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> They also think that personal enlightenment/arahatship is a bad thing and that you should keep being reborn to help others. There are entire books written about why that doesn't make sense, but it's against the entire purpose of what the Buddha taught. That's a Mahayana belief, not an exclusively Vajrayana one. You aren't making a clear distinction between Mahayana and Vajrayana here. > Vajrayana is essentially Tibetan bon mixed with Hinduism. "Bon" is an ambiguous term. It refers to the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet, which apparently was a form of shamanism or animism. It is impossible to know much about it with any confidence – although there are some references to it in Tibetan Buddhist texts, we can't really know how accurate they are. However, whatever it was, it is likely rather different from contemporary "Bon". Contemporary "Bon" claims to be historically independent of Buddhism, even a continuation of that pre-Buddhist religion, but most scholars don't accept those claims. Rather, most scholars think it is actually an unusual derivative of Tibetan Buddhism, in which the core beliefs and practices were kept, but the names/symbols/geography/etc were intentionally altered to give it the appearance of being a separate religion with an independent history. Given that, rather than Tibetan Buddhism being based on Bon, it is actually the other way around. Most of Vajrayana – including all the elements you object to – can be traced back to India, and the obvious similarities (and mutual influence) between Tantric Buddhism and Tantric Hinduism Also, criticising Mahayana and Vajrayana for being influenced by Hinduism ignores how much Theravada was influenced by Hinduism. Consider all the stories about Hindu deities in the Pali canon – which Theravada traditionally accepts as really existent conscious supernatural beings, albeit mortal and limited in power |