Samding Dorje Phagmo Lamdré[1] is a meditative system in Tibetan Buddhism rooted in the view that the result of its practice is contained within the path.
[3] Hagiographical accounts of Virūpa's exploits record outrageous events, including binge drinking, seducing women, and destroying non-Buddhist (Skt.
Davidson suggests that this depiction shows the laxity of Buddhist morals during the Indian medieval period,[4] but Wedemeyer suggests that the behavior shown in esoteric Buddhist hagiographies is intentionally scandalous, forming a social commentary on broader issues being discussed in the Indian religious milieu.
Drogmi himself spent considerable time in India and Nepal learning both the exoteric and esoteric teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, and was both an accomplished scholar and meditation master when he returned to Tibet.
[7] A student of Drogmi Lotsāwa, Chos bar, instructed Sachen Künga Nyingpo, who is considered the founder of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Sachen mastered the teachings over a period of eighteen years and wrote several explications of the root text of the Lamdré system.
[9] Jetsün Dragpa Gyaltsen summarized the path into five stages: The view that saṃsāra (cyclical existence) and nirvāṇa (liberation from suffering) are indivisible illuminates the Lamdré teachings.
Although eventually teachers like Sachen Künga Nyingpo wrote down oral instructions, originally, the important texts were memorized by the students.
These verses form the basis of practice, explicate the view of the inseparability of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, and allude to experiences on the path.
However, although, traditionally the Lamdré is intimately connected with the Hevajra Tantra, because of the ambiguous language of the Vajra Verses, other tantric systems could theoretically be used in the creation stage, as Sachen does in his Yum don ma commentary, where he connects the Vajra Verses to the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra for the creation stage meditations.
Certain controversies of the types of practices included in some traditions occurred, but eventually most Sakyapas agreed that the Slob bshad teachings were the standard.
Wedemeyer, Christian K. “Beef, Dog and Other Mythologies: Connotative Semiotics in Mahāyoga Tantra Ritual and Scripture” in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol.