Nathan Brine

[liminal_luke]

People are complex and multilayered.  Many of us are very good at some things, abysmal at others -- I know I am.  So a lapse in one dimension doesn´t imply universal lapses in all dimensions.  Case in point: teachers.  How many of us have had or known teachers, even spiritual teachers, who are very good at what they teach but fall short in some areas?  Tai chi teachers who are also obese.  Meditation instructors who smoke cigarettes or watch porn.  Demanding all around perfection is a trap. 

Edited May 23 by liminal_luke

[Mark Foote]

18 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

People are complex and multilayered.  Many of us are very good at some things, abysmal at others -- I know I am.  So a lapse in one dimension doesn´t imply universal lapses in all dimensions.  Case in point: teachers.  How many of us have had or known teachers, even spiritual teachers, who are very good at what they teach but fall short in some areas?  Tai chi teachers who are also obese.  Meditation instructors who smoke cigarettes or watch porn.  Demanding all around perfection is a trap. 
 

liminal_luke, you might like this:

One Way or Another (from my blog, at zenmudra.com/zazen-notes)

 

 

An excerpt:

 

If a person can exhibit a mindfulness like Gautama’s without having become enlightened, and can have “seen by means of wisdom” without having completely destroyed the cankers, then how can one know who to trust as a teacher?

 

Gautama’s advice was to go by the words of the teacher rather than any claim to authority, to compare the instructions of a teacher to the sermons Gautama himself had given and to the rules of the order that Gautama himself had laid down (DN 16 PTS vol. ii pp 133-136).

 

Nevertheless, activity solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness, the hallmark of the fourth concentration, has been conveyed by demonstration in some branches of Buddhism for millennia. The transmission of a central part of the teaching through such conveyance, and the certification of that transmission by the presiding teacher, is regarded by some schools as the only guarantee of the authenticity of a teacher.

 

The teachers so authenticated have in many cases disappointed their students, when circumstances revealed that the teacher’s cankers had not been completely destroyed. Furthermore, some schools appear to have certified transmission without the conveyance that has kept the tradition alive, perhaps for the sake of the continuation of the school.

 

 

[Taomeow]

20 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

People are complex and multilayered.  Many of us are very good at some things, abysmal at others -- I know I am.  So a lapse in one dimension doesn´t imply universal lapses in all dimensions.  Case in point: teachers.  How many of us have had or known teachers, even spiritual teachers, who are very good at what they teach but fall short in some areas?  Tai chi teachers who are also obese.  Meditation instructors who smoke cigarettes or watch porn.  Demanding all around perfection is a trap. 

 

Obsessive neat freaks are often people who feel dirty inside.  Health nuts are often the sickest people trying to fix themselves...  great if they stop right there and don't try to fix everybody else.  Militant anti-smoking is an induced hallucination*.  My first reaction to perfectionists is compassion (it's nearly always of traumatic origins...) -- unless they're in my hair.  In which case my second reaction: mild compassionate contempt.  And if they don't let me be at this point, then the third one: all bets are off.

 

There's taoist practices that are about "perfection, nondecay, immortality," but they are just that -- practices with a lofty personal goal, not an invitation to holier-than-thou stances, moral judgment of whoever appears to fall short, or any of that self-aggrandizing BS. 

 

*

Spoiler

(Induced by pharma overlords once they discovered they can sell a helluva lot more antidepressants if people stop self-medicating widespread stress-induced or developmental trauma-induced dopamine-norepinephrine deficiencies with smoking that mitigates them.  Big tobacco and big pharma CEOs are on the same boards of directors and create policies together, so they figured demonizing smoking is more profitable summarily than not demonizing it and consequently losing hundreds of billions on antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds, to name a few.)       

 

[Neirong]

All I said was a sprinkle of common sense; it is not related to what I practice or teach. It has nothing to do with spirituality, esotericism, or magic.
 

I would not study prosperity and finances from a homeless beggar,
I would not study martial arts and health from an obese cripple,
and I would not study spirituality and meditation from a weak, underdeveloped, monkey mind.
 

To have common sense, all you need is honesty and a bit of decency. Do not pretend, do not lie to yourself or others, and do not sustain any kind of delusional belief.
 

People who get triggered by this are revealing their aggrandizing internal problems and disharmony.

In diagnostics and treatment, there is a principle called "dial testing." To locate a problem, you send a signal that triggers a reaction.
 

On 23.05.2025 at 11:25 PM, Taomeow said:

Obsessive neat freaks are often people who feel dirty inside

You are merely speculating, and talking crap, to defend your Ego and Beliefs.

 

On 23.05.2025 at 11:25 PM, Taomeow said:

There's taoist practices that are about "perfection, nondecay, immortality," but they are just that -- practices with a lofty personal goal, not an invitation to holier-than-thou stances,

 

How would you know what taoist practices are even, if you consider the guy above a taoist master? If he knew anything about Taoist practices he would never end up like this.

It is like saying you know all about finances and trading, but your teacher is a nearby homeless beggar, who never had a penny in his pocket.

Decades pass without any kind of spiritual progress, siddhis, advancement and evolution, and everyone reaps what they deserve.

Many seem to prefer warm swamp of delusions and a social tea club of beliebers.

Not my cup of tea.

[Taomeow]

[Cobie]

7 hours ago, Neirong said:

… You are merely speculating, and talking crap, to defend your Ego and Beliefs.

 

This bit I disagree with. Taomeow never talks “crap”, on the contrary. She merely has another opinion here.

 

But on the whole I agree with your opinion on this one. Once upon a time a long time ago, I did a mindfulness course.  The teacher said he had been an alcoholic, but ‘mindfulness’ cured him and had kept him sober since. Now that makes sense to me. I definitely would have quit the course if he still was drinking.

 

Edited May 26 by Cobie