The Buddhist traditions
Tibetan Buddhism
Vajrayana: tantra, lamas, deity yoga and reincarnate teachers such as the Dalai Lama.
What it is
Buddhism reached Tibet from the seventh century; the first monastery, Samye, was founded in the late eighth century with the Indian teachers Shantarakshita and Padmasambhava. Tibetan Buddhism is Mahayana with Vajrayana (tantric) practice: initiations from a lama, visualisation of deities, mantras and the recognition of reincarnated teachers (tulkus). Its four main schools are Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya and Gelug; the Dalai Lama comes from the Gelug lineage.
Our response
Tibetan Buddhism has many gods and protectors, and practices of identifying oneself with them. The Bible's first commandment is to have no other gods, and it warns that spiritual powers behind idols are real. The true God does not need to be visualised into being; he has shown his face in Jesus.
3“You shall have no other gods before me. 4“You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me,
Exodus 20:3-5 (WEB) · context
19What am I saying then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I don’t desire that you would have fellowship with demons.
1 Corinthians 10:19-20 (WEB) · context
6seeing it is God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:6 (WEB) · context
Sources
- Geoffrey Samuel, Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies (Smithsonian, 1993).
- Matthew Kapstein, The Tibetans (Blackwell, 2006).