u/Careless_Image_9105

I’m trying to understand how the traditional Tibetan system of recognizing reincarnated lamas (tulkus) works.

Something I find confusing is that when you look at certain lineages, a lama may be recognized as the reincarnation of a previous lama, and the new birth often seems to occur in the same general region or cultural area where the previous lama lived.

But ordinary people can be born anywhere in the world. So how does this work according to Tibetan Buddhism?

Is there a traditional explanation for why a particular lama would repeatedly be reborn in the same geographical region? Is it believed that the lama intentionally chooses the place of rebirth, or is it related to karma, connections with disciples, vows, or something else?

And is my impression even correct? I know that there are tulkus who has reborn in different parts of the world.

My interest in Tibetan Buddhism has been growing every day, and I’m genuinely excited as I learn more about the Dharma. At the same time, I’ve noticed that one of the biggest obstacles for me is something that has been deeply conditioned in my mind throughout my life: skepticism.

I’ve always considered myself a skeptical person, and I’ve actually been proud of keeping my mind open, questioning things, and not accepting claims simply because they come from an authority. I also understand that the Buddha and the Dharma encourage us to investigate and question rather than blindly accept everything.

But on the other hand, as I go deeper into Tibetan Buddhism, I understand that a certain degree of wholehearted faith, devotion, and trust is expected — especially toward the teacher, the lineage, karma, rebirth, and some of the more difficult-to-verify aspects of the tradition.

Have any of you experienced this tension between skepticism and faith when you first became serious about Tibetan Buddhism?

If so, how did you work through it? Did your doubts eventually change, or did you learn to practice while leaving some questions unresolved?

At the moment, I feel that faith is probably the biggest obstacle for me. It even affects my practice, because I sometimes feel that I’m falling behind in the Dharma. I notice this especially in how unstable my mind can be: one day I can feel deeply inspired and almost spiritually moved by the Dharma, and the next day I find myself becoming extremely skeptical and questioning everything again. Actually, what still keeps me connected to the Dharma are certain experiences I’ve personally had. Without those experiences, I probably wouldn’t even have come close to the Dharma in the first place because of my sceptical mind.

I’m curious how other practitioners have experienced this. How do you relate to doubt without either blindly believing or becoming so skeptical that it prevents you from practicing?

I’d really appreciate hearing about your personal experiences and perspectives.

A little prayer which resonates a lot with my current situation. I would like to dedicate this to virtual sangha I found here on reddit, especially for the ones who helped me understand certain issues with patience. This one is for you guys.

I see that samsara is suffering, but crave it still.

I fear the abyss of the lower realms, but continue to do wrong.

Bless me and those who have gone astray like me

That we may sincerely renounce the things of this life.

excerpt from The Words of My Perfect Teacher

I’m currently studying The Words of My Perfect Teacher, and I’m struggling a little with the examples given in the section on avoiding killing.

Patrul Rinpoche seems to take even very small creatures such as ants and insects extremely seriously. Some examples suggest that even killing a tiny insect or ant accidentally can create karmic consequences lasting for many years, even kalpas! There is also a story of Nāgārjuna in the book, who killed an insect one day while cutting kusa grass and had the kamma of this action.

I understand the underlying principle: if insects are sentient beings, deliberately killing them is still an act of taking life, regardless of how small or insignificant the creature appears to us. I completely understand.

But some of the examples feel almost impossible to apply literally. We can obviously make an effort to avoid killing ants, insects, etc., but simply living as a human being seems to involve accidentally killing countless small animals — insects we step on without noticing, creatures killed while farming or producing food, stepping on ants while walking and so on.

So I’m wondering: Are these extreme examples partly intended as a kind of “shock therapy” to make practitioners develop genuine aversion to killing and greater mindfulness, rather than as a literal expectation that one can achieve zero accidental harm?

And how should we distinguish this from the actual karmic principle? If killing requires intention, as the text itself seems to say, then accidentally stepping on an ant would surely not have the same karmic weight as deliberately killing one. He also states this: "For all good or bad actions, the intention is by far the most important factor that determines whether they are positive or negative, heavy or light." So, I try to understand; I am being very careful during gardening but I'd probably kill many insects and bugs. How come karma of this be so extremely negative. Years &sometimes kalpas!? The examples in the book like this. Same applies to good actions. Tiny small action can help you reborn with amazing benefits for hundreds of times!

I’m not questioning the value of non-harming. I’m trying to understand whether Patrul Rinpoche is deliberately using extreme examples to push the practitioner toward greater compassion, while recognizing that completely eliminating accidental harm is practically impossible.

I’m studying The Words of My Perfect Teacher and trying to understand the Buddhist teaching on lying as one of the four verbal acts to be avoided.

I’m struggling with a particular hypothetical: What if there seems to be an absolute necessity to lie?

For example, suppose a murderer comes to my door looking for my wife and asks me directly, “Is your wife at home?” If I know that telling the truth will very likely result in her being killed, would lying to protect her still constitute the same negative karma as an ordinary lie?

How would this be understood in Tibetan Buddhism?

Is the karmic result primarily determined by intention (motivation)? Or does the nature and context of the lie matter as well? For example, would lying out of greed or self-interest be fundamentally different from lying to protect someone from being killed?

I’m particularly interested in how this is explained in the traditional teachings, rather than simply in terms of modern ethical reasoning. Are there specific teachings or commentaries that address situations where one of the “actions to be avoided” appears to conflict with preventing a much greater harm?

Thank you very much.

I’m trying to understand how Vajrayana resolves what seems to me to be one of the deepest problems surrounding anatman, karma, and rebirth.

Vajrayana, like other Buddhist traditions, rejects a permanent, independently existing self or soul. At the same time, it teaches karmic continuity across lives, including the bardo and the continuation of a mindstream (rgyud).

I understand the standard explanations, but I’m not convinced they fully resolve the underlying problem.

For example, the classic candle-flame analogy says that one flame lights another: the second flame is not exactly the same flame, but it is causally connected to the first.

But this seems to explain causal continuity rather than why the later experience should belong to the same karmic subject.

If I light a second candle from the first, we can say that the first flame caused the second flame. But we would not normally say that the second flame is experiencing the consequences of the first flame’s actions. The analogy seems to establish causation, but not identity or moral ownership.

There are other familiar analogies: a seed becoming a tree, one moment of consciousness giving rise to the next, or the reflection of one object appearing in another.

Again, these seem to demonstrate that one event can condition another without requiring a permanent self. I accept that point. What I don’t see is how they answer the further question:

Why is the being who experiences the karmic result in the future the appropriate experiencer of karma generated by a previous being?

If the answer is simply that there is a continuous mindstream, then I want to understand what exactly this continuity consists of.

If we say it is the continuum of consciousness (rgyud), subtle consciousness, alaya-vijnana, or some other form of continuity, how do we distinguish this from introducing a subtler entity that effectively performs the role of a continuing self?

And if the answer is that there is no “someone” who owns the karma—only dependent causation—then what exactly makes karma morally significant, rather than simply another causal process?

I’m especially interested in how Vajrayana/Tibetan Buddhism addresses this, because teachings on the bardo, rebirth, subtle mind, Buddha-nature, and realization within one lifetime seem to make the question even more interesting.

I’m not looking for a “gotcha” argument against Buddhism. I’m genuinely trying to find the strongest Vajrayana answer.

What, according to Vajrayana, is the precise nature of the continuity between lives—and how does that account avoid either (1) requiring some kind of enduring self, or (2) reducing rebirth to merely causal succession between fundamentally different beings?

Thanks.

I've been struggling with a basic problem in Buddhist thought.

Buddhism says that craving is a fundamental cause of dukkha, and that liberation requires abandoning craving and attachment.

But doesn't this create a paradox? If I want to attain nirvana, isn't the desire for nirvana itself another form of craving?

Excuse my IGNORANCE :)

If the Buddha avoided answering questions that were considered irrelevant to liberation because they could lead to confusion and speculation, how do devas and asuras fit into this?

One thing I’ve been struggling with in early Buddhism is the apparent tension between the Buddha’s pragmatic approach to certain metaphysical questions and the fairly elaborate Buddhist cosmology.

The Buddha famously refused to take positions on certain questions—such as whether the universe is eternal or not, whether the Tathāgata exists after death, etc.—because, as I understand it, these questions were not conducive to liberation and could lead practitioners into conceptual proliferation rather than practice.

But at the same time, the Buddhist texts contain quite a lot of discussion about devas, asuras, Brahmas, different heavenly realms, rebirth realms, cosmic cycles, etc. These aren't exactly things one can verify through ordinary sense experience either.

So I’m wondering: Why would devas, asuras and etc. be treated differently from the “unanswerable / unnecessary” metaphysical questions that the Buddha deliberately left aside?

If speculation about the structure or ultimate nature of the universe can become a distraction from liberation, couldn't speculation about celestial beings and multiple realms potentially create the same problem?

Perhaps the distinction is that the Buddha regarded the existence of devas/asuras as relevant to kamma and rebirth, whereas questions like “Is the universe eternal?” don't have practical soteriological consequences. But if so, where exactly is that line drawn?

And how should we understand these teachings today?

• Are devas and asuras meant to be taken as literal ontological beings?
• Are they primarily part of the traditional cosmological framework?
• Are they phenomenological/metaphorical representations of states of mind?
• Or is the Buddhist position essentially: these things exist, but don't spend too much time worrying about them?

Basically, I'm trying to understand the Buddha's criterion for “this metaphysical question is worth teaching” vs. “this metaphysical question is a distraction.”

Because from the outside, devas and asuras can seem like exactly the kind of cosmological claims that should fall into the second category.

I've been reading the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra and encountering the idea that what we ordinarily take to be external objects are, in some sense, manifestations or perceptions of mind.

But I'm struggling with this question:

If this is taken literally, what do we make of the universe before human beings—or even sentient beings—existed?

The Big Bang happened billions of years before humans appeared. Stars and galaxies formed, planets existed, and countless physical processes presumably occurred long before there was a human mind to perceive them.

So how should a Buddhist understand this?

Is the claim not that individual human minds create the external world, but rather that the distinction between “mind” and “external object” is itself ultimately mistaken?

And if so, does this mean that the universe before sentient beings existed in some sense independently, but that our conceptualization of it as an “external world” is mind-dependent?

Or does Yogācāra make a stronger claim—that even speaking of a mind-independent universe is philosophically incoherent?

I'm especially interested in how this is understood in Yogācāra and the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, rather than in a general Buddhist answer.

I'm also wondering whether the Big Bang creates a genuine problem for mind-only interpretations, or whether I'm simply misunderstanding what “mind” (citta/vijñāna) means in this context.

In other words:

If there were no humans, no animals, no sentient beings at all—what, according to Buddhism, was happening? And was there really an “external world” happening?

I'm trying to understand this without making Buddhism secretly anthropocentric: why should the existence of the universe depend on our perception when humanity is such a tiny and extremely late phenomenon in cosmic history?

One aspect of early Buddhism that I find increasingly fascinating is the Buddha's treatment of certain metaphysical questions.

We often hear about the avyakata — the “undeclared” or unanswered questions. Questions such as:

Is the world eternal or not eternal? Is the world finite or infinite? Does the Tathāgata exist after death? Does the Tathāgata not exist after death? Is the self identical with the body, or different from it?

In the Cūḷa-Māluṅkyaputta Sutta, the Buddha famously refuses to answer such questions and gives the parable of the poisoned arrow: a man wounded by an arrow refuses treatment until he knows who shot it, what caste the shooter belonged to, what kind of bow was used, and so on.

The usual interpretation is straightforward: these questions do not lead to liberation, so the Buddha considered them spiritually unhelpful.

But I wonder whether there is something deeper going on. Was the Buddha silent simply because these questions were irrelevant? Or was his silence sometimes a way of indicating that the structure of the question itself was problematic?

For example Vacchagotta asks: “Is there a self?” The Buddha remains silent. Vacchagotta then asks:“Is there no self?” Again, the Buddha remains silent. Later, the Buddha explains that answering “yes” would align him with eternalism, while answering “no” would align him with annihilationism and potentially create even greater confusion. This is particularly interesting to me because it suggests that the problem is not necessarily a lack of information. The simple binary framework — it exists / it does not exist — may itself fail to capture what needs to be understood. Likewise, when asked cosmological questions, perhaps the Buddha was not merely saying: “I know the answer, but it isn't useful for you.” Perhaps sometimes he was pointing toward something more radical: “The conceptual framework through which you are demanding an answer may itself be part of the problem.

MN 63 makes it clear that practical liberation is central: regardless of whether one believes the universe is eternal or not, one still faces aging, illness, death, grief, and suffering. The famous poisoned-arrow simile redirects attention toward the immediate task of liberation. But I don't think this necessarily makes philosophical inquiry meaningless. On the contrary, it raises a fascinating question: When the Buddha refused to answer a question, was he refusing to provide information — or was he sometimes using silence as a teaching method? And perhaps these are two very different things.

I'm particularly interested in how different traditions understand this. Does early Buddhism interpret the avyākata primarily pragmatically — as questions that are simply not conducive to liberation? Or does Madhyamaka take this further and suggest that certain metaphysical questions collapse because they depend upon conceptual extremes such as existence and non-existence?

I'd be interested to hear how others understand the Buddha's silence.

Hey.

I've been trying to understand something about Buddhism, particularly Madhyamaka and dependent origination, and I'm not sure whether I'm asking a question that Buddhism simply considers misguided.

Buddhism gives a very sophisticated analysis of experience: the aggregates, dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), emptiness (śūnyatā), and the lack of inherent existence (svabhāva). I understand, at least intellectually, the idea that things do not exist independently or possess a fixed essence.

But my question is more ontological.

Why is there anything at all?

Not "why does this particular thing exist?" — dependent origination can explain that in terms of causes and conditions. I mean: why is there this entire field of causes, conditions, matter, consciousness, time, space, and phenomena in the first place?

Why is there something rather than nothing?

This is where I struggle to understand the Buddhist position. It sometimes seems that Buddhism deliberately shifts attention away from metaphysical questions about ultimate reality and toward the analysis of suffering and experience. But does Buddhism actually have an ontological position regarding reality independent of experience?

For example, Quentin Meillassoux criticizes philosophies that make reality inseparable from the correlation between thought and being. His famous problem of "ancestrality" asks how we can account for realities that existed before human consciousness — dinosaurs, fossils, the formation of the Earth, etc.

So my question is not simply whether Buddhism believes that dinosaurs existed before humans. Of course, Buddhist cosmology includes a world existing independently of any particular human observer.

Does Buddhism think there is a reality that exists independently of being experienced at all? And if so, what does Buddhism say about the fact that there is such a reality in the first place?

Why are there conditions at all? Why is there a conditioned reality rather than absolute nothingness?

Is the Buddhist answer simply that saṃsāra is beginningless (anamatagga) and that asking for an ultimate first cause is a category mistake?

Or does Madhyamaka go further and argue that the demand for an ultimate explanation or metaphysical ground is itself based on a mistaken assumption?

I'm particularly interested in how people from Theravāda, Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, and Dzogchen perspectives would approach this question.( I know we are in Tibetan Buddhism subreddit but still we can discuss a bit?)

I'm not looking for a scientific explanation of the Big Bang. I'm asking about the metaphysical question:

Why does reality exist at all? And does Buddhism have anything to say about reality independently of experience?

I would appreciate serious philosophical responses, especially if there are relevant sutras, commentaries, or works by Nāgārjuna that directly address this issue.

Thanks

All I see is people selling tickets, looking for tickets etc.. here

Can't see a proper post about the music!

Let's talk about our excitement about the artists as well maybe?!

Looking at what has been announced, here is my looking forward to's! :)

Forbidden Fruit: DOTT, Gerd Janson, Nightmares on Wax

Molam World: Maft Sai

Quarry: Chalo

Bardo: Marcel Dettman

I am an electronic music fan. Good names in the first phase but still looking forward to new announcements. Because I think we need more for this kind of a big charge.

Hello. I have searched and couldn't see any posts about this book. Has anybody read it? What are your ideas?