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Ideas and belief in tulku'
JohnG
Veteran
So, what do you all think about such as these?
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Comments
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also no scriptural evidence to back up this claim.
and tulku is a institutional label. also one must ascribe to rebirth and nirmanakaya emanations.
also people are born with different circumstances and conditions.
also we can attribute that to causality, randomness or God.
In Buddhism we affirm causality/conditionality.
And quite simply a Buddhism without a rebirth be it macro or micro becomes irrelevant.
And that's a pretty big middle finger to the materialists/nihlists in "modern" buddhist drag.
http://www.startribune.com/local/north/135804688.html
That's the story about the boy.
I guess it could be that the people who pick out tulkus are just able to see kids that are above average and then maybe giving them more attention growing up makes them excel even more. I tend to believe that they were high lamas in their past lives.
Certainly though when politics gets involved there will be corruption as well.
And the boy went on to describe all about it, he even knew the address, and some like secret hiding places and stuff.
So to entertain him, the parents looked up the address and went there, and the boy was instantly somewhere familiar and he showed them around.
There are many many stories like this that happen in India, they are becoming more common (or maybe just more openly reported) here in the West as well. I think it's very exciting that people can recall things about recent past lives vividly in day-do-day-equilibrium (that is, not going on a meditation retreat for a long time).
So it makes sense to me that if there are monastics or even lay practitioners who were able to fall into deep grooves of peace, love, and deep-awareness, there would be lots of tulkus born in the following years as a result.
@taiyaki that we are all tulkus? yes, I do believe you are correct in saying this. With everything I know in regards to the teachings, this statement makes perfect sense.
Infinite lifetimes before the current instalment, myriad relationships with myriad beings.
I think people in the current-age who are very advanced practitioners and have very large hearts will be able to be reborn [as tulkus] like children backflipping through sprinklers
what do you think, @JohnG?
So it may not even have any real basis, other than spreading the dharma.
We don't really know though.
That's what attracted me to this topic; and my obsession with re-birth, and the worship of Green Tara. But, why are the Tulku limited to only Lama's, and abbots who stay out of human life? Shouldn't they be in with the people guiding them?
Not all tulkus become lamas.
Or are you referring to only high lamas being reborn as tulkus? If so, the idea of a tulku is that someone is able to choose and direct their next rebirth and only someone developed spiritually is able to do that.
Perhaps you should have washed it the last time you used the toilet.
She's everywhere, EVERYWHERE!!! :hair:
WEG.
I concur.
Stick to topic.
Or be chastised.
Enough said, I hope.
And that's "FEderica"....)
:coffee: See! told ya so.
To be OT, I don't give a lot of thought to the tulku thing, since that's part of the Tibetan Buddhist practice. The only time it bothers me is when once again an article about Steven Seagal and his life latest exploits just has to mention that some Lama declared him a tulku.
But, I would accept that many walk among, at least I hope, walk among the world without notice.
Personally , I do not yet understand why ones directed rebirth is actually anymore Mahayana than just allowing rebirth to take it's own natural course.
That is unless the hanging on to some aspect of ones identity is really Mahayana, in which case this zafu pilot will be flying on Theravadin side of the path..
So I can see suspicion of money, but that's just suspicion. Were you saying a celebrity cannot be a tulku?
Reincarnation is, also.
Other schools do not subscribe to these concepts, but it's ok for them to do so, if the concept is considered wisely, and not commercially, if you like.
I seem to remember HH the DL mentioning once (maybe even humorously?) that perhaps Richard Gere is a tulku, and RG's response was that he was just doing his best and not attaching any importance or significance to that.
I think that's a good way of taking these things on board.
Caused in large part by the large numbers of young ' Tulkus ' who are reaching young adulthood and wanting nothing to do with Tulkudom..or even in some cases with Buddhism.
The growing list of such as these makes depressing reading.
The fact is the system was kept going by being in an enclosed culture where great privilege for the child and the family ensued.
Since the Tibetan diaspora conditions have changed greatly, and the young 'Tulku' very often feels trapped in a life he did not choose...and kicks over the traces. Often disappearing , and reappearing years later when confident of asserting his own will.
There have been 20 or 30 such cases among high profile ' Tulkus' in the last 20 years or so.
The best known being the supposed Tulku of Lama Yeshe, Osel..who was born of Spanish parents
but there are many many others.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2013/jun/05/steven-seagal-russia-arms-firm
Then there's the crappy guitar playing at places like House of Blues. Ever see how he will lead a Christian prayer before going on stage, imploring Jesus to give them the power to entertain and perform? It's like, which is it? Or you Buddhist or not? That, along with all the womanizing convinced me that the show is one big monument to his ego.
Maybe I'm being too hard on the guy but I felt like I needed to get that off my chest.
:cool:
But lets put that into perspective, for the vast majority of those who have an interest in Buddhadharma the issue of tulkus does not arise at all..apart from on the pages of websites...
That is true even for the Vajrayana...and why it should concern anyone else outside that path is not clear to me..
.And in case there is doubt there is a simple and invariable way to test whether one is on a Vajrayana path, in contrast to simply taking an interest in the Vajrayana. It is this.
Are you bound by oaths to an ongoing relationship to a recognised Vajra-Holder who has accepted you as a student ? Do you accept that breaking those vows will have a catastrophic effect for you ? Are you prepared to follow theteachings of the Guru even when they contradict your existing ideas ?
If the answer is yes to all those questions then you are a Vajrayana student.
Buddhadharma is not a whoo-whoo freakoid bunch of illogic for old whacked-out hippies and bloated celebs.
We are required to use our intellects and to discriminate finely.
We certainly don't need to suffer nonsense in silence in order to appear non judgemental.
Seagal IS an embarressment.
Anyone who suggests arming people to patrol schools, visits terrorists and travels with Michelle Bachmann, I'd doubt the truth of their higher rebirth. Now, I can accept he's a Buddhist. But a tulku or lama? He seems pretty far removed from some very important Buddhist practices to be placed so highly.
Some analysts say that the tulku system evolved as a way to keep monastic wealth in the family. For example, in the Kagyu tradition, it's often the nephew of an abbot who's chosen as the abbot's tulku. Young Kalu Rinpoche is the nephew of the original Kalu Rinpoche's nephew. In the Sakya tradition, which allows monks to marry, the tulkus usually are the children of high lamas. The current Dalai Lama is from a family that lived in a part of Eastern Tibet that China had taken (Qinghai Province), so some speculate that the leaders in Lhasa wanted to make a political statement and keep that part of (former) Tibet tied to Tibet proper, with the DL's appointment.
Last I heard he was describing himself as an agnostic and studying cinamatography..
May he find peace.
The whole story is interesting and illuminating.
His Buddhist parents are apparently the Buddhist counterparts of those tennis mums and dads who dominate their offspring's lives and live through them by proxy... the kids have no chance of a normal life in order to meet the parents ambition..
The teacher died and the parents seemed absolutely determined that their infant son would be recognised as the 'tulku' and pushed and pushed...
It all came to grief. The son eventually left the robe and rejected the parents..who then divorced.
He is now attempting to make a go of the life HE chooses.
I think the tulku system was necessary for the "Priest King" theocracy in Tibet, since the monks needed some way to transfer power from one generation to the next without always ending up in open civil war between Temple factions. Even the Vatican went through quite a few civil wars fighting over which powerful Bishop would be the next Pope, until they settled on a secret election and the position became mostly symbolic so wasn't worth killing over. I suppose what remains to be seen is, will the system of finding children and raising little Buddha copies to rule the land survive now that it's no longer needed.
You're right, it'll be interesting to see what will happen, esp. with some of the other traditions.
There may not be a point to a tulku in those cases where they haven't received training. But there are probably potential mozarts who end up not discovering their perfect pitch. Or they never train hard and just learn to play the fiddle. So in that case the person could be in an orchestra, but never trained much.
Does that make any sense? I am not trying to be argumentative I just didn't understand your point that it was a waste as if a God is organizing the tulkus to make sure there is no waste.
A tulku is something I keep an open mind about but that is not a question I am exploring in my practice.. I imagine the Tibetan Book of the Dead might be some ground work in understanding.
So, maybe the Tulku system is coming apart as needed, since the practice of rebirth is not necessarily the unbroken teachings, but as a means to interact on a more personal level to assist sentient beings?
When the DL is identified, and the family departs to relocate to Lhasa, the oldest brother can't stand being apart from them, and abandons his post, over the protests of the abbot and other high monks. He uses "his" (the monastery's money, technically belonging to his predecessor) money to finance a large caravan that takes many months to reach Lhasa. He takes rifles to shoot game with, to provide meat on the way, in addition to sacks of barley flour and other provisions. He has no qualms about hiring marksmen to shoot game for the caravan.
In Lhasa he sets himself up in the monastic affiliate of his monastery back home, but lives next door to his parents. But after a couple of years he decides to go on a "pilgrimage" to India, on a whim. He doesn't write of visiting any sacred sites, only of the modern conveniences he observes in India. He flies to southern China, where he meets Chiang Kai Shek, and has other adventures. By this time Mao's forces are preparing to take control of his old monastery and community.
In the end, he makes a contact with Westerners who hook him up with jobs in New York, with the Natural History Museum, then with the Tibetan/Asian Studies department at U of Indiana. He spends a year teaching in Seattle, where he meets a Tibetan teenager, and marries her (she's 16, he's early 40's). He settles down in Bloomington, Indiana, having long forgotten his tulku gig, to live a happy life of an ordinary householder.
It's clear from his writing that he has no attachment to the spiritual or monastic life, he's just fulfilling his parents' wishes for him. He never adjusts to being separated from his parents through his childhood and teen years. We see how painful that is for him. He sacrifices a potentially bright future for himself as abbot of his monastery to be with his family in Lhasa.
Young Kalu Rinpoche has said in media interviews and in his own youtube video that he's not anyone special, he's just like everyone else. Gomo tulku, who has become a rapper and recording artist, has written plaintively of the pain of being a child taken from his family and placed on a throne in a far-away country. He says when he discovered rap, he found himself again. Both Kalu R. and Gomo tulku have given back their robes to lead secular lives, though Kalu Rinpoche still gives teachings, and hopes to establish charity schools for poor children, so they don't have to be given away to monasteries.
This younger generation may bring about positive change in this institutional system. Only time will tell.
The one thing I found lacking in the film is that he didn't include his brother Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. A tulku also born in the west but unlike the others in the video he has embraced the tulku's more traditional role and gone through monastic training and now is head of his father's Shambala organization.
So who knows....?
All compounded phenomena are impermanent.
So perhaps this concept has run its course.
It doesn't do Buddhism a favor to say HHDL made someone a God, when the accurate truth says HHDL is just a simple monk as he says.
And I know it was a "gossip-y" clip, but I posted it more for the humor (if you see I responded to Citta's funny post about Seagal dying his beard). The guy telling the story is comedian Rob Schneider. He's known for his stories and impersonations (he's an SNL alum). I'm sure he's indulging. Actually, I know he is-- just listen to the "facts" he lists... HHDL wasn't even the one to recognize him as a tulku. So, there ya go.
And in all honesty? I've always thought Howard Stern might be an undiscovered tulku or lama or whatnot. He is brilliant at satire. He exposes a lot of hypocrisy in the world. But I'll stop there b/c it's going off topic. Plus I don't like to post here much anymore anyway... but once in awhile I pop in for shits and giggles.