The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects by Alexandra David-Neel and Lama Yongden is a profound exploration of esoteric Tibetan Buddhism, focusing on the doctrines and meditative practices transmitted orally by Buddhist masters. Drawing on her immersive experiences in Tibet, David-Neel delves into concepts like the nature of reality, the interplay between mind and illusion, and the path to enlightenment.
The book emphasizes the experiential aspect of Buddhism, illustrating how oral teachings transcend written texts by tailoring wisdom to the student's spiritual progress. Key topics include the practice of meditation, visualization, and the philosophical underpinnings of Tibetan thought, such as the voidness (shunyata) and interdependence of all phenomena.
Accessible yet deeply insightful, the work bridges Eastern and Western understandings of spirituality, offering readers a glimpse into the transformative power of Tibetan Buddhist practices while preserving the profound mystery of its oral traditions.
Alexandra David-Neel was a pioneering French explorer, writer, and scholar, best known for her extensive travels in Tibet and her contributions to the study of Tibetan Buddhism. She was one of the first western women to visit Tibet, where she spent time in Lhasa, gaining firsthand knowledge of Tibetan culture and spirituality. Also published by us are David-Neel's other books, including Magic and Mystery in Tibet, Buddhism: its Doctrines and its Methods, Tibetan Tale of Love and Magic, Initiations and Initiates in Tibet, My Journey to Lhasa, The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects, The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling, and Tibetan Journey, sharing her insights into Tibetan rituals, mysticism, and philosophy. Her groundbreaking work bridged Eastern and Western thought, making her a key figure in the study of Buddhism and Himalayan cultures.
This book gives the reader a ""report"" on the corpus of teachings, called by the Tibetans Sangs Wai Dam ngags, that is to say: ""Secret Teachings"".
The way in which we should understand the adjective ""Secret"" applied to these Teachings is explained in the following pages, as well as the manner in which they are transmitted.
I have been careful to show them in an entirely objective way; whatever opinion I personally may hold should not be expressed in a presentation which does not aim at propaganda and only purposes to make known some of the doctrines held by an elite of Tibetan intellectuals who are not easily accessible to foreign investigators.
It is open to each of my readers to form his own opinion of the theories he will find in this book. He can reflect and meditate on them if he so wishes. In every sphere the task of the investigator consists solely in offering to his hearers a number of facts likely to widen their knowledge.
For several years I have referred to this, hitherto, rare and inaccessible work as the ""I-told-you-so-book,"" because it has often been implied that I have invented my explanations of Buddhism out of thin air, thus falsifying its authentic teachings. Mme. Alexandra David-Neel is a Frenchwoman now (in 1967) one hundred years old who has travelled and studied extensively in Tibet, who adopted the lately deceased Lama Yongden as her son, and who has recorded her experiences in such romantically entitled works as Initiations and Initiates in Tibet and Mystics and Magicians in Tibet, both of which first appeared in English translation in 193 1. The present volume has a similarly ""esoteric"" title, reminiscent of the fantasies of H. P. Blavatsky, Talbot Mundy, James Hilton, and ""Lobsang Ram pa,"" whowith a very superficial knowledge of Tibetan Buddhismhave given us an image of Tibet as the secret stronghold of the most mysterious and adept masters of the occult and magical sciences, depicting the high-ranking Buddhist monks, or lamas, as super-technicians in the exercise of psychic powers far beyond the reach of ordinary mortals.
Yet, despite the occultist flavor of its title, The Secret Oral Teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist Sects is the most direct, no-nonsense, and down-to-carth explanation of Mahayana Buddhism which has thus far been written. Specifically, it is a wonderfully lucid account of the Madhyamika (or ""middle-way"") School of Buddhism, a method of meditation and enlightenment which was worked out sometime between 150 and 250 A.D. by the great Indian sage and pandit, Nagarjuna. 'lore detailed and scholarly studies of this method may be found in T. R. V. Murti's Central Philosophy of Buddhism (Allen and Unwin, London, 1955) and in Edward Conze's marvelous translations of the Prajnaparamita literature, published by the Buddhist Society of London. Mm e. David-Neel, however, writes for thenon-academic student who wants simply to practice and experience this method as a way of overcoming the hang-ups (klesa) which follow from the illusion that one is, in fact, ari individual ego, separate from the eternal and inconceivable Ground of all existence.
It is especially important for Westerners to understand that high lamas, Zen masters, and Hindu gurus in the discipline of yoga are human beings, not supermen. We must not put them, as we have put Jesus Christ, on pedestals of reverence so high that we automatically exclude ourselves from their states of consciousness. Man may have potentialities of all kinds for the psychotechnology of clairvoyance, telekinesis, precognition, and telepathy (not to mention epipathy, catapathy, apopathy, and peripathy). Power-games of this kind are not, however, the main concern of Tibetan Buddhism. On the contrary, the point is to realize that by virtue of what you always are, have been, and will be, there is no need whatsoever to defend yourself or prove yourself.
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Art (289)
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Buddha (1969)
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Hinduism (56)
History (544)
Language & Literature (464)
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Sacred Sites (115)
Tantric Buddhism (90)
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