- To find more about the schools of Tibetan Buddhism please click on any of the Schools to find out what Wikipedia has to say about each of them:
- Nyingma
- Kagyu
When I was introduced to the schools of Tibetan Buddhism in the early 1980s by Tibetan Lamas I studied with in India, Nepal and California and Oregon I was told that the Dalai Lama is considered the head of Tibetan Buddhism much like the Pope is considered the head of Catholicsim by Christians.
In order of how the schools arose the first to arise was Nyingma school directly through padmasambhava. Kagyu school arose through Marpa the Translator and Milarepa who is Tibet's most famous saint. To understand Tibetan thought read about the life of Mila Repa and Padmasambhava and all the Dalai Lama's since about I think the 1600s or so.
The schools I was told about my Lama Teachers were Nyingma, Kagyu, Gelug (or Gelugpa)(Gelugpa likely refers to a practitioner of the Gelug School). The most intellectual and political of the schools is Gelug which is what the Dalai Lama is.
The wildest practitioners like Padmasambhava and Mila Repa are respectively Nyingma and Kagyu.
They told me I was Rime pronouced "Reemay" which means you have been initiated by all the Tibetan Buddhist Schools. But, in the 1980s this meant I had had Nyingma, Kagyu and Gelugpa initiations because the Lamas I met were all Nyingma, Kagyu or Gelugpa.
I didn't find out much about Kadam at all at that time. However, Bon predates Tibetan Buddhism so often Nyingma Tibetan Buddhism is a melding of the best of Buddhism from Nalanda University in India and the best of Bon which would be similar to a religion like Native American Shamanism practiced here in the U.S. for thousands of years in various tribes.
Note:
When I read about "Bon" from Wikipedia it doesn't agree with what I wrote about above. However, I'm just relaying what I was told in the 1980s to you here by various Tibetan Lamas and this is what they believed then.
