Kagyu

Kagyu means "the lineage of the word", and it is often called the practice lineage — not because the other schools do not practise, but because this one has always leaned on transmission from one person to the next rather than on the curriculum.

Its line runs back through Marpa the translator to the Indian siddhas Naropa and Tilopa, and through Milarepa, the yogi who sang. Gampopa (1079-1153) then did something unusual: he joined that wandering yogic inheritance to the monastic discipline of the Kadam school, and the result is what the Kagyu schools still are.

Two curricula sit at the centre. Mahamudra, the great seal, works directly with the nature of mind. The six yogas of Naropa work through the body — inner heat, dream, clear light, the transference of consciousness. The traditional retreat lasts three years, three months and three days.

The Karmapa heads the Karma Kagyu, and his succession, begun in the twelfth century, is the oldest recognised tulku line in Tibet.