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The Book of Mormon and the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition

I wanted to draw your attention to an interesting Twitter thread from yesterday by a cartoonist named Owen Cyclops. Cyclops is an esoteric, often drawing threads from many different mythic traditions in his art.

He recently sat down to read The Book of Mormon and noticed an interesting parallel with the tradition in Tibetan Buddhism. According to Cyclops, Padmasambhava brought Buddhism to Tibet and made many changes to the tradition.

It is also believed that Padmasambhava hid future texts to be found later that will address matters specific to that future time. When these are published, hundreds of years later, the authorship is attributed to Padmasambhava.

Cyclops considered this in response to the frequent critique of The Book of Mormon that it deals with theological issues that were being debated at the time The Book of Mormon was published.

Latter-day Saints look to Moroni’s explanation in Mormon 8:35, “I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing.” It is certainly noteworthy that this explanation finds parallels in remote faith traditions.

You can read the entire Twitter thread here:

About the author

C.D. Cunningham

C.D. Cunningham is the managing editor of Public Square magazine. After graduating from BYU-Idaho, he studied religion at Harvard University Extension. He serves on the board of the Latter-day Saint Publishing and Media Association.
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