| The emergence of an obscure Tibetan wrathful deity ritual, "The Extremely Secret Vajrakilaya" of the Palyul lineage, in North American culture is traced through the movement of Nyingma lamas living in diaspora. Since the mid 1960's, Buddhism has grown exponentially in North America. Part of this growth can be attributed to Asian immigration, but a significant and influential portion of North American Buddhists are Euro-Americans seeking meditation techniques that engage unconscious psychic energies and cognitive potentials for healing and transformation. This thesis explores the reasons for Euro-American engagement with Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism), while a questionnaire and a series of in-depth interviews focus on Euro-Americans' subjective experience of one particular ritual, the Vajrakilaya sadhana. Carl G. Jung's concepts of mystical experience, individuation, and libido analogues, as well as biogenetic structuralism serve as a basis for coding and analyzing data. |
