The Karma Kagyü Lineage of Vajrayana Buddhism
 Karma
Kagyü, a lineage of direct oral transmission, is one of the major Buddhist
schools of Tibet. Being heavily practice-oriented, it especially treasures
meditation and can, through interaction with a qualified teacher, bring
about the full direct experience of the nature of the mind. The Kagyü
lineage is the transmission of the Mahamudra teachings. Mahamudra is the
name of a particular Buddhist practice which enables one to accomplish
enlightenment in one lifetime. These
teachings were taught by the historical Buddha Shakyamuni to his closest
students. With Marpa, who was a direct
student of the Indian masters Maitripa and Naropa, the Mahamudra lineage
came to the Himalayas and was passed on by Milarepa, Gampopa and the successive
reincarnations of the Karmapas. The present spiritual head of the lineage
is the 17th Karmapa Trinlay Thaye Dorje.
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 Vajrayana
or the Diamond Way Buddhism
The Buddha worked to benefit three
kinds of people. Whoever wanted to avoid suffering received the instructions
about cause and effect called the Hinayana or the Small Way. Those who
wanted to do more for others were given the Mahayana or the Great Way,
the teachings on wisdom and compassion. To people having strong confidence
in their own Buddha nature, Buddha taught the Vajrayana or the Diamond
Way. Here, he manifested as forms of energy and light or directly transmitted
his enlightened view as a flow of awareness. On this highest level the
aim is the complete development of mind, the spontaneous effortlessness
of Mahamudra. Vajrayana can only be practiced with the willingness to
see all things on the level of purity.
Mahamudra — Experiencing
Space as Unceasing Bliss
The
Great Seal of reality. Buddha's promise that this is the ultimate
teaching. It is mainly taught in the Kagyü tradition and brings about
the direct experience of mind. Mahamudra includes basis, way and goal
and is the quintessence of all Buddhist teachings.
"What manifests as cognizant awareness does not
consist of any entity whatsoever, and is primordially not made out of
anything at all. At the same time as not being an existent thing, it
appears in myriad different ways, so that these three — appearance,
awareness and emptiness — are an indivisible unity and of the same taste.
This itself is Mahamudra, the natural face of the buddha of your own
mind that manifests within your direct experience." — Pal Khachö,
the 2nd Shamarpa (1350–1405)
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