Apech

To me it's just the French for bread.

The First Law Determines the Rest

TFLD;R

Yes, that's what I did - talk about them. Eh? There is no political oversight - it doesn't exist. Mostly good - with a few worrying cases of abuse. That's what we read.

In my experience of actual dharma centres a great deal of kindness and care is extended to all. It is a Mahayana practice (lojong) to place others needs before your own. And ok there's a mixture of all sorts involved but I personally saw this idea generally respected. Again in the centres I am linked to they have adopted various codes of conduct and so - a bit superfluous in my opinion as dharma is in itself such a code - but for better or worse they have modern type policy documents and a system for reportiing abuse and harassment etc. I think most of it can be attributed to the over consumption of saki. Not really. This is a big subject (and I'm not sure what abuse you are accusing Marpa of anyway) but properly understood the stories about Tilopa and Naropa are not about abuse - it is that some disreputable Lamas misrepresent them this way in order to gain power over others. I think this is true in the monastic orders. Rather like the Catholic Church there are internal cultural problems. Rinpoche (lit. precious one) signifies like the term tulku that the person has been recognised as a reincarnate lama. I don't see how once given anyone would be able to revoke it - 'you've been a naughty boy and now you are no longer reincarnate'. Teaching authority would come with a lineage transmission which someone holds and this could be from a long dead lama - so unless the lama still lives and decides to act I don't see what authority could take away teaching authority. The Dalai Lama is a political head and also the head of only one of the four main schools. In the Nyingmapa school I believe there is no head as such and therefore no such authority structure.

Well as I said before if these Lamas actually taught a curicullum of vajrayana Buddhism (or actually Mahayana Buddhism first) as they should - including Tsarchen Losal Gyamtso's "Opening the Door to the Precious Siddhis" this would not have happened. In terms of those who show up at Dharma centres there's a kind of weird two way problem. Firstly 'fringe' religions attract a lot of weak and damaged people who are understandably looking for help or a way out of the unhelpful circumstances they have been born into. The last thing such people should take on is the strong medicine of vajrayana. They need a long period of gentle settling down and sorting their life out ('clean their room' to quote a certain popular gentleman) - but this can appear rather boring and unlikely to help the desperate. The other 'problem' is that turning away or abandoning sentient beings is not allowed for a bodhisattva - so you really can't say - sorry but come back when you're sorted. Dharma isn't therapy, not to say that Buddhists can't offer therapy. But this means that many Dharma centres are full of weak and vulnerable people. Whereas they should be full of high flying top minds looking for a great challenge. There is another issue of a tradition of mahasiddha transgressiveness - which has a long history both in India and Tibet (and in Hindu schools also) - where rather like the Greek Diogenes their is an idea of kind of testing out the 'one flavour' of shunyata by performing antinomian acts , often in public, such as having sex with prostitutes (I won't go on), to break any attachment to worldly concerns. This has caused a lot of head scratching in the west - it was termed Crazy Wisdom by one Tulku. The answer is simple actually. Normal rules of society apply and if such yogis do something illegal then they should be prosecuted and imprisoned like anyone else. If they are truly non-attached then this should mean nothing to them. If they are not then they will find out quite quickly that their 'enlightenment' was illusory.

well exactly as in a marriage for instance not to be entered into lightly!

i am not sure what you mean by goodwill - can you expand that point a little?

Yes indeed and it goes deeper than this. The teachings in vajrayana specifically deal with interaction with the Lama in a number of ways - there are specific texts on this - and just to give a feel there should be a 12 years period where the student assess the Lama to see if he is genuine in knowledge and conduct and so on. And specifically it is stated that if a Lama asks a student to do something un-dharmic (like sexual misconduct) one must refuse and walk away. Clearly the teaching of these things was deliberately neglected and naive westerners left to become victims. Cultish behaviour with cover ups and so on compounded the damage. It is all quite reprehensible. But the vajrayana is a dangerous path - because it is potent. This is why the samaya vows in vajrayana are very strict. For instance it is a root downfall to 'disparage women' - and I wonder if Kalu Rinpoche (senior) had forgotten this!!! When it is properly taught - it is very respectful, calm, gentle and kind. Because it is known that misdirecting psycho-spiritual energies can be very destructive.

I agree I can’t see the tulku system lasting much longer. I think we’ve discussed the many cases of sexual misconduct before on here. There’s no excuse for any of them.

'Media scrutiny' i.e. because of his political position (not his Buddhist one) he is forced to recant a humourous remark to save being cancelled. That's progress alright.

Something to chew on : "My advice, don't be a ""Buddhist."" At the end of the day, it's all about personal gain, fame and business. Just be a person with a good heart, that's the meaning of a true Dharma practitioner. We live in illusion and appearance of things. There is a reality to this. We are that reality. When you understand this you see you're nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That's all. " Kalou Rinpoche My father said about enlightenment many very beautiful things that were beyond my comprehension, which led me to forge my own version: becoming a Buddha was to never be agitated, angry or jealous again. I must have been six or seven years old then and I blame myself for being lazy. Plus I used to be silly. I believed that if I accessed Awakening, I would overcome these problems, become sturdy, be healthy, be free from my fears and flaws. Better yet, lighting would erase any negative memories I might have experienced. Inspired by this happy conclusion, I once asked my father: "When I have accessed enlightenment, will I still remember myself?" Of who I used to be? " He said to me "It's not like that. Awakening is more about self discovery. He added: If you have a handful of diamonds but don't know what they are, you'll treat them like pebbles. Once you recognize that they are diamonds, you can exploit their precious qualities. Becoming a Buddha is like discovering a diamond in your hand. You discover yourself, you don't get rid of yourself. " Yongey Mingyour Rinpoche - From Confusion to Clarity.

You haven’t demolished any dogma and I don’t even know why you think you have.

Today I don’t have the energy but everything you say here is wrong.

I keep wanting to join into this conversation but it has been taken somewhere it would take an age just to address some of the quite bizarre ideas that have been floated. But I am in favour of people finding their own paths and being their own teachers, if they can, so I just salute you all. 07

Most Buddhist Dzogchen teachers are Nyingmapa which upholds the Prasangika madhyamika - which is a kind of ultimate scepticism regarding the reification of anything and thus emptiness is emphasised.

but…but … what do I do if my talents are far from modest?

Brother Luke as always another pearl.

Complete means literally 'full' and a 'system' is an arrangement of parts to make a whole. A complete system would be a like a once and for all method for enlightenment, like a kind of mega-manual which contained all the answers. This in itself is I think a) impossible and b ) undesirable. In fact I don't think Buddhism (or any other genuine path such as Daoism and so on) is a system at all. Even though people spend their best efforts to make it so. Fundamentally you can't capture the absolute in a finite (or set of finitudes). I once saw a documentary about a Zen sect which held that if you could walk a particular (literal) path wearing a very large and heavy hat - it was a very long walk which few had attempted - without assistance then you would achieve Buddhahood. The documentary showed one young chap attempt this - and he more or less succeeded - and at the end was declared a living Buddha. This is a kind of rudimentary example of believing in a defined method, step by step, for enlightenment. It is tosh of course but is the kind of thing people like to believe. Its the same kind of thing as when you see people prostrating their way long distances to distant temples - these are exercises which someone might undertake (and all to the good quite often) but they have no automatic result. Buddhism is a bit prone to this kind of thing - repeat this mantra a million times and hey presto. No it doesn't work. I'm not saying that there are no benefits in anything like this but simply a system or method is only a kind of training to help develop confidence. And that the goal itself is beyond the conceptual framing of any system. Buddhism or buddhadharma is not static. This can be easily seen by looking at how it moved from culture to culture and through time adapting to circumstances but without loosing it's essence as dharma. People like to claim it became contaminated through this process but that is not true. Although it is fair to say in this Kali Yuga there is a continual tendency for entropy to cause things to break down. Very often in Buddhist history there was a need for a great master to put things straight where corrupt practices and beliefs had intervened. But people mistake adaptability for contamination. In Buddhism you take refuge in the three jewels. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The most important of these is the Buddha. And in this case it is the Buddha's enlightenment itself in which you are taking refuge. So the highest appeal, if you like, is to the realisation that the Buddha had - that which made him the Buddha. This realisation is beyond concept and even personality. In a way you are taking refuge in the truth that perfect liberation and perfect wisdom is real, for all sentient beings. This is not temporarily true or subject to change or updating. From the earliest times people paid homage to this fact, through various forms of practice such as the circumambulation of stupas and so on. The Buddha's realisation was complete and does not require updating because it will remain true no matter what we discover through neuroscience or whatever.

I don't know of Warder particularly but he seems to belong to a particular class of British academic who while they made great contributions to 'Indology' and the like, indulged themselves somewhat, as do the current batch of Oxford people like Gombridge, in allowing themselves to 'objectively' have a superior knowledge of Buddhism than Buddhists themselves. I would suggest that the reason 'Zen folks' like to quote 'the unborn mind' is because it relates closely to actual realisations achieved through Zen practice. I think it is a fundamental mistake to replace actual practice and realisation with academic skepticism and 'objectivity' (although they are useful things some of the time) - because the Western academic approach is based on Protestant scriptural criticism and analysis. One of the mistakes western scholars made on studying dharmic religion was to project onto it the same kind of desire for original correctness and not see the developed path as a whole.

i’m a very boring cat once I get going.

Seriously?

I could argue it is, or I could argue it isn't - which would you like?

I remember everything - unfortunately - 'sexcapades', genderwarz, Buddhawarz ... KAP/Kunlun ... it seems gentler now - maybe we're all just older and bit calmer.

Yes I would have said Dzogchen - of both the Buddhist and Bon varieties. It became very popular because of Namkhai Norbu I think.