ON THE HISTORY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF THE 'DAS-LOGments, cravings and desires, be they so simple as a cup of tea. Further, although
the texts obviously focus upon virtuous action as a means to improve one's
karmic chances, they also regard sin, which must be paid for sooner or later, as
inherent in any action. The 'das-log Dbu-bza' reminds us
It is natural that half of virtue is sin,
It is natural that half of beer is water,
It is natural that half of day is night. (XII: 608)It is such notions as these that clearly draw the frontier between elite and
popular understandings of Buddhism; the question now becomes this: lay
Tibetans, probably like most other people who do not spend the better part of
their waking hours worrying about the next life (at least until they get old) and
who try to make the best of this one, have certain standards of happiness and
ideas about what constitutes the good life. These are based upon particular ideas
about bodily states (health), making a decent living (wealth) and agreeable rela-
tionships with others (Jove and friendship). Health, wealth and love are, for the
most part, positive states achieved transactionally; they are world-involved. The
philosophical view of happiness, to achieve bliss in another "world" and to
escape this one, is quite another thing; it is based on a universalistic psychology
which sees men driven or motivated by hate, lust and ignorance which: (I)
negates the body as a thing-in-itself and directs attention to the state of the soul
(rnam-shes); (2) abjures involvement with material things; and (3) denounces
the best and closest relationships of love and friendship as destructive when they
are particularized.^17
The common strategy in all the popularizing traditions is the reduction of
high order and abstract concepts to concrete metaphor, which plays upon
common fears of emotional and somatic distress. Presumably, the aim of such
reductionism is to arouse an imagery of those proximal experiences in such a
way as to cause the listener to link them to ultimate concerns. Tibetan Buddhism
seems always to have recognized that the same means for everyone is not
always appropriate to desired ends. As the biography of Prince Choskyi-dbang-
phyug reminds us (p. 3 ff.)
Some do it by Vajrayana and gain liberation in a single life and form.
Some do it gradually by philosophy (mtshan-nyid).
Some do it, entering the doctrine successively through the three turn-
ings of the wheel.
Some do it by degrees through stories and didactics ...For instance, in the biography of A-Ice Rig-stong-rgyal-mo we find the follow-
ing verses in which the experience of pain and destructive emotional states are
linked to the realms of possible samsaric birth, along with the ethical mode that
alleviates such possibilities:^18