We have MOVED

I have decided to broaden my studies and be more inclusive.  So this is the title of the new blog:

Vajra Notes:  http://vajranotes.wordpress.com

No big deal, I don’t have many regular readers.  But this is my last post here.  Everything has been copied over to my new blog.  Please follow me there!

Thank you

Classifying Tibetan

Below I will illustrate two ways of classifying languages:  (1) by their writing and (2) by their grammar/vocabulary.  The first is called “orthography” and the second is called “language family”.   To study Tibetan Buddhism, knowing a bit about its orthography (writing system) can be helpful especially as you will see inconsistent spellings between books on Tibetan Buddhism.  I would wager that very little would be gained by studying Tibetan grammar for reading English books, but the basics of orthography and its history seems helpful.  More later on that — for now, let’s look at those two classifications.

Tibetan is a syllabic alphabet.  See this interesting site on “Ancient Scripts“.  Below is a diagram of just some languages in the 5 different classes of orthography.  I was happy to see I have already studied some orthography in each type (which I put in purple). But I must say, aesthetically, Tibetan has always been the most beautiful script on the planet for me!

But the script of a language does not tell you much.  Tibetan, for instance, was borrowed from Sanskrit (mother of Devanagri).  Japanese and Chinese are unrelated but Japanese borrowed Chinese characters.  Turkish and English are totally unrelated but modern Turkish now uses the Roman alphabet but like English. All these share scripts (orthography) but share no grammar similitude.

So another way to look at language is by their language families.  Below I listed the top 10 groups and gave the percentage of speakers — the data is taken from Wiki.  I have only tasted three different families — but I have played in the grammar minds of 69.1% of the world !   Most people have only studied langauges in one language family, but if you learn a language in a different family, you will soon learn what a FOREIGN language is.

Mac Transliteration Shortcuts

American Buddhism Diagram

I have created the above diagram for a friend who is recently considering visiting Buddhist groups in the USA. I hope this chart helps add some order to his understanding of the myriad of Buddhist Schools in America. My goal was to keep the diagram fairly simple, name the big groups, and show classification according to the 3-Yāna system which is both easy on the eye and the mind while capturing some usefulness. As always, feedback is deeply appreciated.

Yāna Classification

Buddhism, like all religions, has natural proliferated into many sects.  But “sects” is more of a religious-studies term and by some it is even used pejoratively.  So Christians don’t refer to their groups as “sects” but instead uses the term “denominations”.  Likewise Buddhists also have a special term for their sects: “Vehicles” or “Yāna” in Sanskrit.

As in all complex systems, there are many ways to classify the various Yāna.  Below is my diagram to illustrate the Nyingma classification scheme next the the “Classic 3 Yāna” scheme.  More specifically, this is the  Aro understanding.  The chart also shows how Aro sees functions and principles relating to their taxonomy of the Yānas into yet another 3-grouping: Drogchen, Tantra Yāna, and Sutra Yāna.

Various Yana Classifications with Aro Notes:

I will list sources in the future.  My chart may illustrate many misunderstandings.  I look forward to feedback from those who can correct my mistakes.

Types of Dzogchen

To assist my visual learning I have put together this diagram to explain how “Dzogchen” is seen in the Aro lineage of Nyingma.  All corrections, suggestions and kudos are appreciated.

Resources:

• Learn Aro Meditation
• rDzogs Chen: the importance of Sem-dé by Khandro Déchen