Saturday, August 10, 2024

The previous story was in Arunchal Pradesh which is just east of Bhutan in North Eastern India

So, likely the people there are mostly still Tibetan Buddhist because of their proximity to Tibet much like the Bhutanese so it might be Drukpa Kagyu much like Bhutan. Drukpa Kagyu is "Dragon Kagyu" which is one of the sects of Tibetan Buddhism. the Dalai Lama is Gelukpa.

Normally when I was in India and Nepal and near Tibet Trekking in the Helambu region near Tarkye Gyan people spoke of Nyngma, Kagyu, Sakya, Gelug and Gelug is what the Dalai Lama is which is probably one of the most recent sects to arise which is very intellectual sort of more like College professors in a University. One of my teachers was a Geshe who left Lhasa with the Dalai Lama when they were being shot at by Chinese Fighter planes. All he had were dress European style shoes to walk through the snow and ride a type of boat covered in Hides down a river towards India. I met him in Santa Cruz while he was first there in the early 1980s and then visited him and returned to the U.S. again with him and his translator in 1986 after going to India and Nepal in December of 1985 and we returned in April of 1986. The Geshe stayed in the U.S. until he passed away in the around 2005  after we helped him get a U.S. Green Card as a Tibetan Priest. 

The way the sects are defined below is different than what I was told in Dharamsala somewhat. But this is now 40 years later so how people think about these things likely has changed too (like Peking is now Beijing) and things like that.

I went to Himachal Pradesh where the Dalai Lama lives which is in North Western India.

Begin quote: 

Sects of Tibetan Buddhism
From sources across the web

6 more

No comments: