Introducing Tibetan Buddhism

Chapter 12:Tibetan Buddhism today and tomorrow

Main topics covered

• Introduction• Tibetan Buddhism in the People’s Republic of China• Tibetan Buddhism in the Himalayas and the Tibetan diaspora• Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia, Buryatia, Tuva and Kalmykia• Tibetan Buddhism as a global religion• Conclusion: Tibetan Buddhism in a new environment

Key points 1

• Tibetan Buddhism is a versatile and adaptable religion, and despite the traumas of the Cultural Revolution and the difficulties of Chinese rule more generally, it remains alive within Chinese-controlled Tibet and is finding new followers throughout the world.

• Within Chinese-controlled Tibet, the period of liberalization in the 1980s has been followed by continuing attempts to subordinate Tibetan Buddhism to state policy and intermittent suppression where these attempts have failed.

Buddhism in Chinese-controlled Tibet

The new square constructed in front of the Jokhang in central Lhasa, 1987

Buddhism in Chinese-controlled Tibet

Samye Monastery under reconstruction, 1987

Key points 2

• Outside Chinese-controlled Tibet, Buddhist teaching and practice traditions have continued and flourished among culturally Tibetan populations in the Himalayas, among the Tibetan diaspora, and increasingly among non-Tibetan populations around the world. Tibetan Buddhism has also undergone a revival among traditionally Buddhist populations in independent Mongolia and in Mongolian regions of Russia and China.

Tibetan Buddhism in India and Nepal

Namdrolling Monastery, South India. Photo by Ruth Rickard, 1991

Tibetan Buddhism in the West

Merigar Gompa, Italy. Photo by Helen Williams, 2011

Key points 3

• Tibetan Buddhism is taking on new forms as it becomes an increasingly global religion and adapts to new languages and to peoples from very different cultural backgrounds to that of Tibet. The long-term consequences of this transformation are difficult to foresee, but the religion as a whole is establishing itself effectively on a global scale, and increasingly entering into a dialogue with Western modes of thinking and knowledge.

The end