Reading this I became quite curious about the not-existing history section. There are very little material written about the history of Vajrayana, which is understandable for people lacking certain kind of academic training and access to sources.
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Replying to @joogipupu
Yes, it’s extremely interesting stuff! The way our religion repeatedly changed in response to secular political imperatives explains an awful lot about why it is the way it is now.
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Replying to @Meaningness @joogipupu
And that gives guidance to which bits should be dropped or modified, since those political issues are now irrelevant.
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Replying to @Meaningness @joogipupu
Fascinating example: tantric ngöndro appears to have been invented in 1600s as part of the central government’s effort to replace a hadful of hard-to-control siddhas, who could magically destroy whole armies, with an easy-to-control “army” of clueless monks who were >
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Replying to @Meaningness @joogipupu
> each magically weak, but whose power could be aggregated to be equal to that of the siddha. Ngöndro guaranteed their loyalty, and sadhana chanting was a way to get magical effects without the monks understanding what they were doing, which would make them dangerous.
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Replying to @Meaningness
Oh. Something I didn't know before and absolutely fascinating.
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Replying to @joogipupu
I haven’t seen this written down anywhere in one place. I’ve assembled the pieces of the explanation from a bunch of different sources (and it’s somewhat tentative, although I’m pretty confident it’s basically correct).
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Replying to @Meaningness @joogipupu
A big part of the problem is that very few Tibetan lamas reflect on what they are doing at a meta level to ask whether it makes any sense. They just take it as given because their own lama told them so.
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Replying to @Meaningness @joogipupu
None of them know or care where ngöndro came from. It has no basis in scripture; it’s rarely if ever discussed in theoretical treatises; the only writing about it is practice manuals.
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Replying to @Meaningness @joogipupu
Interesting parallel with science, of course; scientists rarely ask whether their own field makes any sense, or reflect on principle and function. Why do statistics work? No one asks, they just follow the ritual in the practice manual.
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Universities turn out an army of clueless PhD “scientists” on the theory that quantity can substitute for understanding.
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Replying to @Meaningness
Yeah I can see this in science too. Personally I took some risks with my PhD program to get a more comprehensive view of my discipline. However, sadly the whole academic machine seems to care more about paper production than quality. There is not much reward for other things.
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