You are here: Home>Collections>Ice Cream  Know your own nature
SONAL SRIVASTAVA Sep 26, 2011, 12.52pm IST (Know your own nature
)  The 17th Gyalwa Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje talks to Sonal
Srivastava about the Vajrayana school of Buddhism, the
importance of rituals and the practical application of
shunayata.  What are the main tenets of the Vajrayana school of
Buddhism?  Vajrayana is like the cherry on the ice cream. If you
eat only the cherry on top of your ice cream, then it is boring.
The Theravada and the Mahayana streams of thought in Buddhism
are like the delicious scoop of an ice cream. You get the real
flavour only if you have the whole ice cream and not just the
cherry. Tibetans have practised Vajrayana for a long time and
now we have brought it back to its homeland in India. For us,
it's like plain cherry, which doesn't even satisfy hunger. To
understand Vajrayana, we need to understand all other schools of
thought in Buddhism. Vajrayana, at the moment is hyped and
people often look at it as exoti