School of thought
Tibetan Buddhism
Tradition
Classification
- Period
- c. 779 CE onward
- Regions
- East Asia (origin)
- Domains
- Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Religion
Overview
Tibetan Buddhism joins Mahayana philosophy to Vajrayana (tantric) practice, creating a rich tradition of meditation, ritual, and philosophical analysis. It adds distinctively Tibetan elements such as the tulku reincarnation system and elaborate visualization practices.
Key ideas
- Vajrayana: The 'Diamond Vehicle' — a set of advanced practices (deity yoga, mantra, visualization) that can accelerate the path to enlightenment within a single lifetime.
- Lamrim: The 'stages of the path' systematize the entire Buddhist path from initial motivation to full enlightenment, making the vast teachings accessible and progressive.
- Bardo: The intermediate states between death and rebirth — described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead as opportunities for liberation through recognition of the mind's true nature.
Key figures
Padmasambhava · Tsongkhapa · Milarepa · Longchenpa · Atisha
Influenced by
- Madhyamaka
Tibetan translators preserved a large body of Indian Madhyamaka treatises, which shaped Tibetan scholastic thought, and Tibetan scholars later named Chandrakirti's line of interpretation the Prāsaṅgika school.
- Mahayana
- Yogacara
Tibetan doxographers sorted Indian Yogācāra into its branches and classed the synthesis of Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, which treats mind-only as a provisional teaching on the way to Madhyamaka emptiness, as Yogācāra-Svātantrika-Madhyamaka.
References
- John Powers, Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (Snow Lion, 1995)
- John Powers, Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (Snow Lion, 1995), on Śāntarakṣita and Padmasambhava's founding of Samye monastery (c. 779), Buddhism's institutional establishment in Tibet and the start date used here
- John Powers, Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (Snow Lion, 1995), historical account of Samye; The Testament of Ba, translated by Pasang Wangdu and Hildegard Diemberger (2000), n. 201 — Formation: the founding institution dated here is Samye monastery in central Tibet, established in the late eighth century.
- Louis Copplestone, 'Temple-Monasteries, Buddhist Monks, and Architectural Exchange Between India, Java, and Tibet in the Late 8th Century', Religions 15:11 (2024), 1338 (Samye in central Tibet, active in the late eighth century)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Madhyamaka, introduction (a significant number of Sanskrit Madhyamaka texts translated into Tibetan exerted considerable influence on the intellectual heritage of Tibetan Buddhism) and §5.2 'Contributions' (Tibetan scholastics named Chandrakirti's subschool the Prāsaṅgika)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Yogācāra, introduction (its great impact in Tibet, and the Tibetan doxographical account of its two branches) and §1.2 'The main textual sources and figures of Yogācāra philosophy' (Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla's synthesis, described by Tibetan doxographers as Yogācāra-Svātantrika-Madhyamaka)
- The Tibetan Book of the Dead — Karma Lingpa (attributed to Padmasambhava); trans. Robert Thurman
- Introduction to Tantra — Lama Yeshe