From Part One: The Buddha
His Life, His Aspects, and His Legacy

Sometimes it is said that Shakyamuni Buddha plays a less prominent role in Tibetan tradition than in, for example, Theravada. The reason given is that the Tibetans speak of several bodies of the Buddha, of a larger array of teachings than the early schools, and of other celestial buddhas and bodhisattvas who play important roles in meditative and ritual life. It might be more accurate to say that, within Tibetan Buddhism, Shakyamuni Buddha is understood in a more expansive way than in some other traditions.

As the following passages show, Tibetans consider the human person, Shakyamuni Buddha, with unparalleled reverence and devotion. Tibetans might have had spontaneous visions of him (1.1) and felt his ever ready availability (1.2). In Tibetan tradition, the Buddha is seen as an exalted and inspiring example for all who aspire to realization. He was an ordinary person who, unsatisfied with received or partial truths, through his dedication and exertion, found a new way (1.3). He was, in fact, a revolutionary who freed himself from what was conventionally accepted and attained the pinnacle of enlightenment itself (1.4). His attainment of the realization of egolessness (1.5) meant that he was utterly insignificant but, because of that, the "world enlightened one"(1.6). From that point onward, the Buddha's sole purpose was to lead beings to that same awakening (1.7). The method he taught was meditation (1.8). Tibetan tradition emphasizes the Buddha's compassion: he was not trying to create a new "ism," but gave himself utterly to the world, teaching and showing others the solitary path that he had found to the full realization of what a human being can be (1.9).

One of the most interesting aspects of the practice lineage approach is its understanding of the Buddha's attainment and its relation to us. There is a strong sense that the Buddha's experience of the awakened state is accessible to us through the practice of meditation. While in some interpretations, the Buddha's awakening is considered so exalted and so far off as to be an object of devotion but not emulation, in the practice lineage, it is precisely that awakening that should be sought by meditators in this life. The great devotion felt toward the Buddha is not because he is different from us, but rather because he has shown us what we are and can be. He was the first to find this, the one whose attainment was complete and perfect, and the one who opened the door for the rest of us.

The object of devotion is not just the immediately manifest human Buddha, but rather the Buddha in his full reality, majesty, and humanity. These three aspects are known as the three bodies of the buddha. What made Gautama the Buddha was his discovery of an awareness within his own human experience that is beyond birth and death, beyond being and nonbeing. This "fundamental nature," as it is called, is the "ultimate body" (dharmakaya) of the Buddha. His corruptible form, his human body, is known as his "created body" (nirmanakaya). Because of his attainment, he was able to show himself to his disciples and later followers in a transcendent body, one made of form and light but not substance, known as the "body of enjoyment" (sambhogakaya). These "three bodies" are not really three, but three different aspects of the same person, Shakyamuni Buddha (1.10). The essence of this person (the dharmakaya) is beyond all manifestation, any kind of being or nonbeing (1.11, 1.12), and it is this that makes the human person what he is (nirmanakaya) and defines his glorious aspect (sambhogakaya). The three kayas not only define Shakyamuni, but also represent our own enlightened nature that, again, becomes accessible to us through practice (1.13). And the three kayas manifest in and through our own paths (as spaciousness, compassion, and skillful means) (1.14). While there is one dharmakaya that is the same for all buddhas, there are multiple human (nirmanakaya) and celestial (sambhogakaya) buddhas. In Tibet, the tradition knows much of these other buddhas and, as we shall see below, in the tantric practices, the celestial buddhas and bodhisattvas play an especially important role.

Tibetans hold that during the Buddha's lifetime, he gave three cycles of teachings known as the three turnings of the wheel of dharma. These all relate to "view," or the way in which one understands reality as one progresses along the path to awakening. The first turning concerns the individual's lack of a substantial "self", the second teaches the emptiness of individual self as well as all external phenomena, and the third outlines the doctrine of buddha-nature (1.15, 1.16). These three can be summarized in the phrase: "mind; there is no mind; mind is luminosity" (1.17). The Buddha also taught three bodies of increasingly subtle and advanced contemplative and meditative practices known as the three yanas, Hinayana (the lesser vehicle), Mahayana (the greater vehicle), and Vajrayana (the diamond vehicle), to be considered in the next section. A buddha appears and teaches us, not because he has to, but because of our needs and the vows he made prior to enlightenment (1.18). The Buddha's teachings on view and on practice were passed down from generation to generation in India and eventually came to Tibet beginning in the seventh century. It is this legacy of Buddha Shakyamuni, along with creative Tibetan amplifications and developments of that legacy, that makes up Tibetan Buddhism today (1.19).

A vivid moment of recollection 1.1
When I was eight I [learned] . . . about the life of the Buddha. I could visualize him among his monks in their saffron robes, for one day I had had a vivid moment of recollection. When I read about the death of his mother, seven days after his birth, I seemed to share his loss.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

The Buddha is readily available 1.2
The Lord Buddha said, "I am always in front of the one who has faith."
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

The Buddha was an ordinary human being 1.3
Buddhism was founded by the Buddha about twenty-five hundred years ago. What we know about the Buddha is that he claimed to have seen the reality of things and to have gained enormous insight into the nature of the human condition. He did not claim to be an incarnation of some higher being nor to be a messenger of any kind. Neither did he say that he was an intermediary between some higher reality and human beings. He said that he was an ordinary human being who applied himself through the practice of meditation and was able to purify his own mind, so that insight was born in him, enabling him to see things as they are. And Buddha also said that this ability can be developed by anyone.
Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche

The Buddha was a great revolutionary 1.4
[Gautama discovered] that wherever one is trying to learn, it is necessary to have firsthand experience, rather than learning from books or from teachers or by merely conforming to an already established pattern. That is what he found, and in that sense Buddha was a great revolutionary in his way of thinking. He even denied the existence of Brahma, or God, the creator of the world. He determined to accept nothing which he had not first discovered himself.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

The Buddha's discovery 1.5
Buddha discovered that there is no such thing as "I," ego. Perhaps one should say there is no such thing as "am," "I am." He discovered that all these concepts, ideas, hopes, fears, emotions, and conclusions are created out of one's speculative thoughts and one's psychological inheritance from parents and upbringing and so on. We just tend to put them all together.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

The Buddha's insignificance 1.6
The Buddha had no ground, no territory. So much so that he was hardly an individual. He was just a grain of sand living in the vast desert.

Through his insignificance he became "the world enlightened one," because there was no battle involved.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

The Buddha's sole purpose 1.7
The Buddha's sole purpose for giving teachings is to enable us to recognize our empty, cognizant nature, to train in that and to attain stability.
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

The Buddha's method: Meditation 1.8
The method that the Buddha discovered is meditation. He discovered that struggling to find answers did not work. It was only when there were gaps in his struggle that insights came to him. He began to realize that there was a sane, awake quality within him which manifested itself only in the absence of struggle. So the practice of meditation involves "letting be."
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

The Buddha did not intend to create a new "ism" 1.9
Buddha did not intend to create a new "ism." An intention to create a new system, a new faith, or a new philosophy would be contradictory to the discovery of absolute truth, which is the main emphasis and aim of Buddhism. The fruition of Buddhist meditation is realization of the absolute truth, which enables one to remove every stain of ignorance so that genuine kindness, genuine wisdom, genuine common sense, and a genuine human nature can be discovered and realized.
Venerable Khandro Rinpoche

Who is the Buddha? His three bodies 1.10
At the Dharmakaya level, his mind is the vast expanse of omniscience which knows all things exactly as they are. At the Sambhogakaya level, which transcends birth and death, he continually turns the Wheel of Dharma. At the Nirmanakaya level . . . he achieved complete Enlightenment near the Bodhi tree at Vajra Asana, India. He then turned the Wheel of Dharma three times for the benefit of sentient beings.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche