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.