Thurman, Essential Tibetan Buddhism Introduction (part) - Tibet House

following centuries. While he revered his Mentor Marpa as the “quintessence of all
Buddhas, Milarepa himself became widely recognized by members of all Orders as
the “first Tibetan to become a perfect Buddha within a single lifetime.” He started
out an ordinary man, even a great sinner, and yet his sincere practice of the
Unexcelled Yoga Tantras led him to evolutionary culmination in a single lifetime.
He thus became the example for gennerations of Tibetans who sought their own
most exalted destinies. The great disciples of Padma Sambhava, Drontonpa, even
Marpa, tended to be thought of as emanations of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, rather
than ordinary people who became perfected. The subliminal idea of Tibetans at that
time was that Buddhas were Indian; Tibetans were disciples of Buddhas, only fit to
worship them and serve them. Milarepa broke through this barrier in the first
chapter of his Hundred Thousand Songs, where he returned to his cave, met five
Indian demons mocking his contemplative practices, and eventually had to
overcome them by realizing the nonduality of them and himself. He thus broke free
of the stereotype of himself as unenlightened and enlightened beings as remote
Indian icons, and found the courge to assert his own potential of perfected
evolution.
Here I should underline one point about the apocalyptic approach. As it is often
repeated that it is the quick and easy way to Buddhahood, it can easily be
misunderstood as an esoteric shortcut that renders unnecessary the messianic
teaching of the bodhisattva’s evolution, especially if one is thinking that
Buddhahood is only a mental breakthrough and not an extraordinary physical
development. All Bodhisattvas vow to be reborn infinitely, for three incalculable
eons of lifetimes, in all conceivable life-forms, in order to accumulate the store of
merit through generosity, morality, tolerance, and enterprise, that is needed to