272 CHAPTER ELEVENthe question of how the states attained in Buddhist mind development corre-
sponded to the altered states of consciousness attained by shamanic adepts. As
we noted in Chapter 1, the Buddha's Awakening contained shamanic elements
but also something more: a strongly ethical orientation and a phenomenologi-
cal analysis of the causal process by which the mind gives rise to suffering.
The question for the Tibetans as they gained exposure to Buddhism was quite
simply how essential this "something more" was to the attainment of the Bud-
dhist goal.
Related to this question was the social issue of how Buddhist Tantrism, a
movement that glorified the personal powers derived from systematic trans-
gression, could provide the dominant ideology for a society without under-
cutting ethical norms. For the Tibetan shamans who sought and paid for
initiations into Buddhist Tantra from Indian adepts, this was hardly an issue.
But for the Tibetan kings who actively sponsored the importation ofBud-
dhism into their country-and later for the ecclesiastical leaders who took
over the central government-the creation of ethical restraints on the more
antisocial tendencies inherent in Tantra was a primary concern.
One final point that needs addressing before we begin our coverage of the
history of Tibetan Buddhism concerns the way the practice of Tantra has af-
fected how the Tibetans themselves view that history. In performing a Tantric
ritual, one is dealing with strong and potentially dangerous forces. One must
have unshakable confidence in the techniques learned from one's teachers,
and this means that one must believe these techniques have been handed
down, unchanged, from a supremely reliable source. Because none of the rit-
uals can claim to originate with Sakyamuni, they are generally attributed to
Cosmic Buddhas whose mode ofbeing supersedes all questions of historical
proof. If changes are introduced into the tradition, they must be justified ei-
ther by rewriting history or by claiming special forms of transmission that cir-
cumvent normal means. This has led to a cultural pattern whereby history is
valued not for its accuracy but for its usefulness in helping to empower the
ritual participant. When asked by westerners what "really" happened at a par-
ticular point in history, Tibetans have been known to respond that the ques-
tion is irrelevant. What matters to them is the interpretation that can support
the ritual.
At the same time, the Tantric practice of deva-yoga (see Section 6.1), com-
bin~d with the Yogacara doctrine of the Dharmakaya underlying all minds,
tends to blur the whole issue of personal identity. This has led to the creation
of histories in which important individuals are emanations of great deities,
bodhisattvas, and Cosmic Buddhas acting out an epic drama for the protection
and prosperity of the Tibetan nation and its form of Buddhism-the more
dramatic the epic, the better. Although both of these tendencies serve to ob-
struct the modern historian's quest for accuracy, they are important historical
facts in and of themselves, and must be kept in mind when trying to under-
stand how Tibetan Buddhism has developed over the centuries.