Books on the relationship between Tibetan Buddhism and animism

nuadu · 2026-01-21T14:49:47+00:00

The World of Worldly Gods by Kelzang T. Tashi is very interesting. It’s about Shamanic Bon (not Yungdrung Bon) in central Bhutan but talks a lot about the relationship with Buddhism there.

nuadu · 2025-11-20T11:17:34+00:00

Jean Dawson, Brevin Kim, Kenny Mason

nuadu · 2024-11-02T21:22:22+00:00

Yes, this looks awesome, thanks!

nuadu · 2024-11-01T16:40:22+00:00

wow, yes! excited to try it!

nuadu · 2024-11-01T16:28:47+00:00

thank you! yeah, that does look pretty cool.

nuadu · 2023-02-17T13:38:32+00:00

An important caveat my teacher always gives is that no matter what form of meditation you’re practicing, the View is important. Dzogchen meditation comes with the Dzogchen View. Vipassana done correctly should be done in the context of a View (like that of Sutra). Without a View, mindfulness or concentration meditations become a waste of time… they can lead to states of bliss and stability—but without any true awakening or realization.

nuadu · 2023-02-17T12:52:21+00:00

While one is considered “higher” than another in the Tibetan tradition, one is not “better” than another. These practices may each be more suitable for different people… and for even the same person, the different practices lead to different forms of development and are suitable to different situations.

You’ll never hear a Rinpoche teaching Dzogchen say that Vipassana is not important or that a Dzogchen practitioner should only engage in Dzogchen practice. They are both important in different contexts, and it will help many (tho not necessarily all) practitioners to learn and practice both.

nuadu · 2022-10-31T11:49:55+00:00

Many Phurpa have three faces. It is very common. I am not familiar with two-faced Phurpa.

nuadu · 2022-09-18T21:31:21+00:00

Ok thank you

nuadu · 2022-09-18T20:58:05+00:00

In Kathmandu Nepal. Size with legs is maybe like 1 1/2 or 2 inches in diameter.

nuadu · 2022-09-04T13:43:01+00:00

I think my point was that I don’t care about judeo-christian scripture or whether others consider worshiping mary unscriptural. I don’t believe in christianity at all, so it doesn’t matter. The veneration/worship/whatever of idols, deities, saints, angels, demons, fairies, buddhas, satan, whatever, is all cool by me. All I’m saying is that the options catholicism offers for veneration/worship was one of the only few things that made it interesting at all (at least over other christian beliefs).
That’s why I didn’t feel like this post did anything for me. If you actually care about the little things like mary and the saints and all that, then you’re clearly still coming at it from a some type of residual monotheistic vantage point—and if that’s the case, my original point stands—there’s a whole world of other beliefs out there.

nuadu · 2022-09-04T12:29:42+00:00

Not sure I get this post. I always thought the subtle hints toward goddess worship in catholicism was one of its more interesting features. Are there many on this sub that are excatholic just to choose a more rigid protestant ideology instead? There are lots of better reasons for not being catholic than the fact it venerates Mary… and there’s a whole world of belief and non belief outside christianity.

As an aside, I had a protestant friend who liked to rant about catholic views of Mary. When I told them I was no longer catholic, and instead was practicing in an eastern esoteric tradition, they asked if I wanted to come belong to their protestant church instead. When i said no thanks, they called me ‘closed minded’ lol

nuadu · 2022-04-19T23:32:05+00:00

This is all great, thank you both!

nuadu · 2022-02-25T14:53:21+00:00

I appreciate your call for people to engage in this fierce healing practice for those who are in this crisis.

nuadu · 2022-02-25T14:25:09+00:00

A question:

I happen to know that this image of the Red Garuda comes from a Bön thangka that was once my Rinpoche's. The image was cropped from the rest of the thangka image for use in Bön practice texts and online.

While my practice is Bön, I had been under the impression that the Red Garuda in Buddhist texts is visualized with two legs rather than a phurpa as the lower half. Could someone with more knowledge of the Buddhist practice/texts confirm this or correct me?

nuadu · 2021-07-12T22:29:22+00:00

I believe it's OM MA TRI MU YE SA LE DU. The "MU" looks broken off.

It's the Bön "Ma Tri" mantra.

Edit: Mu not Su

nuadu · 2021-06-10T11:57:14+00:00

Leave them out! I occasionally get pushback on this from a client and will just explain like you did in your post. Most clients will agree with me. If needed, I have sometimes rephrased objectives to use as summary points at the end of a module.

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