Tulku is Tibetan for nirmanakaya, the physical manifestation of Buddha nature. The way rigpa, the nature of mind, radiates in everyone--including snails--is tulku. "Manifold compassionate energy" is one translation I use.
Some humans are born with a clearer access to tulku energy. In Tibet this was formalized as the recognition of incarnate lamas.
Sure for us sophisticates there is a feudal resonance here--until you think about Chagdud Tulku, for instance, the son of a poor goat herder.
Even if the feudal resonance is correct, tulkus are real people, usually small children, who often become seriously mentally ill if they are not carefully trained. It's known as Tulku Syndrome. All that enlightened energy makes their head explode.
Also, some tulkus are my friends. Anyen Rinpoche would be the prime example.
So please think before you use the term as a cute joke. And realize that you will be blocked by me if you do it on Twitter.
5 comments:
I appreciate this post a lot. Beautifully and thoughtfully written.
I think some of the joking you refer to is actually in the spirit of what you said about tulku as rigpa radiating in everyone, and is encouraging us not to fall into disheartening thoughts of Buddha nature as something exotic, inaccessible or separate from our own experience--especially separated from us by barriers of culture or authority. Some of it is just silliness to break up excessive "holiness" among sincere devotees on Twitter (raising my hand). On the other hand, some of it feels like an attack on the Bodhisattva aspiration and the Vajrayana bardo teachings, which is unfortunate.
You mention Anyen Rinpoche, who I had the good fortune of meeting recently in an informal setting. His book Dying with Confidence is excellent and helped me understand better what is meant by tulku and how it relates to our daily commitment to practice. I warmly recommend it to anyone that wants to understand. I don't know anything about Tulku Syndrome, but would like to understand it better, since that potentially casts a different light on the current events that prompt some of the more pointed tulku chatter.
As for myself, I regret any offense from being cute on the subject. Won't happen again. Meantime I look forward to other thoughts from you on the blog and on Twitter.
If we have all lived infinite lives, and if all those alive are visible emanations of emptiness, why aren't we all tulkus?
I'm not the best one to answer, Chris, but I'm in the room so I'll take a stab, as much as anything to attempt an answer for myself.
In the Tibetan bardo teachings a tulku is a being that takes a samsaric rebirth not out of the karmic habit of clinging to self like most of us, but intentionally, out of compassion for all beings, as a result of specific meditation practices before, during and after death.
While we all have Buddha nature, rigpa, at the level of ultimate truth, it's at the same time true that we've been habituated to karmic tendencies since beginningless time. The freedom and endowments to break out of this conditioning are said to be extraordinarily hard to come by, akin to dropping a pea from a jetliner and having it land balanced on the point of a pin, I once heard it taught. From this view it's almost impossible that we're even having this conversation! Seizing this opportunity during the short time it's available and actually accomplishing the Bodhisattva path to take birth as a tulku is an amazing thing.
And that's why respect is due: out of respect for our own potential and accomplishment, which are the ground for the experience of nirmanakaya in our lives.
Do children born with clearer access to tulku energy get special training in which the fourth moment is
addressed? I remember hearing poem fragments come out of nowhere (while playing piano, watching the patterns of sun on the floor, shadows on the windows),
and had the humor to realize the words were all words I knew. Which made recognizing the texts immediately accessible when I encountered them years later.(William Blake! ee cummings) I can understand the need for careful training. Hearing Blake fragments is mind as bliss. No manipulation. Thanks, Tim, for the post.
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