What caused me to get interested in Tibetan Buddhism?

 It was a combination of things. It started when I realized how much of Christianity in the U.S. was a racist power trip used to keep blacks and other minorities down. I realized that people had been brainwashed for hundreds of years in this to keep White people the aristocracy of the U.S. like it had been also in Europe before this. It made me start to step back from racist Christianity as practiced here in the U.S. since the Pilgrims first came here in 1620.

Not all Christianity is Racist by the way. There are many upstanding non-racist individuals who are not racist. However, the common dogma people are brainwashed into (including myself) is very racist and White Supremicist by its very nature. So, I found all this very problematic to deal with on any level.

So, I was looking for a NON-White elitist philosophy that could work for me.

I found the Compassion of Buddhism very attractive and I also was attracted by the phenomena associated with Tibetan Buddhism. When I watched one of my Tibetan Buddhist teachers manifest the power of 10,000 people praying I realized I was in the right place.

The only problem with this sort of thing is if your motivation is not pure enough when you generate that level of power you will die within a couple of weeks time.

But, generating infinite prayer power I found was possible through Vajrayana Buddhist prayer practices. You just had to be very careful of what your motivations were so you didn't die suddenly in doing this.

So, to practice Vajrayana Buddhism and to stay alive one has to have developed compassion for all life in the past, present and future of the entire universe or else you will die soon. So, the first step is actually working on developing compassion so you don't die and are able to help all life in the universe to begin with.

By God's Grace

NOTE: This is why Tibetan Lamas won't take on students until they have developed compassion at a real and deep level for all life in the universe in the past, present and future because to do so would be fatal for the student in the short run. (as in within a couple of weeks they would be dead).

Compassion for yourself and others is necessary to generate compassion at a Vajrayana level and to continue to be alive in a body on earth.

Vajra means "Lightning" or "Diamond" and relates to Vajrasattva who is the highest Buddha in the physical universe and whose consort is Nyema. I often think of them as the God and Goddess of the physical universe. This works for me personally.

Vajrasattva means "Diamond Vow" which is a vow Vajrasattva made to wait to go into the formless realms until all beings in the physical universe became enlightened and Free.

By God's Grace

Tibetan Buddhism

Is a mixture of Buddhism from Nalanda University combined with Bon Po of the Himalayas in Tibet which reminds me in some ways of some Native American religions. I was attracted to Tibetan Buddhism first because my friend had studied it along with Sanskrit and Buddhism in general through to a Master's degree in History from UCLA. So, my first approach to Tibetan Buddhism was a very studious and intellectual one. However, it was almost 10 years later when I was 32 and married for a 2nd time that my 2nd wife convinced me to go to be initiated by a Tibetan Lama in Ashland around 1980 which was my very first experience like this ever.

However, I soon realized there was something to all this that was very powerful in a very deep way and based upon compassion for all life in the past, present and future of the entire universe.

Then in 1985 with my new family I went to India, Nepal, Thailand and Japan for about 4 months. During this time I met many Tibetan Lamas and monks and many Tibetans as well who were devout Tibetan Buddhists in India and Nepal. This changed both me and my family a lot in how we saw the universe.

However, it didn't stop me from still being a Mystical Christian just like I had always been but it added a whole new dimension to being a Christian. Because to Christians Buddhism is not considered to be a religion because they do not (formally at least) believe in God.

However, they do have a hierarchy where Guatama Buddha is sort of like Jesus and Tara is the Mother of all the Buddhas who is sort of like Mother Mary in Buddhism.

And turning the Wheel of the Dharma alters time and space and makes the devout stay alive as long as possible so they can help others to learn to be kind and to generate Bodhichita (an attitude of Kindness) towards all beings in the past, present and future of the whole universe.

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.