THE SNOW LION BUDDHIST NEWS & CATALOG

JP: An interesting thing is that most of the teachers with whom people study have read thousands of texts and engaged in debate and are among the most highly educated scholars of any religious tradition, and yet sometimes students have romantic ideas that it's better off not to know anything. Actually, so much emphasis is placed in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism on studying and understanding the tradition. Let's say you wanted to drive from one end of the U.S. to the other. If you were to get into a car, blindfold yourself and gun the gas, you're not really likely to get much of anywhere. You do really need to have a map, to have a sense of where you're going and how to get there. It's very much the same with Tibetan Buddhism.

CC: Yes, the ability to orient oneself within the arc of the Tibetan Buddhist path is essential. But it's difficult for most students who happen into a particular lineage.

JP: Many Westerners fall in love with a particular charismatic teacher and find themselves receiving a particular set of teachings and practices. It's completely understandable. Yet, because all the different schools engage in polemics with each other, it can be very confusing for someone just coming into Tibetan Buddhism to try to make sense of this, to see what the historical background is. I thought it was really important to lay out how each of the schools present themselves and what their self-understanding is—the history, the major doctrines and the major practices—and to do this as much as possible from the point of view of that tradition in a way they would recognize as being authentically what they say...

CC: ...as opposed to how they're presented by competing schools, which isn't always accurate. You do present a view of the lineages as seen from within, as it were. And your book is particularly helpful in framing certain concepts in terms that Westerners can take in. For example, the issue of faith in the guru, no matter what the guru does. It's a hot-button topic.

JP: A lot of Western Buddhists are very uncomfortable with the whole faith thing. Many of those who have come from faith-based communities such as Christianity or Judaism reject the notion of unquestioning faith in teachers. From the point of view of the Tibetan system, faith is considered to be an essential prerequisite for any progress. When they say you must have faith in the guru, it's important to recognize that this faith actually has a physical effect on you.

CC: What do you mean by "physical effect"?

JP: An incident of physical response happened to me when a Nyingma lama came to town and did a phowa initiation. I lent him a small postcard-shaped picture of Amitabha, which he consecrated in the lead-up to the empowerment. There was a lot of chanting, and I eventually lost interest in the proceedings and started daydreaming; I was only dimly aware when he began walking around and touching the picture to the tops of people's heads. When he got to me, I felt a powerful jolt, like an electrical current, go down my skull, neck, and spine to the coccyx, and I started with surprise and the physical response to the jolt. Immediately after that, I noticed a cold feeling on top of my head, and there was a hole about half the size of a penny, and a small stream of blood flowed from it for a few minutes. It closed up a few hours later, but the hole and blood flow are supposed to be signs of accomplishment, so I guess I've booked my post-bardo trip to the Pure Land.

CC: Wow. That would get one's attention. In your book you present not only the what—"have faith"—but also the why. In a more general sense, do you feel that's been your approach—to show not only the what but also the why for the Western-educated mind?

JP: Certainly. I was aware that I was writing not only for a Western audience, but for an educated audience. One survey showed that almost all American Buddhists have undergraduate degrees, and well over half have Masters or Ph.D.s. One of the conclusions of the author of the study was that this was the most highly educated religious group ever surveyed.

CC: I hadn't heard that before! Actually, perhaps it's not so surprising. What are the new sections you've added to this second edition?

JP: There are still a lot of "dark" areas in Tibetan Buddhism. For example, there's a lot been written on tantra, but a lot of the tantric systems are still not well known among Western interpreters. It's understandable—it is an esoteric system. It's a vast field with a huge amount of literature. When you look at the various canons and how little has been translated and studied it's really amazing.

It was a lot of work, involving a lot of research, travel, talking with a lot of people. For one thing, many of the topics that I thought needed to be covered don't have anything published in English. So I had to do a lot of background work and travel to India and Ladakh and places like that in order to get the information I needed to write the book.

CC: How did you decide where to focus?

JP: It came down to talking to Tibetan lamas of various schools and seeing what they emphasized. The sorts of things they thought important were probably the things I ought to focus on. And then I followed up with English, Tibetan and Sanskrit texts. I read as widely as I could, talked to as many people as I could, to get a sense of what the different groups thought was important.

I also updated some of the history, because a lot of new material on Tibetan history has come out in the last few years. The new material on Eastern Tibetan history in the modern period makes for a more comprehensive view of what was happening around Tibet and gives a context for what happened in central Tibet and for the Chinese takeover and so forth.

CC: What was most interesting to you as you delved into tantra?

JP: One of the things I've added in this new edition is the importance of formless meditation, particularly in the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions. Between the time I wrote the first edition and the second one, I've written a lot of books, I've read a lot of books. It was all incorporated into this.

CC: How did you get interested in Tibetan Buddhism?

JP: Like a lot Tibetan Buddhist scholars—we talk about this—at some point most of us have an experience. We come in as wide-eyed hippies. And then we meet a lama.

CC: And who was your lama?

JP: In 1982 or 1983, a friend and I were on an island doing a yoga retreat when we heard that the Dalai Lama was going to be in Toronto. All of my impressions of Tibetan Buddhism up to that point were derived from British scholars—the British in particular tend to see it as superstition and demon worship. The Tibetan form of Buddhism seemed to me to be mumbo-jumbo; having grown up in a Catholic family, with the incense and so forth, the idea of it turned me off. But my friend who owned the car really wanted to go, so off we went. I went there with zero expectations.

But then I saw H.H. the Dalai Lama, who was there with H.H. the Karmapa—it was a dual session. The two of them had a remarkable personal presence unlike anything I'd ever seen before. And you could see the effect of this presence on the audience. There must have been seventy or eighty children there—they didn't fidget, or get up and move. Everyone was absolutely riveted. I'd never seen anything like it. The effect they had on the audience—and on me—was impossible to deny. At that point I had to find out more about them and how they got to be that way. That's when I decided to pursue my studies at University of Virginia.

CC: Quite a treat to see both the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa together!

JP: It was a real eye-opener. It changed the course not only of my studies, but of my life, really. I had never even heard of the Karmapa; it was only afterwards that someone told me who he was.

It's important to convey to people that original sense of being overwhelmed by something that's really interesting. In my book I've tried not to lose it, and to convey to people that this is really interesting stuff. This is a fascinating tradition.

CC: Today I was researching your name on the web and I came across a PBS website on Tibet, that featured excerpts mostly from the first edition of your book. I was surprised and delighted that yours was the book they chose to give their audience a clear view of Tibetan Buddhism. They said nice things, too. "Lucid," was one thing.

JP: That's great, because that was one of the things I was trying for—lucidity. If you were to just look at Tibetan Buddhism from the texts, as a lot of scholars do, you wouldn't really convey how it feels. On the other hand, if you just look at it from a sociological or anthropological point of view, you miss the nuances and some of the richness of the philosophical systems. I've really tried to blend those two elements, that is, my own personal experiences, my observations, and how those resonate with or in some cases contrast with the texts. So, a lot of my work is textual, because of course I'm a scholar and I spend a lot of time reading texts. But I also try to convey the lived experience of Tibetan Buddhism and as much as possible see how those two connect with each other.

CC: What was the most enjoyable part of doing your research?

JP: Certainly going to remote areas where there hasn't been a lot of contact with the outside world. I remember in particular when I was in Zanskar a few years ago. It was hard, hard traveling—one of the most inaccessible places I've ever been to. One time I was under a rock overhang—one of the few bits of shade that I found—and I was eating some cookies and drinking water. And this ngagpa came by, his hair piled on top of his head; he had intense eyes. I offered him some cookies and he sat down and we started chatting. After a while he said, "You know, you speak Tibetan pretty well. Where did you learn?" I said one of my teachers was Khenpo Konchok Gyeltsen. And he said "Oooo, he was my teacher too." And suddenly we were like dharma brothers, chatting as if we were old friends. Across cultures, across languages, you make these connections. It was one of the things I really liked about the work that I did.

More about the book . . .

Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism is the most comprehensive and authoritative introduction to Tibetan Buddhism available to date. Beginning with a summary of the Indian origins of Tibetan Buddhism and how it eventually was brought to Tibet, it explores Tibetan Mahayana philosophy and tantric methods for personal transformation. The four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism as well as Bon are explored in depth from a non-sectarian point of view. This new and expanded edition is a systematic and wonderfully clear presentation of Tibetan Buddhist views and practices.

"The vitality of Tibetan Buddhism in exile has exceeded anything anyone could have predicted; hence the need of a book that presents its history, doctrines, lineages, practices, and tantric essence in a comprehensive and cogent way. John Powers' Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism does this!"--Prof. Huston Smith

"...presents the wide spectrum of Tibetan Buddhism in clear, concise form with Western methodology and critical appreciation. This work beautifully elucidates the nature of the complex religious and philosophical disciplines of Tibet."--Lobsang Lhalungpa, author of The Life of Milarepa

"A comprehensive and eminently comprehensible overview... Powers' substantial Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism...is able to discuss even the most complex aspects of Tibetan Buddhism in a straightforward and engaging manner.... He conveys the drama of the history of this multifaceted tradition...while his descriptions of Tibetan geography, architecture, ...[etc.] give us a vivid picture of life in Tibet."--Booklist

"The best single-volume introduction to Tibetan Buddhist practice and culture."--Library Journal

This is a second edition of Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism.

More about the author . . .

John Powers received an M.A. in Indian Philosophy from McMaster University and a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Virginia. A specialist in Indo-Tibetan philosophy and meditation theory, he has published widely on Buddhist thought and practice. He teaches at the Center for Asian Societies and Histories at the Australian National University.

Books by John Powers

• Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism
• Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, 2nd edition