunately, every form of Buddhism is considered illegitimate by many others. Some Theravadins say that only the Pali scriptures are valid, and all other “Buddhism” is heresy based on forgeries. Some Mahayanists consider that Theravada is based on a wrong understanding of a subset of fundamental Buddhist principles. Some regard Vajrayana as primitive ritual demon-worship that has no real connection with Buddhism. Some Vajrayanists say Mahayana is fine as far as it goes but cannot take you all the way to enlightenment.

The four Tibetan Vajrayana schools have been in heated political conflict for a thousand years. Some say privately that only their school is valid and the others should be suppressed. Some say that all termas are human creations and inauthentic. Some say that Tantra is not a proper yana and that its practices are simply methods for accelerating Mahayana. Some say that Dzogchen is a foreign heresy and not Buddhism at all.

This history of controversy fills volumes. To say more—or even this much—risks putting you off Buddhism altogether:

“Buddhism is supposed to be the religion of peaceful acceptance! If I had known that there was so much internal conflict, I would never have been interested in the first place!”

Fortunately, most Buddhists successfully ignore the politics, so it need not deter you.

the uncomfortable and delightful necessity of choice

In the East as well as the West, most people adopt the religion of their parents and neighbors without thinking about it. For Westerners attracted to Buddhism, that is usually not an option. We are faced with the uncomfortable (and delightful) necessity of choice.

That is the subject of this site: how to go about selecting, gradually entering, and perhaps eventually committing to a specific Buddhist tradition.

Buddhism and football

Sometimes people express strong opinions about things they know almost nothing about. Where do they get these opinions? Why do they seem to care so much? And if they do, why don’t they learn more about whatever it is?

Some people have passionate opinions about what kind of bag you should ask for at the supermarket check-out. If you ask for the wrong kind, you are a bad person. You probably whack endangered baby seals for fun.

I don’t have an opinion about which kind of bag is the right one. Paper and plastic bags both have environmental impacts, of different sorts that are hard to compare. Coming to a meaningful opinion would be difficult. The difference also seems insignificant relative to the environmental effect of other lifestyle choices. Still, these points don’t stop everyone. Fervent advocacy of paper or plastic is not usually based on knowledge, nor are advocates interested in learning more.

So why do some seem so sure? Because paper-versus-plastic is a way of proving that they belong to a particular social group, and that they are good people according to the standard of that group. As with so much in Buddhism, it comes down to anxiety about anatman—the fact that we do not exist in any definite way. We insist on the right kind of bag to prove that we are that kind of person. We demand paper (or plastic) to be accepted by a particular group. Being a member of the group defines us—as a member—and thereby proves that we do actually exist.

This is a big part of football fandom, as far as I can make any sense of it. (Pro ball has always been pretty mysterious to me.) It is intrinsically meaningless which team wins. Fans give it meaning by cheering their team and booing the other guys. Being on the side of the Snorklewacker team defines you as a particular sort of person. Supporting the Capital City Snorklewackers and hating their rivals makes you a good guy—among Snorklewacker fans. This is not too harmful, as long as fans recognize (at some level) the emptiness of their feelings. Occasionally, when that emptiness is misunderstood as form, violence erupts.

Unfortunately, people do this with religion, too. It is not enough to be happy with your sect. Dissing the members of other sects proves that you are a fervent and upstanding member of your own.

For some religions, this might possibly make sense. In the case of Buddhism, it is silly and self-defeating. Buddhism isn’t football. Recognizing that I am not any particular sort of person is one of the most important aspects of the path. Bearing good will to all sentient beings is one of the most important aspects of the path.

Yana shock

It is said that when Shakyamuni Buddha first taught Mahayana, a thousand Arhats (Hinayana saints) had heart attacks and died. It is said that when he first taught Tantra, a thousand Bodhisattvas (Mahayana saints) fainted.

These describe something real (although we need not take the stories too literally). I call it “yana shock.” Yana shock is like culture shock: the fear, disorientation, and anger that comes from being thrown suddenly into an alien value system. It can happen when Buddhists familiar with one yana first encounter another.

Some cultural differences are arbitrary, and easy to adjust to. People drive on the left or right side of the road in different countries. Some other cultural differences seem profound and non-arbitrary. In some places, women are expected to walk a few feet behind their husbands. In other cultures, women are expected to walk beside their husbands. Whichever of the two you are used to, you are likely to find the other shocking. This does not seem to be an arbitrary difference. The other expresses deep cultural values that seem severely wrong, and call into question the sanity and decency of the people who follow them.

I felt something like that when I first heard about Buddhist Tantra. A teacher at my local Buddhist center saw that I was pretty gung-ho about meditation, and taking a lot of classes. He suggested I start studying Vajrayana. “What’s that?” I asked. Part way into his explanation, I cut him off—quite rudely, I am afraid. I was appalled. Everything about it sounded repellent, crazy, and wrong.

The different yanas contradict each other profoundly. They are not superficially and arbitrarily different. Their fundamental principles are different. They have different concepts of truth, and especially of ultimate truth. For Mahayana, emptiness is the ultimate truth and ultimate goal. It is a shock to be told that in Vajrayana, emptiness is merely the starting point. The ethical systems of the yanas are at odds with each other. Pretty nearly everything that you must never do according to Sutrayana, you sometimes must do according to Vajrayana. To be thrown into Vajarayana when you know only Sutrayana is radically alienating.

The teacher who recommended Vajrayana to me was right, though. Over the next couple of years, I gradually realized that only Vajrayana could make sense of what I experienced in meditation. I came to find it fascinating and beautiful. Eventually I became a student in a Vajrayana lineage. I still find some aspects of Vajrayana frightening and repellent. I am no longer shocked by them, because I understand how and why they work.

Time, gradual exposure, and extensive study are the antidotes to yana shock.

The same is true for culture shock, I hear. However, although I try to have an open mind in general, I still think that women walking behind their husbands is wrong. I believe that all Buddhist yanas are valid; they are methods of liberation. Cultures often function instead to solidify oppression—political oppression, and the oppression of samsara.

Wrathful practice

“Wrathful practice” is an approach within Tantric Buddhism that can dramatically accelerate your progress. However, it is only workable if you are willing to have Buddhist practice be the sole important thing in your life, under close supervision of a lama, after many years of preliminary practice. And, it comes with a steep price, and a serious risk.

Tantric Buddhism is the path of transformation. The practices of Tantra transform negative emotions into positive, enlightened ones. Usually in Tantra we wait for negative emotions to occur, and then apply transformative methods. If you are sufficiently committed, however, you can deliberately stir up negative emotions in order to transform them. This makes it possible to practice transformation as much as you want—rather than having to wait around for something bad to happen.

The most negative emotion is hatred. Wrathful practice is called “wrathful” because hatred is the emotion you most stir up and attempt to transform. As part of the method, you rely on a “wrathful yidam,” or visualized enraged deity. (Dorje Phurba, shown at the top of this page, is an example.) With this practice, hatred can be transformed into the clarity of enlightenment.

According to Tibetan Buddhism, destruction is one of the four functions of a Buddha. Wrathful practice gives you the clarity to know what must be destroyed, and the ferocity to destroy it.

Generally, Buddhist practice makes your life work better—and for many of us, that is the main motivation. Wrathful practice is likely to make your life worse—at least for several years. Part of the wrathful method is to abandon, or even actively destroy, any aspect of your life that interferes with your practice. Everything in life except practice can fall apart. That is what I called the “steep price.”

The “serious risk” is that you will fail in the transformation—and fail to see that you have failed. This danger is spoken of frequently in Tibetan texts—and this outcome is common. Wrathful yidam practice can produce extraordinary arrogance. That is based on the perception that “I have transformed myself into an enlightened, wrathful being.” (Properly, yidam practice is the perception that “the yidam is occurring.” It is non-personal.)

It is easy to persuade yourself that you have succeeded when you have not. Then you believe you have complete, clear understanding of Buddhism, you are qualified to say who or what needs to be destroyed, and you are just the one to do it. That makes you dangerous to others.

I think this explains some of the online forum participants who viciously attack Buddhist traditions they dislike. They show the signs of missing the mark in wrathful practice (perhaps due to inadequate supervision). They are arrogantly full of themselves, absolutely certain of their narrow beliefs, claim to have the only correct understanding of Buddhism, and are willing to violate ethical standards in attempts to destroy their religious enemies. They might style themselves “dharma cops,” but act as self-appointed vigilantes.

Why Dzogchen?

The main unusual feature of the Aro gTér is its exceptional emphasis on Dzogchen.

In theory, at least, all Nyingma lineages and Lamas teach all the yanas: Sutra, Tantra, Dzogchen, and their subdivisions. However, most teachers concentrate on a particular yana, whose style flavors their teaching of other yanas.

Because the yanas are extremely different in approach, one of the most important factors in choosing a lineage and teacher is the yana they emphasize. So in approaching Tibetan Buddhism, a clear understanding of the principles and functions of the yanas—and their non-conceptual “feel”—is invaluable.

Buddhism is not a one-size-fits-all religion

Because we are each different, we find different Buddhist paths to be the best “fit” for our personalities and capabilities. Buddhism is not a “one size fits all” religion. This page is meant to help find a good “fit” on the basis of yana. To speak of the yanas in terms of practical advantages and disadvantages, as if I were reviewing bathroom cleaning products, is crass. It seems disrespectful. However, for Buddhism to be useful, it has to be a tool for everyday use–not a holy abstraction venerated on Sundays.

Each yana has a base, path, and result. The base is its prerequisites: where you need to be to begin. The result is where it takes you. It is only possible to practice a yana whose base you are at, and only useful it its result is where you want to go.

The path of each yana has a texture or style or flavor. Most of our time as Buddhists is spent not at the base or result, but on the path. Unless its texture suits us, we will not be motivated to practice.

Sutra

The base of Sutra (which includes most forms of Buddhism) is recognition that there is something wrong with our understanding of worldly satisfaction. That makes most Westerners qualified for Sutra. The path is renunciation. One withdraws from the world to prevent its pleasures and pains from roiling one’s emotions. Accomplishing this project is generally incompatible with having a family, job, or non-religious interests. (That is why there are monasteries.) The end point of Sutra is recognition of emptiness—which is not full enlightenment, according to some other Buddhist views.

Sutra is effective for many. It is impractical or unattractive for those who are unwilling to give up on full-spectrum living, or for whom emptiness does not seem to be the whole story.

Tantra

The base of Tantra is realization of emptiness. That generally requires several years of dedicated meditation practice. Accordingly, you may not yet be qualified to practice Tantra. However, you may be inspired by the prospect of the path: brilliant, dynamic, magical, tempestuous, awe-inspiring.

In that case, fortunately, you are qualified to practice Tantric ngöndro. A ngöndro is a set of practices that brings you to the base of a yana, and that have the same texture as the yana. Tantric ngöndro has the same result as renunciation—realization of emptiness—but feels like Tantra.

The path of Tantra is extraordinarily complex. It requires mastery of vast masses of unlikely-sounding doctrine and arcane ritual. It involves deliberately provoking your negative emotions, which can be horrifying, and can actually drive you crazy. Tantra is dangerous. For some, all this may be attractive; for others, not.

Dzogchen

Dzogchen is sometimes called the “highest teaching of Buddhism,” and “the fastest route to enlightenment.” Some are attracted to it for that reason. That would be a mistake. The best teaching is whichever is most useful to you, now.

The base of Dzogchen is rigpa, or momentary enlightenment. Rigpa is elusive, and few are qualified to practice Dzogchen. If you are now approaching Tibetan Buddhism, you are highly unlikely to be.

So what good could Aro be, if it is all about something you can’t do? Again there is a ngöndro, which brings you to the base (rigpa) while practicing in the Dzogchen style. Its only prerequisite is willingness to practice. So if the Dzogchen style seems a good fit, this is a good starting point.

elegant, clear, powerful, practical, and simple

Dzogchen is elegant, clear, powerful, practical, and simple. These are virtues beloved of scientists, engineers, and businessmen such as myself. Dzogchen is the yana that most inspires me.

It is, however, rather dry and abstract. To make sense of it requires inspired transmission and explanation from a Lama, plus probably either years of shinè meditation practice or unusual intellectual capacity.

Dzogchen’s world-view is exceptionally compatible with modern Western culture. So much so, in fact, that it may be misunderstood as simple common sense. That would be to miss how extraordinarily radical it is.

It is valuable to understand the Dzogchen view intellectually even if you practice other yanas. Understanding Dzogchen makes the other yanas make sense, for me at least, in a way they do not on their own terms.

I am not capable of practicing Dzogchen. I practice Dzogchen ngöndro; but I also practice aspects of each of the other yanas, including all eight of their subdivisions. In the Aro way, I practice them with Dzogchen style: with simplicity, clarity, and openness.

The scarcity of Dzogchen

Almost none of us are qualified to practice Dzogchen. As I explained earlier, this is not necessarily a problem, since no qualifications are required to practice Dzogchen ngöndro. And, there are good reasons to want to study Dzogchen even if we are not qualified to practice it.

Some teachers, however, take the view that Westerners’ interest in Dzogchen is a manifestation of our greedy materialism, spiritual immaturity, impatience, and unhealthy fascination with advanced technology. We want to jump directly to the “highest yana” and feel entitled to do so—whereas Tibetans might only be introduced to it after many years of full-time study and practice of lower yanas. There is some truth in this.

Some teachers—Tibetan and white folks—take the view that, since Westerners think they want Dzogchen but can’t use it, the best thing is to advertise Dzogchen but teach something else. Their books and talks, with the word “Dzogchen” prominent in the title, turn out to be about Madhyamika, or Tantric ngöndro, or Mahayana generation of compassion, or Mahamudra, or practically any other Buddhist topic. I don’t mean that anyone is actually deceptive; once past the title, the teacher generally states the actual subject.

Although the intention is undoubtedly compassionate, I am not sure this pattern is helpful. It leads to all kinds of confusion about what Dzogchen actually is.

It is now quite difficult to find Dzogchen teachings. They are almost drowned out by the mass of other, mis-labelled material.

In a sense, Aro does the same in reverse. Aro teachings on Sutric topics such as the Four Noble Truths, or Tantric topics such as Guru Yoga, might be Dzogchen in drag. The Aro teachers are open about this, however. It’s a hallmark of the Aro style to be clear and explicit about what yana a teaching belongs to, and from point of view of which yana it is being taught.

Dzogchen: a controversial yana

Dzogchen—the main teaching of Aro—has always been controversial. For a thousand years, it has been denounced as:

• Really Chinese Zen, not Vajrayana, so not OK
• Really Shaivite Advaita Vedanta, which is a kind of Hinduism, and not Buddhism, so not OK
• Really Bön, not Buddhism, so not OK
• Really Cittamatra (Yogacara), a discredited Buddhist philosophy, so not OK
• Invented by Aro Yeshé Jungné, a Tibetan, so not OK
• All written in Tibetan, not Sanskrit, so not OK
• Not found in India, so not OK
• Incompatible with the Law of Karma, so not OK

(You can read more about this in Part Seven of Dudjom Rinpoche’s The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, or from a Western perspective in Ronald M. Davidson’s Tibetan Renaissance.)

Dzogchen is now officially accepted by all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. It is taught by His Holiness the Dala’i Lama.

Yet there are some conservative Tibetans who still think it is not OK. There remains an atmosphere of suspicion. Some, who grudgingly agree that it in theory it is the highest Buddhist teaching, wish that in practice it could be made to go away.

No holiness—vastness!

Almost every culture, religion, ideology, or world-view holds some things as sacred, pure, holy, or unquestionably true—and others as profane, unclean, or taboo.

Among the few exceptions are Zen and Dzogchen. They hold that there is nothing that is inherently sacred. (This ought to be an obvious consequence of the Heart Sutra—but most Buddhists do not see it that way.)

If you spend enough time with Aro lamas, it is certain that they will at some point roast your sacred cows—whatever they are. They will contradict something you think every good person must believe. (That might be strongly-held political, religious, or cultural values.) Or they may do something you think no holy person ever should. (It might be a politically-incorrect joke, or eating meat, or ranting about how much they hate a kind of music you like.) They may violate fundamental assumptions you did not even know you had.

Some lamas do this systematically and deliberately. The Aro lamas tend more to do it just by being who they are—which will not be who you think they ought to be. None of them is the least bit holy.

I think Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen, said it best. When the Emperor of China asked him a stupid question about holiness, he replied:

Any fixed belief, or fixed emotional response, is a “reference point.” We use reference points as bricks to build the prison of identity. In meditation, we allow that structure to collapse. When the roof falls in, we see the boundless sky. That is the vastness of nonduality, where purity and impurity are equally meaningless.

We also must be willing to notice and let go of reference points when not meditating. That includes being willing to have our lamas poke fun at things we thought were very serious.

nothing is sacred
everything is sacred

Because nothing is inherently sacred, anything and everything can be experienced as sacred. Snot is sacred. The city skyline is sacred. A half-crushed plastic soda bottle floating in the gutter is sacred.

This is a bigger, brighter view than we are used to. In every situation, we have the opportunity to experience awe and beauty. This view is also more accurate. In Dzogchen, it is called kadag, or “primordial purity.” All reality is “primordially” pure because purification is impossible and unnecessary. Nothing has ever been impure. We only created the illusion of impurity as a reference point, to avoid the vertigo of vastness.

Kadag automatically reveals itself as we practice Dzogchen meditation. Dzogchen semde trains us to see the world as it is, without reference points. In Dzogchen trek-chod, we experience the brilliant energy of emotions without their conceptual content. Those unnecessary emotional judgements are the basis for dividing the world into pure and impure, sacred and profane.

Experiencing the breakdown of this division is extremely funny. Dzogchen teachers ridicule every sacred cow, to let you in on the joke. They encourage reverence for every ordinary thing, to let you in on the joke.

Until you understand this, it is easy to be offended. Students attracted to Buddhism are, naturally, kind and thoughtful. It is common to assume that anyone kind and thoughtful would have mostly “politically correct” views—and that anyone with other views could not be kind or thoughtful. Politically correct views are entirely compatible with Dzogchen—but the belief that they are necessary or absolutely true is not.

No cosmic justice

Dzogchen explicitly rejects the Law of Karma. This is the main reason Dzogchen is condemned by some Buddhists. Even for Westerners, who have no cultural belief in karma, it can be difficult to let go of hope for cosmic fairness. However, genuine ethical action is impossible if we are motivated by reward and punishment.

It seems obvious that the world is unjust. Bad guys often get away with it. Our own good deeds are rarely rewarded as we think they should be. Some other people fare even worse, through no fault of their own. One reason we turn to religion is to find out why the universe is so unfair and screwed up.

The answer of most major religions is that the universe is not screwed up. It seems that way because we only see part of the picture. The injustice we see is balanced by cosmic justice somewhere else—probably after we die. In some religions, God rewards or punishes the dead, according to His Law.

Buddhism is widely believed to have a similar view: the Law of Karma. According to this understanding, the apparent injustice of our present lives is actually the balancing reward or punishment for our actions in previous lives. Our actions in this life will be rewarded or punished in future ones.

there appears to be a contradiction here

This understanding of karma requires that the Law somehow be certain, eternal, external, constant, and universal. Yet it is a fundamental Buddhist principle—expressed for instance in the Heart Sutra—that nothing can be certain, eternal, external, constant, or universal. (Space/emptiness is the sole exception.) There appears to be a contradiction here. Buddhist systems have taken various approaches to resolving this contradiction; I do not find any of them coherent. They all seem to talk around the problem, and confuse the issue in order to distract attention from it.

Dzogchen is unique in biting the bullet and admitting that there is no Law of Karma. According to Dzogchen, there is no cosmic justice. Dzogchen does not deny karma altogether, but denies that its operation is certain, eternal, external, constant, or universal. The Dzogchen view is that karma is a matter of habit—and therefore empty. If we habitually act in particular ways, we tend to view the world in corresponding ways. If we act aggressively, out of anger, our victims are likely to retaliate. Then we will find the world dangerous. Our anger and paranoia are likely to increase, and this may escalate indefinitely. If we are generous, others may be inclined to reciprocate. So we live in a world partly shaped by our actions and perceptions. However, there is no guarantee in this.

This view is considered unacceptable by many Buddhist officials. Their immediate response is that the Law of Karma is the only possible basis for ethics. The reason not to kill other people is that if you do, you will go to hell. The reason to donate money to Buddhist officials (an important aspect of ethical behavior) is that if you do, you will be rich in your next life. If people did not believe in the absolute Law of Karma, social order would collapse.

calling Buddhism’s bluff

I think of Dzogchen as “calling Buddhism’s bluff.” Theoretically, all Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhists accept the Heart Sutra as central and definitive—but its obvious implications are often ignored in practice. Dzogchen insists that we take it seriously, and not explain it away with hedges and obfuscations. This is what has made Dzogchen unpopular with some Buddhist officials—to the extent that at times they have banned it.

I suspect that they actually understood perfectly well that there is no Law of Karma. Their real concern was not that Dzogchen is wrong, but that it is administratively inconvenient. The important thing was that it not be taught to the masses—because the masses’ belief in the Law is, supposedly, what keeps them in line. Often a compromise was reached: Dzogchen was permitted, but only if it were kept Very Secret, and taught only to the elite.

the universe is
not about us

The assumption underlying both Buddhist and Christian ideas of cosmic justice is that the universe is about us. Because it is about us, it would be screwed up if it were unfair; and the universe shouldn’t be screwed up, so there must be some cosmic balancing that we can’t see. But the universe is not about us. It was not created for our benefit, so we can’t say the universe is wrong because it is unfair. We can’t rate it in terms of any human agenda.

Personally, I have found that a vague, incoherent expectation of cosmic justice is one of the hardest aspects of our Christian heritage to shake off. I am a life-long atheist, and have never actually believed in cosmic justice. Yet I still sometimes catch myself hoping that I will somehow be magically rewarded for good deeds.

I have noticed that acts I hope to be cosmically rewarded for are often rather useless. Most involve personal sacrifices that do not benefit anyone much. Deeds that have obvious beneficial effects seem just plain sensible—and so the hope for reward does not arise. This suggests that the assumption of cosmic justice leads to distorted, unrealistic ethical action.

In fact, if there were perfect justice, ethical action would be impossible. Far from being the basis for ethics, belief in cosmic justice negates it. There is nothing ethical about doing “good” in order to go to heaven, or to have a better rebirth. That is just self-interest.

I am against justice

Personally, I am against justice. The desire to punish others seems to me mean-spirited and self-righteous. I want everyone to live happily ever after. I would like to see a good outcome for war criminals, serial murderers, and child-rapists. If there were a heaven, I would want everyone to go there. Why not? Why be stingy? It wouldn’t cost any extra to let more people in.

Human justice and punishment are probably a pragmatically necessary evil, as a deterrent. Hell—if it existed—would be an abhorrent cosmic evil.

Yana slip

“Yana slip” is presenting higher Buddhist yanas in terms of lower ones. This can cause a lot of confusion until you understand the pattern.

A “yana” is an approach within Buddhism. Each yana has its own principles and methods. They are quite different, and even apparently contradictory. According to the Nyingma tradition, there are nine different yanas. Ultimately they are compatible. But they are compatible only when each is clearly understood in its own terms, and when the relationships between them are also clearly understood. This adds considerable complexity to Tibetan Buddhism. However, different yanas are valuable to different people, and to each of us at different times.

The nine yanas are ordered from “lower” to “higher.”

• The lower the yana, the easier it is to understand without experience of Buddhist practice. The higher yanas require more meditation practice to make sense.
• The lower yanas describe the ideal Buddhist as generic and bound by extensive rules. The higher yanas imply greater individuality and personal responsibility.
• The higher the yana, the more accurately it reflects ultimate reality. The higher the yana, the faster its methods can take you forward.

Each yana has its own conceptual framework—its own way of speaking and thinking. Each yana can also be explained using the concepts of any other yana.

Buddhism tends to “slide down” the yanas. Over time, the higher yanas come to be explained more and more in terms of lower ones. This is what I call “yana slip.” (I just invented the term; there doesn’t seem to be a standard word.)

There is a good reason for this, and a bad one. The good reason is that teachers want to make Buddhism as easy as possible for students. The lower yanas tend to make more emotional sense, especially for those with little education or experience of Buddhist practice. Yet, naturally, Buddhists want the “fastest, most powerful” teachings. Explaining the higher yanas in terms of the lower yanas seems a natural way of helping “ordinary people” understand them. Unfortunately, it may result in misunderstanding, not understanding.

The bad reason for yana slip is that the higher yanas threaten established religious and secular power structures. They empower individuals—ultimately, making them Buddhas. Those who practice the highest yanas see themselves as responsible ultimately only to their Lamas—not to any hierarchy. Hierarchies find that a problem.

Here are the most common yana slips in Tibetan Buddhism, from top to bottom:

• Dzogchen is presented as Mahayoga: that is, as a system of Tantric practice with yidam sadhanas, ritual empowerments, and so forth. This could obscure the fundamental principle of Dzogchen, which is instantaneous self-liberation.
• Inner Tantra (in which we recognize our own Buddha-nature) is presented as Outer Tantra (in which we worship external Buddhas).
• Tantra is presented as “esoteric Mahayana”: that is, as a set of advanced practices that accelerate the Mahayana path. That path ends with the recognition of emptiness. This slip may obscure the function of Tantra, which is to take us from emptiness (its starting point) to the non-duality of emptiness and form.
• Sutra is presented in terms of accumulating merit in order to obtain a better rebirth. This may obscure the function of all Buddhism, which is to liberate us from samsara, not to improve it.

Buddhist history shows a saw-tooth pattern of gradual slides and sudden upward leaps. Yana slip continues gently over a few centuries, without anyone really noticing, until the higher yanas are almost entirely forgotten. Then, suddenly, some inspired genius recalls, and recreates, and reestablishes the higher teachings. (Usually this is vigorously opposed by conservatives.) His disciples slip slightly, and their disciples slip slightly more, and so it goes, until again the situation becomes so dire that radical renewal is required.

Open secret

“Ronseal” is a brand of transparent wood treatment. It is famous for the slogan “does exactly what it says on the tin.” Aro is like that—and, unlike Ronseal, it contains absolutely no castor oil.

Internal and external reasons for secrecy

Vajrayana Buddhism was traditionally secret—at least in theory. Its practices and doctrines were reserved for those who had undergone suitable initiation rituals. These might be difficult to get—depending on who you were.

There are many different reasons Vajrayana was secret. That is a fascinating topic, but I am resisting the urge to go into detail. Instead, I will suggest that there are key internal and external reasons for secrecy. The internal reasons have to do with the principles and functions of Vajrayana itself. External reasons have to do with the historical, cultural, social, and political environment surrounding Vajrayana.

The biggest external reason for secrecy was that Vajrayana has always been subject to political oppression. Even where it was the official state religion, its expression was extensively regulated and censored by the powerful. This has meant that some aspects, at least, of Vajrayana always had to be hidden in Asia.

disastrous Buddhas

Vajrayana is seen as dangerous by rulers because it empowers individuals. At worst, it produces Buddhas. That can be disastrous. Buddhas disrupt smooth institutional functioning. They pop up out of nowhere, are accountable to no one, teach strange dangerous ideas, inspire fanatical devotion among their followers, and may act as an independent political force that cannot be predicted or controlled.

an open buffet

The Nyingma tradition has had almost no political power for the past thousand years. Perhaps for that reason, it has the least interest in secrecy among the Tibetan Buddhist Schools. The other (Sarma) Schools generally have a set, linear curriculum. Each stage was revealed only when you have mastered the previous one. Nyingma teachers (including the Aro lamas) tend toward a more freewheeling approach. They present an open buffet of doctrines and practices, from which students (in consultation with their teachers) choose depending on their preferences and abilities.

Both of these approaches are valid. Each may be more appropriate for particular sorts of students. That brings us to the most important of the internal reasons for secrecy.

More exciting if you don’t read ahead

Some Vajrayana concepts make no sense until you completely understand others, or until you have sufficient meditation experience. Some Vajrayana practices are useless until you have sufficient understanding and experience. Therefore, there is a natural loose sequence to the Vajrayana teachings.

There is an advantage to not knowing about a stage of understanding and practice until you are ready for it. If you wait until you are ready, it is fresh and exciting and perhaps a bit shocking. It has more impact. The buffet approach is like getting all your presents at once, without wrapping paper. You might look everything over excitedly and then walk away. This is the biggest internal reason for secrecy.

On the other hand, there is also an advantage to “reading ahead in the book.” The first several stages of Buddhist study and practice can be a long boring slog—years of preliminary work before you get to the good bits. (Depending on your personality, of course. I’ve found all the stages of Buddhism I’ve encountered to be enjoyable, but people differ.) Having something to look forward to can provide inspiration in the early stages. This is particularly true in Western cultures that provide no social encouragement for Buddhism.

Vajrayana secrecy today

The external reasons for secrecy are irrelevant in the West. In democratic countries, we do not have to worry about persecution by governments. Other Buddhists are the main opponents of Vajrayana traditions; and they can usually be politely ignored.

Liberal Tibetans recognized this 25 years ago. As a result, Vajrayana secrecy is mostly gone. Pioneers like Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche taught openly in the West doctrines and practices that were reserved for the elite in Tibet. At first, they got a lot of flak from more conservative Tibetan lamas. Now everyone recognizes that the genie is permanently out of the bottle, for better or worse. English-language books contain general explanations (at minimum) of all major doctrines and practices.

What remain secret are the details of specific versions of practices. This is to make it impossible to do the practice without having received “transmission” from a qualified teacher. For example, any large bookstore has detailed explanations of how yidam practice works. Each yidam, however, has a mantra, and usually a chanted sadhana text. You need those to actually practice the yidam. Mantras and sadhanas are mostly unique to specific traditions, and are mainly kept secret.

Transparency and secrecy in Aro

Aro is one of the best-documented Vajrayana lineages. In addition to several books, the Aro web sites have thousands of pages of information. This is a “what you see is what you get” situation. Like Ronseal, Aro simply does what it says on the web site.

That is helpful, because it makes it easier to decide whether Aro is a “good fit” for you. It could take much more effort to decide whether some other traditions, about which little is publicly known, are a good fit.

The Aro lamas have been careful not to reveal publicly anything that has not previously been revealed by ethnically Tibetan lamas. However, now that virtually everything is public, secrets within the Aro tradition are limited to details of practices, such as the words of mantras.

Apprentice retreat

Aro offers weekend retreats that are open to the public, and longer ones for Aro apprentices only. Public retreats feature talks, extensive question-and-answer sessions, instruction in meditation techniques, and some time for meditation practice.

Apprentices generally attend two apprentice-only retreats per year. These are the most intensive occasions for the Lamas’ teaching, and the most important gatherings of the sangha (community). If you are interested in Aro apprenticeship, it may be helpful to learn what our retreats are like.

I will show lots of photographs; a picture is worth many words.

Apprentice retreats usually last about five days. Here is the typical daily schedule:

• 7:00-9:00 a.m. Formal meditation practice

• 9:30-10:00 Breakfast

• 10:30-1:00 p.m. Formal teaching

• 1:00-2:00 Lunch

• 2:30-6:30 Crafts, physical exercises, and special projects

• 7:00 Dinner

• 8:30-late Teaching or empowerment

The final evening of the retreat is Celebration, and the next morning tsok.

This is the format used by my Lamas, Ngak’chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen. The retreats of the other Aro Lamas may be a little different.

Morning practice

The day starts with two hours of formal practice. This is mainly silent sitting meditation. Every twenty minutes or so, we sing a yogic song.

For some, two hours of sitting meditation might seem impossibly difficult. If you are used to sitting sessions of thirty minutes at home, the leap to two hours might seem out of the question. It is easier with the support of a group, however. Many apprentices sit in chairs, which is easier on the knees than sitting on the floor. And the yogic singing breaks the monotony of silent meditation.

For some, two hours of sitting meditation might seem pathetically easy. If you are used to intensive meditation retreats, which might have twelve hours of silent sitting a day, two hours might seem to be kid stuff. In the Aro tradition, we also do intensive meditation retreats—but they are done solo. Because meditation can be done solo, group retreats are mainly devoted to activities that require a group.

The photograph above shows apprentices playing Tibetan instruments to accompany one of the songs. (Pictures of people meditating are rather dull!)

The striped shawls we wear are symbolic, but also practical. Apprentice retreats are usually held in late Autumn and early Spring, and it is cold early in the morning.

Morning teaching

Between breakfast and lunch, the lamas teach. Sometimes they prepare a specific topic and discuss it in depth. (That is also what they do at public retreats.) Ideally, instead, they would like apprentice retreat teaching to be driven mainly by our questions. That is the way teachers can be most useful to close students. Unfortunately, we apprentices generally fail to ask enough questions.

So the teaching period usually begins with an out-loud reading of the current draft of whatever book or essay the Lamas are writing. We interrupt to ask questions about that—and those questions often lead into extended discussions and detailed teaching on other topics. Besides prompting questions, this format gives the Lamas feedback on their writing. In many cases, transcripts of these question-and-answer sessions are incorporated directly into their books.

Meals and social time

Much of the retreat day is dedicated to meals, or is not formally scheduled. This is not “time off”—it is actually when it is most important for us to be “on.” It gives room for informal teaching, informal transmission, and the practice of sangha. These are more important than anything on the formal schedule.

The practice of sangha

“Sangha” means “Buddhist community.” In our case, it is the community of Aro apprentices.

Although a sangha is a “community,” it is not a social group in the usual sense. A sangha is an artificial community, bound by a commitment to practice, rather than the usual considerations of friendship, practical cooperation, and power dynamics.

Sangha is primarily a practice. The practice of sangha is to be kind and open within a somewhat random group. Ideally, as Buddhists, we aspire to be entirely kind and open to everyone and everything, everywhere. Ideally, as Tantrikas, we aspire to see all beings as perfect Buddhas. Naturally, we frequently fail—but not always. Our sangha is the best place to make a particular effort.

Inevitably, many of our fellow apprentices we would not have chosen as friends. Many, we may have little in common with­—apart from our commitment. Some, we might even dislike—if we were not committed otherwise. Sometimes, we might be tempted to treat the sangha as an ordinary social group. We might be tempted to form cliques within the sangha. We might be tempted to find friends and enemies and engage in power politics. The practice of sangha is to catch ourselves in the act, and to drop it.

We can practice sangha any time we interact with each other; but it is particularly important on apprentice retreats. That is when the interactions are most intense. It is also the time when the shared commitment to dropping our interpersonal baggage gives rise to magic. The conviviality at apprentice retreats can be extraordinary. It is not that retreats are a continuous party, but that we often find ourselves hugely enjoying the company of people we might cut ourselves off from otherwise.

Tantric crafts

The most frequent afternoon activity is Tantric craftwork.

Tantric practices often involve physical equipment. Musical instruments are perhaps the most important. Appreciation of the wondrous visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and fragrant qualities of the world is also central to Tantra. Tantric ritual objects are designed to please all the senses. Although it is possible to buy many of these objects, in the Aro tradition we prefer to make our own.

Craftwork is a religious practice for us; it has a devotional quality. Making your own ritual tools invests them with a depth of meaning that is not found in an object bought in a store. Also, frankly, we make nicer things than you can buy. Craftwork is a channel for artistic expression, which is inherent in Tantra.

On apprentice retreats, craftwork is a communal activity. We enjoy each others’ company while creating chöd drums, stringing the beads of sambhogakaya ornaments, or painting a thangka. The Aro sangha has accumulated a wealth of practical knowledge of craft techniques, which we enjoy sharing. The arrangement of completed practice items during retreats is an offering of beauty to everyone in attendance.

Physical exercises

During some afternoons, there are sessions for learning and practicing various types of physical exercise. These exercises come from the Aro gTér and other terma systems. They are designed to complement and support sitting meditation.

Aro sKu-mNyé is a series of 111 exercises that are part of Dzogchen long-dé. Long-dé is concerned with the experience of the “subtle” or “energetic” body. sKu-mNyé produces strange sensations in which one may find rigpa—non-dual awareness.

Gésar training is a system of physical and meditative exercises connected with Ling Gésar, the Tibetan enlightened warrior hero king. It involves movements similar to those of other martial arts, and can be practiced with weapons such as swords.

Horse riding is strongly encouraged by the Aro Lamas. It is valuable as a general practice of bodily awareness, and plays a role particularly within Gésar training. Apprentice retreats incorporate riding when feasible.

Aro teaches several systems of dance. Phurba dance and vulture dance are particularly practiced on retreats.

Special projects

The afternoons of some retreats are dedicated to special projects. Some are large craft projects that need many people working for many days. Others are particular rituals that are not held regularly.

This picture shows apprentices building a colossal phurba at Forchenstein, Austria, in 2003. A phurba is a ritual dagger, used to slay metaphorical demons, such as unkindness and narrow-mindedness. The picture shows the raising of the steel blades. The handle was then welded on above.

Typically phurbas are about five inches long. As far as we know, ours at Forchenstein is the largest in the world. This is only incidentally a point of humorous pride. It is mainly an expression of the tantric method of intensification: taking things as far as they can possibly go, and then some.

Thangkas are Tibetan religious paintings. Typically they are about two feet square. Much larger ones are sometimes also made—more than a hundred feet across in some cases. These may be made from fabric appliqué rather than painted. We have made a series of appliqué thangkas, about six by eight feet, as large as our retreat spaces fit.

This shows the construction of a retreat hut at Aro Khalding Tsang in Wales.

Similarly, this image shows students painting a room during the renovation of Aro Ga’dzong, our retreat center in Italy.

On some retreats, long-time students are ordained. A ceremony, a full day long, marks this transition. As one of many steps, students to be ordained construct tormas, elaborate ritual cakes, which are eaten by the sangha. Some of these have already been nibbled on.

This is a fire puja. Fire pujas have several functions in Tantric Buddhism. In one, clothes previously worn by the newly ordained are burned to symbolize the end of an old identity.

Empowerment

Most evenings there is an “empowerment” ceremony. (I have used a picture of a daytime ceremony—the colors are better.)

An empowerment—wang in Tibetan—is a transmission of enlightened mind from the lamas to students. It is one of the two most ancient and important ritual forms in Tantra. (The other is tsok, described below.) An empowerment is a formal introduction to a yidam. “Yidam” is often translated as “deity,” which is somewhat inaccurate. A better translation might be “style of enlightenment.” Becoming a yidam is one of the main practices of Buddhist Tantra. In an empowerment, the lama becomes a yidam, in order to introduce the yidam to students. This empowers the students to become the yidam in turn.

After the empowerment, we practice the yidam together. The instruction is to practice for about ten minutes longer than you want to. Apprentices quietly leave, individually, as they finish. Typically we go about an hour or two; in rare cases, a few people have continued the practice through the whole night.

Informal teaching and informal transmission

In addition to formal teaching, and the formal transmission of enlightened mind in empowerment, retreats involve informal teaching and informal transmission. Ultimately these are more important.

Informal teaching and transmission may occur at any time during the retreat: over lunch, during craft period, or on the way to the shower.

Informal teaching can be obvious or non-obvious. Obvious informal teaching occurs when the lama explicitly discusses Buddhism in an informal context. Non-obvious teaching involves no explicit mention of Buddhism. The way this works is subtle and difficult to understand. A great deal is learned simply by hanging out with the lama. Much of this cannot be expressed in words. It is not information; it concerns a way of being.

Informal transmission occurs when something the lama says or does, with no overt Buddhist content, sparks a moment of non-dual insight in the student. Empowerment is a Tantric form; informal transmission is characteristic of Dzogchen. Dzogchen is always more direct, and more subtle, than Tantra.

Informal teaching and informal transmission are easy to miss. They require that students be attentive to the possibility of receiving them, at all times. This involves the same open, alert awareness as formal meditation practice.

Openness to informal teaching and transmission develops the ability to find Buddhist inspiration and understanding in non-obvious places. Ultimately, the Dzogchen practitioner experiences everything as teaching Buddhism all the time.

Momos

At apprentice retreats, we have regular Western food, except on the last evening. That afternoon, we make momos, a favorite Tibetan food. Momos are dumplings, similar to Chinese dim sum. It takes half the sangha about three hours to make them.

Tsok and Celebration

Tsok and Celebration are superficially very different, but essentially the same. Both are joyful rituals of generosity, appreciation, and sharing.

As I mentioned earlier, tsok is one of the two oldest and most central Tantric rituals. It includes singing, dancing, a feast, and the reading of a liturgy (ritual text). Aro celebrates tsok in a quite traditional way. I’ve written a full page about it elsewhere.

Celebration is a non-traditional practice that expresses the same themes in a Western style. Outwardly, its form could be said crudely to be a “talent show.” Celebrants give offerings of the performing arts: music, poetry, drama, and dance. When not performing, celebrants offer their respectful attention and appreciation.

Celebration might appear to a non-Buddhist observer to be a purely secular party. However, it is a serious “practice of view.” As in tsok, the essence of the practice is to see all those present as fully enlightened Buddhas, and to comport ourselves as Buddhas to the best of our ability. This requires impeccable precision of attention. Because it involves finding transmission in a non-obvious context, Celebration is a training for informal transmission.

Formal evening dress is preferred for Celebration. Crisp attire is an offering of dignity to the assembly, and reflects crisp attention.

In Montana, Celebration is held cowboy-style.

Aro and the Nyingma mainstream

Aro is an “unusual” lineage within the Nyingma tradition. Does it contradict other Nyingma teachings? No; none.

I am confident about this. I have read more than a hundred books on Tibetan Buddhism. I have attended teachings and retreats with dozens of teachers from many lineages. I have been an Aro apprentice since 1997. If something in Aro were wrong, I expect I would have found it by now.

The doctrines of Aro are all mainstream. As far as I know, Aro does not have any type of practice that is not found elsewhere. (I discuss this in more detail on a later page.)

What is unusual about Aro is mainly not what it includes, but what it does not. Typically, Buddhist Tantra is presented as a system of ritual performance. Usually, the main ritual activity is chanting texts. In the Aro gTér, there is much less of this. Instead, it emphasizes silent meditation and non-ritual physical practices.

To the extent that what Aro includes is unusual, it is only in presenting the other yanas from the point of view of Dzogchen. This is orthodox in the Nyingma, but it is not common for it to be done so consistently. In fact, the more common presentation is the other way around. Dzogchen is more often presented from point of view of Mahayoga—that is, as a system of rituals and liturgy.

In fact, there are only two aspects of the Aro teachings that anyone has ever questioned. Those are the teachings on the nine bardos and on vajra romance. You can follow the links to find answers to those questions.

Emptiness in the Aro gTér

An awkward situation

I find emptiness—especially when understood as a good thing—the most distinctive and valuable teaching of Buddhism. It is also one of the least accessible, least obviously attractive, and least visible from outside the religion. (Every educated Westerner has some idea about Buddhist teaching on karma and compassion—but “emptiness”? No.)

Emptiness is not, I think, necessarily difficult to understand. Books about emptiness are remarkably scarce, though, considering how important it is. And those books are mostly extremely hard going. There is a tangled history behind this.

my nice non-stick spaghetti pot

The first explanations of emptiness were written by Nagarjuna. He was a genius, and his logic is quite straightforward; but it is hard to know what to think about his conclusions. One explanation is in terms of the “Four Extremes,” or fundamental wrong views. He argues that things—pots for instance—are

1. not existent;
2. not non-existent;
3. not both existent and non-existent; and
4. not neither existent nor non-existent.

But what is this supposed to mean? And why claim that my nice non-stick spaghetti pot is not existent?

Most Buddhist schools consider that Nagarjuna’s explanations of emptiness must definitely be correct and complete, because they were given to him by nagas: aquatic snake-gods. So scholars have been arguing about how to make sense of them for centuries. These arguments are sometimes brilliant, and fascinating if you are a philosophy geek; but they are extremely abstract, and have little obvious relevance to everyday experience.

Also, divine transmission may not seem as impressive as it once did. Nowadays we are not so interested in arguments from authority (“a god/saint/overgrown cobra said it, so it must be true.”) Being a Parselmouth does not make you seem infallible. Or, as Monty Python’s Dennis would put it,

“Listen—strange creatures lying in ponds distributing texts is no basis for a system of logic! Supreme spiritual power derives from the mandate of nonduality, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. You can’t expect to wield supreme spiritual power just ’cause some watery worm threw a sutra at you! I mean, if I went around sayin’ I was enlightened just because some moistened monster had lobbed a scripture at me, they’d put me away!”

Meanwhile, Buddhist practitioners have developed various other ways of making sense of emptiness, arising out of meditation practice and observing the texture of experience. These explanations do not clearly relate to the framework (“Madhyamaka”) set out by Nagarjuna and elaborated by numerous other philosophers since.

This is an awkward situation. Madhyamaka is the official teaching on emptiness, but is useless for most people. The informal explanations that students find relevant and helpful do not have a clear basis in the sacred texts. They are mainly taught orally, or are mentioned in passing in non-authoritative books of advice.

The Aro gTér explanations of emptiness

The Aro gTér is unusual in including, as formal teachings, explanations of emptiness that are not clearly derived from Madhyamaka. These teachings seem consistent with Madhyamaka—as it is interpreted in the Nyingma Tradition—but they go beyond it.

The Aro explanations also seem consistent with the informal, oral tradition found in other lineages that emphasize formless meditation. They will not seem surprising or alien to anyone who has practiced Zen, Formless Mahamudra, or in other Dzogchen lineages.

ten qualities of experience

The Aro gTér is unique, so far as I know, in organizing its explanations of form and emptiness around the five elements of Dzogchen (or equivalently the five Buddha Families of Tantra). Form is explained in terms of the five qualities of solidity, permanence, separateness, continuity, and definition. Emptiness is explained in terms of the seeming opposites—insubstantiality, transience, boundarilessness, discontinuity, and ambiguity. Although the Aro gTér sometimes speaks of existence and non-existence, its main explanations are in terms of these ten qualities of experience, instead.

The Aro gTér also describes a different set of Four Extremes: eternalism, nihilism, monism, and dualism. Again this is unique as far as I know [see update below]. Eternalism and nihilism relate closely to Nagarjuna’s first two Extremes (existence and non-existence). They are also explicitly two of the Four Extremes in a famous text by Padmasambhava, Explanations of the Variety of Philosophies.1

Monism and dualism are sometimes discussed in the Madhyamaka tradition as relating to eternalism and nihilism, but not as errors of comparable or independent importance. Monism is the belief that “all is One,” or “my true, deep self is mystically identified with the universe as a whole.” Dualism is the belief that “I am clearly distinct from everything else.”

These are common wrong ideas (whereas few people believe pots are “both existent and non-existent” or “neither existent, nor non-existent”). Monist thinking is typical of the New Age, but has recently “escaped” into our cultural thought soup, where it is wreaking havok on everyone’s ability to make sense of the relationship between self and the world. Mainstream Western religions are dualist, believing in a soul that is separate from everything else.

[Update: Jayarava has pointed out that the Four Extremes of eternalism, nihilism, monism, and dualism appear in the Pali Canon, in the Lokayatika Sutta. The Buddha, in conversation with a cosmologist, rejects these Four Extremes. It was surprising, but gratifying, to find precedent for the Aro view in a seemingly-unrelated scripture.]

celebrate form as the basis of compassion and appreciation

The Aro presentation is somewhat unusual in giving equal value to form and emptiness, and emphasizing their nonduality. The best-known interpretations of Madhyamaka are rooted in Sutrayana, which prioritizes emptiness over form. From point of view of Sutrayana, form is impure and contaminating, and should be renounced. Versions of Madhyamaka that are based in Tantra or Dzogchen celebrate form as the basis of compassion and appreciation. Such interpretations are typical of the Nyingma Tradition.

I have found the Aro presentation of form and emptiness, of their nonduality, and of the Four Extremes, hugely helpful in understanding everyday experience, meditation experiences, and formal teachings on emptiness such as Madhyamaka.

Currently, there is no Aro text specifically devoted to this subject. However, it is a main topic of Ngakpa Chögyam’s Spectrum of Ecstasy, among other works.

Meaningness, emptiness, and the Aro gTér

My Meaningness site works out practical consequences of the Four Extremes as I understand them from the Aro gTér. It is not actually an Aro presentation (I am not qualified to do that), or even a Buddhist one. It is meant to be useful to anyone, whether or not they are Buddhists, so I don’t use the word “emptiness,” which would be misleading. (And I don’t want to get into arguments there about whether my understanding of emptiness is correct—a favorite sport for Buddhist scholars.)

However, Buddhists may find much of interest there, reflecting at least the informal tradition of emptiness explanation.

• 1. The title is Man ngag lta ba'i phreng ba in Tibetan. The other two Extremes in this text are different from both Nagarjuna and the Aro gTér.

Ling Gésar Buddhist martial arts retreat

Imagine that an enemy has grabbed you, thrown you on the ground, pinned you on your back, wrapped your left arm tightly around your own neck, and you are struggling to escape as they use it to choke you unconscious.

Now imagine that your best friend has grabbed you, thrown you on the ground, pinned you on your back, wrapped your left arm tightly around your own neck, you are struggling to escape as they use it to choke you unconscious—and you are having wicked big fun.

Hold that thought.

Ling Gésar retreat

I recently attended the first ever public Ling Gésar Tibetan Buddhist martial arts retreat. Ling Gésar was a heroic Buddhist warrior-king; he is the subject of numerous epic poems and also religious termas.

This retreat was based on a Gésar terma that is closely connected with the Aro gTér. This terma is almost entirely Dzogchen long-dé. It consists of methods of training to be a Buddhist warrior, including Gar-tak, a system of martial arts.

The week-long retreat presented a huge variety of material, most of it quite unlike anything previously revealed publicly in any Tibetan Buddhist tradition. To grasp it fully, you’d need to be both an accomplished martial artist and an accomplished Dzogchen meditator; and I am neither. This page is based on my novice experience and understanding; others might give quite different accounts.

What I hope to communicate is that

• Some people will find this seriously cool.
• It will not be a good fit for most other people (although they might find it interesting to read about).
• This is indeed Buddhism—although it might sound like the opposite at first.

Dzogchen long-dé

Long-dé is the section of Dzogchen concerned with the “subtle body”—experiences of “energy” or indescribable sensations. Mind, energy, and the physical body are linked so that each affects the others.

Many systems—Buddhist and others—use this linkage to affect the mind through energy. According to Tibetan Buddhism, the mind “rides” the energy like a horse. A skilled rider can direct energy to take mind where the rider wants to go. In Buddhism, that would generally be to rigpa—transient enlightenment. This “energy work” is the “completion phase” of Tantric Buddhism; it is the necessary last step before enlightenment.

Of course, if you are unskilled, your energy takes you somewhere else—often into depression or agitation. At the crudest level, everyone understands this, from experience with coffee, for instance.

The problem with the subtle body is that it is usually too subtle. Under most circumstances, the qualities of energy that are useful to develop are so slight that they go unnoticed.

For this reason, it is easy to get away with saying ridiculous things about the subtle body. The New Age is full of nonsense about energy, maybe involving flower essences and angelic guides.

To learn to ride the subtle body, you have to intensify the energy so it is no longer subtle and the relevant sensations are unmistakable. Different systems have many methods for this. They use the mind or the body, or both, to affect energy; then energy is used in turn to affect mind or body.

Completion phase Tantra uses highly technical methods to gradually build up energy in specific complex patterns; this delicate construction takes many years.

Dzogchen long-dé works instead with whatever form of energy arises spontaneously. Many methods shake the hell out of the subtle body, rapidly producing intense, strange, unpredictable sensations.

Whereas in Tantra the meditation instructions provide a detailed energetic circuit diagram, the long-dé instructions are mainly descriptions of sensations you might experience at some time if your energy happens to manifest in that way. Then the practice is to be open to recognizing those experiences whenever they do. Adding violent energy to the system makes it more likely that unusual experiences will occur.

The Ling Gésar system incorporates diverse methods that can produce powerful energetic effects almost instantaneously. One of these is sPrul 'khor—a vigorous system of Tibetan yoga, illustrated above.

The violent physicality of combat, in martial arts practice, can also produce intense sensations—some unlikely to be felt elsewhere. Most may be meaningless and useless; but others are valuable for meditation or fighting or both. The retreat teachers spent a couple of hours each day pointing these out.

And this is Buddhism?

It might seem that violence is inherently anti-Buddhist. I’ll say more about that below. Let’s set that aside for a moment, and imagine that martial arts aren’t opposed to Buddhism.

Still, why make martial arts the main topic of a Buddhist retreat? Is there any connection? Many connections were made over the week. Let me just point out two—ones that may be easy to understand experientially, even if you have no martial arts experience.

When you have been fighting for sixty seconds—which can seem much longer—you stop thinking. There is no room for it. This can sometimes happen during any form of intense exertion; blood is routed out of your brain and into your muscles. But there is more to it in fighting. When someone is trying as hard as they can to put you in a “submission position” in which they could kill or cripple you, and there would be nothing you could do about it, your body automatically goes into “fight or flight” mode. A burst of adrenalin puts your brain into an instinctual state that stops thought.

A no-thought state is the goal of many Buddhist meditation practices. Typically you’d need at least an hour a day of practice, for many months, perhaps several years, to get there. You can get to that point in your first sixty seconds of martial arts sparring. Then you can access no-thought as often and for as long as you like, limited only by anaerobic exercise capacity.

Another goal of Buddhist meditation is to break down the experience of a distinction between self and other. It might seem that combat, being adversarial, would heighten that distinction. A common experience, however, is the opposite. When locked in struggle, “me” and “my opponent” may disappear. There is just the intense sensation of bodies straining against each other and the poetry of motion, without any “doer” involved.

Of course, these non-thought and no-self experiences do not automatically propel you along the Buddhist path. If they did, UFC champions would all be Buddhas. These are Buddhist methods only in a Buddhist context, in which you have sufficient experience of meditation, and sufficient understanding of Buddhist view, to recognize their significance as they occur.

This is characteristic of Dzogchen. Its fundamental meditation practice is not very different from that of other forms of Buddhism. Its distinctive additional methods accelerate the basic meditation, taking you immediately to the experience of emptiness or rigpa. But these methods only work if you have a solid base of silent sitting meditation.

So what about aggression?

Buddhism of all sorts is opposed to aggression: destroying things because you don’t like them. Many forms of Buddhism see violence as inherently aggressive and condemn it. I have four things to say about this: violence is not necessarily aggressive; aggression is workable; you cannot effectively oppose aggression without experiencing it in yourself; and destruction is sometimes ethically necessary.

Combative conviviality

In martial arts training, students must be friendly; they must trust and respect each other, and see each other as “on the same side,” even when fighting a match. If you thought your sparring partner might deliberately cause you a serious injury, the dynamic would be entirely different. That is a situation few sane people would choose, and in which it would be difficult to learn anything.

During this retreat, the teachers deliberately created an atmosphere they called “combative conviviality.” Personally I found this the most remarkable aspect of the whole experience.

Violence is not necessarily aggressive. A martial arts match is a form of enjoyable play. The combatants, although doing their utmost to violently dominate and subdue each other, are also working hard to care for each other, to prevent real harm. Anger is unhelpful and out of place here. Affection is not.

Everything is workable

Sutric Buddhism sees aggression as entirely unworkable. Sutra is the path of renunciation. A Sutric Buddhist renounces aggression in all forms, and avoids any situation that might give rise to conflict.

Tantric Buddhism is the path of transformation. Tantra puts strong emotions, whatever they may be, to work. Its slogan is that “everything is workable.” Aggression is not separate from enlightenment—although it is a distorted, mistaken form. Tantra contains methods that separate the intense emotional energy of aggression from the intention to destroy. That energy can be redirected toward other goals, such as religious realization.

Martial arts sparring is one way to transform your aggressive impulses, putting them to use for physical fitness, enjoyable play, and (in the Gésar Gar-tak system) religious practice.

Violence is not somewhere else

Violent conflict is a fact of human nature. We can wish it did not exist; we can try to prevent it. What we cannot do is wish it out of existence. We also should not pretend that it is “somewhere else”—that we have no capacity for violence, and only bad people do.

To effectively oppose conflict, we need to understand it. We cannot fully understand it without experiencing and accepting it in ourselves. We may be able to choose never to be violent—but most people will become violent when put under sufficient pressure. We can train our ability to resist violent impulses by repeatedly experiencing them in a safe environment, where they do no harm.

I have written much more about this in “We are all monsters” and “Eating the shadow.”

Necessary destruction

the first principle:
defense of others

Although some systems of Buddhist ethics condemn violence absolutely, many recognize that there are times when it is required. There are even times when it is ethically necessary to kill people—to prevent a worse catastrophe. According to one Buddhist Sutra, the Buddha (in a previous life) hacked a psychopath to death with an axe, as the only way of preventing his murdering five hundred other people. My page on “Buddhists who kill” explains this in detail.

As a Buddhist practice, Gésar Gar-tak martial art is not a system of “self-defense.” Its first principle is the defense of others.

If you take this ethical imperative seriously, you might wish to learn something about how to subdue dangerous people with minimal harm, or even how to kill, should that be necessary. A practical system of martial arts could be one approach to that.

Essentialized martial arts

So far this has been about the Gésar terma as Buddhism. Now I will say something about its implications for the martial arts.

There are many interesting analogies between the historical and social dynamics of Buddhist lineages and martial arts lineages. Actually, the two are often the same; most Asian martial arts lineages have Buddhist roots, and many retain ties to particular Buddhist school. Famously, for instance, Kung Fu is centered on the Shaolin Zen monastery.

Martial arts and Buddhism both tend to gradually accumulate elegant complexity. Over time, martial arts lineages seem to lose track of their original purpose of efficiently controlling, disabling, or killing enemies. They evolve into elaborate dance styles. These can be appreciated aesthetically as art, but no longer function as martial arts.

Mixed martial arts tournaments pit different systems against each other. They show what actually works in combat. The complicated, elegant stuff doesn’t.

Buddhism—especially Tantra—also tends to produce ever-more-elaborate rituals and philosophies and meditation methods. These are extraordinary as art works. They remind me of Rococo cathedrals, in which the luxuriant decorations on the statues adorning the architectural ornaments are enhanced with convoluted floral embellishments. However, the original goal of efficiently attaining enlightenment often seems to get lost.

Dzogchen—particularly relative to Tantra—cuts through all these curlicues. It is simple, direct, and swift. It concentrates on the essential principles and functions of Buddhist practice, heading straight for the goal and ignoring attractive diversions.

Gésar Gar-tak similarly aims straight at the heart of combat. It concentrates on essential principles, such as the relationship between striking and grappling.

The Gésar teachers are developing a system of martial arts training that drops beginners directly into full-contact sparring, and instructs them immediately in the essential skills needed to win matches. (By contrast, most Asian martial art training methods spend a couple of years teaching elaborate stylized forms before sparring begins; and may entirely omit fundamental aspects of combat skills.)

As long-dé, Gar-tak’s foundation is the various ways fighting can feel, rather than particular physical skills such as stances, kicks, throws, or pins. The felt sense of how the fight is going and where it can be guided usually takes a decade of traditional training to develop, because it is not explicitly taught. Gar-tak training transmits this understanding from the beginning.

The Gésar terma also connects the experience of combat with religious principles from the beginning. Most martial arts developed in a religious context, but in most cases their spiritual aspects are not taught to beginners.

Modern fighting systems may also accelerate progress through immersion. However, like some stripped-down Western Buddhist approaches, they risk throwing the baby of traditional transmission methods out with the bathwater of excessive elaboration. Generally they omit spiritual principles altogether. The Gar-tak approach incorporates both the traditional forms and principles, and the immediate feedback of playful (yet deadly serious) tactility.

Not for everyone

The Ling Gésar terma overall is available to everyone. It includes motionless meditation and physical exercises that are quite gentle. It contains approaches that are non-combative, in which fighting plays no part.

On the other hand, martial art sparring will not be a good fit for most Buddhists. It requires both physical fitness and mental toughness.

Pain, numerous bruises, and total exhaustion are guaranteed. Minor injuries—from sprains to small bones breaking—are not uncommon. Serious injury or death are improbable, but not impossible.

Aro retreats can be quite emotionally intense; this went beyond that. I think most participants were faced at times with fear, pain, confusion, unexpected anger, and the groundlessness of “what on earth am I doing here?” This would not be a good environment for the emotionally fragile. On this occasion, everyone managed their feelings competently, and carried themselves well. An atmosphere of enthusiasm, precision, and respect was maintained throughout.

Now is the time

If this Gésar Gar-tak retreat sounds attractive, I recommend that you go to the next one. Do not wait. The Gésar terma is unfolding now for the first time. The teaching methods are semi-formed; in flux. Each of the next several retreats is likely to be unique. Being part of this from near the beginning is exciting in a way that may not be accessible a couple of years from now. The training method is also progressive, and it may be difficult to catch up with the initial group of students if you do not get started soon.

Ngak’phang

Tantric ordination

For more than a thousand years, there have been two systems of ordination in Tibetan Buddhism. (“Ordination” is the formal recognition by a religious institution that an individual has made a permanent and unbounded commitment to serving the religion, its members, and the institution.) The familiar system is the “monastic” ordination of monks and nuns. These are referred to as the “Red Sangha,” from the color of their robes. This system primarily supports the practice of Sutrayana. Less familiar is the “White Sangha,” which primarily supports the practice of Tantrayana. It is called the gö-kar-chang-lo’i-dé, which means “the system of white skirts and long hair.” Again this refers to the robes worn by its members.

These two systems were once regarded as equal. One would enter one system of ordination or the other, according to whether one practiced Sutra or Tantra. One might also begin as a monk or nun and move into Tantric practice later—with a switch in ordination. However, in recent centuries, there has been increasing political pressure on the White Sangha. (This is due to unpleasant Tibetan politics that I won’t go into.) Not many Tibetans enter the White Sangha now. Some that do stay “in the closet,” because there can be retaliation if they wear the robes publicly. So until recently, this ordination was unknown in the West.

Fraud

Ngak’chang Rinpoche was instructed by Düdjom Rinpoche to establish the White Sangha in the West. When Ngak’chang Rinpoche started teaching in a white skirt, in the late 1970s, almost no one in Britain had ever seen or heard of such a thing. Some thought that he had made the whole thing up—and attacked him as fake.

In the late 1990s, the Aro Encyclopædia posted a large number of photographs of Tibetan Lamas in white skirts. This showed that the suspicion that Rinpoche had invented the whole thing was mistaken.

The critics then changed their accusation to “this is just a ritual outfit worn by some monks when performing some Tantric practices. There is no such thing as a separate Tantric ordination. He just made that up.” However, in the past decade, several ethnically Tibetan Ngakpa Lamas have explained the system in the West, so it is no longer possible to doubt its existence. Some Tibetans now ordain Westerners into the White Sangha. The “no such thing as a separate Tantric ordination” claim is also clearly wrong and has been abandoned.

Ngak’phang

A male member of the White Sangha is called a Ngakpa; a female member is called a Ngakma or Ngakmo. “Ngak” is Tibetan for “mantra.” -Pa is a male suffix and -ma and -mo are female suffixes.

In Tibet, whereas Ngakpas were uncommon, Ngakmas (or Ngakmos) in most places were unknown. (Tibet has a less patriarchal culture than most, but the usual kinds of prejudice are still present.) For this reason, members of the White Sangha were all usually referred to simply as “Ngakpas.”

Gyaltsen Rinpoche wrote an introduction to Ngak’chang Rinpoche’s 1995 book Wearing the Body of Visions. He described Ngak’chang Rinpoche as “an authentic upholder of the ngakphang tradition of the Nyingma.” Ngak’chang Rinpoche, who is not a Tibetan language scholar, did not recognize the word “ngakphang.” Gyaltsen Rinpoche told him it referred to the White Sangha. Ngak’chang Rinpoche subsequently asked Lama Tharchin Rinpoche about it. Lama Tharchin thought the word was rare and archaic. Ngak’chang Rinpoche translated it as “mantra hurling” because ’phangs (pronounced “phang”) is “to throw or shoot” in the dictionary.

The Aro lineage historically emphasizes women practitioners, and the gender ratio is about 50/50 currently. So Ngak’chang Rinpoche adopted “ngak’phang” as a short, gender-neutral word to refer to “Ngakpas and Ngakmas.”

There is an urban legend that ngak’phang is a bad word. This appears to be based solely on two 1997 emails from Christopher Fynn. This was once widely accepted without anyone bothering to check whether it is true.

Understanding his emails requires tedious explanations of Tibetan spelling and grammar. You may wish to skip ahead over the rest of this section.

Tibetan is not pronounced as it is spelled. Many letters are silent, or change their sound according to context. Tibetan has its own alphabet, but can be written in the Western alphabet. That can be done in either of two ways. You can capture the pronunciation, or the Tibetan spelling. For example, the spelling “tulku” captures the way the word is pronounced. As spelled, it is sprul sku.

Gyaltsen Rinpoche wrote his introduction in English. He wrote “ngakphang,” which is definitely a phonetic spelling. The Tibetan spelling would have to be two words, of which the first is certainly sngags, pronounced ngak, meaning mantra. It is impossible to be certain from the phonetic spelling what the second word would be. There are three words that are pronounced “phang”: phangs, ’phang, and ’phangs. (The apostrophe represents a silent Tibetan letter, and the s at the end is also silent. There is no word spelled phang, although dictionaries note that it is a common misspelling of the others.)

In his first email, Mr. Fynn wrote:

In Tibetan Ngakphang (sngags phangs) in fact means "Mantra looser" or one who throws away or forsakes mantras - which would usually be interpreted as a samaya breaker.

He jumped to the conclusion that the second word was phangs. This is probably mistaken.

Further, phangs does not appear to mean “throw away” or “forsake.” I consulted three dictionaries: the Illuminator, Rangjung Yeshe, and Sarat Chandra Das. I did not find any meaning like that. Phangs means “a sharp subjective feeling of loss.” sNgags phangs would mean “the feeling of being upset at having lost mantra.” Phangs is an emotion provoked by something that has happened to you; it does not refer to a deliberate action. The idea that sngags phangs could be interpreted as “samaya breaker” seems far-fetched.

When it was pointed out to Mr. Fynn that the word is actually the unrelated ’phangs, he backpedaled in a second email:

Yes, 'phangs is the _future_ root of 'phen which is one of the words for shoot or throw.

(This was mistaken; 'phangs is the past tense. The future is 'phang, without an s.) He then suggested:

Wouldn't "ngags 'phen mkhan" be the way to write "mantra shooter"?

His point was that 'phangs is a verb, so sngags 'phangs is a sentence: “[someone] shot mantra.” This could be converted into a noun phrase by adding the “nominalizing particle” mkhan: sngags 'phangs mkhan would be “someone who has shot mantra.” ('Phen is the present tense.) A fair point—if we were attempting to translate “mantra shooter” into Tibetan. However, Ngak’chang Rinpoche’s translation from the Tibetan was “mantra hurling,” not “mantra hurler.” The nominalizing particle in that case would be pa, not mkhan.

This is beside the point, however. No one has found examples of either sngags ’phangs or sngags phangs being used in a Tibetan sentence. Without surrounding Tibetan syntax, we cannot use grammar as a clue to meaning. All we have is a pair of Tibetan words used in an English sentence. It is common when embedding short Tibetan phrases in English to omit the Tibetan syntactic particles. English grammar conveys the syntactic role of the Tibetan words, rather than Tibetan particles. In “the ngakphang tradition,” it is clear by English grammar that “ngakphang” is acting as a nominal, so there is no need for a nominalizing particle such as pa or mkhan. (Further, nominalizing particles, particularly pa, are often omitted even in Tibetan sentences, when they can be inferred from context.)

Mr. Fynn concluded:

Maybe your Tibetan is better than mine but I think most Tibetans would understand it the way I did - though the word "ngags 'phangs" is not in any dictionary.

I do not see any support for this conclusion. However, I too am not fluent in Tibetan. I hope that experts will read the analysis above carefully and point out any errors I may have made.

Why would Gyaltsen Rinpoche have told Ngak’chang Rinpoche that “ngak’phang” refers to the White Sangha if it actually meant “throw away mantra”? Mr. Fynn suggests:

Are you quite sure that some Tibetan lama wasn't pulling your teacher's leg when he gave this name? (Some of them are fond of this kind of thing.) Alak Zenkar Rinpoche (the author of the tshig mdzod chen mo and a Nyingma lama) certainly found this term highly amusing.

Unfortunately we don’t know the context in which Mr. Fynn presented the term to Alak Zenkar Rinpoche. Perhaps it went like this:

Mr. Fynn: Rinpoche, have you ever heard the term “ngak’phang”?

Alak Zenkar Rinpoche: No—where did you get it?

Mr. Fynn: There’s this crazy white guy who claims to be part of the “ngak’phang tradition,” which he says means “mantra thrower.” But I think he is a samaya breaker, so maybe it really means “throws away mantra!”

Rinpoche: Hah hah! Highly amusing!

That is a good joke—but laughing at it is not exactly a statement of professional opinion.

So what did ngak’phang mean?

It seems there are three possibilities:

Possibility 1: Lama Tharchin Rinpoche was right: it was an archaic term for the White Sangha. It was sufficiently rare that it did not make it into dictionaries. (I see no strong reason to doubt this.)

Possibility 2: Gyaltsen Rinpoche invented the term, with good intentions. It had no definite meaning before. (This also seems quite likely.)

Possibility 3: “Ngak’phang” somehow did mean “throw away mantra.” Gyaltsen Rinpoche knew this and was making fun of Ngak’chang Rinpoche. (After reading his introduction, it seems unlikely to me that he would be malicious. I also think this meaning is unlikely based on the linguistic analysis above.)

None of these scenarios seem to reflect badly on Ngak’chang Rinpoche. If anyone were to look bad, it would seem to be Gyaltsen Rinpoche—another reason it is an unlikely interpretation.

Ngak’phang today

A Google search shows that the word ngak’phang (also spelled ngakphang) is now quite widely used in the West. Many Sanghas with no connection to Aro use it, because it is useful.

It also is used on the official web site of the Drikung Kagyüd lineage. (This web site is impeccably Tibetan, with no white Lamas to be seen.) To quote: “Ongtrül Rinpoche [is] a ngak'phang Lama who is the emanation of Khyéchung Lotsa.” This might be evidence that “ngak’phang” is indeed an ancient Tibetan term. It might also be evidence that some Tibetans know a good new word when they see one, and have the flexibility to adopt it.

Words do not have inherent, eternal, “real” meanings. Meanings are established by use, not by God. They differ across time and space. Whatever “ngak’phang” may have once meant in Tibet (if anything), it means “Ngakpa or Ngakma” in the West in 2008.

How many bardos?

Kyabjé Chhi’med Rig’dzin Rinpoche, the late Lama of Ngak’chang Rinpoche, said “if there are nine bardos then Padmasambhava must be stupid as he only knew six of them.” This has been taken as a criticism of the Aro gTér, which describes nine bardos.

This might seem to be an insignificant technical point. However, it is important because it is the only case (as far as I know) in which anyone has suggested that the Aro gTér contradicts a generally-accepted Nyingma teaching.

So—which is it? Six bardos or nine?

But first—what is a bardo? Who is Padmasambhava? How do we know there are six of them?

“Bardo” literally means “in-between state.” Their best-known explanation is in the Bardo Thödröl. That book is often called “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” in English, although that doesn’t translate the title at all. It is called that because the bardo teachings discuss the “in-between state” that comes between one life and the next. The Bardo Thödröl is a térma (“revelation”) that is attributed to Padmasambhava, the Second Buddha who established Vajrayana in Tibet.

that’s a contradiction, isn’t it?

The Bardo Thödröl describes six bardos. The Aro gTér describes nine. That’s a contradiction, isn’t it?

Although the Bardo Thödröl is the most widely known térma to describe bardos, there are many other termas that do so. Among these, there are systems of three, four, and five bardos. There is also a system of six bardos that are quite different from those named in the Bardo Thödröl. (You can read about these in David Germano’s scholarly history of the subject.) All these térmas are universally accepted as canonical Nyingma scriptures.

So, evidently, there is no contradiction between different systems of bardos after all. There is no reason to doubt the Aro gTér on this basis.

But, how can it be that there is not a contradiction? And why would Chhi’med Rig’dzin Rinpoche say what he is reported to have, if not to suggest a flaw in the Aro gTér?

The answer to the first question is valuable, because it shows how Buddhism is misunderstood when one fails to understand the relationship between truth and methods. The classification of bardos is not a matter of truth. Bardos are not objectively existing, well-defined entities with crisp boundaries.

An analogy might be helpful. We can divide up the twenty-four hour daily cycle in several ways. There is day, and there is night. That is a two-fold division. Within the day, we could distinguish a.m. and p.m., yielding a three-fold division. Or we could speak of morning, afternoon, evening, and night. Or morning, noontime, afternoon, evening, and night. We could add dawn and dusk. And so on.

there is no truth as to how long dusk lasts

None of these descriptions is “the correct one.” They do not conflict. We can certainly tell noon from midnight, and it would certainly be wrong to say that noon was part of the night. But there is no objective standard for when late afternoon turns into early evening. There is no truth of the matter as to whether “noontime” is “really” part of the day, or how long dusk lasts. All these categories may be useful as ways of talking in certain situations. They are methods for describing periods of time that are relatively stable in nature. When we speak of “morning,” we mean a period during which things are about the same, as far as light and temperature go.

“Bardo” might be better translated “mode of awareness.” A bardo is a period during which our awareness is about the same. There is a bardo of waking, and a bardo of dreams. Awareness generally has a different character in dreams than while waking. There is the bardo of meditation, during which awareness again has a different flavor.

Historically, as described by Germano, later térma generally had successively greater numbers of bardos, derived by sub-dividing ones described earlier. Just as “day” can be divided into morning and afternoon, awareness in “life” (as opposed to between-lives awareness) can be divided into waking and dreaming. Waking can be further divided into distraction and meditation. The bardo between lives is also subdivided into less-familiar modes of awareness.

The Aro gTér system of nine bardos subdivides some of those found in the Bardo Thödröl system. It draws additional distinctions, pointing our attention to other ways in which our awareness may vary.

The bardo teachings are part of Dzogchen. The central aim of Dzogchen is to recognize rigpa: non-dual awareness, or enlightenment-in-the-moment. According to Dzogchen, we always experience rigpa, but fail to recognize it.

there is only one bardo: rigpa

The whole point of the bardo teachings is to discover that there is, in a sense, only one bardo: rigpa. Rigpa is always our true mode of awareness. Whether we are awake or asleep, alive or dead, mopping or meditating, rigpa is always the same. The aim of bardo practice is to recognize this sameness.

Paradoxically, we do this by recognizing difference. In reality, every moment is a distinct bardo. Our awareness is subtly different in each instant.

The value of listing bardos is in pointing out that our mode of awareness varies—because it is only when we can experience the variation that we discover what is the same underneath the differences.

So—how many bardos? One. Three. Six. Nine. Two hundred and forty-seven. A billion. Infinitely many.

All these are correct, as Chhi’med Rig’dzin Rinpoche of course knew. So why did he say “if there are nine bardos then Padmasambhava must be stupid”?

I wasn’t there. However, I can guess:

He was making a joke! He may have been affectionately teasing Ngak’chang Rinpoche. But mostly it’s funny because it points out the irresolvable tension between the theoretical absurdity of naming any definite set of bardos and the practical value in doing so.

The heart of sun and moon

The term “vajra romance” is not a direct translation of a Tibetan phrase. This might give the impression that the Aro teachings on vajra romance are a dubious new idea.

Vajra romance is, in fact, taught in every Tibetan Buddhist lineage. It is one of the fundamental principles of Tantra. It played a particularly central role in the early days of Tantra in India. It was the main practice of Mahasiddhas such as Saraha and Dombipa, who founded the principal Tantric lineages. It was the primary practice of various Tibetan Mahasiddhas, notably the Sixth Dala’i Lama and Jetsunma Sera Khandro Rinpoche. It has also been the primary practice of innumerable lesser-known Indians and Tibetans.

In Tantra, vajra romance is part of the two-person practice called karma mudra. Historically karma mudra was regarded as essential to attaining Buddhahood (although various traditions interpret this in different ways). Karma mudra has two aspects. First, one regards one’s lover as a fully enlightened Buddha. Second, while in sexual union, the couple engages in highly technical exercises that manipulate the psychophysical energy of the “subtle body.”

The first aspect is “vajra romance.” Vajra romance is nothing more nor less than the practice of regarding one’s lover as enlightened.

One of the Fourteen Root Vows—the fundamental prerequisites to Tantra—is “never to denigrate women.” This is a statement of the principle of vajra romance from a male perspective. The detailed explanation of why one should not denigrate women depends on the lineage, but essentially it relates to the first aspect of karma mudra: vajra romance. If a man regards women as inherently defective in any way, karma mudra is impossible.

The main unusual feature of the Aro gTér is that it presents all Buddhist teachings from point of view of Dzogchen. Karma mudra is usually presented as Tantric practice. The Aro teachings on vajra romance describe the same material as Dzogchen practice.

Dzogchen men-ngak-dé is largely concerned with practices of “viewing as.” Aro teaches “viewing one’s lover as a Buddha” in men-ngak-dé style.

Dzogchen long-dé is largely concerned with practices of the energies of the subtle body. The Tantric karmamudra practices belong to Anuyoga, in which these energies are deliberately manipulated according to intricate set patterns. Long-dé instead teaches one to experience the sensations resulting from the energies as they naturally arise, without specifically directing them. The Aro teachings discuss the energetic interactions of lovers in long-dé style. The word “romance” is used in English because these interactions suffuse the entire relationship—whereas the Tantric teachings on karmamudra focus more narrowly on the sexual act itself.

It is common when writing in English about Tibetan Buddhism to use terminology that does not directly correspond to Tibetan terms. “Tibetan Buddhism” is itself an example. The closest Tibetan equivalent might be dorje thegpa, “Vajrayana.” In English that would be “The Thunderbolt Vehicle.” Not only is “Tibetan Buddhism” not a direct translation, it doesn’t even cover the same territory, because “Tibetan Buddhism” includes Sutrayana. For Tibetans, “Tibetan Buddhism” is simply chö, Dharma—but that does not convey the sense in which it differs from other forms of Buddhism. Böd kyi chö would be a direct translation of “Tibetan Dharma,” but I have never encountered it, and it does not appear in my dictionary.

Aro tsok and the Three Displays

Tsok’khorlo

Tsok is probably the most important Vajrayana ritual practice. (It is also called “feast practice,” tsog, tshogs khor lo, puja, ganapuja, ganachakra, or variants of these.)

Tsok literally means “community.” The ritual expresses the sacred bond among members of the sangha. The generosity of this bond is then extended to everyone and everything, everywhere. Within tsok, we view ourselves, each other, and all beings as Buddhas. We view all things as infinitely sacred—even those that are conventionally impure or disgusting. This vision is the essential practice of inner tantra—made especially explicit in tsok.

The details of tsok vary from lineage to lineage. Typically it includes singing, dancing, a feast, the reading of a liturgy (ritual text), mantra recitation, the creation of a physical and visualized mandala, and offerings.

The Aro tsok is our lineage’s most elaborate ritual. It includes all the elements I’ve listed above. The liturgy is based on the three kayas: the modes of existence of Buddhas. The dharmakaya is the mode of enlightened potential. The sambhogakaya is the mode of visionary energy. The nirmanakaya is the mode of flesh and blood, physical existence. The Aro tsok liturgy is a poetically inspiring explanation of ways we can “live the view” and manifest the three kayas in reality.

The Three Displays

In Tibetan paintings, Buddhas are shown in different dress according to the kaya they represent. These are called the “Three Displays.” Dharmakaya Buddhas (such as Kuntuzangpo and Kuntuzangmo) are shown entirely naked. This expresses the beautiful simplicity of emptiness, unadorned with characteristics. Nirmanakaya Buddhas (such as Padmasambhava) are shown clad in resplendent garments. This expresses the glorious intricacy of form and the physical world. Sambhogakaya Buddhas (such as Vajrayogini) are shown wearing “tantric ornaments.” These are mainly strings of beads, worn without clothes. They express the fact that sambhogakaya is the dynamic communication between emptiness and form, and shares the nature of each.

Practicing the Displays

In the picture at the top of this page, Yeshe Tsogyel is shown wearing sambhogakaya ornaments. She is universally regarded by Tibetans as a nirmanakaya Buddha, but is often shown in sambhogakaya form. This expresses the fact that she practiced and accomplished tantra by visualizing herself as a sambhogakaya Buddha.

Visualizing oneself as a Buddha is one of the most important practices of Buddhist tantra. Physical aids are helpful. In many rituals, Tibetans dress as the Buddha they visualize. They dance in a style that enacts the enlightened nature of that Buddha. This is commonly misunderstood as a “colorful folk festival.” There is an inner dimension to the dance, however. Wearing the dress of the Buddha helps one discover that one is, in fact, not different from a Buddha. From the perspective of Vajrayana, we are all beginninglessly enlightened.

In modern public performances, sambhogakaya ornaments are always worn over clothing. Naked bodies are generally seen as shameful, disgusting, and impure in Tibetan culture. In India, where Vajrayana originated, this is not true. Even today, sadhus who wander naked through busy city streets are granted great respect.

Nakedness is also less of a problem in the West. In the Aro tradition, we sometimes find it useful, when practicing privately, to adopt the dress of dharmakaya and sambhogakaya Buddhas as they appear in paintings—without clothes.

Participants may optionally adopt sambhogakaya or dharmakaya appearance when tsok and the empowerment ritual are practiced within the close community of apprentices, on apprentice-only retreats. In tsok, we view everything in the universe as pure and sacred—and that includes our bodies. We view each other as nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, or dharmakaya Buddhas, according to the way we are each dressed.

Sambhogakaya and dharmakaya displays can be difficult for some new apprentices. The West is not free from taboos. Some students are initially uncomfortable due to worries about how their bodies will be perceived by others. However, the practice of tsok is to view everyone present as a Buddha. There is no judgment about anyone being unattractive. The ceremony is unlikely to be found erotic by anyone. It is respectful, not lewd; joyful, but not wild.

For some apprentices, this experience has profoundly changed their relationships with their own bodies. Acceptance in tsok has healed body-image fears, and has revealed a courage and self-confidence that students did not know they were capable of.

Is this, like, some California New Age thing, or what??

In ancient times, tsok was normally practiced unclothed. It also appears that ritual sexual intercourse was originally part of the practice. That is not true of the Aro tsok (and never will be).

About a thousand years ago, Buddhist tantra became “closeted” in Tibet, to make it socially acceptable. Since then, unclothed practice has been mainly hidden. As far as I know, Aro is the only lineage that is currently “out of the closet” about this. However, I know of ethnically Tibetan lamas who quietly practice tsok in this style today.

I have found two mentions of this in the open literature. This first is in this discussion of the tantric root vows. The thirteenth vow concerns tsok, and here Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche mentions “dancing nakedly” as something that one should not hesitate to do.

The second mention concerns Khenpo Gangshar (also spelled Kangshar). He was a famous scholar and widely respected orthodox lama. Then, in 1957, he foresaw the disaster of 1959 Chinese invasion. He declared that this meant that the business-as-usual attitude of institutional Buddhism had to be replaced with urgent meditation practice—by everyone. There was no time left for elaborate rituals, for tantric ngöndro, or indeed for anything other than direct realization of the essence of Buddhism. He actively broke down the traditional barriers between laypeople and monastics, between men and women, and between the various sects. He taught Dzogchen—the ultimate practice of Tibetan Buddhism—openly, to everyone. And he taught tantra “literally,” as it was by the Indian mahasiddhas, rather than in the highly indirect, sanitized form common in monasteries.

Here’s the quote:

Khenpo Kangshar was there, giving his disciples a direct introduction to the nature of mind . . . During these teachings, the master suggested that the students remove their garments. Everyone except Dezhung Rinpoche and one senior lama of the karma Kagyü tradition, the Sangyay Nyenpa Trulku (the brother of Dilgo Khyentse), did so. The master had at first turned to Dezhung Rinpoche and politely suggested “If you wouldn’t mind just removing your robes . . . ” Dezhung Rinpoche removed his upper shirt and sat waiting, and this was enough for Khenpo Kangshar. Later Dezhung Rinpoche said, “If he had given me a further direct command, of course I would have obeyed.” Dezhung Rinpoche had studied the Guhyagarbha Tantra under Khenpo Kangshar the previous year and viewed him as the Buddha. He could not disobey his order. (A Saint in Seattle, page 214.)

“Direct introduction to the nature of mind” is the core teaching of Dzogchen. “The nature of mind” is enlightenment, which is often referred to as “naked mind” in Dzogchen. Freedom from moralistic prohibitions against nakedness is a symbol of the ultimate freedom of enlightenment.

Considerably more is known about Khenpo Gangshar’s unconventional style of teaching. It was similar to Aro teaching in some unusual ways. I find it massively inspiring. Unfortunately, most information about him is not yet public.

Lama as surgeon, Lama as spouse

How to choose a Lama? People advocate different criteria. Here I’ll give some analogies that are a bit silly, but help explain how I chose my Lamas. I hope they may be helpful if you think you might want to find a Lama and are unsure how to go about it.

As with almost everything in Tibetan Buddhism, how to find a Lama depends radically on the yana you apply. In fact, each yana could almost be defined in terms of the relationship one has with a teacher in that yana. I’ll talk about Lamas as school teachers, as surgeons, and as spouses.

I’ll talk also about how we know Lamas are qualified. “Qualified for the job” is interestingly ambiguous in English. It can refer to formal qualifications—such as a university degree, training courses taken, or number of years of work experience at a certain level. It can also refer to capabilities such as skills and personality traits. Both may be relevant to selecting a Lama.

For Sutrayana (meaning non-Vajrayana), one’s relationship with a teacher is much the same as with a high school teacher. The teacher’s job is to impart information and maybe conceptual understanding. A good teacher knows the subject thoroughly, is kind, explains clearly, and might inspire one to go further in the field. The choice of teacher is not critical; any reasonably competent teacher can do the job.

highly technical, exacting, and critical to spiritual health

For Outer Tantra, a Lama is like a heart surgeon. I think this generally isn’t understood very well. In Outer Tantra, the Lama’s job is to perform esoteric procedures (rituals) which the student mostly does not attempt to understand. These procedures are highly technical, exacting, and critical to one’s spiritual health. One doesn’t have a personal relationship with the Lama. He or she is an higher being whom one holds in awe and visits once or twice a year for a follow-up procedure. This is the way almost all Tibetans relate to Lamas. It’s the way Westerners relate to heart surgeons. It’s also the way many Westerners relate to Lamas, even when they practice Inner Tantra.

In Outer Tantra, what is critical is that the Lama have the right formal qualifications. Unless one is a heart surgeon oneself, one is not in a position to evaluate whether a doctor is properly trained. One must rely absolutely on the approval of the board of certification. Similarly, in Outer Tantra, it is critical to check that the Lama has the right credentials.

In Inner Tantra, particularly Dzogchen, the Lama teaches you how to live, in part by example. What matters is that you be inspired by the way the Lama lives, and that he or she is able to convey that to you. This “conveyance” is not primarily a matter of giving information or intellectual understanding; ways of living are not primarily conceptual. This mode requires a long-term, intimate relationship with the Lama as a unique individual. When I say “intimate” I do not mean that the Lama will take you to bed, any more than in Outer Tantra the Lama will cut open your chest. I mean that you and the Lama need to get to know each other well, and you must find it delightful to spend time together.

I need to get married—can we arrange an appointment?

Searching for a Lama for Inner Tantra is, therefore, like searching for a spouse, not a surgeon. Board certification is irrelevant. That would be like phoning someone you had never met and saying, “Hi! Do you have an ‘Adequate’ or better rating from the New Jersey Spousal Approval Authority? Yes? Good! I need to get married—can we arrange an appointment for sometime this month?” An authority can only say that someone is qualified to perform a generic technical task; an authority cannot say whether you and another person will be a good fit. Your friends might be able to introduce you to someone suitable, based on their knowledge of who you are; but ultimately only you can say whether another person is qualified to marry you.

Aro teachers explain that apparent contradictions in Buddhism are always due to confusions about which yana a teaching belongs to. For instance, if you practice Outer Tantra, separating the sacred and the profane is critical, and you may be horrified by the Dzogchen doctrine that anything can be sacred or profane depending only on how you perceive it. There is no inherent purity or impurity, and no need for ritual cleanliness.

Likewise, for Outer Tantra, the thought that someone might be practicing Vajrayana without a license is anathema. If a clever con man could get away with claiming to be a heart surgeon, collected huge fees, and cut hearts open without knowing what he was doing, it would be a catastrophe. Lots of patients would be taken in—how are they to know if someone is qualified?—and lots would die.

This seems to be the basis for some nervousness, expressed on the web, about Aro and the Aro Lamas. “Has this been approved in writing by the Dala’i Lama?” they ask. “Is it really true that his Lamas gave Ngak’chang Rinpoche permission to teach?” “How can we be sure the Aro gTér wasn’t just made up? In what text was it prophesied by Padmasambhava?”

From a Dzogchen perspective, some such questions are totally irrelevant, and the others are mostly beside the point—like a certificate from the Spousal Approval Authority. What matters is “am I inspired to practice by this Lama?” and “does the Lama give me radical, non-conceptual insights into existence that I could never get from a book?” and “do I find time with this Lama exquisitely enjoyable?”

A lineage of transmission is critical; the capacity to teach Vajrayana accurately is acquired only from a vajra master. But it is that ability that matters, not than the certification of a governing authority. As it happens, the Aro Lamas have both formal qualifications and capacity. I personally care only about the latter—because I don’t have great faith in the Tibetan certification process. Reasonable people may have a different opinion about that.

we risk being swindled

Without a certification, we risk being swindled. For those prone to alarm, that might be alarming. Reality never gives guarantees, though. A Lama with an unquestioned certificate might be safe—and dull—and never inspire you to anything. A famous, universally approved Lama might be the perfect teacher for someone else—but his or her way of explaining things just doesn’t get through to you. An impeccably official Lama may be a con man who fooled the licensing board. Tibetan history is full of Lamas with excellent credentials and execrable behavior.

Ultimately, no one can decide for you. For Inner Tantra, all you can do is to approach a prospective Lama, like a prospective spouse, with a mixture of openness and caution. Read books and articles from many perspectives, attend teachings with many Lamas, and form your own intelligent opinion based on what you observe.

Personality display

“Rely on the message of the teacher, not on his personality.”

This is the first of the “Four Reliances,” which are sound basic advice about approaching Buddhist teaching. The point is that, if what a teacher says is accurate, it does not matter if he or she is an unpleasant or even unethical person. And, a charismatic, well-spoken teacher whose teachings are mistaken is a hindrance, not a reliable source.

This advice is given in terms of the sutric view of a teacher as primarily a giver of information. The goal of sutric Buddhism is emptiness, which is without characteristics. For sutra, a teacher is ideally colorless, devoid of personality. Any personal considerations would only distort the message.

As usual, in relation to sutra, tantric Buddhism says “yes, but”—and goes on to assert almost the opposite. That is because tantra starts from emptiness and returns to form. It is the reverse journey from sutra—except that we bring emptiness with us. In tantra, we seek empty form. We try to see the world as vividly unreal, brilliantly insubstantial, a fabulous display produced by nothing. Tantra is complex and colorful—and the ideal tantric teacher is complex and colorful, too.

Our personalities are form: definite characteristics. We respond to different situations with different combinations of emotions. Ordinarily, these responses are habitual and automatic. We feel that we have no choice but to respond to insults with anger. We are slaves to our feelings.

The sutric approach to emotions is to renounce (abandon) them, so we find the peace of emptiness. We learn to break the link between provocation and response. Ideally, a sutric master meets all situations with equanimity—and so has no personality.

The tantric approach to emotions is to transform them into their enlightened equivalents. We do that by mixing them with emptiness. We take the dark, heavy solidity of rage, find its empty character, and discover that it manifests as mental clarity. We take the bitter pain of neediness, find its empty character, and discover that it manifests as compassion. Rage and clarity are the same energy. Neediness and compassion are the same energy.

personality display communicates and inspires

A tantric master ideally has no personality—no fixed emotional responses to situations. However, a tantric master displays emotions as empty forms. “Displays” means that these apparent emotions are deliberate and purposeful, rather than reactive. The outward display of transparent emotions is a tool. They communicate and inspire. They also demonstrate to the student how emotions can be transformed. Experiencing the teacher’s transformed emotions helps us understand how we can transform our own.

This is “personality display.” Tantric lamas are intensely different from each other in style. They produce the appearance of personalities, even if (ideally) they do not have any. Personality display is a key aspect of a tantric lama’s teaching, because it models the way particular personalities can be transformed. For sutra, one must not rely on the teacher’s personality. For tantra, one must rely on the teacher’s personality display.

Students with particular personalities learn best from teachers whose apparent personalities are compatible or complementary in some way. For example, some students need a teacher who is always supportive and gentle. Others need a teacher with an edge, who may be demanding or even confrontational. Some need a teacher who is dry and academic; some need one who is warm and funny; some need one who is terrifyingly wild.

Because a skilled lama has no fixed personality, he or she may display entirely different apparent personalities to different students. He or she may also display different personalities to the same student at different stages of the student’s spiritual growth. The teacher appears to become whatever the student needs to take the next step in the student’s own transformation.

If you are approaching the possibility of becoming a regular or committed student of a lama, I suggest that you first go to talks or classes or retreats with as many as possible. You may be struck with how different they seem. I have described how I discovered that there are no generic lamas. If your circumstances permit—do not settle for one who is not a good “fit” for you.

No cosmic plan

“Deep down in our hearts, we all know that the universe has a plan. There is something—maybe not God, but some sort of cosmic consciousness or highest principle—that is the ultimate source of meaning. We know there is more to life than the mundane rat race, and that in the end nothing can really be random. We must have a true calling, a reason we were put here on earth. That is our part to play in the grand plan. When we find it and embrace it, everything falls into place and we discover profound inner peace. Acting in accordance with our proper role gives life an extraordinary appeal, the wonderful feeling that we are in sync with reality and fulfilling the promise of something transcendent. Resisting this deep purpose causes only pain, struggle, and heartache.”

I hope you are feeling slightly nauseous now. This is an inspiring vision. It is also utterly, disastrously wrong.

Buddhism is hyper-atheistic. Not only is there no God to order the universe, Buddhism denies that there is any eternal, transcendent principle or force that provides meaning to the world and to our lives. The universe and everything in it are “empty,” meaning that nothing can be permanent, external, or unambiguously defined.

We cling to the idea that there must be a cosmic plan because we fear that without one everything would be meaningless. Fortunately, life is meaningful without any cosmic plan or ultimate source of meaning.

Specialness

Although we all have an intuitive feeling for specialness and ordinariness, they are not easy to define. Specialness—as I am using the word—is not merely “extraordinary” or “better than most.” Nor is ordinariness just “what is common.”

Specialness is often confused with extraordinariness. Some people are extraordinary. They are talented, famous, beautiful, or accomplished, in ways others are not. Often they are mistakenly thought of as special. Maybe they can even convince themselves they are special—some of the time.

No amount of talent, fame, beauty, or accomplishment can make you feel consistently special, though. Extraordinary people feel ordinary much of the time. That can be highly disappointing. It is not possible to become special through our own actions, by doing something extraordinary.

The problem is that extraordinariness never manages to escape into the transcendent. People vary as to how strong or clever they are—but that is just something that happens, as a matter of ordinary variation. And talent, fame, beauty, and accomplishment fade—whereas it seems specialness should be eternal.

So what is specialness, then? A special person is singled out, from birth, for a particular role in the cosmic plan. Their life-course is laid out in the plan in a special way, giving it a special meaning and value. That does not depend on any objective, personal characteristics—although we might mistake those as evidence of specialness.

Since there is no cosmic plan to choose special people, there are no special people. It is actually impossible for anyone to be special.

That might be depressing, if the only alternative to being special was to be ordinary. Luckily, there are other possibilities.

Specialness in Buddhism

No matter how many years you sit doing zazen, you will never become anything special.
—Zen Master Kodo Sawaki

Some of us become Buddhists partly as a way to become special. This is especially true in Vajrayana Buddhism. We hope that esoteric practices can somehow make us special, or bring out the hidden specialness we already had. Since it is not actually possible to be special, this distorts our motivation and practice. It can be seriously counter-productive.

We also want our teachers to be special. We may have the idea that somehow their specialness will rub off on us. Or, if we do everything they say, maybe they can grant us specialness too. In the Tibetan tradition, lamas, tulkus, and tertons are particularly regarded as special. This distorts the teacher/student relationship. Also, if we discover that a teacher is not special, we might jump to the conclusion that they are ordinary. That could be a horrible disappointment. We might become angry at the teacher and look at him or her with disdain.

In fact, a special teacher would be of no use, at least in Inner Tantra. Inner Tantra aims at full realization. In Inner Tantra, the teacher functions as a role model, which is why we view our Lamas as Buddhas. If the teacher were special, and we weren’t, they couldn’t be a role model—unless they could magically make us special. But Buddhism is a do-it-yourself religion; no one can accomplish it for you.

In Outer Tantra, the teacher is viewed as special, and that is a key part of the method. There is a story about this in Tulku Urgyen’s Blazing Splendor. The Karmapa came to visit an aristocratic family in Sikkim. Some family members concluded that “It would have been much better if the Karmapa had never come here. He wasn’t a Buddha after all! We cooked his food and we saw that he ate it. Later, we looked in the toilet after he had been there and we saw what was lying inside the bowl! So, realizing that he is just a human being, we have now lost half of our faith.” Tulku Urgyen says that “they had expected him to be a deity without a real physical body.”

In fact, there is nothing special about a Buddha. A Buddha is extraordinary, because Buddhas are rare, and because they can do interesting, useful things other people can’t. But they are not singled out by a cosmic plan, and have no defined destiny. They live and die like everyone else, and their future is as uncertain as anyone’s.

Ordinariness

True humility requires the courage to risk greatness.
—Bert Hellinger

Ordinariness might seem the opposite of specialness. Actually, it is almost the same thing. What they have in common is the idea that our life has a definite proper course. The idea of ordinariness is that in the cosmic plan our role is the same as most everyone else’s. It is right for us to do “what one does” and to live for no distinctive reason, without sticking out. It is wrong to pretend to be something fancy and special.

Because there is no cosmic plan, it is as impossible to be ordinary as it is to be special. No one is predestined to be a sheep. Yet we often waste a huge amount of emotional energy in trying to be ordinary, or trying to appear ordinary. That is because we are lazy and fearful. (Isn’t it interesting how often laziness drives us to take on impossible, exhausting tasks?)

We try to be ordinary when we think that living up to some idea of specialness would be too difficult. If we could be ordinary, we would not have the responsibility of living up to our potential. We feel justified in behaving badly, so long as we are stupid and unkind in common ways.

We try to be ordinary when we cannot imagine what our special role could be. We try to be ordinary when the uncertainty of the future is terrifying. “Being like everyone else” seems at least to offer the safety of a known outcome.

We may try to use Buddhism as a path to ordinariness. Becoming a monk may be a way of renouncing individuality. Relying on the vinaya (the monastic code of behavior) may be a way of avoiding decision-making and personal responsibility. Artificial humility is an all-purpose excuse not to take on any challenges.

Confusion

Perhaps that's part of why the movies about heroes sell so well—while we watch them, we get to taste the most under-utilized aspect of what we ourselves are. —Tröma Rigtsal Rinpoche

So if we are neither special, nor ordinary, what are we? Mostly, what we are is confused. We are confused about our proper role in the world.

We know that we aren’t really special, because we recognize that we are essentially the same as everyone else. Although we secretly hope and suspect we might be special, we cannot figure out what our special role should be. We seek obscure omens and chase tentative possibilities, but they shift about and peter out. We recognize that people who present themselves as special are actually on harmful ego trips.

Yet we also know we aren’t really ordinary, because there are moments when we recognize our vast, unique individual potential. No matter how hard we try to fit in, we secretly know that our innermost possibilities do not lie in going along with society. People who present themselves as ordinary are pretending to be herd animals—but no one is really fooled.

The problem is that we see no third possibility. So we jump back and forth between trying to be special or ordinary. We try to find some sort of compromise, or some way to be special in one part of our lives and otherwise ordinary. Mostly we try to bury the issue altogether, because it is so uncomfortable. But spiritual practice, life crises, and moments of grace keep bringing it to the surface.

There is an alternative to this confusion—one that is genuinely available, unlike specialness and ordinariness.

Nobility

Self-confidence is not a feeling of superiority, but of independence.
—Lama Yeshe

Because there is no cosmic plan, questions of ultimate value are meaningless. Because there is no cosmic plan, our futures are never certain.

This opens the possibility of freedom. Our destiny is always ambiguous. Of course, we cannot simply choose our futures. The future unfolds as an improvised dance: the interplay of our actions and our circumstances.

Realizing this can be frightening. We can no longer rely on a benevolent, omniscient, external force to make sense of life for us. We need to rely more on our own experience. But we can also trust everyday reality to gradually reveal meaning.

When we abandon our hope of a pre-packaged life-meaning, another possibility appears. We might call this “nobility” or “heroism.” Neither is a perfect word, but they point in the right direction.

Not blocking out richness and not holding onto poverty, which lets us be an enriching presence for the rest of the world.
—Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Nobility is the aspiration to manifest glory for the benefit of others. Nobility is using whatever abilities we have in service of others. Nobility is seeking to fulfill our in-born human potential, and to develop all our in-born human qualities.

Because nobility is an intention, it is possible for everyone. Specialness tries to be better than ordinariness. It would only be possible to be special if most people were ordinary. Claims of specialness are based on uncommon qualities. It would not be possible for everyone to be special.

Everyone could be noble—and at times all of us are noble. It is not an accomplishment; it is a stance. But nobility is not easy. It is not easy to hold the intention continuously. It is not easy to abandon our laziness. It is not easy to let go of hope that one day we will discover our “true life-mission,” given by the cosmic plan. To be noble is not special—but it is extraordinary.

Specialness demands constant confirmation. That is because no one really can be special, and no one is special. The illusion of specialness is in constant danger of collapse. Nobility takes itself for granted, and needs no confirmation. When we have that intention, we have no doubt of it. Specialness aims at a brilliant destiny; nobility is always already complete.

Mere goodness is not nobility. Often we use goodness as a way of trying to be ordinary or special. Being “morally correct” in an ordinary, unimaginative, conformist way may be an excuse for avoiding the scary possibility of extraordinary goodness, or greatness. Doing good in a showy way can be a strategy for convincing ourselves, or others, that we are special. Celebrity charity work often seems to be that. Of course this is better than many other ways of trying to be special, but it somewhat misses the point. Specialness serves in order to rise, whereas nobility rises in order to serve.

In Buddhism, nobility—or heroism—is a key aspect of enlightenment. Mahayana Buddhism often describes its ideal, the bodhisattva, in terms of “the noble virtues.” The Tibetan translation of “bodhisattva” is chang chub sem pa, which means “enlightened hero.” Vajrayana Buddhism relies on yidams who are often shown dressed in the style of the Indian royalty. The ideal of Vajrayana Buddhism is the pawo or pamo—the hero or heroine.

The idea of being “noble” may sound remote or ridiculous. However, it is actually possible—whereas it is not possible to be either ordinary or special. Nobility is actually available to all of us in every moment, simply by choosing it. It is frightening; but to me it seems infinitely worthwhile.

Responsibility

Buddhism has been around seemingly forever; and is now available practically everywhere in the Western world.

That makes it easy to suppose—without thinking about it—that Buddhism falls naturally from the sky, like a gentle sweet rain. Or that it is a public utility, like water, reliably provided by a distant, faceless bureaucracy, at a minor cost. It is easy—but mistaken—to assume this will always be true.

In my opinion, once you have attended more than a few events with a Buddhist organization, over more than a few months, you have a responsibility to it. Buddhist events depend on the work of many unpaid volunteers. Typically, the fee you pay (if any) does not cover costs, and the difference is made up by donations from others.

“Responsibility” might not be an attractive word. Pompous adults use it to lecture teenagers. It sounds old-fashioned—Victorian, even.

Unfashionable Victorian virtues are vital in Vajrayana Buddhism, however. Responsibility, diligence, honor, respect, consideration, loyalty, gallantry: these are essential. They are Buddhist virtues because they are based on facing reality and accepting that we cannot take a “not my problem” attitude. They are Vajrayana virtues because they assume that we are already fine people—not hopelessly stuck in possessiveness, resentment, and ignorance.

There is no “ought” about this. “Responsibility,” in Vajrayana, is not a moral issue. It is a purely practical one.

Organized religion

Buddhism is a practical reality that cannot exist in the abstract. It exists only because local people work to produce it locally. That means holding classes, retreats, and meditation groups. It means producing books, web sites, and podcasts. This takes organization.

That is another unattractive word. Many people distrust organized religion—and rightly so. Personally, I hate organizations. I am not a “joiner” by nature, and I find that organizations usually end up mainly performing meaningless bureaucratic rituals for the benefit of the bureaucracy.

However, delivering Buddhism involves much work by many people. The scale of this is not obvious, until you look “behind the scenes.” We have to coordinate all that work. In the best case, that is all an organization is.

Time and energy

Buddhist organizations run mainly on the creativity, skills, enthusiasm, and hard work of volunteers.

Small organizations do not have the money to hire anyone. Aro, for example, currently has no employees. (We are now discussing the possibility of hiring a part-time organizer, for the first time.)

Once you are “going steady” with a Buddhist group, it is time to volunteer. Otherwise, you are taking more than you are giving. How much time you can volunteer, and what you can do, depends on your circumstances and skills. I believe all of us are responsible for doing something, however.

A group organizer may ask for volunteers for particular tasks, in which case you can just say “yes.”

you need to peek backstage

More often, to find out how you can help, you will need to “peek backstage.” You need to talk to several people to find out who in the organization does what, who is overloaded, and what tasks are not getting done. Group organizers may be somewhat reluctant to give you a backstage tour. That is not because they are hiding dark secrets, but because it takes time and energy. Also they are probably embarrassed by how chaotic and amateurish some aspects of the organization are. (This is inevitable in any volunteer organization.) You may need to be gently persistent, to persuade them that you are serious enough about wanting to help that it is worth their time to help you find something you can do.

A good start is to ask if you could help with set-up and take-down before and after an event. That is a small task, and it will give you a chance to interact with the organizers “behind the scenes.” (Advice to organizers: always say “yes,” even if you don’t really need the help. It’s a chance to size up a potential volunteer for bigger jobs.)

Some of the work done by a typical Buddhist group: organizing events; event set-up and take-down; publicity (fliers, advertising, web); newsletters (writing, layout, printing, mailing); web sites (writing, graphic design, Photoshop, systems administration); administration (bookkeeping, dealing with legal requirements on charitable organizations, keeping the contact database); arts and crafts (creating paintings, ritual objects, robes).

Volunteering shouldn’t be a burden. Realistically, much of the work is stuff no one would particularly choose. However, it should be at least somewhat enjoyable, some of the time. Mainly that is because it is an opportunity to share and be a part of a community. That is part of the meaning of sangha: we enjoy each other’s company, and we enjoy the fact that we have a shared practical commitment to serving Dharma.

Money

Buddhism should be available to everyone, regardless of how little money they have.

Most Buddhist organizations (including Aro) do not charge for teachings. Many of our events are free. There are no “special” doctrines or practices available only for a fee. The various Aro websites provide more than a thousand pages of free teachings.

Teaching events, however, have to be held somewhere. That usually means paying rent, or a mortgage. This is a main expense for Buddhist organizations, and it is the reason we have to charge for attendance (not for the teaching, as such) in many cases. Often events run at a loss, which means that part of the cost is subsidized by donations.

The other main expense for most religious organizations is the living expenses of the teachers. In the case of Aro, that comes mostly from direct donations from individuals, rather than from admission fees or through the organization.

With some exceptions, Buddhist organizations in the West are usually woefully short of money. They suffer periodic financial crises, operate on a shoestring, are distracted by the need for fundraising, and cannot make Buddhism available in ways it should be, due to lack of funds.

a strange situation

This is a strange situation. Christians in the West, and Buddhists in Asia, understand that they are responsible for donating enough money that their religious organizations can run effectively. Maybe Western Buddhists confuse “there is no charge for the teachings” with “I have no responsibility to help make them available.”

How much is “enough”? Traditionally, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, and others donate ten percent of their income. Many no longer do, but it is clearly feasible, and not unreasonable.

There is a like-it-or-not economic fact here. Any religious organization that

1. has teachers/priests who do not have other employment, and
2. holds events somewhere other than members’ own homes

needs a few percent of attendees’ income, on average, in order to function. It costs that much to provide those things. When you go through the financial math, there is no way to work around that reality. Some of the money can come from program fees; the rest must come from donations.

How much of that you feel responsible for personally will depend on your circumstances and on your level of involvement and enthusiasm.

You might ask “what fraction of the meaning or value in my life comes from Buddhism,” and consider allocating that fraction of your income to it. If Buddhism is five percent of what is good in your life, five percent of your income probably exceeds what you spend on retreats, books, and so forth. You could donate the remainder.

I would probably not recommend donating much more than ten percent of your income, no matter how important Buddhism is to you. Sometimes people make crazily big donations they later regret. You could leave a large amount in your will, though.

Of course, it is impossible to put an exact percentage number on meaningfulness. But this is a starting point for thinking about what you feel responsible for.

Endangered species

Buddhism may not survive this century.

That might sound alarmist. Buddhism has been around for 2500 years. It has three or four hundred million adherents currently—as many as the total population of the U.S. or Europe. In fact, it is unlikely that Buddhism could completely disappear in the next 90 years. But I think it could easily dwindle into irrelevance. If it exits the century with no ability to influence the global culture, it might as well be dead.

Buddhism faces three threats—two old and one new. The old ones are internal degeneration and external oppression; the new one is Buddhism’s collision with the global consumer culture.

I discuss the first two threats on this page. The new threat is probably the most serious, so I will discuss it in detail on a separate page.

Internal degeneration

Internal degeneration has been a problem for Buddhism from the beginning. According to legend, the first thing Buddha thought after attaining enlightenment was “Oh, wow.” The second thing he thought was “Everyone has always been like this.” The third thing was “Nobody is going to understand this. Trying to explain it would be a complete waste of time.”

Luckily, he changed his mind. But Buddhism has remained counter-intuitive, unappealing, difficult, and often misunderstood. There is always a danger that, as it passes from generation to generation, the heart of the matter will be lost. There are two risks: of sterile orthodoxy, and of misguided reforms. Both have happened frequently, despite best intentions; and (ironically) due to best intentions; and also due to bad intentions.

There’s many things we can do help Buddhism survive, and to resist degeneration. We can make sure that texts are translated and reproduced accurately. We can insist that teachers be qualified and accredited. We can check current teaching against historical records to make sure it does not wander. We can create institutions whose job is to make sure all those things happen. On a national scale, this requires a large, expensive bureaucracy. Its activities are likely to be resisted by enemies of the true teaching. Almost everywhere Buddhism has been successful, it has had official state support. We can work to establish Buddhism as a state religion; then we can use the state’s resources to fund institutions and stamp out wrong ideas. Usually the state will demand certain changes in what we teach, in exchange for its support, but that will be reasonable price to pay to ensure Buddhism’s survival . . .

Obviously, my last paragraph got increasingly satirical. The problem is that honest efforts to preserve Buddhism can head down a slipperly slope to rigid, sterile orthodoxy. This has happened over and over through Buddhist history. As we slide further down that slope, essential principles and functions are forgotten. Experiential understanding is replaced with scholarship; then scholarship is replaced with text-worship. Living practice turns into rote ritual performance. Yana slip occurs as explanations are watered down for mass consumption.

This pattern comes from our liking form and fearing emptiness. Our response to emptiness—the possibility that Buddhism will change or be lost—is to impose form. We try to control the situation. But often the result is that Buddhist words and forms are saved, but their meanings are lost. As religious control is imposed, Buddhism becomes useful to the state as a means for social control. After two or three hundred years, Buddhism becomes little more than a repressive ideological tool of the ruling class.

At that point, Buddhism must be revived, renewed, reformed, recreated, by a hero. A hero is required for the task of creative destruction. When form is locked into place, it must be shattered to create the empty ground on which something more dynamic can arise. This cycle of gradual slides into repressive rigidity, alternating with sudden renewals, appears throughout history, in every Buddhist culture.

When a hero breaks through orthodoxy and re-forms Buddhism in empty space, a new lineage begins. Usually, the founder claims to be restoring the Buddhism of the Good Old Days, before the past few centuries of degeneration. This may be partly true, but it seems that each reformation requires innovation. Even if it were possible to recreate the Buddhism of the Good Old Days, it probably wouldn’t work very well in the ambiguous present day.

Many people would like to be heroes. Not all of them are capable of producing a version of Buddhism that is genuinely helpful for their times. Some have probably been more interested in personal gain and glory than in being helpful.

Possibly the only thing all Buddhists can agree on is that most reform movements have gone astray. Of course, we Buddhists do not agree on which were accurate and which were wrong-headed. That is why there are thousands of Buddhist sects, with extremely diverse doctrines and practices.

So, in opposite ways, attempting to preserve Buddhism as it has been, and attempting to reform it to be helpful in the present, are both risky. This is the dance of form and emptiness.

Modern circumstances do not help resolve this dilemma. In fact, rapid social change makes the risks all the greater. All we can do is to try the best we can, while keeping a skeptical eye on our own motivation, whether we are engaged in preservation or renewal or both.

External threats

History is full of fanatics with some One True Religion forcing it on others. Sometimes they succeed in completely wiping out alternatives. Many religions have gone extinct this way.

Buddhism may be exceptionally vulnerable, because it is less willing than most to use violence in self-defense.

Buddhism has competed for survival with Hinduism in India, Shinto in Japan, Confucianism and Taoism in China, Bön in Tibet, and so on. In these cases, uneasy truces were formed.

However, Islam destroyed Buddhism almost completely in India. Muslims also entirely eliminated Buddhism from Central Asia. (The various –stans were Buddhist strongholds at one time.)

More recently, Communism—a religion for all practical purposes—mostly wiped out Buddhism in Russia, China, Tibet, North Korea, and elsewhere.

Currently, this seems less of a threat in the West. Buddhism benefits greatly from the liberal principles of individual religious freedom, separation of church and state, and tolerant religious co-existence.

However, these principles are themselves under constant attack. Large minorities in Western countries want to establish theocracies, and constantly agitate for restrictions of religious freedom.

We cannot be complacent about this. I make regular donations to the American Civil Liberties Union. In the U.S., it defends freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, almost single-handedly.

There is an interesting interaction between the internal and external threats. Several studies say that Christian evangelism in traditionally-Buddhist Asia works in some places and not others. It fails where Buddhism is actually practiced by lay people. In places Buddhism has sunk into irrelevant, dead institutional orthodoxy, Christianity is more appealing, and gathers many converts.

Twilight of the isms

The era of –isms and –ists may be over. If so, what about Buddhism, and Buddhists?

Can Buddhism survive the onslaught of global modernization? Does it matter? What can we do now to keep Buddhism alive for future generations?

We live in the new age of a global consumer culture. Not long ago, English people ate English food, listened to English music, and talked on English telephones. Now that has changed—all over the world. Malaysians eat pizza in Kuala Lumpur; Chinese dance to Björk in Shanghai; the phones sold in Buenos Aires are designed in Finland and manufactured in Taiwan. Everything is available everywhere. And we feel free to pick and choose from within offerings. I like sushi but not tempura; I love The Avalanches’ “Frontier Psychiatrist,” but not anything else they have done.

Not long ago, when it came to making sense of life, people depended on systems produced locally. If you were Chinese, you were a Communist, because that was all that was available. If you were Tibetan, you were a Buddhist. If you were European, you had a few more choices—Christianity, psychoanalysis, Existentialism—but still not many.

Increasingly, we have the same attitude to religions and philosophies that we do to food. We see no reason to restrict ourselves to those produced in our home country. We see no reason to restrict ourselves to one. We see no reason to swallow anything whole. Why not take the bits we like and leave the rest? We no longer base our identity on the system we belong to. We have no brand loyalty.

We buy, reluctantly or enthusiastically, a bit of Nike, a bit of Nokia, a bit of Pepsi—but we trust those companies just as far as we can throw them. “Question authority” is intrinsic to consumerism. We know that global corporations will do whatever they can get away with. In the wake of endless scandals, we are automatically cynical about corporate propaganda.

The consumerist attitude pulls religions and philosophies down onto the same level. We regard such systems as brands or product lines. The –isms have all had their own scandals, have been critically dissected, and are widely regarded as having failed. We no longer expect to find pure, durable replacements. We treat the grand claims of spiritual systems as worthless advertising hype.

We still have the same needs that systems once addressed. We face moral dilemmas. We rail against injustice. We want to know “why am I here?” We wonder how best to use our lives. We are sure there must be more to life than mundane consumption, achievement, reproduction—but what? We need to find some way of coping with old age, sickness, and death.

Each system was—or claimed to be—a complete, coherent, consistent solution to such problems. Consumer culture has collided with those systems—and shattered them into a million jagged shards. The systems disintegrate, but isolated fragments—concepts and practices—become individual products.

We try to assemble a working, personalized set of answers from the debris. We may combine Wiccan goddess rituals with Jewish community values and Buddhist emptiness meditation. Or we practice Kung-Fu, teach Gestalt therapy, and study postmodern deconstructionism. Or we choose voluntary simplicity, practice the Alexander Technique, and rely on a channeled spirit guide—whom we don’t exactly believe in, but who gives consistently useful advice.

The risk is that the fragments do not fit together; they cannot cohere; they contradict each other. Each fragment was once part of a system that had unifying principles; the principles of each system opposed those of the others. Each fragment may carry with it an echo of the system it once belonged to. It may not function outside that context. It may actively work against other fragments from other systems, in ways that may not be obvious.

There is no point arguing about whether the end of systems is a good or bad thing. It has good and bad aspects; but it is not something we can evaluate and decide whether to accept or reject. It is, I believe, an unstoppable, accelerating force. It doesn’t matter whether it is good or bad; it is the world we live in, and probably the world everyone will live in through this century. The realistic question is what to do, once we accept it as given.

What about Buddhism?

Buddhism is—or was—a comprehensive system, of the sort that now appear to be ending. On a previous page, I suggested that it may not survive this century. Its collision with modern consumer culture is the main reason I think this. It is already impossible to take large parts of it seriously. Buddhist scripture says that the earth is flat; we could not believe that, no matter how hard we tried. My guess is that Buddhism, as a coherent tradition, will dwindle into irrelevance within a few decades.

This guess may be too pessimistic. However, is at least a possibility we should prepare for. What, if anything, do we want to do if preserving traditions intact is impossible? If Buddhism can't survive as a complete system, but fragments are likely to survive, what is worth trying to preserve and how? Such questions are the main topic of the rest of this section.

“Buddhism is for boomers”

Buddhist organizers are severely worried. The average age of ethnically-Western Buddhists is well over 50; and ones under 40 are scarce. Unless something changes, Western Buddhism will decline drastically over the next few decades, as the baby boomers die off. There has been much discussion of why this is and what to do about it.

My guess is this is actually not a Buddhist problem, and not a Western one. I think it is mainly due to the shattering of all systems in their collision with the global consumer culture (discussed on the previous page). Younger generations are decreasingly interested in taking on any system as a whole. If that is right, the problem is even more serious than most Buddhist organizers realize.

On the other hand, I will suggest that Western Buddhism is uniquely qualified to address the underlying problem. We have an extraordinary opportunity, along with the extraordinary danger.

A bit of cultural history

The baby boom generation grew up in a world that had a coherent mainstream culture. Although more than one source of meaning was available—you could be a Marxist or Freudian—those were marginal; and anyway they were offshoots of the main Western culture.

As the boomers came of age, in the 1960s, they found the mainstream culture restrictive and wrong-headed. They set about creating a counter-culture. At first it seemed that a coherent alternative youth culture could be created in opposition to the mainstream. In the 1970s, it became obvious that inventing a new culture is difficult, and also that young people had different ideas of what was important. In a spirit of openness, many alternatives were tried. Among these were religions imported from Asia.

Becoming a Buddhist made sense to boomers, who grew up in a traditional culture, based partly on a coherent religious system (Christianity). Buddhism was an alternative religious system, from a different traditional culture. In the world in which boomers grew up, there were a small number of alternatives (Catholicism, Judaism, a few Protestant sects), and sometimes people switched. Switching to a newly imported religious system, from a different traditional culture, was an understandable move.

In the 1980s, the counter-culture split into a thousand sub-cultures. Increasingly, everyone belongs to several of them—the skateboarding subculture, the online-gaming subculture, the trance music subculture, the global expatriate subculture, the tattoo and body-mod subculture, the swing dance subculture, the vampire lovers’ subculture, and so forth. These are not just hobbies, as music or sports enthusiasms would have been in the 1950s; they are ways of life.

Meanwhile, the former mainstream culture was sidelined. Rejected by most boomers and subsequent generations, it is now a quaint little subculture of its own. No other subculture has become dominant (nor does it seem feasible that any will). The result is that, since the 1980s, the West has had no mainstream culture.

Why the post-boomer generations aren’t Buddhist

Anyone born in a modern country after 1970 has never seen an intact cultural tradition (unless they have travelled to a poor country that retains one). Those under 40 have never seen a religious system that is not falling apart at its edges.

Religious systems have shattered, under the influence of the global consumer culture. The consumer attitude is “I’ll take whatever I want and leave the rest—a bit of this, a bit of that—why should I have to commit to anything?” In the New Age, fragments of dozens of religious systems were re-combined in a spiritual stew.

For most under 40, the idea of a religious system as a total answer to life makes no sense. “Becoming a Buddhist” (or “becoming an Anything-ist”) makes no sense. Buddhism is one subculture in which you may participate, but it is not something that could have a claim on you. The perceived demand that “you have to belong to Buddhism, because we have all the answers” seems like just one more delusional boomer power-trip.

Getting clear about the problem . . .

This is not a Buddhist problem. It is a problem for every religion—certainly for every “moderate” religion. (Fundamentalist religions are currently doing well, but as I’ll explain later, I think that is temporary.)

It is also not a Western problem. As traditionally-Buddhist countries modernize, young Asians seem even less interested in Buddhism than their Western counterparts. (More about that later, too.)

If this diagnosis is right, then remedies to the perceived problem “young Westerners aren’t interested in Buddhism” won’t work—unless the problem is recast as “people who grew up without a coherent mainstream system are not interested in switching to alternative systems.”

. . . and about the opportunity

Few religions seem capable of coping with our current cultural condition. Any path forward must acknowledge what is right about the consumer culture, while also showing a way beyond consumerism’s failures.

The consumer culture continually corrodes any traditional or rigid system. The New Age—if you can call it a religion—is perfectly compatible with the consumer culture, but fails to challenge its inherent contradictions.

The understanding of the non-duality of emptiness and form is unique to Buddhism. Buddhism can point out both what is missing, and what is valuable, in both contemporary culture and in traditional absolutist religions, in terms of emptiness and form. It can point to a way of life that combines the insights of both, in non-duality.

“Buddhism” is an obstacle to Buddhism

Nowadays everyone knows what “Buddhism” is. You can find it in any upscale supermarket, gift shop, or bookstore. It will be next to the scented candles and the books on healing your inner child. “Buddhism” has incense, kitschy little statues of Hotei (the “Laughing Buddha”), and wind chimes. It also has books with cute old Asian guys on the cover. They contain saccharine sayings and simplistic stories. Their core message is that if only we were all very nice, we could be happy.

Most people know they do not want “Buddhism.” They think it is obviously stupid, unrealistic, and irrelevant. They don’t believe that being nice would make them happy; they don’t want “healing”; they don’t care about “inner peace.” They want to get on with life—the real thing, not some imported Asian fantasy. (Me too.)

“Buddhism” is not such a bad thing. If everyone were very nice, the world would be stiflingly dull, but probably overall better. This kind of “Buddhism,” though, is at most only a tiny part of actual Buddhism. (Whether it is Buddhist at all is open to question.) Mostly Buddhism is not about being nice, and is not about happiness.

I worry that the word “Buddhism” has become a main obstacle to teaching real Buddhism. As soon as you use the B-word, people think wind chimes, and you have lost anyone with a realistic attitude. Instead, you attract those who want “Buddhism,” which you do not intend to provide. Much of your teaching has to aim at correcting people’s pre-existing, wrong ideas of what Buddhism is.

This problem gets worse all the time, as more and more people learn about “Buddhism.” Forty years ago everyone knew they didn't know what Buddhism was; so they had open minds. Now many people think they know enough about Buddhism to be sure they don’t want it.

Maybe I am a worry-wart

My concern may be excessive. Most of the Aro teachers I have discussed this with think I’m wrong. They find that generally people are open to Buddhism, and not repelled by the word. Since I am not a teacher, they are probably right. (But I’m obstinate.)

What excites me about Brad Warner, and the punk dharma movement, is that they are evidence that I’m wrong. He uses the B-word, and definitely teaches Buddhism, not “Buddhism.” Yet he is popular with people whose reaction to hearing wind chimes might be to put on some nice soothing death metal and turn it up to 11, until the traumatic memory of the sound has been washed away.

Still, Brad Warner’s thousands of followers, however encouraging, are a drop in the ocean. Buddhism needs to reach tens of millions of people who hate wishful thinking, not thousands.

A thousand more gimmicks

Some Buddhists have dismissed “Buddhism for punks” as a gimmick. Maybe it's true that the connections between punk and Buddhism are superficial. Perhaps the analogy does not go all that far. But, at the very least, using the word “punk” proclaims that “this is a brand of Buddhism that is for people who are realistic about some things—people who hate fake niceness and moral hypocrisy and kitschy sentimentality.” That’s new and valuable.

If that is a gimmick, then what I think Buddhism needs urgently is a dozen more gimmicks. A hundred more gimmicks. Buddhism should be available to everyone—and if it takes gimmicks to reach some people, let’s have thousands of them.

Buddhism for vampires

Maybe we should do some brainstorming? Here’s an example. How about “Buddhism for vampires”? Vampires dominate the best-seller lists; they are nothing if not mainstream. But they do appeal to people who are a bit off-center, and open to slightly scary new ideas. And most vampire lovers are probably not into wind chimes.

“Buddhism for vampires” is intriguing: what could that be about? Like “punk Dharma,” it makes it obvious that we are not talking about nicey-nicey New Age junk.

“Buddhism for vampires” could be strictly gimmicky—annoyingly cutesy—nothing more than a quick way to cash in on two fads.

But it could also be quite serious—for those willing to explore the razor edge of life and death, lust and aggression, monstrosity and nobility, horror and beauty, romance and madness, and the eternal moment where all these converge, in non-duality. These are main themes of Buddhist Tantra—and of vampire fiction.

In fact, the connections between Buddhism and vampirism seem to me much more pertinent than those between Buddhism and punk. I may not take this too far, but I may offer some more details at some point. 

[Update, May 2010: I have now taken it way too far, with a whole web site devoted to Buddhism for Vampires.]

Oh, hey, by the way—did you know that Garab Dorje, the founder of Dzogchen, was also named “Rolang Dewa,” which means “Blissful Vampire”? (I am not making this up . . . )

And that in the Twilight Saga (which is the best-selling fictional work in history) a particularly important vampire is named “Aro”? (Clearly, that is extremely significant.)

Thought soup

In Buddhist meditation, we discover that we do not originate our own thoughts. In meditation, we allow thoughts to come and go under their own power. They do that without our making them happen. We find that they come from empty space and return to emptiness. There is nothing personal about thoughts, when we experience them without involvement.

I find this discovery compatible with a pretty recent Western perspective: that almost all of our thoughts are taken over from our culture. Our wording may be a bit different, but almost everything we think simply repeats ideas we have heard or read or heard on TV. It is unusual and difficult to think an original thought.

We swim in a sea, or soup, of talk. These are the messages we receive from the media, and also the ways our friends explain themselves and their lives. Our thoughts mainly recycle this talk, and we propagate it when we talk ourselves.

This is not a bad thing. It is inevitable. Human beings are just not smart enough to figure everything out for ourselves. We get the benefit of centuries of millions of people figuring things out for us, each adding tiny portions to the thought-soup we live in.

Of course, some of the thoughts we take on are wrong; that is the downside of belonging to a culture. Although we can’t entirely avoid that, meditation—and other aspects of Buddhism—can help us recognize that we don’t have to believe all the thoughts that pass through our heads. We can take our thought soup with a dash of salt.

When it comes to thinking about our lives, and how to live them, there are remarkably few basic ideas available. There are innumerable isms or systems around. We might try the Enneagram or secular humanism or Mormonism or eco-activism or twelve-stepping. Or Buddhism; or any of countless others. Each of these has some peculiar ideas of its own. Mainly, though, they offer different combinations, and minor variations, of a handful of fundamental approaches to life.

In the old days, when there was such a thing as a mainstream culture, the thought-soup mainly came from that culture. Ideas from other systems were available, but only to the adventurous. Those thoughts recognizably came from somewhere other than the mainstream.

Since the mainstream culture broke down, it is no longer considered important where ideas came from. Everyone says, and thinks, things like

• “You have to honor your feelings”
• “All religions point to the same truth”
• “You have to make your own, authentic choices, and fight off the mindless messages you get from society”
• “Everyone has their own truth, because everyone has their own perspective”
• “Be in the now”

Almost no one in the West had ideas like these a hundred years ago. Almost no one now realizes that they come from (respectively) psychotherapeutic theory, Hinduism, Existentialism, post-modernism, and Buddhism. Almost no one recognizes that if you take such ideas seriously, they are seriously incompatible.

The ways that current soap opera characters talk about their lives incorporate ideas that were completely alien a century ago, and were heavy weirdness for university philosophy students only a few decades ago. What has happened is that key ideas of major systems have “escaped” into the culture at large. Their origins are forgotten. They have become part of our thought-soup.

Buddhism shattered

Here are three facts about Eckhart Tolle that, together, might shock you:

1. What he teaches is Buddhism, more than anything else; both Buddhist view and Buddhist meditation.
2. He does not call it Buddhism, and he mashes it up with bits of various other religions.
3. His books have sold more than ten million copies in the past few years. That is probably more than all explicitly Buddhist books (in Western languages) combined.

By that measure, Tolle by himself is more successful, or appealing, than all of Buddhism. Shouldn’t that bother us?

More about that in a minute. But first:

Tolle is one example of the “shattering” of Buddhism in its collision with consumer culture. Buddhism as a complete, coherent tradition is increasingly superseded by Buddhist shards entering popular culture. Pieces that do not seem appealing or understandable are ignored, or even explicitly condemned. Attractive concepts and practices are isolated and taught in new, often non-Buddhist contexts. Buddhism is broken down and re-configured in many ways:

• Even the most conservative Asian teachers of Buddhism in the West leave out much of what was taught in their home countries.
• All Buddhist teachers in the West depend on forms of organization and communication that were absent in traditional Asia.
• Buddhist doctrines are frequently re-interpreted in ways that make better sense here. A pioneering example was Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s teaching of the six realms of rebirth as a psychological metaphor. Although there is precedent for this approach in Dzogchen, Tibetan Buddhism always presented the heavens and hells as geographic locations—a difficult concept for Westerners.
• Westerners involved with Buddhism vary widely in their commitment. There are probably far fewer Buddhists than people who are “interested in Buddhism” or “into Buddhism” or “Buddhish.” Both they, and many who call themselves Buddhists, feel free to combine pieces of Buddhism with other religions, practices, or philosophies.
• There is broad, confused awareness of Buddhism among people who have no real interest. The Worst Horse chronicles distorted reflections of Buddhism in pop culture.
• Ideas and practices from Buddhism that have leaked into the general culture are often no longer recognized as Buddhist. They have “escaped” or “gone native.” They have become part of the global “thought soup” of ways of describing experience.

It is the last of these that is most interesting to me. Even in the best case, Buddhism seems likely only to be the religion of a small minority. In the worst case, I fear it may go extinct in this century. In either case, if bits of Buddhism escape into the thought soup, they may be able to benefit billions.

That brings us back to Eckhart Tolle, who teaches parts of Buddhism without calling them that. Some of his success is due to a business relationship with Oprah Winfrey. Each episode of her television show, on which he appears often, is seen by about 10 million people. My guess is that few Oprah viewers are Buddhists, or would ever consider becoming Buddhists. Eckhart Tolle is probably the closest they will ever come to Dharma.

I think that, as Buddhists, we ought to have strong, mixed feelings about this. Better Eckhart Tolle than nothing, surely. If millions of Oprah fans get a basic understanding of the kleshas, of the workings of ego, of awareness, and of meditation, that must be a good thing. Considered as Buddhism, though, his teaching is seriously distorted. (He openly presents it as a mashup, so considering it as Buddhism is unfair.)

If Tolle were a massively popular teacher of Yazidism, he would be no concern of ours. But what he teaches is almost, or mostly, Buddhism. Why can’t actual Buddhism reach as many people as he does? What is he doing right that we are doing wrong? Or is his mashup inherently more appealing—or even, more useful—than Buddhism? I don’t know. (Maybe you have ideas?) Here are some plausible answers:

The problem is “Buddhism.”

The word “Buddhism” immediately locks out many people. Some have allegiances to other religions, so they refuse to consider anything labeled with the name of a competing brand. Others have wrong ideas about what “Buddhism” is, based on the way it has been marketed in the past twenty years.

Perhaps if someone were to teach straight-up Buddhism without ever using the word, they would be as popular as Tolle.

I doubt this. I think the word “Buddhism” is a significant obstacle, but that can’t be all that is going on.

His presentation does a better job of explaining Buddhism to beginners than anyone else’s.

This may be partly right. His books are not well-written. However, they do have an actual idea on every page. (“Self-help” books, where his are classified, usually have about one idea each, or at best one idea per chapter; the rest is filler.) And, each idea is mostly self-contained. So he presents a series of bite-sized pieces that are genuinely substantial. These are ideally suited for slipping into the thought soup.

It’s about him, not what he teaches.

I’ve watched some of his videos on YouTube. His way of speaking is appealingly friendly and cheerful. He comes across as explaining things very clearly and simply, so that they seem obviously right. After a ten-minute video, however, I had only the vaguest recollection of what he had said. (“It was sort of about awareness and space, I think.”)

Perhaps he is such a skilled speaker that he could explain off-balance-sheet financial derivative accounting and make it seem fascinating, profound, and sensible. Although you might not come away with an entirely detailed understanding.

It’s an accident. He’s a TV personality. He is famous for being famous, and is about as significant as Paris Hilton.

Chance is always a factor. But I doubt it is the explanation here. Anyway, what we really want to know is not why Tolle is successful, but what we can do to make Buddhism available to more people.

The pieces he adds to Buddhism, and the ways he distorts it, are what make his teaching palatable.

This is the most interesting, and unsettling, possibility—that what he teaches, not how, is critical.

Tolle’s key differences from Buddhism, I think, are instances of “eternalism.” Eternalism is understood differently in different Buddhist yanas. Here I mean the beliefs that there is some sort of soul or “deep self,” and that there is some sort of Cosmic Plan, Higher Consciousness, God, or what-not. For eternalism, the Cosmic Plan is the source of everything truly good, and it makes everything meaningful. What is important is to get your “true self” into the proper relationship with it.

Eternalism is enormously attractive to most people, because it suggests that if only you follow the instructions, everything will come out right. That is a great comfort, as it eliminates the possibility that, despite doing our best, we will come to a bad end.

Tolle may be successful as a result of wedding the most attractive aspects of Buddhism with a comforting eternalism. His eternalism is vague enough to offend no one who is not strongly committed to another religion.

Unfortunately, eternalism produces vast suffering. Just in living, we constantly observe that most things happen for no particular reason, that most experiences have no particular meaning, and that life gives no guarantees. (These are manifestations of emptiness; eternalism is the denial of emptiness.) If we believe that goodness comes only from the Cosmic Plan, we will mistake evidence against the existence of the Cosmic Plan as evidence against goodness. That throws us into confusion, anxiety, and depression.

The understanding of emptiness as good news is, I think, the most unusual and valuable feature of Buddhism. As Buddhists we are glad that we don’t have to fuss with our souls, delighted that God is not telling us what to do, and ecstatic that we can experience things simply as they are—rather than in terms of what God meant them to be.

Unfortunately, emptiness is the aspect of basic Buddhism that, although central, is probably least initially attractive, and most difficult for outsiders to comprehend. And that may be why Tolle sells more books than all Buddhists put together.

[Update: I have written more about Eckhart Tolle on my Meaningness site.]

Stealth Dharma

“Stealth Dharma,” or “stealth Buddhism,” means Buddhists teaching aspects of Buddhism to non-Buddhists, without the word “Buddhism,” without Buddhist jargon, and without presenting the entire Buddhist framework.

Why would anyone do that?

Concepts and methods from Buddhism are escaping into the “thought soup” of our global culture. Their origin in Buddhism is being forgotten. Millions of non-Buddhists now practice Buddhist meditation techniques. Non-Buddhist teachers, like Eckhart Tolle, teach fragmented Buddhist concepts to non-Buddhist students. Meanwhile, the word “Buddhism” is becoming unattractive for some, having been presented as sugary, weak, hypocritical, and unrealistic.

As Buddhists, we might prefer that everyone learn Buddhism as a complete system. And, of course, Buddhist teachers will continue to teach it that way. But, we also need to face facts. In a consumerist age, fewer and fewer people are willing to accept any system whole. Most would rather choose and combine a personal mixture of bits from here and there. We cannot stop this “shattering” of Buddhism.

What we can do is influence the process. We can actively work to introduce parts of Buddhism we consider essential to general consciousness. That may be the best hope for preserving them, if Buddhism as a system faces extinction. Distasteful as it may seem, we might be more useful in the long run by actively helping to make fragments of Buddhism available to potentially billions of non-Buddhists, than by saving Buddhism intact for perhaps only a few million.

Despite the humorous use of the word “stealth,” this is not a matter of deception. It’s always right to be upfront about where the teachings and teachers are coming from. It’s just that origins may be irrelevant to most of the audience, and emphasizing the source can be counter-productive if it sounds like proselytizing.

Correcting distortions of Dharma, as pieces enter the global culture, is another aspect of stealth Buddhism. Some misunderstandings of Buddhism are nearly universal. These can be dispelled by introducing better ideas, that can out-compete the wrong ones. This needs to be done positively. For instance, denouncing Eckhart Tolle because he mixes up Buddhist ideas with eternalism would be counter-productive. It would be better to produce popular understanding of the ways that eternalism makes you miserable.

Stealth Dharma could take many, widely varied forms, depending on the aspect of Buddhism taught, and the audience. Many of these may look nothing like religion as generally understood.

“Stealth Buddhism” is most often used to refer to teaching Buddhist meditation to non-Buddhists. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s Shambhala Training, which he described as “a secular path of meditation,” was what first made Dharma available to me. More recently, Jon Kabat-Zinn’s packaging of meditation as a medical treatment for stress has been hugely successful. On a smaller scale, Aro’s free email meditation course teaches the Dzogchen sem-dé ngöndro, but mentions Buddhism only once. It seems to have reached more people than any of the other Aro materials. As a follow-on, the Aro “Members” program supports many non-Buddhists in their meditation practice. None of these “stealth Dharma” projects are manipulative attempts to recruit potential Buddhists. Instead, they make meditation, one of the most valuable aspects of Buddhism, available to people who may not want the rest.

Consumerism, Fundamentalism, and Buddhism

We live in a time in which the main approaches to life are empty consumerism and militant fundamentalism. These are mirror images of each other. Most people recognize, dimly at least, that neither is workable. However, alternatives are scarce. The middle position has become increasingly untenable.

Every religion faces extinction at the hands of the global consumer culture. Every religion has to figure out how to respond to the accelerating pull toward the opposing poles of fundamentalism and consumerism. This page explains three common survival strategies, and why I think they will fail—for Buddhism, at least. On the next page, I suggest that Buddhism can adopt an alternative approach—one that sidesteps these problems—one that is not available to other religions.

The slippery slope of reasonable compromise

In traditional cultures, moderate religions need little defense. They make only moderate demands on the behavior of their members. They have reasonable-sounding answers to questions about “why do we believe that?” and “why do we have to do that?” With little competition, those answers seem adequate.

The global consumer culture makes countless competing religions available. It asks questions that are skeptical, cynical, even hostile. “Why should I buy what you are selling?” Consumerism finds the answers given by all religions unconvincing.

The response of moderate religions is to concede point after point to skeptics, in hope of finding a reasonable compromise.

“You are right—the earth does go around the sun. Scripture cannot be taken literally. Still, we can learn a lot from reading it as holy allegory.”

“You are right—we have no good explanation for why a good God would have created a world full of undeserved suffering—but we know he did.”

“You are right—sex before marriage is OK. Moral rules invented by nomadic herdsmen thousands of years ago were right for the time, but things are different now. Still, there is a core of morality that was given by God.”

“You are right—atheists, on average, are just as ethical as believers. Religion is not necessary for a just, caring society. Still, for us, God is the foundation of ethics.”

“You are right—humans evolved spontaneously from apes. It seems that our existence is an accident. But we believe God created the universe billions of years ago, and he must have foreseen that accident. Our existence is meaningful, because it is observed by God.”

“You are right—there is no evidence for the existence of God, apart from the evidence of our own hearts. Still, we know he exists, because the alternative is too grim to consider.”

religion is gradually hollowed out

The problem with this reasonable approach is that religion is gradually hollowed out. Religion concedes that its rituals are unnecessary, that its scriptures were written by ordinary people with limited understanding, that the details of its ethics are arbitrary, and that its central beliefs have no real justification.

What is left? Little more than “it is good to be good—although we can’t say in detail what counts as goodness; and we believe in a Holy Principle—although we can’t say why, or what it is.”

Most people see this weak-tea religion as useless. As a result, moderate sects have, in the past few decades, seen a dramatic loss in membership. This is confirmed in large social surveys polling, at least, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. I haven’t found statistics for other major religions, but I expect it is true for them too.

Western Buddhism is falling into this trap

I suspect mainstream Western Buddhism is falling into this trap. Having quietly abandoned most of what counted as Buddhism in Asia, it is not clear that it is sufficiently different from generic humanism to remain interesting. Sometimes there seems to be little more to it than “it is good to be good—but we have nothing distinctively Buddhist to say about goodness. And, it is good to meditate—but it is not necessary, and you don’t have to be a Buddhist for that. Also, we have some dubious folk tales that you might find inspiring. Or not.”

If moderate religion is no longer attractive, what do people choose instead? Extreme religions are growing rapidly. So are census responses like “no religion,” “spiritual but not religious,” “agnostic,” “atheist,” and “none of the above.”

Fundamentalism

You can’t compromise with consumerism. If you give an inch, it will take a mile. In fact, it will take the whole universe, chew it up, and spit it out.

Fundamentalism refuses to give the first inch. “God created the universe on October 23, 4004 B.C., with vegetarian Tyrannosauruses. They became carnivorous as a result of Adam’s original sin and they all drowned in Noah’s Flood (2348 B.C.). Also, people caught wearing wool/linen blend suits should be put to death (Leviticus 19:19).” Fundamentalism is the insistence that the absurd is true, and that something very bad will happen to you—in this life or later—if you don’t believe and obey.

Fundamentalist religions rightly see themselves as under assault from consumerist forces. Those are a dire threat to every religion’s existence. Fundamentalism wrongly sees depraved barbarism—a total collapse of the moral order—as the only alternative to its rule. Fundamentalism is motivated by fear, and it propagates fear.

Fundamentalist religions cannot defend themselves on the basis of reason and cannot compromise. Their alternative is armored hostility. From fear springs aggression. The best defense is a good offense. Absurd beliefs and abhorrent practices can be maintained only by force and ignorance. Fundamentalism accumulates political power to force religion on the reluctant, and to shut out information about alternatives.

fundamentalism
will lose

In the confrontation between fundamentalism and consumerism, I predict fundamentalism will lose. The internet and global trade make it increasingly difficult to insulate populations from forbidden knowledge.

Given a choice between Sharia and YouTube, Jesus and premarital sex, Marx and microwave ovens, I think almost everyone will take the consumerist option. That’s just as well. Buddhism’s recognition of emptiness makes fundamentalism difficult. There are versions of Buddhism with fundamentalist tendencies, but if fundamentalism were the future, Buddhism almost certainly wouldn’t survive.

Anyway, I for one would vehemently oppose fundamentalist Buddhism.

The New Age strategy

The New Age is a consumerist substitute for religion. It is a hodge-podge, taken from here and there, of superficially attractive, but mainly absurd ideas and practices.

How does the New Age escape consumerist skepticism? It has a third strategy—not compromise and not fundamentalism. The New Age has no fixed beliefs to defend—because it refuses to deal with factual reality altogether. Its view is that we all create our own realities, so whatever you believe is true—for you. You don’t believe in angelic spirit guides? No problem—they are not part of your reality—why not try quantum mysticism? It is very scientific. Crystal healing isn’t working? Try reflexology!

reality is
not negotiable

There is a grain of truth in the idea that mind creates reality. (Some Buddhist philosophies have much more sophisticated versions of it.) However, the world actually is round, not flat. This is not negotiable.

Buddhism (according to legend) began with Siddhartha Gotama’s shocked discovery of old age, sickness, and death. These are brute facts. They cannot be wished out of existence by changing your beliefs.

Much of the New Age is devoted to pretending away old age, sickness, and death; or overcoming them by spiritual means. This—pretty obviously—cannot and does not work.

For that reason, the New Age has limited appeal. And, its strategy of non-confrontation with consumerism won’t work for Buddhism.

A Dzogchen-shaped hole in the culture

God is undead

It was not Nietzsche who killed God.

He was severely bruised by Copernicus, who found that the earth revolves around the sun, and so threw God out of heaven. He was emasculated by Darwin, who found that humans evolved from apes by accident, and so made the Creator redundant. He was blinded by Heisenberg, who found that the universe is inherently random, so even God could not see the future.

But it was consumerism that killed God. God’s job, before he died, was to provide form. If you want form, consumerism has a better product: 628 channels of high-definition digital entertainment; 13 million knick-knacks you can buy on e-Bay; 373 squintillion web pages full of dubious factoids. God fed on our desire for form; when we switched to mass entertainment, he finally died of starvation and neglect.

God’s carcass walks. Fundamentalism is driven by fear of emptiness. That uncanny fear artificially animates the mindless zombie. His colossal corpse, a blind idiot god, staggers across the earth, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

Buddhism, by celebrating the inseparability of form and emptiness, can put the corpse of God to rest, and can dissolve the twin demons of fundamentalism and consumerism into thin air.

Stop-gap gods

The death of God left a hole in the heart of Western culture. We had used God as the source of meaning, purpose, value, ethics. Consumerism can provide endless form, but it cannot provide meaning. When we look for something beyond the superficial, it is desperate to distract us—“never mind that philosophical junk, here’s the new Britney Spears video!”

Various movements have tried to plug the hole by proposing new sources of meaning. Science, Progress, Reason, the march of History, Socialism, nationalism—somehow all were supposed to do God’s job. They couldn’t.

Nietzsche’s prophesy

Friedrich Nietzsche announced the death of God. Religious people responded by shooting the messenger—but Nietzsche, too, saw God’s demise as a potential disaster. He was first to face facts: God could no longer provide the ultimate source of meaning, because religion could no longer be taken seriously by educated Europeans.

Nietzsche had the courage to stare into the hole at the heart of our culture, and what he saw was emptiness. He saw that no stop-gap god, like Democracy, Compassion, or Enlightenment, could provide a replacement source of meaning. He saw that all values were ultimately null. He saw that there are no absolute truths. He saw that there can be no fundamental basis for ethics.

Nietzsche was far ahead of his time. He prophesied three possible reactions to the death of God, when the news eventually entered popular consciousness: nihilism, consumerism, and the “transvaluation of all values.”

Nihilism is the denial of form. It is the mistaken idea that because there is no ultimate truth, there is no truth at all; that because there is no ultimate purpose, our lives are pointless; that because there is no foundation for ethics, all acts are morally equal. Nihilism leads to rage or despair. If everything is meaningless, you might as well kill yourself—or everyone else. Nietzsche feared that when the death of God became generally recognized, people would fall into nihilism, which could potentially lead to total social breakdown. Western culture was built on Christian foundations, and when they fell out, there was nothing beneath: only emptiness. However, nihilism requires a perverse intellectual and moral courage that few possess. To be a nihilist, you must stare into the abyss of emptiness, and act on what you see there. Actual nihilists remain extremely rare.

safe entertainment is Nihilism Lite™

The second possible reaction Nietzsche saw was consumerism—the prophesy that has come to pass. Consumerism might be called “Nihilism Lite™.” To avoid squarely confronting the implications of emptiness, we distract ourselves with trivial entertainments. In the absence of any God who could inspire passionate commitment and acts of greatness, we accept mediocrity and are preoccupied with comfort and safety. Consumerism wrongly supposes that the death of God implies that there is no meaning beyond the mundane; it does not have the courage of true nihilism to see that the mundane is equally meaningless. Having lost the foundation for ethics, we have no motivation for moral courage. We adopt the ethics of the herd, in which one is moderately good, when not too inconvenient, because that is the way to get along with the herd—not because we are committed to coherent moral principles.

Consumerism’s insatiable hunger for novelty, for continually more form, has an edge of desperation. Consumption, like fundamentalist fervor, tries to cover up a fundamental anxiety: the fear of emptiness. We know that God is dead, but we refuse to deal with the news. Consumerism is hiding your head under the blankets in hopes that if you can’t see the nihilist zombie, it won’t eat you.

At the end of his working life, Nietzsche saw a third, hopeful possibility. He described it as the “transvaluation of all values” by a hypothetical “Superman.” Unfortunately, he did not have time to work this idea out, and it is not clear quite what he meant by it. Some of what he wrote seems clearly wrong. However, this possibility seems intriguingly similar, in some respects, to the Vajrayana Buddhist conception of enlightenment as nobility or heroism.

Philosophy at the heart of the culture

. . . philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct . . . academic scribbler of a few years back.
—Keynes (out of context)

Despite the vast proliferation of “isms,” there are only a handful of meaningfully different ways of thinking about life. Generally, they are produced—or at least first stated—by philosophers. Gradually these ideas work their way into the “thought soup” of popular culture. They become the girders and beams of the house of being. That is, we weave our lives, and the ways we experience living, around these few ideas.

Nietzsche was an academic philosopher. His ideas about the problem of nihilism are now a basic part of everyone’s way of thinking about the world—even though few people know their origin.

WOODY ALLEN: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it?

GIRL IN MUSEUM: Yes it is.

WOODY ALLEN: What does it say to you?

GIRL IN MUSEUM: It restates the negativeness of the universe, the hideous lonely emptiness of existence, nothingness, the predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity, like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void, with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless bleak straightjacket in a black absurd cosmos.

WOODY ALLEN: What are you doing Saturday night?

GIRL IN MUSEUM: Committing suicide.

WOODY ALLEN: What about Friday night?

In the 120 years since Nietzsche’s prophesy, many philosophers have wrestled with its implications. Currently, Western philosophy is at an acknowledged dead end: it has no answer for the problem Nietzsche announced. However, its exploration of the problem’s implications is, I think, highly relevant to the possible future role of Buddhism in Western culture. I can give only a brief and oversimplified version here:

• Nietzsche’s positive possibility—the transvaluation of values—has not been pursued seriously.
• Existentialism was a philosophical movement that was mainly concerned with the problem of nihilism. It tried to develop an alternative positive possibility, which it called “authenticity.” This proved to be unworkable and was abandoned.
• Existentialism lapsed into depression, and could only counsel gloomy acceptance of what it called “the Absurd”: that both belief in God and nihilism are untenable, but that there is no third alternative. This seemed obviously wrong, and existentialism was seen to have failed.
• Existentialism was replaced with postmodernism. Postmodernism observes that nihilism has not been the catastrophe it might have been. Life has gone on; Western civilization has not collapsed. So it seems safe to adopt Nihilism Lite™. Like the New Age, postmodernism refuses to deal with factual reality, insisting that all truth-claims are just a matter of perspective. Like consumerism and the New Age, it is obsessed with the trivial and silly, because it sees no way to judge importance. These three are all manifestations of the same strategy for avoiding a serious confrontation with the same problem: the emptiness of meaning.
• Postmodernism is widely seen to be a dead end; but no successor is in sight. Any way forward would have to deal directly with the apparent contradiction of the Absurd: that God is dead, with no replacement possible, but nihilism is clearly wrong.

The failure of philosophy is the failure of our culture as a whole. Our ideas about how to live, available in our thought-soup, make sense only if there is some ultimate source of meaning; but there is none. That leaves us without a positive mode of existence. Fundamentalism and consumerism, however problematic, seem the only options.

Nihilism, eternalism, and Buddhism

Buddhism never had a God. And, it claims not to have a nihilism problem.

Instead, Buddhism claims to have a powerful analysis of why theism and nihilism are both wrong, why both are attractive in some ways, and why the third alternative—nonduality—is hard to find. And it has concrete methods that it claims allow us to actualize that third alternative.

If that is true, and if Western philosophy is right that nihilism is a gaping hole in the heart of our culture, then it seems important to fit these pieces together.

The heart of Buddhist philosophy is the recognition that form is empty, and that emptiness is also form.

• “Eternalism” is the refusal to see the emptiness of form. “Eternalism” includes both belief in God, and belief in any “stopgap God” or other supposed source of ultimate meaning. Meaning itself is always empty: insubstantial, transitory, interactive, fragmentary, and ambiguous. This gives us freedom: open space.
• But emptiness is not non-existence. Nihilism—for Buddhism—is the refusal to see that emptiness is also form. The emptiness of meaning is not a problem. The ambiguity of purpose, value, and ethics is no cause for worry, much less despair. Meanings continually arise spontaneously. Their lack of any ultimate source does not make them any less real or compelling.

Because God never existed, the hole in Western culture is not God-shaped. Nietzsche stared into that hole and saw emptiness; but where there is emptiness, there is also form. Dzogchen is the non-duality of form and emptiness. There is a Dzogchen-shaped hole in the heart of our culture. Perhaps now we can put the puzzle piece in place.

(I say “Dzogchen” because I am a Nyingmapa. You could equally well substitute “Madhyamaka” or “Mahamudra.” What matters is their shared understanding of the ways we distort our existence by trying to separate form and emptiness.)

Now what?

Nothing I have said here is new. Both Japanese Buddhist and Western philosophers have recognized the relevance of nonduality to the Western problem of nihilism for most of a century. They have written many books on the subject. Yet they have failed to influence either Buddhist or Western philosophy—much less the general culture. That is because they write in dense technical language. To understand them, you need to have studied both Buddhist and Western philosophy in depth. To be useful, the insight has to be available to people who have no interest in either.

Our culture fails to provide ways of thinking about life that do not implicitly assume an ultimate source of life-meaning. Buddhism has such tools, but they have not yet made the leap into the global thought-soup.

Perhaps we need a stealth Dharma effort, aiming particularly to resolve this problem.

[Update: I am now working on this, at Meaningness.]

Yes

Fundamentalism and consumerism appear to be polar opposites—but both are right. Both are also wrong—but the truth is not halfway between.

Fundamentalism claims to know the ultimate Truths of meaningfulness. It says ultimate purpose lives somewhere else—with God, the sacred, or in the future. The ordinary world has no real value.

Consumerism says nothing is sacred. There are no ultimate meanings. Nothing has a purpose beyond the ordinary obvious. The best we can do in life is to gobble as many goodies as we can—material things, and also personal gratifications like fame, relationships, and experiences.

We are torn between these approaches, because each explains some aspects of our experience, while clashing with others. Most religions try to find a mid-point between these extremes—but that does not work.

Buddhism—in some forms, at least—is a religion of methods, not Truths. It is immune to consumerism’s skeptical critique, because it has no ultimate claims to defend. The New Age, which also defends no ultimate truths, does that by abandoning reality altogether. Buddhism is realistic, and recognizes pragmatic, non-ultimate truths.

The Buddhist understanding of the non-duality of form and emptiness shows clearly what is right and wrong about both fundamentalism and consumerism.

Meaning, like everything, has inseparable aspects of emptiness and form. Meaninglessness and meaningfulness are entwined in an endless dance.

Fundamentalism recognizes the meaningfulness of the sacred, but attempts to lock it in place as form: as ultimate Truth. Fundamentalism denies the meaningfulness of ordinary enjoyments, attempting to lock it out as non-existent. Consumerism denies the sacred, and attempts to lock everyday desires into fixed forms.

Buddhism resolves this contradiction by recognizing all meanings as real but ambiguous. This is an alternative that is not a mid-point: it fully affirms what is right about both extremes, without taking on their mistaken fixations and denials.

Explaining this resolution in detail takes a long book. (But also see Aro “purpose” page—especially “The Way of Being”.) Here I will offer only an allusive hint of ways in which Buddhism can affirm both meaning and meaninglessness, without mistakenly fixating either.

Yes

Yes— the meanings we find are genuine; and meaning matters. We may find anything or everything meaningful. Meanings are endlessly various; delightfully diverse. We continually uncover new aspects and levels of meaning in existence.

Yes— nothing is inherently meaningful. The world is not about us. We mostly have no relevance to it, and it has no particular relevance to us. The universe is unimaginably vast. It is mainly incomprehensible. Mostly what happens, happens for no particular reason.

Yes— meaning is not a human creation. It is not merely an individual choice, or a cultural convention. There are sources of meaning greater than us, which we do not comprehend, and may never comprehend.

Yes— meaning is neither objective, nor subjective. (Meaning arises in the interaction between subject and object.)

Yes— our lives have purposes far beyond satisfying our instinctive hungers. Creativity and compassionate activity are right uses of human being. Audacity, commitment, and generosity give our lives meaning.

Yes— we have no “true mission” in life. Ultimately, there is no purpose in living. Whatever we gain for ourselves is lost in death; whatever we accomplish will be forgotten soon after. There is no guarantee of reward or punishment in the hereafter.

Yes— we have too little time to waste it on mind-numbing entertainment or soul-destroying work. Despite endless temptations, and seeming practicalities, it is better to devote ourselves to what matters.

Yes— anything we appreciate has true value. Nothing is inherently trivial, uninteresting, or worthless. Casual enjoyment is inseparable from creative compassion. It is a proper goal in life.

Yes— we must be realistic: we are apes who have become perhaps too clever for our own good. Our brains evolved for the lives of social mammals, concerned with feeding, safety, reproduction, and social status. That’s mostly what we still care about and are good at. The world, and other animals of our species, matter mostly only when they are useful or threatening. When our brains get Big Ideas, they often lead us off a cliff. Like other animals, our destiny is to live briefly, spawn possibly, and die certainly. When we die, we die, ultimately, alone.

Yes— we must be realistic: humans are magnificent. We are brilliant at the most amazingly different activities. We can rely on each other to co-create domains of beauty and value. We are all capable of remarkable altruism, invention, and good humor; this is available to everyone, in every moment, not just special people. We live in a world that is fascinating for its own sake, beyond our hopes and fears. When we open to, and enjoy, its vastness and inherent meaninglessness—we discover awe; and glimpse the ultimate nature of being.

Three percent of the Dharma

I have been practicing Buddhist meditation, more or less half-assedly, for upwards of twenty-five years. Recently it occurred to me that this is one percent of the history of Buddhism, since Shakyamuni Buddha is supposed to have lived about 2500 years ago.

That was a shock. Buddhism seems impossibly ancient, and for my little piece of it to have been a full percent seems far too much. But if we are lucky, and last for what counts now as a normal life-span, we will see more than three percent of the history of Buddha-Dharma. That is one thirtieth.

In the first page of this section, I suggested that we are responsible to Buddhism. Here I would like to take a deeper cut. We are not only responsible to Buddhism; we are responsible for Buddhism. We are responsible for the portion of Buddhism that occurs during our lives—three percent of it. And we are responsible for a particularly critical three percent, in which Buddhism faces both extraordinary dangers and extraordinary opportunities. Buddhism could easily become effectively extinct within this century. But Buddhism also has radical transformational potential for Western society.

Buddhism should never be invented or deliberately added to. However, it also cannot survive if it is merely mechanically reproduced according to a recipe. Our job is not to alter Buddhism to suit our circumstances, but to work to make it relevant to our lives. This is a creative improvisational dance in which Buddhism, we, and our world interact.

The essential teaching of Shakyamuni, of Padmasambhava, of Yeshé Tsogyel, of Aro Lingma, is just as profound, shocking, relevant, and exciting as when they were alive.

We tend to think of Buddhism as something that happened long ago, far away. It has been passed down to us as an obscure holy relic that we are supposed to revere and study like a museum piece. But our fundamental responsibility is to live the view. That is the real meaning of refuge: to make the dusty teachings come alive—by seeing the world illuminated by Dharma, and acting on what we see.

Buddhism is us. It has always been us; it has always been seemingly ordinary people discovering its radical possibility and being transformed by it.

2500 years ago it was Shakyamuni, a confused Indian guy who discovered something useful by sitting under a tree; and his motley collection of followers. 1200 years ago, it was Padmasambhava, a ferocious Central Asian who put on his ang-ra one leg at a time, trying to pound some sense into the heads of a bunch of blood-thirsty barbarians; and his lover Yeshé Tsogyel.

It is useful also to see these pioneers as heroic demigods with shimmering bodies of light who performed miracles—but only because it is also useful to see ourselves as heroic demigods with shimmering bodies of light who can perform miracles. The message of Inner Tantra is that there is no essential difference between the yidams and ourselves. With hard work, open hearts, and lots of luck, we may be able to do what they did.

In our practice, we rely on Yeshé Tsogyel and Padmasambhava to show us dharmakaya and sambhogakaya; but they are relying on us to show nirmanakaya.

Let’s not let them down.

Is the Aro gTer valid?

A terma is, roughly, a “revelation.” As in most Nyingma lineages, the Aro teachings are based mainly on a terma: the Aro gTér. (gTér is an unusual spelling of “terma”. The g is silent, so it is pronounced “aro ter,” rhyming with “hair.” Sometimes you also see “Aroter.”)

The person who discovers a terma is called a terton. Aro Lingma (illustrated above) was the terton of the Aro gTer.

In Tibet, wealth, power, fame, and women were often showered on tertons. So, for the clever, it was often tempting to invent some plausible-sounding religious nonsense and call it a terma. And so there was a serious problem of knowing which terma were genuine revelations, and which were well-crafted fakes.

It would be convenient if there were a good way to test terma, or a central authority that could put its stamp of approval on the real ones. Unfortunately, there isn’t. This is a problem for anyone who wishes to follow any Nyingma lineage. As an alternative, one could join a Tibetan School that isn’t based on terma. That might seem safer. However, those lineages are based on other scriptures that are also rejected by almost all Buddhists outside Tibet. So it doesn’t really help. There are no uncontroversial branches of Buddhism. There is no safety in Buddhism.

The next several pages of this site are devoted to the question “Is the Aro gTer valid?” The answer depends partly on “according to what standard?”

There are several standards according to which the answer is “obviously not.” For example, from point of view of Islam, the Aro gTer is definitely invalid. But so is the rest of Buddhism, so that is not interesting. Similarly, some Tibetans reject all terma. However, most accept at least some.

The most reasonable standard is that of the Nyingma tradition. The Aro lineage belongs to that tradition. I will explain the Nyingma theory of terma validation. Unfortunately, it turns out to be less helpful than we would like. It cannot give a definitive, yes/no answer.

Another reasonable standard is that of comparative scholarship. That perspective cannot answer the question “is the Aro gTer magically effective.” However, it can answer the question “is the Aro gTer consistent with broadly-accepted Nyingma texts.” The answer, in short, is “yes.”

By the way, it is important to separate two questions that have sometimes been run together: “Is the terma valid?” and “Is the lineage history true?” Either could be valid without the other, or both or neither might be. The Aro gTer makes almost no reference to its history. I’ll discuss the lineage history elsewhere.

Given that it is impossible to reliably authenticate termas in theory, what have Tibetans done in practice? The answer is disappointing and unhelpful.

So, finally, I ask, what should we do, as Westerners approaching lineages based on terma?

Terma overview

Terma are “revelations” in approximately the same sense as in Western religions. However, there is a specifically Nyingma theory of how they come about. This theory is quite complex—and, as with all aspects of Tibetan Buddhism, for every rule there are many exceptions. I will give only a simplified summary here. If you would like to learn more, I recommend highly Tulku Thondup Rinpoche’s Hidden Teachings of Tibet. It is clear, short, interesting, and recognized as an authoritative work on the subject.

In the Eighth Century, the Second Buddha Padmasambhava established Vajrayana Buddhism in Tibet. It reached its high point during his lifetime. He recognized that it would repeatedly degenerate after his death. Buddhist teachings would be “adulterated like milk in the marketplace.” This is rather like the game of “telephone,” in which a message is whispered ear to ear: the meaning is gradually garbled by being passed along. Accordingly, he—and other great practitioners of the time, such as Yeshe Tsogyal—concealed teachings to be discovered freshly in the future. These have been revealed as thousands of termas throughout the centuries that followed. Due to their value and concealment, “terma” is often translated “treasure.”

All termas say the same things. They never conflict in essential meaning. However, they present the same material in radically different styles. Particular presentations are useful in particular times and places, due to varying social and cultural conditions. So each terma has a particular historical role and must be revealed in the right circumstances.

Padmasambhava recognized that if he concealed his treasures in any ordinary way, they might be lost or degraded. So he hid them within the enlightened minds of his disciples. These disciples are the tertons. They have been reborn repeatedly, and the enlightened nature of their minds retains the teachings. This enlightened nature is not fully accessible to their ordinary minds. At appointed times, they receive a “key” which unlocks the terma hidden within.

In some cases, called earth terma, the key is a physical object that the terton physically discovers. Typically the object is a short scroll containing some key words of the terma. These words remind the terton of the whole terma. In other cases, called mind terma, the key is non-physical. It might, for example, be a dream, vision, or a memory from a previous life.

It was commonly misunderstood in Tibet that the physical object was itself the terma, at least in the case of earth terma. Hidden Teachings of Tibet repeatedly emphasizes that this is never true. Terma are always hidden only in enlightened mind.

The discovery of terma is often accompanied by miracles, of bewildering variety.

After discovery, the terton practices the terma in secret for a period of several years. Eventually he or she teaches it to disciples, who practice and accomplish it, and propagate it to their own students.

Commonly, a terma is re-concealed and re-discovered. For example, one of the most widely-practiced termas currently is the Longchen Nyingthik. Originally this was transmitted by the Dharmakaya Buddha Kuntuzangpo to the Sambhogakaya Buddha Dorje Sempa, who transmitted it to Padmasambhava. Padmasambhava concealed the Longchen Nyingthik in the mind of Longchenpa (1308-1363), who discovered it there. However, he did not make it public at that time. Instead, he appeared to Jigme Lingpa (1730-1798) in a series of three visions, and transmitted the terma to him then.

Similarly, the Aro gTer originated with the Dharmakaya Buddha Kuntuzangmo (consort of Kuntuzangpo), who transmitted it to the Sambhogakaya Buddha Seng-ge Dong-ma, who transmitted it to Yeshe Tsogyel (consort of Padmasambhava). Yeshe Tsogyel revealed it in a pure vision to the terton Aro Lingma (1886-1923). Aro Lingma transmitted it to her son Aro Yeshe (1915-1951), who was reborn as Ngak’chang Rinpoche in 1952.

Terma validation in Nyingma theory

The discovery of terma has always been controversial. There have always been suspicions that many, most, or all termas are fake. The need for a method of validating them is recognized. An authoritative work on terma is the Third Dodrupchen Rinpoche’s Wonder Ocean. Tulku Thondup Rinpoche’s book Hidden Teachings of Tibet contains a full translation of this book, together with commentary. Below, I quote the sections on terma validation, pages 92 and 157-160.

If you are a Buddha, it is simple to decide whether a terma is valid. A terma is an explanation of the enlightened and unenlightened states. A Buddha can compare these descriptions with his or her own experience to see whether they are accurate.

If you are not a Buddha, there are two ways to evaluate a supposed terma. The first is that a god can appear in a vision and tell you the answer. Unfortunately, “nowadays, however, it is rare for someone to have the capacity” to have such visions. Also, demons can send deceptive visions, and only a Buddha can know for sure whether a vision comes from a god or demon.

Alternatively, one can “examine by means of proofs from scripture and reasoning.” But “it is difficult for no error to be made in an examination just by people who regard themselves as scholars.” To quote Padmasambhava himself, “in the future, sophists, verbally skilled, anchorites and others who are biased, inflated with prejudice, will promote themselves and dispute my treasures.”

both of these methods are of little help

Tulku Thondup Rinpoche concludes: “both of these methods are of little help.”

In short, if you are not a Buddha, there is no reliable way, according to Nyingma theory, to determine whether a terma is valid. To say “I know for sure that terma X is valid” (or invalid) is to say “I am a fully-enlightened Buddha.”

This is disappointing. Certainty is unavailable. Later, I will suggest ways we can learn to live with uncertainty about terma.

Wonder Ocean mentions one method by which a terma should definitely never be evaluated. “One cannot judge tertons as inauthentic because of their imperfect and mercurial character, even to the slightest extent. . . . Among the false tertons there are many who are harmonious with people, who seem to have disciplined conduct, and are fortunate and charismatic. At the same time, among the authentic tertons there are many who are loose in speech and behavior and who, without the least hesitation, get involved in many activities that people will condemn.”

The duck test

Only one of the three traditional ways to evaluate termas seems to have any practical value. That is to rationally compare it with other Buddhist doctrines and practices to see if it is consistent with them. This is called “authentication by scholarship” in the Tibetan tradition.

This method is traditionally considered unreliable. The problem is that termas describe enlightened non-conceptual mind. No matter how learned you are, you cannot reliably evaluate enlightened non-conceptual mind using ordinary conceptual mind.

Worse, famous scholars often come to different conclusions. In fact, the main sport of Tibetan intellectuals was denouncing the scriptures of other Tibetan sects as inauthentic. Dudjom Rinpoche, the greatest Nyingma scholar of the last century, warned that

If all the doctrines refuted by learned and accomplished Tibetans were false, no authentic doctrines would be found . . . As long as we have not acquired the pure eye of the doctrine, whereby the truth about doctrines and individuals is seen, it is an unbearably terrible deed to analyze things through exaggeration and depreciation, saying this is perverse, this is impure, and that artificial.

Still, because the other two traditional methods of evaluating terma seem entirely impractical, scholarship is the best tool we have. It seems better than nothing. Even if it is unreliable in theory, it gives me confidence in practice.

Apparently a false terma

There is a remarkable thing called the 7:7:7:7 Telektonon Revelation: Radial Matrix-Plasma Universe Model Nying-Thig Terma of Mayan Galactic Time. This is unlike anything else I have ever seen. I have no idea what it is. “Nying-thig” is a branch of Dzogchen. However, nothing in the Telektonon seems to have anything to do with the Dzogchen I have read about or been taught. The Telektonon has a scattering of technical terms from Dzogchen, but used in ways that make no sense to me. It also uses technical terms from several other esoteric religions.

it might be a demon duck of doom

Altogether, the Telektonon does not walk like a duck, and does not quack like a duck. I can’t be sure it is not a duck. It might be a Demon Duck of Doom. Padmasambhava might appear in person and tell me “Yeah, I know it is weird. But that’s because it is by far the most direct and powerful of all my teachings. Practice the Telektonon for two weeks and you’ll become a Buddha. I guarantee it, or your money back.” I would sure follow that advice. Until then, I figure that, whatever the Telektonon is, it is not an authentic Nyingma terma.  [Note added two years later:  See this interesting reply from someone who practices it, has had good results, and believes it to be authentic. Apparently I was too quick to dismiss it when I wrote this page.]

The duck test

So what about the Aro gTer? With terma, not ducks, we’d like to know:

• Does it include the sorts of things that other termas include?
• Is what it says about those things consistent with widely-accepted Nyingma texts?

Since one of the functions of a terma is innovation, each should be somewhat different from others. However, we should expect this to be modest:

• Are the innovative features of the terma consistent with general Nyingma principles? Are they similar in character to other Nyingma doctrines and practices?

I have limited qualifications to answer these questions. I am not a trained Tibetan scholar. However, I have read more than a hundred books on Tibetan Buddhism, concentrating on Dzogchen and Nyingma doctrine. Based on that, I am confident that the answers to all these questions is “yes.” It is possible that I am wrong. But if I am wrong, it must be about a subtle detail.

I know enough to say that the Aro gTer is not obviously not an authentic Nyingma terma. I know enough to say that the Telektonon is pretty obviously not an authentic Nyingma terma.

There are people who say the Aro gTer is obviously not a Nyingma terma. None of them seem to know much at all about its content, so I don’t know how they can have come to that conclusion. Most critics also appear to have large gaps in their knowledge of basic Vajrayana (although one or two do have thorough understanding of Nyingma doctrine).

What does the Aro gTer include?

There are no standards for what a terma must include. A terma can cover any Buddhist subject, or many subjects. (The only minimum requirement is that to count as a “great terton,” one’s terma must include material on Dzogchen, Padmasambhava, and Chenrezik. Most tertons apparently do not meet that standard. The Aro gTer does include all those, so maybe the Aro terton was “great.” I don’t actually know how or why that would matter.)

Most of what is taught in Aro could be called “the usual stuff.” A standard Nyingma reference work, like Dudjom Rinpoche’s Fundamentals of the Nyingma School, could almost work as an Aro textbook. (That book’s style is elegant but hard for beginners to follow, which is why I say “almost.”)

So I won’t go into the usual stuff. Instead, I’ll describe what is unusual.

The Aro gTer mainly concerns Dzogchen. It has some material from Anuyoga and almost nothing from Mahayoga. This is unusual in recent centuries. Most tertons have concentrated on Mahayoga. However, this doesn’t seem to pose a problem. Minor termas can be on any topic, and Dzogchen-only revelations were common earlier in Tibetan history.

The Aro gTér contains material from all three Dé (branches) of Dzogchen. This is unusual but not unprecedented. The other well-known instance is the Désum (“three Dé”) terma of Chokgyür Lingpa.

Unlike the Telektonon, the Aro Dzogchen teachings cover the usual topics: rigpa and the nature of mind; the self-liberation of phenomena; the Three Statements of Garab Dorje; the three Dé; the four naljors and four ting-ngé-dzin of Semdé; trekchöd and tögal; the four Da; the twenty-one Sem-dzin; dark retreat; and so on.

The Aro gTer Sutra of the Owl-Headed Dakini covers the main topics of Sutrayana (basic Buddhism) from point of view of Dzogchen: the Four Noble Truths, the Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind to Practice, the Five Precepts, the nature of Refuge, Bodhicitta, and so forth. Dzogchen interpretations of Sutric topics are standard in the Nyingma School. The Owl-Headed Sutra is unusually comprehensive; but that does not seem a problem.

Is Aro’s treatment of the usual stuff consistent with Nyingma doctrine?

Yes.

No one has said it isn’t, so I won’t say more about this.

Are its innovative additions plausible?

There is nothing in the Aro gTer that seems obviously out of place. The Telektonon discusses the Mayan calendar. This seems peculiar, since that is part of a Central American Indian religion. There’s nothing like that in the Aro gTer.

The Aro terma’s main innovation is a shift in emphasis from Mahayoga to Dzogchen. That would tend to reverse the general trend of recent centuries. I don’t see that it raises a question of authenticity.

In terms of doctrine, there is little new in the Aro gTér. I have discussed its nine bardos elsewhere. The Owl-Headed material might be seen as innovative, but it is all straight-forward applications of Dzogchen logic to Sutric subjects. Similarly, the Nyida Mélong Gyüd teachings on vajra romance are an elaboration of a standard Tantric topic in Dzogchen terms. All these cases seem plausible as small additions that are consistent with existing Nyingma teachings in topic and logic.

In terms of practice, the main innovation is the Aro sKu-mNyé. There are systems of sKu-mNyé in many Tibetan lineages. I gather that they are all very different, but I don’t know any of them. I’m not competent to evaluate whether the Aro one is a plausible innovation as a practice. Its conceptual explanation seems consistent with what I have read of Dzogchen long-dé in non-Aro texts.

Test results

The Aro gTér walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck. Since scholarship is unreliable, it might not be a duck.

It might be a fat platypus that has learned to use a hunter’s duck call. It might be a sophisticated robot in a duck suit. It might be an evil shape-changing alien from Planet X.

Most likely, it is a duck.

Prophecy and terma

In aggressive gossip about the Aro gTér, it was sometimes said that all termas must have been prophesied in writing by Padmasambhava, and that since there was no prophecy of Aro it must be fake. This is a myth. I have never read the claim that all termas must be prophesied anywhere other than in attacks on Aro.

Many termas are prophesied, but it is not a requirement. It is not mentioned as a criterion for evaluating terma in the standard book on the subject, Wonder Ocean, discussed on the previous page. Wonder Ocean explains how a terton should proceed when a prophecy is unavailable.

The nature of Tibetan prophecy can be misunderstood by analogy to Biblical prophecy. From a Buddhist point of view, the future can never be certain, due to the empty nature of all things. The idea that the future is fully determined is a form of eternalism, the denial of emptiness—one of the four non-Buddhist “philosophical extremes.”

A Lama can make a prophecy based on superior insight into the interrelatedness of phenomena, and the way events tend to evolve. But the fulfillment of this prophecy always depends on circumstances. (This is discussed in Wonder Ocean, pages 68 and 154-155, and in Dudjom Rinpoche’s encyclopedic The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, pages 934-935.) If things do not go as expected, the prophecy will not come to pass.

Tibetan prophecy also always has the force of command. Prophecy is not only prediction—this will happen—but instruction: make this happen! Padmasambhava left lists of termas that ought to be discovered, by particular tertons, with notes on how. In many cases, the terton was unable to carry out the prophecy, due to various practical obstacles.

The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism contains the biographies of many tertons. Dudjom Rinpoche introduces the list by noting that “Included . . . are those treasure-finders who have been roughly prophesied . . . in the Injunctions of Padma[sambhava] . . . as well as those who have appeared without being clearly referred to therein, but are none the less universally renowned as valid.” “Roughly prophesied” means that the terton and terma do not completely fit the description, due to unfortunate circumstances that Padmasambhava did not foresee. There can be unexpected positive developments too. Sometimes a terton may discover terma that Padmasambhava originally intended for someone else.

The prophecies of termas and tertons are often extremely vague. For example, the prophecy of the Longchen Nyingthik, perhaps the most widely-practiced Dzogchen terma nowadays, is:

In Chongye my emanation will come to serve the world.
Though no one will know who it is,
He will teach in a forthright manner.
At Chingwardo, or to the south of the Red Mausoleum,
He may found a monastery at the Lhabap Stupa.

If you had doubts about this terma, you might wish that Padmasambhava had been a little more precise. On the other hand, his intention was not to put his “VALID” stamp on someone. His intention was to say roughly what ought to happen.

The vagueness of prophecies mean that they need to be interpreted. This is an uncertain business. Dudjom Rinpoche observes (page 934) that:

prophecies must be ascertained by those who know their intentional basis and reason, and who will not misrepresent them. Otherwise, one must not one-sidedly grasp as true the meaning of a prophecy, having taken only the words at face value, without distinguishing provisional from definitive meaning. This is because even if one knows those things, a prophecy about future good or evil times and so forth may be transformed owing to circumstantial causes, conditions, and coincidences, so that it seems the prophecy is not precisely fulfilled. As the meanings of prophecies have rarely been completely fulfilled, . . . it seems to be extremely difficult for perfectly auspicious circumstances to occur.

The great terton Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo Rinpoche (1820-1892) had a particularly low opinion of prophecy. He growled that “Too much prattle about them is an ingress for demons!”

Prophecy and Aro

Aro Lingma’s discovery of the Aro gTér was prophesied by her mother, Jomo Pema ’ö-Zér. I do not know whether there were any other, earlier prophecies—for example by Yeshe Tsogyel. It may be that one was known when the terma was discovered in Tibet a century ago. Given the historical uncertainties, it would not be surprising if it were lost.

There was a rumor at one point that there is a prophecy somewhere in the Dudjom Tersar that denounces the Aro gTer as a false terma. This rumor was at the level of “I heard that someone said they heard that . . . ” So it is difficult to say much more about it. It seems unlikely that the supposed text will actually be produced.

It would certainly be interesting if it were. My guess is that if it exists, it is so vague that only by heroic feats of interpretation can it be seen to refer to the Aro gTér. But what would we do if it turned out that, somewhere in the standard edition of the Dudjom Tersar, there is an unambiguous statement like “in the future dark age, there shall in the West arise a demonic sorcerer named Chögyam, who shall teach perverted doctrines of nine bardos and vajra romance from the pernicious and false Aro gTer, and shall lead legions of frenzied followers into Vajra Hell”? A fascinating thought experiment.

I know what I would do. What would you do? Leave a comment below.

Where are the Tibetan texts?

The earliest Buddhist scriptures were written in an Indian language called Pali.^* Two thousand years ago, a new approach to Buddhism appeared, Mahayana, whose scriptures were written in another Indian language, Sanskrit. There was—and remains—a heated debate about whether the Mahayana scriptures are valid. A large fraction of modern Buddhists do not accept the Sanskrit scriptures, and regard the doctrines they contain as heretical fakes.

One thousand years ago, new scriptures appeared in Tibet in the form of terma. These were written in the Tibetan language, rather than Sanskrit or Pali. There was—and remains—a heated debate about whether these Tibetan scriptures are valid. Some Tibetans do not accept Tibetan-language scriptures, and regard the doctrines they contain as heretical fakes. Only Sanskrit will do.

Get ready for round three . . .

“Where are the Tibetan texts of the Aro gTér?” some skeptics demand. The implication is that anything not written in Tibetan is a heretical fake.

This is a bit rude; terma texts are often kept secret. However, I can reveal all of them here immediately:

There aren’t any.

I expect there were Tibetan-language texts in the time of Aro Lingma, the Aro terton. However, if so, they have been lost.

This is not a problem.

The specific words in which Aro Lingma conveyed her terma are lost. The meaning of her words has been recovered by Ngak’chang Rinpoche from visions, dreams, and past-life memories. He conveys the same meaning in English.

The Tibetan language has no special status. As I mentioned, some Tibetans actually regard any scripture written in Tibetan as fake. They think Sanskrit has a special status; but this is not the view of the Nyingma tradition to which Aro belongs. In the words of Dudjom Rinpoche, Head of the Nyingma tradition, “. . . jealous persons created discord by, for example, declaring that certain of the [Nyingma] tantras had been composed in Tibet because they did not exist in India [so Sanskrit versions were unknown]. However, the non-existence of those tantras in India did not prove them to be unauthentic. Even the tantras which did exist in India did not originate there: they were brought forth by great accomplished masters from the domains of the gods . . .” The great scholar Sakya Chokden observed that “with Vajrasattva’s consent, the compilers of [the ancient scriptures] were themselves permitted to teach them in the language of each different country.”

Although Tibetan is not a sacred language, it does have a practical advantage. When Vajrayana was brought to Tibet in the Eighth Century, hundreds of new Tibetan words were invented to express Buddhist ideas. These translate Sanskrit words for concepts that previously had no words in Tibetan. While we wait for the same to happen in English, the Aro Lamas use Tibetan words as needed.

^*What I wrote about Pali was apparently not exactly accurate. See the helpful reader comment below.

Can white people have authentic visions?

There is a controversy about whether white people can sing the blues. Some say that all white blues are inauthentic. Others reply that no one could tell Jo Ann Kelly was white by listening to her sing. The first group would say her blues were inauthentic anyway. It doesn’t matter how they sound; if you are white, it’s not real blues. It’s just a rip-off. It’s a fake imitation.

From what it says, the Aro gTer sounds just like a Nyingma terma. But is it authentic? And is it a Tibetan terma?

According to its visionary history, the Aro gTer originated with Kuntuzangmo, who gave it to Seng-ge Dong-ma, who gave it to Yeshé Tsogyel, who gave it to Aro Lingma, who gave it to Ngak’chang Rinpoche. As a matter of objective truth, it is likely that only the last of those people existed.

This is the usual pattern for termas. They originate with gods, pass through the hands of mythical people, and are finally delivered in visions to the living lama who writes them down.

So there is nothing odd there. What is unusual is that Ngak’chang Rinpoche is a white guy. So, the Aro gTer appears to me to be an authentic Nyingma terma, but maybe not a Tibetan terma.

Most termas have been delivered to Tibetans, but not all. There are Bhutanese termas. The Bhutanese are quick to tell you they are not Tibetans. There is at least one Mongolian terma system. Mongolians are completely different from Tibetans ethnically, linguistically, and culturally. But to Western eyes, they look pretty similar.

white people are too ordinary

I suspect that many students believe white people can’t have authentic religious visions, and can’t receive terma. White people are just too . . . ordinary for that. Maybe I am wrong; I have never heard anyone say this explicitly. Certainly, there seems to be nothing in Tibetan Buddhist doctrine that supports that kind of racism.

Western students of Tibetan Buddhism often seem to me to accept anything that comes from Tibet as “authentic.” This is convenient, but it is not the Tibetan view. In fact, the majority Tibetan view is that anything that originates in Tibet is inauthentic! For most Tibetans, only scriptures from India are valid. And there is violent disagreement among Tibetans about which texts are authentic. Uncritically accepting everything from Tibet makes no sense in Tibetan terms.

If the Aro gTer were taught by a Tibetan guy, would anyone in the West question it?

Terma validation in Tibetan practice

Termas (Tibetan Buddhist revelations) may be authentic, or fake. According to theory, there is no good way to tell which is which (unless you are a Buddha). Two methods are available: to have a vision, or to apply scholarship. However, both are so unreliable that they “are of little help.”

This is a practical problem for anyone in the Nyingma tradition, which is based mainly on termas. How did Tibetans deal with this in practice?

Let me start with a quote from Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche’s wonderful memoir, Blazing Splendor, concerning the terton Chokgyur Lingpa.

[The important Lama] Situ didn't believe in just any terton [revealer of termas] who happened to pass by. Indeed, Situ had been decidedly unimpressed by another recently visiting terton, about whom he had remarked, “Well, well! That guy claims to be a treasure [terma] revealer, but his posturing seems to me merely an excuse to keep a woman. All he really succeeds in doing is defaming the Lotus-Born master.” But Situ had some confidence in Chokgyur Lingpa, and so was prepared to meet him. Nevertheless, he called for Lama Ngaktrin, saying to him, “I hear that you have clear dreams due to your practice of Naropa's Six Doctrines. This Terton claims to be an emissary of Padmasambhava and has declared himself a major revealer of treasures. But I don't trust just anyone who claims to be a terton. Since our monastery has arranged to welcome him as a dignitary tomorrow, you should watch your dreams tonight for signs that might verify his claims. Report back to me any experiences or visions you have.” Ngaktrin was quite a remarkable practitioner and had accomplished much in his retreat. During his dreams that night, he received a prophecy confirming that Chokgyur Lingpa was indeed an authentic terton. Upon hearing this dream, Situ was delighted and amused. “Ha ha! Ha ha!” he joked, “Chokgyur Lingpa must be a true terton—assuming of course that we can trust your dreams.”

In Tibet around 1900 there were huge numbers of supposed tertons. One had to choose which to take seriously. This passage describes Situ applying one official method, that of visions. He recognized that it was not necessarily reliable. Whose visions count as evidence? Based on his knowledge of Lama Ngaktrin, he had partial confidence in Ngaktrin’s dreams. Others might have disagreed.

There are also stories of tertons being quizzed on doctrine to ensure that their views were orthodox. This is an application of the second official (but officially unreliable) method.

The most successful tertons were great showmen. Their reputation was based largely on the miracles they performed while revealing buried (“earth”) terma. According to Blazing Splendor,

It had to be this way, because Tibetans . . . were known to be extremely skeptical. They didn't blindly believe everyone who claimed to be a terton . . . it was no simple feat to convince people that Chokgyur Lingpa was in fact an emissary of Padmasambhava. [He did so by miraculous uncoverings.]

Although this was a major way of authenticating terma in practice, it has no value in theory. The Tibetan view is that enlightened Lamas can perform miracles—but so can unenlightened, evil sorcerers. A powerful black magician might might duplicate the magical appearances that accompanied an earth terma unveiling. (And the possibility of sleight of hand and other mundane trickery was understood.) Even so, although ordinary Tibetans were skeptical about religious poseurs, they were eager when it came to the fancier class of miracles. Those were rarely seen, and outstanding entertainment.

In practice, there was little agreement about which termas were authentic. The conservative position was that they were all better avoided. Even if some were valid, who could know which?

Still, many people recognized that some termas were of great value. Termas addressed current conditions and concerns in ways the ancient Indian scriptures could not. But which to accept?

Opinions about particular termas evolved over decades and centuries. Many—perhaps most—termas that are widely accepted now were initially met with general hostility and skepticism. For example, the usual view in 1100 was that Aro Yeshé Jungné had personally invented Dzogchen. It was considered some sort of Zen/Shaivite fake, because it has no Sanskrit texts, and is quite different in principles from accepted Indian Tantra. Dzogchen is now accepted by most (but not all) Tibetan Lamas.

It seems that the situation was rather like that in the Western avant garde art world. It is extremely difficult to know which innovative contemporary painters are any good. Most painters who are now considered the greatest were initially scorned as producers of perverse, crude, incomprehensible, ugly rubbish.

The field of art criticism tries to explain why some art is good and some is bad. Much of this is interesting and can be helpful in learning to appreciate art. However, it does not produce agreement among experts, and seems not to offer much help in predicting which new artists will succeed. This is analogous to the “scholarship” method of terma validation.

In practice, success for a painter, rock group, or terton depends heavily on assembling supporters. Art and music critics have enormous power to sway mass opinion. Powerful Lamas had the same function in Tibet. According to Blazing Splendor,

if one of the Karmapas shows respect for a terton, then the Karmapa’s influence and blessings will make everyone accept the terton and his teachings without doubt or dispute . . . otherwise, the terton is at risk of being called crazy or a charlatan.

Money is power. For a painter, wealthy patrons provide not only a living, but also credibility. Signing with a major record label, and the support of music company executives, is critical for a band. It is also necessary to sell prints, records, or concert tickets. Similarly, Tibetan histories frequently speak admiringly of the power of successful tertons to raise vast quantities of money in donations from both rich patrons and the masses of poor peasants.

It is helpful for artists—and tertons—to be innovative enough to be interesting, but not so innovative as to be alienating. It helps to be charismatic, articulate, and intimidating.

Opinions of art, like terma, shift over time. A poet or painter can repeatedly alternate between famous and forgotten over centuries.

The art establishment considered Pre-Raphaelite paintings scandalous, bizarre, blasphemous and ugly when they first appeared around 1850. By the end of that century, they were widely admired and mainstream. (The Lady of Shalott, at the top of this page, is one of the best-known Pre-Raphaelite works.) But then for most of the 20^th century, the art world regarded the Pre-Raphaelites as kitsch. Kitsch is “fake art” that panders to vulgar taste by conventional prettiness and suppression of negativity.

I have always loved the Pre-Raphaelites, and I do not believe they are kitsch. One reason is that I am violently allergic to kitsch in general. I greatly admire the nightmarish paintings of Francis Bacon. (One of his “screaming popes” appears above.) He is the opposite of kitsch. My positive opinion of Bacon is shared by most art critics—although there are probably few who like him as much as I do. The paintings of Thomas Kinkade, on the other hand, I loathe as authentic kitsch—despite their superficial similarity to the Pre-Raphaelites. This is the opinion also of most art critics. However, he is enormously popular.

The Pre-Raphaelites were rehabilitated late in the 20^th century. They were accepted as high art again. How will they be viewed in a hundred years? I have no idea. I also have no idea concerning Bacon and Kinkade. It would not surprise me if future art critics overwhelmingly consider Bacon the vilest trash produced by a nihilistic and depraved century—and regard Kinkade as the great classical master who redeemed it. This might depend in part on trends in religious politics. Kinkade appeals primarily to evangelical Christians. Bacon, I presume, does not.

Opinions about art, and terma, are not altogether arbitrary. It certainly helps for a painting, or terma, to communicate a great and novel truth. It helps for the artist, or terton, to possess genius, insight, talent, and technical skill. I would not deny that Kinkade has all those. I only believe that he is a minion of Satan, because what he communicates is profoundly false. Doubtless Kinkade’s admirers think the same of Bacon.

In practice, termas are validated by history and by political power. If they survive for a century or two, and have a decent number of adherents, they come to be viewed as authentic by many Tibetans.

What does “valid terma” mean?

Nyingma Lamas agree that some termas (revelations) are true, valid, authentic, or legitimate. Other supposed termas are false, invalid, inauthentic, illegitimate, fake, forged, or bogus.

But what do these words mean? Why should we care about this? What is it that is good about a valid terma and bad about an invalid one?

The answer is not obvious. For example, termas are called “true” or “false,” but this has nothing to do with ordinary true and false statements. Termas are concerned with visionary truth, not ordinary or objective truth. No terma is either true or false in the ordinary sense.

All Buddhist doctrines can be understood at many levels. Often, these levels correspond to the major yanas: Sutra, Tantra, and Dzogchen. These are sometimes called the “outer,” “inner,” and “secret” interpretations. They also may correspond to the three “kayas” or modes of existence. Those are nirmanakaya or physical existence; sambhogakaya or visionary existence; and dharmakaya or enlightened potential existence.

Each of these views is more accurate than the previous one. The Dzogchen view is that anything that is the product of enlightened mind is terma. This matters because only products of enlightened mind are likely to be effective as tools for realizing enlightenment ourselves.

The outer meaning of terma

The “outer” interpretation of terma is that Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyel wrote sacred texts on bits of paper 1250 years ago. They hid these under rocks. Tertons dig up the pieces of paper and read the texts. This is an understanding in terms of nirmanakaya—physical reality. According to this view, termas are validated by physical evidence.

There is a common Tibetan view that any Buddhist text that came from India must be valid. Any scripture that originated in Tibet is automatically inauthentic. According to the outer understanding, the importance of terma is that Padmasambhava brought all the terma texts with him from India. Therefore they are valid.

There are several good reasons to reject the “outer” meaning of terma:

• It is explicitly rejected by the authoritative Nyingma books on the subject. Tulku Thondup’s Hidden Teachings of Tibet is one. He writes that this outer meaning is a useful approximation for “common people,” but actually mistaken.
• The idea that everything Indian is valid, and nothing Tibetan is, is silly. It is just a Tibetan cultural neurosis. Tibetans are not spiritually inferior to Indians. (Similarly, the Western idea that everything Tibetan is valid, and nothing Western is, is also silly.)
• Western historical scholarship shows that Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyal almost certainly did not physically write most termas.

The inner meaning of terma

The inner interpretation is that, by magical power, Padmasambhava hid termas in the minds of his disciples. These disciples are reborn as tertons. The enlightened nature of their minds retains the teachings. The physical objects that tertons uncover are not themselves the termas. These objects are only “keys” to remind tertons of teachings they received in earlier lives. The physical objects are hidden miraculously and not merely buried in an ordinary way. They are actually pulled from non-physical realms, rather than rocks.

This is the view of Tantra. It describes the visionary, magical reality of the sambhogakaya, rather than ordinary reality. Termas are validated by miracles because both arise from the sambhogakaya.

According to this understanding, true termas are valid because they come from the realm of the gods. They were written by sambhogakaya deities. False termas are those written by humans. Humans are not capable of writing authentic scripture.

This view is accurate. But it is also metaphorical. As with all of Tantra, it is complicated, colorful, and exciting.

The secret meaning of terma

The secret interpretation is that Padmasambhava is nothing other than the enlightened mind of the terton, whose primorial understanding is awoken by all phenomena. Enlightened mind is ultimately not personal. The minds of the sambhogakaya deities, of Padmasambhava, and of the terton are not separate. All enlightened mind arises from the dharmakaya—undifferentiated enlightened potential. Everything that arises from the dharmakaya is terma. According to this view, all Dharma is terma, regardless of whether it was written in India, Tibet, or America.

This is the view of Dzogchen. As with all of Dzogchen, it is simple, clear, and vast. Because of its vastness, it may be difficult to understand. (The Tibetan word sang, “secret,” is better translated “non-obvious” in the outer/inner/secret hierarchy. No one intends this meaning to be hidden. It is just hard to get your head around.) The inner meaning is given as a helpful metaphor, that is more complex but less mind-stopping.

Andreas Doctor’s Tibetan Treasure Literature describes the history of this view. It was first presented by Guru Chöwang (1212-1270), one of the earliest and most important tertons. Since then it has been the view of numerous Dzogchen masters, such as Ratna Lingpa (1403-1478). It was the view of Kyabjé Dudjom Rinpoche, perhaps the greatest Dzogchen teacher of the 20th Century, in his The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism (p 927, and 747-748 concerning pure vision terma and treasures of intention).

I have seen the words “outer” and “inner” used in terma theory only by Tulku Thondup. His book concentrates on the inner meaning. He spends less time on the secret meaning, and he does not use the word “secret.” However, it seems reasonable to use it due to the common association of outer, inner, and secret with Sutra, Tantra, and Dzogchen.

Why does terma validity matter?

According to the outer view, physical evidence validates terma. According to the inner view, visionary evidence validates terma. According to the secret view, nothing external can validate terma. That is because the dharmakaya is empty. According to the outer and inner views, the history of a terma is critical to its authenticity. According to the secret view, history is irrelevant. There is no time in the dharmakaya.

According to the inner view, termas are magically effective on account of Tantric transmission through Padmasambhava to the terton. This involves three special kinds of transmission that tertons receive, in addition to usual kinds.

According to the Dzogchen view, the dharmakaya is simply the empty creative nature of the terton’s mind. The sambhogakaya is simply the brilliant communicative energy of the terton’s mind.

So, a valid terma is one that comes from enlightened mind; an invalid terma is one that comes from ordinary mind.

The reason this matters is that a terma is a vehicle that takes us from ordinary mind to enlightened mind. A valid terma explains the nature of ordinary mind and enlightened mind, and the path from one to the other. A terma must also be innovative. That is one of the essential functions of termas. By imitation, it is possible that an unenlightened person could produce an accurate description of the way to enlightenment. It is extremely unlikely that an unenlightened person could produce a guide that was both innovative and accurate.

This does not help answer the question “how do we know whether a purported terma is valid.” But at least it explains what the question is.

And, it explains why only a Buddha (a person with enlightened mind) can give a reliable answer.

More on the “secret” meaning of terma

Tulku Thondup writes:

From the philosophical point of view, in the ultimate nature, or absolute truth, there is no difference between teacher and disciple, or between the effects of teaching and listening . . . The Dharma appears in the manner that accords with the perceptions of beings and with their karmic causation and circumstantial conditions. Dharma . . . comes from realized or ordinary beings, trees, water, sky, mountains, earth, rocks, or mind, according to the karma and conditions of the receiver. For a highly realized person all phenomena can be a source of Dharma, for many people only limited sources, and for some only the scriptures and the aural instructions. And for many nothing is a source of Dharma. (pp. 57-58)

There is no difference between teacher and disciple. This is the essence of “mind transmission” in Dzogchen. The enlightened mind of the teacher is not separate from the enlightened mind of the student. Transmission occurs when this non-separateness becomes obvious. “Transmission” may be misunderstood to be a ritual, which might be exciting or boring. Actually, the ritual only creates conditions in which non-separateness is more likely to be recognized.

Enlightened mind is non-personal. The gods (dharmakaya and sambhogakaya) are not separate from Padmasambhava. Padmasambhava is not separate from the terton—because the terton recognizes his or her own enlightened mind. When we practice yidam, we attempt to recognize the non-separateness of our minds from the yidam. When we practice Lama’i Naljor (Guru Yoga), we attempt to recognize the non-separateness of our minds from the Lama. Our Lama, the terton of our lineage, Padmasambhava (or Yeshe Tsogyal), and the gods—all have the same nature.

The Dharma appears in the manner that accords with the perceptions of beings. The Nyingma tradition regards Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyel as the origin of Vajrayana. For that reason, anything we recognize as the origin of Vajrayana, we call Padmasambhava or Yeshe Tsogyel. When a Lama is the source of Vajrayana—she is Yeshe Tsogyel. When a mountain is the source of Vajrayana—that is Padmasambhava. When the sun glinting on river ripples is the source of Vajrayana—that is Yeshe Tsogyel. When the roar of a motorcycle engine is the source of Vajrayana—that is Padmasambhava.

The dakinis’ warm breath

“Why practice a dubious new terma when you can choose a safe, generally-accepted one?”

A good question. A terma is a Tibetan Buddhist “revelation.” In all religions, new revelations are suspicious. Maybe they are just some nonsense someone made up. Why not stick to the ancient, tried-and-true scriptures?

In the Nyingma tradition, there is an ancient, tried-and-true answer: new termas are inherently better. They are better for three reasons:

• New termas are less likely to have been distorted by human error.
• New termas spring from a living source of inspiration.
• New termas address current social conditions; old ones address obsolete conditions.

Straight outta tha dharmakaya

The ancient scriptures originated more than a thousand years ago in India. They have been passed from teacher to student over and over. That is called the “long lineage of transmission.” Although the ancient scriptures are considered very holy, few are actually read or practiced by the Nyingma.

The risk in a long lineage is that, at any link in the chain, errors may creep in. A teacher may incompetent; a student may misunderstand. Even if there is only a tiny misunderstanding at each link, after centuries the original meaning may be lost.

Termas have a “short lineage of transmission.” According to the Dzogchen theory of terma, they come to the terton (revealer) straight outta tha dharmakaya. According to the tantric theory of terma, they came from the gods to Padmasambhava and Yeshé Tsogyal. They gave them for safekeeping to dakinis (minor goddesses). At the appointed time, the dakinis deliver them to a terton.

Either way, when a terma is taught by the terton him or herself, there is no possibility of error.

fresh and miraculous

A new terma is said to be “still warm with the breath of the dakinis.” In other words, it is fresh and miraculous. A living terton is a continuing source of new inspiration and new teachings. Along with the dakinis, a terton breathes new life into the unchanging essence of Buddhism.

A terton can pass some of the new inspiration and insight to his or her students; and they may pass some to their students. But it often does not take very many years before vital new teachings turn into musty old texts—venerated in theory and practiced by rote.

A possible contemporary example

In the 1990s, I practiced Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s Shambhala Training terma. About fifteen years after his death, his successor made changes to the programs based on the terma. Some Shambhala practitioners, including some senior teachers, regard these changes as distortions. The Wikipedia describes this as “controversial.” I don’t have an opinion about this, having moved on from the Shambhala organization before the changes were made. However, it shows how, just a few years after a terton’s death, changes can be made in his teachings—for better or worse.

A time for all things

According to Nyingma theory, each terma must be revealed at its proper time. That is because a main function of termas is to address specific historical circumstances. Each terma contains innovations that are relevant to particular social conditions.

For this reason, older termas may be less relevant for contemporary Buddhists. This is particularly true for Western Buddhists, who live in a very different social and political world than the Tibetan feudal theocracy.

During the past few hundred years, Dzogchen has been under intense political pressure. It is regarded as illegitimate and dangerous by Tibetan religious conservatives. In this environment, it was usually best to present Dzogchen as though it were anuttara tantra. Tantra is less controversial. Disguising Dzogchen as tantra was socially necessary—but arguably it obscured the essence of Dzogchen.

Dzogchen
straight-up

The Shambhala terma might be described as “Dzogchen straight-up,” without the lower yanas. That is not how Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche described it, but I think it’s reasonably accurate. I do not think he could have taught Shambhala Training in Tibet. It would have been politically impossible, because he described it as non-Buddhist.

The Aro perspective is that Dzogchen is particularly relevant to contemporary Western social conditions. The complex style of tantra common in Tibet in recent centuries is really only feasible for full-time practitioners: primarily monks. Dzogchen is simple and practical for people with jobs and families.

Western guarantees of religious freedom mean that we can ignore Tibetan political imperatives. The Aro gTer presents Dzogchen as Dzogchen, not as tantra. “As Dzogchen” means “as simple, non-conceptual methods for instantaneous self-liberation.” I think that makes Aro particularly appropriate for our time.

Asking the wrong question

According to Nyingma theory, there is no reliable way to determine which termas are valid. As a result, Tibetans have been quarrelling about termas’ validity for a thousand years. The arguments, often vicious, convince no one. They go around in circles, because they have nothing new to say. The dispute has rarely gone beyond “You faked it yourself!” “No, I got it from a Buddha!” “Did not!” “Did too!” “You are possessed by a demon!” “No, you are!” This level of argument should be left on the children’s playground.

On this page and the next, I suggest a way out of this deadlock. What I have to say is not traditional. However, I think you may find it sensible.

We need to go back and ask: “Why did we want to know which termas were valid in the first place?”

In Tibet, only a tiny religious elite actually practiced any termas. A main religious activity of lay people was to donate money to holy men. That is supposed to produce merit, resulting in better future lives. For most Tibetans, a key practical question is: which are the holiest men? Giving money to an authentic tertön (revealer of termas) would be the most effective use of funds. Giving money to a false tertön might be worse than useless. As a result, questions of terma validation are intimately tied up with money and power in Tibetan culture. These considerations are irrelevant to most Westerners.

For those who actually practice, the question is “which termas work?” For this, the Tibetan debate is framed wrong. It starts from the assumption that a terma is either true, or false. Apparently, if it is true, practicing it is a sure, quick way to enlightenment. If it is false, practicing it is a sure, quick way to hell. This extreme polarization is unhelpful and silly. It leads to scriptures that are full of advertising hype. They get titles like The Innermost Utterly Unsurpassable Ultra-Double-Top-Secret Essence of Life, The Universe, And Everything. It also leads to the demonization and political persecution of religious competitors.

Termas are never either true, or false. Essentially none of Buddhism is. Buddhism is concerned with methods, not truths. Termas are not factual statements that can be objectively tested. They are practices that can only be evaluated experientially, to see what happens.

In the words of Andreas Doctor, a Western expert on termas:

Recognizing that the final authenticating measure for Treasure [terma] revelation lies beyond what can be objectively verified, it appears a less rewarding exercise to perpetuate a debate of the Treasure along a simplified framework of true or false. Instead, looking beyond the traditional saint-charlatan paradigm may allow for other, more rewarding perspectives . . . (The Tibetan Treasure Literature, p. 50.)

On the next page, I suggest that the right question to ask is “which termas, or other practices, will be most useful for me?” The answer may be different for each of us.

Visionary and objective history

The histories written in Tibet are entirely different in principle and function from modern Western history. They describe different types of truth, and are based on different types of evidence. Tibetan history describes visionary truth. It relies on sources such as visions, dreams, and past-life memories. Western history tries to find an objective truth, relying on objective evidence.

One main function of Tibetan history is inspiration. Tibetan histories consist largely of descriptions of miracles and exciting encounters with gods and demons. These may motivate us to greater effort in our practice. Another function is validation. Miraculous or visionary events are a main form of evidence for the sacredness and authenticity of texts, practices, teachers, and lineages.

One main function of Western history is to understand current ideas, events, people, and social groups by understanding similar past circumstances.

As I explained earlier, we do not need to choose between the visionary and objective concepts of truth. We also do not need to choose between visionary and objective histories. This is despite the fact that Tibetan and Western histories are in direct contradiction in many (perhaps most) cases. Both are valuable, if we have the skill to know which one to use for which purposes.

“Tibetologists” are Western academics who study Tibetan history, culture, society, and religion. They face a dual political problem. Until recently, most had to pretend to reject one form of history or the other. They could only be accepted by Western historians by swearing allegiance to the objective truth, and dismissing all visionary sources as superstitious falsehoods. They could only be accepted by Tibetan Lamas by swearing allegiance to the visionary truth, accepting history as written by Tibetans at face value, and rejecting Western standards as reductive materialism. Since it is important for Tibetologists to work with both Western and Tibetan experts, this is difficult.

It appears that this dilemma has eased somewhat in the past decade or so. (I am not a Tibetologists, just an amateur observer. I would gratefully accept corrections here from professionals.) The work of Samten Karmay may be central. Born in Amdo (Eastern Tibet), he has both a Geshé degree from Drepung University in Lhasa and a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. So he has a thorough understanding of both cultures’ concepts of truth and history. His breakthrough 1988 book on the history of Dzogchen acknowledged that very few, if any, of the Dzogchen texts attributed to Padmasambhava were objectively written by him. But Karmay is a Dzogchen master. His interest is not in disproving Dzogchen, but in better understanding it through objective history.

Perhaps because the taboo was broken by an ethnic Tibetan, it seems increasingly possible for Tibetologists to come out of both their closets. They can acknowledge to their Western colleagues that they are practicing Buddhists who are unwilling to reject visionary truth as mere superstition. They can also acknowledge to their Tibetan colleagues that they are committed to Western standards of scholarship and unwilling to gloss over absurdities, contradictions, and political fabrications as unquestionable divine revelation.

This remains a minefield, however. On the Tibetan side, it is particularly sensitive due to Tibetan history’s function of sacred validation. For example, it is clear by Western historical standards that the “outer” understanding of terma texts (as physically hidden by Padmasambhava and Yeshé Tsogyal) is almost always false. Objectively, they were written at about the time they were revealed by the terton—presumably by the terton himself or herself. Saying this, however, seems to play into the hands of Tibetan conservatives. They have always rejected terma for exactly this reason. That has been the basis of a thousand years of ugly political power struggles. However, the conservatives are on equally shaky ground. The visionary histories of their Indian scriptures are in many or most cases also untrue by objective Western standards. Western scholarship potentially threatens to shift Tibetan power relationships based on lineage histories.

This worry would fail to understand the compatibility of visionary and objective truth, however. It is true that the origins of scriptures are obscured in order to authenticate them as received from gods in ancient times. But this is not the only or whole truth. It is also true that the same termas are not written by tertons, and are received from gods. David Germano seems to express this dual point of view in an article on the history of the Nyingma tantras:

It may be useful to speak of visionary translation, visionary authorship, visionary readership, and visionary editing within the broader context of a visionary canon marked by visions, reincarnations of past saints, and emanations/incarnations of past, present and future Buddhas. In this way we can bibliographically and interpretatively acknowledge the tradition's own self-understanding and self-representation, but also make useful distinctions with more conventional notions of translation, authorship, readership and editing that were as familiar to Tibetans as they were to Westerners.

It may be relevant that non-religious creative works are often experienced as “received” rather than “authored.” There are many famous cases of this, such as Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan; Tchaikovsky’s description of symphonic composition; Kekulé’s discovery of the structure of benzene; and the extraordinary mathematical theorems that were whispered in Ramanujan’s ear by the goddess Namagiri. But this is common for entirely ordinary people too. When taking an art class, I once suddenly experienced my hand being “guided,” and without my effort or intention, it produced a painting that was better than I could have done myself. (I have no artistic talent, and the result was still not good; but I couldn’t do anything like it.) I have had both essays and mathematical theorems “appear in my mind,” suddenly and apparently out of nowhere, more-or-less complete. I mention these mundane experiences only to show that this is not mystical, or contradictory to objective truth. Such experiences are not terma, because they involve only ordinary mind. However, the reception of terma may be similar—except that it occurs in enlightened mind rather than ordinary mind.

As Western Tibetan Buddhists, we all straddle two cultures. Probably we couldn’t give up our grounding in Western notions of objective truth, even if we wanted to. I think we shouldn’t, even if we could. The Western understanding of truth and history has great value. On the other hand, we also must accept the visionary reality of Tantric history.

Sambhogakaya existence

Buddhas have three modes of existence, called “kayas.” These are the nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, and dharmakaya.

• A nirmanakaya Buddha is one who exists physically. For example, Nyingmapas generally would say that Dudjom Rinpoche (who lived from 1904 to 1987 and taught extensively in the West) was a nirmanakaya Buddha.
• Sambhogakaya Buddhas exist in the realm of visionary energy.
• The dharmakaya is undifferentiated enlightened potential. It is the essential nature of luminous emptiness.

There is a vast amount to say about the kayas, and I am vastly unqualified to say it. However, I would like to talk a little about the sambhogakaya. That is because of its role in visionary history. On the last page, I talked about the relationship between visionary and objective history. On the next one, I will discuss the fact that many human figures from Tibetan history probably did not exist as nirmanakaya—but certainly did as sambhogakaya.

So what does it mean to exist as sambhogakaya? It is possible to explain only by analogy. There are many traditional analogies. For example, it is said that the dharmakaya is like invisible water vapor, the sambhogakaya like clouds, and the nirmanakaya like rain. As with all analogies, this is imperfect. Water vapor, clouds, and rain are all physical phenomena; the dharmakaya and sambhogakaya are not.

Here I will give an unusual analogy. It is not an Aro analogy. It is just mine, so it should not be taken seriously. It may be useful in understanding the compatibility of visionary and objective truth.

Sambhogakaya existence is similar in some ways to the mode of existence of numbers.

Numbers are neither physically real, nor fictional. They have no location, no substance, no mass. Yet their meaning is undeniable. The sambhogakaya is like that.

Numbers are neither a human creation, nor separately existent. Numbers cannot be invented or manufactured. Yet without humans to know them, they would not appear. The sambhogakaya is like that.

You cannot make numbers do what you want. They do what they like. You cannot say “I have made up a new number called Wallace. Wallace is smaller than six and bigger than seven. When you multiply Wallace times an even number, you get a positive number, and when you multiply Wallace times an odd number, you get a negative number.” That won’t work. It is not that mathematicians are stuffy and they won’t let you. Six and seven won’t let you. Wallace will not function as a number.

Tiffany will not function as a yidam

The sambhogakaya is like that. You cannot say “I have made up a new yidam called Tiffany. She has four hands, holding a Valium tablet, a credit card, a makeup compact, and an Uzi. They symbolize the four Buddha karmas of pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and destroying.” That won’t work. It is not that Tibetans are stuffy and they won’t let you. The sambhogakaya will not let you. Tiffany will not function as a yidam.

From time to time, new numbers are discovered. (In fact, new types of numbers are discovered.) But, this takes the form of discovery, not invention. It seems to proceed from the insubstantial realm of mathematical objects, not from the conceptual minds of mathematicians.

The sambhogakaya is like that. From time to time, new yidams are revealed. But, this takes the form of discovery, not invention. It seems to proceed from the insubstantial realm of enlightened mind, not from the conceptual minds of tertons.

More than you wanted to know

The discovery of each new type of number has been accompanied by religious horror and wonderment.

In ancient Greece, Pythagoras founded a mystical religion, Pythagoreanism, that has had immense influence on subsequent Western thought. (It also has striking similarities to early Buddhist thought, and I bet that is not a coincidence.) Central to the religion was certainty that all numbers were “rational,” which meant that they were either “whole numbers,” such as 7, or fractions, such as 2/3. From this, the fundamental nature of the universe follows.

Then his student Hippasus discovered the first “irrational” number, which was neither whole nor a fraction. With the fundamental nature of the universe at stake, it was obvious what had to be done . . . The other Pythagoreans drowned him.

The names of later types of newly-discovered numbers demonstrate the shock and awe of their discovery. There are negative, imaginary, transcendental, surreal, hyperreal, subtle, ineffable, and transfinite numbers.

The smallest transfinite number is what we usually call “infinity.” The observable universe is really, really big. It contains billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars, each trillions of miles from the next. Yet it is not infinite; it is infinitesimally tiny in comparison with infinity.

colossal, gob-smacking, fantastic, hypergimundous

The second-smallest transfinite number is mind-bogglingly, inconceivably, shockingly larger than infinity. You could pile up all the superlatives in every language in the universe—colossal, gob-smacking, fantastic, hypergimundous—and you would not faintly approach how much bigger than infinity the next-to-smallest transfinite is.

Needless to say, the third transfinite is considerably larger. And how many transfinites are there? A whole lot more than infinitely many. A whole lot more than the second-transfinite-number many. A whole lot more than any transfinite number many.

Pretty nearly everyone who studies transfinite numbers finds it a major religious experience. It is often said that the transfinites provide a direct view into the Mind of God. Perhaps, in Dzogchen’s atheist terms, this is a glimpse of Longchen—the “Vast Expanse” of unconditioned primordial space/awareness.

Did Aro Lingma really exist?

You may be surprised to learn that some Aro students are agnostic about the Aro lineage history. Some are outright skeptical. This is not a problem. We can practice the Aro teachings wholeheartedly, without taking the lineage history as gospel. Since Buddhism is a religion of methods, not truth, belief is mostly irrelevant. And the content of the terma is almost completely separate from its history.

The word “really” suggests that there is a single correct standard of existence—and that anything else is a lie or evasion. But the question of whether you and I exist, and how, is central to Buddhism. There is no single or simple answer. Extraordinarily subtle philosophies have developed to address that question. Ultimately, to quote the Thirteenth Karmapa,

. . . since the Buddha’s intention cannot be expressed
in words, all statements of samsara and nirvana
being “existent” or “non-existent” are mere conventionalities.

As I have mentioned, the history of termas, and other Tibetan scriptures, is often used as evidence to authenticate them. These histories are, however, visionary history, not objective history. They describe visionary truth, not objective truth.

The history of most termas involves Yeshé Tsogyal. She acted as Padmasambhava’s scribe, and wrote most of the “earth terma” scrolls. She also was involved in the concealing of many mind termas. And she gave direct transmission of many pure vision termas. (The Aro gTér falls into this class.)

there is no reason to believe that Yeshé Tsogyal existed

As a matter of objective truth, there is no reason to believe that Yeshé Tsogyal existed at all. (See Janet Gyatso’s “A Partial Genealogy of the Lifestory of Ye shes mtsho rgyal.”) Everything that is known about her appears to derive from visionary sources (dreams, visions, past-life recollections). The earliest known mention of her is in a document written several centuries after the time she is supposed have lived. The various visionary accounts of her life contradict each other on basic facts.

Tibetans universally believe that Yeshé Tsogyal was a nirmanakaya, or flesh-and-blood Buddha. But from the standpoint of Western historical methods, this is quite likely not true. And important aspects of her life story are certainly not true in this objective sense.

That might seem a problem, since she plays such an important role in the validation of terma. But the question of her existence as nirmanakaya is irrelevant to that. It is sufficient that she exists as sambhogakaya, because the authentication of terma is a matter of visionary truth, not objective truth. In fact, according to the “secret” interpretation of the meaning of terma validity, the history of a terma is entirely irrelevant to its authenticity.

Yeshé Tosgyel as yidam is one of my main practices. In that practice, I am entirely confident that she does exist as sambhogakaya. So I see no conflict between my respect for the Western scholarship that reveals one type of truth about her, and my respect for the termas that reveal another.

The Aro lineage history, a lineage of enlightened women, involves some who certainly existed by Western historical standards. Machig Labdrön (1055-1149) is an example.

The Aro lineage history also includes some figures that are only known from that history. The Aro terton herself, Aro Lingma, is an example. As with Yeshé Tsogyel, everything we know about Aro Lingma comes from visionary sources. Primarily, this is the dreams, visions, and past-life recollections of Ngak’chang Rinpoche. He is her lineage holder and the rebirth of her son.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

In some cases, we know someone did not exist simply because we do not know that they did exist. We know that there was no President of the United States named J. Irvington Snird III. If there had been, we should have heard about him.

Absence of evidence for Yeshé Tsogyal is only weak evidence of her objective non-existence. Tibetan historical records from that period are sketchy. It would be only faintly surprising for there to have been a queen of Tibet who became a consort of Padmasambhava but is not mentioned in any surviving document from the next few centuries.

Absence of evidence for Aro Lingma is not at all evidence for her absence. She was not famous and she did not have a big following. She and her students traveled as a nomadic encampment (as was common for the ngak’phang in Eastern Tibet), so they left behind no buildings. In the chaos of the Chinese aggression, a great many religious leaders were killed, artifacts confiscated or destroyed, and texts lost. For example, the termas of Kyabjé Drimé Özer Rinpoche were apparently lost. He was famous (in his own right and as the consort of Sera Khandro), and definitely existed by objective historical standards.

You might suppose that any terton would be famous, but that is not the case. The standard work on the subject, Wonder Ocean, says that “this vast land has been filled with known and unknown, named and unnamed Termas comparable to a heap of mustard seeds.” Probably more of them are now forgotten than remembered.

So did she really exist, or what?

In terms of objective history, there is precisely as much evidence for Aro Lingma as for Yeshé Tsogyel: none. To dismiss Aro Lingma for lack of objective historical evidence skates on extremely thin ice. That criterion would invalidate most if not all Tibetan Buddhist lineages.

So, for Tibetan Buddhists, the question must be posed in visionary terms. A difficulty with visionary history is that it depends on whose visions you consider reliable. This is the same impossible problem I discussed earlier in the context of terma validation. Only a Buddha can reliably determine whether a vision is valid.

Many people have had visions of Yeshe Tsogyel. Only a few have had visions of Aro Lingma. But by numbers, we should believe in the Virgin Mary rather than Yeshe Tsogyel. Numbers aren’t evidence.

Whether Aro Lingma existed as nirmanakaya comes down to whether one thinks Ngak’chang Rinpoche’s visions are reliable. Apart from Buddhas, none of us are qualified to have an opinion about that.

Fortunately, whether Aro Lingma existed is not relevant to deciding whether to practice the Aro gTér. She might have existed but taught a false terma. Even if she did not exist as nirmanakaya, she may have delivered a true terma to Ngak’chang Rinpoche as sambhogakaya. So we might remain curious about her existence—but do not need to have an opinion.

Inspiration

I mentioned earlier that a main function of lineage histories is inspiration. I find the Aro lineage history exceptionally inspiring, whether or not it is objectively “true.” I particularly love the story of Jomo Chhi’med Pema punishing a rock. This story can be understood as a teaching on many levels. In fact, it unfolds with a different message according to the principles of each yana. You might find it interesting to see how many layers of meaning you can find there.

Authorized to teach

In Buddhism, you need authorization from your teacher before starting to teach. You can’t just read a bunch of books and declare yourself a teacher when you think you’ve got it figured. This provides some “quality control.”

Ngak’chang Rinpoche, with his wife Khandro Déchen, are the Lineage Lamas (principal teachers) of Aro. Ngak’chang Rinpoche’s teaching has been approved by all his major teachers, and by several other prominent lamas.

• Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche explicitly appointed Ngak’chang Rinpoche as a lama in a proclamation letter.
• Kyabjé Chhimed Rigdzin Rinpoche explicitly appointed Ngak’chang Rinpoche “to give empowerments,” which is the key official function of a lama, in a Foreword. In a letter, he refers approvingly to a student whom Ngak’chang Rinpoche ordained. (Only a lama can do that.) I have received ten eyewitness accounts that he explicitly approved verbally of Ngak’chang Rinpoche’s teaching.
• I have received numerous eyewitness accounts that Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche and Jomo Sam’phel explicitly approve Ngak’chang Rinpoche’s teaching as a lama.
• Ngak’chang Rinpoche’s teaching has been described approvingly by several other Tibetan lamas, notably Kyabjé Thinley Norbu Rinpoche and Gyaltsen Rinpoche.

The other Aro lamas are authorized by the Lineage Lamas, with the support of Künzang Dorje Rinpoche and Jomo Sam’phel. Every year or two, a group of Aro lamas and their students visit Künzang Dorje Rinpoche and Jomo Sam’phel in Kathmandu. Künzang Dorje Rinpoche and Jomo Sam’phel have strongly upheld each of the Aro lamas in their teaching role.

My experience of Ngak’chang Rinpoche

It is difficult to describe someone you know well. The better you know someone, the more sides of their personality you see. If you have met someone only a few times, you might be able to say “he’s angry a lot” or “she’s kind and cheerful.” But when you get to see them in many different contexts, over a period of years, you find that the anger was a passing phase, or she is kind and cheerful in company but sometimes bitchy and depressed with close friends. In fact, all of us possess all human qualities—and all those qualities are ultimately empty.

It is especially difficult to describe an accomplished Vajrayana practitioner. The more you practice, the more obviously empty your personality characteristics become. Ultimately, in a fully realized master, there are no characteristics—only communicative “personality display.” I am not qualified to say whether Ngak’chang Rinpoche is a fully realized master, but I do believe that much of his apparent personality is display. So anything I can say is a description of some ways he chooses to appear, rather than a description of him.

what he is not like

Actually, most of what I can say is what he is not like. I hope a sense of what he is like will emerge by subtraction. In my experience, Rinpoche is not charismatic, humble, arrogant, wrathful, or intellectual, and has no persona.

Not charismatic

Rinpoche does not seem to be charismatic. I say “seem” because I personally found him fascinating from when I first met him. On the other hand, I have mostly had no emotional reaction to the supposedly charismatic politicians, entertainers, and gurus I have met or seen working a crowd. So I am probably skew when it comes to charisma. In any case, Rinpoche’s talks do not attract crowds. A hundred people, most of them “regulars,” is the most I have seen.

a paradoxical mix of repellent and delightful

To magnetize large numbers of students, you have to tell people what they want and expect to hear. A crowd wants a consistently upbeat, mostly-familiar message that reassures them that they are good people (if they obey the rules) and suggests that “if you follow me, everything will come out right.” Rinpoche has no interest in that. He would rather tell people something unexpected. Something that has a paradoxical mix of repellent and delightful aspects. That does not appeal to a crowd.

To gather students, you have to teach “Introduction to Buddhism” over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Rinpoche mostly leaves that to the Aro teachers-in-training. He would rather talk to a small committed group who have studied with him for many years. Then he can teach more advanced material, and have some hope that we can keep up.

I have slightly mixed feelings about Rinpoche’s non-charisma. I believe that many thousands of people could benefit from the Aro teachings. It is a pity that only a few hundred of us are able to. If Rinpoche were a charismatic figurehead, perhaps the thousands would recognize that Aro is indeed the best fit for their spiritual goals and capacities.

On the other hand, charismatic figureheading is a full-time job. If Rinpoche did that, he might not also be able to offer his small group of apprentices such depth. That would be a severe loss for me personally.

Not humble or arrogant

Rinpoche is not humble. This upsets some people.

Because of the emphasis on non-self in Sutric Buddhism, some teachers adopt an exaggeratedly humble personality display. This is useful when teaching Sutra, as a way of modeling behavior and magnetizing students who wish to become selfless. It is irrelevant to Vajrayana. Because Sutra is all most people know of Buddhism, it may seem shocking for a Buddhist teacher not to appear humble.

When teaching Tantra, some teachers adopt an exaggeratedly arrogant personality display. This is an outward manifestation of “vajra pride,” the certainty that one is the yidam. Such display shocks most people, but it is useful when teaching Tantra, as a way of modeling behavior and magnetizing students who wish to become powerful. It is irrelevant to Dzogchen.

Rinpoche appears neither humble nor arrogant. I have seen his non-humility upset Sutric Buddhists. I suspect that some Tantric Buddhists regard his non-arrogance with contempt. He may seem very ordinary in comparison with powerful Tantric lamas. Their students might not understand why anyone would take such a sane, down-to-earth guy seriously.

It might seem paradoxical to say “neither humble nor arrogant.” Don’t you have to be one or the other? No. Both are attitudes towards oneself, in relationship to others. It is not necessary to have any such attitude.

Rinpoche seems to have “unconditional confidence.” He attempts a vast number of peculiar, difficult projects. Many of them work out well. Many of them don’t. When he succeeds, it is no big deal. When he fails, it is no big problem. He doesn’t seem to keep score, or measure himself on the basis of his ratio of successes to failures.

Not wrathful

I have written about “wrathful teaching” elsewhere. Rinpoche is not a wrathful lama. At most I have seen him look mildly irritated. That was when someone at a public talk was asking hostile, clueless questions. I’ve never seen him appear angry at an apprentice. He expresses disapproval by looking vaguely doubtful and asking something like “Hmm . . . do you think it might be better to . . . ?” He says that he is “more direct” with ordained students, but I’ve observed that only once or twice. (I am not ordained.) I am sure he is capable of appearing massively wrathful if he chose to—but he doesn’t.

are you going to become real?

Despite this, I found Rinpoche frightening for several years. I was not afraid of what he might do. It did not take long to decide that he was not going to do anything harmful. I was afraid of what he was. It was obvious that he’s the real thing. The real thing is frightening because it is a challenge: are you going to keep behaving like a schmuck, or are you going to become real too?

I also had the idea that I ought to be afraid of him. That was part of the way Ngak’chang Rinpoche related to his own teachers. But those were wrathful teachers, and he is not.

He told me that being afraid of him wasn’t functional and I should stop. So I did.

Although Rinpoche is not a wrathful teacher, he is not exactly supportive in a New Age or therapeutic way. If we do a bad job of something, he doesn’t praise us for it. He looks dubious and says “Hmm . . . Do you think you could get those corners a bit shinier?” Then we know we have more work to do. When we get upset about something minor, he doesn’t agree that it is a cosmic catastrophe and that we are being heroes for continuing to exist. He is likely to abruptly change the subject and completely ignore the plea for sympathy.

No persona

Apparently, many charismatic gurus have an “on-stage” persona, in which they appear beatific and holy and full of universal love, and a different “backstage” behavior when not performing. The backstage behavior is generally less attractive.

I have stayed with Ngak’chang Rinpoche, Khandro Déchen, and their children several times for several days. Many of their apprentices have. I have the impression that they have a student staying with them as often as not. That means we see them in the midst of everyday hassles.

It is striking that they are the same people—when talking to an uncooperative telephone customer service person, or dealing with the failure of a taxi to arrive when it is needed, or putting reluctant children to bed—as when giving a public talk or teaching an apprentice retreat. There is just no difference in the way they appear. Either they are extraordinary actors, able to maintain an on-stage persona for days on end in sometimes-trying circumstances—or their public presentation is the natural one.

no separation between teaching and life

In fact, there seems to be no separation between teaching and life for them. When the children were younger, they would sometimes come and sit on the lamas’ laps during a public teaching. The lamas could smoothly divide their attention between the children and audience. They were literally parenting and teaching Vajrayana simultaneously.

In the same way, in their home, chopping vegetables for dinner might seamlessly segue into a clarification of a subtle point of Dzogchen long-dé, and back to carrots thirty seconds later.

Not intellectual

Rinpoche displays pride in having gotten 66 when his IQ was tested. I have never quite known what to make of that. He does not seem stupid. I suspect that he took the test questions extremely literally, and gave answers that were technically correct but not what the test designers expected.

When he took his first riding lesson with Melissa, his instructor, she told him to maintain a posture, without reins, at the trot: arms extended sideways at shoulder height. He did, until the horse went around a corner and he fell off. Melissa was surprised. It should have been obvious that if he didn’t shift position, he’d keep going in a straight line while the horse went elsewhere. Her instruction was meant to implicitly include “so long as you are going straight.” Any normal person would have understood that, and avoided falling. Rinpoche explained that she had said to hold the posture, so he did. He did not consider his opinion about what would happen at the corner relevant. Melissa learned to spell things out for him extremely literally.

Rinpoche related to Melissa rather as to a vajra master (tantric guru), and she came to relate to him rather as a wrathful lama. I watched him in a lesson with her once. She had him going around a set course with a series of obstacles. When the horse jumped the second fence, he fell off. It was a ridiculously large horse and quite a high jump. Rinpoche fell about eight feet and landed in a heap, motionless. I and another student watching were . . . concerned. After several seconds, he got up unsteadily. “Anything broken?” asked Melissa cheerfully. Rinpoche patted himself all over. “I don’t . . . think so,” he said. (He has repeatedly broken ribs and his tailbone this way.) “Right,” she said. “You let him cut the corner, so he wasn’t going fast enough when he got to the first jump. That made him jump too far toward the next jump and instead of taking two canter strides he jumped again immediately. That’s why the saddle came up and sent you flying over his head. Now, force him to the wall as you come into that corner.” It appeared that she meant for him to try again. He staggered over to the horse, got up, and went back around the course.

the slowest student she ever had

Several years into their relationship, Rinpoche asked Melissa if he was the slowest student she had ever had. He was not seeking reassurance, and could not have expected it from Melissa. He was just curious. Melissa thought for a moment. “You certainly have the least natural talent of any student I have ever had,” she replied. “But you are also the most persistent, and now you ride quite well.”

Rinpoche does not seem to think in the way of academic intellectuals. He is brilliant, in some way, but not that one. He likes obscure words, but he seems to delight in their unique flavors, rather than using them to intimidate. He explains Buddhism exceptionally clearly, but he does not produce the logical, linear arguments academics admire.

I have studied, worked, and/or partied with several Nobel Laureates, Fields Medalists, Silicon Valley wunderkind squillionaires, and other officially smart people. I have a pretty good idea of what they do and how. I cannot do Nobel-level science, but I have published scientific journal articles. The difference between geniuses and me seems one of degree, not kind. I know what it is possible to create using conceptual mind.

I have no idea how Rinpoche does what he does. The Aro gTér all makes sense once it is explained, but there is nothing in my intellectual experience that helps understand how you would come up with it. Being an academic genius would not let you produce something like it.

If I were to sit down to invent a fake terma, I think I could do a pretty good job, by imitating other termas conceptually. Maybe I could come up with something that would pass the duck test. It wouldn’t be very interesting, though.

where on earth did that come from?

The Aro gTér isn’t like that at all. It is continually astonishing in making useful connections between subtle aspects of experience for which I previously had no names. Over and over, I think “where on earth did that come from?” So, I don’t think the Aro gTér is the product of conceptual mind—Rinpoche’s or anyone else’s.

I don’t worry about where the Aro gTér came from. It wouldn’t bother me at all if Rinpoche did make it up, so long as it works. But I am quite sure that he did not make it up.

In Dzogchen terminology, it appears to come straight outta tha dharmakaya.

Ngakpa Chögyam

“Ngak’chang Rinpoche” and “Ngakpa Chögyam” are two names for the same person. He and his wife Khandro Déchen are the Lineage Lamas (principal teachers) of Aro.

It is the Tibetan custom to be given a new name whenever one has a significant change in religious status. For example, one is given a new name when one takes refuge or is ordained. Generally Tibetans retain their old names as well, and use different ones according to the role they play in a situation.

For example, “Kyabjé Düdjom Rinpoche” and “Jigdrel Yeshé Dorje” are two names for the same great Lama who was Head of the Nyingma (and who was one of the Root Lamas of Ngak’chang Rinpoche). He signed some of his works “Düdjom Rinpoche” and some “Jigdrel Yeshé Dorje,” according to the nature of the text.

It was only recently and by accident that I learned how and when Ngakpa Chögyam received the name “Ngak’chang Rinpoche”—by reading this page.

He has continued to use the name “Ngakpa Chögyam” as the author of his books, to prevent confusion.

Ngakpa Chögyam and his Lamas

This page is an overview of the history of Ngak’chang Rinpoche’s relationships with his five Root Lamas.

If you are interested mainly in the question “is Rinpoche formally qualified,” I recommend reading “authorized to teach.” It summarizes the details here, with pointers to relevant documents.

In past I followed this page with others that documented the history in detail. The reason was to help explain anti-Aro gossip on the web. Most came originally from other students of Rinpoche’s Root Lamas. Some of it was encouraged by one of his former lamas, who disowned him. Since most of the attacks on Rinpoche have been removed from the web, these pages no longer seem useful and I have removed them. If you would like to know more about this history, I can email them to you.

Below, I will use the alternate name “Ngakpa Chögyam” rather than “Ngak’chang Rinpoche.” That way I can use “Rinpoche” to refer unambiguously to his teachers without giving their full names each time.

Ngakpa Chögyam has had many Tibetan teachers. Five of them have acted as his Root Lamas, or principal teachers. In the order he met them, these were Düdjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentsé Rinpoche, Künzang Dorje Rinpoche (with Jomo Sam’phel), Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche (with Khandro Tendzin Drölkar), and Chhi’méd Rig’dzin Rinpoche. Only Künzang Dorje Rinpoche and Jomo Sam’phel are still alive.

All five acted as his lamas simultaneously. In the West, it is uncommon to have several lamas at once. In Tibetan culture, it is normal. If you look at the biographies of Tibetan lamas, you will find that they usually list many teachers.

Düdjom Rinpoche and Dilgo Khyentsé Rinpoche

Ngakpa Chögyam first went to the Himalayas to study Buddhism in 1971. During the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s he spent roughly half his time there. He would work for about six months in Britain, saving as much money as possible, and then would live on that for about six months in India or Nepal. He studied there with Tibetan lamas and practiced what he had learned in solitary retreats.

In 1971, Tibetan Buddhism was little-known in the West. The first Tibetan lamas (Trungpa Rinpoche and Tarthang Tulku) came to the West in the late 1960s, but they were obscure until their first books were published (1973 and 1976). In 1971, there were very few Western Buddhists visiting the Himalayas. That meant that Ngakpa Chögyam had a level of access to great lamas that was completely unavailable a few years later. Tibetan Buddhism then became hip, and a deluge of would-be students arrived.

Ngakpa Chögyam studied with several teachers in 1971. Two of them became Root Lamas: Kyabjé Düdjom Rinpoche and Kyabjé Dilgo Khyentsé Rinpoche.

Ngakpa Chögyam received the complete set of Düdjom Tersar empowerments from Dudjom Rinpoche. Under his guidance, Ngakpa Chögyam did his first long solitary retreat. During it, he had a vision of Aro Lingma, the tertön (discoverer) of the Aro gTér. He discussed the vision with Düdjom Rinpoche and with Dilgo Khyentsé Rinpoche. Both said that it was the first sign of terma. They both encouraged him to record carefully any related visions and dreams, because eventually he would need to teach the terma.

Dudjom Rinpoche told him to keep the terma secret for thirteen years, and to practice both it and the Tröma Nakmo section of the Dudjom Térsar during that period. After thirteen years, he should teach the Aro gTér. (This period of secrecy is a typical requirement on new terma discoveries. It gives enough time to practice the terma to fully understand how it works and how to teach it.)

Tröma Nakmo is a female yidam within the Düdjom Térsar. There are extensive teachings and practices in the Tröma Nakmo section. These include elaborate rituals, involving complex equipment, songs, dances, and so forth. Although Dudjom Rinpoche gave Ngakpa Chögyam all the Tröma empowerments, he did not have time to teach the ritual details. He also did not have time to teach him Dzogchen men-ngak-dé, which mostly can only be transmitted one-on-one or to small, dedicated groups.

Dudjom Rinpoche was Head of the Nyingma, and he had ever-increasing bureaucratic and teaching responsibilities. By the mid-1970s he had little time to teach Ngakpa Chögyam individually. He sent Ngakpa Chögyam to Künzang Dorje Rinpoche for detailed instruction in Dzogchen. Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche gave him detailed instruction in ritual practice. Düdjom Rinpoche did, however, continue to act as the overall coordinator of Ngakpa Chögyam’s studies.

Künzang Dorje Rinpoche

Kyabjé Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche lived as a homeless wandering yogi in the 1970s. By choice, he had very few students. He accepted Ngakpa Chögyam only reluctantly at first, and only because of a letter of recommendation Ngakpa Chögyam brought him from Düdjom Rinpoche. He spent several weeks testing Ngakpa Chögyam’s understanding before actually teaching him anything. Eventually he relented and gave him transmission of Dzogchen men-ngak-dé.

Because Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche had no fixed address, Ngakpa Chögyam lost track of him each time he returned to Britain to work, and was often unable to locate him for years. In fact, they had no contact from 1981 to 1995, because Ngakpa Chögyam could not find him.

Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche

So Ngakpa Chögyam spent more time with Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche and his wife Khandro Tendzin Drölkar, who taught him the Tröma Nakmo ritual practices. Ngakpa Chögyam was more drawn to Dzogchen and to Künzang Dorje Rinpoche, and to Dudjom Rinpoche, but Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche was available when his closer teachers were not.

Under Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche and Khandro Tendzin Drölkar, from the mid-1970s to 1982, he mastered the full Tröma Nakmo system. Among other things, this involved spending more than three years in solitary retreat (in sections of several months at a time).

Beginning to teach

In 1976, Dudjom Rinpoche visited Britain for the first time. He met with Ngakpa Chögyam, and told him to start working to establish the White Sangha (non-monastic tantric ordination) in the West. He also told him to start teaching whenever someone requested him to do so.

People did start asking Ngakpa Chögyam to teach in 1978—occasionally at first, and then on a regular basis in the town of Bath, England. His teaching role became increasingly formalized; in 1982, some regular attendees at his classes asked him to be their personal teacher. On the recommendation of both Dudjom Rinpoche and Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche, he agreed to do so.

This was the time when Ngakpa Chögyam first encountered opposition. Some other Britons who considered themselves “serious Tibetan Buddhists” did not think it was fair that he should be teaching when they were not. Apparently motivated by jealousy, they began the campaign of malicious gossip that has continued, on and off, until now.

Due to the strong interest in Ngakpa Chögyam’s classes in Britain, Rinpoche thought it was the time for them to establish a center there. For that, Ngakpa Chögyam would need unquestioned credibility. In 1983, Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche wrote a “proclamation,” appointing Ngakpa Chögyam as his “vajra regent” (business representative), and authorizing Ngakpa Chögyam as a “root guru” (tantric lama).

Ngakpa Chögyam had intended to ask Düdjom Rinpoche to write a Foreword for his first book, Rainbow of Liberated Energy. However, Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche offered to write one, and it would have been rude to refuse. His Foreword, written in 1983, praised Ngakpa Chögyam as a student and author.

Breakdown

Unfortunately, during the mid-80s, Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche came into conflict with several other Nyingma teachers, and his marriage with Khandro Tendzin Drölkar broke up in a particularly difficult way. Ngakpa Chögyam did his best to stay out of these conflicts. Rinpoche would not allow him to stay neutral. He demanded that Ngakpa Chögyam take actions that would be seriously detrimental to Khandro Tendzin Drölkar. He also demanded that Ngakpa Chögyam break off his relationships with Künzang Dorje Rinpoche and Chhi’mèd Rig’dzin Rinpoche. Ngakpa Chögyam was unwilling to do either of those things, which made Rinpoche extremely angry.

Rinpoche then told many people that he had never authorized Ngakpa Chögyam to teach. Apparently he did this as a punishment. By this time, Ngakpa Chögyam had about twenty personal students. He told them what Rinpoche said, and told them to become students of Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche, or to find another lama. However, most refused; they were not interested in being students of anyone else. As a tantric lama, Ngakpa Chögyam had taken vows to his students as well as to his teachers, and he could not refuse to teach if they insisted.

There was public evidence that Rinpoche did authorize Ngakpa Chögyam. The Foreword, written in 1983 when relations were very good, was only published in 1986, when Rinpoche was denouncing the author. Some people asked him about the Foreword, and other evidence. Rinpoche denied writing the Foreword. His explanation repeatedly shifted, and did not make sense. Nevertheless, many people believed him (perhaps because he was the teacher, and because he was Tibetan, and had a “Rinpoche” after his name) and not Ngakpa Chögyam.

Ngakpa Chögyam appealed to Düdjom Rinpoche. Düdjom Rinpoche would have been able to fix the situation—but unfortunately he became seriously ill in 1986 and died in January 1987.

Chhi’mèd Rig’dzin Rinpoche

Back in the late 1970s, Ngakpa Chögyam had become a student of Kyabjé Chhi’mèd Rig’dzin Rinpoche, the last of his five Root Lamas.

Ngakpa Chögyam spent increasing amounts of time with him during the 1980s, in Britain and Holland. Rinpoche visited Britain several times, and stayed at Ngakpa Chögyam’s house for several weeks on each visit. On those occasions, he taught Ngakpa Chögyam’s students as well as Ngakpa Chögyam, and a few students of other lamas.

From the breakdown with Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche, and into the mid-1990s, Chhimèd Rigdzin Rinpoche acted as Ngakpa Chögyam’s primary teacher. In 1988, Rinpoche tried to give Ngakpa Chögyam the credibility Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche had undercut. He confirmed Ngakpa Chögyam’s authority to act as a lama and give empowerments. He wrote a new Foreword for the revised edition of the Ngakpa Chögyam’s book, to replace the one Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche claimed not to have written.

Unfortunately, some of Rinpoche’s students were hostile to Ngakpa Chögyam. Some had been students of Lama Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche, and they believed him rather than Chhimed Rigdzin Rinpoche. Some thought Ngakpa Chögyam receiving terma in visions and dreams was ridiculous, that he was just making it up, and that he was on an ego trip. Some seemed to be jealous that Ngakpa Chögyam was authorized to teach when they weren’t. Some seemed to be jealous that Ngakpa Chögyam appeared to be closer to Rinpoche than they were.

So, although Rinpoche did what he could, his mentoring Ngakpa Chögyam actually added new sources of hostile gossip.

In 1975, Düdjom Rinpoche had told Ngakpa Chögyam to teach the Aro gTér only after practicing it for thirteen years (which would be 1988). Until then, he taught general Tibetan Buddhism and the Düdjom Térsar ngöndro. In 1988, Chhi’mèd Rig’dzin Rinpoche also encouraged him to start teaching primarily the Aro gTér. Ngakpa Chögyam gradually shifted to that over the next few years.

In the early 1990s, Rinpoche shifted his European base from Britain to Switzerland. From then on, Ngakpa Chögyam saw much less of him. Both had increasing numbers of students who needed more and more attention, so there were few opportunities to meet informally.

Rinpoche died in 2002.

Künzang Dorje Rinpoche and Jomo Sam’phel

In 1995, Ngakpa Chögyam accidentally found Künzang Dorje Rinpoche, after not having seen him since 1981. Rinpoche greeted him enthusiastically, and they renewed their relationship. From then, Rinpoche stayed in Kathmandu, so he was easy to locate. Since 1995, Ngakpa Chögyam has visited him once every few years, in the company of many of his own students. Several Aro students have formed their own relationships with Rinpoche and his wife Jomo Sam’phel, and have received extensive teachings from them.

Aro “controversy” F.A.Q.

What is the Aro controversy?

As far as I can tell, there isn’t one, really. Instead, there was a group of about ten people who said negative things about Aro on the web. Mostly that happened only on one forum, e-Sangha, which was controlled by members of the group. The forum is now defunct.

So what did they say about Aro?

Two main things. One is that an Aro lama, Ngak’chang Rinpoche, is not authorized to teach. The other is that Aro is based on a “fake terma.”

Is Ngak’chang Rinpoche authorized to teach?

Yes. Several Tibetan lamas have explicitly said so, verbally and in writing.

So why did some people say he wasn’t?

It is hard to know. One reason is that, back in the 1980s, one of his former teachers said that Ngak’chang Rinpoche was not authorized. That was not true. Even if it had been, it is no longer relevant. That teacher died in the early 1990s. Ngak’chang Rinpoche’s teaching has been explicitly approved by several prominent Tibetan lamas since then.

Is Aro based on a fake terma?

A “terma” is a Tibetan Buddhist revelation. Aro belongs to the Nyingma division of Tibetan Buddhism, which is based almost entirely on termas. New termas are discovered all the time.

According to Nyingma doctrine, termas can be “authentic” or “fake.” There is a specific, highly-technical meaning for these terms, in Nyingma theory. A terma being “authentic” or “fake” has nothing to do with the objective truth of what it says, and nothing to do with the objective history of how it came into being. It has to do with its magical history: whether or not the revelation came from non-physical Buddhas.

Unfortunately, according to Nyingma doctrine, there is no useful way to find out whether any terma is “authentic” in this sense. No ordinary evidence is relevant. The only way to know is to be an omniscient Buddha.

So, we cannot know whether or not Aro is based on a fake terma. However, anyone who says that the Aro terma is definitely fake shows that they don’t know very much about Tibetan Buddhism. (Or that they think they are an omniscient Buddha.)

A better question to ask is whether the Aro terma is useful. It is worth asking whether Aro is a “good fit” for you personally.

Does Aro contradict other Tibetan Buddhist teachings?

No. Aro teachings and practices are entirely mainstream. Everything taught by Aro is consistent with standard Nyingma Buddhism.

What was the e-Sangha Aro policy about?

At one time, e-Sangha allowed its members to say only negative things about Aro. (Most of these statements were not true). Neutral and positive postings were removed, and the posters were banned from the forum. After I and others objected to this policy, e-Sangha disallowed all discussion of Aro (but retained most of the old negative postings).

OK, I don’t get it. If there