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Tradition

Tibetan Buddhism

The Buddhism of Tibet and the Himalaya, joining Indian Mahāyāna philosophy with tantric practice.

Also called Vajrayāna, Lamaism (dated)

A tradition of Mahāyāna

Introduction

Tibetan Buddhism is the Buddhism of Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia and the Himalayan regions, and of a worldwide diaspora. It inherited the late Indian Buddhism of the great monastic universities, joining the Mahāyāna path of the bodhisattva and the philosophy of Madhyamaka with the practices of the tantras, the Vajrayāna or “Diamond Vehicle”.

Its practice is often described in three stages: renunciation of saṃsāra, the mind of awakening (bodhicitta) for the sake of all beings, and the correct view of emptiness. Tantric practice adds meditation on deities, mantra, and the transformation of ordinary experience into the path, under the guidance of a teacher (lama) to whom the student is devoted. The recognition of reincarnate teachers (tulkus), such as the Dalai Lamas, is a distinctive institution.

There are four main schools: the Nyingma, the oldest; the Kagyu, with its lineage from Marpa and Milarepa; the Sakya; and the Gelug, founded by Tsongkhapa. They share a common Indian heritage and differ in lineage, emphasis and interpretation, especially of emptiness and buddha-nature.

History

Historical

Buddhism reached Tibet in the seventh century, under the king Songtsen Gampo. In the eighth century the king Trisong Detsen invited the Indian abbot Śāntarakṣita and the tantric master Padmasambhava, and the first monastery, Samye, was founded. According to tradition, a debate at Samye between the Indian Kamalaśīla and the Chinese Chan teacher Moheyan decided in favour of a gradual Indian path.

After a period of political collapse, a “later diffusion” of Buddhism began in the eleventh century, with the arrival of the Indian teacher Atiśa in 1042 and new translations. The Kagyu and Sakya schools took shape, the Nyingma preserved the earlier lineages, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Tsongkhapa founded the Gelug. The Mongol ruler Altan Khan gave the title Dalai Lama to the Gelug teacher Sonam Gyatso in 1578, and in the seventeenth century the Fifth Dalai Lama became ruler of Tibet.

Following the Chinese annexation of Tibet in the 1950s, the fourteenth Dalai Lama went into exile in India in 1959, and Tibetan teachers re-founded monasteries in India and Nepal and established centres across the world.

  1. 7th c.Buddhism reaches Tibet under Songtsen Gampo
  2. c. 779Samye, the first monastery, is founded
  3. 1042Atiśa arrives in Tibet; the later diffusion
  4. 1409Tsongkhapa founds Ganden monastery
  5. 1578Altan Khan confers the title Dalai Lama
  6. 1959The fourteenth Dalai Lama goes into exile in India

Major thinkers

Key concepts

Important texts

Convergence and divergence

Resemblance and difference, given equal room. Each note is marked with the kind of statement it makes.

Areas of convergence

  • Contemplation, with Christian Mysticism

    Scholarship

    The Tibetan graduated path, with its stages of meditation and its reliance on a spiritual guide, has been compared with Christian ladders of ascent and with spiritual direction.

Areas of divergence

  • Buddha-nature, with Zen

    Scholarship

    Tibetan tradition, following the Samye debate, generally favours a gradual path joining study and meditation, against what it took to be the Chan teaching of sudden awakening without stages.

  • Nonduality, with Advaita Vedānta

    Scholarship

    Dzogchen, the Great Perfection taught in the Nyingma school, is often compared with Advaita, but describes the mind’s nature as empty awareness, not as an eternal self.

Cite this entry
Chicago (bibliography)

“Tibetan Buddhism.” Tradition. The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society. Last modified November 7, 2026. https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/tibetan-buddhism.

Chicago (note)

“Tibetan Buddhism,” tradition, The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, last modified November 7, 2026, https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/tibetan-buddhism.

MLA

“Tibetan Buddhism.” The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, 7 Nov. 2026, www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/tibetan-buddhism.

BibTeX
@misc{traditions-tibetan-buddhism,
  title = {{Tibetan Buddhism}},
  howpublished = {The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society},
  note = {Tradition. Last modified November 7, 2026},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/tibetan-buddhism}
}

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