Apech

1 hour ago, steve said:

 

In my work, I deal with people facing pain and fear on a daily basis.

Generally speaking I find women to be "tougher" than men in terms of dealing with pain.

Big, strong, tough looking men often have the most difficulty, as do adolescent and young adult men.

I think that "tough guy" mask is precisely there to help the person convince themselves, and others, they are tougher than they feel. 

Another clue to how someone will handle pain is how they view their own pain tolerance.

When someone tells me they can take a LOT of pain, they generally cannot.

When they tell me they don't do well with pain, they usually do just fine. 

We never see ourselves more clearly than when we see ourselves through the eyes of others. 

To me it's just the French for bread.

1 hour ago, Nungali said:

 

 

 

 

 

Thermal Facial Landmark Detection  .... for  Pirates  ? 

The First Law Determines the Rest

18 hours ago, Nungali said:

Like the guy that goes around threatening to beat people up 'taking the law into his own hands '  .... but when  someone challenges him , that he is worried about ....

 

runs off to the police for protection   .

 

Here is what I consider a 'tough man '  , even if  others do not think so, one has to admit he was 'earnest ' .

 

On 24 February, realising that they would be trapped until the following spring, Shackleton ordered the abandonment of ship's routine and her conversion to a winter station.^[139]Endurance drifted slowly northward with the ice through the following months. When spring arrived in September, the breaking of the ice and its later movements put extreme pressures on the ship's hull.^[140]

 

Shackleton had been hoping that the ship, when released from the ice, could work her way back towards Vahsel Bay, but his hopes were dashed on 24 October when water began pouring in. After a few days, with the position at 69°5′ S, 51°30′ W, he gave the order to abandon ship, saying, "She's going down!"; and men, provisions and equipment were transferred to camps on the ice.^[141] On 21 November 1915, the wreck of Endurance finally slipped beneath the surface.^[142][h]

For almost two months, Shackleton and his party camped on a large, flat floe, hoping that it would drift towards Paulet Island, approximately 250 miles (402 km) away, where it was known that stores were cached.^[145] After failed attempts to march across the ice to this island, Shackleton decided to set up another more permanent camp (Patience Camp) on another floe, and trust to the drift of the ice to take them towards a safe landing.^[146] By 17 March, their ice camp was within 60 miles (97 km) of Paulet Island;^[147] however, separated by impassable ice, they were unable to reach it. On 9 April, their ice floe broke into two, and Shackleton ordered the crew into the lifeboats and to head for the nearest land.^[148]

After five harrowing days at sea, the exhausted men landed their three lifeboats at Elephant Island, 346 miles (557 km) from where the Endurance had sunk.^[149] This was the first time they had set foot on solid ground for 497 days.^[150] Shackleton's concern for his men was such that he gave his mittens to photographer Frank Hurley, who had lost his own mittens during the boat journey. Shackleton suffered frostbitten fingers as a result.^[151]

Open-boat journey

Main article: Voyage of the James Caird

Launching the James Caird from the shore of Elephant Island, 24 April 1916

Elephant Island was an inhospitable place, far from any shipping routes. Rescue by means of a chance discovery was very unlikely, so Shackleton decided to risk an open-boat journey to the South Georgia whaling stations where he knew help would be available.^[152] The strongest of the tiny 20-foot (6.1 m) lifeboats, christened James Caird after the expedition's chief sponsor, was chosen for the trip.^[152][153] Ship's carpenter Harry McNish made various improvements, which included raising the sides, strengthening the keel, building a makeshift deck of wood and canvas, and sealing the work with oil paint and seal blood.^[152]

Shackleton chose five companions for the journey:^[153] the ship's captain Frank Worsley, who would be responsible for navigation; Tom Crean, who had "begged to go"; two strong sailors in John Vincent and Timothy McCarthy; and McNish.^[152] The carpenter had earlier clashed with Shackleton when the party was stranded on the ice but, while not forgetting his earlier insubordination, Shackleton recognised McNish's value for this particular job.^[154]

Shackleton insisted on packing only enough supplies to last for four weeks, knowing that if they failed to reach South Georgia within that time, the boat and its crew would be lost.^[155] The James Caird was launched on 24 April 1916;^[153] during the next fifteen days, it sailed through the waters of the southern ocean, at the mercy of the stormy seas and in peril of capsizing. Thanks to Worsley's navigational skills, the cliffs of South Georgia came into sight on 8 May, but hurricane-force winds prevented any possibility of landing. The party was forced to ride out the storm offshore, in continual danger of being dashed against the rocks. They later learned that the same storm had sunk a 500-ton steamer bound for South Georgia from Buenos Aires.^[156]

The next day, they were able to land on the unoccupied southern shore, and a period of rest and recuperation followed. Rather than risking another sea journey to reach the whaling stations on the northern coast, Shackleton decided to attempt a land crossing of the island. Although it is likely that Norwegian whalers had already crossed the island at other points on ski, no one had previously attempted this particular route.^[157] For their journey, the men were only equipped with boots they had adapted for climbing by pushing screws into the soles, a carpenter's adze, and 50 feet (15 m) of rope. Leaving McNish, Vincent and McCarthy at the landing point on South Georgia, Shackleton travelled with Worsley and Crean over 32 miles (51 km)^[149] of dangerous mountainous terrain for 36 hours, reaching the whaling station at Stromness on 20 May.^[158]

The next successful crossing of South Georgia was in October 1955, by the British explorer Duncan Carse, who travelled much of the same route as Shackleton's party. In tribute to their achievement, he wrote: "I do not know how they did it, except that they had to—three men of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration with 50 feet of rope between them—and a carpenter's adze".^[159]

Rescue

"All Safe, All Well", allegedly depicting Shackleton's return to Elephant Island in August 1916. To create this image, a photograph of the departure of the James Caird in April 1916 was doctored by photographer Frank Hurley.^[160]

Shackleton immediately sent a boat to pick up the three men from the other side of South Georgia Island, while he set to work organising the rescue of those left behind on Elephant Island. His first three attempts were foiled by sea ice, which blocked the approaches to the island. He appealed to the Chilean government and was offered the use of the Yelcho, a small seagoing tug from the Chilean Navy. Yelcho, commanded by Captain Luis Pardo, and the British whaler Southern Sky, reached Elephant Island on 30 August 1916, at which point the men had been isolated there for four and a half months. Shackleton quickly evacuated all 22 men.^[161] The party was taken on Yelcho first to Punta Arenas and after some days to Valparaíso in Chile, where crowds warmly welcomed them back to civilisation.^[162]

There remained the men of the Ross Sea party, who had been stranded at Cape Evans in McMurdo Sound when their ship, the Aurora, was blown from its anchorage and driven out to sea, unable to return. After a drift of many months, the ship had returned to New Zealand. Shackleton travelled there to join Aurora, and sailed with her to rescue the Ross Sea party which, despite many hardships, had successfully completed its depot-laying mission. However, three lives had been lost, including that of its commander Aeneas Mackintosh.^[163]

 

 

Then, when he finally got home , suffering from exhaustion , he enlisted in the army due to the ongoing WWI .

TFLD;R

57 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

I wasn't talking in specific about the centres you visit, only you can talk about these.

Yes, that's what I did - talk about them.

57 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

Well let's not call abuse abuse then call it cultural or lama politics etc.

Eh?

57 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

Catholics too are scrutinised and scrutiny is a good thing for these institutions.

If a system can't fix itself, then it's up to journalists and the legal system.

 

Where there is will there is effort, they could have a public dB if they wanted with Rinpoches that are no longer endorsed by the political branch if they wanted to. This is just semantics there are many ways to call it out if they wanted to

There is no political oversight - it doesn't exist.

57 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

Where there is no will on the other hand there is ... what we read in the news about them

Mostly good - with a few worrying cases of abuse.  That's what we read.

2 hours ago, snowymountains said:

 

I agree re the group of people that are attracted to Dharma centres, it's in line with my anecdotal experience, and this btw is the main reason I'm very critical of meditative techniques that involve eg regressions.

People in weakness are still people though, they're not an alien intelligence, it could be that our children or ourselves in a few years that are in their shoes.

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.

2 hours ago, snowymountains said:

So there's need for enforcement of a code of conduct internally. The centres are not there to do therapy, correct, so they won't be able to help the student side on that front but they can enforce standards on the teacher side.

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.

2 hours ago, snowymountains said:

What was attributed till recently to "crazy wisdom" went beyond that scope, even raw physical abuse was called "crazy wisdom"..

I think most of it can be attributed to the over consumption of saki.

2 hours ago, snowymountains said:

Even revered figures like Marpa, Tilopa were abusers, so a degree of normalisation is there.

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.

2 hours ago, snowymountains said:

If one day abuse was proven to be an intergenerational theme in Tibetan Buddhism, I wouldn't be surprised tbh, given the scale. As @SirPalomides said, they themselves may had been victims of abuse.

 

So internal preventive and punitive measures are badly needed, to break the cycle, but this needs leadership which takes this very seriously and makes it a top priority.

I think this is true in the monastic orders.  Rather like the Catholic Church there are internal cultural problems.

2 hours ago, snowymountains said:

So far it's only in countries with strong legal systems that they've faced consequences for abuse

Did some of these cases really need to be allowed to exist till they reach the legal system.. wouldn't it had been better if Rinponche titles and support had instead been revoked before?

 

 

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.

17 hours ago, snowymountains said:

To be practical see eg this case

Given the environment she grew up in, her very young age, was she realistically in a position see it coming beforehand? ( This one is on trial btw do we don't yet know for sure what happened )

 

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.  

29 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

I mean there are little mechanisms in place proactively preventing misdeeds, it depends almost entirely on the character of the teacher.

If the character is a good one, all good. If not, then abuse happens more easily.

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

7 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

I've met Vajrayana teachers who are clean sheets and I also know this from long term female students of theirs, so the degree of confidence is quite high. Clearly not everyone is like that, and indeed they were calm and personable people with a good energy.

 

The core imo is that a Guru model allows more room for that in that checks and balances depend too much on goodwill - same applies to the Christian confessor model which is meant to be a lifelong relationship, with similar issues appearing there.

There are also other issues with these models not related to abuse but let's leave that for a future 🧵

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

18 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

The question also is if turning a blind eye is a norm.

 

There have been cases where the victims were actually dismissed when they spoke up.

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.

3 hours ago, SirPalomides said:

The whole tulku system is corrupt, abusive, and generally ridiculous. The tulkus may well be victims themselves... I suspect the experience of the poor second Kalu Rinpoche is hardly unique (incidentally the prior Kalu Rinpoche was quite the creep). As for the Dalai Lama, leaving aside the weird incident with the kid, he's shown he will meet with anyone who can shell out the cash. And if you're, say, the owner of a Mongol mining conglomerate he might even recognize your son as a tulku. 

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.

39 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

He's also backpedaled on his view that a female Dalai Lama needs to be attractive 🤔

 

Media scrutiny is a great thing today, which didn't exist in the ancient times nor in the middle ages

 

 

 

 

'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.

7 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

In full subject/object form this would be

 

You find the ideas bizarre

 

Which could also be about the "you" part, not the "ideas" part - and to be clear to avoid misinterpretations, I clearly do not mean this neither in a pathological nor a personal sense.

To spell it out even more clearly, no implication of something being "wrong" with you is meant by this, "you" could be anyone instead of you in specific.

 

Rather what I mean is that sometimes demolishing religious dogma also has to do with us, not the arguments against the dogma, as it's a complicated process.

 

The context matters, and in this case the context is an open discussion where a member asked for reasons to abolish or question the Buddhist dogma.

Which is why sometimes arguments showing objective ( as in not relying on religious dogmas) flaws in the dogma are presented against mostly self-referential points from within the dogma.

In this process an argument such as but the Buddha had a perfect enlightenment doesn't hold because we're not discussing it from a self-referential theological point of view.

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

24 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

In a lot of the posts, we're not saying at all what's to be done at sitting time during meditation though.

This actually stays intact, unaffected by this discussion.

 

We're instead saying there are important exercises missing and some of the goals of the curriculum are false premises.

This is because the view is wrong on some fronts, because it's based on religious dogma ( ie the skandhas being empty of self ) instead of facts.

 

It's not a matter of doing insight meditation differently, just realising its limitations and showing the gaps can be filled outside the practice, with different non-overlapping work.

 

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

8 minutes ago, steve said:

 

Welcome to the DaoBums!

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

11 hours ago, steve said:

 

As far as I am aware, the Bön and Buddhist teachings and practices in sutra, tantra, and dzogchen are very similar.

Buddha Shakyamuni is respected as a Buddha in Bön but not the first, last, or only. 

The skandhas are considered empty in Bön - the teachings on emptiness are essentially equivalent to madhyamaka teachings.

 

One thing that I have noticed, in my limited experience which is mostly with dzogchen teachings; is that Buddhist practitioners and teachers tend to heavily emphasize teachings on emptiness. In the Bön teachings I've received there is generally a balance of considering emptiness, clarity, and union. This may be a dzogchen thing. I suspect that nihilism can be a consequence of over-emphasizing emptiness. This is something I often see in discussions among Buddhist practitioners, especially at the beginning and intermediate levels. Emphasizing emptiness would also naturally not encourage or value creativity. Once the realization of emptiness is actualized, clarity and union are already present and nihilism has no foothold. Unfortunately, this realization is elusive for many of us. It seems to be the intellectual process of trying to conceptually understand or striving to experience emptiness that lead to problems, IMO.

 

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.

32 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Joyfully sharing modest talents with little concern for what others think -- this has got to be a major siddhi right up there with levitation.  

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

26 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

Life is a complete system for enlightenment.  All practicing Buddhists are alive so I guess they have as good a chance as anybody else.

Brother Luke as always another pearl.

20 hours ago, Maddie said:

Recent discussions have brought some interesting points for consideration to light. Namely being is Buddhism a complete system for ending suffering permanently aka "enlightenment" all by itself or is it dated and lacking things? 

 

When replying don't just state your opinion, but state the reason that you think so one way or the other.  

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.

13 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

 

According to the consensus of the schools, the Sutta Pitaka was arranged in five agamas, 'traditions' (the usual term, but the Sthaviravadins more often call them nikayas, 'collections').

... Ksudraka Agama (outside of the first four agamas there remained a number of texts regarded by all the schools as of inferior importance, either because they were compositions of followers of the Buddha and not the words of the Master himself, or because they were of doubtful authenticity... these were collected in this 'Minor Tradition').

("Indian Buddhism", A. K. Warder, 2nd ed. p 202)

 

Khuddaka Nikaya, Ksudraka Agama.

On Warder:

 

For a number of years, he was an active member of the Pali Text Society, which published his first book, Introduction to Pali, in 1963. He based this popular primer on extracts from the Dīgha Nikāya, and took the then revolutionary step of treating Pali as an independent language, not just a derivative of Sanskrit.
 

His began his academic career at the University of Edinburgh in 1955, but in 1963 moved to the University of Toronto. There, as Chairman of the Department of East Asian Studies, he built up a strong programme in Sanskrit and South Asian studies. He retired in 1990.

(WIkipedia)

 

 

Zen folks particularly like that quote about the unborn.  There are places in the first four agamas (nikayas) where the unborn is mentioned, but never quite in the same sweeping context as in that quote from the 5th.  

I actually take that as an example of the kind of incompleteness in Gautama's teaching that I applaud, that he mostly didn't go for the sweeping infinity as a completed entity, but only spoke of a contrast between the substantial and that which is empty of the substantial (as it were).

 

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.

7 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

Why do you seem so surprised? lol 

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

6 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

I would like to know what you actually think lol 

Seriously?

4 hours ago, Maddie said:

Recent discussions have brought some interesting points for consideration to light. Namely being is Buddhism a complete system for ending suffering permanently aka "enlightenment" all by itself or is it dated and lacking things? 

 

When replying don't just state your opinion, but state the reason that you think so one way or the other.  

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

14 hours ago, idiot_stimpy said:

I remember the Jeff controversy and used to hang out a bit in the daobums live chat. 

 

Come and go infrequently now compared to when I joined in 2011. It was like a treasure trove of information not seen before with people sharing all types of information and experiences.

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

20 minutes ago, idiot_stimpy said:

 

If I would have to guess I would say Dzogchen. 

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