OK, back at the ranch. (edited this morning)
Language is problematical, it's so hard to communicate accurately or to be quite sure what others mean. But here goes.
First off I'm not a highly trained Buddhist, and so may not be reflecting teaching accurately in some cases. But as you've said R there's an enormous range of views within Buddhism - to the point that we're unlikely to be stuck to find a version you can work with or draw on to advantage.
But it certainly raises the point that what we perceive Buddhism to be can vary quite a bit depending on what part we've been exposed to, how it was taught, and how we interpreted it.
At the most basic level Tibetan and other Mahayana teaching sees different people as having differing levels of intellectual and spiritual capability, and as being at differing points on the path, and hence having differing teaching and practice needs.
The highest teachings around emptiness and Buddha nature (the higher realities) are very subtle, and easily misunderstood - they tend to circle meaning rather than to state it directly. They require a lot of intuition - too much linear thinking, literal interpretation of words and intellectual a thought process tends to run into trouble. There's also the case of the more basic Hinayana teachings which emphasise rule based living in a very normal physical reality while practicing meditation - they are aimed at the more limited/beginning student, and expressed in conventional language. (these levels of teaching build on each other as the student progresses)
Add to this other rarer strands of Buddhism emphasising ritual and repetitive practice rather than understanding and insight and it can all become a very confusing morass. Native Buddhism seems in some cases to even involve almost worship of the Buddha, but this would be regarded by most as a corruption. 'Indestructible Truth' and 'Secret of the Vajra World' by Reginald Ray (Shambhala) is the best single overview of the Tibetan Buddhist path that I know of.
Different people as before can connect very differently. How we respond being a reflection too of where we ourselves are. Especially you find people that get hung up on observance, chasing after teachers, ritual and specific beliefs - they often use these to self serving and egotistical ends. They may become rather dry, pious and judgemental as a result. (a phenomenon that arises in all religious systems)
But that's not what's taught, it's recognised as a problem. I mentioned Chogyam Trungpa's 'Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism' before as setting out some of the traps.
Much of the view I tend to express is Tibetan Mahayana in flavour, but a lot is from my own reading rather than directly received teaching and probably reflects quite a lot of me.
It seems too that even at the same level there can be quite big differences in approach and emphasis - even between authorised teachers - with some handing higher stuff out to beginners, while others hold the same back for advanced students. Chogyam Trungpa was way out there in the way he in fact very radically stripped away cultural baggage (both Western and Eastern) to expose the core of the highest teachings in action. But not everybody 'got it'.
Eastern forms tend to be heavily ritualistic and to carry a lot of the trappings of their original culture. The same schools teaching in the West may be much less so, but it depends on the teacher. It's very far from being a monolith, and has a long history of evolving according to the local culture and particular needs of those receiving the teaching.
I wouldn't necessarily have picked up the same flavour R on those topics on which you express concern. For example.
Primordial (highest) mind is portrayed (and more importantly experienced) as very much alive (as the true basis of our being in fact), and as transformative at our interface with it - it's the source of basic goodness and of all of the higher instincts - or Grace. PUL if you like. We run astray besically because the ego can become so noisy that it drowns it out, but it's still there.
The emphasis on practice and experiential learning in Buddhism makes it harder to get off track and unlikely it's going to differ greatly from other working traditions
provided we can get far enough past ego to take it on this basis. (which is actually a big ask)
There's any number of higher beings, phenomena and entities (deities, asuras, emanations of the Buddhas etc) with which one can actively engage and work. Albeit very Buddhist and Eastern in description, but I think that's just a relic of the local culture. All are actually embodiments of aspects of the various levels of higher and more ordinary ego mind, and as such if correctly conceived must ultimately be culturally coloured descriptions of manifestations accessible by all from all cultures and traditions.
Working directly with forces and entities in the way we sometimes talk of here is however regarded as a high risk/high return deal due to the potential for getting sidetracked by ego into misusing capability or de-stablising mind, and is normally only responsibly taught in close teacher/student relationships to advanced students.
These are the Vajrayana or Tantric teachings. I'm not sure what the truth of this is, but I guess the proven reliability of teachings at the lower levels, and stories of misuse of higher abilities in Atlantis and some of the S American Indian traditions gives pause for thought. The saying is that the Vajrayana student is like a snake in a bamboo tube - it's straight up, or straight down and the stakes are very high both ways.
These higher teachings are not for the faint hearted, and go far beyond the sort of dabblings we usually talk of here. (in that they very purposely and quite aggressively target breakdown of the ego - which for the student feels like breakdown of him/her self) When fully engaged these approaches produce selflessness or a mind capable of living with groundlessness, without a need for being propped up by beliefs. This is not a comfortable nor a risk free process. Hence the emphasis on working with a realised teacher, starting only after extensive preliminaries are completed and sufficient stability is achieved.
Practice is not standardised, although there seems to be a well understood spiritual path along which we evolve. (taught overtly only at the highest levels though - it's usually info. on an 'as needs' basis if you are a student - there's good reason for this) There's a myriad of practices which are carefully chosen from to suit the needs of differing students (which vary a lot) by a good teacher at the various stages.
At the lower levels it's much more standardised, basically because it's deemed that we need to first develop the required equanimity and stability of mind before attempting to work with higher practices - it takes years of just plain slog on the meditation cushion.
A major issue (a personal observation) with Buddhism in the West (perhaps in the East also) is the difficulty in accessing a skilled/realised teacher to work 1:1 with in this manner - this may give the impression of a one size fits all approach.
I'm not arguing against reincarnation Alysia. In fact the opposite, it seems to me very reasonable that as is taught it can take very many lifetimes to get the knots out of ourselves. It's hard to judge where we might be on the path, and there's a long tradition of valuing committed and dynamic engagement on the basic that while it's a bit risky that a cautious over conservative life delivers little by way of growth. Tibetan Buddhism is for example full of stories of thieves, murderers and brigands achieving realisation.
These lives may not all be on earth though, Buddhism postulates a series of realms we can move between. (although it regards human life as optimum for spiritual growth by providing the right balance of hardship and opportunity to grow) I suspect too (but don't know for sure) that it'd have no problem with the idea of our being reincarnated on other worlds for example. Exactly how the higher vibration level realities that surface in say theories of levels of the seven heavens map to Buddhist thought I haven't a clue. Exact mechanisms are not emphasised, at least not at the lower levels anyway. But I figure whatever the reality is it'll sort itself out when I get there unless I'm silly enough to get hung up on rigid beliefs.
Buddhism would definitely agree that attachment (to emotions, beliefs, material goods or to anything else) is a problem, although it would add aversion (fear of things) and ignorance (not knowing how self/reality operates) to the list. Attachment and aversion are collectively termed 'grasping'. All act to prevent seeing things as they are, which in turn causes us to presume an individually existing self capable of acting independently of the surrounding reality, which in turn prevents us from living from love.
Ditto that learning to live through love is what its about. (but this may bring you places you might never have dreamed of when starting out - like dropping belief in existence of self and of this reality)
The above three are a lot about stripping away ego. Ego is not well defined at the levels I've read, but clearly in life there's stuff that's harmful because our attachment to it as a belief system blocks clear seeing. It also includes stuff that's needed just to allow us to function in the world which is useful. It's all dropped with death. When reborn we normally (apart from a few with high levels of recollection of past lives which anyway are only very partial) have to learn to handle ourselves in the new reality again - all that usually comes through is karma/attributes.
Buddhism suggests that once we achieve egolessness we can (barring we decide to continue being reborn to help others) transcend samasara or this time space cause/consequence reality. Basically (I think) because we hold it (dream it) in existence by our belief in the existence of it and of a separate independently existing self - once we see past the belief its optional.
Buddhism as above regards the above idea of an independent self and of the existence of the total reality that is samsara (this and the afterlife reality) as being a delusion that we grasp after - that we mistakenly decide that body, thinking discursive mind and higher awareness are all inextricably linked as part of an individual entity (self or me) living in an independently existing reality.
And tend to hope/think/grasp after belief that it as a result can continue largely unchanged through the afterlife/bardos. When in fact as above most of what seems like 'self' (body and thinking mind) fall away after death and only core attributes/karmic tendencies survive to go on to build a new body and mind in the next life. The karma/attributes that make it through the afterlife/bardos seems to have no absolute existence either because they seem to get shed once we get over our attachment to beliefs.
This goes against the grain for most of us (we grasp after survival in the afterlife as we are in life), but its to hard to argue against after experiencing the separation of awareness and thinking mind in meditation.
This last is perhaps what makes reincarnation not quite what it may commonly be understood as.
As best I figure it primordial/unitary/absolute mind is not divided into chunks of which we each hold a part to be eventually brought back together at God level. (it's after all supposed to be unity) That said it simultaneously manifests in the individual, and is the source of the higher instincts. (loving tendencies and so on) In most of us it operates alongside ego.
It's the ego from the life just completed that gets blenderised or taken apart in the bardos/afterlife. Somewhere along the way this produces clear seeing of the past life - the awareness separates from the ego/karmic tendencies that were blinding/deluding/obscuring it. The karmic tendencies manifest externally as the wrathful and peaceful deities. If particularly frightening (we have lots of bad karma, or if we are fearful as a result of not having stabilised our mind enough through meditation practice in the past life) these can propel us into a very spiritually disadvantageous rebirth. (bad life circumstances, wrong realm or whatever) If we carry less negative karma and have good control of mind then we may have more control over the nature of our rebirth. Either way the life we reincarnate to (barring accidents) is presumably what we need to learn the lessons we need.
The attributes and karmic tendencies are somehow recombined with primordial awareness on rebirth in a new physical body to create a new being in the new life. Which then starts the process of learning to function in the new reality, and in doing so either builds more karma (in a disadvantageous or badly lived life), or gets rid of more of what it brought into the world. (in a spiritually advantageous life)
It's the perspective that gives rise to what's expressed in the central teaching of Buddhism, the Heart Sutra - 'form is emptiness, emptiness is form'. Meaning that individual egotistical self and samasara/this reality (form) has no absolute existence beyond egotistical self's belief in it. (its empty of reality) So our reality both exists (or is at least perceived as existing), but does not in any absolute sense do so.
Some eastern (Indian) teachings have tended towards teaching that how we live in this life consequently does not matter. Buddhism says that it does very much, because while if we can transcend it that it (the dream or the belief that we exist) ceases to exist from our new perspective and then does not matter. But that while we're in the dream (believing in the existence of a self and an surrounding reality) that correct behaviour is required if we are to wake up.
The logic of this is that the suffering that results from wrong behaviours in the dream forces us into ever more intense attachment to the belief that the dream is real. e.g we harm others, so they turn on us. The resulting fear and suffering which is the result of a belief in a physical self that can be harmed actually strengthens our belief in the existence of that self. I think, I hurt, I fear so therefore I am.
Descartes it seems saw it only from the ego perspective.
Clear as mud.....
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