A KORA OF KORAS

Santarakshita advised King Trisong Duetsen to send for the great Tantric
Buddhist master, Padmasambhava, as only he could subdue the Tibetan demons
and demi-gods and this is the how and why Padmasambhava eventually came to
Tibet where in a years-long series of dramatic and often violent struggles he
successfully overcame the local demi-gods and bound them by vows to protect the
Buddha Dharma.
Padmasambhava did not preach non-violence to the local deities of Tibet; he met
them head-on and engaged them in battle, with ‘fierce compassion.’ This
paradoxical attitude is the expression you often see on the face of
Padmasambhava and hear about in the tales of his various encounters, which are
recited to this day all over Tibet and have become part of the teachings of
Tibetan Tantric Buddhism.
In the many Tibetan stories of men, gods and animals we begin to understand
the teachings of Tantric Tibetan Buddhism; for here all of life is embraced and
dealt with, nothing is dismissed, renounced or turned away from, unlike the
Hinayana Buddhist tradition of south-east Asia, which tends to turn away from
the world and strife; neither is there the embrace of another state of existence or
some higher realm which occurs in the Mahayana traditions; rather, in Tibetan
Tantric Buddhism or Vajrayana, there is non-preference for any category of
existence whatsoever.