Theos-Talk Archives (February 2005 Message tt00722)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Erica Letzerich <eletzerich@y...> 
wrote:
> I don't think a gelugpa woul be writing about Tantra as the Lama
> Yeshe does, the tantric practices are opposite to the practices of
> the gelugpa school and the followers of Tson-Ka-Pa. I am sorry but
> it is not easy as it seems.

 
Nevertheless, Dalai Lama wrote positively about tantric practices
and his representative in Moscow Jampa Tinley, from whom I have
taken a Buddhist refuge, probably teaches some of them, though
I am not sure for I got no transmission from him. But I've heard
that his pupils practice tantra of Yamantaka.

Tzonkhapa himself quotes tantric texts in abundance. In his
Lamrim Chenmo (Great guide on the path to awakening), vol. III,
he writes:

"As is well-known there are many discrepancies between Higher and
Lower vehicles and also between Sutras and Tantras as to which
things are permitted and which are prohibited. And for those who
are clouded in ignorance and deprived of keenness of mind it's
hard to find a true meaning of inembraceable word [of Buddha]:
it seems contradictory, if one individual performs both practices.
But it is not a contradiction at all for the wise ones, and due
wisdom it is quite possible. For unwise there is an infinite
number of such contradictions, which don't exist for a wise.
...
Those who want to practice Dharma right way, need be better versed
in the flawless Word and the treatises, what is a highest base for
the generation of wisdom of careful investigation — realization of
the phenomena what is a holy essence of the Path.
...
Having flawless and full guide, even though concise, and an
interpretation of Sutras, Tantras and of all the path of Higher
and Lower vehicles [i.e. Mahayana & Hinayana — K.Z.] we shall be
able to follow whole Teaching, what is necessary. Otherwise,
without attaining that, we are content of one-sided practice only,
not knowing how to put to practice all the Teaching as a whole."


Here I gave a translation from Russian. An english translation
also exists, it is made by Alex Wayman, though I don't know is it
full or not.