Essential Tibetan Buddhism

Reviewed by Janice D. Willis

Parabola

Vol.21 No.2

Pp.90-92

Summer 1996

COPYRIGHT Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition


            
            THICH NHAT HANH, the respected Vietnamese Zen monk, poet, and peace 
            activist, has authored more than seventy books, many of which have 
            been translated into English. As a teacher and as an author, he is a 
            master of speaking with poetic clarity and childlike simplicity. In 
            Cultivating the Mind of Love, Nhat Hanh challenges us to "look 
            deeply" as he tells us about the first time he fell in love. As he 
            notes early on, "When the subject is interesting you don't need to 
            work hard to listen. Concentration is there without effort. and 
            understanding is born from concentration." This sensitive narrative 
            about Hanh's own "first love" is recounted throughout the book, 
            alternating between chapters that offer almost deceptively simple 
            exegeses of some of the most important Mahayana sutras: the 
            Ugradatta, Vimalakirti, Diamond, Avatamsaka, and Lotus sutras. At 
            the book's conclusion, however, one feels as if one has not only 
            come to glimpse those Buddhist texts with more understanding and 
            appreciation, but that Nhat Hanh's "first love" has, mysteriously, 
            become our own experience; for we are allowed to share and to 
            appreciate what is human and wonderful in us all. We are given the 
            path of practice in a single image when Hanh writes: 
            In Buddhist texts, consciousness is said to be a field., a plot of 
            land in which every kind of seed is planted--seeds of suffering, 
            happiness, joy, sorrow, fear., anger, and hope. The quality of our 
            life depends on which of these seeds we water. The practice of 
            mindfulness is to recognize each seed as it sprouts and to water the 
            most wholesome seeds whenever possible. 
            With Zen precision we are told, 
            If you look deeply, you will be able to see your true original face, 
            and your true first love. Your first love is still present, always 
            here, continuing to shape your life. This is a subject for 
            meditation . . . 
            and 
            My "first" love has always been there. She has no beginning. The 
            moment I understood that, she became transformed into something much 
            more powerful. That seed of deep-love is in every one of us. 
            Thich Nhat Hanh's narrative and meditation on love and compassion is 
            so skillfully presented that before one knows it, the gap between 
            master and student. between Asian and American, and between East and 
            West has seamlessly melted away. His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 
            fourteenth Dalai Lama, is considered by all Tibetan Buddhists to be 
            the highest embodiment of the Buddha's Compassion. In this new work, 
            Violence and Compassion' 
            His Holiness and his animated interlocutor, French film writer 
            JeanClaude Carriere, engage in an intensely serious and dynamic 
            dialogue. Rather than focus on what is good or best in all of us. 
            Carriere asks the Dalai Lama to comment upon the many ills of the 
            modern age, pressing him on issues such as the seemming 
            preponderance of violence, on environmental dangers, the population 
            explosion, terrorism, women's, rights, and other global concerns. 
            The Dalai Lama's gift is to be able, in each case. to cut through to 
            the heart of the matter and to offer sound and even courageous 
            advice. A few excerpts will have to suffice to give the flavor of 
            this extraordinary conversation: 
            Carriere: We have never manufactured so many goods, and yet 
            destitution is at our gates. Never have we so widely flaunted our 
            bodies and our sexuality and never has death been so close to sex. 
            Never have we invented such prodigious techniques for making contact 
            with one another, and yet solitude has never had more bitter 
            accents. The list goes on. 
            His Holiness: All that is true. But nothing can be settled in a 
            hurry, as if by magic. You need time, there his to be slow progress 
            in people's minds . . . In the first part of this century the 
            inhabitants of the earth had no sense of responsibility toward their 
            planet. . . . But at least today we've gotten some awareness of this 
            danger . . . 
            Carriere: Isn't it too late? 
            His Holiness: I hope not. And in any case, it's better than nothing. 
            We always run a Teater risk of losing touch with the rest of the 
            universe. We must do everything to maintain those ties. . . . 
            Nothing exists separately. On the contrary, everything is connected 
            to everything else. . . . I believe deeply that we must find, all of 
            us together, a new spirituality. 
            Carriere: Which wouldn't be `religious' 
            His Holiness: Certainly not. This new concept ought to be elaborated 
            alongside the religions, in such a way that all people of good will 
            could adhere to it. . . . We need a new concept, a lay spirituality. 
            We ought to promote this concept, with the help of scientists. It 
            could lead us to set up what we are all looking for., a secular 
            morality. I believe in it deeply. And I think we need it so the 
            world can have a better future. . . 
            If these well-known Buddhist teachers of Asia are speaking to us so 
            simply, directly, and clearly about matters that concern us all, 
            what, one might venture to ask, is being done on the other side of 
            the East-to-West migration of Buddhist thought? That is, what are 
            Westerners interested in Buddhism contributing to this process? One 
            answer can be seen in Robert Thurman's latest work, Essential 
            Tibetan Buddhism. This book is one of several planned for release by 
            HarperCollins and aimed at presenting in single volumes the "core 
            texts of major religious traditions"; others are Essential Zen, The 
            Essential Tao, The Essential Confucius, The Essential Koran, The 
            Essential Kabbalah, The Essential Rumi, and The Essential Jesus. 
            In Essential Tibetan Buddhism, after providing a sweeping and richly 
            layered history of Tibetan Buddhism in his introduction, Thurman 
            gives us translations of some of the key texts of the great Tibetan 
            and Indian masters. Thirty separate texts, written in verse as well 
            as prose, are included here, many of them for the first time ever in 
            English. The teacher-authors chosen for inclusion form a broad and 
            wondrous array in their own right. Here one finds treatises by 
            ancient and modern-day sages--from the First Panchen Lama, Losang 
            Chokyi Gyaltsen, to the great Tse Chokling Yongdzin Yeshe Gvaltsen; 
            from the founder of Tibet's Geluk tradition, Je Rinpoche Tsong 
            Khapa, to a key proponent of the Nyingma lineage, Longchen Rabjampa; 
            and from the ancient Indian sages, Asanga, Shantideva and Atisha, to 
            His Holiness the (present) Dalai Lama of Tibet. 
            Of particular noteworthiness is Thurman's inclusion here of actual 
            meditation texts of both the Creation and Completion Stages of 
            tantric practice even though, as we are cautioned in the 
            introduction, he has "left out enough detail so that a person who 
            wanted to go beyond reading to actual meditation . . . would have to 
            seek a teacher, accomplish the prerequisites, and receive initiation 
            to do so." Indeed, texts addressing the Esoteric Communion 
            (Guhyasamaja) Tantra, "its creation state as arranged for practice 
            by Tiong Khapa and its perfection state as received from the Indian 
            Adepts Shakvamitra and Nagarjuna . . . are usually not for 
            presentation to an uninitiated audience." Thus, this anthology 
            covers the broad expanse of Tibetan interpretation of and 
            contributions to the Buddhist path, from key devotional and 
            liturgical texts and laudatory songs to central philosophical 
            formulations of the Dharma and back again to the sublime esoteric 
            practices of the Buddhist Tantras. 
            Occasionally, one may disagree with certain of Thurman's 
            translations. I, for example, find the translation of mahayana as 
            "Messianic Buddhism," of mahasattva as "messiah," of siddha as 
            "psychonaut" and words such as "dakiniangels" to be overly-reaching 
            for common ground; and the use of "buddhaverse" to mean 'a universe 
            as seen . . . by enlightened beings" to be more misleading than 
            helpful. Moreover, to include "notes' at the book's conclusion 
            without numbering them seems unwarranted, even in a work intended 
            for "popular" audiences. Lastly, this particular collection of core 
            texts might well have been entitled "Essential Geluk Tibetan 
            Buddhism," for among its thirty texts, two-thirds are by authors of 
            the Geluk tradition. While I personally find this a welcome addition 
            to the growing collection of core texts in translation, those 
            scholars and students of other Tibetan traditions may wish to have 
            seen other texts included. Still, it seems to me that the impressive 
            array of texts that Thurman has assembled, translated, and presented 
            here should give cause for all of us interested in the teachings of 
            Tibetan Buddhism to celebrate. 
            Janice Willis is Professor of Religion and Walter A. Crowell 
            Professor of the Social Sciences at Wesleyan University in 
            Middletown, Conn. She is the author of Enlightened Beings: Life 
            Stories from the Ganden Oral Tradition (Wisdom Publications, 1995) 
            and editor of, and contributor to, Feminine Ground: Essays on Women 
            and Tibet (Snow Lion, Reprint, 1995).