Tibetan Usage of Tulpae

[Guest]

As quoted from the Wikipedia page on Tulpae:

 

As the Tibetan use of the tulpa concept is described in the book Magical Use of Thoughtforms, the student was expected to come to the understanding that the tulpa was just a hallucination. While they were told that the tulpa was a genuine deity, "The pupil who accepted this was deemed a failure – and set off to spend the rest of his life in an uncomfortable hallucination."

 

I'm just interested in hearing your response. I'm attempting a study on Tulpae for a school project, and it sounds like the general opinion, from the originators of the concept of Tulpa, the Tibetans, is to refrain from considering Tulpae as more than a hallucination.

 

Thoughts?

[Guest Riy]

As quoted from the Wikipedia page on Tulpae:

 

 

I'm just interested in hearing your response. I'm attempting a study on Tulpae for a school project, and it sounds like the general opinion, from the originators of the concept of Tulpa, the Tibetans, is to refrain from considering Tulpae as more than a hallucination.

 

Thoughts?

 

I think this is the Tibetan way of telling people practicing with tulpas that they need to keep it in perspective, and not think of it as anything more than a product of the mind.

These guys had nothing but time on their hands. They were able to delve far deeper into most subjects and topics than we could today. They spent lifetimes working out the intricacies of the physical and mental world.

 

I read it as just a warning to not make it seem like something it's not. It's a creation of the mind, nothing more. It is not a god, or a demon, or a spirit etc.

 

[Nobillis]

I'm just interested in hearing your response. I'm attempting a study on Tulpae for a school project, and it sounds like the general opinion, from the originators of the concept of Tulpa, the Tibetans, is to refrain from considering Tulpae as more than a hallucination.

 

Kevin says : "This quote omits some of the earlier things, like the student was instructed to impose on their senses 'the ultimate teacher' to the point they could feel, see and hear the 'teacher'. If the student did not subsequently realize that the teacher was not truly a deity, but something they had created, then they would be considered a failure.

 

In the 'modern' methods we start from a different point, not making an 'ultimate teacher', but rather already realizing that we are tricking the mind into constructing something that we will have created.

 

I made my first tulpas the old way, as an exercise of self-learning. True, when you had achieved a tulpa as a student the idea was that you would then dissipate it (the point being the journey and what you learned, the tulpa at that point being superfluous). In the end, I had too much compassion to let mine go, and so I still have all mine decades later.

 

Mind you, the same books also tell of revered monks; who lived, and taught, and then dissipated themselves (on enlightenment?): monks who were themselves tulpas. So even in the Tibetan tradition they kept 'the really, really good creations'."

 

Disclaimer: "I can be wrong. What I write is my own opinion. Results vary, from 9 years to make a tulpa in the first place for me, to 1 month for Nobillis my 'modern' tulpa."

[Guest]

That sounds reasonable. That being said, it's almost like believing in two things at once: training your mind to believe in the existence of something, while refraining from considering it an actual being. I suppose in order to create one, this paradox must be implemented.

[Artnunymiss]

That sounds reasonable. That being said, it's almost like believing in two things at once: training your mind to believe in the existence of something, while refraining from considering it an actual being. I suppose in order to create one, this paradox must be implemented.

 

In my experience, a paradox is always a doorway to a higher perspective, when conditions are met.

[konrad13]

Yeah, their original concept was to be a sort of test for enlightenment, to convince yourself in every way they were real, then later conclude it was all false (I won't say fake).

 

Nowadays in the modern era we accept that it is "all in our heads" (unless your more into the parapsycholgical/paranormal/metaphysical aspect). However, we force our subconcious and conscious mind to believe that there is something there and that it is sentient.

[Artnunymiss]

Yeah, their original concept was to be a sort of test for enlightenment, to convince yourself in every way they were real, then later conclude it was all false (I won't say fake).

 

Hello Konrad! Nice to meet you.

 

Yes, it was interesting for me to learn of this very specific thing with tulpae. I hadn't been aware of it. I'm only aware of the larger use of them. Specifically, to generate bodies to carry on monastic lines. For example, when we refer to the "14th Dalai Lama," that refers to an unbroken chain of deliberate reincarnations (see: tulpa) of which he is the 14th. In other words, this is the 14th different body this mind has spawned to live in.

 

This other form of tulpa discussion is entirely new to me. I'd never considered it being anything other than an ascended master generating an actual human. Of course it's ordinary humans generating thought blobs.

 

Nowadays in the modern era we accept that it is "all in our heads" (unless your more into the parapsycholgical/paranormal/metaphysical aspect). However, we force our subconcious and conscious mind to believe that there is something there and that it is sentient.

 

Well that sounds like a great use for tulpas. :) My experiences have been very different than that. It has been really interesting to see all this discussion.

 

I'd like to use a badge or smilie or something but the text is way too small for me. I am old, I speak pidgin interwebs.

[Artnunymiss]

Hello, me again, sorry if I'm talking on and on.

 

I forgot to mention before -- one of the sutras that I study refers a number of times to "sentient trees," and that they eventually become Buddhas. Over the last few days I've come to suspect that those are the sort of tulpas that are discussed on this forum. The ascended masters create so many of them that they are like forests. They're sentient, but still wood. It's not explained in the text how trees could become sentient, and then enlightened.

[Archer]

I forgot to mention before -- one of the sutras that I study refers a number of times to "sentient trees," and that they eventually become Buddhas. Over the last few days I've come to suspect that those are the sort of tulpas that are discussed on this forum. The ascended masters create so many of them that they are like forests. They're sentient, but still wood. It's not explained in the text how trees could become sentient, and then enlightened.

 

Have you read, Riy and Zala's progress report? Riy had a similar experience when creating Zala.

[Artnunymiss]

 

Have you read, Riy and Zala's progress report? Riy had a similar experience when creating Zala.

 

Nice to meet you Archer :) Can you link me to that? It's very interesting to me, the variety of experiences people are having.

 

My interpretation of the sentient trees in the sutra is that they are you and me :) It's the only way something could go from a tree to an enlightened being; they would have to pass through the stage of being humans.

 

In a Buddhist context, it usually takes eons to finish being a human. I suspect I have a way to go personally. Incidentally, to explain to students how long an eon is:

 

If a man were to build an enclosure 12 yojanas in height (yojanas are not explained) and 12 yojanas in width on top of a mountain, and fill it with sesame seeds. Say that man would, every 100 years, remove a sesame seed. When all the seeds were gone, let him wipe the enclosure once every 100 years with a silk cloth until it and the mountain under it are gone, and still an eon would not have passed.

 

Human experience can span thousands of eons according to the texts.