Buddhist Traditions

Support the monks
of Ka Nying monastery.
Read more...

Follow Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche's "Saturday teachings"
Here...

Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Home Page. Click here...

Information about the Shedra. Click here...

The Key to Happiness, The Chokgyur Lingpa Foundation.
Click here...

Tara Programme: Triple Excellence
March 30th-April 8th.
For information and registration
Click here...

Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche Visits Gomde Denmark
April 14-15
"The Awakened Heart"
For information and registration
Click here...

Pratyekabuddha Nine Yanas Retreat with Kyabgon Phakchok Rinpoche
March 17 - 23, 2012
Click here ...

Lineage and History. Roadmap of Buddhist Traditions, Lineages, and Practices.
More info:
Click here...

Traditie

Lineage and History.
A Roadmap of Buddhist Traditions, Lineages, and Practices

Following Shakyamuni Buddha's passing some 2500 years ago, his teachings about how to live a worthwhile human life and train one's mind through meditation practices spread widely.
At one time or another, the Buddhist world encompassed countries from Japan and China in the east, Sri Lanka and Indonesia in the south, Afghanistan in the west, and Korea and Mongolia in the north. The traditions we have today stem from particular teachings given by the Buddha at various times and places, later influenced by the characteristics and temperaments of people in the different Buddhist countries.

In the past, if you were interested in meditation or learning about the Buddha's teachings (the dharma, in Sanskrit), you simply went to the monastery nearest your village. Nowadays, thanks to the internet, easy communications, and travel, we have many choices that can feel confusing or overwhelming at the beginning.
So many lineages! so many foreign words! This simplified view of the different Buddhist traditions alive today—a roadmap of sorts—may help.

The Theravada Lineage

Following his enlightenment at Bodhgaya in India, the Buddha first taught at Sarnath, near modern Varanasi. These teachings—covering topics such as suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path to cessation (the Four Noble Truths); interdependence; self- liberation from suffering; and so on—comprise the First Turning of the Wheel of the Dharma.
At one time, more than twenty different schools focused on these teachings, but today only the Theravada lineage (found in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Lao, Cambodia, and Vietnam) survives as an independent philosophical school. (Two other lineages survive as the monastic lineages practiced in Mahayana traditions, but not as independent schools.) These are often called the 'Hinayana' schools. Literally the word means 'lesser'—understood in the sense that their teachings focus on individuals liberating themselves from the world of suffering (samsara), which can be contrasted with other schools that emphasize liberating others.

The Theravada scriptures (the Tripitaka) are written in the Pali language, one of many Indian vernaculars of the time, and because Theravada practitioners naturally do not believe that they are doing anything 'lesser', recently scholars have introduced the term Pali Buddhism