Jessica Burns

November 10, 2003

Religions of the Eastern World

        Within the Buddhist tradition, lies three ‘vehicles’, or three main religious ways of life. As a whole, Buddhism is spread worldwide and its patterns of practice and instruction prove to be rather diverse, as they split accordingly into their three respective traditions. The first of these vehicles is the Theravada, or Hinayana, which extended from India to Southeast Asia. The ‘Little Vehicle’, as it is sometimes called, was thought to be rather conservative and refuses to deify the Buddha or accept scriptures written after the Tripitaka, or three baskets of sacred text. Next is the Mahayana, spreading from India to central and eastern Asia. Whereas Theravada maintained a rather fervent focus on the Sakyamuni of the present age as well as his self-control and spiritual insight, the Mahayana stressed the principle of the aforementioned insight as accomplished by “enlightened beings of past and future worlds.” Another difference in these first two vehicles lies in how Mahayana fills the heavens with powers beyond deities or humans, something Theravada doctrine was hesitant to consider. In addition, several other differences between the Theravada and Mahayana traditions exist, however the focus of this paper is to speculate more on the third vehicle, or Vajrayana, and expand on Tibetan Buddhism as seen in the movie Seven Years in Tibet.

        About half a century ago, the West’s view of Buddhism basically had it classified into two main traditions, the first two vehicles discussed, Theravada and Mahayana. However, since then, with a greater accessibility of Tibet, many texts have been translated and examined. From this, it is evident that Tibet in fact preserves the third branch, or third vehicle, of Buddhism, which we call Vajrayana. In addition to Vajrayana, this vehicle is sometimes referred to as Northern Buddhism, as it north from the point of view of the Buddha’s birthplace, Mantrayana Buddhism, as the use of mantras, or magical chants or sacred syllables which change reality is widespread, and also Tantric Buddhism, for its use of tantras, or texts which lay out techniques for the practitioners. The followers of this branch of Buddhism consider it to be the ‘third turning of the wheel of dharma.’ Buddhists view dharma as eternal truths.

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        In Tibet, the indigenous religion of Bon was practiced at the time when Buddhism arrived. Bon, which means truth or reality, appears to have certain elements of it carried out even today, after interrelating and coalescing with Buddhism. The many practices and sacred beliefs of the Tibetan Buddhists are depicted in the movie Seven Years in Tibet. A central concept of Buddhist tradition is that of ahmisa, or non-violence. In following this, not only is the sacrificial killing of animals completely denounced, but even killing insects while plowing and tilling soil is frowned upon. Although many modern Buddhists do eat meat ...

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