Question: Why does Tibetan Buddhism have many rituals and ceremonies that do not look “Buddhist”? Where do they come from?
By Khenpo Tashi
When we say “practices that do not look Buddhist”, we have an idea of what Buddhism is. Is it a complete or incomplete idea of Buddhism?
Since Tibetan Buddhism preserves the Buddha’s three sets of teachings (READ: The Three Vehicles), the temple practices and preserves these three sets of teachings. That involves a lot of kinds of rituals and methods, because the three sets of teachings are vast.
Most of the rituals and prayers that are seen and practiced in our temple are based on the Buddha’s Sutras. They are taken directly from the Sutras. A few of the rituals and instruments that are seen publicly in the temple are based on Buddhist Tantra.
Let us leave aside the Tantras for now. And we talk about the Buddhist rituals of the Sutra tradition first.
As beginners, we are not familiar with the Buddha’s vast Sutra teachings. There are almost a thousand Sutras preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. In these Sutras, Buddha prescribed a lot of different practices to earn merit and purify negative Karma.
For instance, Tibetan Buddhism is questioned for involving mantras, the seven-branch offering, praise, dedication, aspiration, auspiciousness prayers, blessing of offerings, blessing of place, visualization of Buddhas, visualization of mantra, invitation of Buddhas as guests, Buddha bathing, torma offering, ransom ritual, Bardo state, amongst many other practices, in their ritual ceremonies.
These practices are all from the Sutras. Directly gotten from the many Sutras.
If we read one or two Sutras only, then we don’t find a certain Buddhist practice there, and so we judge some practices or rituals in the temple as “non-Buddhist“, that is because we are not familiar with how vast the Sutra tradition is. We are not familiar with the wide variety of rituals and practices Buddha mentioned in the Sutras.
It is much better for us to study more and more Sutras, and to study the meanings of these prayers and rituals under a qualified, experienced teacher. That is the way to understand that Tibetan Buddhism is very vast. Tibetan Buddhism preserves all the different kinds of teachings and advice of the Buddha as written in the Sutras and Tantras.