THE BODHI-TREE
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WISDOM
-TREE.COM THE BODHI-TREE |
THE TERMA TRADITION |
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The Terma Tradition of Continuing Revelation
In the history of religions, our historical records are incomplete. Religions rise and fall over time, appear and disappear. Over centuries and millennia, our data about them consists of records that have withstood both natural and man-made disasters. Some texts have been canonized, some texts destroyed, and historians make do with the remnants.
This process is particularly vivid in Tibetan Buddhism, with its ancient history of wars, competition between lineages, and its modern destruction as a culture by Chinese communists. It had both an oral and literary tradition but wars and revolutions have killed many of its monastic scholars and interpreters. Some traditions disappear when faced with such attacks.
Tibetan Buddhism has survived partly by scholars and monks leaving the country and taking their texts with them, and partly by going underground maintaining lineage teaching outside the public view. But much has been lost.
The religion has an interesting survival mechanism, the terma or "treasure" tradition. These are texts that have been revealed to visionaries throughout history. Some emphasize boundaries and the legitimacy of spiritual lineages. Others give new revelations and bring back practices that have been hidden or lost, a ritual or sadhana that has disappeared from the tradition. This site contains such a lost practice or ritual. Termas are generally revealed by dakinis or bhairavas, spiritual guides who help practitioners and give teachings when they are needed.
Termas allow continuing revelation within Tibetan Buddhism.
According to the Nygima tradition, termas were hidden by Padmasambhava and his consort Yeshe Tsogyel in the 8th century to be revealed later by tertons who became aware of them. Some were hidden in objects, and some appear spontaneously in the mind of a person capable of revealing them. They are often mediated by dakinis, supernatural figures with their own language and script.
These termas of mind may appear in meditation, revealed by a dakini or other teacher. The revelation of these termas is often associated with prophecies and predictive dreams. They are sometimes called pure visions when they are revealed directly by a deity or Buddha.
The practices described at this site are part of a lost Buddhist sadhana called the Bodhi-Tree Meditation or the practice of The Four Watches of the Night.
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Introduction | The Symbol of the Bodhi-Tree | The Yidam or Spiritual Guide | The First Watch of the Night | The Second Watch of the Night | The Third Watch of the Night | The Fourth Watch of the Night | Conclusion
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