The Double Dorje: Looking at Modern Vajrayana Buddhism.
What the tsok? What to expect.
Wed, 16 Oct 2024
Tsok pujas are a big feature of Tibetan-style Buddhism as it is actually practiced, but newcomers often don't have a blind clue what's going on - explanations are hard to find. So here is a rundown with a bit of background and a few tips. Now there's a fancy torma! Words or phrases you might want to look up: Tsok, tsogs, tshog etc. Ganacakra, ganapuja, tsok puja ཚོགས (transliterated tshogs) Sangha Guru Rinpoche Torma Benchen Jigme Lingpa #Buddhism #Vajrayana #Tibet #DoubleDorje #torma #tsok #tsog #tshogs #JigmeLingpa
Full Episode
Hello, hello and hello to all of you. Welcome or welcome back to the Double Doge podcast. I'm Alex Welding and in this episode I hope to give you, beginners in particular, some idea of what sock is about and what to expect when you go to one. But before we get to that, the usual bit.
Please pause briefly, if you will, to like this episode, subscribe to the podcast, tell your friends, and all that stuff, whatever way is suitable for the channel that you're listening on. And the other part of the standard message is, at the time of first publishing, the podcast is hosted on Podbean.
But since it's very likely that you're listening somewhere else, you may not be able to see the brief comments, or for that matter, the transcript. But if they don't appear in your channel... Or if you do want to see a bit more about the episode, you'll find all this on Podbean. Okay, tsok. The word is spelt in a variety of ways which you can see in the notes.
The full transliteration would be T-S-H-O-G-S. But you may already know that unless you've studied the rather complicated rules connecting Tibetan pronunciation to spelling, then it's probably better to stay with something simple like T-S-O-K.
I'm imagining that you are somebody who's reading the notice board at the Buddhist center you are visiting for one of the first times, or even the first time, and you see a tzok mentioned on the timetable. You might also see the words Ganachakra or Ganapuja, or the hybrid English version based on a mix of Tibetan and Indian, giving us the term Tsokpuja.
That's perhaps a bit of a linguistic mishmash, but it's no worse, I suppose, than a word like television. Sticking to Greek roots would have given us telescope, but that word was already taken, and I don't think there's anybody left who objects to the word television, so I'm sure we'll manage with sockbuja. The point is, in any case, that these are all just different terms for the same thing.
If you are that beginner, you will now naturally be wondering just what that thing is. I do recall in the early 90s being at a Buddhist summer school. In fact, it was a very relaxed affair and there was to be a tsok puja on the last day. My son was with me and asked what that was supposed to be.
I can't remember my answer very well, but I do know that he was completely confused and that sitting through the proceedings didn't help at all. So let's try and get ourselves a little bit oriented. Anyway, I forgive myself for that poor performance. Even though I'd been in the Dharma for 20 years, very little explanation of these things was given in the circles in which I moved.
Many of the talks that were described as teachings were basically inspirational in nature. They were entertaining and encouraging, but it can't be said that they were terribly informative.
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