By the time Sakyamuni died, he had left a legacy of Teachings that were broad enough to be accessible to all levels of student. However, the expression of Sakyamuni’s spiritual awakening reflected the culture in which he lived and taught. While the Teachings were pure and primordial, they were presented in a manner that was tailored to the culture of India during Sakyamuni’s lifetime.

A spiritually realized Teacher understands the nature of the student being taught and will organize the Teachings in a manner that the student can use. This is a natural characteristic of all true spiritual Teachers. The historical spreading of Buddhism via later enlightened Teachers reflects this.

Padmasambhava, who brought Buddhism to Tibet in the 8th century C.E., is another perfect example of a true Teacher organizing the Teachings into a usable form for a particular group of people.

Prior to Padmasambhava’s arrival, Tibet was a fierce and violent land, with a history of warfare. Its people practiced the Bon religion, which is a superstitious and ritualistic form of animism. Bon was mainly focused on protecting oneself from demons, making blood sacrifices and offerings to deities, and using divination systems.

The pure spiritual Teachings that Padmasambhava brought from his own awakened consciousness, and the well of Teachings that Sakyamuni had put forth, were starkly different from what the people were used to practicing. Therefore, in order to make them accessible, Padmasambhava incorporated aspects of Bon into the Teachings, in a toned-down form. He effected a merger of India’s Buddhism, Tibetan Bon, and his own mind treasure teachings;* this eventually became known as Tibetan Buddhism. He did this to help the Tibetan people develop spiritually.

Once the spiritual students have realized the Teachings for themselves, the system is no longer necessary. If, however, there is no longer an awakened Teacher around to maintain the purity of the Teachings within the system that was created, the spiritually unrealized students will, over time, begin to view their particular arrangement of the Teachings as a dogma. As a result, the spiritual path becomes subordinate to a system of hierarchy and tradition, and loses its true nature, which is limitlessness. Continued...

*A spiritual Teaching that is remembered, not learned