Tibetan Buddhism

I was born a very intuitively gifted person just like many of my relatives. So my relatives always thought me intelligent, musically talented and intuitively gifted and always very big and strong for my age. So because I was raised a Christian Mystic and taught positive thinking in the style of Christian Science and Science of Mind I found myself to be a Christian dualist (in other words everything somehow had to fit into a good category or bad category). But in real life because I was both intuitive and intelligent I found things cannot really be effectively categorized in this way. So I came to view this system as childish and only for people who were not going to go far in questioning their own basis of reality. I found that life is more like infinite shades of gray rather than EVER Black or White and that there can be 1 million or more descriptions to any reality existing or more with all of them being right and correct in every way.

So, then I looked for a common denominator since the good and bad differentiation didn't really work like I was told at all. And finally after a lot of research and by then being about 30 to 32 years of age I realized that Compassion was the most effective tool. I also found that though truth is important that it often kills and is always a two edged sword, that figures don't lie but liars always use figures to mislead everyone. So as I searched for a useful way for humanity to move forward without completely extincting the human race I realized understanding and compassion were the only possible basis of ongoing human survival on earth and I realized that the dualism within most religions would only eventually result in the extinction of all humans on earth. We see this problem among all the fundamentalists of every religion today in conflict with each other about their versions of reality.

So, I realized that compassion and understanding creates good will and friendship and dualism only makes some people good and other people okay to kill for that group or religion. With all this in mind I looked at Tibetan Buddhism which is an amalgamation of Buddhism from Nepal and India and the ancient Bon Religion of Tibet which is more animistic and tribal and magical in nature and based in the Himalayas since the dawn of Time. Buddhism combined with Shamanism created a very effective and in some ways the most civilizing (in a good way) tool for a society that I have ever seen.

So, from my point of view the most culturally and spiritually sophisticated culture that I have ever observed is Tibetan. However, something this pristine could not survive the 20th Century unscathed and so when Mao Tse Tung took Tibet and drove out the Dalai Lama for all intents and purposes several thousand years of Tibetan culture both before and after Buddhism effectively was ended inside of Tibet.

I suppose the argument could be made that Tibetan Buddhism has spread around the world because of the success of the Dalai Lama as a Gandhi like figure, especially when he was given the Nobel Peace Prize.

So, Tibetan Buddhism now spans the globe.  However, in some ways it is very different than the Tibetan Buddhism that was lived by Tibetans in Tibet because of all the new viewpoints of all who practice it worldwide.

But in all the new Tibetan Buddhists and those who aspire to the secular Tibetan Buddhist point of view comes a new hope for Tibetan Buddhism worldwide now because it is possible that Tibetan Buddhism the way it once was practiced is forever gone from Tibet as long as it is in China since China appears to be in economic ascendency.

However, times change and all peoples everywhere must find a way to adapt the the changes. Even in the United States which had at least one century of really great luck(the 20th) people are hoping for a miracle.