The Ethics of Exchange with the More-Than-Human in the Tibetan Treasure Tradition

This paper seeks to explore the more-than-human elements of the Tibetan Treasure tradition (gter ma), specifically the ways in which the Treasure tradition is based on an ethic of exchange between humans and the Tibetan land. The paper will explore three specific dimensions of this ethic of exchange, namely 1) the revelation process as one in which Treasure revealers extract Treasures and deposit Treasure substitutes (gter tshab), 2) the ways in which the Treasure tradition incorporates Indigenous Tibetan land-based presences in the form of Treasure guardians (gter srung), and 3) the expression “samaya bond between sacred land and guest” (gnas mgron gyi dam tshig) as a meaningful expression of a Tibetan ethics of hospitality between the agentic earth and its human guests.