Portal:Vajrayana Buddhism

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Vajrayana Buddhism Portal

A digug dorje.

Vajrayāna (Sanskrit: वज्रयान; Bengali: বজ্রযান; Devanagari: वज्रयान; Sinhala: වජ්‍රායන; Malayalam: വജ്രയാന; Oriya: ବଜ୍ରଯାନ; Tibetan: རྡོ་རྗེ་ཐེག་པ་, rdo rje theg pa; Mongolian: Очирт хөлгөн, Ochirt Hölgön; Chinese: 金剛乘, pinyin: Jīngāng chéng), also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Way or Thunderbolt Way, is a complex and multifaceted system of Buddhist thought and practice which evolved over several centuries.

According to Vajrayāna scriptures "Vajrayāna" refers to one of three vehicles or routes to enlightenment, the other two being the Hinayāna and Mahayana. Note that Hinayāna (or Nikaya) is not to be confused with Theravada (a practice lineage); although is sometimes equated to it. Founded by the Indian Mahāsiddhas, Vajrayāna subscribes to Buddhist tantric literature.

Although the first tantric Buddhist texts appeared in India in the 3rd century and continued to appear until the 12th century, scholars such as Hirakawa Akira assert that the Vajrayāna probably came into existence in the 6th or 7th century, while the term Vajrayāna itself first appeared in the 8th century. Template:/box-footer

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Vajradhara, the tantric form of Shakyamuni, teacher of the tantra.

Mahasiddha (Tibetan: གྲུབ་ཐོབ་ཆེན་པོ, Wylie: grub thob chen po; or Tibetan: ཏུལ་ཤུག, Wylie: tul shug; Sanskrit Devanagari: महासिद्ध; IAST: mahāsiddha, maha meaning "great" and siddha meaning "adept") is a term for someone who embodies and cultivates the "siddhi of perfection." They are a certain type of yogin/yogini recognized in Vajrayana Buddhism.

Mahasiddhas were tantric practitioners, or tantrikas who had sufficient empowerments and teachings to act as a guru or tantric master.

A siddha is an individual who, through the practice of sadhana, attains the realization of siddhis, psychic and spiritual abilities and powers. Their historical influence throughout the Indic and Himalayan region was vast and they reached mythic proportions which is codified in their songs of realization and hagiographies, or namthar, many of which have been preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon.

The Mahasiddhas are the founders of Vajrayana traditions and lineages, such as Dzogchen and Mahamudra.

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Kalachakra thangka from the Sera Monastery.

In Tibetan Buddhist and Indian Hindu/Buddhist traditions, Shambhala (also spelled Shambala or Shamballa; Tibetan: བདེ་འབྱུང་; Wylie: bde 'byung, pron. de-jung; Chinese: 香巴拉; pinyin: xiāngbālā) is a kingdom hidden somewhere in Inner Asia. It is mentioned in various ancient texts, including the Kalachakra Tantra and the ancient texts of the Zhang Zhung culture which predated Tibetan Buddhism in western Tibet. The Bön^[1] scriptures speak of a closely related land called Olmolungring.

Hindu texts such as Vishnu Purana mention Shambhala as the birth place of Kalki, the final incarnation of Vishnu who will usher in a new Golden Age (Satya Yuga).

Whatever its historical basis, Shambhala gradually came to be seen as a Buddhist Pure Land, a fabulous kingdom whose reality is visionary or spiritual as much as physical or geographic. It was in this form that the Shambhala myth reached the West, where it influenced non-Buddhist as well as Buddhist spiritual seekers — and, to some extent, popular culture in general.

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Padmasambhava statue in Hemis Monastery, Ladakh, India.

Padmasambhava (Tibetan: པདྨ་འབྱུང་གནས།, Wylie: pad+ma 'byung gnas (EWTS), ZYPY: Bämajungnä; Mongolian ловон Бадмажунай, lovon Badmajunai, Chinese: 莲花生大士, pinyin: Liánhuāshēng) (lit. "Lotus-Born"), also known as the Second Buddha, was a sage guru from Oddiyana, northwestern Classical India (in the modern-day Swat Valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan).

Padmasambhava is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet, Bhutan and neighboring countries in the 8th century AD. In those lands, he is better known as Guru Rinpoche (lit. "Precious Guru") or Lopon Rinpoche, or as Padum in Tibet, where followers of the Nyingma school regard him as the second Buddha.

He is, moreover, considered to have been an emanation of Buddha Amitabha, Shakyamuni Buddha, and Guanyin Bodhisattva.

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The deity Vajrabhairava.

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Painting of the Vajrayogini.

Vajrayoginī (Sanskrit: Vajrayoginī; Standard Tibetan: 'རྡོ་རྗེ་རྣལ་འབྱོར་མ་', Dorje Naljorma Wylie: Rdo rje rnal ’byor ma; Mongolian: Огторгуйд Одогч, Нархажид, Chinese: 瑜伽空行母 Yújiā kōngxíngmǔ) is the Vajra yogini, literally "the female yogi holding the diamond (thunder)". She is a Highest Yoga Tantra yidam (Iṣṭha-devatā), and her practice includes methods for preventing ordinary death, intermediate state (bardo) and rebirth (by transforming them into paths to enlightenment), and for transforming all mundane daily experiences into higher spiritual paths.

Vajrayoginī is a generic female yidam and although she is sometimes visualized as simply Vajrayoginī, in a collection of her sādhanas she is visualized in an alternate form in over two thirds of the practices. Her other forms include Vajravārāhī (Tibetan: Dorje Pakmo, Wylie: rdo-rje phag-mo; English: the Vajra Sow) and Krodikali (alt. Krodhakali, Kālikā, Krodheśvarī, Krishna Krodhini, Sanskrit; Tibetan: Troma Nagmo; Wylie:khros ma nag mo; English: 'the Wrathful Lady' or 'the Fierce Black One'). As a ḍākiṇī and a Vajrayāna deity, she is considered to be a female Buddha.

Vajrayoginī is often described with the epithet sarva-buddha-dakinī, meaning 'the dakini who is the essence of all Buddhas'. Vajrayogini's sādhana, or practice, originated in India between the tenth and twelfth centuries. It evolved from the Chakrasaṃvara sādhana, where Vajrayoginī appears as his yab-yum consort, to become a stand-alone practice of Anuttarayoga Tantra in its own right. The practice of Vajrayoginī belongs to the Mother Tantra (Standard Tibetan: ma-rgyud) class of Anuttarayoga Tantra, along with other tantras such as Heruka Chakrasaṃvara and Hevajra.