Chakras play an important role in the main surviving branch of Indian Vajrayana, Tibetan Buddhism.

Esoteric movements in Buddhism, which fall under the general category of Vajrayana Buddhism, employ esoteric training into Buddha's teachings, through use of symbols, mantra and hand-gestures, or mudra.

For example, what scholars call Tantric Shaivism was known to its practitioners as the, Tantric Buddhism has the indigenous name of the Vajrayana, and Tantric Vaishnavism was known as the.

* Amoghavajra, 8th century Buddhist monk, translator of Vajrayana scripture, figure in the Tang court, remembered as one of the three founders of Chinese esoteric Buddhism.

Padmasambhava, The Lotus Born, was a sage guru from Oḍḍiyāna who is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhutan and Tibet and neighbouring countries in the 8th century

Vajrayana ( Devanagari: वज ् रय ा न ; Oriya: ବଜ ୍ ରଯ ା ନ, Tibetan: ར ྡོ་ ར ྗེ་ ཐ ེ ག ་ པ ་, rdo rje theg pa ; Mongolian: Очирт хөлгөн, Ochirt Hölgön, Chinese: 密宗, mì zōng ) is also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Vehicle.

A distinctive feature of Vajrayana Buddhism is the use of rituals, which are Skillful Means ( Upaya ).

The period of Indian Vajrayana Buddhism has been classified as the fifth or final period of Indian Buddhism.

From the 7th century onwards many popular religious elements of heterogeneous nature were incorporated into Mahayana Buddhism which finally resulted in the origin of Vajrayana, Kalachakrayana and Sahajayana Tantric Buddhism.

( Vajrayana ) Buddhism had mostly died out in India by the 13th century, and tantric religions of Buddhism and Hinduism were also experiencing pressure from invading Islamic armies.

In 747 the Indian master Padmasambhava traveled from Afghanistan to bring Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet and Bhutan, at the request of the king of Tibet.

Kūkai absorbed the Vajrayana thinking from eminent Indian and Chinese Vajrayana teachers at the time, and synthesized a version of which he took back with him to Japan, where he founded the Shingon school of Buddhism, a school which continues to this day.

Vajrayana Buddhism also influenced the construction of Borobudur, a three-dimensional mandala, in central Java circa 800.

The distinctive feature of Vajrayana Buddhism is ritual, which is used as a substitute or alternative for the earlier abstract meditations.

The Vajrayana is based on the concept of " skilful means " ( Sanskrit: upaya ) as formulated in Mahayana Buddhism.

Vajrayana Buddhism is esoteric, in the sense that the transmission of certain teachings only occurs directly from teacher to student during an initiation or empowerment and cannot be simply learned from a book.

Although there is historical evidence for Vajrayana Buddhism in Southeast Asia and elsewhere ( see History of Vajrayana below ), today the Vajrayana exists primarily in the form of the two major sub-schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Esoteric Buddhism in Japan known as Shingon, with a handful of minor subschools utilising lesser amounts of esoteric or tantric materials.

Srivijaya was also a notable center of Vajrayana Buddhist learning and influence.

Indrabhuti, the king of Sambalpur founded Vajrayana while his sister who was married to Prince ( Yuvaraja ) Jalendra of Lankapuri ( Sonepur ) founded Sahajayana.

The empire of Srivijaya in southeast Sumatra was already a center of Vajrayana learning when Dharma Master Yijing ( Ch.

# According to the Vajrayana tradition, there was a third turning which took place at Dhanyakataka sixteen years after the Buddha's enlightenment.

The founder of Shingon Buddhism was Kukai, a Japanese monk who studied in China in the 9th century during the Tang Dynasty and brought back Vajrayana scriptures, techniques and mandalas then popular in China.

Padmasambhava ); Mongolian ловон Бадмажунай, lovon Badmajunai, (), Means The Lotus-Born, was a sage guru from Oddiyāna who is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhutan and Tibet and neighboring countries in the 8th century.

Upon completing his training for meditations on nothingness and emptiness, Atiśa was advised to go study with Avadhutipa, a Vajrayana master.

According to Jamgon Kongtrul, when Atiśa discovered the store of Sanskrit texts at Pekar Kordzoling, the library of Samye, " he said that the degree to which the Vajrayana had spread in Tibet was unparalleled, even in India.

Trungpa was one of the first teachers to introduce the esoteric practice of the Vajrayana to the West.

According to Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso, " The one who mainly spread the Vajrayana in the West was Trungpa Rinpoche.

An incident that became a cause célèbre among some poets and artists was the Halloween party at the Snowmass Colorado Seminary in the fall of 1975, held during a 3-month period of intensive meditation and study of the Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana vehicles of Tibetan Buddhism.

However, before his return he also studied, and was initiated into, the practice of the Vajrayana, with emphasis on the Mahavairocana Sutra.

The first recognized tulku of this kind within the Vajrayana traditions was the Karmapa, the head of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism ; precisely, the first to be recognized as a manifestation was the second Karmapa, Karma Pakshi ( 1204 – 1283 ).

* Yogi Milarepa, a Vajrayana Buddhist guru, was rumored to have possessed a range of additional abilities during levitation, such as the ability to walk, rest and sleep, however such were deemed as occult powers.

The MA in psychology was originally designed as an extension of Trungpa's Maitri program — a 16-week meditation course held in Connecticut, and based on Vajrayana teachings on esoteric energy patterns within the mind and body.

When the community declined, Anandabodhi returned to Canada ; he was subsequently ordained in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition and enthroned as Namgyal Rinpoche by the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa.

A different interpretation of the role of the Dalai Lama in the recognition process was provided by the 9th Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, a senior Karma Kagyu teacher, when he stated: ' All the highly realized monks of the Vajrayana Buddhism, like H. H.

Marpa Lotsawa ( 1012 – 1097 ), sometimes known fully as Lhodak Marpa Choski Lodos or commonly as Marpa the Translator, was a Tibetan Buddhist teacher credited with the transmission of many Vajrayana teachings from India, including the teachings and lineages of Mahamudra.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche () ( c. 1910 – 28 September 1991 ) was a Vajrayana master, scholar, poet, teacher, and head of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism from 1987 to 1991.

The Vajrayana established the symbolic terminology and the liturgy that would characterize all forms of the tradition.

The primary text of Tiantai is Lotus Sutra ( Hokke-kyō 法華経 ), but when Saichō established his school in Japan he incorporated the study and practice of Vajrayana as well.

Tantrics, including the Vajrayana, the Shaktas, and the Buddhists established many temples for tantra sadhana rituals and Shakti worship.

Mongolia saw another revival of Vajrayana in the 17th century, with the establishment of ties between the Dalai Lama in Tibet and the Mongolian princedoms.

Buddhism is divided into three forms: the orthodox Theravada Buddhism, which is prevalent in India and most of Southeast Asia ; Mahayana Buddhism, which spread to China, Tibet, Vietnam, and ultimately to Korea and Japan ; and Vajrayana Buddhism.

Certainly a Muslim, Christian, or Jew may consider the Vajrayana ( the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet and Mongolia ) idolatrous.

The lofty Tibetan Plateau and Geography of Tibet has had a profound effect on the Bonpo and the shaping of Vajrayana in general.

" In contrast to its traditional presentation in Tibet, where the esoteric practices are largely the domain of the monastic sangha, in America Trungpa introduced the Vajrayana to the lay sangha.

These included the Chinese monk I Ching, who made several lengthy visits to Sumatra on his way to study at Nalanda University in India in 671 and 695, and the 11th century Bengali Buddhist scholar Atisha, who played a major role in the development of Vajrayana Buddhism in Tibet.

When compared to the other important Tantric system of Vajrayana in Tibet, the Muladhara chakra finds no parallel in the same place, unlike the other 6 chakras.

The equivalent chakra in the Vajrayana highest tantra systems of Tibet is called the Secret Place, four fingers below the navel.

This brings him into conflict with not just Islam but also, sometimes, with old-fashioned Buddhism ..." Yet several well-known Vajrayana Buddhist lamas were married: Marpa the translator is said to have had nine wives ; others had romantic relationships, including the 6th Dalai Lama, and the teacher who brought Buddhism to Tibet, Padmasambhava, who had five Tantric consorts who were also his students.

A Tibetan Buddhist monk and scholar ; Geshe Kelsang has written twenty books that aim to provide Western Dharma practitioners with essential Buddhist texts ; some are books for beginners such as Transform Your Life and How to Solve Our Human Problems, books about the Mahayana path like Universal Compassion ( Lojong ), and books on Vajrayana ( Tantra ) like Mahamudra Tantra ; ( born 1931, in Tibet ).

bde ' byung ) in Vajrayana Buddhism ( the religion of Tibet ) is a Sanskrit term meaning " place of peace / tranquility / happiness ".

The 14th Dalai Lama has composed a prayer for the movement praising various historic figures and lineages of Vajrayana from India and Tibet, part of which says:

Early Vajrayana that was transmitted from India to Tibet may be differentiated by the specific term ' Mantrayana ' ().

In the 1940s he studied with the leading Vajrayana masters from all over Tibet, and continued receiving transmissions from the Gelugpa, Nyingma, Sakya and Kagyu schools.