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

god of wisdom. He spent his life from the age of three in study, contemplation, and
social action, attaining His own perfect enlightenment in 1398, after a five year
meditation retreat. He founded a progressive movement in Tibetan Buddhism that
looked toward the advent of the future Buddha Maitreya, the “Loving One.” He
revitalized the practice of monasticism through revision of the Vinaya Rule in 1402. He
universalized the messianic spirit by founding the Great Miracle Prayer Festival that
brought the whole nation together around the Jokang Cathedral in Lhasa for two weeks
every new year, beginning in 1409. He refined and spread the wisdom teachings by
writing master treatises and establishing a definitive curriculum for cultivating insight
in the monastic universities. Above all, He facilitated and energized Apocalyptic
Vehicle, Tantric ritual and contemplative practice and attainment by giving inspiring
and penetrating teachings, writing critical, comprehensive, and lucid treatises, building
exquisite three dimensional Mandalas, and initiating hosts of well-prepared disciples.
He passed away with a demonstration of miracles in 1419.
The Founding Teacher and His Angelic Disciples
All Tibetans would agree that the kindness these three great men showed the Land of
Snows would never have been possible if the most important human of our worldepoch
had not first demonstrated the highest evolutionary perfection accessible to
humans, the mental and physical enlightenment of Buddhahood. That human being
was the prince Siddhartha of the Shakya nation in northern India, who became the
unexcelled, perfectly fulfilled Enlightened Lord under the tree of enlightenment in
around 536 Before the Common Era. Once a Buddha, His name was Shakyamuni, the
“Shakya Sage,” and He is considered a form of life beyond the human or the divine, the
“Human-Lion” (Narasimha), and the “God Beyond Gods” (Devatideva). By definition, no