The Tibetan Sacred Outlook

The Tibetan Sacred Outlook

Religion has swayed the whole life of many Tibetans. Religion is an unextractable component of their culture and almost every aspect of life has a religious significance to Tibetans. Opinions on the soul, the interconnectedness of everything, the importance of art, the social role of spiritual teachers, all play a role in how Tibetans view their world.

A popular religious tradition in Tibet is nature reverence. Tibetans believe that the world is heavily populated with spirits and demons; these spirits and demons must be acknowledged and appeased in order to have a prosperous and strife free life. Offerings such as burn juniper and alcoholic beverages are often put out for spirits. Mountains and lakes are considered to be very powerful spirits or deities that are often protector deities. When crossing a mountain pass it is tradition to carry a stone from the base of the mountain to the other side of the mountain and put it in a pile. This is to show your thanks to whatever spirit allowed you to safely pass through the mountain.

Mount Kailash is an important mountain to Tibetans and it is also the mountain that some believe that Sherab Mibo ascended to from heaven. The idea that sacred people descend from heaven onto mountains is a popular Tibetan motif; seven Tibetan kings are said to have descended from heaven onto various mountains (Tucci 218-219). There is also a popular creation story in Tibet about a white yak that creates the world by perpetually dividing a sacred mountain.

The idea that the world is full of spirits plays a big part in how Tibetans look at the world. In popular Tibetan tradition one has a soul, or bla, and shares it with multiple other beings (Tucci 191). When you are sleeping or in a trance your bla leaves your body and travels around (Tucci 191). There are four safe places for your soul to go when it is traveling: a specific lake, a specific yak, a specific tree, or a specific bird. The bla of those specific entities can also inhabit the human they are associated with. The bla can become lost while it is wondering, especially if it is scared by a demon (Tucci 191-192). When that happens it is necessary to visit a shaman and have him or her go out and find your bla and take it back either by force or by ransom.

Besides indigenous Tibetan beliefs, Tibet has also had its sacred outlook influenced by Buddhism. In Tibet Vajrayana Buddhism is the dominate form of religion. Several aspects of Vajrayana Buddhism have shaped the way Tibetans view the world from a sacred perspective. Almost all Tibetan Buddhist practices associated with mainstream Vajrayana doctrine will involve trying to overcome dualities.

Tibetan Buddhism teaches that everything is interconnected; this is called patichasamupada. Everything is considered interconnected because nothing has independent origin and no being has a continuous self through time. Nothing has independent origin because everything is the result of something that has happened, nothing comes out of a vacuum. No being is believed to have a self or atman because it is believed that everything can be broken down into separate independent, yet related, components that are constantly subject to change and decay. Because of that it is said that to draw any distinction between one thing and another is a false distinction because everything has one taste or one essence. So if one was to say that he or she was Albert Einstein, he or she would be deceiving themselves into believing that Albert Einstein is continuous through time and that Albert Einstein is somehow separate and distinct from somebody else. Because it is believed that one has no self and everything has dependent origins, Tibetan Buddhist assert that dualities are inherently false and must be over come. This is in contrast to Bon tradition which is very heavily dualistic.

In Bon it is believed that there is a good white force and an evil black force. Every being is either associated with white force or black force (Tucci 214). The spirits mentioned previously are considered to either be good spirits associated with the white force or bad spirits associated with the black force. However in Tibetan Buddhism, at least in the Tantric Monastic setting, such dualism is considered false and must be over come.

The desire to overcome dualism has greatly influenced the Tibetan Buddhist out look on the world and has shaped many of their practices. Many ceremonies involve deliberately manipulating symbols that represent opposite forces and one must try to experience how these dualisms are in fact not a dualism.

The chief way to experience the non-duality of existence is through deity yoga. Deity yoga is the primary form of Tibetan meditation. In deity yoga one must first visualize a deity in front of them. This can be a very hard processes and requires a lot of practice and skill. Because of the importance of deity yoga it is very important that one knows what a deity looks. This has highly influenced Tibetan art and almost all Tibetan art has some sort of religious significance. Sometimes one must be empowered to learn all of the multiple meanings of a Tantric image.

The second step of deity yoga is to become one with the deity. This is another example of trying to breakdown duality. In Tantric Buddhist practice there is no difference between one and the deity. One must only realize this. When one does realize that one is not different from the deity, then one develops deity pride. Deity pride is recognizing that you are the deity and the deity is you. Nothing has changed except the realization and experience of the practitioner.

Because we are talking about deity yoga in a Buddhist setting there must naturally be a last step to deity yoga. That is the step of dissolving the self into nothingness. This is the last step of deity yoga, if one can fully experience this step it is said that he or she has reached enlightenment. However once one does reach this state of enlightenment one does not leave samsara. Because Vajrayana is closely related to Mahayana schools it retains the bodhisattva vow.

The bodhisattva vow is simply a vow one takes to not reach full enlightenment, in the sense that one is freed from samsara, until every sentient being has reached enlightenment. This has greatly influenced the way Tibetans have views their world Because enlightened individuals are not going to leave samsara they are reborn to help other people reach enlightenment. This is where the Tibetan idea of a tulku comes from; a tulku is an enlightened individual who is reborn. The idea of the tulku has had many implications for Tibet.

Because people can be reborn it is possible that a new born baby is a fully enlightened being. One could even be the incarnation of a deity, such as the roles of the Dalia Lama and the Panchen Lama. Because of Tibetans typically sacred outlook on life, their system of government has traditionally been lead by spiritual teachers or spiritual beings. Pre-Buddhist Tibet had a tradition of divine kings, and then they later had a tradition of divine leaders in the tulku lamas.

Because of the importance of lamas in Tibetan society they do practice lama devotion. Because lamas are often considered to be incarnations of spiritually powerful beings, it is natural that Tibetans have incorporated lama devotion into their daily life. Also it is believed that lamas have magical powers such as the ability to read minds. Many important folk heros and saints in Tibet have been lamas such as Milarepa.

As mentioned above art is very important in Tibet because of deity yoga, but also because it helps keep one constantly reminded of religioius themes. Besides art depicting deities, art depicting different realms of rebirth and art depicting the truths of impermenance are very important in Tibet. Also in keeping with maintaining a sacred attitude many Tibetans will carry a prayer wheel with them and spin it all day long, in essence spinning the prayers into the world.

Not every Tibetan agrees with every other Tibetan on issues of religion, naturally. Some Tibetan practices are not congruent with other Tibetan practies, such as the the aforementioned Bon notion of duality and the Vajrayana notion of over coming duality. They also disagree about animal sacrifice, Bon do it and Buddhist do not. Animal sacrifice is more popular in the outskirts of the country than it is in the cities. Another thing that Bon and Tibetan Buddhism have in common is circumambulation (Tucci 150, 242). However they do differ on which direction; Bon go counter-clockwise and Tibetan Buddhist go clockwise.

Shamanism plays a big part in Tibetan religiousity. It is believed that a shaman is capable of rescuing lost souls, can tell the future, and can heal. The defining characteristic of a Shaman is deliberate soul travel brought on by trace. Shamans also practice exorcisms and are routinely possessed by spirits. Being possessed by spirits is another instance of the differencing opinions between Bon and Tibetan Buddhism. Buddhism in general does not teach of exorcisms, but to a Tibetan exorcisms may very likely be labeled as Buddhism.

Shamanism, deity yoga, lama devotion, art, and philosophy have all contributed to the Tibetan's sacred out look on life. When one believes in the interconnectedness of everything or that one shares their soul with the enviornment around them then it is easy to understand why Tibetans typically have a sacred outlook on life.

Works Cited

Tucci, Giuseppe. The Religions of Tibet. Trans. Geoffrey Samuel. Los Angelas: University of California P, 1980.

Music in Tibet

Music in Tibet

Music and theatre are included in a subsection of sGra, which is one of the five inclusive sciences, which all things are said to include all types of study.¹ Music has played a central role in the lives of Tibetans and continues to console Tibetans in exile. Tibetan music has many venues: chants, Tibetan opera, special troupes of performers, folk songs, and even newer venues like rock concerts and traveling all-female stage productions.

-Rakra Tethong says that Tibetan music can almost be thought of as a mixture of many different kinds of music.² Tibetan music has had influences from Mongolia, Afghanistan, China, and India.³ And perhaps from places as far away as Syria and Greece, but Tethong argues that the majority of outside influences on Tibetan music came from India, especially when talking about the development of music inside the Buddhist monasteries.⁴ Tethong claims that typically new musical forms arrive first in Western Tibet, then they make their way to central Tibet where they’re learned by nomads that then bring the songs to Eastern Tibet.⁵ There was a special troupe of singers and dancers called the gar pa in Lhasa that received many of their influences from India as well as Mongolia, and they also came up with many of their own styles and customs.⁶

The gar pa represent a unique institution in Tibetan history that lasted for several centuries. The gar pa had many unique traditions and instruments and while some of them have been incorporated into other Tibetan musical venues, others have been lost.⁷ Tethong recalls how the special drums the gar pa used were, while the looked simple, were in fact very complicated and had the ability to be heard miles away and not be disturbing to somebody in the same room.⁸

-Another interesting institution related to Tibetan music is Tibetan Opera. Called lha mo, Tibetan Opera is said to have been founded by the legendary figure of Grub chen Tang stong Rgyal po.⁹ Tang stong Rgyal is honored similarly to other great Tibetan saints and transcripts of his plays were keep on alters to him and offerings to him were made before and after the study of or performance of a play.¹⁰ It is said that Tang stong Rgyal felt that people needed to be exposed to religious ideas but that some people are not susceptible to being preached to, so instead plays and music with religious themes could expose people to religious ideas that they would otherwise not be able or willing to accept.¹¹

After the time of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama lha mo saw increased popularity, which was probably somehow related to the Fifth Dalai Lama having a dream about the lha mo which included new mask for them to wear.¹² Some modern lha mo troupes still use the mask designed by the Fifth Dalai Lama.

An important event in the lha mo calendar is the drama festival or yogurt party at Drepung monistary.¹³ The legend goes that the monks at Drepung were too well behaved, so behaved were they that the local demon-god-mountain-being became upset with them and was causing trouble for them. To appease the being, the monks held a large festival and when the being saw them having a big festival he became appeased that they weren’t too well behaved any more and let them alone.¹⁴

The Buddhist Monastery is where some of the most complex and actualized Tibetan music comes from according to Tethong, and one of the major influences on Tibetan Monastic music was Indian music.¹⁵ However, that’s not to say that Tibetans Buddhist didn’t borrow from other sources or neglected their own indigenous Tibetan traditions. An example of a Bon instrument that crossed over into monastic life in Tibet is the rnga, which is a small kind of drum with a handle on it.¹⁶

While Tibetan Buddhism is among the most lenient of all Buddhist sects towards music, stringed instruments were the least popular in the monastery and were even banned in some, because of all the kinds of instruments they are the hardest to meditate to.¹⁷ However even though they are not played, stringed instruments are offered as offerings to Bodhisattvas in some ceremonies.¹⁸ Each of the four main sects of Tibetan Buddhism, Nymingma, Sakya, Kargyud, and Gelug, each has their own musical tradition. Tethong argues that the Sakya tradition’s music is closest to the Indian tradition in Tibet and that the Gelug tradition is the most conservative of all the movements in regards to music.¹⁹ These distinctions are useful but limited because it is also said that every single monastery has its own musical tradition, and sometimes a monasteries tradition will be contrary to the trend of its sect.²⁰ Not only do monasteries have their own views on music, sometimes different parts of the same monastery will have different musical traditions and views.²¹

After the Chinese took control of Tibet, many lha mo troupe leaders were sent to China to be re-educated in music and to make lha mo performances conform more to their “Chinese origins”.²² In 1959, after a popular uprising, many Tibetans fled the country, following the example of the Dalai Lama. At least two lha mo troupes were set up in exile.²³ One troupe toured the United States in 1975.²⁴

One of the first institutions founded by the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala was the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA).²⁵ TIPA’s symbol is the iconic mask of the hunter that introduces all Tibetan Operas and the skeleton dancer mask.²⁶

An important issue to Tibetans in exile is coming to terms with what it means to be Tibetan in the first place. Tibetans in exile live in communities with other Tibetans from all over the region and for the Tibetans in exile this has really widened their sense of who is and who is not a Tibetan.²⁷ Another issue is that of preserving Tibetan culture. What happens when notions of preserving Tibetan culture clash with efforts to stop sectarianism in the Tibetan Diaspora?

One such incident happened in 1981 when a deputy in the Tibetan National Assembly, who also happened to be Kargyupa monks, complained that the TIPA would be performing a play the next day for the Dalai Lama that included an immoral clown-type character that at one point chants Kargyupa prayer.²⁸ The deputy argued that things like this were fueling sectarianism and that he was offended by it and it should be removed.²⁹

No official stance was made one way or the other but what happened was immensely interesting. The lha mo went on, as schedule but the Dalai Lama did not attend; the reason for his absence isn’t made clear nor is it ever claimed to be as a result of the controversy.³⁰ When it came time for the character to repeat the Kargyupa prayer he instead stopped and discussed with a God how he did not want to perform that part of the performance because of the controversy and he would instead perform a song from a popular Hindi musical.³¹ Another alteration that was made to the performance is that when the characaters were suppose to make a bread offering to a demon in an exorcism ritual instead of the using dough and bread they used an effigy of a skeleton dance, which is a symbol of the TIPA, and threw it at duputy-members of the Tibetan National Assembly.³² The implication of this action was to imply that the Tibetan National Assemblies were like demons attacking the TIPA.³³ These actions caused the deputies to leave in protest; Marcia Calkowski argues that the argument against the TIPA wasn’t genuinely an argument against sectarianism but a blatant sectarian act in and of itself by the Kargyupa monk for the Kargyupa.³⁴ The act of relating criticisms of an lha mo with an exorcism also have further symbolic meaning in regards to Tang stong Rgyal because legends tell of how the first lha ma was performed to appease a demon that was tormenting a town.³⁵

Another instance where tradition and sectarianism have clashed with each other as well as with modern Western ideas is in regards to how women should be treated and what roles they can perform. The nuns of the Khache Ghankyil Ling nunnery, a nunnery for Tibets in exile in Nepal, study Buddhism on par with their male counterparts and have also study traditional Tibetan songs, dances, and other performance arts.³⁶ Many of the performance arts the nuns learn are learned only for the purpose of raising money in performances in the west.³⁷

-Tibetans, like everybody else, have not been immune to modern or Western influences. While researching the modern state of Music in Tibet ethnomusicographologist Keila Diehl recalls in her book “Echoes from Dharmsala: Music in the Life of a Tibetan Refugee Community” how she found many modern musical elements in young Tibetans’ music. She asks the question of whether this is a sign of Tibetans that are proud of their own heritage trying reach out and form complex relationships with other cultures and traditions or is this a sign that young Tibetans, many of which have never been to Tibet or outside of India, are losing their own sense of cultural identity and are just plugging into what’s most easily accessible to them.³⁸ She tells how one contemporary Tibetan band around the area of Dharmsala that call themselves the “Yak Band” plays rock and roll, blues, and incorporates an amplified version of a dranyen (a six-stringed Tibetan lute) into their songs as well as their attempts to turn traditional Tibetan chants and folk songs into dance songs.³⁹

Rock concerts can be understood in terms of Victor Turner’s communitas and Deihl says that is also true when looking at modern Tibetan music in the Tibetan Diaspora.⁴⁰ However communitas does not fully explain the tensions that exist between Tibetans that are resistant to these new forms of music, even when you try to argue that there is a subculture of young Tibetans that are looking outside their own traditional for inspiration.⁴¹ For those Tibetans that are resistant to new musical forms Diehl argues that it might not be the music itself they have a problem with but the tension they feel with trying to maintain their own cultural identity while being exiles.⁴² Despite the hardships that go along with being a people in exile, Diehl explains that in her experience that even though it is difficult many Tibetans hold onto what it means to be Tibetan, even those that are reaching out and looking for something else or new, such as rock and roll, still have a sense of being Tibetan.⁴³ Diehl argues that even though Tibetan refugees can be described in terms of hybridity and pastiche, that many refugees regard these things as sources of failure and an unfortunate consequences of the life of a refugee.⁴⁴

A lot of cultural transmittion takes place in the home, as it does in most cultures around the world. However because of their status as exiles, there is a great importance placed on how the culture is presented and preserved in the public sphere.⁴⁵ It is because of this that public performances of become ever so important to the Tibetan diaspora as the gap between living memory and Tibetan identity widens, Tibetans cling to what makes them Tibetan and try to avoid displacement and assimilation.⁴⁶ However Marcia points out that there is more more emphasis on preserving Tibetan culture in the face of Chinese culture and an over-arching globalzied world culture, but few Tibetans seem bothered or notice the influences of Hindi culture on their own.⁴⁷

1 Jeanette Snyder, “Preliminary Study of Lha Mo”, Asian Music, 10, no 2 Tibetan Issue (1979): 35-38. JSTOR, www.jstor.org

2 Rakra Tethong, “Conversations on Tibetan Musical Traditions,” Asian Music, 10, no. 2 Tibetan Issue (1979): 5. JSTOR, www.jstor.org.

3 Tethong, 5.

4 Tethong, 5-8.

5 Tethong, 7.

6 Tethong, 6-7.

7 Tethong, 6.

8 Tethong, 7.

9 Snyder, 24.

10 Snyder, 24.

11 Snyder, 26.

12 Snyder, 28.

13 Snyder, 29.

14 Snyder, 29-30.

15 Tethong, 9.

16 Tethong, 9.

17 Tethong, 10.

18 Tethong, 10.

19 Tethong, 11-13.

20 Tethong, 10, 12.

21 Tethong, 11-12. Tethong describes how different grwa tshang or “colleges” in his own monastery of Drepung, forbid certain monks from learning instruments because their section of the monastery focused on logical, philosophy, or metaphysics, but required other monks in different colleges to learn to play instruments because their focus was on Tantric rituals.

22 Snyder, 29.

23 Snyder, 29.

24 Snyder, 29.

25 Marcia Calkowski, “A Day at the Tibetan Opera: Actualized Performances and Spectaular Discourse,” American Ethnologist 18, no. 4 (1991): 645. JSTOR, www.jstor.org.

26 Calkowski, 645.

27 Calkowski, 645.

28 Calkowski, 648.

29 Calkowski, 648-49.

30 Calkowski, 648-50.

31 Calkowski, 650.

32 Calkowski, 650.

33 Calkowski, 651.

34 Calkowski, 651-52.

35 Calkowski, 653. Snyder, 29.

36 Claudia Orenstein, “A Taste of Tibet: The Nuns of the Khache Ghankyil Ling Nunnery and the Theatre du Soleil,” Asian Theatre Journal 19, no. 1 (2002): 213-15. Google Scholar, www.scholar.google.com.

37 Orenstein, 214. That’s not to suggest that the nuns are greedy or not living up to their goals by taking money.

38 Kelia Diehl, Echoes of Dharamsala: Music in the Life of a Tibetan Refugee Community (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), xx.

39 Diehl, xx-xxiii.

40 Diehl, 2.

41 Diehl, 2-7.

42 Diehl, 3.

43 Diehl, 4.

44 Diehl, 5.

45 Diehl, 66.

46 Diehl, 66.

47 Calkowski, 654. Calkowski points to how nobody seemed to have any problem or qualms about a popular Hindi movie song being used in what is considered the quintessential lha mo.

Extremely Brief overview of Tibetan religiosity

Nature Religion

In Tibetan nature religion one of the things that brings meaning to one's life is being in good standing with your community. Your community includes not only your townsmen and family but also many nature spirits. Much ado is paid to the needs and wants of local nature spirits, its considered kind of like a big cosmic d'uh, in that OFCOURSE you need to be worshiping the spirits around come on! This may be related to how primal and open the landscape of Tibet is. If one transgresses against the spirits there will be consequences so the quality of one's life depends on appeasing these spirits.

Another thing to consider when weighting the meaning of life and Tibetan nature religion is to remember that Tibetans believe that their soul, or la, is a six part system that you share with other beings. Your la can go out on adventures and inhabit other beings but the most common and safe place is in either a specific bird, horse, ox, tree, lake, and of course your own human body.

As far as the meaning of life, this idea of a multi-part shared soul lends itself to thinking of oneself as a humble being of a larger system and may promote community and nature reverence. Another thing to consider when contemplating the meaning of life is to remember that the world is dualistic.

There are two primal forces in the world a white force, which is good, and a black force, which is bad. Ideally somebody should find their meaning in the white force and dedicate themselves to serving the good gods. One of the things the gods want is animal sacrifices, so part of the meaning of life is to provide the gods with their sacrifices.

Shamanism

The meaning of life for a Shaman may be to serve his or her community. There are several themes that are common to most Shamans in Tibet and they all play a part in what a Shaman or follower of a Shaman believe about the nature of existence and the meaning of life.

If your la gets lost somewhere while its out adventuring while you are asleep, you need a Shaman to go look for it. So in one way big part of the what it means to be a Shaman is to be a protector and finder of lost souls. Shamans use many tools for finding lost souls but one of their most useful tools is the ability to soul travel. Through trances and other meanings Shamans can leave their body and go out into the spirit world to try to find your soul and bring it back to you. Perhaps you've angered a local nature spirit and it scared or kidnapped your soul, in such a case the Shaman must use his or her spiritual ability to try to appease the spirit. Being able to soul travel and make face to face communications with the nature spirits is very helpful for soul retrieval task.

Face to face meetings with the spirits also allow Shamans to make spirit friends, these spirit friends help to teach and serve the Shaman through his or her career. More so than the average person, a Shaman is responsible for harboring and developing relationships with local spirits.

Another important aspect of the meaning of existence when considering Nature Religion, Shamanism, as well as other expressions of Tibetan religiosity, is to recall that a popular idea in Tibet is that dreams are a real reality in and of themselves, sometimes even considered to be more real than waking life. So if one wanted to explore what their purpose in life was, a prudent place to look would be in your dreams. While in your dream world, you and your soul can go on magical adventures all over, just be careful not to get scared or caught like we mentioned earlier.

How does a Shaman get all these powers that define and give meaning to his life? Tibetan Shamans, life Shamans all over the world, go through something scholars label as the “Shamanic illness”. During the Shamanic illness the future-Shaman becomes very sick and falls in and out of trances and is just generally crazy. The goal is for the future-Shaman to die, or at least be broken down all the way to his core, and then cure himself and come back as a healthy member of society. It is thought that through curing himself that the Shaman gains the entry-level experience needed to be a Shaman. Also while under this Shamanic illness the Shaman may make some life long spirit friends.

Buddhism

The meaning for life in Tibetan Buddhism fits in with the grander themes of Buddhism in other traditions, but also has its own unique positions on certain issues. The essence of Buddhist teachings are the four noble truths which are that dukkha is pervasive in samsara, dukkha is caused by tanha, there is a way to stop dukkha, and that way is the noble eight-fold path.

A key precept of Tibetan Buddhism is the concept of interdependence. I depend on you, you depend on me, and so and and so on in an imaginably complex and beautiful way. If one was looking for meaning to their life in terms of Tibetan Buddhism, interdependence would be a good place to start. The repercussions of this idea is that everything you do has enormous reprocutions on the cosmic scale, so it is important that one live their life in a compassionate and wise way so that the repercussions of one's life will be as good as possible.

As with all schools of Buddhism, the goal of Tibetan Buddhism is to become enlightened one day. Similar to Mahayana in Tibetan Buddhism it is typically said that spiritually powerfully people do not reach full enlightenment because their compassion and vows require them to stay in samsara until every sentient being can achieve samsara. In Tibet this has had the unique occurense of tulkus, which are spiritually powerful and enlightened people that choose to be reborn. If you're born as a tulku your goal in life is to help as many people as you can reach enlightenment.

One of the specific goals unique to Tantic Buddhism is to overcome duality and realize that life is, as Milarepa puts it, ro chig or a single taste. One should spend their life realizing that any and all dualities are man made and get in the way of realzing greater spiritual truths. There are many Tantric rituals and concepts directly related to the idea of overcoming and collapsing duality whether its day and night, the sun and the moon, male and female, pure and impure, or living and dead.

The idea that there is no difference between pure and impure has had many profound effects on Tibetan culture. In contrast to other Tibetan civilizations, Tibetan gods frequently enjoy alcoholic beverages and monks often do things that are considered impure, such as drinking from a human skull bone.

Although there is a goal to overcome duality, many Tibetan ritual objects seem to represent duality, on the surface, however because Tantric practices are so secret and there is the understanding that there is no duality, things that seem dualistic on the surface are done only to attempt to show a conquering of this duality. Its just that we as observers aren't spiritually powerfully enough to realize that.

Another consequence of the breakdown of duality is that Tibetan Buddhism has some antinomian qualities. If there is no difference between right and wrong, then human made senses of morality and right and wrong do not apply to a Tibetan Buddhist. This idea contrast sharply with the Natural Religion, Shamanism, and Bonpa ideas we talked about earlier where everything is either part of the primordial white or black forces.

Another goal that goes along with achieving enlightenment is to become a monk, nun or a lama. Monks and nuns take vows and precepts and live in monasteries or nunneries fulfilling their monastic duties. Monks and Nuns are very important to Tibetan culture and through out the centuries the education and proliferation of monasteries was a very big deal in Tibet.

A lama is a spiritual teacher and be either male or female. He or she may or may not be a monk or nun but there is considerable overlap between monks, nuns, and lamas. Lamas primary role is to minister to the people and do rituals for people. They serve a very important role in Tibetan society and this could said to be one of their main reasons for finding meaning in their life.

One need not be a monk, nun, or lama to find meaning to their life or even to have the goal of enlightenment. Since there is no distinctions or duality in Tantric Buddhism to say that there is a difference between monks and laypeople would be erroneous. In Tibetan Buddhism it is typically said that any yogin or yogini can achieve enlightenment at any time. So Tibetan Buddhism lore has stories of many lay people that became enlightened and/or became great spiritual teachers. Many of the 84 Mahasiddhas, great spiritual teachers, were said to be lay people. Perhaps the greatest spiritual folk hero in Tibet, Milarepa, was not a monk.

If one was a member of the Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism, the meaning of life would be found in the teachings of Karmapa, who is said to be an incarnation of Chinrezig. And as far as the practices you would practice to help you find meaning to life you would practice the six yogas of Naropa, one of the Mahasiddhas. These include: heat yoga, illusory body, dream yoga, clear light, bardo, and phowa. As well as the six yogas of Naropa you migh talso pratice Maching Lab Dron's chod yoga, which consider of spiritually cutting up parts of yourself and offering it to demons.

If you were a member of the Sakya school you might find solace in the idea of “crazy wisedom”. If you were a member of this school you would study how there is no difference between the mind of a Buddha and the mind of roach, and that enlightenment isn't something that can be achieved but only realized.

If you were a member of the Geluk school, you may find yourself more focused on scholarly and book work than members of other schools, genreally speaking. Your primary spiritual teacher would be the Dalai Lama who is said to be an incarantion of Chenrezig. If you were a member of a Geluk school your goal in life may be to become a Geshe, which is kind of like a PH.D. in Geluk studies.

If you were a member of the Nyingma school, you would rely on hidden spiritual treasures, gter ma or terma, to be discovered to teach you new doctrine and other ideas that were considered too advanced for people in the past. Terma can be dreams, visions, or literally lost or hidden objects found or dug up by a spiritually powerful person. If you were a member of the Nyingma school your main meditation practice would be dzogchen, which is similar to zazen, and is where you just sit there. Since there is no difference between enlightened and unenlightened and you can't achieve enlightenment only realize it, you need to sit there and just wake up to the fact that you're already enlightened. A goal common to all 4 of the great schools is the goal of Bodhisattva ideal and the goal of asceticism.

There is also an Islamic minority in Tibet. For them the meaning for life is living up to Allah's precepts with the hope of being judged good enough during the day of reckoning.

Tibet may be fairly classified as one of the most religious places on Earth and as such many people look to religion to find a meaning or answer to their life.