﻿Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 9th, 2021 at 3:06 AM
Title: Re: Help from Tara
Content:
karmadhatu said:
Hii,

Although I know that main reason of practising dharma is to attain ultimate state of buddha for benefit all beingsa, but dharma also providng relative benefits, so I am in state that somehow I am not able to find girlfriend, so my question is, how can I ask help from Tara to help me with this matter? Is it neccesseary to do whole sadhana and somewhere there to put my request of helping to find girlfirend? Or is it also ok just to imagine Tara, say some mantras, or to do 7 limb prayers, or? please some advices.
Thanks a lot
K

Malcolm wrote:
Be careful of what you ask for. You just might get it.

But no, Tāra is not going to help you find a girlfriend. Her job is to protect you from eight fears, but loneliness is not included among those eight. However, if you practice sincerely, and develop your positive qualities, you will likely attract a suitable partner with whom you can share the Dharma. Otherwise, frankly, as far as I am concerned, it is better to be alone than be with someone who does not practice the dharma, or at least have sincere faith in the dharma.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 9th, 2021 at 1:45 AM
Title: Re: Fake monk called out, made to remove robes on streets of London
Content:
Taikor.Taikun said:
To some Buddhists, they feel obligated to protect the Dharma, the monastery, the Sangha, every images n names of the Buddhas n Bodhisattvas.

Malcolm wrote:
Verbally assaulting people in public is just rude, and possibly illegal, no matter what one's reasons may be.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 11:52 PM
Title: Re: Download the Kangyur and Tengyur
Content:
SilenceMonkey said:
Hi everyone,

Where can one download the Kangyur and Tengyur in Tibetan? There is a stupa being built in Argentina, and a Dharma friend asked where they could download these sacred texts and put them on a thumb drive for the stupa.

We live in the modern age!

Malcolm wrote:
https://www.tbrc.org/#!specials/selected/canon

Magnetic storage is not very durable. Best if they download, print out, wrap them properly, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 10:26 PM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
So what's a white or a red bindu? Blood cells? Tantra didn't know what cells were.

Vajrasambhava said:
What Malcolm is explaining (tell me if i'm wrong) is that these things are material and physical. Beacuse in Vajrayana all the channels, winds and bindus are made of subtle matter. So, even if is subtle it's still matter.

Malcolm wrote:
There are only six dhātus in the realm of buddhadharma, earth, air, fire, water, space, and consciousness. Anything that is not consciousness or space is matter. And in some tantric systems (Kālacakra specifically), even space is composed of matter.

The body is composed of refined matter, which is processed out of the food that we eat.

It is impossible to understand these systems of yoga without understanding the medical perspective of the human body that was held by the authors of the tantras, etc. People who ignore this just wind up creating a strange goulash of their own fabrications, not grounded in any text, based on whatever opinion  of day they are holding, as we see here. So as I said, I am out, this is not a serious place to discuss these issues or much of anything else connected with Dharma.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 9:54 PM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:



Malcolm wrote:
Some yogis do, some yogis don’t.

When practicing yoga, they are visualized as light, but then, so is ones entire body.  When diagnosing an illness, however, the very same channels are understood to be physical structures in the body.

There is an entire literature called geg sel, very little of which has been read by Westerners, which deal with yogic illnesses problems and to remedy them.

Dechen Norbu said:
What about those channels that pop through the eyes? We don't have any physical structure matching those.

Crazywisdom said:
Right. The piths say there are channels from eyes going down side of neck into heart. Malcolm will say it's a physical nerve. But there is no such eye nerve going into the heart from sides of neck.

Malcolm wrote:
You just keep going on confusing yourselves and other people. You are misrepresenting not only the texts, but you are misrepresenting what I've said on the matter.

Its fine, but I am out. Be happy, hope your novel interpretations work out for you.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 9:50 PM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:


Dechen Norbu said:
What about those channels that pop through the eyes? We don't have any physical structure matching those.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, in fact we do. And those channels are very explicitly described, in detail, in the commentaries, as physical entities subject to growth, persistence, and decay. After 26 years of age, the 72000 nāḍīs decay at a regular rate.

The nāḍīs are held to be passageways. Passageways for what? Bindus, red bindus, white bindus, etc, which are moved around by vāyu (which just means air in Sanskrit). What do these bindus come from? Sixteen bindus come from our parents, eight red, and eight white. The rest comes from the food that we eat. Where do the five vāyus come from? The air we breath.

When we practice completion stage practices, as I said before, we visualize these channels as made of light, in bodies that we visualize as made of light. However, the bindus that are contained within them are physical, no? I mean, otherwise, what is it in karmamudra that one is retaining, reversing, spreading, and distributing uniformly? Light? What is the bliss in the body one is feeling? Merely visualized bliss or is it physical bliss?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 8:22 PM
Title: Re: Taliban - Split from: Prayer for Afghanistan
Content:
Brunelleschi said:
Ok, so there's actually quite a lot about this on english wikipedia, under the heading "1998 to 2001, under the Taliban" see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan

Then again, it is not like the Taliban are tolerant of other religious traditions. I mean there seems to be a tradition of salafi-jihadists destroying the religious symbols of other traditions. E.g. ISIS destroying statues of the virgin Mary/older ME religions in Syria. Talibans of course aren't exactly a big fan of their shia-muslims cousins either.

The Taliban did not just destroy these statues. They went into museums in Kabul and destroyed every Buddhist artifact they could find.

Malcolm wrote:
Yup. But I don’t think it really had much to do with Buddhists. It had to do with anti-western sentiments.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 8:17 PM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:
MiphamFan said:
Gyalwa Yangonpa says that doctors like to say the channels are all physical but yogis have a different view.

Malcolm wrote:
Some yogis do, some yogis don’t.

When practicing yoga, they are visualized as light, but then, so is ones entire body.  When diagnosing an illness, however, the very same channels are understood to be physical structures in the body.

There is an entire literature called geg sel, very little of which has been read by Westerners, which deal with yogic illnesses problems and to remedy them.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 8:13 PM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Air doesn't govern. Everything you are saying is woo woo. It's not like you brought some grounded objectivity into this subject. It's not like you calling the central channel the aorta somehow makes wisdom real. Wisdom is not a thing.

Josef said:
From what perspective are you asserting that vayu doesnt "govern" the functions of the body?
I would also be curious to know what makes you think "wisdom" isnt a thng? Are you talking about yeshe/jnana when you make this assertion?

Crazywisdom said:
Air doesn't make decisions. It's gas. The body metabolizes it. What governs in the cellular anatomy is mitochondria. There's no wisdom atom, like there is a gas atom. Yes, I'm referring to prājña.

Malcolm likes to diss Kalachakra as being about mythical kings. But for this, physical channels, it's right, because it gives him a chance to make propaganda about Tibetan medicine which he has an interest in. He says how we visualize is not how they exist in body. But how they exist in body is irrelevant. How we visualize is what we do with them. We practice yoga. They have no use without this. What's a yogi supposed to do with his aorta? It's nonsense. The tantras describe the embryo to show how we can reverse this process at death or conscious be reborn as Nirmanakaya.

In fact, has absolutely nothing do with an aorta. ChNN said the central channel is not physical. He said it doesn't matter what size you visualize. Tibetan medicine, like Ayurveda is antiquated using ancient modalities. Fire is not an element. Wind is not an element. Go see the periodic table of elements. There's no Mount Meru. There's no Jambudvipa. Alchemy is debunked. Astrology is debunked. All of these vestiges from the past in tantra need to be weeded out. The relevant part is peace of mind.

I'm waiting to see which vein is Lalana and rasana. Which 16 channels come out of the heart? Some completion stages make this important. Others don't. In some sense this but of tantra is outmoded as well.

Malcolm wrote:
Ok, well you go practice Vajrayana with your novel interpretations and understandings.

I stuck with what the texts say, not what random people in the internet say.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 10:16 AM
Title: Re: Not sure where to go
Content:


PadmaVonSamba said:
This is a popular idea right now.
It is highly debatable.

PeterC said:
Is it popular?  It is flat out wrong.

yinyangkoi said:
Why is it wrong? Buddha said himself there is no free will since there is no self that can have any. Also since everything is conditioned, what you desire and any other phenomena that manifests is just a result of conditioning.

Malcolm wrote:
The Buddha never discussed free will. It is a philosophical issue of interest only to Christians.

What the Buddha said is that will is action.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 10:08 AM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:
Dechen Norbu said:
And the gandharva is riding on air ir something after we die?

Malcolm wrote:
Actually, in the bardo, the all-basis consciousness is mounted up the mahapranavayu, according to the Vajramala Tantra.

Dechen Norbu said:
Yes, I learned that. What is that prana in relation to the body while we are alive?

Malcolm wrote:
It’s the air we breathe. You might say it is the refined air we breathe, processed by our lungs. The five elements in the body are refined elements, which is why we spend so much energy separating wastes from the body, parts of the outer elements we can’t absorb or don’t need to absorb.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 8:19 AM
Title: Re: Taliban - Split from: Prayer for Afghanistan
Content:



Queequeg said:
That's a stretch. Those statues could have been massive tourist traps and brought millions.

Malcolm wrote:
Its not a stretch, there was a news item about this recently.

Queequeg said:
I'd like to see that. I can't believe thats what the Taliban were upset about.

Malcolm wrote:
I searched for it, could not locate it. But this was a recent account of their basic grievance against UNESCO in general. They thought they were being ripped off. They could give a shit about statues. Their destruction of Buddhist art and relics was a reaction against the west, nothing to do with Buddhism at all.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 8:17 AM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:
Vajrasambhava said:
Well, so a tibetan doctor has to directly experience tsa lung (as in Dzog-Rim) in order to understand subtle anatomy and cure his patients?

Malcolm wrote:
It helps considerably.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 8:08 AM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:
Dechen Norbu said:
And the gandharva is riding on air ir something after we die?

Malcolm wrote:
Actually, in the bardo, the all-basis consciousness is mounted up the mahapranavayu, according to the Vajramala Tantra.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 4:52 AM
Title: Re: Taliban - Split from: Prayer for Afghanistan
Content:
Queequeg said:
maliciously destroying the Bamiyan statue...

Malcolm wrote:
That's not what actually happened. The statues at Bamiyan were targeted because the UN was spending millions of dollars to restore them as UN cultural heritage monuments, and none of the money was being spent in the local communities.

Queequeg said:
That's a stretch. Those statues could have been massive tourist traps and brought millions.

Malcolm wrote:
Its not a stretch, there was a news item about this recently.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 4:40 AM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:


Dechen Norbu said:
What about prana, Malcolm, is it physical?
I think I once heard someone saying it was physical, but not material. Can't precise who exactly...

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, because it is the air element, prāṇavāyu, one of the five vāyus, along with apanā, udanā, samanā, and vyanā. It's part of the rūpaskandha, the aggregate of matter.

Dechen Norbu said:
Thank you.
But is it material? Afaik it can't be detected by any measuring instruments. I'm not really sure what physical but not material might mean. Electromagnetic fields are physical but not material.
If prana is physical, we should somehow detect it, no? Is it just a technological problem?

Malcolm wrote:
prāṇa vāyu is just inhaled air, If you stop breathing, you die. Apanā vayu is just the function of expelling feces, urine, sperm, menstrual blood, and babies, and farts. Samanā vayu is just the action of the small intestine on food. Udana vāyu is talking, etc.

All these functions are governed in general by the air element, which manifests in our experience as the motile quality of matter.

What has happened is that new age ideas about prāṇa have so infected our thinking, when we look at Buddhist texts, there are all these cobwebs we have ti peel from our eyes.

In particular, when it comes to anatomy, Tibetans were just better at it that the Chinese, Indians, Persians, and even the Greeks. The Tibetans cut up a lot more human bodies than any other culture in the world.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 3:42 AM
Title: Re: Prayer for Afghanistan
Content:
Queequeg said:
maliciously destroying the Bamiyan statue...

Malcolm wrote:
That's not what actually happened. The statues at Bamiyan were targeted because the UN was spending millions of dollars to restore them as UN cultural heritage monuments, and none of the money was being spent in the local communities.

Anyway, Śantideva discusses the issue of destroying statues of the Buddha...

bodhiye said:
Is there any expiation for such people who desecrate Buddha statues. destroy sutras/religious literature etc. ? What can be done to mitigate their bad karmic results?

Malcolm wrote:
Nothing.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 3:40 AM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
The point is these channels like Lalana and rasana are woo woo, because they have no concrete physical correspondence.

Malcolm wrote:
They do actually. I just pointed out what Kālacakra says of them.

In his commentary on the medicine tantras, Desi points out that the avadhuti, for example, is physical, but can only be identified in living bodies.

In the dgongs pa zang thal, an outer, inner, and secret avadhuti is discussed. The outer is the spinal cord, specifically identified as such, the inner is the aorta, spefically identified as such, and the secret one is the very fine channel that Desi discusses.

The descriptions of these things in the body are too precise and specific for them not to be physical structures in the body.

Dechen Norbu said:
What about prana, Malcolm, is it physical?
I think I once heard someone saying it was physical, but not material. Can't precise who exactly...

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, because it is the air element, prāṇavāyu, one of the five vāyus, along with apanā, udanā, samanā, and vyanā. It's part of the rūpaskandha, the aggregate of matter.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 2:41 AM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
The point is these channels like Lalana and rasana are woo woo, because they have no concrete physical correspondence.

Malcolm wrote:
They do actually. I just pointed out what Kālacakra says of them.

In his commentary on the medicine tantras, Desi points out that the avadhuti, for example, is physical, but can only be identified in living bodies.

In the dgongs pa zang thal, an outer, inner, and secret avadhuti is discussed. The outer is the spinal cord, specifically identified as such, the inner is the aorta, spefically identified as such, and the secret one is the very fine channel that Desi discusses.

The descriptions of these things in the body are too precise and specific for them not to be physical structures in the body.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 2:33 AM
Title: Re: Prayer for Afghanistan
Content:
Queequeg said:
maliciously destroying the Bamiyan statue...

Malcolm wrote:
That's not what actually happened. The statues at Bamiyan were targeted because the UN was spending millions of dollars to restore them as UN cultural heritage monuments, and none of the money was being spent in the local communities.

Anyway, Śantideva discusses the issue of destroying statues of the Buddha...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 2:15 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
I know all this. But the use of the word abandon doesn't quite work in pith instructions.

Malcolm wrote:
To abandon is spong. Spong is from prahāhāṇa. n. relinquishing , abandoning , avoiding

Are you giving pith instructions here? Is that what you are doing?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 12:07 AM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:


Josef said:
Interesting.
Looking forward to discussing more in a suitable environment.

Malcolm wrote:
Examine the gestation of the body in the Tibetan medical paintings. Then read descriptions of the formation of the body in various tantric texts. What would the point identifying the stages of the gestation of a human embryo with the ten avatars of Visnu mean if we were not discussing the development of the physical body? The formation of all channels in the body are described in the tantras as being governed by the five elements. How could this be possible if the channels and elements in the channels (vāyu, bindu) are some woo woo form of ill-defined "energy"? The Buddha discussed only six dhātus: earth, water, fire, air, space, and consciousness. He did not describe a seventh called "light."

Josef said:
That makes perfect sense. I used light there for lack of a more precise term/personal understanding. Perhaps a different topic but would there be an argument for the channels etc in our realm being a subtle form of the elements similar to the embodied beings in the form and formless realms? I think that notion was influencing my perspective. Basically, that the channels were the support for the development of the corporeal body but not as coarse.

Malcolm wrote:
Coarse or subtle, there is nothing in this universe that is not made of the five elements, including the form and formless realms.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 11:59 PM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Abandon what? Vajrayana doesn't abandon anything.

Malcolm wrote:
We are not really discussing Vajrayāna here, but rather, common Mahāyāna. But even in Vajrayāna, one still abandons the two obscurations.

Crazywisdom said:
Also a gloss. They are seen as prajna

Malcolm wrote:
Not a gloss. The two obscurations are something to be purified in Vajrayāna. That does not mean they substantially exist. For example, Śākyamitra's Mahāmudrāyogāvatārapiṇḍārtha it states, "After migrating beings complete the accumulation of merit, they completely abandon the great mass of the two obscurations." Or Ratnarakṣita's commentary on the Laghusamvara, which states, "Gradually abandoning the two obscurations and accomplishing mahamudra to serve all migrating beings is the stated purpose."་ Even Tilopa states in his Mahāmudropadeśa:

For example, though darkness accumulates for a thousand eons,
the mass of darkness is dispelled by a single lamp;
likewise, a moment of the luminosity of one's mind
will dispel all misdeeds and obscurations gathered for an eon.

So, while one can certainly argue over method, one cannot argue that in order to attain buddhahood, one must abandon or remove the two obscurations.

Naropa, in his Sekkodeṣa commentary on the empowerments of Kālacakra, also discusses the need to abandon the two obscurations. In fact, he discusses four obscurations there, the usual two, plus obscurations of māra and samapatti.

Frankly, you are just not going to find Indian masters who negate the necessity of abandoning the two obscurations and gathering the two accumulations. Even in the Dzogchen tradition, this is necessary, as Khenpo Ngachung points out. The means may be different but the necessity is still there.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 11:32 PM
Title: Re: Is the Pali Canon seen as legitimate / correct-view for Mahayana Buddhists?
Content:


frankie said:
Thanks Malcolm, no need. I have no reason to disbelieve you have done so. Outside of that received information, who knows, your beliefs may be another thing.

Malcolm wrote:
You are mistaking the presence of teachings such as the four truths of nobles in Mahāyāna sūtras for some equivalence with the śrāvaka presentation. For example, Dzogchen is considered to be the third truth of nobles. There is no contradiction there.

What is missing from the śrāvaka path is profound bodhicitta and profound emptiness, just as what is missing from the common Mahāyāna path is the many methods which are easy, swift, and suitable to be practiced by the very intelligent who wish to achieve a result equivalent to the common Mahāyāna path in a more reasonable time frame than three incalculable eons.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 11:25 PM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:


Josef said:
The channels are not physical in the sense of being a part of the gross anatomical structure of the body but they are "embodied" as light, and are the support for the development of our physical form.

Malcolm wrote:
Nah, they are actually just the nerves, arteries, blood vessels, lymphatic system, and other passageways of the body, spoken of in a concealed way in the tantras. "Light" is not a sixth element.

There is a common saying in among Tibetan doctors, "That which the secret mantra tantras conceal in symbols is discussed openly in the medicine tantras."

I am going to leave this topic here, because it is not suitable for discussion (by me at any rate) beyond this point. You know, samaya and all that.

Josef said:
Interesting.
Looking forward to discussing more in a suitable environment.

Malcolm wrote:
Examine the gestation of the body in the Tibetan medical paintings. Then read descriptions of the formation of the body in various tantric texts. What would the point identifying the stages of the gestation of a human embryo with the ten avatars of Visnu mean if we were not discussing the development of the physical body? The formation of all channels in the body are described in the tantras as being governed by the five elements. How could this be possible if the channels and elements in the channels (vāyu, bindu) are some woo woo form of ill-defined "energy"? The Buddha discussed only six dhātus: earth, water, fire, air, space, and consciousness. He did not describe a seventh called "light."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 11:18 PM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Base, path and result are indivisible, right?

Malcolm wrote:
From the perspective of suchness, but not from the perspective of a person, who has not abandoned what is to be abandoned and has not realized what is to be realized. That means us.

Crazywisdom said:
Abandon what? Vajrayana doesn't abandon anything.

Malcolm wrote:
We are not really discussing Vajrayāna here, but rather, common Mahāyāna. But even in Vajrayāna, one still abandons the two obscurations, which is necessary for attaining the two kāyas. What we don't abandon in Vajrayāna is sense objects, which are used in the path of transformation when we are connected with that method through ripening empowerments and liberating instructions, such as sleeping yogas, waking yogas, washing yogas, eating yogas, yoga of passion, yoga of creation, completion, and so on.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 11:12 PM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:


Josef said:
The channels are not physical in the sense of being a part of the gross anatomical structure of the body but they are "embodied" as light, and are the support for the development of our physical form.

Malcolm wrote:
Nah, they are actually just the nerves, arteries, blood vessels, lymphatic system, and other passageways of the body, spoken of in a concealed way in the tantras. "Light" is not a sixth element.

There is a common saying in among Tibetan doctors, "That which the secret mantra tantras conceal in symbols is discussed openly in the medicine tantras."

I am going to leave this topic here, because it is not suitable for discussion (by me at any rate) beyond this point. You know, samaya and all that.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 11:10 PM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
So what is that? All there is down there is intestines. The nervous system is sympathetic. That's why sometimes when you have an itch on your cheek you itch on your leg as well. These channels correspond to energetic pathways based on networks of nerves, not one specific physical thing.

Malcolm wrote:
The way you visualize the vajra body does not correspond to how it physically exists in your body, just as the way you visualize yourself as a deity, sans viscera, does not correspond to how your body actually exists.

There is no such thing as "energy." There are five elements, that is all. Vāyu is just the element of air that exists inside the body. If the vajra body is not physical, there would be no way it could cause pain, or in the case of the eyes, for example, be damaged by over exposure to light sources, etc. In fact, it  could not be damaged at all by anything, including surgery.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 11:06 PM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Your lama disagreed.

Malcolm wrote:
That is not so. Anyway, all this is explained very clearly in such texts as Baidurya sngon po by Desi Sangye Gyatso, the Third Karmapa, Gyalwa Yanggonpa, etc.

Crazywisdom said:
There are different perspectives on this. There are no organs corresponding to the Lalan, rasana or central channel.

Malcolm wrote:
Also false. Kalacakra clearly states that the lower end of the central channel is the rectum, and the rasana and lalana discharge urine and semen respectively.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 8:04 PM
Title: Re: Is the Pali Canon seen as legitimate / correct-view for Mahayana Buddhists?
Content:
frankie said:
"The third (Noble) truth is the Truth of Cessation. Related to the Truth of Cessation is recognizing emptiness and the nature of one's mind. Emptiness and the nature of one's mind, which is Buddha nature or Buddha essence are not different, they are actually inseparable. What is the nature of this natural state of the mind, this buddha nature? It has complete happiness and joy; it doesn't have any suffering or illness. It's like that all the time. That is what we call resting in happiness." (MIngyur Rinpoche).

Of course there are a million quotables who will gainsay or support this. I guess it comes down to who we decide to hitch our wagon to and the experiences we have.

Malcolm wrote:
The shravakayana texts do not describe the path of buddhahood, period. You can check with Nagarjuna on that in the Ratnavali.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 7:59 PM
Title: Re: What happens to the Mandala in case of heart transplantation?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
The vajra body is not physical.

Malcolm wrote:
Umm, yes it is, which is why it is important understand the development of the body. Entire texts are devoted to thus topic, and it is covered in such tantras as the Cakrasamvara cycle, etc., as well as the Blazing Lamp, etc.

Luckily “heart”does not mean the organ, but the region below the organ, and above the diaphragm.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 7:55 PM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Base, path and result are indivisible, right?

Malcolm wrote:
From the perspective of suchness, but not from the perspective of a person, who has not abandoned what is to be abandoned and has not realized what is to be realized. That means us.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 7:50 PM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
reiun said:
Actualizatuon of Buddhahood is not limited by anything.


Malcolm wrote:
So, right now you have no limitations?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 10:39 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
reiun said:
Basis and result are both dynamic, not static.

Malcolm wrote:
That does matter. One is cause; the other, result.

reiun said:
The path is actualization

Malcolm wrote:
.

Yes, but that actualization is limited and impaired by the amount of traces of obscuration of affliction and knowledge one possesses. Buddhas are not limited or impaired in this way. The way they achieve this matters. Therefor, the highest practice is the attainment of buddhahood. That has requisites.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 8:47 AM
Title: Re: Anatman and the Tulku
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Tulkus or yangsis, are a Tibetan cultural strategy for preserving the legacies of esteemed persons. Some of them might actually be the rebirths of their predecessors. By far the majority are not, they are just blessed that way through ritual installments.

Conrad Resmar said:
Hi All:
I have a basic difficulty in reconciling the two concepts that are mentioned in the subject heading of my post. My understanding of no-self and of the doctrine of rebirth is that there is no discrete, individually intact personhood that gets reborn; rather a (somewhat mysterious) stream of karmic effects and aspects of a life are what persists.

But the tulku seems to some degree like an example of a reborn personality, or individuality , even down to the ability to remember objects from a former existence.  I'm sure this difficulty, or apparent conflict, has been written about somewhere, but I'd be glad to hear your thoughts or be provided with references to look into.

By extension I have a similar curiosity about how to understand the apparently stable personhood or identity of beings identified in Vajrayana tradition (boddhisattvas, deities, dakinis).  They seem to preserve their identity or individual identifying marks in a way that transcends a single lifetime.

Grateful for your any helpful input. Thanks!


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 8:43 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:


Bristollad said:
I don't want to intrude but personally, I don't understand how you can make a distinction between achieving Buddhahood and actualisation of Buddhahood.  A buddha without effort continually works for the benefit of all sentient beings, that's what achieving Buddhahood means...

Malcolm wrote:
I tried to explain that, but to no avail.

Crazywisdom said:
Buddhahood is not achieved, remember? Buddhahood is spontaneous beneficial activities of body, speech and mind.

Malcolm wrote:
Sure it is. There is a difference between the basis and the result. The basis is called the basis because it’s nature has not been realized. That’s what the path is for. Even though these three things are just the same in suchness, the result does not happen without the path. That’s just the way it is. Just observe yourself.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 6:06 AM
Title: Re: Achi Chokyi Drolma Yidam
Content:
Ayu said:
You should ask your teacher, because experience shows that different teachers give very different explanations to different students.

fckw said:
And yet the same sadhana text exposes the same letters to all practitioners without the slightest individual adaptations!

So, who is then right: The teacher who provides individualized explanations, or the sadhana text that does not?

Malcolm wrote:
The teacher, of course.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 3:53 AM
Title: Re: Is the Pali Canon seen as legitimate / correct-view for Mahayana Buddhists?
Content:



Malcolm wrote:
Legitimate, but not to read to the exclusion of Mahayana, which is more profound and has a higher view.


frankie said:
A superficial and merely technical understanding would probably concur.  It is interesting to note, however, how many practioners notice after 'beginning' with the Pali canon, before moving onto the 'higher view Mahayana/Vajrayana, that they eventually arrive at the fascinating 'destination of no destination' where they discover that, for example, the Four Noble Truths, are embedded within and experiently realised to be contained in the 'highest views'. It seems this is why the savviest teachers are not too keen on higher-lower discriminations.

The lower/higher dichotomies then become a source of ironic humour. informed by this, one can read again the Pali canon and the 'higher teachings and find the whole experience vibrates with instantaneous recognition and profound meaning. No differences, unless there is remaining a faulty determination to hold onto them.

Malcolm wrote:
Tell that to Nāgārjuna.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 3:41 AM
Title: Re: trekcho/tögel earth terma?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
... In this case, many lamas who have not mastered thogal beyond the second vision (and most lamas have not) nevertheless give Dzogchen empowerments and teachings...

yagmort said:
so what's your take on this? Togden Shakya Shri, whom i hold in a rather high regard, has said that one can only teach dzogchen when one has accomplished third vision of tögel. that sounds about right, but then comes my confusion as to how can i assess that? presumably Togden Shakya Shri didn't mean it as a task of a disciple but thought it as a reference for a sincere teacher to follow, but nowadays.. as you said and i agree, "most lamas have not"..

Malcolm wrote:
While this is a desideratum since such a teacher will definitely be an ārya, don't hold your breath or spend much time worrying about whether or not so and so has reached this level of practice. Liberation is not like glitter, it does not rub off on the student. One still has one's own work to do. As long as the teacher has authentic experience of the first vision, they can correctly guide you.


that clarifies, thank you. what about Vima Nyingthig? do one need whole Nyingthig Yabzhi wang?
No, just the Vima Nyinthig wang.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 2:30 AM
Title: Re: trekcho/tögel earth terma?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
...
It was concealed by Chetsun Senge Wangchuk. It was taken out of a cave in O'yuk, Tsang with the assistance of the guardian, Dorje Lekpa, around c. 1117-1118 by Zhangton Tashi Dorje (1197-1167)...

yagmort said:
thanks.

Malcolm, do one get Vima Nyingthig empowerment as a part of Nyinthig Yabzhi empowerment only?

also, if a master gives Nyingthig Yabzhi empowerment (or any other major cycle empowernent for that matter), does it mean he/she is accomplished in this cycle?
i don't think i understand this point.
some masters are the lineage holders for so many cycles, like düdjom tersar, pema lingpa termas, northern treasures, longchen nyingthig etc., does that mean they have mastered them all, ie they not only give you a wang for a specific cycle, but are also accomplished in all of them and qualified to teach them, check your progress, understand your difficulties, correct mistakes, clear misunderstandings and give advice? not just give you a wang?

Malcolm wrote:
Dzogchen is Dzogchen, as they say gcig shes kun grol, knowing one liberates all. In this case, many lamas who have not mastered thogal beyond the second vision (and most lamas have not) nevertheless give Dzogchen empowerments and teachings. And, if you understand and have experience in Dzogchen, one does not need to "master" all these cycles to teach them (providing you have received them), since the basic points of Dzogchen man ngag sde are identical in every system. The main difference will be whatever yidams are associated with this or that cycle as supports. For example, ChNN freely picked and chose from what he considered the best from older termas, and presented them in that way, not bothering to or even thinking it necessary to give the entire cycle from which this or that Dzogchen instruction was drawn. At base, Nyinthig Dzogchen practice is summed up in four points: mind-training, rushan, trekcho, and thogal. The rest of it is ancillary. For example, to practice Yeshe Lama, all you really need is the empowerment of Thigle Gyacan, and the lung and rig pa'i rtsal wang of Ye shes lama. You don't need the entire Longchen Nyinthig. Just the Dzogchen portion.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 12:55 AM
Title: Re: trekcho/tögel earth terma?
Content:


yeshegyaltsen said:
The Khandro thugthig was revealed by Dudjom Rinpoche, not Dudjom Lingpa

Malcolm wrote:
Correct.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 12:54 AM
Title: Re: trekcho/tögel earth terma?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
The Vima Snying thig is an earth terma, though it is typically included with bka' ma, it is not actually bka' ma.

yagmort said:
interesting.
who had concealed it and who has revealed it?
also, do we have accurate datings?

Malcolm wrote:
It was concealed by Chetsun Senge Wangchuk. It was taken out of a cave in O'yuk, Tsang with the assistance of the guardian, Dorje Lekpa, around c. 1117-1118 by Zhangton Tashi Dorje (1197-1167).


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 11:14 PM
Title: Re: trekcho/tögel earth terma?
Content:
yagmort said:
do, even though it looks like a rather rare occurence that an earth terma contains tregchö/tögel section, it is not unheard of. hence me asking about _most recent_ earth termas with tregchö/tögel.

Malcolm wrote:
The Vima Snying thig is an earth terma, though it is typically included with bka' ma, it is not actually bka' ma.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 11:12 PM
Title: Re: trekcho/tögel earth terma?
Content:


Dharmasagara said:
The Zabsang Khandro Nyingthig is the earth terma of Düdjom Lingpa, a huge collection of sadhanas of all types.

Malcolm wrote:
I assumed he meant the Khandro Thuktik.

Dharmasagara said:
By contrast, the Khandro Thugthig by Düdjom Lingpa is indeed a gongter mind treasure.

As nyingthig and thugthig carry practically speaking the same meaning, mixing up the two cycles is a frequent occurrence.

Malcolm wrote:
Correct.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 11:09 PM
Title: Re: Heart Sutra Applied
Content:
Dan74 said:
I find the assertions of the Heart Sutra to be a great starting point of investigating. "Form does not differ from emptiness". What does this mean to me right now? Right this moment, how does this apply? This cup next to me I grasp with my senses, with my hand, with my cognition, this form, how is it empty? I grasp it as an object, a thing out there, separate to me and to other objects, but how can this be so, since it is unable to be except in relation to others. The table supports it. Light travels from it to my eyes and the signal is then relayed to the brain. It hold my coffee, which gives it its identity as a cup - its function of holding a liquid. Etc Etc... When I start experiencing the world around me, not as a collection of discrete entities separate to me , myself separated from the world of things, but rather a flow of relationships, of phenomena, the grasping loosens a little.

"No form, no feeling..." How can there be no feeling? That pushes me to investigate feeling. What is it? Does it arise, does it change? Does it cease? What is it before I label it this or that? Pay careful attention to it. Are there different kinds? Etc..

Malcolm wrote:
It's material aggregate actually, the rūpaskandha; not form, the object of the eye, rūpāyatana.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 11:07 PM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
reiun said:
Actually, I like the theory of buddhahood quite a bit, but it is unrealistic. I prefer to keep an open, if skeptical, mind. It works as an aspiration for us all, certainly.

Malcolm wrote:
It seems we are not discussing the same thing. Hence the disconnect.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 9:33 PM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
reiun said:
Because I believe achieving buddhahood is not the highest practice. Actualization of buddhahood, imo, is.

Bristollad said:
I don't want to intrude but personally, I don't understand how you can make a distinction between achieving Buddhahood and actualisation of Buddhahood.  A buddha without effort continually works for the benefit of all sentient beings, that's what achieving Buddhahood means...

reiun said:
I wouldn't try to refute that theory for the twenty-some cosmic buddhas of mythology, fwiw. You can consider this outside of Buddhism, but my theory is that I don't believe any human will be perfect and not struggle, regardless.

Malcolm wrote:
So you actually reject buddhahood. Interesting.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 9:14 PM
Title: Re: Heart Sutra Applied
Content:
bodhiye said:
Is the Heart Sutra used as a meditation guide by anyone or utilized in some practical way? Are there any books/commentaries about applying the Heart Sutra's teachings in everyday life?

Malcolm wrote:
You should obtain


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 9:11 PM
Title: Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
There are signs. I suggest you read a book on the subject.

shagrath said:
Could you please suggest some books on tukdam, signs?

Malcolm wrote:
Any book on the death process in Tibetan Buddhism.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 9:10 PM
Title: Re: How Many Mahayanas Were There? - David Drewes new paper
Content:


Zhen Li said:
Where Drewes is mistaken, I think, is continuing to simply ignore passages that refer to books when he suggests that writing and books were not important or worshipped in the Mahāyāna. Also, he conflates (purposefully?) Schopen's claim that the sūtras were worshipped in homes or shrines rather than caityas (there are sūtras in caityas in Nepal btw) as a rejection of the idea of book worship.

Malcolm wrote:
For example, when Mahāsiddha Virūpa (8th-9th century) was in South India, having been recruited as by a Hindu King for his expertise in Sanskrit, he was busted for prostrating to a copy of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā rather than a Śiva linga. One can well imagine that taking this sūtra as an object of devotion was extremely common, particularly among the educated, Buddhist elites. It's my personal favorite, along with the Saṃcayagathas.

Zhen Li said:
There are also stele of the Prajñāpāramitā Devī indicating book worship at the base, not to mention the original idea of putting the Prajñāpāramitā pustaka on the lotuses of Prajñāpāramitā Devī as well as Cundā and Mañjuśrī and others is clearly playing on the idea that Buddhists worship these books.

Manuscripts from the time are also covered in vermillion and incense stains, just like images. This hardly makes sense if Buddhists were just producing them en masse just to stuff them away in a library. Besides its constant appearance in Mahāyāna sūtras, the Śikṣāsamuccaya and a number of other śāstras bring this up multiple times as an important part of practice.

I think this also relates to the idea prevelant in a lot of Buddhist practices that you cannot "just read" a sūtra. You have to honour it first. In East Asia it has been reduced to a verse, but in Nepal the ritual that precedes opening a sūtra can take half an hour to perform. One example of this procedure in Tibetan is found in Tōh. no. 4252, Pustakapāṭhopāya. I am not sure if Tibetans have the idea that you must consecrate a sūtra also before using it in rituals, but that is certainly prevelant in Nepal and appears in the Kriyāsaṃgrahapañjikā of Kuladatta.

Malcolm wrote:
To add to this however, most refuge visualizations include visualizing a cliff composed of all the Sutras and Tantras, on the rear petal of the refuge tree, and this is performed daily, more than once.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 8:01 PM
Title: Re: How Many Mahayanas Were There? - David Drewes new paper
Content:
Zhen Li said:
I am not sure if Tibetans have the idea that you must consecrate a sūtra also before using it in rituals, but that is certainly prevelant in Nepal and appears in the Kriyāsaṃgrahapañjikā of Kuladatta.

Malcolm wrote:
We just put the text on our heads, as a symbolic prostration.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 7:57 PM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
reiun said:
Because I believe achieving buddhahood is not the highest practice. Actualization of buddhahood, imo, is.

Bristollad said:
I don't want to intrude but personally, I don't understand how you can make a distinction between achieving Buddhahood and actualisation of Buddhahood.  A buddha without effort continually works for the benefit of all sentient beings, that's what achieving Buddhahood means...

Malcolm wrote:
I tried to explain that, but to no avail.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 9:39 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:


reiun said:
The highest practice is the actualization of the attainment of buddhahood, not the attainment itself.

Malcolm wrote:
You mean once you have the attainment you stop practicing it? That does not correspond to how I understand buddhahood. YMMV.

reiun said:
I have no idea how you would legitimately conclude that. Actualization of attainment is practice.

Malcolm wrote:
I can’t understand why you are bothering to object to my initial point.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 8:50 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
reiun said:
At Dai Bosatsu Zendo one of our prayers included the phrase "in order to continue our practice for all beings". This is the reason for attaining buddhahood, to make this practice the highest. It is just a step. There can be no higher purpose than to practice on behalf of others, to dedicate it to the liberation of all beings. As Heart Sutra says, "attainment too is sunyata".

Malcolm wrote:
And no one does that practice better than a buddha. So, still the attainment of buddhahood is the highest practice, along with its attendant samadhis and so on. . .

reiun said:
The highest practice is the actualization of the attainment of buddhahood, not the attainment itself.

Malcolm wrote:
You mean once you have the attainment you stop practicing it? That does not correspond to how I understand buddhahood. YMMV.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 6:22 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:



reiun said:
There is no healthy reason evident to belabor this. You say "meditation" was the question, vs "meditation or practice" per Seitaka. Just try to let it go.

Malcolm wrote:
The point is that there is a point on which all Mahayana schools agree: in order to attain buddhahood, one has to eradicate all taints. If one does not do this, even if one's practice is impartial compassion which benefits sentient beings, even if one's wisdom is that of a tenth stage bodhisattva, it is still contaminated, so not the highest.

reiun said:
At Dai Bosatsu Zendo one of our prayers included the phrase "in order to continue our practice for all beings". This is the reason for attaining buddhahood, to make this practice the highest. It is just a step. There can be no higher purpose than to practice on behalf of others, to dedicate it to the liberation of all beings. As Heart Sutra says, "attainment too is sunyata".

Malcolm wrote:
And no one does that practice better than a buddha. So, still the attainment of buddhahood is the highest practice, along with its attendant samadhis and so on. It’s it impossible attain buddhahood in absence of Mahayana bodhicitta.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 6:19 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
In between the lockdowns I attended a Boxing gym (yeah, yeah it was distanced and whatnot, about as safe as you could get during that time, so save your finger wagging if you're contemplating it, not the point), this gym was like...80% young black and hispanic men, and the coach was a black man who grew up in South Central LA, was a veteran, probably has had a life so much harder than mine that I can't even fathom it. Not even probably, I talked to him enough to know it's true.

I would hear them talk politics and vaccination and it was some paranoia, conspiracies, a general distrust of authority. In their case I get it, while it may be wrong, I can at least empathize with why they would be paranoid. They aren't just "morons" that can be dismissed out of hand, and reducing them to that seems unproductive and shitty. I don't know what the solution is to convincing them.

The idea that everyone who has not gotten vaccinated is some rural strictly ideological right wing conspiracy nut holed up in his shed is just not accurate at all, even when just looking at demographics of who is lagging. It's exactly the kind of media-created blinder that makes white liberal America constantly shoot itself in the foot. If anything I think it's apathetic young people that people should be worried about when concerned with vaccine hesitancy. Purely anecdotal, but of all the conversations I've had or overheard about people justifying not getting vaccinated, young people saying they weren't doing it because they weren't worried about dying were a good chunk.

Malcolm wrote:
In general, I am talking dumbass white people. I understand the issues around trusting white people black people have. My family is mixed race.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 4:54 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:



Malcolm wrote:
My point still stands.

reiun said:
There is no healthy reason evident to belabor this. You say "meditation" was the question, vs "meditation or practice" per Seitaka. Just try to let it go.

Malcolm wrote:
The point is that there is a point on which all Mahayana schools agree: in order to attain buddhahood, one has to eradicate all taints. If one does not do this, even if one's practice is impartial compassion which benefits sentient beings, even if one's wisdom is that of a tenth stage bodhisattva, it is still contaminated, so not the highest.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 4:50 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:


FiveSkandhas said:
Agree. Someday we may find a "super vaxx" but until then this is something we will have to live with, as our ancestors lived with bouts of smallpox, for example. Only COVID (in iterations so far) is orders of magnitude less lethal than smallpox was.

Malcolm wrote:
The medical cost is much higher. 14 billion dollars so far in the US alone, 75k per hospitalization on average. Coddling time for these idiots is over. Time to get serious is far overdue.

But as long as everyone caters to the delicate "feelings" of these antivaxx snowflakes, for that long we just continue the pandemic.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 4:46 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:


FiveSkandhas said:
I agree with this too. And the more we restrict civil liberties, the more the paranoid conspiracies of the anti-vaxxers will appear to be confirmed in the flesh.

Malcolm wrote:
Requiring vaccinations in a public health emergency is not restricting civil liberties, in fact it is the opposite. It's also completely lawful.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 3:34 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:


Johnny Dangerous said:
Anyway, I am not personally willing to turn off democracy or related principles out of a desire for public safety, particularly when this is now a preventable disease, anyway.

Malcolm wrote:
Since when does the law have nothing to do with Democracy?

The 1905 SCOTUS decision is absolutely clear. Communities have the legal right to mandate vaccines for its citizens in public health emergencies.

Johnny Dangerous said:
Yeah no, I'm married to an attorney, it's not that simple.

Malcolm wrote:
It's that simple. The reason why you have vaccinate your kids to send them to school is from a later SCOTUS decision. We just have not had such stupid people + the internet to cause this level of ignorance around the science of vaccines until now. We've also all forgotten what is was like growing up with the threat of polio, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 3:20 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Dan74 said:
We know a few from both kinds. They are neither necessarily bad people, nor morons, but closed to any argument to the contrary.

Malcolm wrote:
Which means at best they are morons...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 3:18 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:


Johnny Dangerous said:
Anyway, I am not personally willing to turn off democracy or related principles out of a desire for public safety, particularly when this is now a preventable disease, anyway.

Malcolm wrote:
Since when does the law have nothing to do with Democracy?

The 1905 SCOTUS decision is absolutely clear. Communities have the legal right to mandate vaccines for its citizens in public health emergencies.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 3:15 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Dan74 said:
All I am saying is that it appears to me to be a risk.

Malcolm wrote:
And hence my point, we have a social right to institute "draconian" measures to stop this illness. Time for being pleasant to antivaxxers is just over. Period.

FiveSkandhas said:
That's a bit strong, sir.

Malcolm wrote:
The law is very clear.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 2:23 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Dan74 said:
All I am saying is that it appears to me to be a risk.

Malcolm wrote:
And hence my point, we have a social right to institute "draconian" measures to stop this illness. Time for being pleasant to antivaxxers is just over. Period.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 1:57 AM
Title: Re: Amida Butsu
Content:
Queequeg said:
the Vajrayana approach is based on...

Malcolm wrote:
Yoga.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 1:56 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
Mutation/evolution occurs by process of elimination. It’s essentially like playing 20 questions where all the wrong guesses are eliminated but one correct answer survives.

Antibiotics and antivirals may knock out 99.9% of the “bad guys” but the bad guys aren’t all exactly identical and a few survive. If they can’t successfully replicate and spread (from one person or animal to another) they will go completely extinct. Hurray!
But if .01% (and that can easily be a million bad guys) can survive and spread, then they are known as a “variant”.
So, it’s not that medicines “cause” mutations. It’s that whatever survives is able to spread and grow.

Malcolm wrote:
Apples and oranges. We are talking about vaccines, not drugs.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 1:54 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Dan74 said:
https://www.businessinsider.com/covid-transmission-vaccinated-people-risk-of-resistant-variant-2021-7?r=US&IR=T

The vaccines are not themselves at fault, except that they are just not as effective anymore.

Malcolm wrote:
Define "effective."

Dan74 said:
Perhaps unrealistic, but that would've worked a great deal better.

Malcolm wrote:
No shit.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 1:23 AM
Title: Re: Amida Butsu
Content:


Queequeg said:
Nichiren affirmed the possibility of practice in Mappo, taking advantage of the adversity presented by Mappo as opportunity to engage in vigorous practice in the manner of Sadaparibhuta who went around honoring all beings as buddhas to be. I challenge anyone living these days, in this chaotic, degrading world, to try that practice. It is HARD. But that's what Nichiren said should be the practice now.

Malcolm wrote:
The key point of Vajrayāna is seeing all beings as buddhas NOW, not as buddhas-to-be. But there are methods, easy, not difficult, and so on, for those who are interested.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 12:38 AM
Title: Re: Amida Butsu
Content:
Minobu said:
he entire deathbed as long as you chant something at that moment what ever you did in your life has no consequence ...you get a free ride to Pure land...this is corruption if you ask me...and basically what was literally being sold to the public during Nichiren's time.

Malcolm wrote:
Your time frame is too short. Think about all the nonvirtue we have engaged in since beginningless time. But even the force of all of that cannot prevent someone from being born in Sukhavati if at the time of their death they focus single-heartedly on Amitābha Buddha. There are various ways to parse how the Pure Land Sūtra are supposed to be read, but recall, even Angulimāla, after murdering 999 people, attained arhatship. And his sūtra is one of the main tathāgatagarbha sūtras. There is considerable precedent for the idea that one's conduct in life is not necessarily a negative, determining factor in whether one can take birth in the pure lands.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 12:33 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
BTW if you are worried about the virus mutating the sanest thing is to support vaccination to a piton where we (maybe) reach something like herd immunity, the places these variants are developing tend to be where the virus can just rip through an unvaccinated population.

Malcolm wrote:
Dan is referring to the spread of MRSA, aka Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which evolved in response to an overuse of antibiotics. But viruses do not easily develop resistance to vaccines, neither do bacteria:
There are some reasons to be optimistic that the coronavirus will not become resistant to vaccines. Several years ago, Dr. Kennedy and Dr. Read presented an analysis of the difference between resistance to drugs and vaccines. Neither bacteria nor viruses evolve resistance to vaccines as easily as they do to drugs, they wrote. Smallpox vaccine never lost its effectiveness, nor did the vaccines for measles or polio, despite years of use...

And there are numerous varieties of vaccines in development. The first two approaching approval in the United States both use a significant chunk of viral RNA to train the immune system. Other vaccines that are in development use the whole virus. And different vaccines deliver the virus or part of it in different ways, all of which could prompt a different immune response.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/science/covid-vaccine-virus-resistance.html


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 11:41 PM
Title: Re: Amida Butsu
Content:
FiveSkandhas said:
Nichiren appears to have taken a very dim view of pure land teachings:


Those who rely on such evil teachers as Hōnen...and believe in the Amida...Sutra are going farther and farther into the fire or deeper and deeper into the depths of the water. How can they possibly escape agony? They will doubtless fall into the fiery pits of the hell of repeated rebirth for torture, the hell of black cords, and the hell of incessant suffering, or sink into the icy depths of the hell of the crimson lotus and the hell of the great crimson lotus.

-"Hell Is the Land of Tranquil Light"

Queequeg said:
He thought exclusivist Pure Land, like Honen's teachings, were evil. He didn't think the same of more traditional Pure Land - he just considered them provisional teachings.

Malcolm wrote:
Aren't internecine polemics fun?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 11:06 PM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:


PeterC said:
All eminently sensible.  Yet here we are, over a century later, and people are still presenting the same sort of arguments that Jacobson offered at the turn of the last century.


Malcolm wrote:
Well, you know, "My body, my choice."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 10:03 PM
Title: Re: How Many Mahayanas Were There? - David Drewes new paper
Content:


Zhen Li said:
Where Drewes is mistaken, I think, is continuing to simply ignore passages that refer to books when he suggests that writing and books were not important or worshipped in the Mahāyāna. Also, he conflates (purposefully?) Schopen's claim that the sūtras were worshipped in homes or shrines rather than caityas (there are sūtras in caityas in Nepal btw) as a rejection of the idea of book worship.

Malcolm wrote:
For example, when Mahāsiddha Virūpa (8th-9th century) was in South India, having been recruited as by a Hindu King for his expertise in Sanskrit, he was busted for prostrating to a copy of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā rather than a Śiva linga. One can well imagine that taking this sūtra as an object of devotion was extremely common, particularly among the educated, Buddhist elites. It's my personal favorite, along with the Saṃcayagathas.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 9:54 PM
Title: Re: How Many Mahayanas Were There? - David Drewes new paper
Content:
Zhen Li said:
I think Drewes' thesis here is correct. Supposed contradictions between Mahāyāna sūtras are clearly outweighed by that which they have in common and there are no explicit rejections of sūtras or doctrines, only claims to supercede alternative views. His other claim that people who viewed themselves as bodhisattvas viewed themselves as being such for many lives and not as having originated the corpus but as revealing it, is also illustrative.

The point about terminology is also incisive. Vaipulya, vevulla, or vaitulya sūtra instead of Mahāyāna sūtra makes a lot of sense. In the eyes of a Mahāyānist what distinguishes these sūtras? Surely it is their length and profundity. If it took so long for Buddhists to differentiate Mahāyāna from non-Mahāyāna, these may have been seen simply as the long and profound sūtras among the shorter āgamas sūtras.

Where Drewes is mistaken, I think, is continuing to simply ignore passages that refer to books when he suggests that writing and books were not important or worshipped in the Mahāyāna. Also, he conflates (purposefully?) Schopen's claim that the sūtras were worshipped in homes or shrines rather than caityas (there are sūtras in caityas in Nepal btw) as a rejection of the idea of book worship. Most of the Mahāyāna sūtras advocate writing them and worshipping them in book form, even in the same sentences in which readers are encouraged to memorise and recite them. In most pre-modern cultures with the use of books, they are used not in place of oral cultures but in support of them. The sūtras clearly advocate both the writing and worship of the sūtras in book form, and their memorisation and recitation. This is what still happens today in most Buddhist cultures with anything except the longest vaipulya sūtras. Even then, sections are extracted for memorisation and recitation, like the Universal Gate Chapter of the Lotus Sūtra. There are references to book worship in Indian sources starting as early as Faxian and throughout the śāstra materials, it continues in most Buddhist cultures. I sense he is sticking to his guns and assuming everyone is onboard with him, when it is glaringly obvious that he should admit that he may have gone a bit far at some points.

Malcolm wrote:
Same guy who rejects the idea the Buddha even existed...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 9:25 PM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
PeterC said:
The argument that we don't know everything is not, of itself, a good argument. At this point, we know enough.

Malcolm wrote:
Hence, settled.

Dan74 said:
There are several issues here. Firstly, the argument that the science is not settled was advanced to support the position that one has grounds for being cautious about getting vaccinated. It may well be that on the balance the right decision is indeed to vaccinate, but this doesn't mean that everyone who doesn't see it that way is an idiot.

Malcolm wrote:
Yeah, they pretty much are.

Dan74 said:
As to the actual question "do we know enough", three months ago when we got vaccinated, I thought so. Since then the cardiac inflammation stuff came out, but didn't significantly alter my view, but now we get some worrying data from Israel and the US, pointing to the current vaccines lasting for a short time and potentially offering no protection insofar as getting infected and spreading the virus is concerned.

Malcolm wrote:
No. The mRNA vaccines are still effective after six months:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc2103916

As for cardiac inflammation:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/health/myocarditis-covid-vaccine.html

Dan74 said:
For every one million Americans immunized with a coronavirus vaccine, about 60 develop temporary heart problems, according to a study published on Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network.

The complications were all short-lived, the researchers found. And these heart problems are far more common among patients who develop Covid-19, outside experts noted.
It seems to me that we could be heading into the antibiotic disaster-like situation. Antibiotics were being overprescribed and as the result drug-resistant bugs were able to develop. Now with nearly a billion people receiving one shot of the vaccine, if they still catch the virus, that's a lot of opportunity for the virus to evolve vaccine resistant variants.

Malcolm wrote:
Part of the settled science behind vaccines is not allowing virus to spread uncontrolled so they can evolve vaccine-resistant varieties like Lambda. That is settled science. The nice thing about evolution is that it is governed by mathematical probabilities, so such variants can also be predicted.


Dan74 said:
I might be seeing it wrong, but there seems to be a danger there. If the vaccines are no longer effective at stemming the spread, but only the severity, then they are only a temporary stopgap, until a new resistant variant that might be very hard to vaccinate against evolves.

Malcolm wrote:
When people cast doubt on vaccines, they increase vaccine hesitancy. When vaccine hesitancy increases, more unvaccinated people become infected, and increase the possibility of mutations. At base it comes down to public health vs. personal health. The idea that people have a right to not take vaccines (barring a demonstrable threat to their health that overrides the public interest) has already been settled by the supreme court in the USA in the 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts decision:

“The good and welfare of the Commonwealth, of which the legislature is primarily the judge, is the basis on which the police power rests in Massachusetts,” Harlan said  “upon the principle of self-defense, of paramount necessity, a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members.”

The issue of compulsory vaccinations for attendance of school was settled in 1922, Zucht v. King.

https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/blog/on-this-day-the-supreme-court-rules-on-vaccines-and-public-health

So, not only is the science settled, so is the law.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 8:15 PM
Title: Re: Bitcoin
Content:
gelukman said:
The fiat currency aka ordinary money. It is on more shallow ground than cryptocurrency.

Malcolm wrote:
You really need to read up on the history of money. Money maintains its value for two reasons: 1) it is back by a hard commodity, such as gold or silver 2) it is backed by a government guarantee. Of the two, the latter has proven to be much more stable.

Cryptocurrency is backed by neither, hence, a speculative investment.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 8:11 PM
Title: Re: Is the Pali Canon seen as legitimate / correct-view for Mahayana Buddhists?
Content:
Heimdall said:
Hello everyone!

I'm an inquirer into Mahayana Buddhism (I'm currently attending a Zen Buddhist center at my temporary location; I'll be moving back to my main residence and have to find another Buddhist Temple / Center in a couple of weeks).

I wanted to get started reading, studying, and meditating on the Sutras, and considering that I'm not set in a specific school yet (due to these circumstances - there's a Zen place and Vietnamese place that both seem welcoming, but I'll have to check them out myself when I get there - who knows) - I've decided that the best place to start off are the bodies of text common to most traditions - namely the Tripitaka - as I was under the impression that most Mahayana schools use a Sanskrit or East-Asian language version of the Pali Canon and then build off of it with additional sutras - so I bought the "Long Discourses of the Buddha" translated from the Pali Digha Nikaya by Maurice Walshe. It was on sale for half off, so I bought it for $25.

However, to my dismay, I've found out after purchasing it that what I read online was only sort of true, because while it seems that there is incredible overlap between the Pali and Sanskrit / East-Asian canons such that they seem to be based off the same texts and early doctrines of the Buddha, the Pali canon has additional sutras not in the Sanskrit / East-Asian tradition and some sutras outright substantively differing in content.

So...with that being said...are the Therevada texts still seen as legitimate / orthodox / authentic by the Mahayanan Buddhists? Are they legitimately teachings by the Buddha? Are they worth reading? Is there anything "heretical" or wrong-view in these texts that I should be worried about?

Thanks.

Malcolm wrote:
Legitimate, but not to read to the exclusion of Mahayana, which is more profound and has a higher view.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 8:09 PM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
PeterC said:
The argument that we don't know everything is not, of itself, a good argument. At this point, we know enough.

Malcolm wrote:
Hence, settled.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 7:22 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:


Malcolm wrote:
The question was not the highest form of practice, that is clearly the bodhisattva yāna in toto.

The question was, what is the highest form of meditation, by which people generally mean some kind of meditative absorption (samapatti) or samadhi. I answered that question very precisely.

You are answering a question different than the one that was asked.

Seitaka said:
Which in your experience or according to your studies of Buddhism is the highest or most powerful form of meditation or practice?

Malcolm wrote:
My point still stands.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 7:20 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
haha said:
one still has to realize bhutatathata.

Malcolm wrote:
That is realized on the first bhumi.

haha said:
According to interpretation of thirty-verses, it is the bhutatathata related with grahya and grahaka (i.e. for first bhumi / dharsanamarga). In vajropamasamadhi, it means bhutatathata related with asrayaparavritti. They have categorized understanding of the bhutatathata while progressing in the path.

From another presentation according to Misrakabhidharmahridayasastra, the Knowledge of Extinction (ksayajnana) and the Knowledge of Non-Arising (anutpadajnana) proceed after vajropamasamadhi.

Malcolm wrote:
Perhaps, but there is no actual difference in the object being realized.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 4:18 AM
Title: Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam
Content:


fckw said:
If it's not "falsifiable" it's not accessible to any scientific method - no matter whether it's scientific materialist one nor Vajrayana.

Malcolm wrote:
I was referring only to Western science. It certainly falsifiable in Vajrayāna. Do the practice, get the result. Many people have done so, and reported they have attained the results. When people do not get results, they are practicing incorrectly.

fckw said:
As I said: Either tukdam has or it does not have a physical correlate. Stating "there are signs" does not clarify this point.

Malcolm wrote:
There are signs. I suggest you read a book on the subject.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 2:04 AM
Title: Re: trekcho/tögel earth terma?
Content:


yagmort said:
düdjom khandro nyingthig?

Malcolm wrote:
Not an earth terma.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 2:03 AM
Title: Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam
Content:


fckw said:
...either tukdam is accessible to scientific materialist investigation or it's not.

Malcolm wrote:
Thugdam is not a falsifiable phenomena.

fckw said:
That is, either there are physical correlates or there are none.

Malcolm wrote:
There are various signs. If western technology is not up to snuff in measuring these signs, well, that is not the fault of people in post-mortem samadhi.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 2:00 AM
Title: Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam
Content:


fckw said:
That's not the full story, the full story is that 13 people studied who at least some people in the Tibetan Buddhist community believed were in tukdam were studied and had no activity detectable by the machine used.

Malcolm wrote:
Which means nothing at all.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 1:06 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:


reiun said:
I couldn't find the term Vajropama samapatti here: http://www.tibetanbuddhistencyclopedia.com/en/index.php?search=vajro+samapatti&title=Special%3ASearch&go=Go

Malcolm wrote:
This is not a reliable source of information.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 1:04 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:



reiun said:
In terms of "highest form of . . practice" (vs. highest form of samadhi), I would say it is actualizing the "ability [to] aid all sentient beings with absolute impartiality." See, for example, any decent discussion of the last of the Ten Ox-herding Pictures.

Malcolm wrote:
The question was not the highest form of practice, that is clearly the bodhisattva yāna in toto.

The question was, what is the highest form of meditation, by which people generally mean some kind of meditative absorption (samapatti) or samadhi. I answered that question very precisely.

You are answering a question different than the one that was asked.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 1:00 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:


Johnny Dangerous said:
Obviously, it’s not the same sort of problem as people with looney ideas, but it I don’t think everyone who hasn’t been vaccinated is that crazy, and in those cases how people dialogue over this stuff matters.

Malcolm wrote:
They just need to get their shit together. Anyway, the market has already decided for everyone that everyone needs to be vaccinated.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, August 5th, 2021 at 12:59 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:


Dan74 said:
This is easier said than done, since science is being written on this as we speak.

Malcolm wrote:
The science of vaccines is settled.

Dan74 said:
I think that what is settled, is your mind, Malcolm, on a great many issues, while the science of the COVID vaccines is far from settled.

Malcolm wrote:
Its settled.


Dan74 said:
When it comes to the mRNA vaccines, the FDA added a warning on them about the risk of heart inflammation barely a month ago. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/25/health/fda-covid-vaccine-heart-warning/index.html Does this sound settled?

Malcolm wrote:
Yup.

Dan74 said:
And when it comes to J&J and AZ, the lower risk of very serious blood clots is now accepted as being causally related to the vaccines.

Malcolm wrote:
Known issue with this technology. It has to do with the type of virus that they put the spike in.


Dan74 said:
Is anything else going to emerge? I hope not. Perhaps more minor things.

And when it comes to long term effects of the mRNA vaccines, how can we do anything other than speculate, given that they are new technology?

Malcolm wrote:
mRNA vaccines are unlike older vaccines, there is no live virus. The idea they alter one's genetic code is bullshit.


Dan74 said:
For full disclosure: both my wife and I are fully vaccinated (she with BionTech-Pfizer, I with Moderna).

Malcolm wrote:
That's the responsible approach.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:17 PM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:


Dan74 said:
This is easier said than done, since science is being written on this as we speak.

Malcolm wrote:
The science of vaccines is settled.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:16 PM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
haha said:
one still has to realize bhutatathata.

Malcolm wrote:
That is realized on the first bhumi.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:14 PM
Title: Re: how empty is our reality?
Content:


Malcolm wrote:
The appearance is not unreal, is it? The appearance is just empty.

White Sakura said:
You could not solve the problem that the water in the mirage is unreal.

Malcolm wrote:
A mirage is empty of water. It's merely an appearance that is mistaken for water. The point of the example is that appearances are deceptive, not that they do not exist. In order for an appearance to be deceptive, the appearance has to be real. No one is deceived by a nonexistent mirage.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 10:32 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:


reiun said:
Which is a static achievement  not necessarily related to the liberation of all sentient beings, thus not the highest or most powerful practice, unless actualized.

Malcolm wrote:
You can’t actualize it until you are on the verge of buddhahood, that is the point.

reiun said:
Yes indeed. Vajropama samadhi is not the "highest and most powerful practice". It is just a stage. Buddahood, in the liberation of all sentient beings,  is.

Malcolm wrote:
It’s definitely the highest and most powerful samadhi involved in aiding sentient beings, it’s not merely a “stage.” Without it the there would be no ability aid all sentient beings with absolute impartiality.

I mean, it all depends on whether or not one thinks buddhahood is the most precious thing ever. I do, YMMV.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:43 AM
Title: Re: Refuge name conundrum
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
The question is:
“So do you also think that taking refuge with Tibetan Lama you have to become a Vajrayana practitioner? Would you break the refuge if you practiced Zen or Pure Land Buddhism?”
…and I answered it. Sometimes yes, and sometimes no.
There’s no “breaking refuge”.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, refuge can be broken. Easily.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:26 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
But Vajropama samadhi is indispensable for buddhahood.

reiun said:
Which is a static achievement  not necessarily related to the liberation of all sentient beings, thus not the highest or most powerful practice, unless actualized.

Malcolm wrote:
You can’t actualize it until you are on the verge of buddhahood, that is the point. And it’s not static at all. Vajropamasamadhi is the fire of ultimate jnana. It’s the heat of the fire of wisdom.

The method by which one arrives there is not that important, the point is arriving there.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:17 AM
Title: Re: Texts that destroy ""scientific" materialism
Content:
Vajrasambhava said:
Anyway as you told me, a bit of Madhyamaka can be surely useful, but actually I don't think to solve my wrong conceptuality adopting another conceptualism, even if It's a deconstructive one. I think i have to cut right through all this conceptualizing, and Madhyamaka (at least in the early approaches) cannot do this.

Malcolm wrote:
If Madhyamaka is causing you to be more conceptual, the fault is not Madhyamaka.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:13 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Dan74 said:
In fact, had we had an equitable distribution in place, we would likely not be dealing with the Delta variant right now. And thanks to vaccine hesitancy, no doubt there are other variants on their way.

Malcolm wrote:
People just need to follow science. While not all antivaxxers are climate deniers, there is a considerable overlap.unfortunately, this was all caused by tolerating fascist trends in government masking as “conservative” or “libertarian.”


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:01 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:


reiun said:
In parsing the original question, the mistake is that meditation is a subset of practice, not separate. Vajropama Samadhi is quite clearly a stage attainment. How does it help liberate all sentient beings? Unless this is spelled out and actualized in right practice (on behalf of all sentient beings), I would contend that it is  not the highest or most powerful form of practice. The problem, as I see it: it is a static individual achievement. Walking around with that medal pinned to one's chest means nothing.

Malcolm wrote:
It can’t be attained without Mahayana bodhicitta. One doesn’t need this samadhi to attain arhatship. And it’s force in Hinayana practitioners is too weak to burn away all obscuration. I never said it was insight. Buddhahood itself is ultimately driven by wisdom, not method. But Vajropama samadhi is indispensable for buddhahood.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 4:23 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Vajropama-samādhi is the nirvikalpa samādhi of an ārya, someone who has realized emptiness already. Ordinary nirvikalpa samādhi merely leads to birth in the realm of unconscious devas.

Astus said:
Would you perhaps have some sources in mind for the above conenction between nirvikalpa and vajropama samadhi? I couldn't find much on nirvikalpa samādhi by a search of various possible translations (無分別三昧/三摩地/定), unless you meant nirvikalpa jñāna (無分別智). As for the samadhi leading to the heaven of unconsciousness (無想天), that's usually called asaṃjñi samāpatti (無想定).

Malcolm wrote:
It is also called nirodhasamapatti. If a commoner attains this, it is asaṃjñi samāpatti.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 4:16 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:


Seitaka said:
But on the topic, what is the survival rate of this virus for people under 80 and who have no preexisting conditions again?

Malcolm wrote:
What is the medical cost of every hospitalized person? About 75k.

How many people have been hospitalized? As of July 24, 190k.

75k * 190K = 14,250,000,000

That is 14 billion dollars in health care squandered on your irresponsibility and others like you——oh, but Mah Raghts...dumbass.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 2:36 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Bristollad said:
I think you need to think about it from a different angle.  It's not about your rights not to be forced to do something to prevent the virus from spreading, it should be about your responsibility to do what you can to protect others from the virus spreading.

Seitaka said:
Yes, this is why I say we must ban automobiles. Think about it, not only do automobile drivers often kill themselves in accidents, they frequently kill wildlife and pedestrians who don't even drive cars. Since safety is the top priority and car accidents kill so many each year, it is your responsibility to not drive one to protect others, I mean it's not really fair that shortening your travel time from point A to point B should put my and others lives at risk. Just one less car related death is worth their complete removal I say.

Malcolm wrote:
Dumb. Get lost troll.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 2:12 AM
Title: Re: how empty is our reality?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
So when those things are examined, they are found to empty. Empty does not mean "unreal," per se.

White Sakura said:
Things are not unreal per se, because it is a real mirage /illusion, that causes their appearance.


Malcolm wrote:
The appearance is not unreal, is it? The appearance is just empty.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 2:11 AM
Title: Re: Minnesota Teen Prepares for Life as a Reincarnated Lama
Content:
Lucas Oliveira said:
Minnesota Teen Prepares for Life as a Reincarnated Lama


Malcolm wrote:
Poor kid.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 2:11 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:



Seitaka said:
Bodily autonomy would be the idea that I have the right to choose what I do with my own body. For example, if I told you that you must get a tattoo on your forehead for the safety of the community and that refusal to do so would lead to punishment of some sort, that would be an infringement of your bodily autonomy. And let's say you agreed, surrendering your right of choice relating to your body could then be used in others ways if a powerful institution so desired since such a precedent has been set by your willing concession, so now you have to get your ears removed for the safety of the community or we will punish you. See how important freedom of choice and bodily autonomy is?

Malcolm wrote:
This is a stupid argument.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 2:09 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
narhwal90 said:
I got vaccinated and conform to mask policy- I don't want to be the guy who catches covid and brings it home to my family, or elsewhere for that matter.   How would that freedom feel if your kid caught covid from you and died on a ventilator in the hospital?

Seitaka said:
That's what I am, freedom of choice, choice to vaccinate and mask up or freedom not to.

Malcolm wrote:
Its a bullshit argument.


Seitaka said:
Your example doesn't falsify the statement that freedoms once given away are often never given back and the potential that has for future abuse by institutions which may become or are already corrupt, as is a near constant trend throughout the history of mankind.

Malcolm wrote:
Yawn.


Seitaka said:
bodily autonomy

Malcolm wrote:
Your physical autonomy is not as important as the lives of people you will take through your ignorance and indifference.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 12:03 AM
Title: Re: Texts that destroy ""scientific" materialism
Content:



Malcolm wrote:
However, madhyamaka is purely analytical, whereas dzogchen, etc., are experiential. But yes, the view is same.

tobes said:
Yes, I don't deny this. Also, I didn't suggest that Vajrasambhava study Madhyamaka - I suggested that by studying materialism, s/he will be naturally led to a Madhyamaka kind of open ended skepticism. i.e. in lieu of the manifold of contradictions, inconsistencies and leaps of faith that arise in the materialistic enterprise.

Vajrasambhava said:
Yes that's why! In my actual condition the only thing may could help me is Dzogchen, I have to experience the natural condition of myself in order to verify such things experentially. Anyway, right now I'm far from it, and the only thing I'd like to know it's: Is to experience "myself as non-ending-with-is-body" possible through direct perception (as in Dzogchen) or this is not directly-knowable?
If anyone could explain me this, it'd be really helpful

Malcolm wrote:
It is directly knowable through being able to remember past lives and directly perieve the minds of others


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 10:34 PM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
The answer is simple, and not sectarian at all, since it is mentioned in every sūtra and tantra that discusses Buddha's awakening.

The highest meditation is Vajropama Samadhi, since only it has the ability to obliterate all traces of the two obscurations in their entirety.

reiun said:
From Buddhistdoor.net, only the following is explained:

"vajropama-samādhi
'Diamond-like concentration', so called because, like a diamond that can cut through all things, it is the last stage in the abandonment of defilements; whatever defilements that have remained are all abandoned in this samādhi."

Without going to too much trouble, can you kindly provide your own take on this term, or point to a robust internet-accessible reference, please? (I'm sure the lead-up this  stage is important, too.) Thank you.

Malcolm wrote:
Vajropama-samādhi is the nirvikalpa samādhi of an ārya, someone who has realized emptiness already. Ordinary nirvikalpa samādhi merely leads to birth in the realm of unconscious devas.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 10:31 PM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
The answer is simple, and not sectarian at all, since it is mentioned in every sūtra and tantra that discusses Buddha's awakening.

The highest meditation is Vajropama Samadhi, since only it has the ability to obliterate all traces of the two obscurations in their entirety.

Seitaka said:
But what is the specific methodology or meditative practice by which such a samadhi can be attained? Obviously following the Buddhist path as a whole, but any particular practice which was seen as especially effective in attaining such?

Malcolm wrote:
Take your pick. But they all involved varying approaches to śamatha and vipaśyanā. They all require prajñā. So, best to cultivate that.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 10:29 PM
Title: Re: how empty is our reality?
Content:


White Sakura said:
it is a real mirage.

Malcolm wrote:
Case closed.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 9:56 PM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/03/business/tyson-vaccine-mandate.html

Unknown said:
Tyson Foods, one of the nation’s largest meat processors, said on Tuesday that it would require vaccines for its U.S. workers — about half of whom remain unvaccinated.

The mandate will extend to employees in its offices and in the field. The poultry supplier is requiring its leadership team to be vaccinated by Sept. 24 and the rest of its office workers by Oct. 1. Frontline employees have until Nov. 1 to be fully inoculated, extra time the company is providing because there are “significantly more frontline team members than office workers who still need to be vaccinated,” a Tyson spokesman said.

Malcolm wrote:
Good. More companies need to follow suit.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 9:48 PM
Title: Re: how empty is our reality?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Empty does not mean "unreal," per se.

White Sakura said:
then why did the Buddha give the example of moon reflected in water or mirage? The water in the mirage is really unreal. There is also no moon in the water.

Malcolm wrote:
Is a mirage a real mirage or not? Does it arise from its own causes and conditions or not? Is the reflection a real reflection or not?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 9:46 PM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Seitaka said:
I understand it: my body, my choice.

Malcolm wrote:
I suppose you support abortion rights as well, correct? It is after all the slogan of the pro-choice movement.

Now when it comes to choice about whether to be vaccinated or not:
State laws establish vaccination requirements for school children. These laws often apply not only to children attending public schools but also to those attending private schools and day care facilities. States may also require immunization of healthcare workers and of patients/residents of healthcare facilities.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/laws/index.html

Seitaka said:
Bodily autonomy and freedom of choice should be upheld at all costs because once rights and freedoms are taken, even if they are taken for a supposedly good cause or safety, they are rarely given back and therefore in the future can be subject to abuse.

Malcolm wrote:
This is false. For example, as above, all children in public school in the USA are required to receive vaccinations for mumps, measles, etc. Of course, if their parents choose not to school them in the public school system, they are free not to. But most schools require these vaccines for children, whether public or private.

Seitaka said:
Furthermore the institutions which are supporting the infringement of that bodily autonomy and freedom of choice (various governments, mass media, big tech, big corporations, etc.) are known to promote values, actions, and ways of thinking completely contrary to the Dharma, for example hedonism, licentiousness, materialism, and even sometimes outright hatred toward groups that they do not like. As such I am not sure why any Buddhist would place his trust in these institutions.

Malcolm wrote:
This is not the case. When, during the Buddha's day, monks committed civil crimes, they were turned over the civil authorities. The world at large has always promoted values, actions, and ways of thinking that are contrary to the Dharma. But we live in the world with other people. Therefore we have to get along with other people who are not Buddhists. This means we have to accommodate and adjust to the presence of governments, media, tech, large corporations.

If you live in a democracy, which you I assume you do, you should participate in your government. Otherwise, your voice will not be heard.

If you are not vaccinated against covid19, not only are being you irresponsible to your fellow citizens, but you are being stupid about your own health.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 9:15 PM
Title: Re: how empty is our reality?
Content:
Alastair said:
But the cells are real, just the way we see them as an object is illusional?

Malcolm wrote:
Cells are also composed of parts, there is nothing in the universe that is not composed of parts. So when those things are examined, they are found to empty. Empty does not mean "unreal," per se. It means empty of independent, aka inherent, existence. But things are also empty of dependent existence as well, since that is merely another form of inherent existence. Things are dependently originated, and thus they are empty and dependently designated. This is the middle way.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 10:12 AM
Title: Re: Texts that destroy ""scientific" materialism
Content:


tobes said:
Madhyamaka and Dzogchen have the same view and the same intent: undoing those entrenched beliefs such that genuine experience can arise.

Malcolm wrote:
However, madhyamaka is purely analytical, whereas dzogchen, etc., are experiential. But yes, the view is same.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 8:46 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
China Covid: Concerns grow as Delta outbreak spreads
Authorities are carrying out mass testing and have imposed sweeping lockdowns across 15 provinces.
Read in BBC News: https://apple.news/AmweK72XZQye1BqkbDpnpHQ


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 8:05 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:


KeithA said:
I...am have trouble finding any compassion for the folks who choose not get vaccinated.

Malcolm wrote:
You wear masks to protect them, right? Even though they are idiots? Well, that's compassion.

Anyhow, you should see the anti-vaxx shit show over on DW engaged.

KeithA said:
I am sure there is a spectrum of reasons. We tend focus on the ones dying so they can “own the libs”. Yeah, idiots. But even them, maybe even especially them, need compassion, not anger. Tough sledding, though.

Unpopular opinion for another day: Engaged Buddhism is just virtue signaling. I won’t be venturing over there any time soon.

Malcolm wrote:
There is nothing engaged about DW engaged, it mainly a platform for Nicholas Weeks to spew far right wing bullshit.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 6:42 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
It’s the sole reason the CDC revised their guidance.

Johnny Dangerous said:
Speaking of which:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/study-less-than-1-of-fully-vaccinated-people-experiencing-breakthrough-covid-infections/ar-AAMRbnM?ocid=winp1taskbar

I know they are applying the precautionary principle due to the snot/viral load test, but my guess is that as things play out we will see that vaccinated people are just not spreading this very much. We will see.

Malcolm wrote:
Ummm....Ptown?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/31/us/covid-outbreak-provincetown-cape-cod.html

Johnny Dangerous said:
I can't read the article because I don't subscribe, but from what I've read that was an atypical study demographically - big group of people flocking to one area.  It might mean something substantial on the larger scale or it might not, just like the viral load thing. Another issue is, AFAIK  a vaccinated testing positive for Covid does not necessarily imply tranmissability.

https://sfist.com/2021/07/22/delta-not-causing-more-breakthrough-covid-cases-expert-say-and-maybe-asymptomatic-cases-shouldnt-count/
Yes, the Delta variant is more contagious, but experts say there's little evidence so far that it's infecting more vaccinated people than would likely have been infected, statistically speaking, by any of the earlier variants. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines also both seem to be highly effective at protecting people against getting sick from the Delta variant, but maybe only 80% effective at preventing infection completely.
BTW, It's people like Paul Offit saying stuff like this, not some kook: "I think we are misusing the term breakthrough," he says. "If someone who is fully vaccinated is subsequently hospitalized or killed by the virus, that's a breakthrough case."
he New York Times also discussed breakthrough cases today, reporting on a widely talked-about outbreak of cases that came out of Provincetown, Massachusetts, where an estimated 66,000 mostly gay people gathered into crowded spaces over the week of July Fourth. Around San Francisco, an unknown number of people who returned from Provincetown were infected and some anecdotally became sick — but the Provincetown Board of Health has only recorded 256 cases among the vaccinated, with 66 among people who then traveled home out of state (though this seems like a likely undercount). Even if the true number is three times that, it still represents a relatively small number among the tens of thousands of vaccinated people partying in Provincetown that week.
Etc...so, no, these small scale studies and findings are not proof of widespread infection among the vaccinated, and indeed so far there is no data for that. Might there be? Sure, we will have to see. Is it prudent to wear masks in mixed areas...yeah, I mean, to a degree it always was.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 5:30 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
Speaking of which:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/study-less-than-1-of-fully-vaccinated-people-experiencing-breakthrough-covid-infections/ar-AAMRbnM?ocid=winp1taskbar

I know they are applying the precautionary principle due to the snot/viral load test, but my guess is that as things play out we will see that vaccinated people are just not spreading this very much. We will see.

Malcolm wrote:
Ummm....Ptown?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/31/us/covid-outbreak-provincetown-cape-cod.html


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 4:30 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:


KeithA said:
I...am have trouble finding any compassion for the folks who choose not get vaccinated.

Malcolm wrote:
You wear masks to protect them, right? Even though they are idiots? Well, that's compassion.

Anyhow, you should see the anti-vaxx shit show over on DW engaged.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 4:25 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:



Johnny Dangerous said:
Its distressing and quite confusing in some ways, but it is very different than the previous situation.

Malcolm wrote:
The point is that with Delta, vaccinated people are likely contagious if infected. Since they are vectors of transmission, it is unwise to abandon masks indoors, and social distancing outdoors, even if vaccinated. This protects everyone. Who cares if it seems excessive?

Johnny Dangerous said:
I don’t have an issue with masking, I think it’s a reasonable precaution, especially among people who are higher risk for breakthrough infection. The folks I practice with have chosen not to for now. I am personally ok with that too, but will change the second they want to.

I think that for many people there is a reasonable balance to be struck between safety and mental health, socializing, etc.

Malcolm wrote:
Since Trump, and because of him, the world is exponentially more dangerous now than it was say, six years ago.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 4:16 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:



Johnny Dangerous said:
Its distressing and quite confusing in some ways, but it is very different than the previous situation.

Malcolm wrote:
The point is that with Delta, vaccinated people are likely contagious if infected. Since they are vectors of transmission, it is unwise to abandon masks indoors, and social distancing outdoors, even if vaccinated. This protects everyone. Who cares if it seems excessive?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 2:00 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
Genjo Conan said:
I don't think you're going to get a definitive answer that's not also tied up in sectarianism.

Malcolm wrote:
The answer is simple, and not sectarian at all, since it is mentioned in every sūtra and tantra that discusses Buddha's awakening.

The highest meditation is Vajropama Samadhi, since only it has the ability to obliterate all traces of the two obscurations in their entirety.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 at 1:58 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Genjo Conan said:
They feel that, since they cannot be vaccinated, requiring the vaccine is unduly discriminatory and creates a two-tiered dharma.

Malcolm wrote:
Nonsense, your center's leaders are protecting their health.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 11:50 PM
Title: Re: Three thousand thoughts in a single life moment..
Content:
Minobu said:
Thank you Loppon malcolm for responding

Malcolm wrote:
The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom
I n Sanskrit: Bhagavati prajnaparamitahrdaya
In Tibetan: Bcom Idan 'das ma shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'I snying po
In English: The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom, the Bhagavati

Thus have I once heard:

The Blessed One was staying in Rajagrha at Vulture Peak along with a great community of monks and great community of bodhisattvas, and at that time, the Blessed One fully entered the meditative concentration on the varieties of phenomena called the Appearance of the Profound. At that very time as well, holy Avalokitsevara, the bodhisattva, the great being, beheld the practice itself of the profound perfection of wisdom, and he even saw the five aggregates as empty of inherent nature. Thereupon, through the Buddha's inspiration, the venerable Sariputra spoke to holy Avalokitsevara, the bodhisattva, the great being, and said, "Any noble son who wishes to engage in the practice of the profound perfection of wisdom should train in what way?"

When this had been said, holy Avalokitsevara, the bodhisattva, the great being, spoke to venerable Sariputra and said, "Sariputra, any noble sons or daughters who wish to practice the perfection of wisdom should see this way: they should see insightfully, correctly, and repeatedly that even the five aggregates are empty of inherent nature. Form is empty, emptiness is form, Emptiness is not other than form, form is also not other than emptiness. Likewise, sensation, discrimination, conditioning, and awareness are empty. In this way, Sariputra, all things are emptiness; they are without defining characteristics; they are not born, they do not cease, they are not defiled, they are not undefiled. They have no increase, they have no decrease.

"Therefore, Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, no discrimination, no conditioning, and no awareness. There is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. There is no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no texture, no phenomenon. There is no eye-element and so on up to no mind-element and also up to no element of mental awareness. There is no ignorance and no elimination of ignorance and so on up to no aging and death and no elimination of aging and death. Likewise, there is no suffering, origin, cessation, or path; there is no wisdom, no attainment, and even no non-attainment.

"Therefore, Sariputra, since the bodhisattvas have no obtainments, they abide relying on the perfection of wisdom. Having no defilements in their minds, they have no fear, and passing completely beyond error, they reach nirvana. Likewise, all the Buddhas abiding in the three times clearly and completely awaken to unexcelled, authentic, and complete awakening in dependence upon the perfection of wisdom.

"Therefore, one should know that the mantra of the perfection of wisdom - the mantra of great knowledge, the precious mantra, the unexcelled mantra, the mantra equal to the unequalled, the mantra that quells all suffering - is true because it is not deceptive. The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is proclaimed:

tadyatha - gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!

Sariputra, a bodhisattva, a great being, should train in the profound perfection of wisdom in that way."

Thereupon, the Blessed One arose for that meditative concentration, and he commended holy Avalokitsevara, the bodhisattva, the great being. "Excellent!" he said. "Excellent! Excellent! Noble child, it is just so. Noble child, it is just so. One should practice the profound perfection of wisdom in the manner that you have revealed - the Tathagatas rejoice!" This is what the Blessed One said.

Thereupon, the venerable Sariputra, the holy Avalokitsevara, the bodhisattva, the great being, and that entire assembly along with the world of gods, humans, asuras, and gandharvas, all rejoiced and highly praised what the Blessed One had said.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 11:25 PM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Yes, that's very important. It seems many do not shed this childhood fantasy, however.

Malcolm wrote:
For years I have observed many people here waxing nostalgic about Dharma kings. This fantasy is deeply embedded in the Tibetan Buddhist imagination, even in westerners.

For example, such images permeate the lower initiations of Vajrayāna, superficially modeled on the coronation of an Indian monarch. Trungpa borrowed various customs from Asian countries, combined them with his imagination of British mannerisms, cooked this all up into a new dish, and served monarchism to western disciples. We still have people who take the Kālacakra empowerment stirred by utopian fantasies of a coming world paradise run by tenth-stage bodhisattva rulers, hoping to be reborn as soldiers in the army of Rudra Cakravartin. And of course we have famous Tibetan Buddhist teachers today who complain bitterly about Democracy on a regular basis.

And more to the point, virtually all of our lineage heads were religious rulers.

Of course, this sentiment is understandable in societies like Tibet, and basically everywhere else, which were run by despots, tyrants, and warlords. But such imagery, though evocative, is much less powerful in a Democratic society


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 10:33 AM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
very concerned about limiting the role of the executive.

Malcolm wrote:
Washington was a founder. I was responding to a specific claim about Washington, i.e., that people feared HE would want to become a king. Washington was no prince, he singly handedly started the war that ultimately led to the American Revolution, the French and Indian War of 1754-1763, and he owned slaves. My point was that no one feared that Washington had royal ambitions, despite a robust conversation about the undesirability of having a king at the head of the new republic.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 9:23 AM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:
Bristollad said:
As elitist as having a constitutional monarchy seems, even as a socialist I'm just grateful our head of state isn't another bloody politician.

Malcolm wrote:
Monarchism dies hard, even when monarchs don’t do shit but spend money on pomp and circumstance.  Anyhow, the UK has not had a legitimate monarch since the Stuarts were usurped.

PeterC said:
Not even. The country has been illegitimately occupied ever since the Normans killed Harold Godwinson in October 1066.

Malcolm wrote:
Around the same time Chetsun Senge Wangchuk received the 17 tantras.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 8:06 AM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:
Bristollad said:
As elitist as having a constitutional monarchy seems, even as a socialist I'm just grateful our head of state isn't another bloody politician.

Malcolm wrote:
Monarchism dies hard, even when monarchs don’t do shit but spend money on pomp and circumstance.  Anyhow, the UK has not had a legitimate monarch since the Stuarts were usurped.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 8:03 AM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:


PeterC said:
What america does have, which is at the core of its society, is an aristocracy.  Large parts of society are organized in such a way as to entrench it.

Malcolm wrote:
There is no genuine form aristocracy in America. There is sort of a Hollywood glitter version of it, but no one takes it seriously.

There is a burgeoning billionaire class that has benefitted through a tax code that benefits them and against discriminates people who make far less than they do. Time to bust up some monopolies...

As to Kim's observation—the Kennedys were not and are not a dynasty. Neither are the Bushes. Neither family is competent enough to maintain power in a Democracy—and that's the point right? ...

Kim O'Hara said:
Sorry, Malcolm, but we're clearly using slightly different meanings of the term.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081856/

I rest my case.


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
Ummm… what did I say about Hollywood glitter?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 8:02 AM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:
Danny said:
Callender sided with the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party, which believed in a limited federal government that would allow states to determine their own future. Republicans, as they were known until 1828 when they would become the Democratic Party, believed Congress had principal power in national affairs, since it was closer to the states and the people. A too-powerful executive, supported by a large army, would encourage monarchism. Republican distaste for the monarchy inspired their support for the freedom-loving revolutionaries in France over Great Britain’s king.

Malcolm wrote:
There was never any danger that Washington was going to become a king.

Crazywisdom said:
To the contrary, the power of a president as a king was of paramount concern to the founders.

Malcolm wrote:
Well,not exactly, that’s why they chose the term “president” rather than “king.” Of course they are concerned about hereditary leadership, but they nipped that in the bud, that’s why no one was worried about Washington becoming a king.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 4:24 AM
Title: Re: How Bhikshu Svagata drinks (too much) alcohol
Content:
Aemilius said:
It seems evident that the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya is the earlier version...

Malcolm wrote:
https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/why-the-mahasa-ghika-is-not-the-earliest-vinaya/7458

Aemilius said:
To sum up, the sources that Prebish invokes to prove the earliness of the Mahāsaṅghika Vinaya either are weak (Bareau and Pachow), mistaken (Hofiger), sectarian (Fa-xiang), or in fact prove the very opposite of what Prebish wants (Frauwallner, Roth, Cousins). Worryingly, Prebish has repeatedly misrepresented his sources.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 4:21 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
Norwegian said:
So, if you want to use Buddhist talking points, there's that whole compassion and caring about others aspect which is important to consider. And I would hope that whoever is in the Dzogchen Community are capable of considering this.

Malcolm wrote:
There has always been a deficit of compassion in the DC, not in Rinpoche, but in many of his students, especially the ones who fantasize that they are not Buddhists.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 4:14 AM
Title: Re: Highest form of meditation?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Maybe you don't have a complete list

Seitaka said:
Yes these are just some major ones, 84,000 Dharma doors would be kind of hard to list huh?

Malcolm wrote:
Pretty easy actually: 21,000 for ignorance (Abhidharma), 21,000 for desire (Vinaya), 21,000 for hatred (sūtra), and another 21,000 for mixed afflictions (mixed teachings).


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 4:10 AM
Title: Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas
Content:
dharmafootsteps said:
I’ve been increasingly surprised over the past year and a half by not only the extent of anti-vaxx sentiment within the Dzogchen Community, but also the extremity of that sentiment.

Malcolm wrote:
These people are idiots. I know people who have departed from Tenerife because of this issue, because they do not feel safe around the anti-vaxx crowd.


dharmafootsteps said:
Some people are simply too distrustful to take the vaccine, but I’m also seeing significant numbers of people with really really wild conspiratorial views, and even sadder, aggressively haranguing vajra siblings about it.

Malcolm wrote:
They can f*&k off.

dharmafootsteps said:
Unfortunately this isn’t just limited to a few crazies, but includes respected members of the Community, people in positions of authority, long time dedicated practitioners etc (admittedly the views and behaviour among these groups are at least less extreme). The Community WhatsApp group in my own country has mostly just become a vehicle for spreading anti-vaxx media.

Malcolm wrote:
You should not follow it then.

dharmafootsteps said:
Without the guidance of a living teacher I guess it allows for more flourishing of wild ideas.

Malcolm wrote:
ChNN would have been first in line. That's how stupid these people are. They all seems to forget the extreme protection ChNN was afforded from the flue in 2017 and onward. 2015/2016 was really the last year you could go up, greet him and shake his hand.

Their idea, as dumb as it is, is to do lots of protector pujas, as if that is going to protect them from getting covid21 [Delta]. So dumb.

Yes, do protector pujas, but also get a f76cking vaccine shot.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 2:31 AM
Title: Re: Three thousand thoughts in a single life moment..
Content:


Minobu said:
i get that matter is empty of inherent existence...

how does emptiness become matter....did you misspoke.

Malcolm wrote:
If I mispoke, the Buddha mispoke, because I was just directly quoting the Heart Sūtra.

Since matter and emptiness are inseparable, whatever is matter is empty, and whatever is empty is matter. To extend the quote, whatever is a sensation is empty, whatever is empty is a sensation, etc. There is actually a means of understanding this four-fold emptiness. My teacher, Lama Migmar, explains it in detail here:





Minobu said:
i was happy to see you admitting that there is  suffering...

it might not be inherent but it does exist...


Malcolm wrote:
I never, ever, suggested otherwise, anywhere, in any forum.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 1:12 AM
Title: Re: Refuge name conundrum
Content:


KathyLauren said:
Many people in Tibetan traditions take refuge in Guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

Malcolm wrote:
Only if they have actually received empowerment.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 12:45 AM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Philosophers, logicians and mathematitians also talk about truth claims. But point taken. I have practiced this cycle for many years, so I guess I can admit it's effectiveness in tantric means. Still wondering if it's what Buddha had intended

Malcolm wrote:
From our perspective, a buddha intended it. And it really depends on how much one thinks "Buddhism" is only the recorded words of a particular human being who lived in India roughly 2500 years ago.

But more to the point, we cannot expect our legends and myths to correspond to an empirical examination of facts in modern history, archaeology, and text criticism. And frankly, when it comes to practicing our traditions, we shouldn't really care. Empirical facts are part of impure vision, not the experiential vision of yogins and yoginis.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021 at 12:38 AM
Title: Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam
Content:



heart said:
I don't think that breath is physical.

/magnus

Malcolm wrote:
Of course it is physical, since it involves the element of air.

heart said:
Well, dead people don't breath so it indicate some other kind of movement.

/magnus

Malcolm wrote:
People in thugdam still have inner respiration. They are not dead until the father and mother's element meet at the heart center, etc., no matter what standard of death is held by Western Medicine.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 10:16 PM
Title: Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam
Content:


fckw said:
And if none of those method would reveal anything, according to Occam's Razor the closest conclusion would be to assume from a scientific standpoint that tukdam is just a myth people tell each other, a story to inspire, but nothing to be taken seriously by anyone scientifically inclined. And that in turn should be very unsettling for any practitioner, because it means that what our lineage masters have told us is not reliable from a scientific perspective.

Malcolm wrote:
Occam's razor might also tell us that modern science is not up to the task of explaining the death processes of people who have mastered a serious level of samadhi.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 10:13 PM
Title: Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam
Content:


heart said:
People in tukdam are dead. Thet don't breath, their hearts don't beat. So it would be very weird if there was any brain activity.

Malcolm wrote:
But they do breathe, while in Thukdam, the inner respiration has not ceased.

heart said:
I don't think that breath is physical.

/magnus

Malcolm wrote:
Of course it is physical, since it involves the element of air.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 10:12 PM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:


PeterC said:
They’d like you to think so, but really the roots of most “royal” families in Europe are extremely shallow, particularly the windsors.

Malcolm wrote:
Depth of ancestry is obviously not a measure of the ability to take or be thrust into power. And yes, they are all cousins who all held all the thrones. When you read nineteenth century marxist and anarchist tracts excoriating elites, well, this is the people they were talking about.

PeterC said:
Victoria’s son, Edward, should have been styled prince of saxe-coburg und gotha, but they felt ‘Windsor’ sounded more British than a barely-relevant Germanic name.

Malcolm wrote:
Indeed.

PeterC said:
Philip Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg - whose grandfather was a king, albeit of a rather unimportant Kingdom, but whose father really wasn’t anything except a nazi collaborator - got his wife, liz Windsor, to promote him to Prince and had his family changed to Mountbatten, which again sounds reassuringly British.

Malcolm wrote:
Absolutely.

PeterC said:
It’s all a mirage.  They repurpose discarded titles ennobled with the merest fragment of DNA and claim that they’ve been around forever.  The key skill is the pretence.

Malcolm wrote:
All kings are fools, as Aryadeva points out.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 10:06 PM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:


Malcolm wrote:
The nirmāṇakāya of Mahāvajradhara by the name of Śṛī Heruka. So, not visionary, meant to be taken literally as you indicate below, which is why people spend time going to the 24 places, and renaming place in Tibet after them, etc.

Crazywisdom said:
That's a truth claim, see?

Malcolm wrote:
Not in any hard legal sense.

For example, another "truth" claim concerns the existence of a kingdom named Shambhala and a huge war that is supposed to happen with Muslims in 400 years or so. Some people take this literally. Other people see it as an allegory of a personal, spiritual battle, as it is presented in the gnosis chapter.

Kālacakra is recognized as a valid system today by everyone; but during the 14th century there was still considerable doubt about it's validity in Tibet.

All of these claims are truth claims for those who accept them, and are not truth claims for those who do not. For example, the treasure system is still widely rejected/ignored by many Tibetan Buddhists, especially in Geluk, Jonang, and more conservative bastions of Sakya.

So, in general, in Buddhadharma, one tends to ignore the scriptures for which one does not feel affinity, no one fears rejecting or ignoring the truth claims made by proponents of this or that school, and it has been this way since the rise of Mahāyāna, and even among śrāvaka schools we see this dynamic, i.e., "We don't read that sūtra, so it does not apply to us."



Crazywisdom said:
This is one of the bases to the claim that in this degenerate age, the Laghusamvara cycle is the most effective.
So if that's true it will be most effective. Is it? How can we know?

Malcolm wrote:
Well, practice five-fold Mahāmudra or Vajrayoginī in the Drigung system and find out.

I suspect these claims of effectiveness are a kind of puffery. Their validity rests on accepting certain assumptions.

The Laghusamvara system was certainly the most widely practiced tantric cycle in India. It has the most explanatory tantras, commentaries, and sādhanas. More of the Eighty-Four Mahāsiddhas practiced it than any other system. Today, it remains the most widely practice system in Tibetan Buddhism, extensively practiced in Sakya, Kagyu, and Gelug, with the central lineages in all three schools descending directly from Naropa, either through Mal Lotsawa Rinchen Drak (Sakya, Geluk) or Marpa Lotsawa (Dwagpo Kagyu, Geluk), and is practiced more widely than Hevajra, Guhyasamāja, Kālacakra, not to mention more obscure systems like Caturpitha, Mahāmaya, Candamahārośana, Buddhakāpala, and so on.

But more importantly, for Indians, the origin story of Heruka of the Laghusamvara has everything to do with the conquest of Shiva and Umadevi, sited in and around places in India that people actually travelled to and at one point, could identify with certainty. Later, when these pithas, upithas, and so on became less identifiable, the pilgrimage became an inner one, with the Ghantapāda body mandala system, etc.

None of these claims can be verified in any sort of objective way for anyone but oneself.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 9:12 PM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
He remarks on Nagarjuna using a linguistic example of, "when I traveled in the road, I traveled on the road," as proof of traveling twice. Nagarjuna uses this example to show the illusory nature of appearance. Bronkworst uses this example to show Nagarjuna's use of linguistic devices stems from a fallacious assumption in Mahayana, that reality is nominal. When in fact names are just labels atop felt experiences. Babies don't have words, but the have countless experiences. That's why they giggle and cry.

Malcolm wrote:
He is a historian, not a Buddhist I don’t expect him to grasp the nuances of Madhyamaka, rejections of moving movers, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 8:51 PM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:


PeterC said:
What america does have, which is at the core of its society, is an aristocracy.  Large parts of society are organized in such a way as to entrench it.

Malcolm wrote:
There is no genuine form aristocracy in America. There is sort of a Hollywood glitter version of it, but no one takes it seriously.

There is a burgeoning billionaire class that has benefitted through a tax code that benefits them and against discriminates people who make far less than they do. Time to bust up some monopolies...

As to Kim's observation—the Kennedys were not and are not a dynasty. Neither are the Bushes. Neither family is competent enough to maintain power in a Democracy—and that's the point right?

The Hanover/Windsors are a dynasty. They've held the throne of England since the mid-18th century, through through six regents. But we Yankee Doodles kicked them out during the reign of the first king in their dynasty, George the III, the architect of the modern British identity, flag and all. And we sent the Tories who did not want participate in the US packing to Canada or back home to England. Australia became the new Georgia.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 8:34 PM
Title: Re: Refuge name conundrum
Content:
suerafatodd said:
Hello all - hope you're well. I'm writing with a question regarding a refuge name I received.

I was previously a member of the Shambhala community, which (as I'm sure many know) has been up-ended by the revelation of an abuse scandal (both recent and historical). I took refuge with a representative of the so-called "Sakyong" before all of this was revealed - I was given a refuge name. I consider refuge names to be tools for self-reflection. Somehow, after everything that has happened, I feel as though that name (that tool)) isn't even valid since it was conferred by someone who I do not consider to be a legitimate teacher. I am writing to get opinions on how to relate to this name given the circumstances. Is it a legitimate tool for me, or something to disregard?

This is purely a psychological issue for me and may seem trivial, but that name feels like some sort of tether tying me to the "Sakyong," that community and the whole situation. The reality of the situation is that I want nothing to do with it and do not want to be tethered to it psychologically or otherwise. That is why it is eating me up. I'd appreciate any advice anyone may have.

heart said:
Take refuge again with a teacher you have full confidence in. In general refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha have nothing to do with various Tibetan lineages so the person you take refuge with should feel like a solid  representation of the three jewels.

/magnus

Aemilius said:
Oh really?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, really.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 5:36 AM
Title: Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam
Content:


heart said:
People in tukdam are dead. Thet don't breath, their hearts don't beat. So it would be very weird if there was any brain activity.

Malcolm wrote:
But they do breathe, while in Thukdam, the inner respiration has not ceased.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 5:34 AM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:


Danny said:
Washington was offered a “crown” of sorts, no matter how a kings crown was broken into many parts.

Malcolm wrote:
Not in actuality.


Danny said:
Thankfully he rejected as you say, but to say there was no memory and fear of another lord protector, A tyrant is unreasonable.

Malcolm wrote:
We rejected the monarchy and its trappings. We still do. The conflict between the Federalists and the Republicans had to do with how slavery was going to be handled more than anything else.

Danny said:
Washington and his successor Adams were viewed as Federalists and with suspicion.

Malcolm wrote:
They were viewed with such suspicion in the South. In New England, the Federalists were the dominate party until they collapsed in 1816. And a majority of the founders were Federalists. They were absolutely opposed to any aristocracy.  Nevertheless, they were pro-British in general. They lost their popularity largely as result of the War of 1812.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 4:38 AM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:
Danny said:
Callender sided with the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party, which believed in a limited federal government that would allow states to determine their own future. Republicans, as they were known until 1828 when they would become the Democratic Party, believed Congress had principal power in national affairs, since it was closer to the states and the people. A too-powerful executive, supported by a large army, would encourage monarchism. Republican distaste for the monarchy inspired their support for the freedom-loving revolutionaries in France over Great Britain’s king.

Malcolm wrote:
There was never any danger that Washington was going to become a king.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 3:10 AM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:


Danny said:
Typical gaslighting

Malcolm wrote:
Typical ambiguous claims not backed by any facts whatsoever.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 2:43 AM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Which Nirmanakaya is that? Vajradakini? Visionary.

Malcolm wrote:
The nirmāṇakāya of Mahāvajradhara by the name of Śṛī Heruka. So, not visionary, meant to be taken literally as you indicate below, which is why people spend time going to the 24 places, and renaming place in Tibet after them, etc.

Crazywisdom said:
especially in the Chakrasamvara situation. It is meant to say this happened there. How can that be? It's a miraculous claim.

Malcolm wrote:
This is one of the bases to the claim that in this degenerate age, the Laghusamvara cycle is the most effective.

Crazywisdom said:
Sure Buddhahood, and you have to swallow hook line and sinker for all the extra stuff Mahayana and Vajrayana say is missing from "liberation,"

Malcolm wrote:
Principally, what is missing from liberation is two-fold omniscience, that's what you have to swallow. But that omniscience is limited.


Crazywisdom said:
also as Bronkworst points out Mahayana/Vajrayana is based on the fallacy that reality is just words.

Malcolm wrote:
Where does he make this claim? He is incorrect, of course.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 1:36 AM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:



Danny said:
Lol Washington was a king in all but name.

Malcolm wrote:
That is just false.

Danny said:
The fears of the day were that Washington was a king, without the ritual, checking for a dick, and the blood of the Roman eagle confirmation.

Malcolm wrote:
Whose fears?

Danny said:
Also the fears were what fills the “void” after reactionary forces had secured a political empty space, the illegal redistribution of wealth and land...

Malcolm wrote:
Huh? Which "reactionary forces" are you referring to?

Danny said:
False no...

Malcolm wrote:
Definitely.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 12:55 AM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:
Archie2009 said:
Isn't it because Americans have this weird thing for (European) royalty and dominate the entertainment industry?

Malcolm wrote:
We don't really. We look at royalty as a quaint and charming oddity that we have abandoned.

Danny said:
Lol Washington was a king in all but name.

Malcolm wrote:
That is just false. There was a man, Colonel Lewis Nicola, who suggested to Washington that as the chief executive of the nascent republic, he be named "king."  Washington flat out rejected this suggestion. And as history shows, he transferred his power peacefully to the next president. Kings only transfer power, generally, through death or murder.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 12:34 AM
Title: Re: Three thousand thoughts in a single life moment..
Content:



Queequeg said:
Yeah, all I can say is I don't think Zhiyi devolved to the sarvastivadin position as you describe it.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, the three dependent originations pretty much coved every possible causal relationship. I would not call it a devolution.

Queequeg said:
I'm not sure cause and effect as you have in mind applies to the view explained through ichinen sanzen. "Since suffering and its causes do not exist..." I don't think its any sort of conventional view. As I understand, its the view taught in, for instance, the Heart Sutra:
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering,
no end to suffering, no path to follow.

Malcolm wrote:
Which actually means:

There is suffering, a cause of suffering,
an end to suffering, a path to follow.

Why? "Matter is empty, emptiness is matter; apart from matter there is no emptiness; apart from emptiness there is no matter, the same for sensation. perception, formation, and consciousness."

The Heart Sūtra is merely saying there is no inherent suffering, cause, end, or path, and that the two truths, samsara and nirvana, etc., are inseparable.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, August 1st, 2021 at 12:29 AM
Title: Re: What's with all the monarchism being fed to kids?
Content:
Archie2009 said:
Isn't it because Americans have this weird thing for (European) royalty and dominate the entertainment industry?

Malcolm wrote:
We don't really. We look at royalty as a quaint and charming oddity that we have abandoned.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 31st, 2021 at 11:50 PM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
It's an interesting issue. So in Guhyagarbha the wrathful mandala chapter 15 gives this long story about how Heruka tamed Tarpa Nagpo. It is an allegory. An allegory has a purpose, it is meant to crystalize a value. In this case the value is the most essential point of tantra, the mandala, mantra, etc.

In the case of Ramayana and Bhagavat Gita probably these are somewhat like that, but these were contrived by Brahmins establish themselves as the heirs of Rishis, the kingmakers and right hand to ancient bloodlines. So, total lie. Motives for control.

In the tantra example you give, it would fall under allegory. And Buddhist tantra tends to try to use allegory like this to upend the status quo, which was Brahmanism.

Malcolm wrote:
Seems to me you are using a double standard: fiction if it is nonbuddhist, allegory if it is buddhist.

Crazywisdom said:
But these are meant to be stories. Fiction IS a lie.

Malcolm wrote:
No, fiction is not necessarily a lie, as you admit above. It can be intentional, to make a point.

Crazywisdom said:
Maybe no one but the educated knows that. But it is a lie. It's lie meant to reveal a truth. That's why they give out prizes.

Malcolm wrote:
A lie, strictly speaking, is something said to deceive someone else. But I see no evidence of deliberate deception.

Crazywisdom said:
What is the point of telling a fictional story about how a sutra or tantra was found? It is not meant to reveal a truth. It is meant to legitimize it and hide the truth, which is Buddha never said it.

Malcolm wrote:
Only in a most narrow, literalist sense. And there are myriad strategies to justify what people set down as the words of the Buddha, from declaring the Buddha never said anything to the idea that the Buddha's words are interpreted variably by whoever hears them. When it comes to the Tantras, for example, they do not even necessarily claim to be taught by the Buddha. For example, the tradition of the Laghusamvara Tantra claims it was never taught by the historical Buddha, but rather, by the nirmāṇakāya who presently dwells in the twenty-four places in Jambudvipa. Is this a lie, a legend, or a myth?

Crazywisdom said:
Bronkworst uses his method to prove or attempt at least that there are many things in the canon which Buddha never taught. I think most relevant to this discussion is liberating knowledge. He is more or less saying Buddha never talked much about the emptiness of dharmas and therefore that all of Mahayana and  Vajrayana would have to be the fruit of a particular school of scholars who focused on that being the most important point. Whereas, for Buddha it was one important point but not the most important point. The most important point was seeing the end of suffering.

Malcolm wrote:
Sure, but I brought up Bronkhorst mainly because his research calls into question a lot of earlier European ideas about India circa 400 BCE, ideas which have been widely adopted by Indians as well as Westerners. As to your last point, there are many Theravadins who would likely agree with him.

Crazywisdom said:
Insofar as the emptiness of skandhas are the emptiness of dharmas, of course the Mahayana, like Heart Sutra and Vajrayana like mandala of five dhyani buddhas is useful, like a tool in a toolbox of tools, but I'm afraid unnecessary. They lead to the same point, perhaps with better precision. But the fanciful notions about buddhahood being the major and minor marks, emanations on planeta and all that are in the category of uselessness.

Malcolm wrote:
The PP Sūtras dispensed with the idea of buddhahood being identifiable in characteristics.

In any case, no one ever said Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna were necessary for liberation, the claim is that they are necessary for buddhahood. Liberation and buddhahood are not the same thing.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 31st, 2021 at 9:45 PM
Title: Re: abhisamayalankara resources
Content:
Humanic said:
Anyone have any idea about resources/texts in English to study the abhisamayalankara? Preferably from a gelugpa source.

Malcolm wrote:
Tsongkhapa’s commentary has been translated and published by Spareham.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 31st, 2021 at 8:09 PM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:


Malcolm wrote:
I don't think it is quite that simple. We are divorced by two thousand years from the conditions on the ground that led to the rise of Mahāyāna, etc.

Crazywisdom said:
They lied because that was cool 2000 years ago?

Malcolm wrote:
No one considers dramatizations to be lies. For example, Plato’s Socrates was based on a real person, but was used as a literary device to express Plato’s ideas. In other words, Plato always put the best argument in the mouth of Socrates, but there is little doubt that these words were rarely if ever the actual words of Socrates. Likewise, Mahayana arose at the same time as the Ramayana and so on, use similar themes, etc. Is the Ramayana or the Bhagavad Gita a lie? Did Ravanna conspire to steal Sita? Was there ever even a person named Ravanna or Sita?  If there was never a person named Ravanna, then what does that do to the credibility of the Lanka in your view?

Or what about the fact that the Blazing Tongue of the Dakini tantra, the principle source on the origins of Mahakala and Mahakali, borrows the narrative of Shiva destroying Tripura in order to explain the origins of Mahakala and borrows the narrative of Ravanna  seducing Sita to explain the origins of Shri Devi and Remati? Is this a lie, or is there something else to be considered in these examples?

You seem to be making the claim that if the Mahayana sutras and tantras do not portray actual historical events, if tales of the lineage like Buddha flying to Oddiyana to meet Indrabhuti I, or giving the Kalacakra inside a stupa in South India, are dramatic stories rather than historical events, it’s all a bust. You might feel that way, but I don’t.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 31st, 2021 at 4:40 AM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Credibility is important. Liars lie for a motive. Either the miraculous accounts happened or they didn't. If they didn't, probably the text is irrelevant at best.

Malcolm wrote:
I don't think it is quite that simple. We are divorced by two thousand years from the conditions on the ground that led to the rise of Mahāyāna, etc.

Crazywisdom said:
My lama swore Pachung could fly. I saw some pretty miraculous stuff around those guys. One must have an open mind. Not everything is explained.

Malcolm wrote:
On the contrary, everything is explained, for examples, things like the ṛddhipatis, etc.

Crazywisdom said:
He also makes some pretty big leaps of logic, like if something wasn't meantioned it means he didn't know about it. I'd have to look again, but he uses this tactic to frame his main arguments often,: see his logic on why 12 links was probably a later addition.

Malcolm wrote:
This is because there are several formulations of the nidanas, and they are not consistently presented.


Crazywisdom said:
He drops many many unsupported assumptions to prove his points. Although he makes some good ones, too. The passages he selected as probably emblemtic of Buddha's intent, tone, modus operandi, rings true. They have a raw and natural feel of someone trying to get his point across, rather than someone trying to organize ideas for memorization,.or to wax philosophical to split hairs.

Malcolm wrote:
The Buddha was interested in philosophy only in so far as it reduced people's concepts.



Crazywisdom said:
Similarly, do you really believe there is such a thing as 3 incalculable kalpas? Do you really believe your blood of past lives can fill the universe? Do you really believe the Buddha taught all these different paths, like bhumis and 5 paths? Is it at all necessary to know any abidharma? Or is it all superfluous?

Malcolm wrote:
I personally accept rebirth and think that Buddhadharma is pointless and makes no sense without accepting both rebirth and karma.

Whether the person we call "Gautama Buddha" actually taught all of these texts we now have in person or not is not important to me. What matters to me is what these texts say, and there is a remarkably consistent thread running through all of them.

The Abhidharma is the original attempt to systematize the disordered nature of the Buddha's oral teachings. The Theravadins wrapped it up in a myth of Buddha ascending to the heavens to teach the devas. The Sarvastivadins were more honest, and asserted they were the summaries of the Dharma by senior arhats.

Crazywisdom said:
Vajrayana somehow has a way to make meditation easier. It's like a car. It's got handles and buttons. And then there's the bonus of magical wizardry.

Malcolm wrote:
This is because Vajrayāna takes into account the anatomy of the human body as a vehicle for liberation and yogic experience, something alluded to in the śrāvaka and Mahāyāna canon, but not made explicit.

Crazywisdom said:
From his book on Brahmans, it's hard not to notice that's what Brahmans are about. He mentions very succinctly Nagarjuna's point that reality is just words is a fallacy. And Mahayana is all about it, and hence Vajrayana's magical formulae, or sort of based on a fallacy.

Malcolm wrote:
Vajrayāna invokes some very ancient pre-Buddhist concepts about reality and language, but repurposes them for its own ends.

Crazywisdom said:
That simplicity is very convincing.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 31st, 2021 at 4:02 AM
Title: Re: Three thousand thoughts in a single life moment..
Content:



Queequeg said:
Yeah, all I can say is I don't think Zhiyi devolved to the sarvastivadin position as you describe it.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, the three dependent originations pretty much coved every possible causal relationship. I would not call it a devolution.

Queequeg said:
And I can't say much more than the above. Back to the Yogacarins, as I said, it wasn't that he said the Yogacarins were wrong, he said they were incomplete in arguing mind-only. His critique is that mind-only sets up a one way dynamic, and he was arguing that it could equally be said that the object gives rise to the mind, rhetorically.

Malcolm wrote:
That's not a rhetorical position—its the position of most Mādhyamakas, other than the few who opt for a mind-only presentation of relative truth, when deconstructing perception through ultimate analysis.

Queequeg said:
As far as I understand, in terms of the way the 18 dhatus work, each triad arises together - eye in contact with form is eye consciousness. We can say form and eye consciousness are functions of the eye, or, form and eye are functions of eye consciousness, or eye and eye consciousness are functions of form. By going through those three tentative possibilities, we can temper attachment and preference to any one of those formulations. It also casts each dharma in a slightly different light bringing a little more insight.

Malcolm wrote:
This still does not go beyond the śrāvaka formulation. Which is ok, because that is the base line for understanding how things like perception work.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 31st, 2021 at 3:12 AM
Title: Re: Three thousand thoughts in a single life moment..
Content:


Queequeg said:
Well, I don't think Zhiyi would say phenomena are causes of all other phenomena. That would imply what he calls a vertical relationship, which he says is not correct. I think the key here would be the ichinen - one thought-moment, ie. ksana. He's not talking about successive moments that would suggest linear cause and effect. That's the "sudden" part of the "Perfect and Sudden". Or "beyond time".

Malcolm wrote:
Buddhist causality, even in śrāvakayāna, is sequential, momentary, and simultaneous.  This is why we have serial dependent origination, momentary dependent origination, and simultaneous dependent origination (where all 12 limbs function simultaneously).


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 31st, 2021 at 2:17 AM
Title: Re: Three thousand thoughts in a single life moment..
Content:
Queequeg said:
By understanding that the world is our mind, we enter the Sudden and Perfect path.

Malcolm wrote:
How is this different than the yogacāra assertion?

Queequeg said:
That's a good question. In general, I don't think it is, except that Zhiyi argued that the mind only position is incomplete. So, for instance, Yogacarin would say the cup is the mind. Zhiyi argued that it could also be said that the mind is the cup. Yogacarins erred in identifying the mind as the reference point, where as Zhiyi argued that any dharma could be the reference point against which everything else is said to arise.

Malcolm wrote:
We've had this conversation before. How is this more profound than the karana-hetu of the Sarvastivadins, that is, the principle that all phenomena are the causes of all other phenomena other than themselves?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 31st, 2021 at 1:38 AM
Title: Xi's Gamble
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
An article in Foreign Affairs:


Xi’s Gamble
The Race to Consolidate Power and Stave Off Disaster

By July/August 2021

Xi Jinping is a man on a mission. After coming to power in late 2012, he moved rapidly to consolidate his political authority, purge the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of rampant corruption, sideline his enemies, tame China’s once highflying technology and financial conglomerates, crush internal dissent, and forcefully assert China’s influence on the international stage. In the name of protecting China’s “core interests,” Xi has picked fights with many of his neighbors and antagonized countries farther away—especially the United States. Whereas his immediate predecessors believed China must continue to bide its time by overseeing rapid economic growth and the steady expansion of China’s influence through tactical integration into the existing global order, Xi is impatient with the status quo, possesses a high tolerance for risk, and seems to feel a pronounced sense of urgency in challenging the international order.

Why is he in such a rush? Most observers have settled on one of two diametrically opposite hypotheses. The first holds that Xi is driving a wide range of policy initiatives aimed at nothing less than the remaking of the global order on terms favorable to the CCP. The other view asserts that he is the anxious overseer of a creaky and outdated Leninist political system that is struggling to keep its grip on power. Both narratives contain elements of truth, but neither satisfactorily explains the source of Xi’s sense of urgency.

A more accurate explanation is that Xi’s calculations are determined not by his aspirations or fears but by his timeline. Put simply, Xi has consolidated so much power and upset the status quo with such force because he sees a narrow window of ten to 15 years during which Beijing can take advantage of a set of important technological and geopolitical transformations, which will also help it overcome significant internal challenges. Xi sees the convergence of strong demographic headwinds, a structural economic slowdown, rapid advances in digital technologies, and a perceived shift in the global balance of power away from the United States as what he has called “profound changes unseen in a century,” demanding a bold set of immediate responses.

By narrowing his vision to the coming ten to 15 years, Xi has instilled a sense of focus and determination in the Chinese political system that may well enable China to overcome long-standing domestic challenges and achieve a new level of global centrality. If Xi succeeds, China will position itself as an architect of an emerging era of multipolarity, its economy will escape the so-called middle-income trap, and the technological capabilities of its manufacturing sector and military will rival those of more developed countries.

Yet ambition and execution are not the same thing, and Xi has now placed China on a risky trajectory, one that threatens the achievements his predecessors secured in the post-Mao era. His belief that the CCP must guide the economy and that Beijing should rein in the private sector will constrain the country’s future economic growth. His demand that party cadres adhere to ideological orthodoxy and demonstrate personal loyalty to him will undermine the governance system’s flexibility and competency. His emphasis on an expansive definition of national security will steer the country in a more inward and paranoid direction. His unleashing of “Wolf Warrior” nationalism will produce a more aggressive and isolated China. Finally, Xi’s increasingly singular position within China’s political system will forestall policy alternatives and course corrections, a problem made worse by his removal of term limits and the prospect of his indefinite rule.

Xi believes he can mold China’s future as did the emperors of the country’s storied past. He mistakes this hubris for confidence—and no one dares tell him otherwise. An environment in which an all-powerful leader with a single-minded focus cannot hear uncomfortable truths is a recipe for disaster, as China’s modern history has demonstrated all too well.

A MAN IN A HURRY

In retrospect, Xi’s compressed timeline was clear from the start of his tenure. China had become accustomed to the pace of his predecessor, the slow and staid Hu Jintao, and many expected Xi to follow suit, albeit with a greater emphasis on economic reform. Yet within months of taking the reins in 2012, Xi began to reorder the domestic political and economic landscape. First came a top-to-bottom housecleaning of the CCP. The party had repeatedly demonstrated its ability to weather domestic storms, but pressures were building within the system. Corruption had become endemic, leading to popular dissatisfaction and the breakdown of organizational discipline. The party’s ranks were growing rapidly but were increasingly filled with individuals who didn’t share Xi’s belief in the CCP’s exceptionalism. Party cells in state-owned enterprises, private companies, and nongovernmental organizations were dormant and disorganized. Senior-level decision-making had become uncoordinated and siloed. The party’s propaganda organs struggled to project their messages to an increasingly cynical and tech-savvy citizenry.

Xi took on all these problems simultaneously. In 2013 alone, he initiated a sweeping anticorruption drive, launched a “mass line” campaign to eliminate political pluralism and liberal ideologies from public discourse, announced new guidelines restricting the growth of the party’s membership, and added new ideological requirements for would-be party members. The size of the party mattered little, he believed, if it was not made up of true believers. After all, he noted, when the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse in the early 1990s, “proportionally, the Soviet Communist Party had more members than [the CCP], but nobody was man enough to stand up and resist.”

Xi Jinping is a man on a mission.
Next on Xi’s agenda was the need to assert China’s interests on the global stage. Xi quickly began land reclamation efforts in the South China Sea, established an air defense identification zone over disputed territory in the East China Sea, helped launch the New Development Bank (sometimes called the BRICS Bank), unveiled the massive international infrastructure project that came to be known as the Belt and Road Initiative, and proposed the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Xi continued to slash his way through the status quo for the remainder of his first term and shows no signs of abating as he approaches the end of his second. His consolidation of power continues uninterrupted: he faces no genuine political rivals, has removed term limits on his tenure in office, and has installed allies and loyalists in key positions. New research centers are dedicated to studying his writings and speeches, party officials publicly extol his wisdom and virtue, and party regulations and government planning documents increasingly claim to be based on “Xi Jinping Thought.” He has asserted the CCP’s dominance over vast swaths of Chinese society and economic life, even forcing influential business and technology titans to beg forgiveness for their insufficient loyalty to the party. Meanwhile, he continues to expand China’s international sphere of influence through the exercise of hard power, economic coercion, and deep integration into international and multilateral bodies.

Many outside observers, myself included, initially believed that the party’s inability to contain the outbreak of COVID-19 highlighted the weaknesses of China’s system. By the summer of 2020, however, Xi was able to extol the virtues of centralized control in checking the pandemic’s domestic spread. Far from undermining his political authority, Beijing’s iron-fisted approach to combating the virus has now become a point of national pride.

A UNIQUE MOMENT

Xi’s fast pace was provoked by a convergence of geopolitical, demographic, economic, environmental, and technological changes. The risks they pose are daunting, but not yet existential; Beijing has a window of opportunity to address them before they become fatal. And the potential rewards they offer are considerable.

The first major change is Beijing’s assessment that the power and influence of the West have entered a phase of accelerated decline, and as a result, a new era of multipolarity has begun, one that China could shape more to its liking. This view took hold as the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq became quagmires, and it solidified in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, which the Chinese leadership saw as the death knell for U.S. global prestige. In 2016, the British vote to leave the European Union and the election of Donald Trump as president in the United States fortified the consensus view that the United States, and the West more generally, was in decline. This might suggest that China could opt for strategic patience and simply allow American power to wane. But the possibility of a renewal of U.S. leadership brought about by the advent of the Biden administration—and concerns about Xi’s mortality (he will be 82 in 2035)—means that Beijing is unwilling to wait and see how long this phase of Western decline will last.

The second important force confronting Xi is China’s deteriorating demographic and economic outlook. By the time he assumed office, China’s population was simultaneously aging and shrinking, and the country was facing an imminent surge of retirees that would stress the country’s relatively weak health-care and pension systems. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences now expects China’s population to peak in 2029, and a recent study in The Lancet forecast that it will shrink by nearly 50 percent by the end of the century. Although Beijing ended its draconian one-child policy in 2016, the country has still recorded a 15 percent decline in births during the past 12 months. Meanwhile, the government estimates that by 2033, nearly one-third of the population will be over the age of 60.

Contributing to these woes is China’s shrinking workforce and rising wages, which have increased by ten percent, on average, since 2005. Larger paychecks are good for workers, but global manufacturers are increasingly moving their operations out of China and to lower-cost countries, leaving a rising number of low-skilled workers in China unemployed or underemployed. And because only 12.5 percent of China’s labor force has graduated from college (compared with 24 percent in the United States), positioning the bulk of the country’s workforce to compete for the high-skilled jobs of the future will be an uphill battle.

Directly related to this worrying demographic picture is the slowdown of China’s economy. With annual GDP growth having dropped from a high of 14 percent in 2007 to the mid-single digits today, many of the long-standing problems Beijing had been able to sweep under the rug now require attention and a willingness to accept economic and political pain, from unwinding the vast sea of indebted companies to demanding that firms and individuals pay more into the country’s tax coffers. At the heart of China’s growth woes is flagging productivity. Throughout the first several decades of the post-Mao reform period, realizing productivity gains was relatively straightforward, as the planned economy was dissolved in favor of market forces and droves of citizens voluntarily fled the countryside for urban and coastal areas and the promise of higher-wage jobs. Later, as foreign companies brought investment, technology, and know-how to the country, industrial efficiency continued to improve. Finally, the massive amounts spent on infrastructure, especially roads and rail, boosted connectivity and thus productivity. All of this helped a poor and primarily agricultural economy rapidly catch up with more advanced economies.

Yet by the time Xi assumed power, policymakers were finding it increasingly difficult to maintain momentum without creating unsustainable levels of debt, just as they had done in response to the 2008 global financial crisis. What is more, the country was already saturated with transportation infrastructure, so an additional mile of road or high-speed rail wasn’t going to add much to growth. And because almost all able-bodied workers had already moved from the countryside to urban areas, relocating labor wouldn’t arrest the decline in productivity, either. Finally, the social and environmental costs of China’s previous growth paradigm had become both unsustainable and destabilizing, as staggering air pollution and environmental devastation provoked acute anger among Chinese citizens.

Perhaps the most consequential shifts to have occurred on Xi’s watch are advances in new technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and biomedical engineering, among others. Xi believes that dominating the “commanding heights” of these new tools will play a critical role in China’s economic, military, and geopolitical fate, and he has mobilized the party to transform the country into a high-tech powerhouse. This includes expending vast sums to develop the country’s R & D and production capabilities in technologies deemed critical to national security, from semiconductors to batteries. As Xi stated in 2014, first-mover advantage will go to “whoever holds the nose of the ox of science and technology innovation.”

Xi also hopes that new technologies can help the CCP overcome, or at least circumvent, nearly all of China’s domestic challenges. The negative impacts of a shrinking workforce, he believes, can be blunted by an aggressive push toward automation, and job losses in traditional industries can be offset by opportunities in newer, high-tech sectors. “Whether we can stiffen our back in the international arena and cross the ‘middle-income trap’ depends to a large extent on the improvement of science and technology innovation capability,” Xi said in 2014.

New technologies serve other purposes, as well. Facial recognition tools and artificial intelligence give China’s internal security organs new ways to surveil citizens and suppress dissent. The party’s “military-civil fusion” strategy strives to harness these new technologies to significantly bolster the Chinese military’s warfighting capabilities. And advances in green technology offer the prospect of simultaneously pursuing economic growth and pollution abatement, two goals Beijing has generally seen as being in tension.

THE PARANOID STYLE IN CHINESE POLITICS

This convergence of changes and developments would have occurred regardless of who assumed power in China in 2012. Perhaps another leader would have undertaken a similarly bold agenda. Yet among contemporary Chinese political figures, Xi has demonstrated an unrivaled skill for bureaucratic infighting. And he clearly believes that he is a figure of historical significance, on whom the CCP’s fate rests.

In order to push forward significant change, Xi has overseen the construction of a new political order, one underpinned by a massive increase in the power and authority of the CCP. Yet beyond this elevation of party power, perhaps Xi’s most critical legacy will be his expansive redefinition of national security. His advocacy of a “comprehensive national security concept” emerged in early 2014, and in a speech that April, he announced that China faced “the most complicated internal and external factors in its history.” Although this was clearly hyperbole—war with the United States in Korea and the nationwide famine of the late 1950s were more complicated—Xi’s message to the political system was clear: a new era of risk and uncertainty confronts the party.

The CCP’s long experience of defections, attempted coups, and subversion by outside actors predisposes it to acute paranoia, something that reached a fever pitch in the Mao era. Xi risks institutionalizing this paranoid style. One result of blurring the line between internal and external security has been threat inflation: party cadres in low-crime, low-risk areas now issue warnings of terrorism, “color revolutions,” and “Christian infiltration.” In Xinjiang, fears of separatism have been used to justify turning the entire region into a dystopian high-tech prison. And in Hong Kong, Xi has established a “national security” bureaucracy that can ignore local laws and operate in total secrecy as it weeds out perceived threats to Beijing’s iron-fisted rule. In both places, Xi has demonstrated that he is willing to accept international opprobrium when he feels that the party’s core interests are at stake.

At home, Xi stokes nationalist sentiment by framing China as surrounded and besieged by enemies, exploiting a deeply emotional (and highly distorted) view of the past, and romanticizing China’s battles against the Japanese in World War II and its “victory” over the United States in the Korean War. By warning that China has entered a period of heightened risk from “hostile foreign forces,” Xi is attempting to accommodate Chinese citizens to the idea of more difficult times ahead and ensure that the party and he himself are viewed as stabilizing forces.

Xi has placed China on a risky trajectory, one that threatens the achievements his predecessors secured.
Meanwhile, to exploit a perceived window of opportunity during an American retreat from global affairs, Beijing has advanced aggressively on multiple foreign policy fronts. These include the use of “gray zone” tactics, such as employing commercial fishing boats to assert territorial interests in the South China Sea and establishing China’s first overseas military base, in Djibouti. China’s vast domestic market has allowed Xi to threaten countries that don’t demonstrate political and diplomatic obedience, as evidenced by Beijing’s recent campaign of economic coercion against Australia in response to Canberra’s call for an independent investigation into the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19. Similarly, Xi has encouraged Chinese “Wolf Warrior” diplomats to intimidate and harass host countries that criticize or otherwise antagonize China. Earlier this year, Beijing levied sanctions against Jo Smith Finley, a British anthropologist and political scientist who studies Xinjiang, and the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a German think tank, whose work the CCP claimed had “severely harm[ed] China’s sovereignty and interests.”

Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping demonstrated strategic patience in asserting China’s interests on the global stage. Indeed, Mao told U.S. President Richard Nixon that China could wait 100 years to reclaim Taiwan, and Deng negotiated the return of Hong Kong under the promise (since broken by Xi) of a 50-year period of local autonomy. Both leaders had a profound sense of China’s relative fragility and the importance of careful, nuanced statesmanship. Xi does not share their equanimity, or their confidence in long-term solutions.

That has sparked concerns that Xi will attempt an extraordinarily risky gambit to take Taiwan by force by 2027, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army. It seems doubtful, however, that he would invite a possible military conflict with the United States just 110 miles from China’s shoreline. Assuming the PLA were successful in overcoming Taiwan’s defenses, to say nothing of surmounting possible U.S. involvement, Xi would then have to carry out a military occupation against sustained resistance for an indeterminate length of time. An attempted takeover of Taiwan would undermine nearly all of Xi’s other global and domestic ambitions. Nevertheless, although the more extreme scenarios might remain unlikely for the time being, Xi will continue to have China flaunt its strength in its neighborhood and push outward in pursuit of its interests. On many issues, he appears to want final resolution on his watch.

THE MAN OF THE SYSTEM

Xi’s tendency to believe he can shape the precise course of China’s trajectory calls to mind the economist Adam Smith’s description of “the man of system”: a leader “so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it.” In order to realize his near-term goals, Xi has abandoned the invisible hand of the market and forged an economic system that relies on state actors to reach predetermined objectives.

Critical to this shift has been Xi’s reliance on industrial policy, a tool of economic statecraft that had fallen out of favor until near the end of the tenure of Xi’s predecessor, Hu, when it began to shape Beijing’s approach to technological innovation. The year 2015 marked an important inflection point, with the introduction of supersized industrial policy programs that sought not just to advance a given technology or industry but also to remake the entire structure of the economy. These included the Made in China 2025 plan, which aims to upgrade China’s manufacturing capabilities in a number of important sectors; the Internet Plus strategy, a scheme to integrate information technology into more traditional industries; and the 14th Five-Year Plan, which outlines an ambitious agenda to decrease China’s reliance on foreign technology inputs. Through such policies, Beijing channels tens of trillions of yuan into companies, technologies, and sectors it considers strategically significant. It does this by means of direct subsidies, tax rebates, and quasi-market “government guidance funds,” which resemble state-controlled venture capital firms.

Thus far, Beijing’s track record in this area is decidedly mixed: in many cases, vast sums of investment have produced meager returns. But as the economist Barry Naughton has cautioned, “Chinese industrial policies are so large, and so new, that we are not yet in a position to evaluate them. They may turn out to be successful, but it is also possible that they will turn out to be disastrous.”

Xi believes he can mold China’s future as did the emperors of the country’s storied past.
Related to this industrial policy is Xi’s approach to China’s private-sector companies, including many of the technological and financial giants that just a few years ago observers viewed as possible agents of political and social change. Technological innovation put firms such as Ant Group and Tencent in control of critical new data flows and financial technology. Xi clearly perceived this as an unacceptable threat, as demonstrated by the CCP’s recent spiking of Ant Group’s initial public offering in the wake of comments made by its founder, Jack Ma, that many perceived as critical of the party.

Xi is willing to forgo a boost in China’s international financial prestige to protect the party’s interests and send a signal to business elites: the party comes first. This is no David and Goliath story, however. It’s more akin to a family feud, given the close and enduring connections between China’s nominally private firms and its political system. Indeed, nearly all of China’s most successful entrepreneurs are members of the CCP, and for many companies, success depends on favors granted by the party, including protection from foreign competition. But whereas previous Chinese leaders granted wide latitude to the private sector, Xi has forcefully drawn a line. Doing so has further restricted the country’s ability to innovate. No matter how sophisticated Beijing’s regulators and state investors may be, sustained innovation and gains in productivity cannot occur without a vibrant private sector.

GRAND STRATEGY OR GRAND TRAGEDY?

In order to seize temporary advantages and forestall domestic challenges, Xi has positioned himself for a 15-year race, one for which he has mobilized the awesome capabilities of a system that he now commands unchallenged. Xi’s truncated time frame compels a sense of urgency that will define Beijing’s policy agenda, risk tolerance, and willingness to compromise as it sprints ahead. This will narrow the options available to countries hoping to shape China’s behavior or hoping that the “Wolf Warrior” attitude will naturally recede.

The United States can disprove Beijing’s contention that its democracy has atrophied and that Washington’s star is dimming by strengthening the resilience of American society and improving the competence of the U.S. government. If the United States and its allies invest in innovation and human capital, they can forestall Xi’s efforts to gain first-mover advantage in emerging and critical technologies. Likewise, a more active and forward-looking U.S. role in shaping the global order would limit Beijing’s ability to spread illiberal ideas beyond China’s borders.

Unwittingly, Xi has put China into competition with itself, in a race to determine if its many strengths can outstrip the pathologies that Xi himself has introduced to the system. By the time he assumed power, the CCP had established a fairly predictable process for the regular and peaceful transition of power. Next fall, the 20th Party Congress will be held, and normally, a leader who has been in charge as long as Xi has would step aside. To date, however, there is no expectation that Xi will do so. This is an extraordinarily risky move, not just for the CCP itself but also for the future of China. With no successor in sight, if Xi dies unexpectedly in the next decade, the country could be thrown into chaos.

Even assuming that Xi remains healthy while in power, the longer his tenure persists, the more the CCP will resemble a cult of personality, as it did under Mao. Elements of this are already evident, with visible sycophancy among China’s political class now the norm. Paeans to the greatness of “Xi Jinping Thought” may strike outsiders as merely curious or even comical, but they have a genuinely deleterious effect on the quality of decision-making and information flows within the party.

It would be ironic, and tragic, if Xi, a leader with a mission to save the party and the country, instead imperiled both. His current course threatens to undo the great progress China has made over the past four decades. In the end, Xi may be correct that the next decade will determine China’s long-term success. What he likely does not understand is that he himself may be the biggest obstacle.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 31st, 2021 at 1:32 AM
Title: Re: Three thousand thoughts in a single life moment..
Content:
Queequeg said:
By understanding that the world is our mind, we enter the Sudden and Perfect path.

Malcolm wrote:
How is this different than the yogacāra assertion?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 31st, 2021 at 12:59 AM
Title: Re: Help me understand Anatta
Content:
Seitaka said:
Well the Pali cannon technically is a part of Mahayana too in the form of the Agamas,

Malcolm wrote:
No, this is not correct.

Seitaka said:
what does parinirvana look like for Madhyamaka?

Malcolm wrote:
Madhyamaka asserts a nonabiding nirvana, since it is a Mahāyāna system.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 31st, 2021 at 12:13 AM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
The arguments the guy makes in his earlier book would basically put most of earlier sects, all of Mahayana and Vajrayana in the category of stuff lifted from other traditions and/made up by Buddhists to try and make things fit. Like Shabkar wrote, Some say Self, Dharmakaya, Rigpa, etc., It's all the same by different names. I think the author you cited would argue this is definitely not what Buddha taught or meant to teach...

Malcolm wrote:
So, do you literally believe the events of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra happened? Do you believe the Buddha flew through the air to Śṛī Lanka to have a buddy to buddy conversation with rakṣasa king, Ravana, as the Lankāvatāra portrays? Do you literally believe thousands of monks and bodhisattvas can fit on Rajagriha?

More to the point, does it actually matter if these things happened in history, or is the content and message of these texts more important?

If you decided that these events did not happen in history, that they were a kind of religious fictional narrative, would you lose confidence in Mahāyāna teachings? And if you did lose confidence in Mahāyāna teachings, wouldn't that mean the provenance of a teaching is more important to you than its doctrine?

When it comes to history, I read historians; when it comes to tenets, I read panditas; when it comes to the meaning of sūtras, I read the charioteers, Nāgārjuna, and the rest; when it comes to Vajrayāna, I read the mahāsiddhas, like Virupa, Indrabhuti, etc. I am perfectly comfortable adapting my perspective based on what is useful in that moment. Here, in the academic forum, what is useful is history and modern scholarship.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 30th, 2021 at 11:11 PM
Title: Re: New guy to Tantra
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Samadhi doesn't imply a natural state. It's literally means mental sameness. You have to work to get there...

Malcolm wrote:
I am just telling you what the Tibetan term "rnal 'byor" actually means. rnal refers to "rnal ma." 'Byor in this context is defined through its synonym, babs, which means to settle.

In Tibetan, to join is "sbyor ba," for example in rlung gi sbyor, which is "vāyu yoga." So generally, rnal 'byor means one thing; sbyor ba means another. So a rnal 'byor pa is one is who is able to rest or settle into their real condition.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 30th, 2021 at 11:02 PM
Title: Re: nyingma lineages/cycles structures of practice.
Content:
mutsuk said:
Apparently there is indeed one complete translation of the 4 volumes by Katarina Turpeinen. I haven't seen it and I don't know if she also did the Kadak Rangjung Rangshar.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, and there is also mine, including the Kadag Rangshar, which has been sitting in manuscript for ten years. But it is not edited and not in publishable form.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 30th, 2021 at 10:55 PM
Title: Re: New guy to Tantra
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
So you're saying Tibetans agree with Ashtanga Yoga.


Malcolm wrote:
While there are certainly texts in the Tenjur that define "yoga" in line with the idea of joining two things together, such as uniting method and wisdom, we also find definitions such as the one is a commentary on the Fifty Verses of Guru Devotion, "Yoga is a samadhi that transcends the world." Likewise, in the Yoga Sutras, we find the line, "Yoga is the cessation of transformations of the mind." Of course the philosophical base of the two traditions is not the same: the former being rooted in Madhyamaka, the latter in Saṃkhya, but the definitions are more or less the same.

Given that there is no way to derive joining two things from "rnal 'byor" at all, one assumes that the idea of the Indian panditas of eighth century who assisted Tibetan translators was more oriented towards the resting in the natural state idea.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 30th, 2021 at 9:23 PM
Title: Re: Prostrations -- from standing or from kneeling
Content:
Ayu said:
I was told, they are done from standing, but then they may differ: full prostrations by lying on the floor
or half prostrations by touching the ground with 5 points: the forehead, two hands and two knees.

Malcolm wrote:
The first is Vikramashila style, the second, Nalanda style.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 30th, 2021 at 9:20 PM
Title: Re: nyingma lineages/cycles structures of practice.
Content:
yagmort said:
thanks mutsuk, but i am not.

is there an adequate and accurate english translation of Gongpa Zangthal ?

i think Stéphane was being asked by Chime Rigdzin Rinpoche to make one, but i am not sure if he is going to make it..

Malcolm wrote:
It’s four volumes long. My translation, Buddhahood in This Life, is one of the more important texts in this cycle.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 30th, 2021 at 8:47 PM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
It would be attributed to cabals of anonymous men writing under Buddha as a nom de plum.

Malcolm wrote:
The Mahabharata, the Puranas, etc., were composed by anonymous men. Why should Mahayana Sutras and tantras be any different? Especially considering that the tantras did not begin to be written down until 6th century at the earliest.

There was no writing in India, as far as we know, prior to the Mauryan Empire.

Speaking of Indian cultural habits, putting words in the mouths of historical, legendary, and mythical figures seems to be very much their habit. Somewhat like the way we write historical dramas with dialogue that John Adams, for example, never spoke in actuality.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 30th, 2021 at 4:59 AM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Buddha knew what caste was. He knew what Brahmins were. He saw himself as Kshatriya, because he said so in sutras.

Malcolm wrote:
That's not really very clear anymore. He didn't say anything in any sūtras at all.

We have, at best, oral records committed to writing hundreds of years after the Buddha, during which time all of India had undergone centuries of cultural upheaval and transformation because of the fall of the Achaemenid Empire on its borders, the arrival of the Greeks, writing, etc.

Do these records, whether Mahāyāna or śrāvaka convey much of the essence of what the Buddha must have taught, certainly.

Crazywisdom said:
He tried to turn the notion into a spiritual value. The fact that some group from some region thought Buddhas group were demons, because of their different customs just confirms this. I'm sure the feeling was mutual. There were competing notions of caste and who got to be number 1, and still is.

Malcolm wrote:
Very worth reading:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/294688170_Buddhism_in_the_Shadow_of_Brahmanism


Also there is this:
The most uncertain of the categories we discussed in the Suttas is the fourfold vaṇṇa (Skt varṇa) system. At least the broad application of the label at the Buddha’s time and location is doubtful. The four classes (khattiya, brāhmaṇa, vessa, sudda) do appear frequently in the Suttas without a label, yet we cannot escape the impression that what we find in the Suttas is a formula from a later time which was then inserted into the Suttas.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336305296_Early_Buddhism_and_Caste


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 30th, 2021 at 1:13 AM
Title: Re: Dzogchen in Germany
Content:
Archie2009 said:
Tony Duff's strong insistence that Mipham and even Longchenpa were zhentongpas is really off-putting.

Malcolm wrote:
In both cases this is completely false, and he should know better, since in Longchenpa's last major writing, the commentary on the treasury of the dharmadhātu, he clear states that the view of Dzogchen is philosophically the same as Prasanga, aka Candrakīrti's presentation of Madhyamaka.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 29th, 2021 at 11:49 PM
Title: Re: nyingma lineages/cycles structures of practice.
Content:
mutsuk said:
Those I know who practice the Gongpa Zanthel follow the manual of Tulku Tsullo.

Malcolm wrote:
Only in Eastern Tibet. For example, HH Taklung Tsetrul Rinpoche did not have the transmission for this manual and never taught it. He relied only on the nyams khrid alone.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 29th, 2021 at 11:44 PM
Title: Re: Dzogchen in Germany
Content:
yagmort said:
what lotsawas here think of Duff's translation of mahasandhi as "great junction"?

Malcolm wrote:
Since it is based on spurious back translation, not much.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 29th, 2021 at 9:28 PM
Title: Re: New guy to Tantra
Content:



Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 29th, 2021 at 9:09 PM
Title: Re: New guy to Tantra
Content:


Johnny Dangerous said:
Yoga implies to link or yoke oneself to something, practice, a deity, etc. Yoga only means "poses" to Westerners because of the popularization of Yoga as exercise. Physical poses and exercises exist in Vajrayana, but generally "Yoga" here has a much broader meaning.

Malcolm wrote:
That depends on how it is etymologized. For example, Srivasta Ramaswami, my guru of yoga, explains  this word is often mistranslated by yoga scholars. We commonly hear that yoga means 'to yoke', from the Sanskrit word 'yuj'. But it is actually a derivative of the word 'yuja' which means 'peace of mind', or 'samadhi', which is the 8th limb of yoga.

Likewise, Tibetan, the early translators translated the term yoga as rnal 'byor. Rnal is from "rnal ma," which means perfect, true, and actual, and here, fundamental.

"byor here means to settle. So in this context, yoga means "to settle into one's authentic fundamental condition."

Crazywisdom said:
All these yoga gurus have to be the guy who shows everyone else got it wrong and push their pet system... The word they all know is Yōg... And It's all any of them say going back to Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads. Find me the word Yuja in Upanishads. It's just like OM. Know one knows where the symbol came from. All they know is it's old. Indian history is a dense fog. They were shitty record keepers. It's mostly guesswork. And the thing about Sanskrit is there are huge lists of cognate terms. Try looking up words in a Sanskrit dictionary. So many words mean multiple things and many words have the same meaning. The idea of one original root is BS, just like we cannot know who's got the purest vajra lineage. I have to concede that. Note on that however, there is a way to know how Indians practiced tantra. Besides what stuff means is not very important, everyone know yoga is for peace of mind, bija and Asana don't mean anything. They are functional.

Malcolm wrote:
You’ve completely misunderstood the point of my post, but perhaps it is because I did not provide enough context.

Rnal’byor in no way means joining two things together. This is consistent with Ramasvami’s contention, where he is discussing Patanjali’ Yoga Sutras.

In other places he agrees that the word yoga can mean jointing two things together, for example Bhakti yoga, etc. but the term “yoga,” as it was understood by Tibetans, under advisement from their pandita informants, meant “resting in the natural state.”


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 29th, 2021 at 7:45 PM
Title: Re: Dzogchen in Germany
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Mahasandhi is definitely a spurious back translation. Taking a look at the man ngag lta ba phreng ba, Padmasambhava discusses creation stage (utpannakrama), completion stage(sampannakrama)and great completion stage, I.e mahasampannakrama.

However, in English, “Great Perfection” is just fine.





Tendzin Mingyur said:
Berzin translates it the same way https://studybuddhism.com/de/tibetischer-buddhismus/tantra/mahamudra-und-dzogchen/was-ist-dzogchen

The point here is not the translation, but what teachings are given. At least in my humble opinion. Gangteng Tulku Rinpoche offers Dzogchen teachings coming from the Pema Lingpa lineage. He will teach students everything from Khorde Ruzhen, Thregchöd, Thögal and Bardo, after you finished a good amount of Ngöndro (min. 10%). And he will give these teachings on a regular basis in closed retreats. If you are interested in Maha- or Anuyoga practices like Tsalung, Thrulkhor, Tummo or other things these are also given. This year he gave teachings on what Padmakara translates as 'Finding Rest in Illusion', which is one famous text of Longchenpa (due to corona it was an online teaching). We also invited Khenchen Pema Sherab, who is the teacher of our resident lama in Europe to give lungs for the 17 Dzogchen tantras and other teachings. At the moment our European resident lama Khenpo Karma Wangyal is giving a teaching cycle via zoom on Jigme Lingpa's Yönten Dzö.

We don't do much advertisement, because our group is small and we all have jobs, but it exists for over 24 years now.

lelopa said:
Berzin is not the number 1 lotsawa of my choice

Tendzin Mingyur said:
Well Padmakara translation group uses Great Perfection in the translation of the Zintri of Kunzang Lamai Shelung, Lama Chönam and Sangye Khandro in the Ambrosia Ocean of Sublime Explanations as well as in the translation of the Tsig Dön Dzö, Eric Pema Kunzang uses the same in Blazing Splendor, it is also used this way in the translation of Dudjom Rinpoche's History and Fundamentals of the Nyingma School as Richard Barron does it in the translation of Dudjom Lingpa's Nang Jang. Bob Thurman translated Mahasandhi as Great Connection in his recent teachings with Dr. Nida, reffering to Sandhi as connection, but translates the tibetan term Dzogchen as Great Perfection. Even Keith Dowman, known to invent his own translation like Pixels, Matrix and stuff, uses it in his translation of Longchenpas Chöying Dzö. Maybe it is just me, but I feel that this is quite a well established term for the translation of Dzogchen/Mahasandhi.

Sorry for the off topic discussion.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 29th, 2021 at 3:31 AM
Title: Re: One thought at a time
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
It is taught that the mind can only perceive one thing ag a time.
For example, looking at an citrus orange, we are aware that it is both round, and orange-color, and our experience is that we perceive color and shape simultaneously. But it is taught that this is an illusion, that instead, we perceive color and shape alternately, although so rapidly, it appears as occurring simultaneously.

However, there is also the point that buddhism makes, which is that all phenomena are composites. So, regardless of what phenomenal object your mind is perceiving, it is always more than just one thing, because it is always a composite.

How would you reconcile this?

Malcolm wrote:
Composites are imputed as single entities on the basis of direct perceptions of composite entities.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 29th, 2021 at 3:29 AM
Title: Re: Is samsara meant literal or not
Content:
yinyangkoi said:
How can there be karma and rebirth if there is no self?

Malcolm wrote:
If there was a self, there could not be karma and rebirth. As for the first instance, a self, being uncompounded and permanent, cannot generate effects which are impermanent. As for the second, how can something uncompounded and impermanent be reborn since it is self-existing?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 29th, 2021 at 2:29 AM
Title: Re: New guy to Tantra
Content:


Johnny Dangerous said:
Yoga implies to link or yoke oneself to something, practice, a deity, etc. Yoga only means "poses" to Westerners because of the popularization of Yoga as exercise. Physical poses and exercises exist in Vajrayana, but generally "Yoga" here has a much broader meaning.

Malcolm wrote:
That depends on how it is etymologized. For example, Srivasta Ramaswami, my guru of yoga, explains  this word is often mistranslated by yoga scholars. We commonly hear that yoga means 'to yoke', from the Sanskrit word 'yuj'. But it is actually a derivative of the word 'yuja' which means 'peace of mind', or 'samadhi', which is the 8th limb of yoga.

Likewise, Tibetan, the early translators translated the term yoga as rnal 'byor. Rnal is from "rnal ma," which means perfect, true, and actual, and here, fundamental.

"byor here means to settle. So in this context, yoga means "to settle into one's authentic fundamental condition."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 29th, 2021 at 1:46 AM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Tantra includes a lot about castes, stuff on deities represents the four castes, etc. But keep in mind there was a proto culture shared with Iran which is very old. Zoarastrian temple fires must have ash from the hearths of four classes workers as well. The notion was diffused. The Brahmins just formalized the hell out of it. Buddha spoke about castes in sutras, obviously he knew about them, he referred to himself in terms of consistent with his status. The fact that his father was elected doesn't mean anyone could get elected. Only chiefs got elected, and his father was elected the big chief by chiefs. So it's the same thing as a Kshatriya. There were other later tribes that got assimilated into Kshatrya like Jats, based on their warlike ways. Jats are recent and some older Kshatrya look at them as like worker class. So this sort of talk is as old as India.

Malcolm wrote:
You should check out Bronkhorst's historical work.

The original system among Indo-Europeans was based on three main classes: priests, warriors, and farmers. The four class system was a later development, unique to India. Also, there was great fluidity between these three classes, meaning one could be all three. The main point is that Buddha's folks interred their important people in Kurgans. The Brahmins thought this was barbaric, and in early texts, referred to the people who lived in Magadha as demons, not even human.

The Scythians, unlike their Iranian cousins, did not do homa offerings. Also, the warrior class was considered the foremost class, with priests and farmers, second and third. We see this in the Buddha's teachings in the Pali canon as well. After the Sakas invaded India in 145 BCE, after they gained power in Gandhara, they strongly supported Buddhism, and continued to enjoy power even after they were made vassals of the Kushana Empire. But there were likely Scythians in the army of Ashoka's father, Chandragupta Maurya. One presumes they were well-acquainted with the ill-fated Śākya tribe that was decimated by Kosalians during the Buddha's lifetime.

Scholars such as Beckwith and Witzel make very convincing arguments that the Śākyas in Magadha are in fact Indo-Scythians from an earlier migration.

Highland Scots, incidentally, claim to be descendants of the Scythians.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 at 10:05 PM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Buddha also said in sutras your caste is what you do not to whom you're born.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, indeed he did. However, we can see in later literature a sort of brahminization of Buddhism, to the point where even creatures like nāgas are divided into four varnas, and so on, and brahmins being part of the deal in terms of royal rites in Thailand, and so on. So we tend to think of the Buddha as being a kṣatriya, when it fact it is unlikely that Buddha was part of the varna system at all, and thus such appellations are irrelevant to his actual social status. In other words, legend has it that Buddha left his royal heritage behind him. But as the chiefs of the Śākyas were elected, it is unlikely he had the obligation of being a royal heir, hence not a prince. In other words, later legends about the person of the Buddha are to him as Arthurian romances are to the original Arthur.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 at 9:19 AM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
Svalaksana said:
The US quite literally inherited nothing, to be perfectly fair. And to classify conjuring imaginary WMDs, invading sovereign nations and getting embroiled in endless conflicts, ousting governments and creating a power vacuum from which extremist groups with genocidal tendencies emerged, thereby destabilizing the entire region along the way, as "cleaning up mistakes", notwithstanding the disapproving management by the leaders of some of the countries, seems rather odd.

Malcolm wrote:
You really need to study the history of European colonialism. Just how many countries did England, France, Portugal, Spain, and Holland invade and exploit? Let’s toss in Italy and Germany for good measure.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 at 7:55 AM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
Bristollad said:
For instance, The McNab, clan leader of the McNabs was an Hanoverian supporter and fought on the Hanoverian side.  Now when and if Scottish people want to dissolve the union and become an independent nation once more, I fully support their right to self-determination.

Malcolm wrote:
You weren’t responding to me, but since you mention it, it’s true John McNab supported the Hanovers, since my other relatives, the Campbells, were pro-British, and had converted to the Presbyterian Church,  but large portion bunch of my kin were Jacobites as well.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 at 6:41 AM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
Bristollad said:
I believe the McNab estates were foreclosed on and sold to the 4th Earl of Breadalbane, John Campbell. see https://www.clanmacnabsociety.com/post/the-notorious-chief

Malcolm wrote:
Not all McNabs lived in the region of Breadalbane. In any case, I know the story as related by my grandmother.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 at 6:34 AM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
Bristollad said:
Ahem, the Highland Clearances were not carried out by English landowners but by Scottish ones... e.g. the Duchess of Sutherland.  I believe the McNab estates were foreclosed on and sold to the 4th Earl of Breadalbane, John Campbell. see https://www.clanmacnabsociety.com/post/the-notorious-chief

Malcolm wrote:
The Sutherlands were a British family.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Leveson-Gower,_1st_Duke_of_Sutherland


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 at 5:29 AM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:


Bristollad said:
UK vs Scotland is somehow similar to China and Tibet?  How do you reckon that?  Scotland and England joined together in the Act of Union of 1707 which was passed in the Scottish and English parliaments to form the United Kingdom - they were not invaded.

Malcolm wrote:
Ahem. My family (McNab) was ethnically cleansed from Scotland in the late 18th century during the Highland Clearances to make way for sheep.

So from a Highlander's point of view, Scotland was most certainly invaded by England.


Bristollad said:
I won't hold my breath for the Chinese government to allow self-determination for Tibetans or any others.  As Malcolm said, Tibet is too strategically important especially in terms of the control of water supply and other natural resources.

Malcolm wrote:
Correct.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 at 5:22 AM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
Shotenzenjin said:
How many countries has the U.S.  bombed since WW2 I stopped counting at fifty

I think there is some rose  colored glasses being worn regarding U S.  Imperialism here

Malcolm wrote:
Nope. Real politik is the opposite of rose colored glasses.

US imperialism is just a continuation of Western European imperialism. But I’d pick Pax Americana over Pax Chinensis etc., any day.

Nemo said:
Does China have ability and drive to take over the entire world unopposed but for America. What an exciting myth you created.

You are a liberal Malcolm. Invented by the people who wanted to get rid of monarchs but keep their slaves.

Malcolm wrote:
As I have pointed out, we just inherited the mess you monarchists created with your imperialism.

No, liberalism was a 19th century political movement, which give capitalists political power in European governments. Anyone who has studied history knows this.

As for white supremacy in America, you don't have to tell me. I know about it much better than you. I live here. Been surrounded by it all my life. Of course, the Canadians are little better, given their track record with native people. How many dead children were buried in your Indian schools? Canada is just as f*&ked as the USA. But I still rather live under Pax Americana. You are free to move to China, your new favorite totalitarian gvt.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 at 3:03 AM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:


PadmaVonSamba said:
Keep in mind, just as when we refer to “Prince” Siddhartha, saying he was a warrior is merely using a label, and we fill in what that label refers to with our imagination. Being a member of a certain caste in India would both define and limit you to some extent, even back then, but could also mean practically anything within those limits. Obviously not every person born into warrior caste is going to march around with a sword all the time …or even ever hold one.

Malcolm wrote:
It is quite questionable whether the Buddha's tribe was actually part of the caste system. For example, his father, "the king," was an elected chief, and there was no hereditary kingship in the Buddha's tribe. So his being a "prince" is a western affectation that does not even begin to address his actual position in the Śākya tribe. The brahmins were simply not that present in Greater Maghada, and there is evidence that the brahamins to the west seriously looked down upon these primitives who buried their chiefs in burial mounds. While it is certainly improbably that kings of Tibet descended from Mountain Licchavis, what is true is that Tibetans adopted Iranian-Scythian custom of interring their btsan pos, chiefs, in burial mounds as well.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 at 1:44 AM
Title: Re: Did Siddharta Gautama have battle experience?
Content:
Tammuz said:
This is not a Mahayana or Vajrayana topic, but I don't know where else to post the question to competent people.

I have read that Siddharta Gautama is said to have had practical experience in battle, not just combat training as traditionally passed down.

This seems very doubtful to me, so I would like to ask here whether such a thing is actually claimed in an old biography.

Thanks in advance.

Malcolm wrote:
He reputedly trained in the martial skills of his day, horsemanship, archery, swordsmanship, wrestling, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 at 1:00 AM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
Shotenzenjin said:
How many countries has the U.S.  bombed since WW2 I stopped counting at fifty

I think there is some rose  colored glasses being worn regarding U S.  Imperialism here

Malcolm wrote:
Nope. Real politik is the opposite of rose colored glasses.

US imperialism is just a continuation of Western European imperialism. But I’d pick Pax Americana over Pax Chinensis etc., any day.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 at 11:18 PM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
Svalaksana said:
American intervention in the Middle East

Malcolm wrote:
All ultimately traceable to European imperialism and its policy failures. We inherited your imperialism, and tried to clean up your mistakes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 at 11:15 PM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:


Svalaksana said:
This does not mean that it will stay that way forever, but I guess it depends on whether Russia or China make a clear, unambiguous, unwarranted first aggression.

Malcolm wrote:
Two words: Ukraine, Taiwan.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 at 11:14 PM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
Svalaksana said:
Eh, as a Western European I can safely say that Western Europe didn't freak

Malcolm wrote:
Your leaders did, and that’s just a fact.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 at 8:14 PM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
Nemo said:
Americans seem utterly convinced that the fall of America is the end of the world.

Malcolm wrote:
Nope. But a collapse of the Atlantic Consensus will have very negative consequences for everyone, including Canadians.

Nemo said:
What you mean is the end of America as a unipolar hegemon. This is an utterly.unique thing in the history of the world. It's only lasted 30 years. I'm not even sure anyone else would want to be a global hegemon. That this is a given is exactly the crazy I'm talking about. The last 30 years have not been as great as you imagine them to be. 184 countries representing 94% of the world's population being ignored in the UN is not a good thing. The US is a rogue state that cannot imagine any sort of democratic restrictions on it's bloody global empire.

Get help.

Malcolm wrote:
You’re not living in the real politik world. America didn’t ask for the Pax Americana, it was bequeathed to us by your royal family after the war, and Canada, the UK, France, Germany, and so on, have depended upon it ever since. And when Trump threatened it, being a Russian asset, Western Europe freaked.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 at 4:05 AM
Title: Re: Varieties of Dharma Practice
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
even if not formal  “Meditation” with a capital M.

Malcolm wrote:
It is formal meditation practice, with a capital M.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 at 3:20 AM
Title: Re: Varieties of Dharma Practice
Content:
Genjo Conan said:
You have chanting as a subset of meditational practice, but I'd add liturgical practice as well.  I'm not sure that the practice of, e.g., chanting the Heart Sutra or reciting dharanis really fits in the meditation bucket.

Malcolm wrote:
Samadhi is part of bhavana, so is chanting, so part of the meditation (aka cultivation) bucket.

Genjo Conan said:
Well, yes, these are different types of cultivation.  I don't think it follows that liturgy is therefore a subset of meditation--unless you're defining meditation much more broadly than I would.

Malcolm wrote:
Creation stage and completion stage require the recitation of liturgies, which are guided manuals. Indeed, śamatha is defined as the process of reciting a sadhana, which contains all nine stages of śamatha, up to focusing on each aspect of the visualization, prior to reciting the mantra, etc.

Supplications, offerings, praises, mantra recitation, etc, are all contained within these texts. Just look at the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, you will see what I mean.

Śamatha and vipaśyanā take many forms.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 at 1:03 AM
Title: Re: Varieties of Dharma Practice
Content:
Genjo Conan said:
You have chanting as a subset of meditational practice, but I'd add liturgical practice as well.  I'm not sure that the practice of, e.g., chanting the Heart Sutra or reciting dharanis really fits in the meditation bucket.

Malcolm wrote:
Samadhi is part of bhavana, so is chanting, so part of the meditation (aka cultivation) bucket.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 26th, 2021 at 11:43 PM
Title: Re: "Negative phenomenology" and the "second explosion of suffering"
Content:



Vajrasambhava said:
So if even non-sentient life is self organizing, is it not the "mind/consciousness" the self organizing element "sine qua non"?

Malcolm wrote:
Self-organization, autopoiesis, does not require a "force" and it cannot have a first cause. We do not understand the origins of life at all, nor the origins of consciousness, all we know is that there are life and consciousness and these are compounded, and compounded phenomena cannot arise without cause and condition. Since we cannot a first cause for this, we must infer they are self-organizing, from beginningless time.

Vajrasambhava said:
Thanks Malcolm, this make sense.
But for example, how non sentient life is conceived to rise according Dzogchen?

Malcolm wrote:
Dzogchen cosmology is basically Abhidharmakośa cosmology, despite much confusion which has ensued because of an incorrect understanding of Kongtrul's Myriad Worlds. In other words, the container universe is a result of our collective karma, and plants are part of that container universe.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 26th, 2021 at 11:41 PM
Title: Re: Question about karma
Content:
tobes said:
Silence is almost always better.

Malcolm wrote:
Well?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 26th, 2021 at 11:39 PM
Title: Re: Question about karma
Content:
tobes said:
Another great European philosopher - Kant, probably the greatest - argued that if a murderer comes to your doorstep and asks 'is so and so in your house?' even then, you should not lie!

A very extreme argument. But nonetheless, I'm kind of on board with this: samsara is created by so many subtle little deceptions, half of them dressed up as "morally right."

Undressing, being naked, being 100% honest = Dharma in my book.


Malcolm wrote:
Nope. If a hunter asks you which a deer is going, you either say you didn't see any deer or you point him in the opposite direction. Mahāyāna 101. It is totally permissible to lie to prevent someone or some creature from being harmed.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 26th, 2021 at 9:54 PM
Title: Re: "Negative phenomenology" and the "second explosion of suffering"
Content:



Vajrasambhava said:
Hi Malcolm,
As you said, sentient life have a process of self-organization, what about non sentient life? i.e Do a plant or a tree have a process of self-organization? If so, what "force" can give rise to self-organization in non sentient life if they don't have a consciousness to give rise to a self-organization process?
Thanks a lot


Malcolm wrote:
All life is self organizing.

Vajrasambhava said:
So if even non-sentient life is self organizing, is it not the "mind/consciousness" the self organizing element "sine qua non"?

Malcolm wrote:
Self-organization, autopoiesis, does not require a "force" and it cannot have a first cause. We do not understand the origins of life at all, nor the origins of consciousness, all we know is that there are life and consciousness and these are compounded, and compounded phenomena cannot arise without cause and condition. Since we cannot a first cause for this, we must infer they are self-organizing, from beginningless time.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 26th, 2021 at 7:25 PM
Title: Re: "Negative phenomenology" and the "second explosion of suffering"
Content:
FiveSkandhas said:
I support Metzinger's call for a total moratorium on the creation of machines with even the potential to suffer until we truly get a handle on this issue.

Malcolm wrote:
It is impossible. Sentience cannot be created. All examples of sentient life we observe arose out of a lengthy evolutionary process of self-organization.

Vajrasambhava said:
Hi Malcolm,
As you said, sentient life have a process of self-organization, what about non sentient life? i.e Do a plant or a tree have a process of self-organization? If so, what "force" can give rise to self-organization in non sentient life if they don't have a consciousness to give rise to a self-organization process?
Thanks a lot


Malcolm wrote:
All life is self organizing.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 26th, 2021 at 10:18 AM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
Nemo said:
Americans seem utterly convinced that the fall of America is the end of the world.

Malcolm wrote:
Nope. But a collapse of the Atlantic Consensus will have very negative consequences for everyone, including Canadians.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 26th, 2021 at 6:28 AM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
Nemo said:
You are the saddest pawn.

Malcolm wrote:
Nah, the saddest pawn is the anonymous guy on the internet who has completely given up.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 26th, 2021 at 3:51 AM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:


Nemo said:
Why can't Americans just mind their business and let other countries decide their own destiny? No one wants your "help". The world has realized your help is a cover for stealing resources for an imperialist oligarchy. At least you can respect us enough to be honest.

Malcolm wrote:
Given the choice between Pax Americana and Pax Chinensis, I pretty sure which one is preferable, and it’s not the latter. That’s just reality. Anyway, Canada always goes along with whatever the US policy is, in general. We had four years of quasi-isolationism, and the dictators had a free ride. Once again, anonymous guys on the internet and their war stories don’t mean jack.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 26th, 2021 at 12:04 AM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
The CCP will not stand fir more than another 20 years or so. Sooner or later common Chinese citizens will rise up, and China will splinter.

mabw said:
Okay, history will tell. Whether it does or doesn't, China is not my country, so it is not for me to comment. But if it is being deliberately sped up by outside forces to serve their interests then I hope you, as do I, will disagree with that.


Malcolm wrote:
China’s grip on water resources in Asia is inherently problematical. For example, they intend to divert the Tsangpo to China, and they already control the flow of water to India. They also control the Irrawaddy and the Mekong as well. These water resources do not belong to China. The world has a right to exercise pressure on China to change theur behavior.

BTW, without US investment, China would still be a struggling, second world economy. You should recall this the next time you complain about US meddling. I woujd have preferred a different outcome, but the last guy in office ruined 50 years of geopolitics because he was incompetent.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 25th, 2021 at 11:49 PM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:



Malcolm wrote:
China has been meddling in the affairs of the nations on its border for more than a thousand years.

mabw said:
America beyond the Pacific.

Malcolm wrote:
We saved China from Japanese aggression. Without the US going beyond its Pacific shores, who knows how long the Japanese occupation of Mainland China would have continued?


Your objections amount to this: other people did it, so why complain about the Chinese Gvt.?
I suppose so. I am just asking for people to apply the same standard. I already said, I am not proud of what the Chinese Govt has done. But it's a case of a pot calling the kettle black.
Not even remotely. America, as imperfect as it is, constantly, throughout our history has succeeded in two things: transferring power peacefully, improving the rights and freedoms of its citizens. And because it IS a democracy, citizen activism is vital in that struggle. But there is no opportunity for such a struggle in totalitarian regimes, with its heavily intrusive state interference at every level of civil life.

Contrary to your assertion, the American project if spreading democracy has been successful in many countries, such Germany, Japan, S. Korea, etc. open societies are inherently healthier and more vital than closed societies. Whereas the totalitarian project has failed in more places than it succeeds. The CCP will not stand fir more than another 20 years or so. Sooner or later common Chinese citizens will rise up, and China will splinter. Han nationalism is as bankrupt and morally indefensible as any other kind of nationalism. We live on one planet only, we better learn that lesson quick. So cut out the “whataboutism.” It’s a bad argument.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 25th, 2021 at 10:41 PM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
mabw said:
Okay, I am going against my own self-imposed rule of not commenting on this issue any more. But seriously, just a little surprised no one raised the issue of Afghanistan. The US went in, created a ruin, the whole thing went south, and now leaves, with the president saying "We did not go in there for nation building". I was like...what? So the military went in, destabilised the entire region (allegedly Malcolm says China is a threat to global stability) and now wishes to wash their hands off the whole matter. I mean, the US is the one with the foreign policy of spreading democracy worldwide, and so far as I have seen, has not seen ANY successes.

Malcolm wrote:
Afghanistan was already in ruins from the Russian invasion. The Taliban was harboring Bin Ladin. Bush II screwed up by extending the war.


mabw said:
I see America unceasingly trying to meddle in the affairs of other people, only to create very messy situations after that. Then, America walks away.

Malcolm wrote:
China has been meddling in the affairs of the nations on its border for more than a thousand years.

mabw said:
As for Xinjiang and Tibet, I am not proud of China's record there. Only thing I can say is, China lets go of those 2 places, a dozen other groups will start asking for independence. It is as messy a situation as Israel vs Palestine, The UK vs Scotland and Ireland, Spain vs Catalonia, India vs Kashmir. Except for the first, few seems to talk about those places much though. India imposes an internet blackout in Kashmir, little mention. China does that, the whole world screams. China is of course a very flawed country. Maybe someone can point out a utopia on Earth?

Malcolm wrote:
You are being disingenuous. You know very well China is in Tibet for its water and other resources. The Chinese Government is crushing Tibetan culture and language, using the USA treatment of Native people as an excuse. China is engaged in a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing of Tibet, etc. Your objections amount to this: other people did it, so why complain about the Chinese Gvt.?

mabw said:
I really do not want politics to affect my discussions because I genuinely intend to learn only about Dharma on this forum. Hopefully, I'll have better success at biting my tongue after this. And sorry if I stepped on anybody's toes.

Malcolm wrote:
You didn’t step on any toes, you tripped over your own feet.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 25th, 2021 at 5:52 AM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
You’ve clearly never travelled there. I can’t say for the rest of China, but when I was in Xining, there were empty 20 story residential towers everywhere. In Lhasa, tehe police presence was extremely heavy.


Nemo said:
The China hate is some crazy shit now. I had some criticism of China in the past but now with all the insane State Department/CIA propaganda I spend more time talking up the accomplishments of Deng.

Malcolm wrote:
What's the point? Deng's liberal reforms have largely been reversed, and Xi is a total autocrat. China is engaged in some serious nationalism these days, and that is not a good thing. They have a total surveillance state, one that makes Britain's look amateurish.

I have Chinese friends in China, and they tell me that the level of state control is worse than you can possibly imagine, and very brutal. They are getting out as soon as they can.

Just because some dumb rednecks have taken out their xenophobia on anyone who looks remotely Asian does not mean that China isn't a serious threat to world stability, one exacerbated and inflamed by the last guy in the White House.

Nemo said:
Deng's main goal was not liberalism. He lifted 1.5 billion people out of extreme poverty, created an affluent middle class of over 300 million and refused to become an oligarchy by having executed roughly 1 billionaire every 40 days for crimes against the state/corruption. This was the strongest period of growth and the largest amelioration of poverty in the history of not just capitalism but the world. China was so cool back then I thought of retiring there. Foreigners were treated really well.

This week the Biden admin tries to get Daniel Hale 9 years in prison for leaking that 90% of drone kills are innocent bystanders. America brags about bombing Somalia and Afghanistan and quietly bombs another dozen countries. Pushes deadly starvation sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela, N Korea, Iran and  Syria. And that is just the highlights of the last 7 days.

Peter C told me something I didn't believe many months ago when I was talking about the poor rural Chinese countryside. My information was only 12 years old. I remembered some extreme rural poverty and thought people living alongside pigs and ducks without proper toileting would cause future pandemics. He said that poverty was basically gone. I thought impossible, no country can develop that fast. So I reached out and checked. Turns out those "ghost cities" are 70% full with poor rural people that needed proper homes. Once I saw through that Western lie I found a bunch more. Try asking some Muslims about the genocide in Xinjiang. Muslims seem to think it never happened. They do think America paid Tajik terrorists to create terror networks there though. I think it's time Americans  realize they are the most propagandized people on earth right now. An evil global empire of oligarchs with a stranglehold on the entire world. Start minding your own business sickos. You are unwittingly becoming Pentagon employees.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 25th, 2021 at 5:49 AM
Title: Re: Tibetan View of Tendai and Shingon Vajrayana
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
We are shudras.

Matylda said:
Thank you.
So nn-Indian people could practice only highest tantra?

Malcolm wrote:
It’s the most effective kind in this degenerate age, so yes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 24th, 2021 at 9:24 PM
Title: Re: Tibetan View of Tendai and Shingon Vajrayana
Content:
Giovanni said:
What a very interesting thread…so what about the fruits of these practices? Are there for example records of attainment of the Rainbow Body in Shingon or Tendai?

Malcolm wrote:
Legend has it that Kukai is in eternal samadhi in a cave on Mt. Koya.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 24th, 2021 at 8:01 PM
Title: Re: Reversing Global Warming - Science and Politics (split from: Reversing Global Warming -Prayers and Aspirations")
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Mitigation time is over. Now it is time batten down the hatches while 800 years ( guesstimate) of an unstable climate takes hold.

Kim O'Hara said:
I'm having trouble reconciling that position with the bodhisattva vows, Malcolm.

At the most basic level, we are advised to show compassion to all sentient creatures. In daily life that includes such simple actions as turning aside our foot to avoid crushing an insect on the path, or perhaps picking up the insect and putting it somewhere safe. Also such simple actions as helping a blind person cross the street, so it's not just animals and not (in spite of what some self-proclaimed Buddhists say) just a matter of purely dharmic help.

Looking now at climate change ... it is already driving extreme weather events and bringing daily misery to people all round the world (but especially to the people who have done least to cause it - people in developing nations.) And it is not monolithic, not an all-or-nothing thing like an asteroid impact, and we can still make it less bad than it otherwise would be. Sure, we could have done more, and done it more easily, ten or twenty years ago. But we can still do it now and we will still be able to do it next year. (We will probably still be able to do something in five, ten or even twenty years' time, too, but the time frame makes no difference to the argument.)

On what grounds, then, do you think it is morally or dharmically correct - or even acceptable - to just 'batten down the hatches' and let the rest of the world suffer?


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
You didn’t understand. What I meant is that we have to evacuate unsustainable places like the American west, etc., as well as design and build weather resistant structures, etc. We’ve screwed the climate. We are going to have to wait it out after we go zero carbon, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 24th, 2021 at 7:56 PM
Title: Re: Tibetan View of Tendai and Shingon Vajrayana
Content:


Malcolm wrote:
But in reality, anuttarayoga tantra is for śūdras; kriya is for brahmins; carya is for kṣatriyas; and yoga tantra is for vaiśyas.

Matylda said:
So if one is not from any of these classes, then there is no tantra for the unfortunate? Foreigners not included?

Malcolm wrote:
We are shudras.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 24th, 2021 at 11:48 AM
Title: Re: Chariot Example in Chandrakirti
Content:
Subcontrary said:
is there some difference I haven't detected between saying "there is no such thing as rabbits" and "rabbits are unreal?"

Malcolm wrote:
There are such things as rabbits, which is why you can say they are unreal. If there were no such thing as rabbits, what would could be described as unreal?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 24th, 2021 at 10:09 AM
Title: Re: Chariot Example in Chandrakirti
Content:
Subcontrary said:
but Aryadeva writes (chapter 5, verse 3; or verse 103) thus:

"The Sage has power over what should be done and what should not be done, and what should be said and what should not be said. Therefore, what reason is there for saying that the All-Knowing One is not omniscient?"

Malcolm wrote:
This means that the Buddha knows everything about paths, not things.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 24th, 2021 at 10:01 AM
Title: Re: Chariot Example in Chandrakirti
Content:


Subcontrary said:
People would laugh if I told them that there isn't really any such thing as rabbits, and they would laugh even harder if I told them they themselves don't even exist, but eventually I would like to be able to convince others of the reality of Madhyamaka, if indeed it is reality.

Malcolm wrote:
Why would you tell people there is no such thing as rabbits? Or People? The subtle object of negation is inherent existence; not existence, which is the coarse object of negation. Once one understands the subtle object of negation, the coarse object of negation naturally falls away. But some people are able to infer the subtle object of negation from the coarse object of negation, and thus they do not negate the appearance of a thing, only it’s essence, which is its existence.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 24th, 2021 at 8:35 AM
Title: Re: Reversing Global Warming - Science and Politics (split from: Reversing Global Warming -Prayers and Aspirations")
Content:
Kim O'Hara said:
Here's a useful site for anyone who wants to ensure their money does more good than harm - https://www.banktrack.org/

Malcolm wrote:
The economy is total. This is just yuppy vanity.

Kim O'Hara said:
Not quite, and not quite. It's true that we can't do much, but it's not true that we can't have any effect at all.

Malcolm wrote:
Mitigation time is over. Now it is time batten down the hatches while 800 years ( guesstimate) of an unstable climate takes hold.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 24th, 2021 at 5:19 AM
Title: Re: Tibetan View of Tendai and Shingon Vajrayana
Content:
Danny said:
Malcolm, is this a caste system? Kalachakra, Guhyasamaja etc predominantly for the ruling class? Regents, lords, kings etc? Kings and lords, regency unable or unwilling to relinquish their lifestyles.

Malcolm wrote:
The story of the origins of Guhysamaja have to do with Indrabhuti's inability to give up his 1000 wives. But in reality, anuttarayoga tantra is for śūdras; kriya is for brahmins; carya is for kṣatriyas; and yoga tantra is for vaiśyas.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 24th, 2021 at 12:12 AM
Title: Re: Reversing Global Warming - Science and Politics (split from: Reversing Global Warming -Prayers and Aspirations")
Content:
Kim O'Hara said:
Here's a useful site for anyone who wants to ensure their money does more good than harm - https://www.banktrack.org/

Malcolm wrote:
The economy is total. This is just yuppy vanity.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 24th, 2021 at 12:10 AM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:


Nemo said:
The China hate is some crazy shit now. I had some criticism of China in the past but now with all the insane State Department/CIA propaganda I spend more time talking up the accomplishments of Deng.

Malcolm wrote:
What's the point? Deng's liberal reforms have largely been reversed, and Xi is a total autocrat. China is engaged in some serious nationalism these days, and that is not a good thing. They have a total surveillance state, one that makes Britain's look amateurish.

I have Chinese friends in China, and they tell me that the level of state control is worse than you can possibly imagine, and very brutal. They are getting out as soon as they can.

Just because some dumb rednecks have taken out their xenophobia on anyone who looks remotely Asian does not mean that China isn't a serious threat to world stability, one exacerbated and inflamed by the last guy in the White House.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 23rd, 2021 at 10:09 PM
Title: Re: Different Forms of Achi Chokyi Drolma
Content:


tony_montana said:
There is an Achi Empowerment to be held tomorrow, conducted by H.E. Tritsab Gyabra Rinpoche [poster above]. I notice that there are three pictures of Achi in the poster one dark-blue of wrathful appearance with a vajra and kila - what form in that? I'm only familiar with the standing peaceful Achi and the semi-wrathful Achi on horse-back. But this poster seems to show different forms altogether.

Malcolm wrote:
It is probably the terma of his predecessor, which as Achi as guru, deva, and protector.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 23rd, 2021 at 9:38 PM
Title: Re: “Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader”
Content:
mabw said:
Five Skandhas posted a picture of a group of Chinese guards saluting the Chinese flag. The problem is...? What exactly? Are people in Japan, Russia, Finland etc...allowed to salute the flag?

Malcolm wrote:
The problem is not the soldiers saluting their flag, the problem is where that flag is flying. Tibet is not a part of China. Tibet was subjected to foreign occupation by a hostile nation in 1959. Free Tibet!


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 23rd, 2021 at 9:31 PM
Title: Re: Fake monk called out, made to remove robes on streets of London
Content:


SilenceMonkey said:
She probably had some bad experiences with being cheated by fake monks or rinpoches and feels she needs to expose them.

Malcolm wrote:
Nah, she is just an uptight busybody with nothing better to do with her time than harass beggars.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 23rd, 2021 at 9:30 PM
Title: Re: Fake monk called out, made to remove robes on streets of London
Content:


FiveSkandhas said:
On the other hand doesn't this man's behavior slander the Sangha (and thus the Three Jewels)?

Malcolm wrote:
That is his problem, and not ours. Still, that lady is a total jerk.

FiveSkandhas said:
He is denigrating actual members of the Sangha and defrauding normal citizens.

Malcolm wrote:
There are actual members of the Monastic Sangha who do much worse things than panhandling.

FiveSkandhas said:
In Hong Kong one fake Buddhist actually grossed over 1 MM HKD this way.

Malcolm wrote:
"A sucker is born every minute"

P.T. Barnum


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 23rd, 2021 at 9:22 PM
Title: Re: Tibetan View of Tendai and Shingon Vajrayana
Content:
Seishin said:
Some also say that Tendai and Shingon aren't even Tantra, being such an early form, and are more correctly described as Mantrayana.

Malcolm wrote:
There is no difference between Mantrayāna and Vajrayāna, the term comes from what are termed in late Indian parlance, the "lower tantras." It is worth nothing that the division into four divisions of tantras comes from the explanatory tantras of Guhyasamaja. Prior to this, in the mid 8th Century, Buddhaguhya, the major commentator on the Mahavairocana Abhisambodhi, divided tantras into three classes, kriya, carya, and yoga. He was a contempary of Kukai and Saicho.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 23rd, 2021 at 11:53 AM
Title: Re: Fake monk called out, made to remove robes on streets of London
Content:
FiveSkandhas said:
This woman is a self-proclaimed "crusader" against fraudulent scammers posing as Buddhist monks. Interesting encounter.


Malcolm wrote:
That lady is a total jerk.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 23rd, 2021 at 4:12 AM
Title: Re: Astro(nomy/logy)
Content:
Viach said:
Does Kalachakra Tantra clearly distinguish astronomy from astrology? (or are both called the same term and, therefore, do not differ in any way?)

Malcolm wrote:
The best book on this subject is Henning's Kalacakra and the Tibetan Calendar.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 23rd, 2021 at 3:40 AM
Title: Re: Dzogchen and Vajrayana
Content:
St00qen said:
I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research regarding transmission in the different communities. Is this still true about the Dzogchen Community? That no one gives transmission inside?

Malcolm wrote:
Correct, not at this time.

St00qen said:
That also leads me to assume it’s not required?

Malcolm wrote:
Required.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 23rd, 2021 at 1:38 AM
Title: Re: Tibetan View of Tendai and Shingon Vajrayana
Content:
FiveSkandhas said:
Shingon and Tendai both have evolved unique features that make them different from the lower Tantras as formulated by Himalayan Buddhists.

Malcolm wrote:
This is not factually correct, at least with regard to Shingon.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 23rd, 2021 at 1:37 AM
Title: Re: Tibetan View of Tendai and Shingon Vajrayana
Content:
Dharmalight889 said:
What is the Tibetan view of Tendai and Shingon Vajrayana? I know the practices may be different, although do Tibetan's view the other paths as an authentic way to reach Buddhahood in one lifetime?

Malcolm wrote:
There is no view because traditionally, Tibetans were unaware of what was happening in Japan. However, in modern times HH Sakya Trizen had opportunity to discuss this with senior Shingon leaders, and they found no essential difference in how yoga tantra is practiced in Tibet and Japan.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 at 9:37 PM
Title: Re: Grace in Buddhism
Content:
Zhen Li said:
Another analogy, just because Buddhism emphasises generosity, and Jesus also emphasised generosity, does not make Buddhism Christian in any sense. Similarity in one principle which many religions hold in common is really not enough to say that one religion, or the translations of terms is coming from one other religion. Buddhists do prostrations, Muslims do prostrations. Buddhism is not therefore Muslim or influenced by it.

So, if in Jōdo Shinshū faith alone is the cause of birth in the Pure Land (which is what Shinran holds), and if Christianity also suggests that faith alone is the cause of birth or resurrection into heaven (however they phrase it)So, I think it is very inaccurate to say Shin texts are "full of Christian protestant terms."

Matylda said:
Well christian terminology in English shin texts is just historical fact. so, i have nothing to say more about it

Malcolm wrote:
The first definition of grace, in English, is:

Definition of grace (Entry 1 of 2)
1a : unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification

Now, I agree with both you and Zhen Li that "grace" is not an appropriate word to use in Buddhadharma, on the other hand, you can forgive people for seeing what is referred to as the "primal vow" as a form fo grace: "unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification." And I guarantee you, despite your misgivings, many Westerners are inclined to see such concepts in light of "grace," just as many people confuse the Tibetan "byin rlabs (adhiṣṭhāna)", i.e., "conferred or transformed  through power," aka blessings, for something like grace.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 at 12:41 PM
Title: Re: Grace in Buddhism
Content:
Matylda said:
Other power is just another expression for no-I or no-self.

Malcolm wrote:
Not the way it is described by Zhen Li and others.

Matylda said:
Could be. In fact I am ignorant of Chinese PL teachoings. But I am sure about the meaning Shinran taught. And there is no other way of understanding tariki or true shinjin, unfortunately interpreted in the West as faith, just like faith in God etc.
7)   We celebrate the calm and lucid mind. While our inclusion of Buddhist contemplative practice acknowledges the value we place on inner silence through meditation, the heart of Shin practice lies in deep hearing which is about integrating heartfelt spirituality with daily living by developing a praxis of mindfulness on Amida’s unconditional grace, honest self-reflection, and the cultivation of compassion for all sentient beings, including ourselves….

14) We believe that true religious transmission only comes from the grace of the Primal Vow and is not conferred to us by any form of genetic connection through a priestly or monastic lineage or ancestor. We do not accept any form of the religious primogeniture system, the practice of hereditary succession of the religious teachers from the oldest male heir. Only by merit or grace alone can such positions be granted.

Malcolm wrote:
https://bffct.org/bff/nasba/religious-principles/


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 at 12:13 PM
Title: Re: Pan-dreamlike nature
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
HHDL disagrees strongly with what you have quoted below.



Viach said:
(Translation from Russian ( https://m.vk.com/@zemlizemli-suschestvuet-li-gora-meru ) Google Translate)

Rinchen Tenzin Rinpoche:
One of the students recently asked me if during the mandala offering it is possible to offer not Mount Meru with four continents, but something else - for the reason that it is difficult to believe in the existence of this mountain. Like, we don't see it anywhere, and its existence has not been proven by science. I want to clarify this point for everyone.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 at 5:50 AM
Title: Re: Chariot Example in Chandrakirti
Content:


Subcontrary said:
If I were to tell Chandrakirti that I concede that a chariot depends on its parts, what might his line of reasoning be from that place, to the conclusion that the chariot doesn't ultimately exist at all?

Thank you for any light you can shine on this topic!

Malcolm wrote:
The chariot can not be found in any of its parts, one of its parts or separate from its parts, therefore, there is no "chariot" at all, apart from an imputation, "chariot," upon an assembly of parts. The part you are missing is functionality. In order for a thing to be accepted as conventionally existent, prior to analysis, it must perform its imputed function successfully. Upon analysis, even if a given thing properly performs its function, it cannot be found in the collection of its parts, even though it still continues to function.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 at 5:42 AM
Title: Re: Grace in Buddhism
Content:
Matylda said:
Other power is just another expression for no-I or no-self.

Malcolm wrote:
Not the way it is described by Zhen Li and others.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 at 5:32 AM
Title: Re: Is samsara meant literal or not
Content:



seeker242 said:
The Buddha gained this insight for himself by doing a whole boatload of meditation practice.

Malcolm wrote:
Most of which was pointless since in the end he understood that all of his incorrect meditation, in which he engaged for years, was suffering and the cause of suffering.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 at 5:26 AM
Title: Re: Heatwave England
Content:
Konchog Thogme Jampa said:
Currently in a week long heatwave in England

Any dharmic advice on how to cope with it? 5 days in more or less

Malcolm wrote:
Hydrate. Get a fan. Put ice it in bowl. Direct fan over the bowl of ice. Sit in front of that.

Hazel said:
Unfortunately swamp coolers don't work in high humidity. At least that's what I've heard.

Malcolm wrote:
They work.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 at 4:49 AM
Title: Re: Heatwave England
Content:
Konchog Thogme Jampa said:
Currently in a week long heatwave in England

Any dharmic advice on how to cope with it? 5 days in more or less

Malcolm wrote:
Hydrate. Get a fan. Put ice in bowl. Direct fan over the bowl of ice. Sit in front of that.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 at 1:49 AM
Title: Re: Translation
Content:
yagmort said:
རྗེ་བཙུན་འཇམ་དཔལ་ཡང་འགྲུབ་གྱུར་ནས།

Malcolm wrote:
འཇམ་དཔལ་དབྱངས་


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 at 10:46 PM
Title: Re: Grace in Buddhism
Content:


clyde said:
Regarding grace, in Christian terms it means a spontaneous, unmerited gift of salvation.

I think this Zen saying comes close, “Enlightenment is an accident. Spiritual practice makes us accident prone.”

And I think (and I know others will object) that the words of the Buddha upon his awakening, “Unprovoked is my release,” expresses the sense of grace.

Malcolm wrote:
The closest thing to grace in Buddhism is the Pure Land concept of "other power."

Konchog Thogme Jampa said:
The substance of which is Namu Amida Butsu

Malcolm wrote:
Not sure why one would not recite Namo Amitabha Buddha. In essence, this is a kind of buddhānusmṛti.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 at 10:15 PM
Title: Re: Grace in Buddhism
Content:


clyde said:
Regarding grace, in Christian terms it means a spontaneous, unmerited gift of salvation.

I think this Zen saying comes close, “Enlightenment is an accident. Spiritual practice makes us accident prone.”

And I think (and I know others will object) that the words of the Buddha upon his awakening, “Unprovoked is my release,” expresses the sense of grace.

Malcolm wrote:
The closest thing to grace in Buddhism is the Pure Land concept of "other power."

Zhen Li said:
Other power is essentially a subject-dependent idea. For the Buddha upon his awakening, it is the same thing in essence but without the subject-practitioner. This is why all forms of attainment of Buddhahood, from the Pure Land perspective, are said to be attained through reliance upon Other Power.

There's another Zen saying about how you cannot polish a tile expecting to make a mirror; you cannot sit in meditation expecting to attain Buddhahood.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, it’s inherently dualistic. For there to be an other, there has to be a self.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 at 10:12 PM
Title: Re: Pan-dreamlike nature
Content:
Viach said:
Namely, the dreamlike nature of samsara "legalizes" the so-called "miracles" in Buddhism, for the content of a (karmic) dream has no rigid rules. "Miracles" are homogeneous to the essence of dreams.
Therefore, I also do not see any problems with the fact that  Mount Sumeru  was the content of the collective karmic dream  at the time of Buddha , and today the content of the collective karmic dream is the so-called "scientific progress" and the "mythology" of Mount Sumeru., for dreaming is total, and its content is plastic and determined exclusively by the accumulated karma of living beings.

Malcolm wrote:
So, a cittamatrin.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 at 9:27 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:


Zhen Li said:
Coming back to the topic of the thread, the question is whether the MPNS's comments on this matter are subverting conventional gender norms. Yes they are.

Malcolm wrote:
No, it just reinforces them.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 at 8:36 AM
Title: Re: Discipline and motivation
Content:
Jokingfish said:
Ive been wondering, how can one tell person's distance to spiritual awakening, how close is he or she, me or you?

I can guess that spiritual awakening is magic magic no distance youre free here and there always and never, but seriously speaking, how to tell if someone is close to actually finding it?


Thank you

Malcolm wrote:
Find a teacher, learn the path.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 at 3:50 AM
Title: Re: Non-attachment, non-craving, that attitude of detachment from the world in general....
Content:
Arjan Dirkse said:
Your salvation does not lie in sex or chocolate or vacations.

Malcolm wrote:
Damn!


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 at 3:50 AM
Title: Re: Are forums still a thing?
Content:
narhwal90 said:
reddit reminds me of usenet with a html facelift.

Malcolm wrote:
You mean a botched facelift...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 at 3:26 AM
Title: Re: Are forums still a thing?
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
They are slowly fading, Reddit and similar are sort of replacing them. I am old-ish and I prefer this format. I won't do modern social media generally. I stopped once I realized it was making me unhappy, and that in some ways it is designed to.

Malcolm wrote:
Reddit is awful—poorly designed, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 at 3:25 AM
Title: Re: The karmic consequences of keeping pets
Content:
Aemilius said:
the law of karmic causes and effects.

Malcolm wrote:
However, the details differ depending on which tradition one is depending on.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 20th, 2021 at 11:12 PM
Title: Re: Validation statement in Vajrayana
Content:
FiveSkandhas said:
Isn't matter just a result of patticca-samuppada ("conditioned co-production")? Just another phenomenon that arises from good old causes n' conditions and passes away when they are no longer aligned to produce the matter in question?

Malcolm wrote:
According to Abhidharma, yes, the universe arises by virtue of dependent origination, as the result of the dominant condition, from the collective actions of all sentient beings.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 20th, 2021 at 10:44 PM
Title: Re: Grace in Buddhism
Content:
Beginner's Mind said:
Anyway about Grace. My friend once told me that Buddhism differs from some of the other contemplative traditions in that it does not offer Grace.

clyde said:
Regarding grace, in Christian terms it means a spontaneous, unmerited gift of salvation.

I think this Zen saying comes close, “Enlightenment is an accident. Spiritual practice makes us accident prone.”

And I think (and I know others will object) that the words of the Buddha upon his awakening, “Unprovoked is my release,” expresses the sense of grace.

Malcolm wrote:
The closest thing to grace in Buddhism is the Pure Land concept of "other power."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 20th, 2021 at 10:42 PM
Title: Re: The karmic consequences of keeping pets
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Good thing none of this applies to Tibetan Buddhism, since we do not read either the Upasaka Precepts Sūtra, nor do we read the Brahmajala Sūtra.

In the Madhyamaka tradition of bodhisattva vows, the issue of animal husbandry is not mentioned. Avoiding the five wrong livelihoods is mentioned in the Yogacāra tradition. But there is nothing at all about keeping pets.




jmlee369 said:
Ven. Dhammika limits himself to Pali sources as far as I know, whereas the Mahayana canon does in fact have something to say on this matter. Two sets of bodhisattva precepts preserved in the Chinese canon, the Upasaka Precept Sutra and Brahma Net Sutra have a minor precept against keeping animals. The former against raising cats and foxes, the latter against raising cats, dogs, foxes, pigs, and other such animals.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 20th, 2021 at 10:27 PM
Title: Re: Ishvara in early root Tantra
Content:


Danny said:
So to sum up, the joyful delightful son or daughter of the great lord ishvara,( or not ) born spontaneously (or not depending on understanding of karma) in the lap of a god deva in Tustia heaven.

Malcolm wrote:
dga' byed dbang phyug is just the name of a person, in Sanskrit, Nandikeśvara, literally "the lord of Nandi the Bull," a reference, possibly, to Shiva.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 20th, 2021 at 4:09 AM
Title: Re: Mice-proof rice
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
This, and possibly for mandalas too
985ED237-A703-4423-8BAF-A7230A60E390.jpeg Just as a random question, do you think there would be a world-wide demand for a natural/biodegradable plant-based product that looks just like dry, uncooked rice, but that mice and insects would not be attracted to?

Malcolm wrote:
You mean for offering bowls, to support symbolic offerings, rather than just water?
Well, for bowls you can use anything. Sand, etc.

For mandala, should be grains as it is specified—unlike what is in the offering bowls.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 19th, 2021 at 11:57 PM
Title: Re: Mice-proof rice
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
Just as a random question, do you think there would be a world-wide demand for a natural/biodegradable plant-based product that looks just like dry, uncooked rice, but that mice and insects would not be attracted to?

Malcolm wrote:
You mean for offering bowls, to support symbolic offerings, rather than just water?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 19th, 2021 at 10:35 AM
Title: Re: The karmic consequences of keeping pets
Content:


Johnny Dangerous said:
So, we either have to stay out of the water, or we have to learn to friggin' swim.

Malcolm wrote:
And then there is the constant problem with shit.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 19th, 2021 at 3:31 AM
Title: Re: Sanskrit/Chinese/Tibetan dictionaries?
Content:
akuppa said:
Hi all,

I am attempting to work though the Sanskrit of Vasubandhu's thirty verses. I only have an intermediate knowledge of Sanskrit - I have worked though a text book and can confortably read (but perhaps not fully grasp) Sutras such as the Diamond but never mastered the various past tense constructions, but can look them up when needed. Verse and especially philosophical verse is another story. One problem I am having which I hope someone can help me with is that dictionaries such as the Monier-Williams do not cover specialised Buddhist vocabulary and I am having to rely on translations to figure out the meaning of some words. So my question is where do such translators get thier meanings from? What are the standard dictionaries used for the study of Sanskrit Mahyana Buddhist texts? Even Edgerton's BHS dictionary doesn't seem to cut it.

I am also hoping to move on to Chinese and perhaps even Tibetan, so if members could point me towards dictionaries that cover that period I would be grateful.

Malcolm wrote:
Conze's Materials for a Dictionary of the Perfection of Wisdom Literature
https://archive.org/details/materialsforadictionaryoftheprajnaparamitaliteratureedwardconze_202003_865_I


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 19th, 2021 at 12:15 AM
Title: Re: Ishvara in early root Tantra
Content:
Danny said:
Dra Thalgyur

Malcolm wrote:
dga' byed dbang phyug is the person who receives the tantra from the Buddha. It has nothing to do with a spiritual self, it is the name of a devaputra.

This translation is very mistaken.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 19th, 2021 at 12:01 AM
Title: Re: Ishvara in early root Tantra
Content:
Danny said:
Sure,

the god of delight Etrid Isvara

And...

I received my body from the prefect Isvara, and in the abode of light rays, that is the speech of our teacher,
I find bliss to be natural

Malcolm wrote:
What is this from?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 18th, 2021 at 11:15 PM
Title: Re: Ishvara in early root Tantra
Content:
Danny said:
Ishvara in context of the special, or spiritual self, and not the moniker for Shiva?

Malcolm wrote:
Huh?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 18th, 2021 at 7:27 PM
Title: Re: The karmic consequences of keeping pets
Content:
Empty Cloud said:
Dear Dharma friends,
It has been said that there are serious karmic consequences in keeping pets.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, you have to deal with their shit constantly.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 18th, 2021 at 7:26 PM
Title: Re: Does each individual have a samaya?
Content:
Yklah said:
We all have existed since beginingless times: does it involve that we all have a samaya with the Guru ?

Malcolm wrote:
No. Samayas only last one lifetime, and must be taken again in the next life. Only bodhisattva vows persist over lifetimes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 18th, 2021 at 10:12 AM
Title: Re: Are things that make you feel good bad?
Content:
Inedible said:
Maybe I didn't understand the question. But the real person that Jed is based on has died at 74 years old. He died young. I just wish we could have had him here to answer for himself.

Malcolm wrote:
I didn't ask them. I asked you. I have to assume if you cannot answer, you do not know. And if you don't know, your representation of someone's "enlightenment" is just a vague, ill-defined concept you have.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 18th, 2021 at 9:20 AM
Title: Re: Are things that make you feel good bad?
Content:
Inedible said:
Between Jed and Editor, they tell a convincing story. It is easy to follow along and put aside disbelief, like watching a movie. If you go somewhere and it says "Free Enlightenment" on the door that doesn't guarantee that what goes on inside has anything to do with Enlightenment. Jed said so in his books. And just because it says Enlightenment on the cover, that doesn't prove anything about what happens in the pages. My job is to scrub toilets, not defend Jed. I just wish people would read his books more carefully and get a better grip on what he actually wrote instead of reacting too quickly.

Malcolm wrote:
Bad answer.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 18th, 2021 at 5:32 AM
Title: Re: Are things that make you feel good bad?
Content:


Inedible said:
Of all their students, how many are Enlightened? How many are keeping at it and likely to succeed? How many have dropped out? He was expecting to have all those questions thrown right back at him. He said that one or two of his students are becoming Enlightened every year and that the number is going up due to publishing his books.

Malcolm wrote:
Basic question: what do you think "enlightenment" is? What does it mean to be "enlightened"?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 18th, 2021 at 5:10 AM
Title: Re: Subjective feel
Content:
Rick said:
Thanks!

Do you (does anyone) know of a good teaching (text, audio, video) on the skandhas? They're a big part of how I view reality/consciousness, but I never really explored them in depth.

Malcolm wrote:
Chapter 1, Abhidharmakośa.

There is also an entire text on them alone, by Vasybandhu, translated by Artemus Engle.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 18th, 2021 at 5:09 AM
Title: Re: lerab lingpa's commentary on chetsun Nyingthig
Content:
Danny said:
The Lamentation of Rudra

Would be interested to know a little about this. Nothing specific, just in general.

Thanks

Malcolm wrote:
It is a chapter from the Stainless Confession Tantra.  The Inexpressible confession chapter is more profound, however.

Danny said:
Thanks bro. I’ll look into it.
So I’m guessing that would be an inserted aspect of a “ngondro” for the Chetsun? Like a purification.
Shower of blessings type of thing?

Malcolm wrote:
it is often recited following Vajrasattva practice, or is inserted in the confession part of the Ganapuja in many Nyingma sadhanas.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 18th, 2021 at 3:12 AM
Title: Re: lerab lingpa's commentary on chetsun Nyingthig
Content:
Danny said:
The Lamentation of Rudra

Would be interested to know a little about this. Nothing specific, just in general.

Thanks

Malcolm wrote:
It is a chapter from the Stainless Confession Tantra.  The Inexpressible confession chapter is more profound, however.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 18th, 2021 at 2:51 AM
Title: Re: Music time
Content:



Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 17th, 2021 at 3:00 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
It's was said to me, ngondro is to tan a rigid mind, tan it and make it supple, like soft lambskin leather.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, and so that is an instruction for you, not for everyone.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 17th, 2021 at 2:00 AM
Title: Re: lerab lingpa's commentary on chetsun Nyingthig
Content:
mutsuk said:
while Barron renders only the meaning.

Malcolm wrote:
sort of...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 17th, 2021 at 1:50 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Another instance you make novel point, not at all how Kagu tell it.

Malcolm wrote:
I assume you are referring to this, "Naropa hampered his own realization by ignoring Tilopa’s command not to debate nonBuddhists."

My point is not a novelty, nor is the fact that Nyan Lotsawa's eye witness account describes Naropa as being very fat, with henna-dyed hair, carried about on a palanquin by four strong men, and mobbed by large crowds wherever he went.

There are different accounts in different lineages. The account I am drawing from is part of the Naropa Khechari lineage. This transmission does not exist in Kagyu, only Sakya [and more recently, Geluk].

Crazywisdom said:
Obviously, you are right and all the Kagyu are deluded.

Malcolm wrote:
I am not certain why you think I have it in for Kagyupas, but it is incorrect to think that I do.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 16th, 2021 at 9:45 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
But you recall the story of Tilopa and Naropa and the 12 trials?  He told Naropa to jump off a cliff; to go attack a wedding parade, etc. Naropa did it and broke his body.

Malcolm wrote:
It’s pretty clear from the way the narrative paints the story, Naropa did not understand his teacher properly, and kept getting himself in trouble. On the other hand, Naropa hampered his own realization by ignoring Tilopa’s command not to debate nonBuddhists.

Crazywisdom said:
But more to the point are you suggesting ngondro contravenes dharma principles?

Malcolm wrote:
Of course not.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 16th, 2021 at 4:20 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
LastLegend said:
traditional couples (up to 100 years old) worldwide have to say about gender equality if it is real issue for them.

Malcolm wrote:
Ask the wives. The husbands will have no clue.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 16th, 2021 at 3:34 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:



LastLegend said:
If the opportunity in them arises and allows them to do so.

Malcolm wrote:
Merely being a mother has great merit, much more than being a father.

LastLegend said:
Well we might be working with the following assumptions:

Malcolm wrote:
The assumption I work with is that we cannot say anything about anyone's karma unless we are buddhas ourselves.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 16th, 2021 at 3:04 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
LastLegend said:
Facts:

Women do child birth and more nurturing to their child. Same in the animal kingdom. This is example of women have heavier karma. No?

Malcolm wrote:
No, this is an example of how women have more opportunity to generate merit.

LastLegend said:
If the opportunity in them arises and allows them to do so.

Malcolm wrote:
Merely being a mother has great merit, much more than being a father.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 16th, 2021 at 2:51 AM
Title: Re: Dzogchen and Vajrayana
Content:
Katty3n said:
Hello my friends in Dharma.
I practice Vajrayana for a quite few years and I got interested in Dzogchen teachings. I've read few books of Chogjal Namkhai Norbu and watched his teachings I feel like this is what I was looking for I feel connection. How can I combine those two ways? I'd like to get Transmission and start practicing Dzogchen. How can I do this? Who can give it me? Right now I'm still doing my Ngondro Practice. I live in Ireland, I've tried to contact Dzogchen community but no one replied to me.

Malcolm wrote:
Chogyal Namkhai Norbu passed away in 2018. These days, no one gives transmission inside of Dzogchen Community. You should however check in with the Shang Shung in London, they are doing online courses based on ChNN's teachings etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 16th, 2021 at 2:42 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
LastLegend said:
You guys are liberal I get it, but doesn’t make your thoughts more accurate.

Malcolm wrote:
Actually it does. If you investigate carefully, you will find reality has a liberal bias.

LastLegend said:
Accurate how? You would need to provide specific examples if you assume there isn’t a karma different between a male and a female. It doesn’t make them less becoming a Buddha if they pursue Dharma.

You would need to give specific examples on how women and men think behave through body speech and mind which associate with karma. It requires observation. If you want to say they are not different.

Malcolm wrote:
I was responding to your assertion about liberals not having more accurate thoughts. Of course we do.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 16th, 2021 at 2:41 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
LastLegend said:
Facts:

Women do child birth and more nurturing to their child. Same in the animal kingdom. This is example of women have heavier karma. No?

Malcolm wrote:
No, this is an example of how women have more opportunity to generate merit.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 16th, 2021 at 2:11 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
LastLegend said:
You guys are liberal I get it, but doesn’t make your thoughts more accurate.

Malcolm wrote:
Actually it does. If you investigate carefully, you will find reality has a liberal bias.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 16th, 2021 at 2:09 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
LastLegend said:
Tibetan is matriarchal society.

Malcolm wrote:
No, actually, it isn't.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 16th, 2021 at 12:19 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
GrapeLover said:
Zhen Li posits that the Lotus Sutra does not present particularly contradictory views on women, since the nāga king’s daughter transforms into a physical male before becoming a bodhisattva and then a Buddha. If she had remained physically female, this would be more contradictory.

Malcolm wrote:
But this is consistent with the idea that in order to attain anuttarasamyaksambodhi, one must do so in a male body. And this is also an inherently sexist idea.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 15th, 2021 at 10:20 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
The notion to take what lamas say with a grain of salt and trust the books, well, that's not Vajrayana.

Malcolm wrote:
So you are essentially saying, contra the Buddha:

"Follow the person, not the Dharma."

Do I have that right? Do you have a citation from a tantra handy, which says one should follow whatever a guru tells one to do, even if it is contravenes Dharma principles? Or have I misunderstood you?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 15th, 2021 at 9:15 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:



Cinnabar said:
What are you talking about?

Malcolm wrote:
Does it matter ?

Cinnabar said:
Well I am wanting to learn, so, yes?

Malcolm wrote:
I don't think you are going to learn anything from Danny's statement.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 15th, 2021 at 8:41 PM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
Zhen Li said:
At core, all is illusion except for Dharmakāya—so we have to be careful about supposing that positivistic logic which springs from within delusion somehow removes posibilities for something beyond our patterned view of reality.

Malcolm wrote:
Even Dharmakaya is illusory.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 15th, 2021 at 10:08 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:



Cinnabar said:
Welcome to the club.

From what I’m reading here— neither do I.

Danny said:
Just being honest.
The heart is open.. the dakinis don’t lie.
If they walk you back is for a reason.
Sorry .. being a bit cryptic.
Handed off ... and was like nah... not ready
Lol

Cinnabar said:
What are you talking about?

Malcolm wrote:
Does it matter ?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 15th, 2021 at 5:48 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism's solution to abject poverty
Content:
Lotomístico said:
Could we say, then, that Buddhism is primarily focused (as are many if not most religions) on afterlife or future lives?
One could also see the negative aspect of seeing suffering people and saying, "well, it's their karma" as a way of easing one's conscience or absolving one's responsibility to be socially conscious. I experienced that in India and Thailand where many expresed this attitude to me. Of course, Karma Is the teaching of Buddhism (and Hinduism), but naturally if we help a needy person, isn't that, too, a result of karmic causes?
A similar attitude about karma could be applied to a tyrant or evil ruler, or genocide, other injustices in the world, should one act? Speak up? Do something? Or take a more passive approach and see It as something we can do nothing about? For many, Karma could become a form of fatalism, and one could also see how a bad ruler or the wealthy could use it to justify their behavior and tell the poor and oppressed to just "accept their lot".
Encountering Dharma is certainly a result of Karma, as are the conditions that would facilitate the ability to práctice it.

Malcolm wrote:
Buddhism is about personal evolution. If enough people evolve personally, the changes you want to see will happen. I wouldn't hold my breath though.

Lotomístico said:
No, I'm not terribly optimistic myself, the fact that suffering is increasing in so many ways, people committing so many evil deeds and subsequently reaping the results in this or future existences.

Malcolm wrote:
Suffering is not increasing. You are just seeing it more clearly.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 15th, 2021 at 5:25 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism's solution to abject poverty
Content:
Lotomístico said:
Could we say, then, that Buddhism is primarily focused (as are many if not most religions) on afterlife or future lives?
One could also see the negative aspect of seeing suffering people and saying, "well, it's their karma" as a way of easing one's conscience or absolving one's responsibility to be socially conscious. I experienced that in India and Thailand where many expresed this attitude to me. Of course, Karma Is the teaching of Buddhism (and Hinduism), but naturally if we help a needy person, isn't that, too, a result of karmic causes?
A similar attitude about karma could be applied to a tyrant or evil ruler, or genocide, other injustices in the world, should one act? Speak up? Do something? Or take a more passive approach and see It as something we can do nothing about? For many, Karma could become a form of fatalism, and one could also see how a bad ruler or the wealthy could use it to justify their behavior and tell the poor and oppressed to just "accept their lot".
Encountering Dharma is certainly a result of Karma, as are the conditions that would facilitate the ability to práctice it.

Malcolm wrote:
Buddhism is about personal evolution. If enough people evolve personally, the changes you want to see will happen. I wouldn't hold my breath though.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 15th, 2021 at 4:32 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism's solution to abject poverty
Content:
Lotomístico said:
Every day I'm cofronted with extreme poverty when I walk out the door, beggars with small children or even children alone asking for food or spare change, Monday I was especially horrified by the sight of a young family (mom, dad, 2 young kids) rummaging through a heap of garbage bags looking for perhaps something of value and eating leftover food, can't society do better somehow? What is the solution, if any? Buddhism is primarily about relief from suffering in every tradition, what práctical solutions can Buddhism offer to solve these problems? Because I'm feeling overwhelmed and I'm really not sure what I can do, I try to give spare change but this not a lasting solution. Any ideas or suggestions are much appreciated.

Malcolm wrote:
This is not a job for Buddhism. This a job for the state. Buddhists can act on their conscience, however, and try to address these issues as best they can.

Lotomístico said:
So Buddhism can provide no lasting solutions to human suffering?

Malcolm wrote:
Your title is "Buddhism's solution to abject poverty."

2. "Master Gotama, what is the reason, what is the condition, why inferiority and superiority are met with among human beings, among mankind? For one meets with short-lived and long-lived people, sick and healthy people, ugly and beautiful people, insignificant and influential people, poor and rich people, low-born and high-born people, stupid and wise people. What is the reason, what is the condition, why superiority and inferiority are met with among human beings, among mankind?"

3. "Student, beings are owners of kammas, heirs of kammas, they have kammas as their progenitor, kammas as their kin, kammas as their homing-place. It is kammas that differentiate beings according to inferiority and superiority."

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.135.nymo.html

Change your karma, change your future lives.


Lotomístico said:
Governments in much of the world are either incapable or unwilling to do anything about this and countless other problems faced by humanity. I was hoping Buddhism could offer solutions to human suffering, a person who cannot feed, clothe nor otherwise provide for themselves isn't going to sign up for a meditation course, básic needs must be met.

Malcolm wrote:
Governments are responsible for feeding, clothing, and providing for those who cannot provide these basic necessities for themselves. And you have left out most sentient beings. Who is going to take care of feeding, clothing, and otherwise providing for animals, insects, etc? Why restrict your domain to humans?

Change your karma, change your future lives.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 15th, 2021 at 3:35 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism's solution to abject poverty
Content:
Lotomístico said:
Every day I'm cofronted with extreme poverty when I walk out the door, beggars with small children or even children alone asking for food or spare change, Monday I was especially horrified by the sight of a young family (mom, dad, 2 young kids) rummaging through a heap of garbage bags looking for perhaps something of value and eating leftover food, can't society do better somehow? What is the solution, if any? Buddhism is primarily about relief from suffering in every tradition, what práctical solutions can Buddhism offer to solve these problems? Because I'm feeling overwhelmed and I'm really not sure what I can do, I try to give spare change but this not a lasting solution. Any ideas or suggestions are much appreciated.

Malcolm wrote:
This is not a job for Buddhism. This a job for the state. Buddhists can act on their conscience, however, and try to address these issues as best they can.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 15th, 2021 at 3:33 AM
Title: Re: Kakushi Nenbutsu: Forbidden underground heterodox Pure Land
Content:


ronnymarsh said:
Each of these schools has its own sovereign leader, and this has exactly the same functions as a pope or patriarch has in Catholicism or the Orthodox Church.

Malcolm wrote:
This is quite mistaken. There is no pope in Buddhism at all. The Buddha himself forbad it.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 15th, 2021 at 2:29 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


Cinnabar said:
Means I’ll never accumulate the 7 line prayer.

Malcolm wrote:
The seven line prayer is not a mantra, per se. It is a supplication, and the standard amount for it is 100k.

However if you wanted to accumulated it by syllable, it would be 4.9 million. Totally doable.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 15th, 2021 at 1:18 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
Lotomístico said:
The writings and commentaries of ancient Buddhist writers seem to be unaware of this, apparently believing them to be the literal words of Shakyamuni and composed in their completed forms originally as they had them.

Malcolm wrote:
In India, there was quite a bit of discussion and there is internal evidence in the sūtras themselves of attempts to parse Buddhavacana into neyartha and nitartha, which can be seen as a strategy to politely dismiss other's sūtras in preference for one's own.

Indians were not naive idiots, and were undoubtedly aware that the provenance of Mahāyāna sūtras were widely contested.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 15th, 2021 at 1:02 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
heart said:
This in the Longchen Nyingtik where the Guru Yoga is considered the outer Guru sadhana.

Cinnabar said:
Well. That is what I was thinking as an example.

There are other examples too.

I was asking what the origins were.

Malcolm wrote:
According to the Ngondro Text from KDL's treasures:

Also, the minimum amount is one hundred thousand per syllable.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 15th, 2021 at 12:21 AM
Title: Re: Right view
Content:
yinyangkoi said:
Hello, when I apply right view to the present moment, I eventually come to the conclusion that I would need to become a monk and live in a monestary or become a hermit (leave the householder life) if I want to continue with the noble eightfold path.

Malcolm wrote:
That is the śravāka path. The Mahāyāna path is the six perfections and it is not necessary to do that.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 at 11:50 PM
Title: Re: Why Buddhism's Decline in India?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Actually it is just impermanence. Buddhism reigned supreme for over 1000 years in India. The Indian flag still respects this history.

Malcolm wrote:
Until the English revived his memory through Pali sources, the Indians completely forgot about Ashoka, who in any case was a sectarian butcher until his brother's head (who was slain by accident) was brought in for the bounty Ashoka had offered on the heads of Jain monks. You can read all about it in the Ashoka-avadana. Ashoka had 18k Jains slain for a cartoon depicting the Buddha prostrating to Mahāvira. Not very cool.

Aemilius said:
I have  wondered what was this cartoon with Mahavira and Buddha like? -At the time of Ashoka there has not been any human-like representations of Buddha, according to the normative academic view.

"Although India had a long sculptural tradition and a mastery of rich iconography, the Buddha was never represented in human form, but only through Buddhist symbolism. This period may have been aniconic.

"Artists were reluctant to depict the Buddha anthropomorphically, and developed sophisticated aniconic symbols to avoid doing so (even in narrative scenes where other human figures would appear). This tendency remained as late as the 2nd century CE in the southern parts of India, in the art of the Amaravati School (see: Mara's assault on the Buddha). It has been argued that earlier anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha may have been made of wood and may have perished since then. However, no related archaeological evidence has been found.

"The earliest works of Buddhist art in India date back to the 1st century BCE. The Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya became a model for similar structures in Burma and Indonesia. The frescoes at Sigiriya are said to be even older than the Ajanta Caves paintings."

Malcolm wrote:
The earliest stoneworks. In any case, these was a Jain cartoon, not a Buddhist one. So I don't see the problem. Humans having been drawing pictures for millenia.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 at 11:37 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:



Cinnabar said:
How did the standard accumulation of om vajra guru for ngondro become 10M then? And how did the standard accumulation of 7 line prayers for ngondro become 100k?

Malcolm wrote:
It is not 10 million. The amount of 7 line prayer was always roughly 10%.

Cinnabar said:
Several of my teachers said 10M om vajra gurus and 100k of seven line prayers is standard.

Malcolm wrote:
Instructions vary from teacher to teacher, but the standard number for any short mantra is 100k per syllable. Anyway, numbers don't matter. Quality matters.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 at 11:35 PM
Title: Re: nyima trakpa's terma
Content:
mingweicello said:
hi everyone. I just bought an volume of nyima Trakpa's terma in both tibetan and Chinese. (over 500 pages in pecha form)I don't how if his terma has been taught in the West, and are there any translation already published? I asked dzogchen Rinpoche (the one based in Kham), he told me nyi trak's teachings are quite popular in Dzogchen monastery and Yaching. Yaching gompa even include his works into a new edition of rinchen terzo currently, which, actually go against Jamgon Kongtrul's original plan to exclude him.

Malcolm wrote:
Not as far as I know. But His completion stage manual on Karlimg shitro has been taught, translated, and published.

heart said:
Do you mind telling me where?

/magnus

Malcolm wrote:
Wallace’s natural liberation.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 at 11:34 PM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
Lotomístico said:
Really shame that the Mahaparanirvana Sutra couldn't adopt our modern, "enlightened" PC views of gender,.

Genjo Conan said:
Plenty of classical Buddhist texts explicitly rejected the sort of sexism represented here, so please don't make this some "oh no, the SJWs are ruining Buddhism" deal.

Lotomístico said:
Fair enough, you're right, I see your point. But for me it does seem strange that such a late Mahayana text would expréss such a view (coming after the Lotus Sutra, which rejects such ideas)

Malcolm wrote:
These texts were composed in separate, isolated communities.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 at 7:07 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
It was always 100k per syllable…

Cinnabar said:
How did the standard accumulation of om vajra guru for ngondro become 10M then? And how did the standard accumulation of 7 line prayers for ngondro become 100k?

Malcolm wrote:
It is not 10 million. The amount of 7 line prayer was always roughly 10%.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 at 7:05 PM
Title: Re: nyima trakpa's terma
Content:
mingweicello said:
hi everyone. I just bought an volume of nyima Trakpa's terma in both tibetan and Chinese. (over 500 pages in pecha form)I don't how if his terma has been taught in the West, and are there any translation already published? I asked dzogchen Rinpoche (the one based in Kham), he told me nyi trak's teachings are quite popular in Dzogchen monastery and Yaching. Yaching gompa even include his works into a new edition of rinchen terzo currently, which, actually go against Jamgon Kongtrul's original plan to exclude him.

Malcolm wrote:
Not as far as I know. But His completion stage manual on Karlimg shitro has been taught, translated, and published.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 at 10:15 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
TharpaChodron said:
So anyways, back to Ngondro

Since when did 100,000 turn into 1,200,000 guru mantra accumulations? As if it wasn’t hard enough, somehow I wasn’t listening when they explained the instructions. Does everybody do this?

Malcolm wrote:
It was always 100k per syllable…


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 at 6:21 AM
Title: Re: How to become a modern Mahasiddha - some surprising comments
Content:



Crazywisdom said:
It's true Tibetan women have to go to China or Taiwan.

Malcolm wrote:
And Vinaya in Tibet collapsed completely in the 9th century, which is more to the point, and was not restored for over 100 years.

SilenceMonkey said:
What do you mean the vinaya "collapsed"? Do you mean the lineage was broken?

Malcolm wrote:
The three remaining monks in central Tibet fled Langdarma, and the so-called lower Vinaya was not reintroduced to Tibet until the late 10th century.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 at 6:18 AM
Title: Re: How to become a modern Mahasiddha - some surprising comments
Content:



Crazywisdom said:
It's true Tibetan women have to go to China or Taiwan.

Malcolm wrote:
And Vinaya in Tibet collapsed completely in the 9th century, which is more to the point, and was not restored for over 100 years.

Crazywisdom said:
But got restored.

Malcolm wrote:
As was the Theravadin Sangha in Shri Lanka. However, the Theravada Sangha in Burma has enjoyed a continuous presence since at least the 3rd century CE.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 at 4:35 AM
Title: Re: How to become a modern Mahasiddha - some surprising comments
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Tibetans have better continuity of Vinaya lineage. Theravada had some gaps and later renaissance. Not all. Theravada had a rough history.

Malcolm wrote:
You have a source for those assertions?

Here is a fairly decent review of the history of Vinaya:

https://thubtenchodron.org/2007/08/arguments-full-ordination-women/

So, not as good as you have asserted.

Crazywisdom said:
It's true Tibetan women have to go to China or Taiwan.

Malcolm wrote:
And Vinaya in Tibet collapsed completely in the 9th century, which is more to the point, and was not restored for over 100 years.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 at 1:33 AM
Title: Re: How to become a modern Mahasiddha - some surprising comments
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Tibetans have better continuity of Vinaya lineage. Theravada had some gaps and later renaissance. Not all. Theravada had a rough history.

Malcolm wrote:
You have a source for those assertions?

Here is a fairly decent review of the history of Vinaya:

https://thubtenchodron.org/2007/08/arguments-full-ordination-women/

So, not as good as you have asserted.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 at 1:32 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
I don't see anything back handed about it, he seems to be saying that ChNN produced an eclectic group of students who are not fundamentalists, I think he's right on that.

Malcolm wrote:
We are definitely not fundamentalists. At lot of us don't even think we are Buddhists...though this is an error.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 at 1:20 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
You take a novel interpretation of lineage and teaching based on your research and translations.

Malcolm wrote:
No. My understanding of these things comes from my gurus, including Khenchen Rinpoche, whose student I have been since 1993.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 13th, 2021 at 11:31 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
I like you a lot. You're very dedicated. I take issue with some stuff you say re dharma.

Malcolm wrote:
For example?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 13th, 2021 at 11:20 PM
Title: Re: nyingma lineages/cycles structures of practice.
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
I think your expectations are somewhat unrealistic.

Crazywisdom said:
...go to the top of the lineages with unbroken old tantras and get the teachings there...

yagmort said:
i am not saying i got legit point of view, but the way i see it, even if you do this, i don't imagine Khenpo Namdrol will be sitting there next to you all the long way through giving you pith instructions and finding his way to catch you off-guard to give a skull-cup of alcohol coupled with a shoe slap in your face to get you to realize true nature of things.

wang and probably some personal instructions is the most one can expect from Khenpo Namdrol, and then you'll be sent to some other tutor who will probably become your actual teacher.

call me old-fashioned or deluded, but i do believe guru and disciple have to have intimate connection for the things to work. not saying you have to be buddies to chuckle about something, but your guru should be able to see you through to guide you and kind of cater things for a set of your own peculiarities. for me it is hard to be a disciple of some one who i don't know at all as a person. i like people raw and close, with all their character and warts, not some distant lama who i need to create my own ideas about.

i am not really fond of institutionalized tibetan buddhism. as a westerners we are here, lineage holders are there, and we have this huge chunk of institution between us. as i see it, it is much less a matter of our choice than it is of what is available, in terms of teachers.

feel free to correct me if i am mistaken


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 13th, 2021 at 10:26 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Some teachers respected ChNN some laughed at him.

Malcolm wrote:
This is calumny, one of the four verbal nonvirtues. It’s also entirely unnecessary.

Crazywisdom said:
There's nothing nonvirtuous about truth. I know who I spoke with and what I witnessed.

Your claim, everyone knows... Is just not true. You believe, some believe... Ok. That's true.

Malcolm wrote:
Your comment is hearsay, and since it really has nothing to do with anything in this thread, other then your obvious dislike of me, well…


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 13th, 2021 at 9:12 PM
Title: Re: Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi in Tendai
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Despite all the complicated rhetoric, it amounts to a doctrine common to all schools—the mind is inherently pure, and afflictions are merely adventitious.

Tatsuo said:
I also vaguely remember there being a concept of stages with one stage being "verbal identity". How does full enlightenment (anuttara-samyak-sambodhi) look like in Tendai thought?

Seishin said:
Going back to your original question, what you mention here are the Six Identities (六卽 Rokusoku). To use Paul Swanson's translation;
1) Identity in principle/reality 理卽 (risoku), that all things are inherently endowed with the Buddha-nature and the principle of reality as the threefold truth; One single thought-moment is identical with the principle of the tathāgata-garbha.
2) Verbal identity 名字卽 (myōji-soku), to hear the words concerning the dharma and reach an intellectual understanding;
3) Identity in contemplative practice 觀行卽 (kangyō-soku), to meditate on and practice reality as threefold truth;
4) Identity in outer appearance 相似卽 (or resemblance; sōji-soku), to become related, or have a semblance to, true enlightenment, to sever all obstacles of mistaken views and thoughts of this triple world;
5) Identity in partial realization 分證卽 (bunshō-soku), to have complete insight into the threefold truth and awake from all ignorance;
6) Ultimate identity 究竟卽 (kukyō-soku), ultimate enlightenment

These are essentially the 42 Bodhisattva stages (minus the 10 faiths)

Zhiyi's own explanation of these can be summed up as (again using Paul Swanson's translation);
1) a poor person has a house with a store of [buried] treasure, but does not know about it.
2) A friend points this out, and they come to know about it.
3) They clear away the weeds and dig,
4) until gradually they come near to getting [the treasure].
5) They approach and open the treasure, and
6) they exhaustively take it out and use it.

Here, you can see howthe Store of Treasure can be understood as Hongaku.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 13th, 2021 at 8:36 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
treehuggingoctopus said:
But is it a calumny?

Malcolm wrote:
Making repeated hearsay statements intended to cause people to question another person’s integrity are certainly calumnies. However, not my karma. This board is completely irrelevant to the Buddhist world. It has no influence nor sway.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 13th, 2021 at 7:18 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Some teachers respected ChNN some laughed at him.

Malcolm wrote:
This is calumny, one of the four verbal nonvirtues. It’s also entirely unnecessary.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 13th, 2021 at 7:12 PM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:



Crazywisdom said:
Not if I didn't get taught by those masters.

Malcolm wrote:
Umm., I was talking about a teacher you have accepted.

Crazywisdom said:
Just the teacher I could find. Luckily he was authentic Drikung Kagyu. For over 10 years I went to everything I could. I chose to go to teachings. I didn't choose what was taught or who taught it. That was chosen for me. Eventually I learned what composes a complete teaching, a complete lineage and accomplishment. I understood which teaching I had which was complete and focused on that.  Then I was able to take stock in pith instructions like Gongchig or Dzogchen Upadeshas and understand the when, where, what and why it is useful. So I am very adamant it takes a foundation of an elder Buddha tantra for the pith instructions to be useful. The gurus who propound a foundation like this are indeed the best gurus with the siddhis and amazing students. Pith instructions are footnotes. No one understands a book by only reading the footnotes. Worse. Commentaries are footnotes. And pith instructions are endnotes. The tantra is the main text, unless it's a pity instruction tantra, then it's a book of endnotes.

Malcolm wrote:
One may think: “We concede that our decisions are unreliable, but when we follow the decisions of the Buddha, we are infallible.” Then who decided that the Buddha is infallible? If you say, “The great scholars and adepts like Nagarjuna decided that he is infallible,” then who decided that Nagarjuna is infallible? If you say, “The Foremost Lama Tsong khapa decided it,” then who knows that the Foremost Lama is infallible? If you say, “Our kind and peerless lama, the excellent and great so and so decided,” then infallibility, which depends on your excellent lama, is decided by your own mind. In fact, therefore, it is a tiger who vouches for a lion, it is a yak who vouches for a tiger, it is a dog who vouches for a yak, it is a mouse who vouches for a dog, it is an insect who vouches for a mouse. Thus, an insect is made the final voucher for them all. Therefore, when one analyzes in detail the final basis for any decision, apart from coming back to one’s own mind, nothing else whatsoever is perceived.

— Ganden  Chophel


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 13th, 2021 at 5:22 AM
Title: Re: How to become a modern Mahasiddha - some surprising comments
Content:
FiveSkandhas said:
I think it is true the Tibetans are very strict about Vinaya…

Malcolm wrote:
Not really. Some are, most are pretty lax, from a strict Vinaya POV.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 13th, 2021 at 2:39 AM
Title: Re: Young Asian American Buddhists are reclaiming narrative after decades of white dominance
Content:
TharpaChodron said:
Good post, Padma. As for me, personally I would like to change my DW name back to my real name, but haven't figured out how to do so. If anyone has some tips, please dm me.

Malcolm wrote:
Ask the admin.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 13th, 2021 at 2:34 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Chogyal Namkhai Norbu is among the most important Dzogchen teachers to live in the last 200 years. Everyone knows this. His predecessor, recognized by the 16th Karmapa among others, was Adzom Drukpa. Adzom Drukpa collated and printed the 17 tantras as an independent collection. So, yes, ChNN was a lineage holder of the seventeen tantras, as well as a lineage holder of Semde and Longde. Those who received these transmissions from him, and treat his memory with proper respect and devotion, are all lineage holders of these teachings as well. YMMV

rai said:
Was Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche recognised by 16th Karmapa as reincarnation of Adzom Drukpa or as a reincarnation of Dharmaraja (I read that on wiki)?

Malcolm wrote:
They are the same. Adzom Dukpa was part of one reincarnation lineage of Pema Karpo, the line of the Dharmarajas of Bhutan, hence his title, Chogyal. The other line rests in the person of the Drukchen.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 13th, 2021 at 2:04 AM
Title: Re: The Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path in light of the Lotus Sutra
Content:
illarraza said:
Here is the Noble Eightfold Path appropriate for the Latter Day:

Right Views: Viewing the Lotus Sutra as the quintessence of the Buddha's teachings.

Taikor.Taikun said:
Means to hold the Lotus Sutra as the highest teaching? Does other Sutras 'excluded' from the learning of the Dharma path?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 13th, 2021 at 1:42 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
So now you accept tulkus? Everyone does not accept this about it ChNN. But it's ok if you do. You lot are a big group in this forum, but very small and sort of odd in TB. A minority view is scewing things here. So did he authorize you to teach these things?

Malcolm wrote:
I never rejected the idea of rebirth, and even the possibility recognitions in toto. I am not enamored of the institution as it exists today.

The point is that important Kagyu, Sakya, and Nyingma institutional heads accepted him as an important reincarnation of a major terton.

The idea that someone can authorize someone else to teach Dharma is just institutional politics. The Buddha refused to appoint an heir. People forget that in their quest for external legitimization.

But the fact of the matter is that ChNN expressed many times the wish that all his students continue his tradition in every way they could, according to their own capacity. So I do my best.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 13th, 2021 at 1:24 AM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:



Crazywisdom said:
As we should both know, acceptance and rejection is illusion. I'm doing what one does when one doesn't accept or reject and keeps an open mind about what the lineage masters say is important.

Malcolm wrote:
Which means you are making a choice to accept X master as an authority. That is something you are accepting, and in the process are rejecting what other masters say.

Crazywisdom said:
Not if I didn't get taught by those masters.

Malcolm wrote:
Umm., I was talking about a teacher you have accepted.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 12th, 2021 at 10:27 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Karma is not fate. Otherwise, if it were, there would be no point in examining a prospective teacher.

Cinnabar said:
Of course that is not what I am saying at all.

I knew of my root teacher for some years before I met him. I had heard of him from dharma friends. I had an immediate, direct, and intense draw to him. So much so it was shocking just seeing his photograph. I examined him by talking to his students, to those who hosted his teachings. Other lamas who knew him. I started learning about what he taught to the best of my ability.

Malcolm wrote:
Sure, but nevertheless the decision was yours to make. You might have made a different decision.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 12th, 2021 at 10:23 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Follow…predilection and preference.

Malcolm wrote:
That’s all people follow anyway. You’re just doing what you are criticizing.

Crazywisdom said:
I guess you didn't notice the part where I said I'm following my lamas' advices.

Malcolm wrote:
Which is choice you've made on your own authority and no one else's.

Crazywisdom said:
Does that mean my preference is to heed my lamas? Yes. It is.

Malcolm wrote:
Hence you are your own ultimate authority, which was my point.

Crazywisdom said:
Who is the lineage master of the 13 Tantras?  Who is the primary unbroken holder of these transmissions? Was that your teacher?

Malcolm wrote:
There is no certificate for such things. There is no primary lineage of holder of Dzogchen, Mahāmudra, the Path with Its Result, etc. The idea that there is such a thing is politics, not reality. No one owns or is the primary lineage holder of any of the Buddha's teachings. There is no patent, no trademark on the Buddha's teachings.

Lineages are not franchises nor are they intellectual property. These things have been treated as franchises in Tibet, but this is corruption.

A lineage is something that one has received, practiced, and then transmits. That's all. Everyone who receives teachings receives a lineage, which they are then responsible for preserving as best they can, through practice and realization.

Crazywisdom said:
I was told to uphold old lineages.

Malcolm wrote:
Lineages begin outside of time.

But historically, the oldest extant Vajrayāna lineages (outside of Shingon and Tendai) came to Tibet in the mid-eighth century, Guhyasamāja, Guhyagarbha, Vajrakīlaya, Śŗī Heruka (aka Yangdak), etc. There may be some Sarma lineages which are contemporaneous with those brought to Tibet, but in reality the historical origins of all Vajrayāna lineages are obscure, with only lore and legend remaning, just like the origin of Mahāyāna Sūtras. That's just a fact.

All termas are based on Kama. It is a requirement of the terma tradition. And also Sarma schools we frequently see older lineages being refreshed by pure visions.

Crazywisdom said:
Who is the primary unbroken holder of these transmissions? Was that your teacher?

Malcolm wrote:
Chogyal Namkhai Norbu is among the most important Dzogchen teachers to live in the last 200 years. Everyone knows this. His predecessor, recognized by the 16th Karmapa among others, was Adzom Drukpa. Adzom Drukpa collated and printed the 17 tantras as an independent collection. So, yes, ChNN was a lineage holder of the seventeen tantras, as well as a lineage holder of Semde and Longde. Those who received these transmissions from him, and treat his memory with proper respect and devotion, are all lineage holders of these teachings as well. YMMV


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 12th, 2021 at 9:24 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
You mean you did not examine this person at all?

Cinnabar said:
Of course that is not what I meant. And that is not the logical implication of what I said.

Malcolm wrote:
Karma is not fate. Otherwise, if it were, there would be no point in examining a prospective teacher.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 12th, 2021 at 6:43 AM
Title: Re: Validation statement in Vajrayana
Content:



heart said:
Matter don't arise from consciousness, appearances do.

/magnus

rai said:
where does the matter arise from according to that view?

Vajrasambhava said:
From karmic winds (le kyi lung)

Malcolm wrote:
Vayu is already a kind of matter.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 12th, 2021 at 4:55 AM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Also it's not so much a preference as a teaching I got from a lama with a lineage, not something I researched on the internet.

Malcolm wrote:
There are clearly teachings and teachers you prefer over others. You’ve declared your preferences in many posts now, even going so far as to impugn the legitimacy of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu’s tradition.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 12th, 2021 at 4:51 AM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:



Crazywisdom said:
I know there are lots of terms not from Padmasambhava, like Chetsun Nyingthig or Longchen Nyingthig. Dzogchen tantras are sort of terma. Anyway Lord Jigten Sumgon said in Gongchig these are not the most profound, that the main tantras like Hevajra with the elaborate rituals are what benefit chigcharwa.

Malcolm wrote:
If you like Gongchik, then you follow that instruction. Your likes and dislikes are quite irrelevant to the paths of others, as are mine. In the end, there is only one authority, ourselves, and  what we personally decide to accept and reject.

Crazywisdom said:
As we should both know, acceptance and rejection is illusion. I'm doing what one does when one doesn't accept or reject and keeps an open mind about what the lineage masters say is important.

Malcolm wrote:
Which means you are making a choice to accept X master as an authority. That is something you are accepting, and in the process are rejecting what other masters say.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 12th, 2021 at 4:47 AM
Title: Re: Validation statement in Vajrayana
Content:
Vajrasambhava said:
Hi,
The models which stabilish how phenomena rise in Tantra teachings are directly experienced by practicians/masters or are merely philosofical assertions?
i.e. It is said in Tantras that matter rises from consciousness (and not viveversa), is this assumption stated and confirmed by subtle experiences that can occur practicing the two stages or by inferential reasoning?

Thank you in advance

heart said:
Matter don't arise from consciousness, appearances do.

/magnus

Malcolm wrote:
Huh? Not according to Vasubandhu.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 12th, 2021 at 3:24 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:


Zhen Li said:
If women are included within male, then sex is irrelevant.

Malcolm wrote:
Yet it is not, in fact. In this  passage “woman” has been redefined to include men, along with women, who are inferior. The whole point is that  “woman” exemplifies “inferior.” There is no way around this, despite your struggle to gloss this.

Zhen Li said:
That is incorrect. Nothing about the nature of women has been denoted as inferior. Rather, the term 呵責 is translated as rebuke, scold, criticise, blame, abuse. This is indicating that females are labelled as inferior. This is entirely about words and conventions. There is no way around this no matter how much talk of an essential nature of inferiority you want to insert into the Buddha's words here—it is just not there. In fact, what you are doing is inserting assumptions you have about attitudes towards women from other texts into the wording here, which is not present. In doing this,  you are distorting the teaching's clear universalistic intent and simply expressing another of your repeated biases and aversions against this sūtra. Just because you do not like the sūtra does not mean you have to ruin it for others who may take it as authoritative.

For the record, it is clear that the people being so denoted as female, in their nature 性, are the same as the people so denoted as males, i.e. able to realise Tathāgatagarbha. This is all about the limited nature of words and discriminatory conventions and is a decent complement to the teaching on the "Garland of Letters" indicating "half-words" but the Buddha teaching with "no-words."

Malcolm wrote:
You are just making it worse, for example here the MPN delivers this sexist trope just before the passage we have been discussing:

།རིགས་ཀྱི་བུ། གཞན་ཡང་རིགས་ཀྱི་བུའམ། རིགས་ཀྱི་བུ་མོས་སྐྱེས་པའི་རང་བཞིན་དུ་འགྱུར་བར་བསྒོམ་པར་བྱའོ༑ ༑ཅིའི་ཕྱིར་ཞེ་ན། བུད་མེད་ཀྱི་རང་བཞིན་ནི། ཆོས་མ་ཡིན་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱི་རྒྱུའི་སྒོ་ནས་འབྱུང་ཁུངས་ཡིན་ཏེ། དཔེར་བྱ་ན། སྦྲང་བུའི་གཅིན་གྱིས་ནི། ནམ་ཡང་ས་ཆེན་པོ་བརླན་པར་ཡང་མི་འགྱུར། ངོམས་པར་ཡང་མི་འགྱུར་བ་དེ་བཞིན་དུ་བུད་མེད་ཀྱང་ནམ་ཡང་འདོད་པས་ངོམས་པར་མི་འགྱུར་ཏེ...[Toh. 120, vol. 54, f. 137a]

Sons of good families, and also daughters of good families, should cultivate the nature [rang bzhin, prakṛti] of a male. Why? The nature of women is the source through which all adharma [chos ma yin] is caused.For example, a single bee can never moisten the entire ground, and also can never be satisfied. Likewise, a woman's desire can never be satisfied...[more explication of the example]

The Tibetan translation from Chinese is very little different:

།རིགས་ཀྱི་བུ། གཞན་ཡང་རིགས་ཀྱི་བུ་དང༌། རིགས་ཀྱི་བུ་མོ་ལ་སོགས་པ་གང་ཡང་སྐྱེས་པའི་ལུས་མི་འདོད་པ་མེད་དོ། །དེ་ཅིའི་ཕྱིར་ཞེན། བུད་མེད་ཐམས་ཅད་ནི་སྡིག་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱི་གནས་ཡིན་པའི་ཕྱིར་རོ། །རིགས་ཀྱི་བུ། གཞན་ཡང་འདི་ལྟ་སྟེ། དཔེར་ན༑ སྦྲང་བུའི་གཅིན་གྱིས་ནི་ས་ཆེན་པོ་འདི་རླན་པར་མི་ནུས་སོ། །བུད་མེད་ཅེས་བྱ་བའི་འདོད་ཆགས་ཆོག་མི་ཤེས་པའང་དེ་དང་འདྲ་སྟེ...[Toh. 119, vol. 52, f. 152b—153a]

Further, sons and daughters of good families should never not desire the body [lus] of a man. Why? All women are the source of all wickedness [sdig pa]. Son of a good family, further, it as follows: A single bee cannot moisten the entire ground, likewise, a woman is never satisfied by desire...

It is immediately after this example that we get to the passage that we have been discussing:

།རིགས་ཀྱི་བུ། དེ་བས་ན། ཡོངས་སུ་མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་འདི་ཐོས་ནས་བུད་མེད་ཀྱི་རང་བཞིན་ལ་མ་ཆགས་པའི་སེམས་བསྐྱེད་པར་བྱ་སྟེ། སྐྱེས་པའི་རང་བཞིན་དུ་འགྱུར་བར་སེམས་བསྐྱེད་པར་བྱའོ། །ཅིའི་ཕྱིར་ཞེ་ན། མདོ་འདི་ནི། སྐྱེས་པའི་རང་བཞིན་དེ་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་ཡང་དག་པར་སྟོན་པའི་ཕྱིར་རོ། །སྐྱེས་པའི་རང་བཞིན་ནི། མི་ཞེས་བྱའོ། །དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་རང་བཞིན་ནི། སྐྱེས་པའོ། །འཇིག་རྟེན་ན་སྐྱེས་པ་ཡོད་པ་གང་ཡིན་པ་དེ་དག་ཀྱང་བདག་ཉིད་ལ་དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་ཡོད་པར་མི་ཤེས་པའི་ཕྱིར་སྐྱེས་པའི་རང་བཞིན་མ་ཡིན་ནོ། །དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་མི་ཤེས་པ་གང་ཡིན་པ་དེ་དག་ནི། བུད་མེད་ཡིན་ནོ། །ཞེས་ང་ཟེར་རོ། །དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་བདག་ལ་ཡོད་དོ་སྙམ་དུ་ཡང་དག་པར་ཤེས་པ་གང་ཡིན་པ་དེ་དག་ནི། སྐྱེས་པའི་མཆོག་ཏུ་གཏོགས་ཏེ། བུད་མེད་ཡིན་དུ་ཟིན་ཀྱང་སྐྱེས་པའི་མཆོག་ཏུ་གཏོགས་སོ། །དེ་ལྟར་ན། ཡོངས་སུ་མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ་ཆེན་པོ་འདི་ནི་དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་སྟོན་པའི་ཕྱིར་དཔག་ཏུ་མེད་པ་ཡིན་ནོ། [Toh. 120, vol. 54, f. 137b]

Son of a good family, therefore, having heard this Mahāparinirvāṇa, one should generate the thought to never be attached to the nature of a woman. One should generate the thought to become the nature of a man. Why? Because this sūtra correctly explicates the male nature to be tathāgatagarbha [de bzhin gshegs pa'i snying po]. The male nature is called "man." The nature of the tathāgatagarbha is male. Where ever there are men in the world who do not know that the tathāgatagarbha exists in themselves, they lack the male nature. I call those who do not know tathāgatagarbha "women." Those who correctly know and think "Tathāgatagarbha exists in me," are the supreme among men, even such women who grasp this are included in the supreme among men. In this case, this great Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra is inestimable because it explicates tathāgatagarbha.

It is virtually impossible to sustain an argument that this passage is not predicated upon sexist attitudes towards women. Indeed, the composer of the sūtra sets up the entire passage by describing women as insatiable, and the source of all Adharma. It is not like passages written for bhikṣus that describe the perils of the female form, which are to be reversed by bhikṣunīs. It is clearly stating FEMALE BODIES are inherently WICKED as opposed to MALE BODIES that are inherently VIRTUOUS. You just don't get much more sexist than that.

And there is the passage in the beginning where the upāsikās mentally denigrate their female bodies as wicked (བུད་མེད་ཀྱི་ལུས་ངན་ནོ་སྙམ་དུ་སྨོད་པ་ [Toh. 120 vol. 54, f. 7b]). Then there is the stock passage which declares a tathāgata only takes a male body, but displays both male and female bodies to tame sentient beings (དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པ་ནི་རྟག་ཏུ་སྐྱེས་པ་ཁོ་ན་ཡིན་བཞིན་དུ་སེམས་ཅན་རྣམས་གདུལ་བའི་ཕྱིར་གཉི་གར་ཡང་སྟོན་ཏོ [Toh. 120, vol 54, f. 63b]), etc.

Now, of course I understand why you wish to maintain some sort of interpretive scheme to save the words of the text from clearly saying what they say. There is the passage where the Buddha explains his use of exaggeration with the word "all" with the following verse:

[1]All rivers wind through valleys,
all women are deceitful,
all groves are wooded,
and all lords are happy. [/i]

Naturally, Mañjuśṛī stands up and objects to this, and explains in short:

Not all rivers are winding,
not all women are deceitful,
not all groves are wooded, 
and not all lords are happy.

After Mañjuśṛī's explanation, the Buddha responds with the analogy of medicine. Then there is the gender transformation of Kotaka's daughter, and the sūtra concludes shortly thereafter, at least in the Tibetan recension.

And of course, the only gender that is subject to any negative tropes in this sūtra on the basis of gender are women. So, sexist. We really should poll women on this passage, to see how they feel about. I am pretty sure of the outcome.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 11th, 2021 at 11:18 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
You pick your guru, your guru does not pick you.

Cinnabar said:
I don’t think it’s that simple.

Karmic connections are outside our control.

It certainly seems my guru picked me.

Malcolm wrote:
You mean you did not examine this person at all?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 11th, 2021 at 7:48 PM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
Zhen Li said:
The point of this passage is the opposite. There is absolutely no need to seek birth as a man because one has Buddha nature. Male has been redefined from biological sex.

Malcolm wrote:
If budhhanature has been redefined as male, and  male has been defined as superior, it’s still sexist. It’s surprising you don’t get this point.

Zhen Li said:
If women are included within male, then sex is irrelevant.

Malcolm wrote:
Yet it is not, in fact. In this  passage “woman” has been redefined to include men, along with women, who are inferior. The whole point is that  “woman” exemplifies “inferior.” There is no way around this, despite your struggle to gloss this.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 11th, 2021 at 12:15 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
I dont even know how thats a response to my comment but ok
I think the topic has become “relying on the lama” vs. “relying on yourself”.

Malcolm wrote:
You pick your guru, your guru does not pick you.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 11th, 2021 at 10:51 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Follow…predilection and preference.

Malcolm wrote:
That’s all people follow anyway. You’re just doing what you are criticizing.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 11th, 2021 at 10:49 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
Zhen Li said:
The point of this passage is the opposite. There is absolutely no need to seek birth as a man because one has Buddha nature. Male has been redefined from biological sex.

Malcolm wrote:
If budhhanature has been redefined as male, and  male has been defined as superior, it’s still sexist. It’s surprising you don’t get this point.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 11th, 2021 at 9:55 AM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Terma is more a less a Padmasambhava thing which was a service to Tibet.

Malcolm wrote:
You're wrong, but that's ok.

Crazywisdom said:
I know there are lots of terms not from Padmasambhava, like Chetsun Nyingthig or Longchen Nyingthig. Dzogchen tantras are sort of terma. Anyway Lord Jigten Sumgon said in Gongchig these are not the most profound, that the main tantras like Hevajra with the elaborate rituals are what benefit chigcharwa.

Malcolm wrote:
If you like Gongchik, then you follow that instruction. Your likes and dislikes are quite irrelevant to the paths of others, as are mine. In the end, there is only one authority, ourselves, and  what we personally decide to accept and reject.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 11th, 2021 at 5:28 AM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Terma is more a less a Padmasambhava thing which was a service to Tibet.

Malcolm wrote:
You're wrong, but that's ok.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 11th, 2021 at 12:54 AM
Title: Re: Samdhinirmocana Sutra (Scripture on the Explication of Underlying Meaning)
Content:


Lotomístico said:
Would you say that, in general, a Tibetan translation of a Sutra would be clóser to the original Sanskrit than a Chinese one, and if so, why might that be?
Where the original Sanskrit text is available, that would seem like the ideal source, though in many cases only Tibetan or Chinese translations of many texts are available.

Malcolm wrote:
Chinese translations often show stages of accretion in a given sūtra, where as Tibetan translations tend to show sūtra texts in their mature forms as they existed in Northern India, since sūtra translation in China started in the second century CE and only in the 8th century CE in Tibet.

Because the Sanskrit of these texts is often hard to parse, having the Chinese and Tibetan are invaluable aids for translators, since they form a kind of commentary. We are still 100 years away from having the best translations we can muster. So we do our best.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 11th, 2021 at 12:50 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
There are too many places in the sutras where women are put down, their ability to attain buddhahood, and so on, denied, etc. Indeed, this what the samaya against denigrating women serves to correct. Simply put, in Vajrayana it is understood that to criticize women on the basis of their gender is to criticize wisdom itself. Since the Buddha would never do do this, we must accept such passages which criticize women on the basis of their gender to be errors of transcription.

Zhen Li said:
I see the sūtra as clearly positing the opposite position. You are choosing to be offended by ignoring the bigger picture and the discussion that takes place over the various fascicles. This is simply not as clear cut as you think.

Malcolm wrote:
It's pretty clear cut: "women who accept tathāgatagarbha teachings are men. Men who reject tathāgatagarbha teachings are women."

Zhen Li said:
A "transcription" error is a mistake in transferring an utterance or another text. There are transcription errors in the sūtra as we have it. But here the premises and conclusion, as well as broader context, are clear. You are just ignoring them.

Malcolm wrote:
My point, as you know, is that these texts are not necessarily accurate representations of "What the Buddha said." Since this is not well-spoken, it should not be considered valid. Its a classic example of sexist writing, and no modern, well-educated women will find the passage acceptable.

No, I am pointing out the very premise is unacceptable. If the premise is unacceptable, the conclusion cannot be acceptable. On its face, the passage clearly ranks women as inferior to men.

Zhen Li said:
Anyway, I appreciate a strong sense of justice and I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing, just be careful of letting it cause you to miss the forest for the trees. The point should be very clear from the text that for all practical purposes one's sex is irrelevant to Buddha nature.

Malcolm wrote:
Of course. However, that point is made more effectively in other sūtras than this one. It is not a central or crucial passage in main body of the sūtra's argument but it is sterling example of sexism in sūtra composition. We can, of course, attempt to forensically understand why this particular statement was made, but all we will really come up with, as we both agree, is that the passage was written at a time when women were more disenfranchised than they are now, at least in most modern countries. The significance of the passage is that it shows how disenfranchised women were when the Mahāyāna sūtras were composed. This is how we should understand passages in sutras where women are encouraged to aspire to be born as men; where buddhafields are described as desirable because beings there only have penises; other episodes where women undergo gender transformation merely upon hearing a sūtra, such as in the Māyopamasamādhi Sūtra, and so on.

Anyway, we've beat this dead horse into dog meat...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 10:50 PM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
I understand lots of folks like terma lineages.

Malcolm wrote:
Everything in Mahāyāna is a terma. So you better just stick with the Pali Canon and Hīnayāna, if you want to "go for kama or old lineages."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 10:47 PM
Title: Re: Samdhinirmocana Sutra (Scripture on the Explication of Underlying Meaning)
Content:
Aemilius said:
I have studied and read the John Powers translation scores of times. Later I found that Thomas Cleary has also made a translation of the Samdhinirmocana sutra :



"This volume presents a landmark translation of a classical sourcebook of Buddhist yoga, the Sandhinirmochana-sutra, or "Scripture Unlocking the Mysteries," a revered text of the school of Buddhism known as Vijnanavada or Yogachara. The study of this scripture is essential preparation for anyone undertaking meditation exercise. Linking theory and praxis, the scripture offers a remarkably detailed and thorough course of study in both the philosophical and pragmatic foundation of Buddhist yoga, and their perfect, harmonious union in the realization of Buddhist enlightenment."

Malcolm wrote:
The 84,000 translation is much better, and shows how in numerous places Powers, etc.lost the plot.

Lotomístico said:
Wonderful, another translation, Keenan didn't mention this one in the intro to his BDK translation so I was unaware of it. Thankfully, I found a PDF and downloaded it.
How do you find Keenan's translation?
Perhaps Powers isn't as skillful a translator, Is less familiar with the original languages, or had access to different texts?
This kind of goes back to my dialogue with Zhen Li in a different thread, regarding translation of sutras and other ancient texts.

Malcolm wrote:
Powers is a perfectly fine scholar. His translation was made three decades ago, and we understand more now about these texts than we did then. So, like all translations, it has been superseded. This goes for Keenan's, Clearly's,  and so on. I generally do not favor translations from Chinese in English, where a translation can be made from Tibetan or Sanskrit directly. Nevertheless, consulting Chinese translations in the process of making a translation of a text from Tibetan or Sanskrit is absolutely required.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 9:13 PM
Title: Re: Samdhinirmocana Sutra (Scripture on the Explication of Underlying Meaning)
Content:
Aemilius said:
I have studied and read the John Powers translation scores of times. Later I found that Thomas Cleary has also made a translation of the Samdhinirmocana sutra :



"This volume presents a landmark translation of a classical sourcebook of Buddhist yoga, the Sandhinirmochana-sutra, or "Scripture Unlocking the Mysteries," a revered text of the school of Buddhism known as Vijnanavada or Yogachara. The study of this scripture is essential preparation for anyone undertaking meditation exercise. Linking theory and praxis, the scripture offers a remarkably detailed and thorough course of study in both the philosophical and pragmatic foundation of Buddhist yoga, and their perfect, harmonious union in the realization of Buddhist enlightenment."

Malcolm wrote:
The 84,000 translation is much better, and shows how in numerous places Powers, etc.lost the plot.
https://84000.co/new-publication-unravelling-the-intent/


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 8:59 PM
Title: Re: How is the development of Siddhi's dealt with officially?
Content:
Dreams said:
Am frustrated about the matter. Can anyone with knowledge and experience knock some sense into people like me who are genuinely concerned?

Malcolm wrote:
There are two kinds of siddhi: common and supreme. The one that matters is supreme siddhi, awakening. Flying, walking through walls. and so on have nothing to do with awakening.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 8:08 PM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
Zhen Li said:
Your conception of the Buddha is temporally (historically) limited.

Malcolm wrote:
Not at all, but texts are artifacts in time which are not and can never be perfect, flawless, representations of the Dharma the Buddha taught. Simply put, they are conditioned by the people who committed them to writing, and in writing them, their understanding and biases make themselves known to us, should we care to notice.

Zhen Li said:
I agree with your statement. I differ in regard to how we can use and view sūtras as practitioners. Even an utterance from the mouth of Śākyamuni Buddha is not going to be a perfect representation of the Dharma. As the Tathāgataguhya puts it, from the time of his awakening under the Bodhi Tree to his entrance into Parinirvāṇa, the Buddha never uttered a single word. If a Dharma gate is not suited to us, our job as practitioners is not then to assume ill intent—which may or may not have been present. There are so many possibilities that are beyond our ability to fathom that it is better to withhold judgement and refocus on what is important in our individual practice. In our capacity as scholars we can certainly use critical techniques to analyse texts—I do this as well, but this is not part of my approach to texts as practitioners.

Malcolm wrote:
There are too many places in the sutras where women are put down, their ability to attain buddhahood, and so on, denied, etc. Indeed, this what the samaya against denigrating women serves to correct. Simply put, in Vajrayana it is understood that to criticize women on the basis of their gender is to criticize wisdom itself. Since the Buddha would never do do this, we must accept such passages which criticize women on the basis of their gender to be errors of transcription.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 8:00 PM
Title: Re: Samdhinirmocana Sutra (Scripture on the Explication of Underlying Meaning)
Content:
Aemilius said:
I have studied and read the John Powers translation scores of times. Later I found that Thomas Cleary has also made a translation of the Samdhinirmocana sutra :



"This volume presents a landmark translation of a classical sourcebook of Buddhist yoga, the Sandhinirmochana-sutra, or "Scripture Unlocking the Mysteries," a revered text of the school of Buddhism known as Vijnanavada or Yogachara. The study of this scripture is essential preparation for anyone undertaking meditation exercise. Linking theory and praxis, the scripture offers a remarkably detailed and thorough course of study in both the philosophical and pragmatic foundation of Buddhist yoga, and their perfect, harmonious union in the realization of Buddhist enlightenment."

Malcolm wrote:
The 84,000 translation is much better, and shows how in numerous places Powers, etc.lost the plot.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 12:14 PM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
Zhen Li said:
Your conception of the Buddha is temporally (historically) limited.

Malcolm wrote:
Not at all, but texts are artifacts in time which are not and can never be perfect, flawless, representations of the Dharma the Buddha taught. Simply put, they are conditioned by the people who committed them to writing, and in writing them, their understanding and biases make themselves known to us, should we care to notice.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 9:36 AM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
There is only one genuine authority, your experience. You put the teachings into practice, attain the experiences, and this verifies the authority of the guru, scripture, and intimate instruction. There is no other way. If you don’t have the experience, everything else is just rank dogmatism.




Crazywisdom said:
I have serious doubts about these Dzogchen tantra lineage claims. They sound lfictional. And the books seem invented by Tibetans.

Malcolm wrote:
As opposed to books invented by Indians?

Crazywisdom said:
They also say Padmasambhava was Indrabhuti's son. So who knows? All I can gather is an Indrabhuti got Guhyasamaja. Kukaraja got Guhyagarbha.

Malcolm wrote:
Indrabhuti I supposedly lived at the time of the Buddha, thus not the putative father of Padmasambhava. The Kukkuraja lineage story is a Nyingma account, so I am not sure why you regard it as more reliable than say Dzogchen lineage histories. You seem to leaning more in direction of Sarma these, days, no worries, but the whole Kalacakra account seems wholly fictional to me.

Crazywisdom said:
No one seems ever have to refute that.

Malcolm wrote:
Of course it’s been refuted. But no one pays any attention to what other people say, relying only on what their own tradition claims.

Crazywisdom said:
Then there's Lawapa who got the Dakini stuff. It seems these are the first dudes to teach Vajrayana. Padmasambhava was not the first dude.

Malcolm wrote:
Luipa’s teacher was Nagarjuna. The latter’s teacher was Saraha I. Saraha was the one who revealed the Cakrasamvara Tantra, but Luipa was the first person to write it down. From the general Sarma POV, Saraha is the first mahasiddha.

Crazywisdom said:
Then what is true? How is it these methods produce the visions and such if they were made up by anonymous sources? You believe Shakyamuni did or didn't recite Mahayana to outer space avatars? Let's be honest. No lineage story is true. Totally unverifiable. Yet without lineage no Buddhahood, ever. Vajrayana is not just useful information. No one can use it without empowerment. Empowerments require unbroken lineage or no one wakes up to anything. No Dzogchen poetry will do a damn thing without empowerment. Without empowerment togal is a joke. I focused on Kukaraja because the accounts match up. Aside from having dog consorts in a poison lake at time of Marpa as Kagyu say, or if he was Indrabhuti buddy boy, he practiced ganachakrapuja at night. There are no siddhis in clever witticisms. Let's get down to brass tacks. There are unbroken lineages? Yes or no? If yes, which? If no? You can invent your lineage as you want.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 5:09 AM
Title: Re: Any thoughts on Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche?
Content:
TheSynergist said:
Hi, everyone,

I want to get started with Dzogchen, and I'm trying to find a teacher. I was thinking about checking out Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche, since he's based near where I live and he seems to have some beginner-level teachings. Does anyone have any experience with/thoughts on him or his org (the Pristine Mind Foundation)?

Thanks!

Malcolm wrote:
He is a very nice person.

philji said:
But is he a very nice or even better good teacher?

Malcolm wrote:
He is a qualified teacher. I have met him personally, many years ago.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 5:08 AM
Title: Re: What is buddhist view of birth?
Content:


SilenceMonkey said:
Dzongsar Khyentse often encourages people to have lots of babies and teach them Dharma, so as to spread more happiness and goodness in our world.

Malcolm wrote:
That's easy for him to say, as he does not have to raise them nor feed them.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 4:26 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
Giovanni said:
Zhen Li I simply sit at the feet of my Vajrayana teachers and attempt the best I can to put the teachings they give me into practice.
Their instructions to me seldom make reference to Sutras, they are pragmatic.When they are from written teachings they are far more likely to be commentaries or from terma. In fact most of my practice for the last 15 years has been from terma. I have followed this path in general for nearly 25 years and it suits me.
I am not claiming that all should follow this model. But there are viable alternatives to sutrayana.

Brunelleschi said:
So, you claim to not believe/take at face value the stories in the Sutras or relics left behind such as footprints. However, you belive in termas? I mean, it's not exactly a consistent set of beliefs.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, you know what they say, "Consistency is the hobgoblin of the small minded..."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 3:17 AM
Title: Re: Any thoughts on Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche?
Content:
TheSynergist said:
Hi, everyone,

I want to get started with Dzogchen, and I'm trying to find a teacher. I was thinking about checking out Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche, since he's based near where I live and he seems to have some beginner-level teachings. Does anyone have any experience with/thoughts on him or his org (the Pristine Mind Foundation)?

Thanks!

Malcolm wrote:
He is a very nice person.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 3:10 AM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Lineage masters say mantra is short for Manas trahi, mind protection, mantra and tantra are interchangeable.

Malcolm wrote:
While it is true that mantra is etymologized as manas + tra in the Guhyasamāja, the Vajrasikhara states, "a tantra is a saṁtāna," that "a tantra is a continuum." This definition is universal in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

Crazywisdom said:
I wasn't contradicting you. I agree.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, I was just clarifying. I didn’t feel contradicted.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 3:03 AM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
I have serious doubts about these Dzogchen tantra lineage claims. They sound fictional. And the books seem invented by Tibetans.

Malcolm wrote:
As opposed to books invented by Indians?

Crazywisdom said:
They also say Padmasambhava was Indrabhuti's son. So who knows? All I can gather is an Indrabhuti got Guhyasamaja. Kukaraja got Guhyagarbha.

Malcolm wrote:
Indrabhuti I supposedly lived at the time of the Buddha, thus not the putative father of Padmasambhava. The Kukkuraja lineage story is a Nyingma account, so I am not sure why you regard it as more reliable than say Dzogchen lineage histories. You seem to leaning more in direction of Sarma these, days, no worries, but the whole Kalacakra account seems wholly fictional to me.

Crazywisdom said:
No one seems ever have to refute that.

Malcolm wrote:
Of course it’s been refuted. But no one pays any attention to what other people say, relying only on what their own tradition claims.

Crazywisdom said:
Then there's Lawapa who got the Dakini stuff. It seems these are the first dudes to teach Vajrayana. Padmasambhava was not the first dude.

Malcolm wrote:
Luipa’s teacher was Nagarjuna. The latter’s teacher was Saraha I. Saraha was the one who revealed the Cakrasamvara Tantra, but Luipa was the first person to write it down. From the general Sarma POV, Saraha is the first mahasiddha.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 2:30 AM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:


Aemilius said:
I don't think that the tantras themselves say that they are "lower".

Malcolm wrote:
The divisions of tantra into higher and lower is clearly taught in the Vajramala Tantra, the Hevajra Tantra, etc.

Aemilius said:
I know that Hevajra tantra says it is the absolutely highest, magnificently and utterly profound tantra. Or something like that. But for example the Tantra of the 1000 arms  and 11 faces Avalokiteshvara does not say that it is  "a lower tantra", this is what I intended to say.
And by the way, the text of 1000 arms Avalokiteshvara is included in the chinese and japanese collections of buddhist scriptures.

Malcolm wrote:
So is Hevajra.


Aemilius said:
If we start translating the word "tantra" with an european language word, lets say "lore" or "psychic illumination" or some other word, is it still the same thing?

Malcolm wrote:
Words are conventions.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 9th, 2021 at 11:35 PM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Casual racism may not be ill-intentioned, but it’s still racism. No one can ever say it is skillful. Likewise, the casual sexism that we sometimes find in sutras and tantras, reflective of another era, is certainly not intended to harm, but it is a product of harm to sentient beings—women—in any case. There is a passage in the Sandhivyakarana Tantra that runs something like“The single delightful vajra word is heard variously by different people according to differences in capacities,” meaning that everything written down about what the Buddha said is limited by how this single vajra word was received. The consequence of this hermeneutic strategy is that anything written down about what the Buddha said can be subject to critical evaluation, and anything found wanting is not a fault to be addressed to the Buddha, but rather to those who attempted to write down what they thought he said.

Zhen Li said:
The passage you mention is expressed in different ways in all vaipulya sūtras. This is not about writing, but about the minds of beings which perceive teachings in different ways.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, it is about writing, since that is the only medium by which we may explore what the Buddha is purported to have said, and writing is an intentional act that is processed through a limited mind.

And texts are relative, imperfect, edited, translated, subject to revision and emendation. They do not spring forth full formed, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus.

Zhen Li said:
The Buddha continues to manifest in many forms, and he continues to teach us in many ways other than through the words of sūtras.

Malcolm wrote:
The idea that Buddha manifests in words is just another strategy employed by those who seek to represent what the Buddha said. This does not mean they have in any respect at all faithfully executed their goal.

Zhen Li said:
If we find a certain upāya in a written text does not apply to us, we don't have to dwell on it—these upāya do not apply to you.

Malcolm wrote:
Sometimes people allowed and continue to allow their biases to slip into their representations of what they understood the Buddha to teach. The Dharma of scripture is not as reliable as the Dharma of realization. Unfortunately the latter may only be personally intuited and cannot be received from another source, such as a scripture.

Zhen Li said:
This is the point—look for the definitive meaning and don't get caught up in the particulars. The point is that all beings equally have Buddha-nature. The discriminated form of male or female does not apply on the ultimate level. At the end of the day, attributing fault is not our job as practitioners and is liable to make us incur karmic harm.

Malcolm wrote:
I don't agree that subjecting sūtras and tantras to critical evaluation involves any karmic risk at all. Quite the contrary. When we find faults in texts that represent what the Buddha said, we should note those. I don't think we can naively assume that a text that makes it into a "canon" is necessarily Buddhavacana. It is only a matter of politeness that prevents and prevented people in the past from offering criticisms.

Zhen Li said:
but we cannot know intentions or fault without the divine eye.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, and that eye is sorely lacking these days. Therefore, we must rely on our own critical acumen to determine what to accept and what to reject, and not fetishize texts, which in any case are only representations of what someone thought the Buddha has said, and not necessarily what the Buddha may have actually said.

Zhen Li said:
In regards to sūtras or individual passages, this is also the case—we can pass over it if it does not apply to us, but we should be careful of saying "this is the fault of a lazy or sexist monk" unless we know for sure with the divine eye.

Malcolm wrote:
I clearly disagree. We can certainly know that not all sūtras are of the same literary quality, nor profundity, and when they detail certain ideas that are clearly discriminatory or perpetuate discrimination, we can reject those tropes as unfortunate examples of bias. Any other approach is simple casuistry. Let me give you another example—— the prohibition against ordaining albinos. Simple bias and nothing more.

Zhen Li said:
we can see that sometimes the Buddha says things

Malcolm wrote:
You see, I contest the idea that Buddha ever spoke the passage in question. It is a third hand report through a translation of a text that is no longer extant in anything resembling a source text. I am not saying we need to toss the entire Nirvana Sūtra, I am saying that we can critically exclude passages that clearly reflect bias and discrimination in any text we find that purports to represent what the Buddha said in any canon in which it occurs, especially if people are likely to find such passages hurtful. YMMV


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 9th, 2021 at 7:42 PM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:


Malcolm wrote:
"Feminization" wasn't a risk for anyone at that time. The point is that discriminations and distinctions of sex do not apply in Buddha-nature (OP had the right approach, except for the subversion part).
The language is clearly sexist and denigrating to women. That is not the point most people will derive from such a statement. Tortured exegesis just makes it more clear that the passage is anachronistic, a reflection of a time and a culture where women are not treated as full human beings.
You are reading the premises and ignoring the conclusion. You are seeing the vyañjana but not the artha. The context is a patriarchal culture. To make the same point today one uses different words to suit the different context, but the conclusion is the same.
The point is more effectively made in other sutras of this class, and as I pointed out, there are more effective sutras which address gender and it’s irrelevance to awakening.

Zhen Li said:
I agree with your last point, but to treat these passages as simply ill-intentioned without seeing the point behind them is a bit reckless. The sūtras do not set out to hurt feelings like schoolyard bullies. If that's how we perceive it then we have to re-evaluate our perception, seeing the reasons behind skilful means, and always keeping an eye on the definitive meaning intended.

Malcolm wrote:
Casual racism may not be ill-intentioned,  but it’s still racism. No one can ever say it is skillful. Likewise, the casual sexism that we sometimes find in sutras and tantras, reflective of another era, is certainly not intended to harm, but it is a product of harm to sentient beings—women—in any case. There is a passage in the Sandhivyakarana Tantra that runs something like“The single delightful vajra word is heard variously by different people according to differences in capacities,” meaning that everything written down about what the Buddha said is limited by how this single vajra word was received. The consequence of this hermeneutic strategy is that anything written down about what the Buddha said can be subject to critical evaluation, and anything found wanting is not a fault to be addressed to the Buddha, but rather to those who attempted to write down what they thought he said.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 9th, 2021 at 10:06 AM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
There are many women who derive benefit from supporting patriarchal culture. That does not mean patriarchal culture is a desiderata.

Zhen Li said:
The passage is not about creating a patriarchal culture, but is addressed to people within one already.

Malcolm wrote:
Indeed, and some women are stakeholders in such a culture.




Zhen Li said:
All of the bhikṣuṇīs of Jambudvīpa were present.

Malcolm wrote:
Indeed, that is the narrative setting, we needn’t take it literally.



Zhen Li said:
"Feminization" wasn't a risk for anyone at that time. The point is that discriminations and distinctions of sex do not apply in Buddha-nature (OP had the right approach, except for the subversion part).

Malcolm wrote:
The language is clearly sexist and denigrating to women. That is not the point most people will derive from such a statement. Tortured exegesis just makes it more clear that the passage is anachronistic, a reflection of a time and a culture where women are not treated as full human beings.

Zhen Li said:
You are reading the premises and ignoring the conclusion. You are seeing the vyañjana but not the artha. The context is a patriarchal culture. To make the same point today one uses different words to suit the different context, but the conclusion is the same.

Malcolm wrote:
The point is more effectively made in other sutras of this class, and as I pointed out, there are more effective sutras which address gender and it’s irrelevance to awakening.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 9th, 2021 at 7:01 AM
Title: Re: Question on experiencing the "Heart Lamp"
Content:
White Eagle said:
Dear Forum,

After practicing a combination of Inner Fire practices with Dan Brown's teachings...

Malcolm wrote:
You need a teacher. Your experiences are just concepts.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 9th, 2021 at 12:31 AM
Title: Re: Intention for rebirth in Amitabha's pure land
Content:
Aemilius said:
Yes, there are some sravaka arhats who are born there...

Malcolm wrote:
No, they are emanations of Amitabha.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 9th, 2021 at 12:30 AM
Title: Re: Intention for rebirth in Amitabha's pure land
Content:
megaman chiquito said:
Is  this pure land the one associated with Nenbutsu chant? i know in feudal japan they used beans to count nenbutsu chanting, and over the years filled large baskets!

Lotomístico said:
As I know there are different Pure Lands in Mahayana Buddhism, each of a different Buddha...the Pure Land of Amitabha (Amida Butsu in Japan, Amituofo in Chinese, other names depending on language) is probably the most well known and especially popular in east Asian Mahayana countries for reasons a Pure Buddhist could elaborate much better than I. In Japan it is called nenbutsu as you mentioned, nianfo in China and different words in other languages.

Aemilius said:
I think in the sutras only two purelands are mentioned, I maybe wrong of course, the other pureland is that of Buddha Akshobhya, who figures in the Vimalakirti nirdesha sutra.  Akshobhya appears in the Akṣobhya-tathāgatasya-vyūha Sūtra (Chinese: 阿閦佛國經; pinyin: Āchùfó Guó Jīng), which was translated during the second century CE and is among oldest known Mahayana or Pure Land texts. According to this scripture, a monk wished to practice the Dharma in the eastern world of delight and made a vow not to harbor anger or malice towards any being until he achieved enlightenment. He duly proved "immovable" and when he succeeded, he became the buddha Akshobhya.

Some buddhist schools  regard the Tushita heaven where Bodhisattva Maitreya presently resides a pureland.

There is a partial translation of Akshobhya vyuha sutra in A Treasury of Mahayana Sutras : Selections from the Maharatnakuta Sutra
Edited by Garma C.C. Chang

Malcolm wrote:
There is also the buddhafield of Medicine Buddha, Potala of Avalokitśvara, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 9th, 2021 at 12:18 AM
Title: Re: Questions
Content:
Kurp said:
Your other questions should learned at the feet of a teacher.
Aren’t you a teacher?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, but not here.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 8th, 2021 at 10:57 PM
Title: Re: Bias in translation
Content:
ratna said:
In case of bodhisatva, perhaps the Tibetan byang chub sems dpa' recognizes the dual meaning of satva as hero/being and tries to preserve it in translation; hence sems dpa', not byang chub dpa' bo or something like that.

Malcolm wrote:
Unlikely, rather, it is calque, "bodhicitta hero."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 8th, 2021 at 10:55 PM
Title: Re: Questions
Content:


Kurp said:
9. Can recreational drugs cause you to realize your primordial state and/or emptiness?

Malcolm wrote:
No.

Kurp said:
10. Are experiences less “reliable” or “legitimate” from drug induced states than from meditative practices?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes.

Kurp said:
11. Can siddhis be “activated” from recreational drug use, or even sex?

Malcolm wrote:
No.

Kurp said:
12. If you don’t have siddhis, does that mean you are doing something “wrong” with your practice or just in your life in general?

Malcolm wrote:
Probably.

Kurp said:
My underlying question therewithin: is it safe to assume that realizing your primordial state means that you have fully integrated everything, and you no longer lean to one side or the other of any type of duality?

Malcolm wrote:
That depends on what you mean by "realization," which is very broad and ambiguous term.

Your other questions should learned at the feet of a teacher.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 8th, 2021 at 8:51 PM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:


Aemilius said:
I don't think that the tantras themselves say that they are "lower".

Malcolm wrote:
The divisions of tantra into higher and lower is clearly taught in the Vajramala Tantra, the Hevajra Tantra, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 8th, 2021 at 8:47 PM
Title: Re: MPNS on Women
Content:


Zhen Li said:
But in certain cases, stridently masculine words are used to encourage disciples—men and women included there. With teachings like this it is obviously not possible to present such words to most women today as a form of encouragement, but it certainly was at a certain time and place and I know a number of women (not all from traditional South Asian cultures) who would strongly agree with these sentiments.

Malcolm wrote:
There are many women who derive benefit from supporting patriarchal culture. That does not mean patriarchal culture is a desiderata. Nor can that fact be used to excuse strident sexism. This is why such such words cannot be used as an inducement for women today, and frankly, given the fact the women during the time this sutra was composed were subject to strident masculine oppression in general, it is unlikely that such words would have been read or heard by women at all, further reinforcing their completely sexist content.  Why? The target of this statement is men, who fear feminization. The statement amounts to the sentiment, “if one does accept x doctrine, one is a sissy.”


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 8th, 2021 at 12:21 AM
Title: Re: Why Buddhism's Decline in India?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Actually it is just impermanence. Buddhism reigned supreme for over 1000 years in India. The Indian flag still respects this history.

Malcolm wrote:
Until the English revived his memory through Pali sources, the Indians completely forgot about Ashoka, who in any case was a sectarian butcher until his brother's head (who was slain by accident) was brought in for the bounty Ashoka had offered on the heads of Jain monks. You can read all about it in the Ashoka-avadana. Ashoka had 18k Jains slain for a cartoon depicting the Buddha prostrating to Mahāvira. Not very cool.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 8th, 2021 at 12:18 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Imagine the injury they would get by ignoring lamas.

Malcolm wrote:
Lamas are not mystical beings beyond error. And my Lama, as you know, was not big on prostrations.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 8th, 2021 at 12:16 AM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:
Yklah said:
Hello to everyone, dharma brothers and sisters:

According to scriptures, the secret mantrayana teachings were taught by Guru Rinpoche, who is believed to be an emanation of Buddha Amitayus, whereas the Sutra teachigs are taught by Guru Shakyamuni. My question is:

The mental continuum of Guru Rinpoche is the same as Guru Shakyamuni ? Otherwise, would be very strange to me that the Buddha of this era did not take charge to teach the whole Buddha Dharma, but only the Sutrayana part.

Thank you

Yklah

Crazywisdom said:
Guru Padmasambhava had gurus. Namely Indrabhuti, Lawapa and Kukaraja, who are the actual root gurus. Shakyamuni taught the Kalachakra and others. The Red Book says Indrabhuti got The Book which was a root Vajrayana text, most likely Guhyagarbha, Guhyasamaja,  from Shakyamuni and taught it to Kukaraja who understood it and then taught what he understood to Indrabhuti. They both spent their lives Practicing.

Malcolm wrote:
You forgot Śṛī Singha.

Also, the Indrabhuti III is the student of Padmavajra I, not his teacher. Also, it is important to note that the Padmakāra (Guru Rinpoche), Padmavajra II, and Saroruhavajra (Padmavajra I) have been conflated in Tibetan sources.

Crazywisdom said:
The sutras say when a bodhisattva reaches the 10th Bhumi they are empowered by Buddhas who shine lights on them and make prophecy. .

Malcolm wrote:
Correct, both in the Sutra of the Ten Stages, and the Lanka. But it is not exactly a Vajrayāna empowerment. Empowerment is a method by which an ordinary person can attain buddhahood, such as Indrabhuti, Dombhi Heruka, Saraha. etc., and failing that, practice sadhana enabling them to attain all the paths and stages in a single lifetime.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 8th, 2021 at 12:05 AM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Lineage masters say mantra is short for Manas trahi, mind protection, mantra and tantra are interchangeable.

Malcolm wrote:
While it is true that mantra is etymologized as manas + tra in the Guhyasamāja, the Vajrasikhara states, "a tantra is a saṁtāna," that "a tantra is a continuum." This definition is universal in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 7th, 2021 at 10:50 PM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Guru Rinpoche, in the Nyingma school, is considered to be an emanation of Śākyamuni Buddha.

Seeker12 said:
In some sources, it says that only select few Nirmanakaya Buddhas such as Shakyamuni who establish a dispensation will teach vajrayana. But then it is also said for instance that each Supreme Nirmanakaya such as Shakyamuni will have a Guru Rinpoche.

In terms of... scriptural authority, I suppose, is it appropriate to consider that within each dispensation there will be Vajrayana, but it's just a matter of whether or not the initial supreme nirmanakaya teaches it specifically themselves? That is, Shakyamuni is one of the relatively few who taught Vajrayana, but Maitreya will not. Even in the dispensation of Maitreya, however, will there still be Vajrayana that is simply passed down via a different 'chain' so to speak?

I hope that's clear enough.

Malcolm wrote:
Actually, every Buddha teaches Vajrayāna. The teaching of the rarity of Vajrayāna is merely an intentional statement meant to impress upon us that we should not take the opportunity to practice Vajrayāna lightly.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 7th, 2021 at 9:38 PM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:
Giovanni said:
To steal an old joke. You honour the Buddha in your way and I will honour the Buddha in his way.


Kim O'Hara said:
We poke fun at the Christians for making a God in their own image, not vice versa as they claim, but I suspect each of us makes the Buddha in our own image, too.
Never mind ... it's all good in the beginning, good in the middle, etc.

Malcolm wrote:
Whether one takes the Mahāyāna account literally or not, the point is to emphasize the fact that the Buddha was an extraordinary being, whose person was inconceivable.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 7th, 2021 at 9:10 PM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:


Aemilius said:
There is a traditional teaching that Shakyamuni himself taught 'tantra' to King Indrabhuti, after he had first caused the Arhats to fall asleep, so that they remained unconscious of what he taught to King Indrabhuti. This story is found in The Seven Instruction Lineages of Jonang Taranatha, and elsewhere.

Malcolm wrote:
Śākyamuni Buddha did not teach the Guhysasamāja Tantra to Indrabhuti I.  Śākyamuni Buddha gave Indrabhuti I the empowerment. Indrabhuti I then promulgated the tantra in his kingdom, etc.


Aemilius said:
In another version Shakyamuni taught 'tantra' in the Tushita heaven, and this teaching was later brought to earth by bodhisattva Vajrapani.

Malcolm wrote:
These are the lower tantras.


Aemilius said:
I am pretty sure that the Sravakayana teachings have gone through a process of editing and censorship in the centuries and millennia after the Parinirvana of Buddha Gautama. Originally in the teachings of Shakyamuni there was "twilight language" or sandha-bhashya, i.e. words had multiple and hidden meanings, which later becomes characteristic of tantra only.

Malcolm wrote:
This is not correct. There is also the ideas of ldem dgongs in sūtra, i.e. catvāro 'bhisaṁdhayaḥ, concealed meaning. For example, the Abhisamayālamkāra is the concealed meaning the Prajñāpāramitā class.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, July 7th, 2021 at 7:35 PM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:
Aemilius said:
The term "Tantra" after about 500 BCE, in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism is a bibliographic category, just like the word Sutra (which means "sewing together", mirroring the metaphor of "weaving together" in Tantra). The same Buddhist texts are sometimes referred to as tantra or sutra; for example, Vairocabhisambodhi-tantra is also referred to as Vairocabhisambodhi-sutra.

Malcolm wrote:
“Tantra” according to the Buddhist tantras, just means “continuum.” Further, when used in reference to the medical tantras, it means to protect (tra) the body (tanu).

But there is no Buddhist text that etymologizes the word tantra as “weaving.”


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 6th, 2021 at 11:49 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:



Crazywisdom said:
I know people with serious med issues like kidneys got healed from it.

Malcolm wrote:
Sure, and I know people who have injured themselves for life from prostrations.

Könchok Thrinley said:
How would you advise people to do prostrations? Probably just take them easy and not go too fast because of some counting?

Malcolm wrote:
Learn how to do sun salutations.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 6th, 2021 at 9:42 PM
Title: Re: Sutra and Tantra Teachings
Content:
Yklah said:
Hello to everyone, dharma brothers and sisters:

According to scriptures, the secret mantrayana teachings were taught by Guru Rinpoche, who is believed to be an emanation of Buddha Amitayus, whereas the Sutra teachigs are taught by Guru Shakyamuni. My question is:

The mental continuum of Guru Rinpoche is the same as Guru Shakyamuni ? Otherwise, would be very strange to me that the Buddha of this era did not take charge to teach the whole Buddha Dharma, but only the Sutrayana part.

Thank you

Yklah

Malcolm wrote:
Guru Rinpoche, in the Nyingma school, is considered to be an emanation of Śākyamuni Buddha.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 6th, 2021 at 9:39 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
I heard they were doing this in Santa Cruz also. Not sure where they are with that. Everything will be ok.

TharpaChodron said:
Not far along, from what I hear. Anyhow, about Ngondro. Prostrations seems to be a pretty big sticking point for a lot of people, understandably. In my own experience, that’s actually the thing I’ve been able to do easiest. And as far as benefits go, I have to say that prostrations really seem to loosen up the back and limber one up pretty well. I never had any more back issues once I started doing them in the mornings. That’s not a politically correct benefit, but hey, it’s something!

Crazywisdom said:
I know people with serious med issues like kidneys got healed from it.

Malcolm wrote:
Sure, and I know people who have injured themselves for life from prostrations.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 6th, 2021 at 9:09 PM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:


Kim O'Hara said:
On the other hand, a glance at thread titles on the index page will show a much broader range. Perhaps we should accept the established tradition rather than the doctrine or perhaps the team should revise the doctrine.

Malcolm wrote:
The distinction between the śrāvaka conception and the Mahāyāna conception of the Bodhisattva was well understood in India, Tibet, China, etc.  While, it is certainly not my place to insist that anyone believe anything they find uncomfortable, it is certainly the case that I can point out what the Mahāyāna states about the person of the Buddha. Whether someone accepts it or not is irrelevant.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 6th, 2021 at 9:04 PM
Title: Re: Tibetan languages-dialects or different languages?
Content:
Supramundane said:
A famous linguist once explained the difference between a language and dialect with the following aphorism:

" a language is a dialect with an army and navy "

I.e. there is no linguistic cut off or structural difference. It is simply a political distinction.

White Sakura said:
that is why maybe the term "dialect" ist not fitting for the Tibetan language". German language also has dialects but every German can understand every dialect. Including Austrian dialect. Then there is Swiss German and that is not understandable for Germans from Germany. That is why Swiss German is not just called a dialect. It is rather another language. Or something in between.

Malcolm wrote:
No, they are dialects. All dialects spoken by Tibetans have undergone changes in pronunciation, but these follow regular rules, so that there are mainly differences in colloquial terms for things.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 6th, 2021 at 8:35 PM
Title: Re: Information on Tibetan reception of De-bzhin gshegs-pa’i gsang-ba bsam-kyis mi-khyab-pa bstan-pa
Content:
Zhen Li said:
Thank you. I will look into these references.

Malcolm wrote:
Buddhanexus is a bit hard to get used to, but selecting for longer citations of 30+ characters results in more meaningful hits.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 6th, 2021 at 8:31 PM
Title: Re: Bias in translation
Content:
Zhen Li said:
The best way to get an idea of whether there's bias involved is to study the primary languages ourselves and translate directly.

But to answer your questions, there are hundreds of people translating Buddhist texts, and hundreds of translations. It is easier to focus on a single example. I have a lot of experience now with Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese, and a few other languages, so may be able to help with some generalisations in response to your questions.
Lotomístico said:
How much bias based on the cultural background of the author is involved? 19th century orientalist scholars perhaps trying to impose their own understanding of what Buddhism is...some even using Christian terminology (one specifically I can think of)

Zhen Li said:
If someone is directly inserting ideas not found in the source text, or excluding materials, that's going to be seen pretty quickly. Maybe you had in mind someone like I.B. Horner, who chose not to translate passages dealing with monastic sexual misconduct because it appeared offensive. A modern equivalent might be pronoun choice. The Buddha often refers to the assembly as "kulaputrāḥ" sons of good family and the masculine pronoun is standard, but some may prefer to make it inclusive (by the way, many sūtras are gender inclusive and mention "daughters" of good family and use the feminine pronoun). It is probably standard to translate deva as god, but obviously, this could be confused with Abrahamic ideas of monotheistic gods if someone isn't familiar with Buddhism. I think, in general, a lot of the potential confusion is coming on the side of the reader—if you have read a large quantity of sūtras, you will begin to identify what terms the translator is using for what ideas. Others might be a bit harder to parse, for instance "own-being" and "inherent existence" are both common translations of sva-bhāva. So, at the end of the day, some familiarity with Sanskrit is the best solution.
Lotomístico said:
More recent translations possibly leaning towards a new agey or western rationalist overlay to Buddhism.

Zhen Li said:
Stephen Batchelor's translations of the four noble truths as the "four tasks" are obvious examples where an author's idiosyncratic philosophy can distort what the source text is saying.
Lotomístico said:
Do modern translations usually consult existing texts? Are the translators scholars in Sanskrit or classical Chinese? Or do many resort to paraphrase of existing translations?

Zhen Li said:
People tend to use the same terms that have become common place because English-speaking Buddhist audiences are familiar with them. The first lines of sutras are an example: Evaṃ mayā śrūtaṃ  is literally "Thus it was heard by me," but the convention is to translate it as "Thus have I heard" removing the instrumental meaning in mayā. The full line Evaṃ mayā śrūtaṃ ekasmin samaye could be read "It was heard by me at one time" but there has been a convention, which may come from manuscripts inserting punctuation markers between śrūtaṃ and ekasmin, of reading it as "It was heard by me. At one time ..." In fact, it is not possible to know the originally intended form of this line, but convention in India eventually went with splitting it. The conventional full translation in English, which most translations go with, is "Thus have I heard. At one time ..."

In fact, the Sanskrit texts are biased inherently. The middle-Indic originals of many terms, such as sutta, are ambiguous. Sutta can be read in Sanskrit as sūkta, well spoken, or as sūtra, thread/discourse. There are good arguments that it should be read as sūkta; sūtra has lots of other uses, such as to indicate sections in grammatical texts, and doesn't necessarily have any reason to be read as sūtra. However, Pāli commentaries accept that sutta can be read as both sūkta and sūtra. That Sanskrit sticks with sūtra, and many other such translation choices, makes it inherently biased in much the same way that our English translations are biased if we are concerned with particular word choice. Even bodhisattva, from bodhisatta, is a choice between a variety of options, such as bodhiśakta. Anyway, the Sanskrit tradition decided that it is bodhisattva, and thus it has been so for two thousand years.

So, issues to keep in mind are really exclusion, interpolation, source manuscript/edition choice, and word choice.

But if you read enough, you will begin to get an idea for what the intended meaning of the Mahāyāna sūtras is. In fact, these distinctions are unlikely to make a huge impact unless one is focusing one's practice only on one translation. Read the sūtras widely and continue reading, it will pay off.

Malcolm wrote:
And of course, there is the fact that bodhisatva, hero of awakening, was “corrected” to by bodhisattva by 19th century philologists, leading to a total misunderstanding of this term.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 6th, 2021 at 9:50 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
TharpaChodron said:
I never had any more back issues once I started doing them in the mornings. That’s not a politically correct benefit, but hey, it’s something!

Malcolm wrote:
The best reason to do prostrations is because they are a yoga that limbers up the nāḍīs. The concept of counting 100K plus, not so interesting and even harmful to knees and backs.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 6th, 2021 at 9:48 AM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
There are theravadins who maintain that some of the elaborate descriptions found in Mahayana sutras, of events where the Buddha gave teachings, could not possibly have had as many attendees (or other details) as is often written, but that is a different issue. That’s not about whether the Buddha was simply a human or not.

Malcolm wrote:
A nirmānakāya is in no sense an ordinary human, despite our ordinary perception being unable to comprehend how 1000 monks could fit on Vulture Peak, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 6th, 2021 at 9:45 AM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:


Kim O'Hara said:
However, the OP's (somewhat provocative) question was, "is there any accepted tradition of buddha being just a normal human who achieved nirvana trough his own diligent efforts?" (emphasis added) and the answer, as I said here - https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?p=588792#p588792 - is yes. Astus presented alternative grounds for the same conclusion at https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?p=565056#p565056.

Malcolm wrote:
There are all kinds of "accepted" traditons. One "accepted" tradition is that Buddha is an avatar of Vishnu. The only thing relevant here is what does the Mahāyāna tradition hold in general.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 6th, 2021 at 9:42 AM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
...

However you want to parse these narratives in your head is up to you. But this is the narrative that is relevant for Mahāyānī s:

https://read.84000.co/translation/toh95.html#UT22084-046-001-301

Based on this sūtra, one can hardly claim by any measure that the Buddha was an ordinary human. To say so is to claim knowledge of facts of which no one alive today can have any personal knowledge. [emphasis added]

That said, most people are more comfortable with their ordinary perception than the exalted vision which frame Mahāyāna.

Kim O'Hara said:
I can't and won't argue with that. There are, as we know, 84,000 dharma doors.

Malcolm wrote:
Only in the sense that there are 21,000 afflictions of anger (sūtra), 21,000 afflictions of desire (vinaya), and 21,000 afflictions of ignorance (Abhidharma) and 21,000 mixed afflictions.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, July 6th, 2021 at 12:45 AM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:


PadmaVonSamba said:
It puts him into the category of legendary mythology by indian patriarchs who felt the need to avoid delivery through the vagina, which they likely perceived as unclean and therefore an unsuitable passage route.

Malcolm wrote:
You are confusing birth with conception.

PadmaVonSamba said:
Yeah. I got that mixed up.
I was thinking he was born from Queen Maya’s side, rather than being impregnated through her side by a white elephant with six tusks. That’s perfectly reasonable, isn’t it!
…whatever it takes to avoid that yoni hole I guess.

Malcolm wrote:
However you want to parse these narratives in your head is up to you. But this is the narrative that is relevant for Mahāyānīs:

https://read.84000.co/translation/toh95.html#UT22084-046-001-301

Based on this sūtra, one can hardly claim by any measure that the Buddha was an ordinary human. To say so is to claim knowledge of facts of which no one alive today can have any personal knowledge.

That said, most people are more comfortable with their ordinary perception than the exalted vision which frame Mahāyāna.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 5th, 2021 at 10:44 PM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:


Kim O'Hara said:
If you look at Megaman's posting history (which you may find interesting from the moderating POV, btw) you will see him "identifying as Catholic" in his Intro so contrasting the Buddha with Jesus is fair. Everyone (including Jesus) knew from the get-go that Jesus was the Son of God, i.e. essentially divine, and it is absolutely central to his (His?) story. The Buddha, on the other hand, had a normal human life up to the time he went forth, and in fact for the next forty years.


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
Really, you think Buddha’s immaculate conception places him in the realm of being an ordinary humans?

PadmaVonSamba said:
It puts him into the category of legendary mythology by indian patriarchs who felt the need to avoid delivery through the vagina, which they likely perceived as unclean and therefore an unsuitable passage route.

Malcolm wrote:
You are confusing birth with conception.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 5th, 2021 at 10:06 PM
Title: Re: The Lankavatarasutra in early Indian Madhyamaka Literature
Content:


Zhen Li said:
Rather than discussing miracles or events, as if debating history, we should be focusing on the message of the sūtra and the statements that Aemilius has kindly shared with us. How do they help us? What can they do for us on the path? Can we/how can we use them in daily life?

Malcolm wrote:
What Aemilius shared with us was a number of assertions by the late Christian Lindtner (1949-2020) about the authorship of texts in the Nāgārjuna corpus, some of which are demonstrably false.

Christian Lindtner (1949-2020) was a very strange bird. whose scholarship seems to have descended into a form of gematria: https://www.jesusisbuddha.com/CLT.html

Then there is his flirtation with and then reversal on the subject of the holocaust denial:
https://dagobertobellucci.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/the-holocaust-in-danish-media-1998-2006-by-christian-lindtner/

Zhen Li said:
Today, as far as I can judge, Holocaust revisionism has reached its main objective in demonstrating that there is no valid internal or external piece of evidence for claiming that Hitler by means of gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau or elsewhere, murdered millions of Jews in cold blood. From whatever angle you look at it this claim is so absurd that it in itself becomes a most interesting problem how it can be that so many people for so long have believed in what we now safely can call the Holocaust myth. The Hitlerian gas chambers, like the alleged weapons of mass destruction of Irak´s former dictator, have now been assigned to the realm of myth. Or, if you wish, they are mere rumors, as Dr. Faurisson phrased it in a famous note in 1979. And without a weapon of mass murder, it follows that there can be no mass murder. Thus the Holocaust, in the sense of mass murder of Jews by means of gas chambers is, if you believe in logic, a mere myth.

Malcolm wrote:
https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2011/10/interview-with-ex-denier-christian.html

All and all, not a terribly reliable scholar.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 5th, 2021 at 8:34 PM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:


Kim O'Hara said:
If you look at Megaman's posting history (which you may find interesting from the moderating POV, btw) you will see him "identifying as Catholic" in his Intro so contrasting the Buddha with Jesus is fair. Everyone (including Jesus) knew from the get-go that Jesus was the Son of God, i.e. essentially divine, and it is absolutely central to his (His?) story. The Buddha, on the other hand, had a normal human life up to the time he went forth, and in fact for the next forty years.


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
Really, you think Buddha’s immaculate conception places him in the realm of being an ordinary humans?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 5th, 2021 at 10:41 AM
Title: Re: Reversing Global Warming - Science and Politics (split from: Reversing Global Warming -Prayers and Aspirations")
Content:
Kim O'Hara said:
Lululemon Founder Spends $3.2 Million Preserving Islands in the Salish Sea

The founder of athletic apparel company Lululemon, Chip Wilson, spent $3.2 million to purchase the small Canadian island Saturnina, and to help preserve two others in an effort to protect the Douglas fir ecosystem.

"It's overwhelming," Wilson said in an interview with Global National. "You can almost cry… where's this jewel been hiding and I've never seen it?"

In addition to Saturnina, Wilson also contributed to the purchasing of two other small islands in the Salish Sea, according to International Business Times: The West Ballenas and Lasqueti Island.

The three islands all contain rare Douglas fir ecosystems. The islands support trees that are near 400 years old, including Garry oaks and shore pines,  ...

The charitable efforts started in 2020 in order to save the West Ballenas. A crowdfunding campaign was started, and students from Ballenas high school collected donations from around the world; Wilson matched these donations ...
https://www.ecowatch.com/lululemon-founder-islands-conservation-2653631873.html

Is this in your part of the world, Kathy Lauren?


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
She hails from Nova Scotia, so, opposite ends of Canada.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, July 5th, 2021 at 8:01 AM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:
Kim O'Hara said:
I agree, except that when you say "reasons we can only guess at," you are effectively closing the door on western-style historical research and (as I said) I prefer not to do that.

Malcolm wrote:
I am merely pointing out that the search for a historical Buddha or an original teaching is chimera wrought of a teleology foreign to  buddhadharma itself.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 10:18 PM
Title: Re: Kagyu Lineages
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
But I catch your meaning. We put way too much importance on some woo woo power of so and so when it's not important at all.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, especially since it is not our power. Patrul Rinpoche discusses this in terms of pride, people boasting about their gurus as if their gurus' qualities rubs off on them.

It is as you say, if one understands the signs of the practices, it is pretty easy to know if one has reached this or that level of realization. But we are never supposed to say what that is.

Occasionally, however, some masters like Longchenpa, Tsongkhapa, or Khyentse Wangpo do let slip what realization they have attained in order to inspire disciples.

Arnoud said:
Is that why a lot of lamas now say the signs are more compassion, less grasping and more devotion?
It seems a little contradictory as well when the signs are seeing this and that but then people get told what they experience is just a nyam and need to just keep practicing. I guess ultimately they are all nyams until Buddhahood.

Malcolm wrote:
There are signs of the mundane stages of the path, and signs of the transcendent stages of the path. For example, having dreams of purification when doing Vajrasattva are not transcendent signs. The latter only manifest when one has attained the first bodhisattva stage. The main teaching of every tradition has a detailed explanation of these in their Varjayāna paths and stages literature.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 9:44 PM
Title: Re: nyingma lineages/cycles structures of practice.
Content:


yagmort said:
so it looks like in Chetsün Nyingtig they don't proceed to the dzogchen proper right after ngöndro.
am i getting something incorrectly here?

Malcolm wrote:
Having completed the ngondro, one continues with rushen, trekcho, and thogal

Crazywisdom said:
The ngondro is not like the usual ngondro. It's completion stage.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, it is not like the usual ngondros.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 9:40 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Correction on Drikung...

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, Yangzab is different in the older manuals.

Crazywisdom said:
I never learned Yangzab actually. My lama was all about Lord Jigten Sumgon.

Malcolm wrote:
Yangzab is a branch of the Khandro Nyinthig, according to Rinchen Phuntsok, the terton. Its more prevalent among Narthang Drigungpas and in Eastern Tibet in general. For example, one of Dudjom Lingpa's sons wrote a 300 folio commentary on the Nyinthig root text within the Yangzab that focuses on rushen, etc.

It appears to me that some Drigungpa Lamas have a somewhat ambivalent attitude towards it. It does not really fit in with the 5-fold Mahāmudra scheme.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 9:34 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Yeah but if we don't the point will be lost.

Malcolm wrote:
People have tried. For example, Margherita Island was supposed to be the it place. Of course, with the declining situation in Venezuela, that turned out not to be ideal, and anyway, only the rich people in the community could afford to build houses there. Baja was supposed to be another one, same deal.

It is not easy to set up retirement communities. Even a small one is a multi-million dollar proposition.

So now, with ChNN passed on to another dimension, it likely won't happen.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 8:57 PM
Title: Re: Getting wang/lung from different lineages?
Content:
PeterC said:
You’re overcomplicating things. Pretty much the only decision you need to make is the choice of the guru. Then just practice what they suggest.  If you  The seven line prayer and vajra guru mantra are things that any kagyu or nyingma lama will have and can give you.

Malcolm wrote:
And for that matter Sakya, Gelug, or Jonangpa.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 8:55 PM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:


Kim O'Hara said:
I'm sure you can find some way in which scriptures and the person they are centred on are "pretty much the same" but most of us have little trouble distinguishing between, say, Obama and every single one of twenty wildly divergent accounts of his presidency.


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
We have no knowledge of the Buddha apart from texts.

Kim O'Hara said:
True. Which is why speculating about the person of the Buddha should be avoided (and researching him is frankly impossible, btw).
But that doesn't stop us - or scholars - researching the texts and finding out (within limits dictated by the evidence) when and where they first appeared.
I would hope that the textual study didn't cripple the spiritual study, but (this is just a personal preference and I understand that others don't necessarily share it) I always prefer knowledge to speculation or ignorance: if the truth is findable, I will say, "yes, please!" to it.

Malcolm wrote:
Since Mahāyāna sūtras and śrāvaka canons began to be written down at the same time, the bias in academic studies is towards the śrāvaka canons which were orally translated out of an earlier canon. Mahāyāna sūtras are taken as inspired writings. But this is all speculative and a matter of opinion and conjecture. They don't really take us any closer Buddha, the person. What we have are competing narratives framed for reasons we can only guess at. The eventual differences between Mahāyāna and  Śrāvaka schools are unprecedented outside Indian civilization. Apart from "Hinduism" itself, what other major religion has so many trends based on so many competing and disparate narratives? One could argue that Christianity, has all kinds of trends, which is true, but all Christians share the same basic book, the New Testament, the same goes for Islam and Judaism. This is not the case with Buddhists.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 7:44 PM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:


Kim O'Hara said:
True. But if you go back to the post of mine which you quoted with no context (pro tip: click on the little dagger symbol on the innermost block of quoted text, and then do it again) and look at the context, you will see that I was talking about scholars' opinions of scriptures, not of the person of the Buddha.


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
That’s pretty much the same.

Kim O'Hara said:
I'm sure you can find some way in which scriptures and the person they are centred on are "pretty much the same" but most of us have little trouble distinguishing between, say, Obama and every single one of twenty wildly divergent accounts of his presidency.


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
We have no knowledge of the Buddha apart from texts.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 12:30 PM
Title: Re: Giving Up Masturbation
Content:



Dharmasherab said:
Understood. But there must be more than one reason why monastics have to follow a celibacy vow. The most obvious of which is sense restraint. But other than this dont you think that the other reason is semen retention?

Malcolm wrote:
No, I don’t.

Dharmasherab said:
But it is a monastic offence to intentionally release semen according to the complete set of Pratimoksa rules. One needs to serve a period of penence for doing such an act.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes. But it has nothing to do with some health benefit. It’s also an offense for nuns to masuturbate.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 12:27 PM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:



Kim O'Hara said:
True.
And all kinds of truth, too, with good evidence to back it up.


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
In speculations about the person of the Buddha, not so much.

Kim O'Hara said:
True. But if you go back to the post of mine which you quoted with no context (pro tip: click on the little dagger symbol on the innermost block of quoted text, and then do it again) and look at the context, you will see that I was talking about scholars' opinions of scriptures, not of the person of the Buddha.


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
That’s pretty much the same.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 12:08 PM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:
Dan74 said:
Not sure if an entire tradition can be said to  teach this, but I have heard several Zen teachers say (cue the pearl clutching....) "the Buddha was a very cleaver man"....

At the end of the day, it's what gets the job done...

Malcolm wrote:
Of course the Buddha was clever, he was a buddha. You don’t get to be a buddha by being a dolt.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 12:06 PM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:


Kim O'Hara said:
But many [academic] scholars believe...

Malcolm wrote:
All kinds of shit without any thing other than their opinion to back it up.


Kim O'Hara said:
True.
And all kinds of truth, too, with good evidence to back it up.


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
In speculations about the person of the Buddha, not so much.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 12:02 PM
Title: Re: nyingma lineages/cycles structures of practice.
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
It's not. You just go through all the sadhanas in the book.

yagmort said:
so if "it's not" omitted, it's not part of the ngöndro, it's not part of the dzogchen proper and "upon completion of the CN ngondro you do the special Dzogchen preliminaries and straight into tregcho/thogal", where does sadhana of Chetsün sit within the context of Chetsün Nyingtig then?

i am royally confused.

Sennin said:
There's a dvd of Kyabje Khenchen Jigme Phuntsok teaching the ngondro. He explains that the refuge, bodhichitta and guruyoga is the main path of blessings, he incorporates aspects of the sadhana into the ngondro guruyoga. He explained it is totally complete this way without doing the sadhana. He explained that the tummo section is auxiliary.

That said, I did not have the fortune to meet H.H. so it's likely he taught the cycle in different ways. I don't know. Even so the way he explained it on the dvds was very informative.

Malcolm wrote:
Correct, this is how it was taught to me when I received it in 1993.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 12:00 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:



Malcolm wrote:
Sure there is.



Not necessarily.

PadmaVonSamba said:
I began to do the traditional ngongdro many years ago. Just about everybody in our dharma group was doing it. I was never instructed to begin doing it.so, When I told my teacher (a khenpo) his response was basically “meh” or sort of, “ok whatever.”
After 11,000 prostrations I realized that I just wasn’t there with it. Just going through the motions, pretending, getting a nice bump that looked like a third eye on my forehead. Totally feeding my ‘monkey mind’ if you want to get right down to it. I didn’t continue after that.
But there are two things I want to mention, both from very qualified teachers.
I asked one whether ngondro was ‘right’ for everybody. His answer was than none of the Buddhist teachings are wrong for anybody. But not everybody is suited to every type of practice. The tradition I follow is vajrayana but I know I will really never fit the definition of a vajrayana practioner. Maybe I am what you’d call sutrayana with some vajrayana practices thrown in.
The other thing that a teacher said was that “ngondro” can be all types of activity. Not just the four 100,000s that have become the standard. One year I lived and worked at a retreat center in the kitchen. Cooking every day, I was told, is also ngondro. So, my understanding is that the “essential thing” (if I can say that) isn’t the means as much as the ends. It is what you get out of it, the clearing away of obstacles, the “purification” (I hate that word) of one’s practice. Whether it’s dumping rice and jewels on a metal plate or sweeping the shrine room floor, the point is transformation.


TharpaChodron said:
On a side note and derailing the thread, I read a comment recently online from a longtime practitioner who was saying that many of his fellow practitioners were having serious financial and health issues and were in a bad situation, given they had devoted their lives to practice and not financial security. Some committing suicide and are bordering on homelessness etc. It was a pretty shocking thing to hear. I imagine they did Ngondro and followed their teachers guidance, not that those things are connected at all to material well-being.

Malcolm wrote:
One has to work with circumstances. Teachers of Dharma are not life coaches, financial advisors, etc. ChNN always taught us that we practitioners need to take care of ourselves in a responsible way, as best we can. So it is sad that some people did not understand this point, and now feel desperate. ChNN always advised people to set up some kind of community retirement strategy, but this never happened.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 3:24 AM
Title: Re: is Buddha"just a man" in any tradition?
Content:


Kim O'Hara said:
But many [academic] scholars believe...

Malcolm wrote:
All kinds of shit without any thing other than their opinion to back it up.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 3:13 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
Correction on Drikung...

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, Yangzab is different in the older manuals.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 3:03 AM
Title: Re: nyingma lineages/cycles structures of practice.
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
It's not. You just go through all the sadhanas in the book.

yagmort said:
so if "it's not" omitted, it's not part of the ngöndro, it's not part of the dzogchen proper and "upon completion of the CN ngondro you do the special Dzogchen preliminaries and straight into tregcho/thogal", where does sadhana of Chetsün sit within the context of Chetsün Nyingtig then?

i am royally confused.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, correct. This is why you need instruction. You need the wang, the lung, and the tri, which, admittedly, are not easy to obtain. You are like someone asking three different people about California. You are going to get three different answers, because we have all received it at different times from different teachers with different instructions, just like someone describing Cali who is from LA is going to have a different point of view than someone from the bay area, and someone from the Shasta region. There is no one answer, but mainly, the long sadhana is used for the empowerment and feasts.  It can also be a daily practice for those who want to practice it that way. But that is not the usual approach.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 2:56 AM
Title: Re: Where can I buy a Tibetan meditation cushion?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Hate to say it, but there is no such thing as a Tibetan meditation cushion. You might be thinking of a so-called gomden, which Chogyam Trungpa had invented for Westerners.

Lobsang Chojor said:
Malcolm just out of interest what did Tibetans use to raise their hips for the Vairocana posture? Just folded up robes?

Malcolm wrote:
Blankets, I imagine.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 11:05 PM
Title: Re: Giving Up Masturbation
Content:
megaman chiquito said:
This may sound superstitious but if a man wants to quit masturbation, I suggest dousing the genitals with cold water after each  urination. Cold showers also help,but if you dont want full cold shower, localized icy water will help.
I learned this from a book on yogic celibacy.

Malcolm wrote:
Sounds unpleasant.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 11:05 PM
Title: Re: Practice of Dakini Simhamukha
Content:
fckw said:
It's a practice to gain enlightenment. Like all dakini practices are. You can repel obstacles with it that are particularly connected to bad influences of female spirits, but then again what is more important is that you actually realize at least one dakini to a sufficient degree, no matter which one. They all in their own form protect against all sorts of things. Regarding your second question, typically you'd do a round of guru yoga first before doing other sadhanas, but nothing prevents you to take the dakini as the guru. Simhamukha was a practice extensively used by Guru Rinpoche, so you could even have him appear in this form and do a corresponding guru yoga, followed by the actual practice. Or you take one if his other wrathful forms like Guru Drakpur as the guru yoga followed by Simhamukha practice, followed by the actual sadhana practice. It's a bit less conventional as an approach, but nothing prevents you from doing it.

tony_montana said:
Hi, would Vajrayogini/Vajravarahi also be considered a dakini in this sense or is she a Yidam only (or is she both).

Thanks

Malcolm wrote:
The Guru Yidam Dakini thing is Nyingma only.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 11:04 PM
Title: Re: Kagyu Lineages
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
But I catch your meaning. We put way too much importance on some woo woo power of so and so when it's not important at all.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, especially since it is not our power. Patrul Rinpoche discusses this in terms of pride, people boasting about their gurus as if their gurus' qualities rubs off on them.

It is as you say, if one understands the signs of the practices, it is pretty easy to know if one has reached this or that level of realization. But we are never supposed to say what that is.

Occasionally, however, some masters like Longchenpa, Tsongkhapa, or Khyentse Wangpo do let slip what realization they have attained in order to inspire disciples.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 10:37 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


PadmaVonSamba said:
All I’m saying is that the typical four-part standard formula (and that is what it is, an institutionalized process) is what most Nyingma and Kagyu Vajrayana teachers tell most of their students to do.

Malcolm wrote:
There, fixed it for you.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 10:36 PM
Title: Re: nyingma lineages/cycles structures of practice.
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
... Upon completion of the CN ngondro you do the special Dzogchen preliminaries and straight into tregcho/thogal...

yagmort said:
could you please explain why Chetsün sadhana - which is a decent part of Chetsün Nyingtig if i got it correctly - is omitted?

Crazywisdom said:
It's not. You just go through all the sadhanas in the book.

Malcolm wrote:
That depends on how one has been instructed.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 10:32 PM
Title: Re: Kagyu Lineages
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
It's much like the word prajna in Buddhadharma. It's can refer to any number of understandings. Whether someone realized the three kayas is going to depend on if you got full instructions on what those are, how to do that, being examined by your lama, what the signs are. It's straight forward and objective.

Malcolm wrote:
Sure, signs such as seeing one hundred buddhas, visiting one hundred buddhafields, and so on, which are a sign of attaining the first bhumi, are straight forward and objective.

Or alternately, signs such as the intense pain of pranayama practices and so on, which result when ordinary people practice completion stage practices related the nadis, vayus, and bindus, are also straight forward and objective, as are signs like smoke, fireflies, and so on, which are signs of the vayus entering the central channel. These are all "realizations."

The point is that people like to say "So and so is realized" without knowing anything about the person, other than just passing along rumors they have heard about this teacher and that. I can't tell you the number of ads I have seen for this and that teacher "praising them as highly realized" without specifying what that realization is. Calling teachers "realized" is just advertising puffery.

My guru, Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, used to reject the idea that he was a rtogs ldan, a person possessing realization, and basically said that if any of his students wanted to prove they were realized they should be able to hold their hand in fire without it becoming damaged in anyway. He said he was not able to do this, and as far as I know, none of his students ever tried to pass this test either.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 10:22 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
..It really all gets back to the individual teacher-pupil situation, doesn’t it?

yagmort said:
yes, it does.

you made a post quoting me at the beginning, but i m not sure what is your question?

my questions were adressed to Malcolm,since he commented on my words about "not my thing", so i would like to hear some elaboration.

my point of view is that even though tibetan buddhism provide quite an array of different approaches to suit out proclivities, those approaches do not suppose to please or entertain our monkey mind. otherwise there is a danger that we reduce our practice to something merely along the lines of other toys of our monkey mind, be it our hobbies, or any other activities we use to entertain ourselves or "kill time". that especially the case for ngöndro, since we have almost no teachers who can say that ngöndro is not necessary.

Malcolm wrote:
If you don't enjoy your practice, there is no point in doing it.

The approach to so-called preliminary practices varies quite a bit from lineage to lineage. For instance, in the Sakya school, people are introduced to the practice of a major yidam, such as Hevajra, immediately, and rather than focusing accumulating ngondro, spend time learning the sadhana and focusing on maintaining the daily commitment. Generally, ngondro is something in the Sakya school which one does when one goes into a retreat. The Sakyapas did not even have a text on Ngondro specifically until the 1940's, written by a Nalendra khenpo who was inspired by Words of My Precious Teacher (full disclosure, I have translated this text and it is sitting at Wisdom, waiting to be edited). Even here, the explanation is combined with four sadhanas, and there was no separate text for Ngondro until Dezhung Rinpoche wrote one in the 1970's.

The Gelukpas also have a different approach, their "ngondro" is Lamrim in its entirety, even though they have a special set of nine 100,000 practices, but they are not prerequisites for anything. They can be done anytime one has time.

The structured ngondro program is more characteristic of Nyingma and Karma Kagyu. Drigung is very heavy on ngondro accumulations, especially in how they present the Yangzab teachings, requiring, in the older manuals, 400,000 of each. Modern teachers like Ontul Rinpoche and the late Gyalpo Rinpoche, however, relaxed such requirements.

As for "not my thing," lets say you received a Vajravārāhī initiation, but you prefer Vajrabhairava, which you have also received, there is no fault.

In general, non-Tibetans develop this uptight attitude about "doing things right." Instead of developing a broad, open, relaxed attitude, they become puritanical, insisting on some sort of orthopraxy, becoming overly self-critical, as well as critical of others, whom they feel are "not doing things right."

In reality, Ngondro is a main practice. Why? It is just three different ways of relating the guru. Properly speaking, Mandala offerings are in fact part of guru yoga. If one understands the meaning of the dissolution of the refuge tree, one can even attain complete awakening merely doing refuge. Or, if one has sufficient devotion, as Virupa says, one can attain mahamudra realization merely by serving one's guru without meditating even for a single second.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 9:00 PM
Title: Re: Giving Up Masturbation
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
This is not correct. Semen, bija, is the final waste product of the process of digesting food. The pure part of sukra is transformed in ojas, the impure part becomes the bija.

Dharmasherab said:
Understood. But there must be more than one reason why monastics have to follow a celibacy vow. The most obvious of which is sense restraint. But other than this dont you think that the other reason is semen retention?

Malcolm wrote:
No, I don’t.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 10:00 AM
Title: Re: Where can I buy a Tibetan meditation cushion?
Content:
ManiThePainter said:
Hi,

So I recently moved back to the Pacific Northwest from Montreal and I got rid of my old Zen meditation cushion. The seat was quite low for me and not that comfortable to sit on.

Now I’m trying to find a new cushion (preferably ordering one online if possible), one that is more Tibetan and traditional (a higher seat and filled with buckwheat?).

However, I’m really struggling to find a place to buy it from. Ideally I would want to buy it from a dharma organization so that I can also support it, rather than finding something on Amazon.

Any tips on where I might find one?


Malcolm wrote:
Hate to say it, but there is no such thing as a Tibetan meditation cushion. You might be thinking of a so-called gomden, which Chogyam Trungpa had invented for Westerners. Otheerwise, the cushions we use in nearly all western Dharma centers are variations on Japanese floor mats and pillows via the Zen tradition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabuton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zafu


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 9:56 AM
Title: Re: Practice of Dakini Simhamukha
Content:
fckw said:
, but then again what is more important is that you actually realize at least one dakini to a sufficient degree, no matter which one.

Malcolm wrote:
What do you mean by “realize.” Why is it important to realize a dakini? What does that mean? What is a sufficient degree of realization?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 9:34 AM
Title: Re: Giving Up Masturbation
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
To wank or not to wank, that is the question,
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer…


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 7:05 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
pemachophel said:
Khyentse Wangpo didn't realize by doing Chod and Phowa,

Malcolm wrote:
The Sakyapas claim Khyentse Wangpo attained his realization through Hevajra.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 3:15 AM
Title: Re: 5 Precepts
Content:



PadmaVonSamba said:
When I took refuge (kagyu) the 5 were not included. So, it may vary with tradition/teacher

Malcolm wrote:
No, it does not vary between Tibetan tradition to Tibetan since we are all Mulasarvadtivadins.

Jangchup Donden said:
At least all the refuge ceremonies I went to (also Kagyu) were at the beginning of an empowerment and did not include the 5 precepts.

Malcolm wrote:
The five upāsaka vows are received with refuge automatically.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 2:58 AM
Title: Re: Kagyu Lineages
Content:
Matt J said:
I would be curious as to the profile of the typical Westerner who is able to take three years off to do a retreat.

Giovanni said:
I think this is accurate. A friend who was preparing for the three year and still hopes to do it, told that there was “one too many freak outs”…

Malcolm wrote:
Young, unemployed, no partner.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 2:57 AM
Title: Re: Kagyu Lineages
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
My three year retreat consisted of two sadhanas, one performed at the beginning to remove obstacles, and then the remainder of the time was focused on the other, main sadhana.

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
I like the sound of that. I also like the idea of having a bed.

Is your retreat typical for a Sakya 3 year retreat?

Malcolm wrote:
Three year retreat is not really a Sakya thing, though it has become so recently. I have no idea how other Sakya three year retreats are structured,


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 2:56 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
I’ve heard that Situ R says it is possible to become enlightened doing NgonDro.

Malcolm wrote:
Of course. Ngondro contains within it all the key points of creation and completion stage.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 2:24 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:


yagmort said:
imho there is no such thing as "not my thing" when it comes to practice.

Malcolm wrote:
Sure there is.

yagmort said:
thoughts like "not my thing" is what monkey mind thinks when something is threatening its position.

Malcolm wrote:
Not necessarily.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 2:21 AM
Title: Re: Kagyu Lineages
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
I’m an advocate for shorter and simpler retreats. Learning to crawl before entering a marathon makes sense to me. Do something until you’re proficient instead of being overwhelmed by all the practices.

Malcolm wrote:
My three year retreat consisted of two sadhanas, one performed at the beginning to remove obstacles, and then the remainder of the time was focused on the other, main sadhana.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 1:50 AM
Title: Re: Kagyu Lineages
Content:
Budai said:
Celibacy is no longer a requirement in Drikung Kagyu.

Malcolm wrote:
It never was.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 12:59 AM
Title: Re: Kagyu Lineages
Content:
Matt J said:
Care to expand?


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Lama Norlha passed away in 2018. There was a retreat in progress. Situ R first sent a temporary retreat master on an emergency basis, and then a permanent one. I don’t think staffing is the problem.

Malcolm wrote:
The problem is the notion of realization and what it is.
The word realization, rtogs pa, is used very loosely, to describe all kinds of things. In Tibetan, it runs the gamut from merely understanding something, all the way up to realizing buddhahood. So when we hear that "X is realized", everyone thinks they know what this means, but actually, without some qualification, it is kind of a meaningless statement. Realized what? The path of accumulation, application, seeing? The creation stage? The completion stage? Emptiness? etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 12:55 AM
Title: Re: Kagyu Lineages
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
My thesis is that Tibetans never bothered to understand our negative attitudes towards Christianity specifically, and religions generally.

Malcolm wrote:
Umm no. Tibetans themselves had a negative attitude towards Christianity, beginning with the expulsion of Nestorians from Tibet in the mid-8th century on up, the establishment of a Catholic church and in Ladakh, which was established in 1625 and shut down in 1640, with all the missionaries and converts exiled. The Capuchins were expelled in 1760.  Catholic churches were burned, Catholics were executed, and four French missionaries were tortured and executed in Batang, Khams during the Batang uprising of 1905 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batang_uprising ).

Tibetans have a very negative attitude towards Islam and Muslims in general. Tibetan Buddhists generally have very negative attitude towards Bonpos, and the legends of Indian Mahasiddhas are filled with negative portrayals of Hindus.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 12:19 AM
Title: Re: What are you doing about the coronavirus?
Content:
Kim O'Hara said:
...

Johnny Dangerous said:
I've seen a few people (actual medical professionals, not cranks) speculating that Covid might, over time - with the combination of vaccine and natural immunity - become something akin to a severe version of the common cold. There is a theory that the rhino and corona viruses that now make up the common cold were once as severe as Covid, evidently.

Hazel said:
What's the timeline here though? Does this require human evolution?

Malcolm wrote:
See above.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 12:19 AM
Title: Re: What are you doing about the coronavirus?
Content:


Johnny Dangerous said:
I've seen a few people (actual medical professionals, not cranks) speculating that Covid might, over time - with the combination of vaccine and natural immunity - become something akin to a severe version of the common cold. There is a theory that the rhino and corona viruses that now make up the common cold were once as severe as Covid, evidently.

Malcolm wrote:
There is also genetic evidence among people from east asia that there was a corona epidemic there, which lasted for 20K years, ending about 5k years ago.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/over-20000-years-ago-coronavirus-epidemic-left-marks-human-dna-180978088/

Johnny Dangerous said:
In a study published on June 24 in the journal Current Biology, researchers analyzed the DNA of thousands of people from around the world from 26 populations to look for signs of ancient coronavirus epidemics. The researchers found that people living in China, Japan and Vietnam faced a coronavirus for about 20,000 years in an epidemic that ended 5,000 years ago...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 12:15 AM
Title: Re: Giving Up Masturbation
Content:
Dharmasherab said:
One loses one's life essence everytime when one releases sperm. A lot of nutrients from the blood go into making semen, so wasting it is abuse of the body.

Malcolm wrote:
This is not correct. Semen, bija, is the final waste product of the process of digesting food. The pure part of sukra is transformed in ojas, the impure part becomes the bija.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021 at 12:12 AM
Title: Re: Information on Tibetan reception of De-bzhin gshegs-pa’i gsang-ba bsam-kyis mi-khyab-pa bstan-pa
Content:
Zhen Li said:
I'm preparing a translation of the Chinese versions of the Tathāgatācintyaguhya Sūtra. To provide as much of a comprehensive survey as is possible with my limited knowledge of Tibetan, does anyone have information on the Tibetan reception of the sūtra beyond its usage by Candrakirti? Thanks.

Malcolm wrote:
You should run a comparison of it with the tenjur at buddhanexus.

Zhen Li said:
Thank you Malcolm. I didn't find anything major. I think most of my questions would be answered by seeing the elusive Sanskrit mansucript, but the Chinese is largely unproblematic outside of figuring out Sanskrit names. It is definitely a classic Tathāgatagarbha sūtra and it surprises me that it remains untranslated to this day from any of the sources. I heard about various people preparing translations for the past few decades but nothing ever comes of it. I will post a link to my translation of both the early and later versions on DW when completed.

Malcolm wrote:
It is unlikely that this text was commonly read on its own, and its citations would mostly be mined from citations.

In the Śikṣāsammucayais a long citation of ff. 161a-161b, ff. 165b-166a., f.171a, 183a-183b
In Bhavaviveka's Prajñāpradipa, there is a citation of f. 166b, f. 167a
In the Kāyatravṛtti, there is a citation of 166.b, etc.
In Prajñāpradipatika, f. 167, etc.
In Bodhicaryāvatarapanjika, f. 177
In Prasannapāda, f.202b,

Etc. This sūtra is most commonly, but not exclusively, cited by Indian Mādhyamikas. There are a large number of passages from it in the
Vyākhyāyuktitika,  few in the Śravākabhumi, the Abhisamayaalmḳara commentaries also have several.

I would say that this sūtra was more important to Mādhyamikas.

The Tibetans know this sūtra under its short title, གསང་བ་བསམ་གྱིས་མི་ཁྱབ་པའི་མདོ, the Sūtra of the Inconceivable Secret. It is regularly cited by scholars in every school.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 2nd, 2021 at 10:59 PM
Title: Re: Information on Tibetan reception of De-bzhin gshegs-pa’i gsang-ba bsam-kyis mi-khyab-pa bstan-pa
Content:
Zhen Li said:
I'm preparing a translation of the Chinese versions of the Tathāgatācintyaguhya Sūtra. To provide as much of a comprehensive survey as is possible with my limited knowledge of Tibetan, does anyone have information on the Tibetan reception of the sūtra beyond its usage by Candrakirti? Thanks.

Malcolm wrote:
You should run a comparison of it with the tenjur at buddhanexus.

Zhen Li said:
Thank you Malcolm. I didn't find anything major. I think most of my questions would be answered by seeing the elusive Sanskrit mansucript, but the Chinese is largely unproblematic outside of figuring out Sanskrit names. It is definitely a classic Tathāgatagarbha sūtra and it surprises me that it remains untranslated to this day from any of the sources. I heard about various people preparing translations for the past few decades but nothing ever comes of it. I will post a link to my translation of both the early and later versions on DW when completed.

Malcolm wrote:
It’s on the list at 84000


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 2nd, 2021 at 11:01 AM
Title: Re: Kagyu Lineages
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Lama Norlha passed away in 2018. There was a retreat in progress. Situ R first sent a temporary retreat master on an emergency basis, and then a permanent one. I don’t think staffing is the problem.

Malcolm wrote:
The problem is the notion of realization and what it is.

Tata1 said:
What do you mean?

Malcolm wrote:
People have unrealistic as well as untested ideas about realization. In reality, it’s explained pretty clearly, but nevertheless people use the word “realization” quite promiscuously.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 2nd, 2021 at 6:23 AM
Title: Re: Kagyu Lineages
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Speculate all you like. It costs nothing.
But the retreat master died in 2019.
Lama Norlha passed away in 2018. There was a retreat in progress. Situ R first sent a temporary retreat master on an emergency basis, and then a permanent one. I don’t think staffing is the problem.

Malcolm wrote:
The problem is the notion of realization and what it is.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 2nd, 2021 at 12:27 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:



LastLegend said:
Rumor has it they ended afflictions and have no delusional thoughts. If they do arise thoughts, they are snatched by karma. Maybe we can have people attest that.

Malcolm wrote:
SO you think buddhahood is the same as being insentient?

LastLegend said:
Transformation of repository consciousness. Then Buddhahood.

Malcolm wrote:
That is the yogacara theory. When there are no bijas in the ālayavijñana, it transforms. What are those bijas? The afflictive and knowledge obscuration. When they are exhausted, this ālayavijñāna turns into dharmadhātu gnosis.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 2nd, 2021 at 12:23 AM
Title: Re: Kagyu Lineages
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Traditional Tibetan Dharma assumes an undeveloped mind much like a fallow field.

Malcolm wrote:
No, this is completely misguided and wrong.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, July 2nd, 2021 at 12:22 AM
Title: Re: Kagyu Lineages
Content:



SilenceMonkey said:
Imagine a Tibetan master trying to teach Dharma to a conspiracy theorist. Or a hardcore activist. Or a western philosopher. Too much to untangle! It would be much easier to teach someone without all this "education."

Malcolm wrote:
Ahem, I know quite a few conspiracy theorists, hard core activists, and western philosophers who follow Tibetan masters, they don't seem to have the troubles you are describing.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 11:41 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:


LastLegend said:
Okay. So if we end traces of afflictions and left with pure consciousness, will there be arising thoughts such as they will be snatched by karma? It’s still unclear what these causes or traces are. Are they not an illusion to be ended? If nothing arises, how can there be something to end?

Eradicated traces of grasping to personal and phenomena...how? sure there is a link between personal grasping to Nirvana otherwise who is experiencing Nirvana?

Malcolm wrote:
You keep confusing the two truths.

LastLegend said:
Rumor has it they ended afflictions and have no delusional thoughts. If they do arise thoughts, they are snatched by karma. Maybe we can have people attest that.

Malcolm wrote:
SO you think buddhahood is the same as being insentient?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 11:35 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:


GrapeLover said:
I recall reading a past conversation where you mentioned that shravaka arhats retain latent afflictive seeds, though they’re no longer active——is it correct to think that this contrasts with a 7th bhumi bodhisattva thoroughly eliminating them?

Malcolm wrote:
Nonafflictive traces of ignorances are retained.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 11:10 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:


LastLegend said:
Okay. So if we end traces of afflictions and left with pure consciousness, will there be arising thoughts such as they will be snatched by karma? It’s still unclear what these causes or traces are. Are they not an illusion to be ended? If nothing arises, how can there be something to end?

Eradicated traces of grasping to personal and phenomena...how? sure there is a link between personal grasping to Nirvana otherwise who is experiencing Nirvana?

Malcolm wrote:
You keep confusing the two truths.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 11:06 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:


Hazel said:
Here's something that perplexes me. I am having a hard time seeing the the value in understanding the path after achieving the first bhumi. It's probably a sure bet I wont reach that in this lifetime, so why do I need to know what a boddhisattva practices at the seventh bhumi?

Malcolm wrote:
Because it is necessary to understand what kinds of experiences one will have on the path, even if one has not reached this or that stage.

For this reason, the paths and stages are described in detail, especially in Vajrayāna, where the goal is to attain buddhahood in a single lifetime to benefit sentient beings.

Hazel said:
The latter part about Vajrayana is fair, but since we're in a Mahayana subforum, I'd like to press you on the first part if you're willing to entertain my fancy. Why is it necessary to understand what kinds of experiences one will have on the path, even fi one has not reached a particular stage? I'm unlikely to argue about it, I'm just curious as my lack of understanding has meant I zone-out to those teachings, which can't be good.

Malcolm wrote:
Vajrayāna is a subdivision of Mahāyāna, not something separate.

It is necessary, because it is a vital part of the our path. If we do not understand these paths and stages, we will not know how to practice them. Zoning out in teachings is not necessarily a bad thing, more often than not it is a sign that we are eliminating traces of ignorance.

We do not want to be like horses with blinders on, only seeing what is directly in front of us on the road. This is not a good way to hear and reflect on teh Dharma. Moreover, by hearing of the experiences of the paths and stages, it can cause us to be inspired about the possibility of our attaining them and cause rejoicing in those who have attained them.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 10:16 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:


Hazel said:
Here's something that perplexes me. I am having a hard time seeing the the value in understanding the path after achieving the first bhumi. It's probably a sure bet I wont reach that in this lifetime, so why do I need to know what a boddhisattva practices at the seventh bhumi?

Malcolm wrote:
Because it is necessary to understand what kinds of experiences one will have on the path, even if one has not reached this or that stage.

For this reason, the paths and stages are described in detail, especially in Vajrayāna, where the goal is to attain buddhahood in a single lifetime to benefit sentient beings.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 9:51 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:


LastLegend said:
Then he said we can transcend afflictive and knowledge...I am not sure how this is done.

Malcolm wrote:
Hence my comment about your lack of understanding of Mahayana.

LastLegend said:
You can be generous and share how’s it done.

Malcolm wrote:
Knowledge is not a hindrance. Ignorance is.

First, one generates bodhicitta, the desire to liberate all sentient beings from samsara. This has two aspects, ultimate and relative. The relative aspect refers to the aspiration, and then practicing the six perfections. Ultimate bodhicitta means practicing śamatha and vipaśyanā.

One practices these two bodhicitta together, until one realizes emptiness. This is the first bodhisattva bhumi. One continues to practice, until the practice of vipaśyanā has eradicated all traces of affliction (desire, hatred, and ignorance). This happens conventionally, at the seventh bhumi. Ultimately, has eradicated all traces of grasping to personal and phenomena identity, and one attains the omniscience of buddhahood, this happens when one transitions from being a tenth stage bodhisattva to buddhahood. A buddha is a totally realized person. There is no other kind of totally or fully realized person.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 9:02 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:


LastLegend said:
Then he said we can transcend afflictive and knowledge...I am not sure how this is done.

Malcolm wrote:
Hence my comment about your lack of understanding of Mahayana.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 11:35 AM
Title: Re: Information on Tibetan reception of De-bzhin gshegs-pa’i gsang-ba bsam-kyis mi-khyab-pa bstan-pa
Content:
Zhen Li said:
I'm preparing a translation of the Chinese versions of the Tathāgatācintyaguhya Sūtra. To provide as much of a comprehensive survey as is possible with my limited knowledge of Tibetan, does anyone have information on the Tibetan reception of the sūtra beyond its usage by Candrakirti? Thanks.

Malcolm wrote:
You should run a comparison of it with the tenjur at buddhanexus.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 8:19 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:



LastLegend said:
I don’t equate a full blown Buddha to this:

Those who get this consciousness to disappear will then destroy the obstructing confusions of the Bodhisattvas of the ten stages. Once this consciousness is gone, then the mind is open and still, quiet, serene and calm, perfectly pure, and enormously stable.

https://terebess.hu/zen/daman.html

Malcolm wrote:
Then you don't understand what buddhahood is.



LastLegend said:
Okay try and let me know years later. I probably don’t who what Buddhahood is. I have no pre perceptions of how it is. I just know I need to transcend consciousness and there is work to be done after.

Malcolm wrote:
You can't transcend consciousness. You can however transcend afflictive and knowledge obscurations. When you have gone beyond the obscurations of the bodhisattvas of the ten stages, you will be a buddha. If you do not understand this, you do not understand Mahāyāna.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 7:56 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
LastLegend said:
if everything is an illusion and projection, how do fully realized individuals conduct their work to progress towards Buddhahood?

Malcolm wrote:
Fully realized persons are buddhas. There are no other kinds of fully realized persons.

LastLegend said:
I don’t equate a full blown Buddha to this:

Those who get this consciousness to disappear will then destroy the obstructing confusions of the Bodhisattvas of the ten stages. Once this consciousness is gone, then the mind is open and still, quiet, serene and calm, perfectly pure, and enormously stable.

https://terebess.hu/zen/daman.html

Malcolm wrote:
Then you don't understand what buddhahood is.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 7:08 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
LastLegend said:
if everything is an illusion and projection, how do fully realized individuals conduct their work to progress towards Buddhahood?

Malcolm wrote:
Fully realized persons are buddhas. There are no other kinds of fully realized persons.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 5:31 AM
Title: Re: The Lankavatarasutra in early Indian Madhyamaka Literature
Content:
Aemilius said:
Study of Bodhicittavivarana by Christian Lindtner

This regrettably neglected text comprises 112 stanzas (anustubh) introduced by a brief prologue in prose. It has sometimes been grouped as a tantric work, but a glance at its contents shows how unwarranted such classification is.

Malcolm wrote:
He is mistaken. It is a commentary on the Akṣobhyavajra bodhicitta section of the Guhyasamāja.

Aemilius said:
The Bodhicittavivarana is never mentioned or cited by Buddhapalita or Candrakirti. On the other hand it forms one of the basic authorities fro Bhavya in his most mature work, the Ratnapradipa.

Malcolm wrote:
The Ratnapradipa cannot be by Bhavavivka since it quotes Candrakirti's commentary on the Sixty directly:

slob dpon zla ba grags pa'i zhal snga nas |
thog mtha' med pa'i srid pa ru ||
ma rig gnyid kyis log pa yi ||
'gro la gang gang snang de nyid ||
brdzun de rmi lam lta bur 'dod ||

In fact, this text mentions Candrakīrti twelve times.

How Lindtner could have missed this is a mystery, but he is not a very reliable scholar.

Not only this, but the authors he mentions do not cite the Bodhicittavivarana at all, I checked.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 2:50 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
LastLegend said:
So like the Sutra:

1) nothing arises: non-arising
2) then everything arises from mind

Dharma is also arising from mind. The Buddha gave Dharma. But we understand Dharma and that’s understanding is from our mind not the Buddha mind anymore.

PadmaVonSamba said:
Dharma doesn’t arise from mind.
One’s understanding of dharma arises from mind.
That understanding is your Buddha nature.
In that sense, Buddha arises from mind.
So, in all your spaghetti reasoning
There are no tangles after all.

Malcolm wrote:
There are two kinds of Dharma: the Dharma of realization and the Dharma of scripture. There is no third kind. The latter arises from the former. This notion that there is an eternal dharma is just an importation of the Hindu idea of Sanatana Dharma.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, July 1st, 2021 at 1:13 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
LastLegend said:
So like the Sutra:

1) nothing arises: non-arising
2) then everything arises from mind

Dharma is also arising from mind. The Buddha gave Dharma. But we understand Dharma and that’s understanding is from our mind not the Buddha mind anymore.

Malcolm wrote:
You guys love to make the simple complicated.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 at 9:18 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:



Seeker12 said:
I think in some contexts it's appropriate to not simply equate dukkha with suffering, personally. Reason being that in normal parlance, suffering implies acute suffering in the moment, which could be considered to be the type of dukkha called Dukkha-dukkha.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, and this is acknowledged in traditional Indian commentaries; that is, the that term "dukha" itself refers to duhka-duhka. The other two dukhas are considered dukha because everything pleasant becomes a source of pain, and everything neutral falls apart.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 at 8:04 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
tingdzin said:
A little arrogant to think that no one ever gained anything from finishing ngondro, no? "One size fits all" is not a good approach to Dharma.

Malcolm wrote:
It’s obvious what one gets from doing classic ngondro, one purifies traces and gathers the accumulations. But this is so obvious it hardly bears mentioning.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 at 8:00 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:


Kim O'Hara said:
That suggestion rests on a couple of assumptions which we have been disproving for half of this thread (190 posts and counting).

Malcolm wrote:
That’s what you think, but everything is still suffering.

Kim O'Hara said:
That's what you think.
I'm prepared to leave it at that, as I said.


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
If you think there is something in samsara that is not suffering, you should go for refuge to it.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 at 10:59 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
Kim O'Hara said:
So if we Buddhists here can't, even when pushed, put those Sanskrit and Pali terms into other, i.e. English, words, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all. ...

Malcolm wrote:
And when we reject perfectly adequate equivalents (dukkha = suffering) which everyone understands immediately, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all...

Kim O'Hara said:
That suggestion rests on a couple of assumptions which we have been disproving for half of this thread (190 posts and counting).

Malcolm wrote:
That’s what you think, but everything is still suffering.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 at 8:56 AM
Title: Re: Garchen Rinpoche Yangzab Empowerment
Content:


bryandavis said:
And.... do you play the keyboard or synth? Lol. I had a prophetic dream.


Malcolm wrote:
I used to be a musician, and played everything.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 at 8:49 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
Kim O'Hara said:
So if we Buddhists here can't, even when pushed, put those Sanskrit and Pali terms into other, i.e. English, words, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all. ...

Malcolm wrote:
And when we reject perfectly adequate equivalents (dukkha = suffering) which everyone understands immediately, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all...

PadmaVonSamba said:
It’s very simple.
Mind is either at peace or it is not.
The specific details, range of pervasiveness,  intensity, causes of a stirring mind are all secondary considerations.
Whatever the mind is when it’s not at peace
is dukkha.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, because dukkha is suffering, which is anything unpleasant now or in the future that we must bear.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 at 7:02 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
Kim O'Hara said:
So if we Buddhists here can't, even when pushed, put those Sanskrit and Pali terms into other, i.e. English, words, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all. ...

Malcolm wrote:
And when we reject perfectly adequate equivalents (dukkha = suffering) which everyone understands immediately, it is hard to avoid the thought that we don't understand the dharma very well after all...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 at 6:59 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
Hazel said:
Removed excessive quotation.

Edit: And removed discussion about it.

Feel free to add links to definitions and/or copy and paste small excerpts (with a link) if you want to share.

Malcolm wrote:
https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/pali_query.py?qs=dukkha&searchhws=yes

Kim O'Hara said:
Thanks, Malcolm.
The link, for those still following the discussion, is the PTS dictionary's definition of dukkha. The key points in it, from my POV, are these two paragraphs, and particularly the two sentences I have made bold text: B. (nt.; but pl. also dukkhā, e. g. S i.23; Sn 728; Dh 202, 203, 221. Spelling dukha (after sukha) at Dh 83, 203). There is no word in English covering the same ground as Dukkha does in Pali. Our modern words are too specialised, too limited, and usually too strong. Sukha & dukkha are ease and dis-ease (but we use disease in another sense); or wealth and ilth from well & ill (but we have now lost ilth); or wellbeing and ill-ness (but illness means something else in English). We are forced, therefore, in translation to use half synonyms, no one of which is exact. Dukkha is equally mental & physical. Pain is too predominantly physical, sorrow too exclusively mental, but in some connections they have to be used in default of any more exact rendering. Discomfort, suffering, ill, and trouble can occasionally be used in certain connections. Misery, distress, agony, affliction and woe are never right. They are all much too strong & are only mental (see Mrs. Rh. D. Bud. Psy. 83-86, quoting Ledi Sadaw).
I. Main Points in the Use of the Word. -- The recognition of the fact of Dukkha stands out as essential in early Buddhism. In the very first discourse the four socalled Truths or Facts (see saccāni) deal chiefly with dukkha. The first of the four gives certain universally recognised cases of it, & then sums them up in short. The five groups (of physical & mental qualities which make an individual) are accompanied by ill so far as those groups are fraught with āsavas and grasping. ...
The PTS goes on to give sources for the second paragraph (which I might look at again after such a long gap) and then, as Heather noted, on and on and on, less usefully for most of us.


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
Suffer means to bear difficulty, pain, anguish, sorrow and so on. Seems like a perfect equivalent to me, apart form the samskara dukkha, which is not properly a kind of pain, but the general impermanence of formations. YMMV.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 at 2:58 AM
Title: Re: Garchen Rinpoche Yangzab Empowerment
Content:


bryandavis said:
Tsewang Dzinpa is an anuyoga system with ati view.

Malcolm wrote:
Everything that is anuyoga has an ati view.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 at 1:35 AM
Title: Re: Upcoming translations of Bon texts
Content:
fckw said:
So, where have you been able to get the book from? I'm asking because I was not able to have a look at the quality of the translation myself, since I have not yet found any seller who actually has this book available.

mutsuk said:
Book Depository.

Malcolm wrote:
Amazon


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 at 12:13 AM
Title: Re: The Lankavatarasutra in early Indian Madhyamaka Literature
Content:
Aemilius said:
That is exactly what Lindtner shows to be untrue, i.e that Lanka would be later than Nagarjuna, Aryadeva and others.

Malcolm wrote:
No, he does not prove this, and in addition, he makes other key errors, such as attributing the bodhicittavivarana to the author of the MMK, when it is clearly a ninth or tenth century composition associated with Guhyasamaja.

Moreover, the Lanka was not translated into Chinese until 443. If the Lanka was quoted in Nagarjuna’s Sutrasammucaya, I might be inclined to believe this, but it isn’t, so I don’t.
Actually, I was wrong, the Lanka is mentioned in the Sūtrasammucaya, but even here, there is some difficulty, since the Lanka's gatha section predicts Nāgārjuna, and thereby portions of the Lanka definitely date later than Nāgārjuna himself. One would can run the Tibetan or Sanskrit texts of the Lanka through the Buddhanexus program, and find out specifically which verses in Nāgārjuna's works match, and then see whether which phrases are in which part of the Lanka, and whether they date from before or after Nāgārjuna. The Lanka was not compiled in a day, but like other Mahāyāna sūtras shows considerable evidence of multiple layers of composition.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, June 29th, 2021 at 11:42 PM
Title: Re: 5 Precepts
Content:
Dharmasherab said:
What is the mentality in Tibetan Buddhism about taking these precepts in relation to taking your own initiative? Do you always have to wait for your Lama to take initiative to give the precepts and till then one does not follow them and continue killing, stealing etc till the Lama tells otherwise. From the practitioner's point of view in Tibetan Buddhism do followers take a passive stance and not take his own initiative to take up the 5 Precepts?

Malcolm wrote:
People can, under their own initiative, follow which ever of the pratimokṣa vows they feel they can keep. Please refer to the fourth chapter of the Abhidharmakośabhaṣyaṃ.

Dharmasherab said:
Is there a reason you referred to these as 'vows' and not 'precepts'? Why did you use the word 'Pratimoksa' to refer to the 5 Precepts?

Malcolm wrote:
The term in Sanskrit is "saṃvara," in Tibetan "sdom." These two terms mean "restraint." Pratimokṣa means "personal liberation." Pratimokṣa samvara therefore means "the restraints one adopts for personal liberation."

Definition of precept
1 : a command or principle intended especially as a general rule of action
2 : an order issued by legally constituted authority to a subordinate official

Definition of vow (noun)
: a solemn promise or assertion
specifically : one by which a person is bound to an act, service, or condition


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, June 29th, 2021 at 10:10 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
Hazel said:
Removed excessive quotation.

Edit: And removed discussion about it.

Feel free to add links to definitions and/or copy and paste small excerpts (with a link) if you want to share.

Malcolm wrote:
https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/pali_query.py?qs=dukkha&searchhws=yes


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, June 29th, 2021 at 9:45 PM
Title: Re: 5 Precepts
Content:
Dharmasherab said:
In Tibetan Buddhism, is there a place for the 5 Precepts? Do Tibetan Buddhism practitioners take up the 5 precepts as part of their ethical conduct or just do it exclusively when one is fully ready to take the commit (meaning that the vast majority choose not to follow it)?

Malcolm wrote:
When one goes for refuge, one receives the five pratimokṣa vows to not take life, not take what is not given, to not lie, to not engage in sexual misconduct, and to avoid intoxicants.

One can observe one of these, not taking life; two, three, or all.

PadmaVonSamba said:
When I took refuge (kagyu) the 5 were not included. So, it may vary with tradition/teacher

Malcolm wrote:
No, it does not vary between Tibetan tradition to Tibetan since we are all Mulasarvadtivadins.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, June 29th, 2021 at 9:28 PM
Title: Re: The Lankavatarasutra in early Indian Madhyamaka Literature
Content:
Aemilius said:
That is exactly what Lindtner shows to be untrue, i.e that Lanka would be later than Nagarjuna, Aryadeva and others.

Malcolm wrote:
No, he does not prove this, and in addition, he makes other key errors, such as attributing the bodhicittavivarana to the author of the MMK, when it is clearly a ninth or tenth century composition associated with Guhyasamaja.

Moreover, the Lanka was not translated into Chinese until 443. If the Lanka was quoted in Nagarjuna’s Sutrasammucaya, I might be inclined to believe this, but it isn’t, so I don’t.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, June 29th, 2021 at 9:11 PM
Title: Re: The Lankavatarasutra in early Indian Madhyamaka Literature
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Lindtner’s assertion can just as easily, and more reasonably explained by the authors of the Lanka incorporating passages from MMK and other works, since the Lanka is certainly later than MMK, etc.

Aemilius said:
THE LANKAVATARASUTRA
IN EARLY INDIAN MADHYAMAKA LITERATURE
Christian Lindtner, Copenhagen, Asiatiche Studien, XLV, 1 (1992), pp.244-279

Article of Lindtner where he shows how Nagarjuna, Aryadeva and others are actually quoting from Lankavatara sutra.

some excerpts:

Close or literal allusions, or even explicit references mentioning the
source, i.e. the LS, are to be found in the following early Madhyamaka
texts: Madhyamakakarika (MK), Vigrahavyavartanii(W), Yuktisastika (YS),
Catuhstava (CS) III (= Acintyastava), Sutrasamuccaya (SS),
Bodhicittavivarana (BV), Mahayanavimsika, Bhavasamkranti and
Bhavanakrama — all ascribed to Nagarjuna.6
In case of Aryadeva we have
the Catuhsataka (CS) and two minor treatises (Taisho 1639 and Taisho
1640) to which I shall revert later.7

MK XXIV.7 runs:
atra brumah iunyatdydm na tvam vetsi prayojanam /
iiinyatdm Sunyatdrtham ca tata evam vihanyase //

Again, as above, an opponent has just (verses 1-6) claimed that
Nagarjuna's doctrine of sunyata is problematic. Again we see Nagarjuna
introducing his reply by calling upon the authority of a sutra, in this case
LS 11.145:
sarvabhavo 'svabhavo hi sadvacanam tathapy asat /
iunyatd<m> iunyatartham vabalo pafyan vidhavati//

In a somewhat archaic fashion the sutra launches a general statement
about "a fool" which Nagarjuna specifies by making it refer to a second
person (se) in a particular situation (evam), namely his opponent. LS, like
MK, mentions, but does not explain the two concepts sunyata and sunyatartha, Nagarjuna, however, does explain the terms in the sequel, exactly
as a sastrakara is expected to do. Apparently he also introduces a third
concept not mentioned in the LS verse: the prayojana of sunyata. But this
is only apparently. The LS says that all things lack svabhava, including this
perfectly true and sound statement itself. As we recall, Nagarjuna exapresses exactly the same idea several times elsewhere, above all in W and
in this very chapter, verse 18. This is the celebrated stanza:
yah prafityasamutpadah Sunyatam torn pracaksmahe /
sd prajnaptir updddya pratipat saiva madhyamd //
This verse, in other words, is an explanation of what Nagarjuna understands by the prayojana of sunyata.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, June 29th, 2021 at 10:04 AM
Title: Re: Manipulating thoughts versus meditation
Content:




LastLegend said:
Well if empty nature is no thing yet not obstructed or concealed, whatever arises from it is after. But you are right not attached to before or after.

jimmi said:
Is empty nature no thing? I don’t know.
If empty nature is no thing, how does any thing arise from it?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes.
Nothing does.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, June 29th, 2021 at 5:05 AM
Title: Re: Four Maras
Content:


amanitamusc said:
Are you saying they are sentient beings that fill these certain positions?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes.

Tenma said:
Would this explain why Yeshe Tsogyal's past incarnations are said to have been the goddesses Ganga and Saraswati? Is the "being" fulfilling the role of Ganga, this sister of Lord Shiva, always changing and likewise Shiva? Would Saraswati be a "position" or a more "solid being" such as Avalokiteshvara, Tara, etc.?

Since the Karandavyuha Sutra mentions Brahma, Indra, Varuna, and all sorts of gods arising from the body of Avalokiteshvara, are they supposed to being literal beings that arose from the body, "conceptions/roles/positions" that arose from a certain "essence," or what? Is the position of "Prithvi," the Earth itself, always changing?

Would Hindus agree with these viewpoints of "Indra" constantly changing, "Ganga" constantly changing, etc? Or would they object and stay solid to the idea that Lord Shiva has always been the same "being" this entire time?

And finally, could you please cite where these explanations could be found? Thank you!

Malcolm wrote:
For example, Svetaketu is a deva in Tushita. All future buddhas will be Svetaketu in Tushita before their final birth as a buddha.

Khenpo Ngalo, a teacher of HH Sakya Trichen, writes:

Furthermore, it is said that countless people have become Indra and cakravartins as result of the virtue of having perceived the Buddha and thrown a single flower into the sky.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, June 29th, 2021 at 2:16 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
Minobu said:
I recall suchness in the Gompa being a word that brought about a huge discussion.

All Rinpoche said to an English teacher who was present...
Well it was your people that translated and used it this way..

suchness...another fun word...

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, it translates tathāta. Tathā means, quite literally, "that" or "such." The "ta" is equivalent to "-ness."

The Tibetan is little better: de bzhin nyid, literally "like that itself."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, June 29th, 2021 at 12:46 AM
Title: Re: 5 Precepts
Content:
Dharmasherab said:
In Tibetan Buddhism, is there a place for the 5 Precepts? Do Tibetan Buddhism practitioners take up the 5 precepts as part of their ethical conduct or just do it exclusively when one is fully ready to take the commit (meaning that the vast majority choose not to follow it)?

Malcolm wrote:
When one goes for refuge, one receives the five pratimokṣa vows to not take life, not take what is not given, to not lie, to not engage in sexual misconduct, and to avoid intoxicants.

One can observe one of these, not taking life; two, three, or all.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, June 29th, 2021 at 12:04 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
SilenceMonkey said:
The word suffering is intense!

Malcolm wrote:
It really means "to endure what is not pleasant."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, June 28th, 2021 at 9:50 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
Queequeg said:
If we really want, we can appropriate the term "suffering" for dukkha and make it "Buddhist". That involves teaching people what Buddhists mean by suffering.

Words like karma and mantra have worked into the lexicon. Its not out of the realm of possibility for Buddhist discourse to eventually exert an influence on the English language as it has for Asian languages.

Malcolm wrote:
I doubt dukha is going to make much headway.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, June 28th, 2021 at 8:35 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:


Kim O'Hara said:
Once again, you do not (and can not) establish any connection between 'dukkha' and 'suffering' by quoting definitions or origins of 'suffering' which do not mention 'dukkha'.


Malcolm wrote:
duHkha	1 mfn. (according to grammarians properly written %{duS-kha} and said to be from %{dus} and %{kha} [cf. %{su-kha4}] ; but more probably a Pra1kritized form for %{duH-stha} q.v.) uneasy , uncomfortable , unpleasant , difficult R. Hariv. (compar. %{-tara} MBh. R.) ; n. (ifc. f. %{A}) uneasiness , pain , sorrow , trouble , difficulty S3Br. xiv , 7 , 2 , 15 Mn. MBh. &c. (personified as the son of Naraka and Vedana1 VP.) ; (%{am}) ind. with difficulty , scarcely , hardly (also %{at} and %{ena}) MBh. R. ; impers. it is difficult to or to be (inf.with an acc. or nom. R. vii , 6 , 38 Bhag. v , 6) ; %{duHkham} - %{as} , to be sad or uneasy Ratn. iv , 19/20 ; - %{kR} , to cause or feel pain Ya1jn5. ii , 218 MBh. xii , 5298.
2	duHkha	2 Nom. P. %{-khati} , to pain SaddhP.
3	duHkhabahula	mfn. full of trouble and pain W.
4	duHkhabhAgin	mfn. having pain as one's portion , unhappy Mn. iv , 157.
5	duHkhabhAj	mfn. id. Ven2is. iv , 110/111 ,
6	duHkhabheSaja	mf(%{I})n. healing woe (Kr2ishn2a) MBh. xii , 1624.
7	duHkhAbhijJa	mfn. familiar with pain or sorrow MBh. i , 745.
8	duHkhabodha	mfn. difficult to be understood Nya1yas. i , 1 , 37.
9	duHkhAcAra	mfn. difficult to be dealt with , hard to manage MBh. iv , 274.
10	duHkhacArin	mfn. going with pain , distressed R. iii , 23 , 14.
11	duHkhacchedya	mfn. to be cut or overcome with difficulty Hit. iv , 24.
12	duHkhacchinna	mfn. cut with difficulty , tough , hard ; pained , distressed W.
13	duHkhadagdha	mfn. `" burnt by affliction "' , pained , distressed W.
14	duHkhadohyA	f. difficult to be milked (cow) L.
15	duHkhaduHkha	n. (instr.) with great difficulty Megh. 90 ; %{-tA} f. the uneasiness connected with pain SaddhP.
16	duHkhaduHkhin	mfn. having sorrow upon sorrow BhP. xi , 11 , 19.
17	duHkhagata	n. adversity , calamity MBh. xii , 5202.
18	duHkhagraha	mfn. difficult to be conceived Ratn. iv , 13/14.
19	duHkhahan	mfn. removing pain W.
20	duHkhajAta	mfn. suffering pain , distressed Pa1n2. 4-1 , 52 Va1rtt. 5 Pat. ; vi , 2 , 170.
21	duHkhajIvin	mfn. living in pain or distress Mn. xi , 9.
22	duHkhakara	mf(%{I})n. causing pain to (gen.) , afflicting MBh. i , 6131.
23	duHkhAkara	m. a multitude of sorrows Das3.
24	duHkhakArin	mfn. id. Ratn. iv , 16/17.
25	duHkhAkR	to cause pain , afflict , distress S3is3. ii , 11.
26	duHkhAkula	mfn. filled with sorrow Katha1s.
27	duHkhalabdhikA	f. `" gained with difficulty "' , N. of a princess Katha1s.
28	duHkhalavya	mfn. hard to be cut or pierced (aim) Ba1lar. iv , 11.
29	duHkhAliDha	mfn. consumed with grief MW.
30	duHkhaloka	m. `" the world of pain "' (= %{saMsAra}) L. [483,3]
31	duHkhamaraNa	mfn. having a painful death , Ma1latim. viii , 8/9.
32	duHkhamaya	mf(%{i})n. consisting in suffering ; %{-tva} n. Sa1h.
33	duHkhamoha	m. perplexity from pain or sorrow , despair Das3.
34	duHkhamokSa	m. deliverance from pain MW.
35	duHkhAnarha	mfn. deserving no pain MBh. iii , 998.
36	duHkhanivaha	mfn. carrying pain with or after it , painful (thirst) BhP. ix , 19 , 16 ; m. a multitude of pains or evils ib. iii , 9 , 9.
37	duHkhAnta	m. `" the end of pain or trouble "' , (with the Ma7he7s3varas) final emancipation Madhus.
38	duHkhAnvita	mfn. accompanied with pain , filled with grief. distressed W.
39	duHkhaparItAGga	mfn. whose limbs are surrounded or filled with pain MBh. ; %{-tA7tman} mfn. whose soul is affected with anguish ib.
40	duHkhapAtra	n. a vessel or receptacle (= object) for sorrow Jain.
41	duHkhaprAya	or mfn. full of trouble and pain W.
42	duHkhArta	mfn. visited by pain , distressed MBh. i , 1860.
43	duHkhasAgara	m. `" ocean of pain "' , great sorrow ; the world W.
44	duHkhasamAyukta	mfn. accompanied , with pain , affected by anguish MW.
45	duHkhasaMcAra	mfn. passing unhappily (time) R. iii , 22 , 10.
46	duHkhasaMsparza	mfn. unpleasant to the touch MBh. v , 2046.
47	duHkhasaMsthiti	mfn. in a wretched condition , poor , miserable W.
48	duHkhasaMvardhita	mfn. reared with difficulty W.
49	duHkhasaMyoga	m. = %{duHkha-yoga} W.
50	duHkhAsikA	f. a condition of uneasiness or discomfort Subh. 156 Ka1d.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, June 28th, 2021 at 8:14 PM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
TharpaChodron said:
Apologies if this is covered already elsewhere...there’s over 300 pages on Ngondro and I haven’t been able to read each post.

That said, what is the importance and benefit of completing Ngondro for everyday folk, not young monks and nuns who may be able finish in a shorter while? How many of you have done one, or even more Ngondro’s? I’m not asking because I doubt the purpose, but I would like to hear others thoughts on why not skipping it is of value.

Malcolm wrote:
No one ever completes ngondro. It is just not like that.

TharpaChodron said:
Oh, indeed. I’m not waiting for my girl scout badge for completing Ngondro.

Malcolm wrote:
All one gets for doing ngondro is a participation.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, June 28th, 2021 at 7:26 PM
Title: Re: Four Maras
Content:


Yklah said:
In this case then, like human sentient beings, the life span of Kamadeva has a limit, right?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes.

Yklah said:
Therefore, Kamadeva, before being a deva, may be was a human being, or one of the other six classes of samsaric beings, right?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes.

Yklah said:
It seems interesting to me thinking about, for example, that the Kamadeva that tried to obstruct Guru Krakucchandra from attaining full enlightenment is a different one from the one that tried to obstruct Guru Shakyamuni .

Malcolm wrote:
It is very possible, but these gods, like Indra, Brahma, and so on, are not persons, they are positions.

amanitamusc said:
Are you saying they are sentient beings that fill these certain positions?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, June 28th, 2021 at 5:09 AM
Title: Re: 108 Kleshas
Content:
FiveSkandhas said:
The number 108 seems to have been arrived at through the following additions and multiplications:
What are the six feelings? The feelings born of sense-impression through eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind.

What are the eighteen feelings? There are the (above) six feelings by which there is an approach (to the objects) in gladness; and there are six approaches in sadness and there are six approaches in equanimity.

What are the thirty six feelings? There are six feelings of gladness based on the household life and six based on renunciation; six feelings of sadness based on the household life and six based on renunciation; six feelings of equanimity based on the household life and six based on renunciation.

What are the hundred and eight feelings? There are the (above) thirty six feelings of the past; there are thirty six of the future and there are thirty six of the present.
Source:
Vedana-Samyutta, from the Samyutta Nikaya

Malcolm wrote:
Those are not afflictions, those are sensations.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, June 28th, 2021 at 4:25 AM
Title: Re: Importance and Benefit of Ngondro
Content:
TharpaChodron said:
Apologies if this is covered already elsewhere...there’s over 300 pages on Ngondro and I haven’t been able to read each post.

That said, what is the importance and benefit of completing Ngondro for everyday folk, not young monks and nuns who may be able finish in a shorter while? How many of you have done one, or even more Ngondro’s? I’m not asking because I doubt the purpose, but I would like to hear others thoughts on why not skipping it is of value.

Malcolm wrote:
No one ever completes ngondro. It is just not like that.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, June 28th, 2021 at 2:16 AM
Title: Re: Four Maras
Content:


Yklah said:
In this case then, like human sentient beings, the life span of Kamadeva has a limit, right?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes.

Yklah said:
Therefore, Kamadeva, before being a deva, may be was a human being, or one of the other six classes of samsaric beings, right?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes.

Yklah said:
It seems interesting to me thinking about, for example, that the Kamadeva that tried to obstruct Guru Krakucchandra from attaining full enlightenment is a different one from the one that tried to obstruct Guru Shakyamuni .

Malcolm wrote:
It is very possible, but these gods, like Indra, Brahma, and so on, are not persons, they are positions.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, June 28th, 2021 at 12:52 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
The etymology of term to suffer:
suffer (v.)
mid-13c., "allow to occur or continue, permit, tolerate, fail to prevent or suppress," also "to be made to undergo, endure, be subjected to" (pain, death, punishment, judgment, grief), from Anglo-French suffrir, Old French sofrir "bear, endure, resist; permit, tolerate, allow" (Modern French souffrir), from Vulgar Latin *sufferire, variant of Latin sufferre "to bear, undergo, endure, carry or put under," from sub "up, under" (see sub-) + ferre "to carry, bear," from PIE root *bher- (1) "to carry," also "to bear children."
https://www.etymonline.com/word/suffer

Unknown said:
suffering (n.)
"patient enduring of pain, inconvenience, loss, etc.," mid-14c.; "undergoing of punishment, affliction, etc.," late 14c., verbal noun from suffer (v.). Meaning "a painful condition, pain felt" is from late 14c.

Malcolm wrote:
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=suffering

Hence the suitability of translating dukkha as suffering.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, June 27th, 2021 at 10:33 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
FiveSkandhas said:
LL_C0016937.jpg


It's worth remembering that while the Dharma is eternal, from a historical perspective life certainly was pervaded by a lot more raw, in-your-face misery for most humans in ancient and medieval Asia than it is for the postmodern member of the developed world.

Personally i don't see the need to read a statement like "life is suffering" in a fundamentalist/literalist mode. When we read it more heuristically it can take on any number of nuances...I always read it in the sense of "life is pervaded by suffering." And danger lurks around every corner as a potential.

Malcolm wrote:
Kim is fighting with a figment. Buddha never said "life is suffering," he said "sarva dukkham," all is suffering. Then you have to discern what is the "all" to which he is referring. The all to which he is referring is the six sense gates.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, June 27th, 2021 at 8:25 PM
Title: Re: The Precious Treasury of the Expanse and Awakened Awareness: The Ornaments of the Definitive Secret
Content:
gelukman said:
Well the translators have in this case decided to use these words.
Of course it may not please the bibliophiles  or poets.
Practitioners practice and keep it simple.

Malcolm wrote:
The problem is this: these translations are not peer-reviewed. They are self-published. Mutsuk is not criticizing them purely out of spite, but rather out of a concern that practitioners have accurate information at their disposal.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, June 27th, 2021 at 1:54 AM
Title: Re: Formally Addressing Forum Users
Content:



Genjo Conan said:
But I would also note that the most divisive poster I can think of here was undeniably, verifiably authorized to teach in a recognized Japanese lineage.  Didn't stop him from being wrong.

Malcolm wrote:
If its who I think it was, he was disowned by the very same lineage.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, June 27th, 2021 at 12:39 AM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:


SilenceMonkey said:
That's why suffering often isn't the right word to use. It makes it seem like it's impossible to enjoy anything in life because of a constant state of agony or something.

Of course Buddhism can be used to alleviate dukkha and find a more happy, fulfilling and rich experience in our lives in society. It just won't ever be perfect, no matter how we try. And the imperfections cause us dukkha.

Malcolm wrote:
"Bhikkhus, all is burning. And what is the all that is burning?

"The eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact for its indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.028.nymo.html

Any questions?

Queequeg said:
But a fire is neutral. It can be painful to the one who is burned, and because we chase our tails through samsara we are constantly playing with fire and getting burnt we can say, fire: bad. Being stupid with fire is dangerous.

This is a hinayana presentation that implies an abstemious posture toward it all. Well, 4NT is a hinayana teaching.

I'm not sure Mahayana quite approaches it the same way.

Malcolm wrote:
It most certainly does, citations to come.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, June 26th, 2021 at 11:30 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:


SilenceMonkey said:
That's why suffering often isn't the right word to use. It makes it seem like it's impossible to enjoy anything in life because of a constant state of agony or something.

Of course Buddhism can be used to alleviate dukkha and find a more happy, fulfilling and rich experience in our lives in society. It just won't ever be perfect, no matter how we try. And the imperfections cause us dukkha.

Malcolm wrote:
"Bhikkhus, all is burning. And what is the all that is burning?

"The eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact for its indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.028.nymo.html

Any questions?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, June 26th, 2021 at 9:49 PM
Title: Re: nyingma lineages/cycles structures of practice.
Content:
rai said:
so some students have received Dzogchen teachings without following any particular cycle.

what would be benefits of progressing through the path within the particular cycle of teachings?  does a cycle carry some particular blessings that make things move smoother towards liberation etc. ?

Malcolm wrote:
Dzogchen is Dzogchen, that's the main point, not the name of a cycle.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, June 26th, 2021 at 9:31 PM
Title: Re: Formally Addressing Forum Users
Content:


Inedible said:
I guess my point is that unless there is some official way for titles to be verified and given a status here, that it would be better not to have them. If only to protect idiots like me from the bad karma from assuming they aren't real and they just like the attention.

Malcolm wrote:
In fact, it was the attempt on Esangha to get people posing as ordained people on the forum, lama so and so, zen master x, bhiksu sunya, etc., that brought created the most trouble and bad feelings. Why? Because when they presented spurious or otherwise unverifiable information, we had to curtail their participation. A number of zen priests argued they were every bit as much ordained as a fully ordained bhikshu. We did not accept this position, and I still don’t. But it lead to a lot of bad feeling.

FiveSkandhas said:
It seems to me that one way to cut through this problem would be to get people to use the  titles granted to them in the language of their tradition. Soto and Rinzai Zen both have very complex hierarchical ranking systems; if somebody is officially certified in one of these traditions they should have a rank. Which they should use.

Malcolm wrote:
There is a major difference between this forum and E-Sangha. At its peak that latter had 50,000 users. There were child predators and charlatans, people posing as teachers, etc. It was a major headache. This is why we felt we had to institute standards. At one point, I even had a to call the FBI to deal with a pedophile. Then Jundo decided to threaten to sue us, and forum began to split up. When it crashed, and the backups were lost in the process, that was the end of it. Then David copied E-Sangha, and opened Dhammawheel, then Dharmawheel.

As for titles, thats fine, but that presented another problem, especially with Zen. American Zen is not Japanese Zen, and often there is no official recognition of Zen teachers by Japanese institutions.

Also, in Tibetan Buddhism, there is no official system for handing out titles other than Geshe, Khenpo, and Tulku. It is all ad hoc. There are no official qualifications for assuming the title "Lama" other than being given the title by one's teacher or, as is often the case, moving to America and calling oneself Lama x (this is called ocean promotion). The exception to this is Geshe and Khenpo, these are rigorous 12-14 year programs, with official degrees, ranks, etc. But there are no geshes and khenpos here as far as I know.

Of course, I have various certificates from various teachers, the Kazhipa degree given to me by HH Sakya Trizen; the title ācārya (slob dpon) in the Sakya school granted to me by the Buddhist Chaplain of Harvard, and former administrative head for all Sakya monasteries in India; another is the "lama" title granted to me by the Nyingma abbot of a small Himalayan monastery in Solu Kombhu region who resides in New Orleans when he is not in Nepal; and my Tibetan Medical degree from Shang Shung, etc. but I don't use those here, just as I do not advertise my teaching here (or anywhere, for that matter).


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, June 26th, 2021 at 8:34 PM
Title: Re: Four Maras
Content:
Yklah said:
Hi everyone,

According to Buddhism, there are four maras: the mara of Yama the Lord of Death, the mara of the kleshas, the mara of the contaminated aggregates and the mara of the son of the deva.

I have read many times that the mara of the son of the deva makes reference to the obstructor, the tempter that attempted to obstruct Prince Siddartha from attaining full enlightenment. To me, this mara is very similar to the christian concept of Satan.

At some times, I have also found that this type of mara, the son of the deva, symbolizes our craving for pleasure, satisfaction and convenience.

This being the case, my question is: which meaning is correct for the mara of the son of the deva?

Malcolm wrote:
Devaputra mara refers of Kamadeva, the ruler of the highest desire realm devas. Kamadeva is the Indian analogue of Cupid.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, June 26th, 2021 at 8:31 PM
Title: Re: Formally Addressing Forum Users
Content:


Inedible said:
I guess my point is that unless there is some official way for titles to be verified and given a status here, that it would be better not to have them. If only to protect idiots like me from the bad karma from assuming they aren't real and they just like the attention.

Malcolm wrote:
In fact, it was the attempt on Esangha to get people posing as ordained people on the forum, lama so and so, zen master x, bhiksu sunya, etc., that brought created the most trouble and bad feelings. Why? Because when they presented spurious or otherwise unverifiable information, we had to curtail their participation. A number of zen priests argued they were every bit as much ordained as a fully ordained bhikshu. We did not accept this position, and I still don’t. But it lead to a lot of bad feeling.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, June 26th, 2021 at 8:24 PM
Title: Re: Formally Addressing Forum Users
Content:
reiun said:
I'll bet you have a good definition of "real".

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, the name on their driver’s license.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, June 26th, 2021 at 8:20 PM
Title: Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism
Content:
Kim O'Hara said:
"Life is suffering" is the glass-half-empty view and it taints the public perception of the dharma and (I would argue) the world-view of many students of the dharma. (And before you all jump up and say, "No it doesn't! Life is suffering!!" think how circular that might be.)

I would love us to have a better answer than that, to have a plain-English version of the First Noble Truth which reflects the deeper understanding that some of us have been working towards for years.


Kim

Malcolm wrote:
Birth, aging, illness, and death are suffering. Can you find any birth, aging, illness, and death that are not suffering? Maitreya stated that isn’t even a pinpoint of happiness anywhere in the three realms.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, June 26th, 2021 at 5:28 AM
Title: Re: Can lab-grown brains become conscious? Answer: We don't care
Content:
Queequeg said:
If the phenomena is obvious but doesn't fit the preordained categories, then its the categories that need to give.

Malcolm wrote:
The phenomena has not even happened yet. There are no sentient brains sitting in vats that were grown from stem cells, AFAIK.

I don't think it will ever happen, personally because I don't think vat birth will ever happen.

A better question is this: how is it that a consciousness appropriates an egg that is fertilized in vitro. Now that is an interesting question, and one requiring no speculation, since we know it occurs. I know a couple of kids like that, they are just as normal as every other kid.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, June 26th, 2021 at 5:22 AM
Title: Re: Formally Addressing Forum Users
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
In my opinion, anonymity leads to irresponsibility. We are a Dharma forum. We should use our proper names, as do I.

reiun said:
A name is just a label.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, of course, but some labels allow us to escape responsibility to others for our actions; while others do not. Personally, I don't value the comments of anonymous users as highly as those who use their real names. Of course, there are a number of people here who I actually know in meat space, so that is a little different, and some people have legitimate reasons for not using their real name. But most of us, men especially, have no reason not to use our real names.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, June 26th, 2021 at 3:32 AM
Title: Re: CoEmergent Wisdom
Content:


Malcolm wrote:
Emptiness, connate, nonarising, are all synonyms.

SilenceMonkey said:
Would this also apply to co-emergent (connate) ignorance?

Malcolm wrote:
No, that is ignorance.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, June 26th, 2021 at 2:36 AM
Title: Re: Formally Addressing Forum Users
Content:
Queequeg said:
The relative anonymity here promotes that. Its the egalitarianism of anonymity.

Malcolm wrote:
In my opinion, anonymity leads to irresponsibility. We are a Dharma forum. We should use our proper names, as do I.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, June 26th, 2021 at 2:16 AM
Title: Re: Can lab-grown brains become conscious? Answer: We don't care
Content:



Queequeg said:
Four types of birth - womb, egg, moisture, spontaneous

If an entity is aware, why wouldn't it be considered sentient? The manner of its genesis would seem to be a secondary characteristic, with awareness being primary.

Malcolm wrote:
Correct, there is no fifth birth, manufactured.

Define “awareness.”

Are Venus Fly Traps aware? Plants in genera?  Does reaction to external stimuli constitute awareness?

How does a consciousness seeking rebirth appropriate brain tissue in a vat?

If you are suggesting that a machine could suddenly become conscious, how is this different than the materialist claim that consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon of having a brain?

Queequeg said:
I'll work backwards on your questions.

Asking how this is different than a materialist claim is premature.

We need to define some terms here - by machine, are we talking about engineered, lab created biological "beings" (I'll put that in quotation marks for now because we're not sure if they are beings (sattva)), or are we talking about some sort of electronic computer made with silicon circuits and chips and processors, maybe with robotic means of action? Either way, if such a thing was conscious (difficult to answer as that would go to the heart of the Hard Question), at the least, we'd have some re-evaluation to do - along the lines of Jambudvipa v. the reality of Earth evaluation.

Malcolm wrote:
I define a machine as any engineered device, whether biological or mechanical, that performs a specific function for which it was designed.

Queequeg said:
One option would be to admit defeat to the materialists. Then we'd all be materialists. Another might involve asking and investigating a variation involving your second question... how does a consciousness seeking rebirth end up in a robot? I don't particularly see why rebirth as a robot is not possible.

Malcolm wrote:
How would it be conceived?

Queequeg said:
Regarding your second question, I'd suggest a consciousness seeking rebirth that appropriates brain tissue in a vat had the causes and conditions to end up there.

Malcolm wrote:
Then explain those: in the case of four kinds of birth you mention, the process of conception is quite well described. Consciousness in three kinds of birth appropriate reproductive material from parents at the moment they meet. Since there are no mating parents for a brain in a vat, not sure how that can work.

Queequeg said:
Your first question - what do I mean by awareness - By "awareness" I'm taking that phenomenon we are working toward realizing in contemplative practice - Buddhanature, Tathagatagarbha, Amala Vijnana, Sunyata, etc.

Malcolm wrote:
Why? What is special about awareness as distinct from consciousness? When one is conscious, one is aware; when is unconscious, one is unaware. One cannot be aware and be unconscious.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, June 25th, 2021 at 11:37 PM
Title: Re: CoEmergent Wisdom
Content:


Yklah said:
In this sentence, "is not produced dependently", to me that seems to be contradictory to the Buddha's teaching on dependent arising. Can someone help me please ?

Malcolm wrote:
It means that your real nature has always been emptiness, and emptiness is not produced from causes and conditions. To say all phenomena are free from proliferation is to say they are empty of all extremes of being, nonbeing, and so on, in other words they are empty. In the PP Sutras, it states, "Whatever arises in dependence in truth does not arise."

Emptiness, connate, nonarising, are all synonyms.

Crazywisdom said:
Coemergent comes from the Mahamudra group. And it's connected to those instructions for examining the mind. What you are describing is just emptiness from a sutra standpoint. Coemergent as a term has Mahamudra tantra origins.

Malcolm wrote:
I provided citations from one of the tantras that serve as the locus classicus for sahaja, the Hevajra Tantra, above. I've already pointed out that this term is complex. For example, there is a connate of the cause, the connate of the path, and the connate of the result, as detailed by Dombi Heruka in his Sahajasiddhi. According to him, the cause, the mind itself, is the connate nonarising reality of entities. And I provided a Saraha citation as well. So, basically, your objection is unnecessary.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, June 25th, 2021 at 10:39 PM
Title: Re: The Precious Treasury of the Expanse and Awakened Awareness: The Ornaments of the Definitive Secret
Content:
mutsuk said:
not to mention the 'gris thag bcad pa ("with a knife cuts the rope of ...") which is obviously to be corrected into gras/gros thag bcad pa (resolve, decide, understand) which Mr Brown could have least had guessed since this quite frequent expression is in dictionaries...

Malcolm wrote:
Yup. In translation, missing by an inch is the same as missing by a mile. Well, you know what they say, caveat emptor.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, June 25th, 2021 at 10:21 PM
Title: Re: CoEmergent Wisdom
Content:


Yklah said:
In this sentence, "is not produced dependently", to me that seems to be contradictory to the Buddha's teaching on dependent arising. Can someone help me please ?

Malcolm wrote:
It means that your real nature has always been emptiness, and emptiness is not produced from causes and conditions. To say all phenomena are free from proliferation is to say they are empty of all extremes of being, nonbeing, and so on, in other words they are empty. In the PP Sutras, it states, "Whatever arises in dependence in truth does not arise."

Emptiness, connate, nonarising, are all synonyms.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, June 25th, 2021 at 10:18 PM
Title: Re: The Precious Treasury of the Expanse and Awakened Awareness: The Ornaments of the Definitive Secret
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Perhaps an example would be apropos. Not that I doubt you, but others may.

mutsuk said:
I just opened the book randomly and put my finger on the page with closed eyes. My finger pointed the last paragraph on p. 751 :

(P. 751) It is the final endpoint to be-accomplished, and therefore it is the fruition. This is what it taken as the path. Therefore, it is called the “fruition path.” If we were to categorize that, we can follow after what is said by the great teacher Drenpa Namkha in his Nam mkha’ ‘phrul mdzod [Treasury of the Magical Display of Space) where it says, “The practitioner of Great Completion who accepts the difference as being self-arising, with a knife cuts the rope of everything to-be-known, and such a practitioner of Great Completion self-liberates everything into the source, the universal ground just as it is. Through that you set up [the mind] on the essential point, namely (p. 752) awakened awareness. Two things are shown. The first has ten schools of thoughts.”

The original in tibetan says (vol. II, p. 81) :

de nyid bsgrub bya mthar thug pas ‘bras bu yin la/ de lam du byed pa la ‘bras bu lam byed pa zhes bya’o/ de la dbye na slob dpon chen po dran pa nam mkhas nam mkha’ ‘phrul mdzod du bkod pa’i rjes su ‘brang nas/ ‘dod pa tha dad pa rang shar ba’i rdzogs pa chen pos shes bya ‘gris thag bcad pa dang gzhi ci bzhin nyid kyi skye mched du rang grol ba’i rdzogs pa chen pos rig pa gnad la dbab pa dang gnyis su bstan pa las/ dang po la sde bcur yod de/ nam mkha’ ‘phrul mdzod las/...

But just having a look at the opening homages of the book and the intention of the author following these homages are "good" examples of how problematic these renderings are... I am not criticising the choice of vocabulary (that's a personal choice and taste) but feel rather concerned with the understanding of the grammar.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, even this much somewhat incorrectly rendered:

It is the final endpoint to be-accomplished, and therefore it is the fruition. This is what it taken as the path. Therefore, it is called the “fruition path.”

de nyid bsgrub bya mthar thug pas ‘bras bu yin la/ de lam du byed pa la ‘bras bu lam byed pa zhes bya’o/

It should be something like:

"Since that is culmination of what is to be accomplished, it is the result. That is employed as the path, [hence it is] called "employing the result [as] the path."


