Mahāyāna Buddhism

and Hidden Lands

There is a long tradition in Tibetan Buddhism of describing hidden lands (sbas yul), secret sanctuaries in the Himalayas predicted by Padmasambhava, where in times of war, famine, and illness, Tibetans could flee and practice the Dharma in safety. Sikkim is one such place, and there are a few others, with some yet to be opened. It is necessary to have ideal conditions to attain awakening, as is described in the eight freedoms and ten endowments described by Nāgārjuna and others.

These days, according to some Buddhists, if you are not out there fighting in the streets, screaming about yet another genocide US money is involved in, you are not doing enough. These days people love to talk about “Engaged Buddhism,” as if somehow Mahāyāna Buddhists missed the memo.

Of course we didn’t miss the memo. Developing skills to help solve the mundane problems of sentient beings is built into the foundation of Mahāyāna. We’ve never needed to call ourselves “engaged.” Bodhisattvas become bodhisattvas in order to benefit sentient beings, not merely retire to the forest, focus on their breath, gaze at their navels, kasinas, statues, pebbles, or branches. When it comes to what bodhisattvas need to do, what do our texts tell us? Maitreyanatha’s Ornament of the Mahāyāna Sūtras informs us:

Awakening is attained

by relying on diligence in the meaning of concentration.

However without diligence in the five sciences¹

even the noble ones will not become all-knowing.

Therefore, be diligent [in the sciences] order to criticize and care for others,

and for one to have a comprehensive education.²

In other words, from the outset, the aspiring Mahāyānī a) needs to be educated, b) needs to have an occupation useful to others, and c) be able to defend and elucidate Buddhist principles in general. In Mahāyāna we need to to be free from afflictions—liberation—and we need to develop our knowledge—the two-fold omniscience. The first omniscience involves knowing the actual nature of things. The second involves knowing all paths in order to teach them to others.

Bodhisattvas also need to take care of themselves. In Śantideva’s Compendium of Training,³ a detailed manual of bodhisattva training, in no uncertain terms it is declared that bodhisattvas must first preserve themselves in order that they may help others. Bodhisattvas do need to go into retreat and practice śamatha and vipaśyanā from time to time. Even the Buddha took śamatha holidays.

A bodhisattva is always engaged with people. This is not a doctrine and does not need a label. It’s just part of what makes a Mahāyāna practitioner tick. A Mahāyanī is never concerned with their own happiness first. As Śantideva states, all suffering arises from prioritizing solely one’s own happiness. All happiness arises from prioritizing the happiness of others before one’s own.

Mahāyāna Buddhism has always been embedded in communities of human beings and has never advocated a program of total withdrawal from the world. To illustrate this, there is an entertaining story in the Mahāyāna sūtras about an uptight monk and a relaxed monk. The relaxed monk’s disciples used to hang out in the taverns in town and drink alcohol with the regular folks in the evening. The uptight monk was scandalized and severely castigated the relaxed monk for his moral failings—much in the same way that some so-called “Engaged” buddhists have taken to scolding other Buddhists for their “moral failings” in not being vocal enough about whatever it is today they are angry about. Of course, the uptight monk was a former birth of the Buddha, and the ripening of the karma of his action was that the Buddhist Sangha split into eighteen schools.

Some people like to quote Thich Nhat Hahn, “"When bombs begin to fall on people, you cannot stay in the meditation hall all of the time.” When one lives in a country where bombs are falling, it goes without saying this is not an ideal circumstance for developing concentration. If one lives in a country that is at war, like Vietnam in the post-War period under French rule, these conditions are not favorable at all for practice of monastic Buddhism, so of course one does not remain in the monasteries. This is only common sense.

Look at Tibet. The only way Tibetans preserved their religious culture and language was fleeing the bombs into India and withdrawing into the hinterlands of Tibet where the Chinese were unable to go easily. I rarely see people mention the ongoing, systematic genocide of Tibetans. People seem unaware of it. It’s an old story and the Tibetans have established a successful diaspora community in Nepal and India…but have they? In Nepal, the Chinese pressure the Nepalese government to return Tibetans to Tibet, and have covered Katmandhu with cameras that the Chinese control. Tibetans cannot honestly say they were born in Tibet when they apply for citizenship and visas, and many diaspora Tibetans remain stateless people. In India, there are still camps that are restricted, and need special visas to enter. Actually, the genocide of Tibetans has been going on for decades, their language, culture, reproductive rights, education, religion, and even folk customs suppressed by Chinese authorities or only practiced in a museum. Meanwhile Tibetans who resist are arrested, disappeared, summarily executed, vanishing into the Chinese Gulag system.

When is it correct to pull back from politics and so-called engagement? When it is correct to flee to hidden lands? We can find guidance for this in many places, but the long and short of it is—this is an appropriate course of action when ordinary sentient beings are given over to more misdeeds than virtue, as is the case today in the world. Buddhadharma is disappearing more rapidly than any other major religion in the world. The True Dharma will not remain long. There are all kinds of counterfeit dharmas that one can follow, and these days, they are way more popular than the True Dharma.

The purpose of hidden lands (sbas yul) is to preserve the True Dharma, so that when social conditions permit the spread of Dharma again, it remerges from obscurity. But the idea of building an “enlightened society” is a farce. Awakening is not a mass event. We also are not going to be saved by philosopher kings. But if we build strong, resilient communities in isolated “hidden lands,” based on Mahāyāna Buddhist principles, then it is possible there is some hope for the Dharma, and likewise, humanity.

1. Grammar (śabda), epistemology (hetu), medicine (cikitsā), arts and technology and fine arts (śilpa), and the inner science (adhyātma) of Dharma.

2. Maitreyanatha. Mahāyānasutrālaṃkārakārikā. Theg pa chen po mdo sde'i rgyan zhes bya ba'i tshig le'ur byas pa. (D 4020) sems tsam, phi 1b1-39a4

3. Śantideva. Śikṣāsamuccaya. Bslab pa kun las btus pa. (D 3940) dbu ma, khi 3a2-194b5