Dhamma Wheel Buddhist Forum

Hi

In Theravada Buddhism is there such thing as a tulku system as one finds in the Tibetan mahayana Buddhism? im new the Theraveda and i haven't heard any mention of it,if there is please excuse my lack of understanding..if there is not why is there not?If the tulku system was true wouldn't it exist in all schools of Buddhism?

Thank you

duffster1 wrote:Hi

In Theravada Buddhism is there such thing as a tulku system as one finds in the Tibetan mahayana Buddhism? im new the Theraveda and i haven't heard any mention of it,if there is please excuse my lack of understanding..if there is not why is there not?If the tulku system was true wouldn't it exist in all schools of Buddhism?

Thank you

No such system is within Theravada. There is also no Bhodhisatva system as found in Mahayana also.
There is no guarantee that the person thought to be the rebirth of X is the rebirth of X. and that is also emphasising staying within the bounds of samsara which is not part of any Theravada teaching. The most one could hope for is seven more lifetimes with no guarantee of them being in the human realm, there is not overiding the laws of Kamma that I know of that would make human rebirth a guarantee.

People should be lights unto themselves, and practice to release themselves from Samsara, this is how they can be a light for others.

duffster1 wrote:Hi

In Theravada Buddhism is there such thing as a tulku system as one finds in the Tibetan mahayana Buddhism? im new the Theraveda and i haven't heard any mention of it,if there is please excuse my lack of understanding..if there is not why is there not?If the tulku system was true wouldn't it exist in all schools of Buddhism?

Thank you

Hi duffster,

There isn't a tulku system in Theravada, nor in any other Buddhist tradition. Its a Tibetan idea which began in Tibet with the Karmapa lamas in the 13th century.

with kind wishes,

Aloka

Thank you

Im just pondering if rebirth is true and its possible to recognize the continuum so to speak,surely there would be examples in other traditions,wouldn't there?if rebirth is happening why is it only one tradition claiming to be able to have insight into such matters of recognition?

duffster1 wrote:Im just pondering if rebirth is true and its possible to recognize the continuum so to speak,surely there would be examples in other traditions,wouldn't there?if rebirth is happening why is it only one tradition claiming to be able to have insight into such matters of recognition?

Why indeed !

duffster1 wrote:if rebirth is happening why is it only one tradition claiming to be able to have insight into such matters of recognition?

All traditions have their own specific systems of beliefs. It is just that one belief may appear more weird to you than the other due to the way you have been conditioned yourself to believe this or that.

Or whether there is any verifiable evidence that it was something the Buddha taught.

With metta
Chris

cooran wrote:Or whether there is any verifiable evidence that it was something the Buddha taught.

Indeed.

Plus there are problems with their system. Here's an example:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... u-rinpoche

in Samañaphala Sutra there's mentioning of perceiving the appearence and reapearence of biengs through various lifes, so a Samyak Buddha could recognize an incarnation of a specific bodhisattva.

however, i think this is not necessary since the bodhisattva itself should be able to continue the path.

In Theravada communities, there are also many incidences of people remembering past lives, but there isn't a systematic effort to identify or officially recognise who is reborn as who like the tulku system.

is there a way to validate phala from the samañaphala sutra?

I heard a Lama say that Through Vajrayana practices and working with very subtle levels of consciousness one is able to get insight regarding the whereabouts of the rebirthed consciousnes etc.

In any Buddhist country if an infant starts mysteriously reciting Buddhist texts and acting like a monk then their parents will take them to a monastery. It is simply that the Tibetans made an active effort to identify such children. As for predicting exactly where one will be reborn that is another matter entirely. Only a couple of Tibetan masters ever had this ability.

Raksha wrote:In any Buddhist country if an infant starts mysteriously reciting Buddhist texts and acting like a monk then their parents will take them to a monastery. It is simply that the Tibetans made an active effort to identify such children. As for predicting exactly where one will be reborn that is another matter entirely. Only a couple of Tibetan masters ever had this ability.

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I come from a Buddhist country, there's a whole culture of ordaining Children here as monks, but I'm yet to hear of children suddenly reciting mantras and acting like monks. While I can't say what's really going on, we can argue that this kind of thing might be common in Tibet because of some sort of cultural conditioning. Are there a lot of these cases there?

That said, what is a bit more common where I come from is kids remembering past lives, some of which are hard to disregard as some sort of delusion or coincidence. I guess you can never REALLY know with these things unless it happens to you. Either way, all of this is besides the point when it comes to every day practice, and more often just a distraction.