It is both strength and problem.
On one of the introduction for her book, bhiksuni Thubten Chodron highlight some difficulties for beginners who learn traditional Buddhism.
The Purpose of This Series
EVERYTHING COMES ABOUT due to causes and conditions, and this series is no exception. Explaining some of its causes and conditions will help you understand the purpose of this series. Its ultimate purpose is to lead you, the reader, and other sentient beings to full awakening. Although many excellent works on the stages of the path, the lamrim, already exist, there is a need for this unique series. To explain why, I will share a little of my personal story, which is typical of the first generation of Westerners encountering Tibetan Buddhism.
Born in the United States, I grew up in a Judeo-Christian culture. I tried to believe in God, but that worldview didn’t work for me. There were too many unanswered questions. When I was twenty-four, I attended a three-week Dharma course taught by two Tibetan lamas. One of the first things they said was, “You don’t have to believe anything we say. You are intelligent people. Examine these teachings using reasoning. Practice them and see through your own experience if they work. Then decide if you want to adopt them.” The attitude of ehipaśyika, or “come and see,” that the Buddha spoke about in the sūtras attracted me. Studying, contemplating, and practicing the Buddha’s teachings over time, I became convinced that this path made sense and would help me if I practiced it sincerely.
Like many young Westerners in the 1970s, I steeped myself in studying and practicing Tibetan Buddhism as best I could, considering that I didn’t know the Tibetan language or much about Tibetan culture. Our Dharma education commenced with the lamrim — a genre of texts that lead readers through the progressive stages of the path to awakening. Here it is helpful to look at the place of Tibetan lamrim works within the tradition. After the Buddha’s awakening, he taught across India for forty-five years. Sensitive to the needs, interests, and dispositions of the various audiences, he gave teachings that were appropriate for them at that moment. After his passing (parinirvāṇa), the great Indian sages organized the material in the sūtras by topic points and wrote treatises and commentaries explaining these. After the Dharma spread to Tibet, Tibetan masters also wrote treatises and commentaries, of which lamrim literature is one type.
Tibetans see this development of treatises, commentaries, and commentaries on commentaries as a demonstration of the sages’ kindness. The fortunate ones who were direct disciples of the Buddha had great merit and could attain realizations of the path without needing lengthy teachings. Since those of future generations had less merit, their minds were not as sharp, and they required more detailed explanations to dispel their doubts, generate the correct views, and attain realizations. Since people’s minds are even more obscured and they have less merit now, new commentaries are needed. Our teachers thus said the sūtras are like freshly picked cotton, the Indian treatises and commentaries like woven cloth, and the lamrim texts like ready-made clothes. When the first generation of Westerners were introduced to the lamrim, we were told that everything we needed to know was in these texts, and that all we had to do to gain awakening was study and practice them correctly over time.
However, things didn’t turn out to be that simple. From the very beginning of the lamrim, we had doubts about topics that for our Tibetan teachers were obvious. Precious human life, one of the initial meditations of the lamrim, speaks of our fortune being born as human beings, not as hell beings, hungry ghosts, or animals. Tibetans, raised in a culture that believes in rebirth and various realms of existence, accept this without question. However, for those of us raised in Christian, Jewish, or secular cultures that respect science, this is not the case.
Furthermore, while our Tibetan teachers talked about all phenomena being empty of true existence, we were wondering, “Does God exist?” When they taught selflessness, we were trying to find our souls or our true selves. When they explained dependent arising, we were seeking the one absolute truth independent from all else. Philosophically, our views did not coincide.
