A Little History: More than 2500 years ago, before Buddha Shakyamuni was born, various spiritual and philosophical systems of thought existed in India. The Buddha integrated in his own teachings some of the themes and practices of these systems of thought, such as the cultivation of single-pointedness of the mind to develop calm abiding, and various meditation practices aimed at reducing the levels of attachment. On the basis of these and other spiritual teachings, the Buddha developed a unique system of thought and practice centered on the key insight that there is no independently existing or 'real' self. This is the teaching of no-self, known in sanskrit as anatman.

The Buddha taught, his fundamental teachings, the Four Noble Truths - the truth of suffering, the truth of its origin, the truth of the cessation and the truth of the path leading to cessation soon after his attainment of enlightenment as part of what is know as the first turning of the Wheel of Dharma.

The Buddha's teaching on the Four Noble Truths can prove extremely helpful because it relates directly to our own experiences, especially to our inborn desire to seek happiness and overcome suffering. .. the above is an extract from the book 'Lighting The Path' by His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama

Ven Kunchok Rinzin is of the Gelug-pa tradition and has trained in the Vajrayana stream.

Gelug-pa Founded by Tsong-kha-pa (1357-1419) as a reform movement within Tibetan Buddhism, followers acclaimed the third teacher as an incarnation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, thus inaugurating the line of the Dalai Lama, the fourteenth and most recent of whom was born in 1935. Emphasis in this lineage is on a strict monastic discipline and on the conviction that the bodhisattva, a Buddha who has foregone final nirvana out of compassion for all sentient beings, is continually present. This tradition remains dynamic even after coming into exile. The major Gelug monasteries, Sera, Drepung, Ganden, and Tashi Lhunpo monasteries and Gyumey Tantric College have been re-established in various Tibetan settlements in Karnataka, and Gyutö Tantric College has been re-established in Bomdila, Arunachal Pradesh, all in India.

Vajrayana This is the kind of Buddhism predominant in the Himalayan nations of Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and also Mongolia. It is known as Vajrayana because of the ritual use of the vajra, a symbol of imperishable diamond, of thunder and lightning. At the center of Tibetan Buddhism is the religious figure called the lama, Tibetan for "guru"," source of another of its names, Lamaism. Several major lineages of lamas developed, beginning in the ninth century with the Nyingma-pa. Two centuries later, Sarma-pa divided into the Sakya-pa and the Kagyu-pa. Three hundred years later, one of Tibet's revered lamas, Tsong-kha-pa, founded the reforming Gelug-pa........Info sourced from www.buddha.net