The difference between Tibetan culture and Buddhism according to the 41st Sakya Trizin

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“Tibetan culture and the Buddhist religion are two different things. Buddhism came from India; Tibetan culture, of course, was greatly influenced by Buddhism, but they are different things. One does not need to adopt Tibetan culture in order to practise the Buddhist religion or, let’s say, Buddhist techniques. So everyone can adopt Buddhist techniques, such as seeing that everything is impermanent. This is true, as can be seen, whether or not you are a believer: everything is impermanent, everything is suffering.

This is what the Buddha said: one should examine the Buddhist teachings and, once convinced that they are genuinely true, one can accept them, not out of faith. So one can examine them for oneself in everyday life. Once examined, whatever you believe, it is reality and must be accepted. Therefore, these kinds of things are very useful even for non-believers or non-Buddhists.

In fact, Buddhism says there are two types of people: those who are guided by faith, like traditional Buddhist people, who from youth are on this path and therefore follow it naturally; and another type of people, who are not guided by faith but by logical reasons, and it is their own investigations that lead them to end up having faith."