Portal:Vajrayana Buddhism

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Vajrayana Buddhism Portal

A digug dorje. Vajrayāna (Sanskrit: वज्रयान; Bengali: বজ্রযান; Devanagari: वज्रयान; Sinhala: වජ්‍රායන; Malayalam: വജ്രയാന; Oriya: ବଜ୍ରଯାନ; Tibetan: རྡོ་རྗེ་ཐེག་པ་, rdo rje theg pa; Mongolian: Очирт хөлгөн, Ochirt Hölgön; Chinese: 金剛乘, pinyin: Jīngāng chéng), also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Way or Thunderbolt Way, is a complex and multifaceted system of Buddhist thought and practice which evolved over several centuries. According to Vajrayāna scriptures "Vajrayāna" refers to one of three vehicles or routes to enlightenment, the other two being the Hinayāna and Mahayana. Note that Hinayāna (or Nikaya) is not to be confused with Theravada (a practice lineage); although is sometimes equated to it. Founded by the Indian Mahāsiddhas, Vajrayāna subscribes to Buddhist tantric literature. Although the first tantric Buddhist texts appeared in India in the 3rd century and continued to appear until the 12th century, scholars such as Hirakawa Akira assert that the Vajrayāna probably came into existence in the 6th or 7th century, while the term Vajrayāna itself first appeared in the 8th century. Template:/box-footer Shingon Buddhism (真言宗, Shingon-shū) is one of the major schools of Japanese Buddhism and one of the few surviving Esoteric Buddhist lineages that started in the 3rd to 4th century AD and originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra. The esoteric teachings would later flourish in Japan under the auspices of a Buddhist monk named Kūkai (空海), who traveled to Tang Dynasty China to acquire and request transmission of the esoteric teachings. For that reason, it is often called Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, or Orthodox Esoteric Buddhism. The word "Shingon" is the Japanese reading of the Kanji for the Chinese word Zhēnyán (真言), literally meaning "True Words", which in turn is the Chinese translation of the Sanskrit word mantra (मन्त्र). The deity Kalachakra with consort Visvamata. Kālachakra (Sanskrit: कालचक्र, IAST: Kālacakra; Telugu: కాలచక్ర Kannada: ಕಾಲಚಕ್ರ; Tibetan: དུས་ཀྱི་འཁོར་ལོ།, Wylie: dus-kyi 'khor-lo; Mongolian: Цогт Цагийн Хүрдэн Tsogt Tsagiin Hurden; Chinese: 時輪) is a Sanskrit term used in Vajrayana that literally means "time-wheel" or "time-cycles". The spelling Kālacakra is also used. Kālachakra refers both to a tantric deity (yidam) and to the philosophies and meditation practices contained within the Kālachakra Tantra and its many commentaries. The Kālachakra Tantra is more properly called the Kālachakra Laghutantra, and is said to be an abridged form of an original text, the Kālachakra Mūlatantra which is no longer extant. Some Buddhist masters assert that Kālachakra is the most advanced form of Vajrayana practice; it certainly is one of the most complex systems within Tantric Buddhism. The Kālachakra tradition revolves around the concept of time (kāla) and cycles (chakra): from the cycles of the planets, to the cycles of human breathing, it teaches the practice of working with the most subtle energies within one's body on the path to enlightenment. The Kālachakra deity represents a Buddha and thus omniscience. Since Kālachakra is time and everything is under the influence of time, Kālachakra knows all. Whereas Kālachakri or Kālichakra, his spiritual consort and complement, is aware of everything that is timeless, untimebound or out of the realm of time. In yab-yum, they are temporality and atemporality conjoined. Similarly, the wheel is without beginning or end. The Kālachakra deity resides in the center of the mandala in his palace consisting of four mandalas, one within the other: the mandalas of body, speech, and mind, and in the very center, wisdom and great bliss. The Kālachakra sand mandala is dedicated to both individual and world peace and physical balance. The Dalai Lama explains: “It is a way of planting a seed, and the seed will have karmic effect. One doesn’t need to be present at the Kālachakra ceremony in order to receive its benefits.” Wooden statue of Kukai. Kūkai (空海) or also known posthumously as Kōbō-Daishi (弘法大師), 774–835 CE was a Japanese monk, scholar, poet, and artist, founder of the Shingon or "True Word" school of Buddhism. Kūkai is famous as a calligrapher (see Shodo), engineer, and is said to have invented kana, the syllabary in which, in combination with Chinese characters (Kanji) the Japanese language is written (although this claim has not been proven). His religious writing, some fifty works, expound the esoteric Shingon doctrine, of which the major ones have been translated into English by Yoshito Hakeda (see references below). Kūkai is also said to have written the iroha, one of the most famous poems in Japanese, which uses every phonetic kana syllable. Tibetan Buddhism Mongol Buddhism Russian Buddhism Shingon Buddhism in Japanese Buddhism Tangmi in Chinese Buddhism Newar Buddhism Newest transmissions: Blue Lotus Assembly Celtic Buddhism New Kadampa Tradition Shambhala Buddhism True Buddha School The deity Vajrabhairava. Painting of the Vajrayogini. Vajrayoginī (Sanskrit: Vajrayoginī; Standard Tibetan: 'རྡོ་རྗེ་རྣལ་འབྱོར་མ་', Dorje Naljorma Wylie: Rdo rje rnal ’byor ma; Mongolian: Огторгуйд Одогч, Нархажид, Chinese: 瑜伽空行母 Yújiā kōngxíngmǔ) is the Vajra yogini, literally "the female yogi holding the diamond (thunder)". She is a Highest Yoga Tantra yidam (Iṣṭha-devatā), and her practice includes methods for preventing ordinary death, intermediate state (bardo) and rebirth (by transforming them into paths to enlightenment), and for transforming all mundane daily experiences into higher spiritual paths. Vajrayoginī is a generic female yidam and although she is sometimes visualized as simply Vajrayoginī, in a collection of her sādhanas she is visualized in an alternate form in over two thirds of the practices. Her other forms include Vajravārāhī (Tibetan: Dorje Pakmo, Wylie: rdo-rje phag-mo; English: the Vajra Sow) and Krodikali (alt. Krodhakali, Kālikā, Krodheśvarī, Krishna Krodhini, Sanskrit; Tibetan: Troma Nagmo; Wylie:khros ma nag mo; English: 'the Wrathful Lady' or 'the Fierce Black One'). As a ḍākiṇī and a Vajrayāna deity, she is considered to be a female Buddha. Vajrayoginī is often described with the epithet sarva-buddha-dakinī, meaning 'the dakini who is the essence of all Buddhas'. Vajrayogini's sādhana, or practice, originated in India between the tenth and twelfth centuries. It evolved from the Chakrasaṃvara sādhana, where Vajrayoginī appears as his yab-yum consort, to become a stand-alone practice of Anuttarayoga Tantra in its own right. The practice of Vajrayoginī belongs to the Mother Tantra (Standard Tibetan: ma-rgyud) class of Anuttarayoga Tantra, along with other tantras such as Heruka Chakrasaṃvara and Hevajra. Hinduism Buddhism Chinese folk religion Shinto Taoism Religion WikiProject Religion WikiProject Buddhism WikiProject Tibet Buddhism on WikiNews Buddhism on WikiQuote Buddhism on WikiBooks Buddhism on WikiSource Buddhism on Wiktionary Buddhism on Commons Template:/box-footer

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