Ph.D. candidate in
Sino-Tibetan Buddhism.
Bön
The study of Bön,
Tibet's "alternative" religion, has matured dramatically
over the course of the last few decades. Until the 1960’s,
the majority of even the most astute scholars in the field
of Tibetan studies considered Bön a mere amalgam of
indigenous Tibetan shamanism, ancestor worship, and folk
practices, which, at its best, plagiarized Buddhism.
By modern standards,
Bön has revealed itself to be a rich tradition with its own
history, practices, alleged language, and cosmology, while
maintaining a topography similar enough to Buddhism that
the Dalai Lama has called it the "fifth school of Tibetan
Buddhism." Are the original boundaries between these
religions, and between the Tibetan and Zhangzhung
languages, buried under mounds of Imperial-period soil, or
can an answer be found in the as yet unexamined literature
from the 10th century?
The Death of the Body, its Demons and
Rituals
For Tibetan Buddhists,
the corpse is not merely a discarded carcass that once
housed our consciousness-continuum. It can be manipulated
to benefit the transmigrating being. It can reveal details
about the being's experience in the after-life. It can be
re-animated by the being that left it, or appropriated by a
roaming spirit for the purposes of terrorism or
self-promotion.
With this in mind, how
does the notion of evil relate to death of the body? Why is
the deanimation of the flesh so undesirable as to lead to
its continued valuation and participation after death,
especially in a tradition that ultimately seeks liberation
from the bondage of the flesh?
Buddhism and Modernity
Throughout its history,
Buddhism has been remarkably successful at adapting to new
environments. Sometimes this meant integrating indigenous
practices and beliefs within the "religious" arena, but it
has operated on a grander cultural level as well. The
current Dalai Lama has identified science and psychology,
rationalism, as the tradition that must be integrated with
Buddhism if the latter is to take root in the Western
world.
The question is: How
much of this progressiveness inheres in the tradition of
Tibetan Buddhism versus merely being an isolated
propagandist spin campaign for the Tibetan cause? Beyond
the rhetoric, how are Buddhists reinterpreting texts and
practices to accommodate an evolving worldview? More
broadly, does a potentially successful integration of
Buddhism and Western science call for a new category that
could break down or bridge the traditionally discreet
notions of "science" and "religion"?
The answers to these questions and more, coming soon!
