Apech

Just some off the top of my head thoughts as I read this. 1 ) I wish more people on TTBs would read the first two lines 2 ) To me it reads like this. Most of us are caught up in the world where there is pressure to be right. Or rather to talk about how right you are. If you don't people think you are weak and stupid. They think this is being assertive but its actually just being noisy. As in "empty vessels make most sound". The sage goes beyond this ... he listens to people and knows that they don't know anything ... so he keeps his own counsel ... because they talk so much that they will never listen anyway. Add to this that the truth is ultimately inexpressible. 3 ) The sage lessens the disharmony, the jangly edges, the jumbled up-ness which also arise because of the speed of the world. Not to say being quick is wrong but being caught up in the knock knock of daily life is not what the sage does. He's interested in being integrated, quiet and wise ... the profound union within and with the way. Just some thoughts. PS. Its so peaceful here in the TTC sub-forum ... maybe there's something to this Taoism lark.

Would you like me to stick my head in a bucket of water?

Welcome to TTBs and look forward to these discussions. A.

I just thought I'd post this link in case anyone else is interested in these subjects. Henadology

I understood the character to mean a hill with trees removed based on Stigs posts above.

I think I half agree with you and half disagree. I'll give another historical example which will not please Vaj. (). In the lineage of Karma Kagyu Tib. Buddhism the stated role of (the saintly) Gampopa who was himself a student of Milarepa, was to merge the monastic tradition which was started by Atisha with the line if the siddhas (i.e Nilopa, Tilopa, Marpa, Milarepa ....). To me these are two classes of tradition. One orthodox Buddhism the other a line of mystics. While the second clearly saw themselves as being buddhists they were not monks and their activity was outside the 'normal' teachings - as the life of Gampopa illustrates. So its it possible to do what Gampopa is said to have done? Can genuine mysticism which is individual and spontaneously revelatory sit inside an organised orthodox system? If no ... then what purpose if any did Gampopa serve in establishing (through his successor Karmapa) the lineage? In other words can it be a comfortable home for a mystic or is there always a compromise in which the mystic will always either to have to break out ... or keep silent? The other way to look at it is ... to be properly individual you need something to kick at. This would give a kind of negative purpose to dogma. Lastly ... K's point ... if I understood it ... if the mystic dwells in truth and reality (the mystery) is truth ... then how can it be oppressed by lies anyway?

Was she well endowed ... with the spirit?

Hill empty of trees and dancing female shaman ... I like the fact that there are both images. Just a word for the hill (since everyone else seems to like the dancing shaman ... for obvious reasons I guess). Hill with trees ... the hill has trees and could be said to be 'a treed hill' or a 'wooded hill' ... remove the trees and you have just 'hill'. What has changed? Compare ...the subject has predicate .. remove the predicate and you have only subject. Something is happening ... a dance ... the dancer and the dance ... the person and the pattern of movement ... remove the predicates and you just have 'dancing' ... Hmmm ok carry on ...

What a brilliant question! Vaj says dive in and find out ... well presumably the persecuted mystics did just that. Going back to Big J ... why didn't he save himself (assuming he was enlightened) - Pontius Pilot asked him "What is truth" and he didn't answer. Sorry I am rambling. I'll come back when I have thought a bit more.

No I wasn't joking exactly just thinking out loud. Bruno was burned at the stake and I am sure many recanted simply because it was more ecominical to carry on in secret than to make a big statement by dieing. I know its a different field but look at Gallileo he recanted ... but was still right in the long run. No what i meant was that they (mostly) still used the terminology of the Judeo-Christian tradition ... the Godhead, Christ the logos and so on. Jesus himself seemed an ok bloke ... shame about the cross and all that. So running in secret behind the orthodox is a mystical tradition. The question is would this be possible if there was no orthodoxy.

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Well at least we don't speak a language called American . I think a case could be made for religions as vehicles for holding and preserving ideas through generations. In the west at any rate there have been individual mystics through history who reinterpret Christianity in a very individualist way and sort of make sense of it. Blake, Boehme and Bruno come to mind (why do they all begin with B???). Would they have been able to do this if there was no orthodox church?

I went to see Namkhai Norbu give a talk in London in 1979 (this is another of my lama stories). My friend came round and said that there was this talk on Dzogchen somewhere maybe Camden and so we drove across London and sat ina hall with maybe 200 people. He appeared with three or four Italians on stage (he was at Milan or Turin university a the time I think) - one of them was enormously overweight. They all wore little mirrors as pendants and this was part of talk. His talk was ok but quite Buddha-lite if you know what I mean - just basic four noble truths and a few funny stories (told in Italian and translated for us). They said that they had been somewhere and a guy had come up to them and assumed that the big fellow must be the lama because he was so large. That raised a laugh. At the end of the talk there was questions from the floor. My friend who I went with leaps to his feet and waves his arm. He wasn't the shy retiring type like me. Then he says in a loud voice (there was no mike): "Me and my friend," (points at me),"drove all the way across London and gave up an evening to come to a talk on Dzogchen. So far you haven't mentioned it at all. Maybe you could say something now so we haven't completely wasted our time." Needless to say every one of about 200 people turned to stare at us and I quietly willed a trap door to open under me so I could sink out of their gaze. There was a lot of tutting and gasping going on. Meanwhile the translator told the Lama the question, He replied, "I'm not going to talk about Dzogchen if I don't want to. If you have wasted your time then that's your problem." It always stuck in my mind as a great answer - probably because I expected a long boring blah blah about secret doctrines not this kind of 'tough shit' response. (Thank you for listening ... please carry on)

I got the impression she was married to Stephen B. who practices vajrayana - so she would know about samaya vows. I think the interesting thing about the 14 Root Downfalls while we're on the subject is that they do include 'not denigrating women'. Clearly whoever it was that formulated them realised that denigrating women was a problem, either culturally or personally and that people specifically had to be told 'don't do that if you want to be a good tantrika.' So I think she was spot on about the culture ... and I suppose it makes whatever Soggy gets up to even worse ... since he was a member of an 'elite' who had spefically agreed not to do these things. Mind you as you say in his own mind he probably thought he was doing them a favour. Yes, see above. Like everything there's good lamas and not so good ones. I have to say that SG's reputation amongst the Buddhist circles I mixed in a few years ago was not good. He was considered 'confused' and other lamas said this openly. I also never came across this total lama worship although the samaya vows were taught and emphasised along with the 5,000 verses of guru-yoga. The view seemed to be that you developed a relationship of trust (love even) over a long period of time with your lama ... ok they sat on high thrones to teach but in a one to one situation they were gentle, kind and tolerant and never put any pressure on (apart from urging you to practice). Maybe I was lucky. I think if there is any of this ... "you are special" stuff then that is pure manipulation and very un-dharmic if I can coin that phrase. But I still go back to the fact that I don't really care. I used to go and see these guys teach ... and for me it was more a question of what they knew and what they could impart. I wasn't ever interested in a god to worship or a saviour ... maybe that's just me.

Is this a fact or an allegation? If you are going to name someone like this in this context it could be libelous ... I suggest you remove it.

Hi, I don't want to watch it again but she says something like part of the problem was the place of women in trad Tibetan culture. My only point is that while this may be the case (that women were second class citizens) this view is specifically prohibited for those practicing tantra. So if a lama had this opinion of women they were already breaking their samaya. Perhaps the lama may have thought that in fancying and shagging young western women he was not denigrating them I don't know. For me the root is not the sex scandals which I don't actually care about much but the whole misunderstanding of the lama/guru thing. If the guru does anything they point out one's true nature and the true nature of reality for you. That is by being realised themselves they give you an external example (is that the right word) to resonate with ... so that you can benefit by getting closer to your own true nature. They don't give you anything because you already have it. So it is not necessary to suspend all caution and rationality ... in fact that would be a denial of your own buddha-nature. EVEN IF you regard your teacher as a Buddha you do not approach them in a gormless and naive way. You owe it to them and to yourself to keep your eyes open and your wits about you. If they try to pull the wool over your eyes and to act otherwise then pack up your cushion and move on.

Excellent interview ... but she's wrong on one point ... denigration of women is a Root Downfall (might be number 14 not sure) and thus a breach of samaya vows no matter what Tibetan culture generally might say about women for a tantrika it is not ok to regard women as second class beings or whatever. Here they are: 1. Contradicting one’s Guru or Lama. 2. Contradicting or denigrating the teachings of the Buddha or one’s Guru (Lama). 3. Quarreling with others on the same path. 4. Violating the Bodhisattva vows (in action, word or thought). 5. Violating the sacred drops in the heart chakra through illicit sexual activity. 6. Denigrating the teachings and paths of other systems. 7. Revealing secrets to non-initiates or those not ready to receive them. 8. Viewing the five aggregates that compose the psycho-physical continuum as impure. 9. Doubting one’s entrance into the path. 10. Having the ability to perceive the mental continuum of others and recognizing that someone in particular will commit great harm to others and not taking action. 11. Holding either of the extremist views of permanence or nihilism. 12. Refusing to teach someone who asks for teachings and is qualified to receive those teachings. 13. Superficial or dualistic clinging to appearances of pure/impure, good/bad etc. 14. Verbally or mentally denigrating women.

Quite probably.

Complicated area I think. I have had good teachers and none of them was him. I don't have a teacher currently and I wouldn't particularly look for one - I just practice see what happens. The guru thing is very confusing because I think it has a cultural base which is foreign in the west. My best teacher wouldn't go near that kind of thing but still managed to inspire great respect and love naturally. As an individual you cannot absolve responsibility for what you get into. If your teacher turns out to be a charleton (can't spell that word) then you have to deal with that. I can't think of a religion in the world that has not had sex scandals. This is because they involve people. Some people think its about joining a religion ... this makes you something or somebody ... it doesn't its just you with another tag.

I can claim to have met Sogyal Rinpoche in my friends flat in Manchester in 1973 (probably) ... he would have been at Cambridge doing comparative religion I guess. We were so disrespectful that we called him Soggy Old Rinpoche (we had no idea how to pronounce Tibetan names). I read his book years later of course and saw him give a talk ... also that bloody awful film he was in ... Little Buddha was it? Anyway I would say he is far from being a great master but of course that's my op. He likes to sleep with a lot of women .. so what? Some of those women feel used ... again ... not surprised. Its kiss and tell almost ... happens to politicians, rock stars, business men, sportsmen ... so again ... so what? Its all rubbish lets get on with our practice.

Suspension or banning only comes into play for either something very extreme or repeated ignoring of warnings. So yes, systematic an disruptive. The rule is one thing ... its a statement of how we would like to see people interact ... how it is enforced is another ...

The Guardian article is a very poor one IMO. I am not defending Sogyal Rinpoche - I don't think he is the best example of a lama one could have - and I think he has been seduced himself by western culture of celebrity. But the abuse allegations have to be proven and the article is written without any question as to whether they are true at all. ''How can a fat little man attract pretty girls " ... whatever ... well look around you. What exactly was the abuse? Is it just that he had sex with them ... or something worse? The writer doesn't understand samaya properly. No I would need to know more to draw any conclusion from this.

This is exactly the point. As I see it the mod rules are not about quashing debate but about helping it move past this point. So when you are about to type "you stupid moron" you stop for a minute take a breath ... then tell then exactly why you were thinking that ... Its difficult because people have different boundaries. Some people are very sensitive to insult and others its water of a ducks back .... they don't even notice. So for me respect each other is just about that 10 sec gap where you draw breath and think what do I actually want to say to this person.

Hi, I can't do your pp forum - only sean I think maybe Mal - but I can change your user name ... do you want your log in to change as well or remain the same?

I still think it has to be a majority of a group to make any sense. The speaker can be wrong of course and it may just be their mistaken opinion that it is a majority when in fact it is not. I already made this point. I wasn't arguing. I just wanted to to make sure that you were saying what you seemed to be saying because I found it hard to believe that that was what you thought. Enough from me ... carry on if you must.