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into a furious display of rage, staring with hate-filled eyes as large as
saucers, clenching their fists, biting their lower lips, lashing out with
blows and grabbing the invalid so hard that they tear the clothes off
his back. They call this subduing the spirits, but to practice Dharma
like that is totally mistaken. 58 He is not impressed either with tantric
or shamanlike supernormal powers: Even someone who can fly like
a bird, travel under the earth like a mouse, pass through rocks unim-
peded, leave imprints of his hands and feet on rocks, someone who
has unlimited clairvoyance and can perform all kinds of miracles if
such a person has no bodhichitta [mind of compassion], he can only
be a tirthika [non-Buddhist] or possessed by some powerful demon. 59
For Patrul Rinpoché, the true Buddhist practitioner is set apart from
other wonder workers by virtue of bodhicitta, the bodhi mind that is
oriented toward the ultimate soteriological goal of Buddhahood; this
was also Milarepa s explanation for his defeat of the Bön-po magician.
Their attitudes belong to a well-established Buddhist tradition that
distinguishes between the supernormal powers of a buddha and the
magic of illusionists.
While it is argued that lamas in Tibet function as shamans by
means of the techniques and practices of Vajrayåna Buddhism,60 an
impassable divide separates the activity of a qualified lama from that
of other shamanlike figures. Patrul Rinpoché writes:
Nowadays householders, announcing that they are going
to protect themselves and their flocks from disease for the
year, call in some lamas and their disciples none of whom
have received the necessary empowerment or oral trans-
mission, nor practiced the basic recitation to open up the
mandala of some wrathful deity. Without going through
the generation and perfection phases, they goggle with eyes
like saucers and whip themselves into an overwhelming
fury directed at an effigy made of dough. . . . Practices of
this sort poison the Secret Mantrayana and transform it
into the practices of the Bönpos.61
Dream in the Tibetan Context 89
What is at issue here is not the ritual but the qualifications of the so-
called lamas. The practitioners are said to be devoid of either outer or
inner authenticity. They have not received the initiation into the mandala
and, therefore, have no authority to perform the ritual, nor has the inner
purification necessary for the efficacy of the ritual been performed.
In response to the question, How is a lama different from a
shaman? one contemporary Tibetan lama commented that the differ-
ence lay in the source of refuge; the shaman relies on worldly deities,
whereas the lama takes refuge in the Triple Gem. For another, the
difference lay in the lama s compassion. The example given was that
if a lama and a shaman both have the power to kill a bird by magic,
the lama has the further power, through his immeasurable compas-
sion, to revive the dead bird or to liberate its consciousness. Although
Buddhist authorities uphold the difference between shaman and lama,
there are instances where the boundary seems so thin as to be nonex-
istent. For example, Michael Aris comments that the great Bhutanese
miracle worker Pemalingpa (1450 1521) should perhaps be thought of
as a Buddhist shaman rather than as a Buddhist saint. Pemalingpa . . .
never seems to have spent any time meditating, let alone studying . . .
the word compassion scarcely forms part of his vocabulary, appear-
ing no more than two or three times in the whole of his autobiography.
Nor does he ever voice any concern for issues of common morality. . . .
Instead what we find is a constant and heavy insistence on the strength
of his supernatural powers. 62 Pemalingpa s numerous recorded dream
journeys and trances are replete with many shamanic themes. His
autobiography reveals that his visions and ability to receive instruc-
tion and guidance from spirit guides began with sickness and periods
of unconsciousness. His trancelike experiences are described in lan-
guage that suggests a state of possession: a swirling, darkening,
burning, inebriated, uncontrollable condition. 63 Other connections with
Central Asian shamanic traditions include the dances taught to
Pemalingpa in his dreams, where the dancers appear as animal spirits,
as well as his reputation for controlling the weather. Regardless of
such analysis, however, Pemalingpa considered himself to be firmly
within the framework of the Buddhist tradition, as his devotees have
up to the present day.
The ancient antagonism between Buddhist lamas and other
shamanlike figures is reflected in the life story of one of Tibet s most
famous twentieth-century weather controllers, Ngagpa Yeshe Dorje. In
1959, having fled Tibet, he spent nine years in Darjeeling carrying out
the rituals of making and stopping rain and hail. During that time, he
tells of the jealousy that he aroused in the local ritualists of Darjeeling,
90 Dreamworlds of Shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism
who were, in his words, uneasy that a Tibetan lama was doing what
they should have been doing. He describes the ritual of a local non-
Buddhist practitioner:
The priest was half naked, sitting on the ground. His wife
was also almost naked. On one side of her head her hair
was braided; on the other, her hair hung loose. Their faces
were painted red on one side and black on the other.
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