Just like there are many alternative denominations of Christianity - as well as Protestant churches and Catholicism, the various forms of Buddhism replicate the approach that this faith is practiced.

Buddhism may be a dharmic faith and sort of non secularity that revolves around sure beliefs and practices - all of that are geared toward bringing the participant nearer to Buddhahood - the very best level of spiritual awareness. However, as a result of the faith has gained followers in many completely different elements of the globe (mostly in Asia), the manner that Buddhism is practiced has split into many completely different sects. All of the Buddhist sects believe bound things in common: all settle for Buddha as their teacher, use the Four Noble Truths and therefore the Eightfold Path in their teachings, and believe that Buddhahood is that the highest attainment.

Most students divide the various varieties of Buddhism into 3 sections. the primary of those is Southern Buddhism, or Theraveda Buddhism. The word Theraveda could be a word within the Pali language (thought to be spoken by the Buddha) meaning “the Doctrine of the Elders”. the largest aim within the Theraveda follow is to use meditation to coach the mind, and to encourage freedom of the mind from suffering. This freedom from suffering can permit you to achieve the best religious goal - Nirvana. Theraveda Buddhism is that the solely surviving college from the earliest years of Buddhism, and it’s principally practiced nowadays in Sri Lanka, Laos and Cambodia.

The second kind of Buddhism that’s mentioned is jap Buddhism, conjointly called Mahayana Buddhism. This sect not solely teaches the Pali Canon (which is that the spiritual text of Theraveda Buddhism) however conjointly includes further texts and beliefs. so as to achieve Nirvana, Mahayana Buddhists believe that someone should follow universal compassion, that is that the altruistic quest of the Bodhisattva to achieve the “Awakened Mind” of Buddhahood. Mahayana Buddhism additionally includes a level of mysticism concerned. this kind of Buddhism is practiced in China, Korea and Japan, in addition as elements of alternative Asian countries.

The third of the various styles of Buddhism is Northern or Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism is additionally thought-about to be a sort of Mahayana Buddhism, however it conjointly embraces different teachings, texts and practices that don’t seem to be seen within the japanese sort of Mahayana Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism is additionally typically referred to as Tantric Buddhism or Vajrayana. this sort of Buddhism uses each the Mahayana and Theraveda scriptures, similarly as variety of Buddhist Tantras - all of that are aimed toward attaining Buddhahood in only one lifetime rather than requiring several reincarnations.

While all of the various kinds of Buddhism have identical goal and same basis for his or her beliefs, the method that Buddhahood is obtained varies from sect to sect. it’s vital to know the means that every sect works before selecting to observe a kind of Buddhism.

John is an expert in religion. To read more topics, visit his site at hgh

Tags: buddhism, News, religion, society

Phayul, April 28, by Tenam

In a visit that is likely to raise the political temperature between Paris and Beijing, His Holiness the Dalai Lama will be arriving in France for a two-day, 6-7 June, visit to the French capital. It is expected that His Holiness the Dalai Lama will also be officially presented with the Citizen of Honour, a legislation that the Paris City had passed in April 2008.

After the mass protest against the Beijing torch relay in Paris, France has been the target of government and nationalist scorn in China. French supermarket chain Carefour came under increasing calls for boycott. President Sarkozy sent a delegation of high level French officials led by former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin to China. It has been widely reported that the Speaker of the French National Assembly was sent by President Sarkozy to China with an invitation for Chinese president Hu Jintao to visit France.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his French interpreter Mathieu Ricard at a press conference in Paris, August 2008. Photo: Tenam

Before the G 20 meeting in London, a joint communique by the French foreign ministry and China on 1 April, declared that France does not “support any form of Tibet’s independence,” which is credited with the eventual meeting between Sarkozy and Hu Jintao in London.

The Tibet Group in the French Senate said in response that the Tibet issue cannot be considered an internal issue of China and that the Tibetan cause is very important and sensitive to the French people and their elected officials.

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Post tags: Dalai Lama, News, Politics

Tags: buddhism, Dalai Lama, News, Politics

NEW YORK, April 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Lama Ole Nydahl, Danish-born Buddhist master, author, and founder of Diamond Way Buddhism Worldwide, visits New York City for a rare, three-day event. The Diamond Way Marpa Retreat, led by Lama Ole, is a lively weekend of interactive talks and guided meditations on Diamond Way Buddhist principles and techniques. Diamond Way Buddhism Worldwide, a global, non-profit religious organization, comprises nearly 600 meditation centers and groups spread throughout 52 nations, including 38 host cities in the U.S. The Diamond Way Marpa Retreat with Lama Ole Nydahl is scheduled Friday, May 8, through Sunday, May 10, at the Diocesan Complex, 630 Second Avenue (at 34th Street) in Manhattan. For complete program schedule, individual sessions and full event package information, go to www.diamondway.org/ny/events.

“New Yorkers may feel, to use an ancient Chinese proverb that some regard a curse, that they are living in interesting times,” states Lama Ole Nydahl. In Tibetan Buddhism, the title ‘Lama’ is conferred to one of profound spiritual development and the authority to teach others. “Diamond Way Buddhism shows that if one has an unshakeable center, then whatever happens is a gift, and one is a very rich person.”

16th Karmapa, young Ole and Hanna Nydahl

Lama Ole Nydahl first made direct contact with Buddhism in 1968 while trekking through Nepal on his honeymoon. Eventually, he and his wife became the first Western students of His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, head of the Karma Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. Years later, following the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa’s wish, Nydahl returned to his native Denmark to begin introducing the Diamond Way to the rest of the world. Since then, Lama Ole has been on constant tour, lecturing virtually every day in a different city.

Lama Ole Nydahl is the founder and director of Diamond Way Buddhism Worldwide, a global, non-profit religious organization, part of the Karma Kagyu tradition, and under the spiritual guidance of His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Trinley Thaye Dorje. Established in 1972 in Nydahl’s native Copenhagen, today there are nearly 600 Diamond Way meditation centers and meeting groups active in over 52 nations around the world. For information on Diamond Way Buddhism Worldwide, go to www.diamondway-buddhism.org.

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By Michael Paulson, The Boston Globe, April 17, 2009

In the basement and driveway of a humble Malden house, the carpenters are building a throne.

Across town, in Medford, a lab technician spends his nights sewing embroidered silk for the drapery.

Three Tibetan-American men, two of them former monks, have devoted much of the last month to constructing the 9-foot high chair on which a cross-legged Dalai Lama will sit for a pair of lectures at Gillette Stadium next month.

The resulting throne is the most visible manifestation of the efforts by Boston’s small Tibetan community to prepare for the Dalai Lama’s four-day visit to the region, which begins April 29. But the throne also sheds light on the unusual backstories of local Tibetans, many of whom escaped difficult lives in Tibet or lived in exile in India before arriving in the United States.

The needleworker, Kunga Namgyal, leads the ordinary life of a research scientist at Shire, a biopharmaceutical company. But Namgyal is also the son and grandson of famed Tibetan tailors - his father was a tailor for the Dalai Lama - and now, at night, when he can steal time from playing with his son and dining with his wife, he sits on the floor by a china cabinet filled with Buddha statues and tries to remember what his own dad taught him about sewing.

One gem: While conventional sewing often involves pointing a needle away from the artisan, Tibetan Buddhists sew with the needle pointing toward themselves, to symbolize compassion for others who won’t get poked.

The financial backer of the $5,000 throne, Lobsang Paljor, was a farmer and nomad in Tibet who in 1985 became a monk there; he fled to India in 1987 and in 1991 moved to the United States. After six years selling carpets, he started Tibet Construction Inc. in 2000.

The carpenter, Kunga Lhatse, plied his trade in Lhasa before escaping to India and then moving in 2002 to the United States. He now is a member of Paljor’s 12-man crew.

“For me, his holiness, the Dalai Lama, represents Tibet,” Lhatse said, via a translator. “He is like a teacher or a parent.”

The Dalai Lama, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, is the spiritual and political leader of Tibetan Buddhists and leads a government in exile from Dharamshala, India. Also called Tenzin Gyatso, the 73-year-old lama is believed by Tibetan Buddhists to be a reincarnation of previous Dalai Lamas; he is the 14th man to hold the title.

The throne is a conventional element of the stages from which the Dalai Lama teaches about Buddhism to large crowds. When he gives a more conventional lecture or meets with scholars, as he will do at several events in Boston and Cambridge before the Foxborough sessions, he sits in a chair.

“In our religious tradition, you show respect to your teacher, and that’s why he is put on the highest pedestal,” said Lobsang Sangay, coordinator of the Dalai Lama’s visit to Boston and also a research fellow at the East Asian Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School.

Often institutions hosting the Dalai Lama borrow a throne from another community, but the Boston-area Tibetan community, now thought to number about 600, saw itself as mature enough this year to construct a throne. After the Dalai Lama’s visit, the chair is intended to be a central element of a local Tibetan heritage center that the community hopes to construct in the area.

The throne is made of hand-carved teak - there is a single gold throne, in Lhasa - and the one built for Boston has carved into it the eight “auspicious symbols” of Buddhism: images of a parasol, fish, vase, lotus, conch, knot, wheel, and victory banner. The silk drapery features an image of a dorje, a small scepter traditionally associated with Tibetan Buddhist lamas.

“The Dalai Lama has been to Massachusetts several times, but this is the first time the Tibetan Association of Massachusetts is hosting it, and that reflects that we are now more organized and capable,” Sangay said.

The six previous visits have been hosted by local universities and interest groups, he said. “For many of us, it is like a lifelong dream coming true, to be able to host your spiritual and temporal leader.”

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Tags: buddhism, Buddhist_Symbols, Dalai Lama, News, Travel, Video

H.H. 17th Karmapa Trinlay Thaye Dorje Summer European Schedule

His Holiness the 17th Karmapa Trinlay Thaye Dorje will visit Europe in the summer 2009.

17th Karmapa in Europe. (c) Matt Balara www.flickr.com/people/mattbalara

Travel Plan:

Karma Guen, Spain

• June 3: Gyalwa Gyamtso Empowerment
• June 4-6: Teachings on Shanti Deva Text
• June 7: Benalmadena Stupa: White Tara Empowerment

Info: www.karmaguen.org

Russia

There is going to be a long-awaited and grandiose event in June: HH 17th Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje will visit Russia for the first time on Kalmykian president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov invitation. His Holiness will visit 6 Russian cities.

• June 10: Saint-Petersburg, White Tara Empowerment
• June 13: Elista, Chenresig Empowerment
• June 14: Elista, Karma Pakshi Empowerment
• June 15: Moscow, Questions and Answers
• June 16: Moscow, Dorje Sempa Empowerment
• June 19: Irkutsk, Marpa Empowerment
• June 20: Ulan-Ude, Guru Rinpoche Empowerment and Bodhisattva Promise
• June 24: Vladivostok, Bodhisattva Promise
• June 25: Vladivostok, Milarepa Empowerment

Info: www.buddhism.ru

Minkovka, Ukraine

• June 28: Opame Empowerment
• July 2: Boddhisattva Promise

Info: www.diamondway-buddhism.org

Rodby, Denmark

• July 4: Milarepa Empowerment
• July 5: Teachings on Buddha Nature

Info: www.buddha-lolland.dk

Kuchary, Poland

• July 11: Opame Empowerment
• July 15: Boddhisattva Promise

Info: www.kuchary.buddyzm.pl

Tenovice, Czech Republic

• July 16-19: Samantabhadra Teachings
• July 19: Boddhisattva Promise

Info: www.diamondway-buddhism.org

Karma Ozer Ling, France

• July 21-26: TBA

Info: www.karma-euzer-ling.org

Graz, Austria

• August 1: Guru Rinpoche Empowerment
• August 2: Boddhisattva Promise

Info: www.diamantweg.at

Europe Center, Germany

• August 4: Opame Empowerment

Info: www.international-summercourse.org

Dhagpo Kaguy Ling, France

• August 6: Teaching (TBA)
• August 7: Milarepa Empowerment
• August 8: Teaching
• August 9: Empowerment (TBA)
• August 10: Teaching

Info: www.dhagpo-kagyu-ling.org

Perpignan, France

• August 11: TBA

Institute Karmapa, France

• August 13-16: TBA

Info: www.institut-karmapa.net

Dhagpo Kundreul Ling, France

• August 17-20: TBA

Info: www.dhagpo-kundreul.org

Karma Mygur Ling, France

• August 21-23: TBA

Paris, France

• August 24: TBA

Vienna, Austria

• August 26-27: TBA

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Post tags: Buddhism, Kagyu, Karmapa, News

Tags: buddhism, Kagyu, Karmapa, News

Mary Virginia DeAngelis, examiner.com, March 22

The Dalai Lama is coming to Boston for four days this spring. The revered 73-year-old spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism will make stops in Cambridge and Boston and also at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, according to a story in “Articles of Faith” the Boston Globe blog about religion, written by Michael Paulson. Tenzin Gyatso, the man who calls himself  “a simple Buddhist monk”, has a packed itinerary.

Dalai Lama’s Boston area schedule: April 30 to May 2, 2009

Dalai Lama

Public Talk in Boston, MA on April 30:

His Holiness the Dalai Lama will give a public talk to the Harvard University Community on Educating the Heart  at the Memorial Church. Contact Harvard Website for more information.

Inauguration of The Dalai Lama Center at MIT on April 30:

The Dalai Lama will inaugurate The Dalai Lama Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and will speak about Ethics and Enlightened Leadership.(…)
Read the rest of Soon: Dalai Lama In Boston (323 words)

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Post tags: Dalai Lama, News

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By Michael Heath,  March 13 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama urged China to renew talks with the Dalai Lama’s envoys on Tibet, shortly after Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi asked the U.S. to respect his country’s position on the Himalayan region.

“The president expressed his hope there would be progress in the dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama’s representatives,” the White House said in a statement after Obama met with Yang. “The promotion of human rights is an essential aspect of U.S. global foreign policy,” it said.

Earlier yesterday, Yang said in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies that “Tibet is an inalienable part of China’s territory and Tibetan affairs are exclusively China’s internal affairs.”

The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, ended contacts with China last November after eight rounds of talks failed to produce results. China deployed armed police in Tibet, stepped up patrols on the border with India and cut mobile telephone and Internet connections in some areas ahead of the March 10 anniversary of a 1959 uprising that led to the Dalai Lama’s exile, according to Tibetan groups.

Last March, the largest Tibetan uprising in almost two decades broke out after Chinese security forces suppressed a protest by monks in Lhasa. At least 19 people were killed in rioting in the city, most of them ethnic Han Chinese, the government in Beijing said.

In the ensuing crackdown, more than 200 Tibetans were killed, according to Tibet’s government-in-exile, based in northern India.

‘Hell on Earth’

The Dalai Lama said in a speech marking the 50th anniversary that Tibetans have suffered “hell on earth” under Chinese rule. He accuses the government in Beijing of committing “cultural genocide” in the region and says mass migration of ethnic Han Chinese has made Tibetans a minority in their own land.

Tibet is stable and peaceful overall, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said in a press briefing in Beijing today.

The U.S. Congress passed a resolution two days ago that urged China to “cease its repression of the Tibetan people, and to lift immediately the harsh policies imposed on Tibetans.”

In a statement issued late yesterday, the National Peoples’ Congress Foreign Affairs Committee called the U.S. resolution “a gross interference in China’s domestic affairs,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Tibet, a theocratic state ruled by the Buddhist clergy before Chinese rule, has made “remarkable progress” since the launch of democratic reform 50 years ago, Yang told the CSIS. Tibet’s traditional culture has been “well preserved” and people there enjoy all the rights prescribed by law, he said.

Respect China’s Position

“I hope that people from various sectors of the United States will appreciate these facts, and understand and respect the Chinese people’s position of upholding state sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the foreign minister said.

The Chinese Communist army fought its way onto the 3.2- kilometer (2-mile) high Tibetan Plateau in 1950 and 1951, easily defeating Tibet’s horse-borne troops. The Dalai Lama, then a teenager, accepted Chinese control to save his people from war, he wrote in his 1977 book, “My Land and My People.”

In 1959, with the Chinese troops’ presence straining Tibet’s economy, citizens of Lhasa grew alarmed when a Chinese army commander summoned the Dalai Lama, without his usual bodyguard, to the army’s camp in the city. Tibetans surrounded the Dalai Lama’s palace and forced a standoff with troops.

“A vast multitude of excited, angry people” had “armed themselves with sticks, spades or knives” and a few guns, the Dalai Lama wrote in his memoir. To avoid a battle, he slipped out, disguised as a Tibetan soldier, and fled to India.

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Post tags: China, Dalai Lama, News, Politics, Tibet

Tags: buddhism, China, Dalai Lama, News, Politics

BEIJING (AFP) — China’s communist government will decide on the reincarnated successor of the Dalai Lama when Tibetan Buddhism’s highest spiritual leader passes away, state press said Thursday.

“Besides religious rites and historical conventions, there is also a very important condition for the reincarnation of the Dalai and that is the approval of the central government,” top Tibetan legislator Legqoq told Xinhua news agency.

Legqoq, who goes by only one name, was speaking on the sidelines of China’s ongoing annual session of parliament which coincided with this month’s 50th anniversary of a Tibetan uprising that led to the exile of the current Dalai Lama.

Legqoq said China’s State Religious Affairs Commission issued regulations in 2007 that mandate government approval for all reincarnated “Living Buddhas,” or lamas.

The rules were widely seen as an effort to bring Tibetan Buddhism more firmly under China’s control, after decades of unrest over religious freedom and the plight of the Dalai Lama.

Living Buddhas are an important element in Tibetan Buddhism, forming a clergy of influential religious figures who are believed to be continuously reincarnated to take up their positions anew.

Often there is more than one candidate competing to be recognised as the actual reincarnation, and the authority to decide who is the true claimant carries significant power.

This is especially true in the case of the Panchen Lama, the second-most influential figure in Tibetan Buddhism behind the Dalai Lama.

Chinese authorities detained the Dalai Lama’s choice of the Panchen Lama in 1995 when the boy was six years old, and he has not been seen in public since.

The Chinese government’s choice as the Panchen Lama has meanwhile been paraded around the country in recent years to promote China’s rule over Tibet.

He will also likely oversee the reincarnation of the next Dalai Lama, after the 73-year-old incumbent passes away.

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Post tags: China, Dalai Lama, News, Politics, Tibet

Tags: buddhism, China, Dalai Lama, News, Politics

By Stephanie Ho, VOANews
Beijing, 13 March 2009

China has issued its strongest recent criticism of Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama - calling him a political exile who directly heads an illegal theocratic government. The comments came Friday in Premier Wen Jiabao’s press conference at the end of the annual session of China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao discussed a host of issues in a news conference that stretched for more than two hours.

These topics ranged from the global economic crisis, to the Central Asia-focused Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to debt relief for developing nations in Africa.

The issue that the Chinese Premier spoke about most forcefully, though, was Tibet, which he stressed was an inalienable part of China’s territory.

Wen says Tibet-related issues are completely China’s internal affairs and that Beijing will accept no foreign interference on the matter.

The Chinese leader also had strongly critical words for Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled to India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in his homeland.

The premier said Beijing considers the Dalai Lama a political exile, not a religious figure.

Wen pointed to the Tibetan government in exile, which is based in Dharamsala, India. He called that government theocratic and illegal, and said it is under the direct leadership of the Dalai Lama.

This comment preceded his recitation of what has become a standard phrase - Beijing wants to see what the Dalai Lama does, not what he says.

Premier Wen accused the Dalai Lama of misleading political figures around the world, but added that some western leaders are also trying to use him for their own purposes.

The Chinese leader had a much different approach to Taiwan, a separately-governed island Beijing considers a renegade province and has been trying to woo.

Mr. Wen called Taiwan a “treasure island” and said he has a long-cherished hope of going to visit it someday.

In the only comments that elicited apparently spontaneous applause, Mr. Wen said he is already 67 years old, and even if he could no longer walk, he would crawl to get to the island.

On other issues, the premier said he is, in his words, “a little bit worried” about China’s “huge amount” of U.S debt, which totals about $1 trillion. He urged the United States to continue to be what he called “a credible nation” that can “ensure the safety of Chinese assets.”

Meanwhile, he said China is working very hard to cope with the negative effects of the global economic downturn. He said China is aware that no country can overcome these economic difficulties alone. But at the same time, he said his country’s view is that, in his words, “we would rather dig a well for ourselves than beg for water from others.”

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Post tags: China, Dalai Lama, News, Politics, Tibet

Tags: buddhism, China, Dalai Lama, News, Politics

On Thursday, March 12, the European Parliament (EP) held a debate and resolution to mark the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against China, calling on Beijing to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama.

On 10 March 1959 the people of Tibet rose up against the Chinese occupation of their country. The anniversary of that failed enterprise was marked this week by MEPs who passed a resolution 338 votes in favour with 131 against calling for China and the Dalai Lama to pursue dialogue based on the “Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People”.

Speaking in the debate German Christian Democrat Thomas Mann said, “the Memorandum must be the basis for further discussion with China.” He regretted that the non-violent appeal of the Dalai Lama for dialogue found no echo in Beijing.

British Labour MEP Glyn Ford said the resolution was “counter-productive” to Chinese-EU dialogue. In his view the way forward is “through dialogue and engagement not through rehash resolutions.”

EP’s official press release

In a resolution adopted by MEPs on Thursday to mark the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, the Chinese Government is urged to resume talks with the Dalai Lama’s representatives with a view to “positive, meaningful change in Tibet”, not ruling out autonomy for the region, a solution that MEPs believe need not compromise China’s territorial integrity.

The EP’s call for talks to resume came as Tibetans in many countries commemorated the 50th anniversary of the 1959 revolt against China, which led to the flight of the Dalai Lama and the beginning of his exile in India.  Eight rounds of dialogue in recent years between the Dalai Lama’s envoys and Chinese Government representatives have produced no breakthrough and no further talks are planned.  In recent days the Chinese authorities have tightened security in Tibet, banning journalists and foreigners from visiting the region.(…)
Read the rest of European Parliament Urges China to Negotiate with Dalai Lama (347 words)

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Tags: buddhism, China, Dalai Lama, News, Politics