﻿Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, December 8th, 2021 at 12:25 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


tobes said:
Yes, this seems to be a problem in many traditional labour/working class/egalitarian parties in western/liberal democracies. i.e. the rise of a white collar political class, usually trained in law or economics, who claim to "represent" the interests of working people.

Malcolm wrote:
Oh, you mean unlike the intellectuals of the revolution? There will always be educated people who claim to represent the interests of the "workers." The right does it, the left does it, it's all bollocks all the way through.

Theory sucks.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, December 8th, 2021 at 12:17 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


Nemo said:
It sounds like you worship the abstraction called capital Malcolm.

Malcolm wrote:
"Capital" is just an economic store which can be preserved, employed, or squandered. If you have fifty seeds, that is your capital. It is not abstract at all.

The Buddha recommended that lay people preserve a quarter of their capital against emergencies, use half to generate profits, and use the other quarter to enjoy their lives.

If you want to be specific, rather than make grandiose and pompous proclamations, great. But you're just bar bitching.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, December 7th, 2021 at 10:48 PM
Title: Re: Mindfulness vs Awareness
Content:
Ode to Joy said:
Even though rig pa or awareness is not mentioned in this literature, perhaps this one taste of suchness taught by Buddha here is something like the rig pa awareness of the higher teachings.

Malcolm wrote:
Rig pa (vidyā) is a path dharma, and it exists in practitioners below the path of seeing, so no, it is not the "one taste of suchness," at least not in the beginning.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, December 7th, 2021 at 10:39 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
Nemo said:
Liberalism has always been a scam Tobes. It pretends progressiveness while keeping property rights accumulated through generations of slavery, imperialism and theft sacrosanct. It fixes the secondary contradictions of capitalism but does nothing to prevent more from being created. Since it cannot confront capital it is a path to extinction.

Malcolm wrote:
How silly. "Confront capital." What are people supposed to do? Assembly in mobs and go relieve capitalists of their holdings. What a naive view of the world.

"Beings are owners of kammas, student, 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."

Hierarchy will never be eliminated among sentient beings because karma is unerring.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, December 7th, 2021 at 10:34 PM
Title: Re: Sakya Pandita and medicine question.
Content:
alderjerry@gmail.com said:
Recently I had seen somewhere on this forum a comment by Malcolm about Sakya Pandita's advice regarding taking medicine.  The quote/text would be very helpful for a friend (currently in hospital) who wants to ask their lama a clear question.  The context is their (and mine) concern that a position of being  anti 'scientism' has led to a anti Covid vaccine stance within our sangha. Thank you,

Malcolm wrote:
you can find this citation in Clarifying the Sages Intent, In The Stages of the Buddhist Doctrine, Wisdom Pubs.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, December 7th, 2021 at 9:47 AM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:


Matt J said:
I don't think that is correct. Per Mipham in the Adornment of the Middle Way (trans Padmakara):

Malcolm wrote:
For you, Mipham seems to be the summum bonum of Madhyamaka, even though for me, he just another in a long line of Tibetans. The fact mainstream Madhyamakas accept outer objects conventionally is noncontroversial. It’s true that Shantaraksita, of whom Mipham is very fond, likes Yogacara for conventional truth. But as the passage from Sapan demonstrates, Madhyamakas tend to be content different presentations of conventional truth. Certainly, most Mainstream Madhyamakas accept the Sautrantika perpective. This again is noncontroversial. Also, Mipham defense of rang rig is uncertain. Candrakirti clearly understands rang rig as memory, not a self-illuminating mind, but that may simply be a fault in the translation,


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, December 7th, 2021 at 5:32 AM
Title: Re: CV Jones - The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman
Content:
nyonchung said:
bTsan kha bo che received the "gzhan stong dbu ma chen po" lineage from Sajjana, he from Akarashanti, he from Anandakirti, he from Maitripa - Tsen Khawoché (who was not a sanskritist),

Malcolm wrote:
Which leaves open the question, how much did Tsen Khawoché actually understand?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, December 7th, 2021 at 4:47 AM
Title: Re: HE Jhado Rinpoche teachings in CA
Content:
tony_montana said:
Also, I don't wanna start a fuss but is Begtse Chen a Wisdom/Enlightened Protector? For a person practicing Most Secret Hayagriva that Jhado Rinpoche so kindly gave empowerment for, how would be the appropriate way to supplicate Begtse for support and help?

Lobsang Chojor said:
I'm pretty sure Rinpoche said Begtse Chen was a supramundane (enlightened) protector.

zerwe said:
Good question. All I could gather from Rinpoche, is that adoption of Begtse began between the reign of the 2-3 Dalai Lamas, that Chamsing and Nechung are of one-nature, and that Chamsing (supramundane) is uncommon aspect and Nechung mundane?

Chamsing is one of the chief dharma protectors of Tamdrin Yangsang's mandala and is mentioned/invoked in FPMT's protector practices.

One (controversial) source lists him as a wisdom/enlightened protector along side Kalarupa, Palden Lhamo, and Six-armed Mahakala. Also, says he originally had Indian roots and came to Tibet beginning 11th century through Sakya/Kagyu via Marpa and Sachen Kunga Nyingpo?

Shaun

Lobsang Chojor said:
I was a bit unsure on the first point I think Rinpoche was just saying that the titles "black and red" protectors depends on the context. The Tibetan government mean Palden Lhamo and Nechung, whereas in Mongolia it refers to Palden Lhamo and Begtse Chen.

In the lineage list Rinpoche recited it came through Sachen Kunga Nyingpo, I don't think I heard Marpa.

Could you PM me the second mantra? I didn't write any down

zerwe said:
PM sent

"In the lineage list Rinpoche recited it came through Sachen Kunga Nyingpo"

Excellent, your ears are sharper than ours.

Shaun

Malcolm wrote:
There are two sources for the Marutse brother and sister. The Drogmi long lineage passes to him from Gayadhara. The short lineage is a term revealed by Marpa Lotsawa, originally connected with the Most Secret Hayagriva. They are combined in Sakya.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, December 6th, 2021 at 10:42 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


tobes said:
"Liberal" here is meaning the American sense of "progressive" rather than the actual liberal tradition? Because I think the latter could help us a lot to restore a bit of civility in the polis.

Malcolm wrote:
No, he means Nancy Pelosi as opposed to AOC.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, December 6th, 2021 at 9:49 PM
Title: Re: Mindfulness vs Awareness
Content:
Zhen Li said:
The foundations of mindfulness, and also the five faculties (which include mindfulness), come up a lot in Mahāyāna sūtras, but they are not given exposition, rather, it seems like it is assumed the reader/listener would already be familiar with them.

Malcolm wrote:
Thus not true, for example, a fairly detailed description of the four foundations of mindfulness is to be found in the Bodhisattvapitaka.

Zhen Li said:
Thanks for pointing that out. Is what you are thinking of inside or outside of the Dhyāna Chapter?

Malcolm wrote:
I have to go look. I pulled it out the other day for a lama who was teaching on the FFM and needed an Mahayana source.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, December 6th, 2021 at 9:46 PM
Title: Re: Mindfulness vs Awareness
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
Mindfulness is a practice through which awareness develops.
Carefulness is not relying too much on English language words used to translate Buddhist concepts.

Malcolm wrote:
Actually, mindfulness and awareness are mutually supporting mental factors.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, December 6th, 2021 at 8:45 PM
Title: Re: Mindfulness vs Awareness
Content:
Zhen Li said:
The foundations of mindfulness, and also the five faculties (which include mindfulness), come up a lot in Mahāyāna sūtras, but they are not given exposition, rather, it seems like it is assumed the reader/listener would already be familiar with them.

Malcolm wrote:
Thus not true, for example, a fairly detailed description of the four foundations of mindfulness is to be found in the Bodhisattvapitaka.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, December 6th, 2021 at 8:41 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
Nemo said:
Nothing will happen until the left realizes liberals are also the enemy.

Malcolm wrote:
Ok, Robespierre. The reason why “liberal” are nervous about the far left is it’s impulse to tyranny which ends in circular firing squads.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, December 6th, 2021 at 6:49 AM
Title: Re: Two truths in Mahayana Buddhism
Content:
Astus said:
even in the abhidharma texts.

Malcolm wrote:
BzzzzzzzzzzzzzT

Yes, it is certainly found in the Kośabhaṣya.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, December 6th, 2021 at 5:00 AM
Title: Re: Some Observation on the Guru-Chela Relationship by Tulku Sherdor
Content:
Unknown said:
I see, again and again, teachers put in the position of having to cater, if not pander, to students, or risk losing them

Malcolm wrote:
That's only a problem for teachers who want an ever-expanding retinue.

A real teacher only needs a few good students. Not hundreds or thousands of slackers.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, December 6th, 2021 at 3:04 AM
Title: Re: Biden is doing a great job.
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
Also, the Democrats on the whole don’t give a shit about democracy either, they care about ‘the rule of law’ inasmuch as it supports commerce these days. I mean, there are exceptions, and their shittiness pales in comparison to the GOP, but let’s be honest, there isn’t much there.

Malcolm wrote:
All political discussion on DW (including mine):

Bitching 'bout the things we've seen
Bitching 'bout the things we've been
Bitching 'bout the loves we've had
My, oh my it wasn't so bad
When we had that to loosen our minds
Hey little baby in the front row be kind

Bar bitching: telling you the gospel truth
Bar bitching: why don't you all go get screwed?
Bar bitching: why don't you tell me something new?
Bar bitching: Bar bitching

Bitching 'bout the Windsor C
Bitching 'bout the Western Sea
Why can't you all be like a Grainger man?
Or even a Pheland man?
I'll tell you what we'll meet in Amsterdam
Then you'll see what should be really can

Bar bitching: telling you the gospel truth
Bar bitching: why don't you all go get screwed?
Bar bitching: why don't you tell me something new?
Bar bitching: Bar bitching That's what I'm talking about

Got anything to say
No
Well shut up

There's a place with a lot of eyes
Strange smoke perfume around the peacock guys
And the girls they move their heat
To the impulsive compulsive beat
But that's another place another time
Maybe we'll meet there in quite a short while

Bar bitching: telling you the gospel truth
Bar bitching: why don't you all go get screwed?
Bar bitching: why don't you tell me something new?
Bar bitching:

I really don't know what to say
It's gonna happen to us all one day
And when it does you could have me too
But until then I really don't know what to do
I'm just gonna keep
Bar bitching: telling you the gospel truth
Bar bitching: why don't you all go get screwed?
Bar bitching: why don't you tell me something new?
Bar bitching:
Bar bitching, Bar bitching, Bar bitching, Bar bitching

--The Stranglers.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, December 6th, 2021 at 1:15 AM
Title: Re: HH Sakya Trichen's Empowerment of Avalokiteshvara: Combination of Great Compassion and Mahamudra lineage?
Content:
ratna said:
The lineage is Śākyamuni, Vajrāsanapāda, Bari Lotsawa, Sönam Tsemo, Drakpa Gyaltsen, Sakya Paṇḍita, etc.

stoneinfocus said:
Thanks, but I mean where is the empowerment from, who wrote it, in what cycle, etc...? Like, is it from the King's Tradition, etc...? Perhaps lineage was too broad of a term.

Malcolm wrote:
It is a permission rite, and the actual permission rite was composed by Zhuchen Tsultrim Rinchen, an 18th century Sakya lama from Derge, Kham. It is not the Kings Tradition. That is a major empowerment. The cycle it is from is the Bari Gyatsa.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, December 5th, 2021 at 10:28 PM
Title: Re: Biden is doing a great job.
Content:
Nemo said:
The giveaway is how little policy changes. Less then most single party states in practice.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, because representative democracy is inefficient by design, compared to authoritarian states. In fact, it is the desire to change policies quickly that leads people on both the left and the right to embrace authoritarian governments at the expense of democracy. Thus, at present, we see the persistent abandonment of democracy by the GOP at present, largely due to an huge influx of people from the Southern Democrats into the GOP in the 70's, the people who sought to undermine democracy before the civil war, and the architects of Jim Crow. This turned the GOP into an engine for undermining democracy. In a word, the civil war never ended in the United States.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, December 4th, 2021 at 6:30 AM
Title: Re: Biden is doing a great job.
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
They're into a bottom to top strategy to upend everything.



Malcolm wrote:
Yes, the CSA in 1861 was the Confederate States of America. The CSA in 2021 is the Christian States of America. Basically no difference, and yes, they will legalize slavery again, but they won't call it that...It'll be more like Handmaidens.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, December 4th, 2021 at 4:22 AM
Title: Re: Roe is toast
Content:
Nemo said:
Biden may not be as good an ally as you think.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, no, not in 1974, when he said this.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, December 4th, 2021 at 1:37 AM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:


Queequeg said:
Sagara's daughter still treads the path...It just doesn't take eons.

Malcolm wrote:
Of course it does. Three asamkhya kalpas, and only then if you are a superior practitioner.

This is why people want rebirth in Sukhavati.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, December 4th, 2021 at 1:33 AM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:


Matt J said:
Not sure if Mipham even had access to Gorampa.

Malcolm wrote:
Oh, yes. He most certainly did. He read him quite thoroughly.

Matt J said:
Perhaps fitting him into such categories distorts what he writes. Mipham was not afraid to call scholars on their BS, even as he adopted similar media. He was clearly grounded not only in a rime approach, but also a practical, experiential one.

Malcolm wrote:
No. Mipham's commentaries are in the tradition of Gorampa. This is not even a question. It is just a fact.



Matt J said:
And of course, there are no degrees of existence or emptiness, nor is there a separation between appearance and emptiness. No one suggested there was.
It sounds like these posts grant special privilege to physical objects. To some extent, it is an academic point given emptiness.

Malcolm wrote:
You have to understand, Mipham is responding to Gelukpas, since they indeed privilege the object-- for them the object is the truth, not the perception. Gorampa and Mipham both privilege the perception.

Matt J said:
I don't defend ontological idealism either like neo-Advaitins. This is a category error. I'm simply forwarding epistemological idealism--- we don't really know what lies beyond mind. Failing to distinguish the two is problematic.

Malcolm wrote:
When it comes to the basis, the perception of ordinary beings, Madhyamaka in general does not forward epistemological idealism. Sapan summarizes this quite well:
With the intent of functioning in common with worldlings,
he that external objects exist,
but having in mind the reasoning
that investigates conventional reality,
he taught that phenomena are mind.
Again, having in mind ultimate reality,
he that that all phenomena are elaborationless.
So, it really all depends on whether what perspective you are addressing things from. The Gelug POV always takes into consideration common mundane convention as the baseline for discussion. But even they, when it comes to meditating the path in Vajrayāna, consider phenomena to be mind, and ultimately, free of proliferation.

What Gorampa, and later Mipham, are criticizing the Gelug point of view for, is granting an undue existential status that is not required at all to explain the conventional truth of ordinary persons, that is, the point of view of people who have not analyzed anything. Relative truth does not bear ultimate analysis, but on the other hand, claiming we cannot known anything of the world beyond our five senses is also not an argument that any Mādhyamika would seriously propose, since even Mādhyamikas admit that a sense consciousness will not arise in absence of a sense object, and that the two truths are objects of true and false cognitions. For example, Aryadeva clearly states:

Dependent on eye and form, 
the mind arises like an illusion,
it is not reasonable to call
illusory that which has existence.

Yogic Deeds of Bodhisattvas, Sonam, Snow Lion, 1994, pg. 261.

This verse itself is sufficient to show that Mādhyamikas accept outer objects conventionally.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, December 4th, 2021 at 1:10 AM
Title: Re: Roe is toast
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Yes, basically.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, December 4th, 2021 at 12:18 AM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:
haha said:
The dharmakaya does not take birth and die, nor does it get enlightenment in course of time. The sutra uses different narrative to say it. People with different disposition may read it differently.

Malcolm wrote:
the dharmakāya isn't an agent, so of course it does not "get enlightened." It is the result of the gnosis accumulation.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, December 4th, 2021 at 12:10 AM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
My observation is that subitists continually lower the bar, so they can claim even the slightest meditative stability as the height of the two-fold omniscience.

Queequeg said:
Maybe there are some wide eyed dreamers who fly the banner of Sudden Awakening over their rather ordinary achievements, but that wouldn't be unique to people claiming lineage in such traditions. The cuckoos and quacks are everywhere, aggrandizing their experiences with impressive sounding labels. If every tradition is judged by their flakes, charlatans, conmen, etc., then every single one is a failure, if not yet, just give it time.

Malcolm wrote:
I was more referring to the idea of instant BUDDHAHOOD. Attaining the first bhumi "suddenly" is much more reasonable notion, though, even that is beyond most of us.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, December 4th, 2021 at 12:04 AM
Title: Re: Roe is toast
Content:


Queequeg said:
Left/Progressives will need to get our asses handed to us. Some time in the wilderness to regroup and reorient. We got too caught up in ideology ourselves. Maybe we need to drop some and blow the tubes out. Start fresh with the elements.

Malcolm wrote:
Right, enough with this pansy-ass microdosing--heroic doses for everyone!

Queequeg said:
500 mics is something, but https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=thumbprint are heroic.

Kids: joking. Don't actually try this at home.

Malcolm wrote:
You haven't lived until you've dosed with two four-way windowpanes in the eyes (roughly 1600 mics, straight to the brain). Definitely, don't try this at all...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 11:12 PM
Title: Re: Awareness, and consciousness, (rig pa) ... oh my!
Content:



PadmaVonSamba said:
This has sort of been my understanding.

Malcolm wrote:
This has nothing to with with the teachings of the Buddha. The Buddha never identified something as "awareness" which is separate from the consciousness and which "goes beyond the ego and emptiness." This is some kind of Advaita idea.

Riju said:
Lotus sutra on earth was spoken by Guatam Buddha (16th son of Great Universal Wisdom Execellence Buddha------ref phantom city chapter 7).
Guatam Buddha was capable of experiencing only the consciousness of His father. He never experienced the awareness that was guiding His father. This is the reason that Guatam never commented on God and awareness. Awareness comes not from Emptiness but from  a different source.

Malcolm wrote:
No matter which way you slice, the dharmakāya is never separate from the rūpakāya. They are in union, a whole.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 10:40 PM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
The path may be long, but who knows where you are on it?

Malcolm wrote:
That's pretty clear, based on the qualities one has. They are described in detail in various sūtras and commentaries. Of course, there is a lot of wishful thinking amongst those of subitist bents about this stuff, but the reality is that we don't have those qualities. We are lucky if we are on the path of application, let along the path of accumulation.

Queequeg said:
LOL. Or elaborate world building is just another way the mind distracts itself from the immediate task.

Malcolm wrote:
People would be very fortunate to attain the path of seeing in this life, let alone buddhahood. My observation is that subitists continually lower the bar, so they can claim even the slightest meditative stability as the height of the two-fold omniscience.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 10:35 PM
Title: Re: Roe is toast
Content:



PeterC said:
Yeah don’t be too sure of that…

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-29/la-me-california-covid-mandates-constitutional-republic

KristenM said:
Oh, I'm quite aware of the State of Jefferson malarkey. I live next door. My own county had a Sheriff who was in the national news for declaring our own county a "sanctuary county" and refusing to enforce mask mandates. Then he got Covid...

PeterC said:
What exactly is going on there?  It’s just a batshit crazy town council, or does it go any further?  It sounds like the sort of thing you’d expect from Kentucky, not California

Malcolm wrote:
California was a GOP bastion between 1948-1992.

PeterC said:
While voter registration statewide has increased by about 8.5 million people since 1990, the poll found “virtually no increase” in the number of registered Republicans. GOP registration has held steady at 5.3 million voters, but voters registering as Democrats have surged by about a third and now outnumber Republicans by almost two to one. “No party preference” voters nearly quadrupled in that time, drawing roughly even with the GOP.

Malcolm wrote:
https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/11/03/as-demographics-change-california-gop-fades-as-a-political-force/

These folks are found in the Central Valley and Northern California, aka the State of Jefferson, (which would include the counties of S. Oregon in the Rogue River region to the coast).


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 10:24 PM
Title: Re: Roe is toast
Content:


Queequeg said:
Left/Progressives will need to get our asses handed to us. Some time in the wilderness to regroup and reorient. We got too caught up in ideology ourselves. Maybe we need to drop some and blow the tubes out. Start fresh with the elements.

Malcolm wrote:
Right, enough with this pansy-ass microdosing--heroic doses for everyone!


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 10:21 PM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
The path may be long, but who knows where you are on it?

Malcolm wrote:
That's pretty clear, based on the qualities one has. They are described in detail in various sūtras and commentaries. Of course, there is a lot of wishful thinking amongst those of subitist bents about this stuff, but the reality is that we don't have those qualities. We are lucky if we are on the path of application, let along the path of accumulation.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 9:59 PM
Title: Re: separating pure and impure prana
Content:
bhava said:
Dear dharma friends, I read in a text by Jigme Lingpa, (Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoches collected works, vol.3), about him practising separation of pure and impure prana every morning. I m wandering, what is it refering to. Apart from nine purification breathing (lungdro selwa), is it a particular pranayama or tsalung? Thanks for your asnwers...

Malcolm wrote:
"Apart from nine purification breathing (lungdro selwa)"

That's it. FYI, people keep translating rlung as prāṇa, but that is actually incorrect. rLung is a translation of vāyu, of which prāṇa is only one.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 9:26 PM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:
Aemilius said:
Suppose you attain the buddhahood in one second, what then? What do you do for the next five million kalpas?
Do you think Buddhahood is substantially existent?

Queequeg said:
The answer to the first question... time? what's that?

In answer to the second I pose another question - is any of this stuff in these sutras substantially existent? What is Buddha saying in the Lotus? If everything, from his birth to death was a show, what does that make everything he uttered or purported to utter? "Come children, get your toys!"

---

My daughter said to her older brother, "The tooth fairy is mommy and daddy." He didn't want to hear it, but at some point, when belief in those words wasn't necessary for his pecuniary gain, he came around to accepting them. My daughter, on the other hand, is now losing her teeth and bought in.

Malcolm wrote:
The point of the bodhisattva career, as opposed to the arhat, is that it is supposed to be arduous, difficult, and seemingly impossible. If one isn’t up for that, then one’s bodhicitta is for shit. On the other hand, if one wants to tarry one the path, and not attain awakening as rapidly as possible, then one’s bodhicitta is for shit. Hence the conflicting narratives about the length of the bodhisattva path.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 11:12 AM
Title: Re: Roe is toast
Content:
PeterC said:
After getting Roe overturned on a “states’ rights”, the next stage in the campaign will be at the state level to push back on, well, states’ rights.  Most of the energy will go into blue or purple states.  Even in places like California there’s a big enough Republican minority to infiltrate zoning commissions, municipal governments etc.  The brilliant thing about this is that even no progress in those states is a win for them, because they get to fuel the outrage machine by railing against the immorality and unamericanism of the coastal elites.

Malcolm wrote:
Well be ok in New England.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 8:13 AM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:
Zhen Li said:
In the big picture, Jōdo Shinshū suggests that all Buddhas attain Buddhahood through the same Dharmakāya.

Malcolm wrote:
Considering that the dharmakaya of all Buddhas is the same, that’s not much of a stretch.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 6:28 AM
Title: Re: Biden is doing a great job.
Content:
Queequeg said:
We don't want the executive stronger than it is, and every time a president exercises more power, it just makes the presidency more powerful.


Malcolm wrote:
“The first man put at the helm will be a good one. Nobody knows what sort may come afterwards. The executive will be always increasing here, as elsewhere, till it ends in a monarchy."

-- Benjamin Franklin


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 5:45 AM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:


Queequeg said:
Like I said... spilling more ink to explain what was actually meant... like lawyers splitting hairs until precedents are revealed to mean the exact opposite of what they appear to mean. I like the interpolation of the snakes on flying lotuses. Maybe these are the UFOs people have been looking for.

Must be boring as F in a monastery. The mind is a skilled painter indeed.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, in this case, more like Kublai's court...baiting Chinese subitists sounds like a fun pastime to me.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 4:33 AM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:
Queequeg said:
So, Shariputra was just wrong in his perception.

When you have to use so much ink to explain what something really is...

But if such views encourage beings... who am I to argue?

Malcolm wrote:
This are the three main passages that Phakpa explains. First, in order to point out that he was teaching myriad bodhisattvas in the ocean:

As soon as Mañjuśrī Kumārabhūta said those words, many thousands of lotuses rose up into the sky from within the oceans. Many thousands of bodhisattvas were seated upon those lotuses. Then those bodhisattvas came through the sky to Vulture Peak and remained suspended in the sky above it. Mañjuśrī Kumārabhūta had guided all of them toward the highest, complete enlightenment. Those bodhisattvas who had previously entered the Mahāyāna praised the six perfections and the qualities of the Mahāyāna, while the bodhisattvas who had previously been śrāvakas praised the Śrāvakayāna. All of them knew the qualities of the Mahāyāna and the emptiness of all phenomena.

Then, the qualities of Sāgara's daughter, as we already discussed, are qualities of a tenth stage bodhisattva described at length in various sūtras, of those, these are included.

The daughter of Sāgara, king of the nāgas, said, “Venerable Śāriputra, if I have great miraculous power, I will attain the highest, complete enlightenment of perfect buddhahood even more quickly than that jewel was accepted.”

And:

That bodhisattva now went to the south and, in a southern world realm named Vimalā, manifested the attainment of perfect buddhahood while seated at the foot of a tree made of the seven precious materials.

Note, the future tense, "I will" and then the actual statement "manifested".

As mentioned above, a tenth stage bodhisattva has the power to demonstrate any form to any being to be tamed.

This raises the question, when does buddhahood begin? We have an answer, actually. According to Maitreyanātha, buddhahood begins on the tenth bhumi, as he says, because the gnosis beyond the ninth bhumi is the gnosis of a buddha. So, the "sudden awakening" of the daughter of Sāgara is just another one of your favorite things, it's an upaya, but that does not mean it ought to be taken literally.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 3:33 AM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:
Queequeg said:
So, Shariputra was just wrong in his perception.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, he is regularly presented as the stooge in Mahāyāna Sūtras.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at 1:30 AM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:



Queequeg said:
Actually, Buddhahood can be instantaneous.

Malcolm wrote:
The Naga girl was already an eighth stage bodhisattva, so, not exactly.

Queequeg said:
...but arguably, it was within the 8 years of her life after hearing the Lotus from Manjusri.

Malcolm wrote:
No, definitely not. In fact, the Chogyal Phakpa, fifth founder master of Sakya, has a text specifically aimed at addressing misconceptions about the Nāgā princess tale. He was the imperial preceptor to Kublai Khan, was fluent in Chinese, and interacted daily with the Chinese Buddhists.

He addresses your contention that she was able to traverse the entire path in eight years, soup to nuts. According to him, the Lotus itself shows that the retinue of nāgās were not ordinary trainees who had never entered the path and that there was no training in method. Why? Those nāgās had previously entered Mahāyāna as evidenced by the fact that they praised the qualities of Mahāyāna and the six perfections. Chogyal Phagpa contends that the nāga girl was an tenth stage bodhisattva in fact, from birth, based on the passage, "She has great wisdom, sharp faculties. The actions of her body, speech, and mind are preceded by wisdom..." He claims all these are qualities of a tenth stage bodhisattva, and cites the Sutrālaṃkāra in support of this. Specifically he cites power over the doors of dhāraṇi as being a quality only of tenth stage bodhisattvas. He then defines how long it takes to attain that stage. It takes one uncountable eon to reach the first stage. A second to reach the eighth stage. At that time, one attains patience to the nonarising of dharmas and receives a prediction of buddhahood by the buddhas. It takes a third incalculable eon to attain unsurpassed buddhahood.

He points out that the full awakening of a tenth bodhisattva is not an instant awakening without traversing the paths and stages, but is in fact the conclusion of the ordinary progress of a bodhisattva. Further, he also points that she, as a tenth stage bodhisattva, was an emanation, that as an ordinary women with karmic obscurations, she could not attain the tenth bhumi. As one who was irreversible and had realized the gnosis of the tenth stage, the nāgā princess was an emanation of a tenth stage bodhisattva, which was revealed by her transformation into a male, her actual form. He further asserts her buddhahood in the southern world system was an emanational act of a tenth stage bodhisattva, rather than the attainment of buddhahood. Again, based on the sūtra's actual words, he claims the texts reads that she exhibited buddhahood to all, not that she was a buddha, pointing out that exhibiting full buddhahood and emanating a buddha kāya, including all the deeds of a buddha, such as residing Tuṣita, conception up through parinirvana, are among the listed powers of a tenth stage bodhisattva such as Avalokiteśvara, etc., as explained in the Sutra of the Ten stages.

Chogyal Phakpa, when setting out the intention of this sūtra, agrees it is a definitive sūtra, but for entirely different reasons. He says the intent of this sūtra is, ""Since all phenomena are of one taste and all vehicles are accomplished in a single vehicle, the Sūtra of the White Lotus of the Sublime Dharma was produced to show that the result is of one taste in the ocean of gnosis of Tathāgata," and so on.

So, a very different perspective.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, December 2nd, 2021 at 10:11 PM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:



LastLegend said:
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.[/i]

https://terebess.hu/zen/daman.html

Aemilius said:
The author does not say how long it will take to traverse the Ten bodhisattva stages. It can be 10 000 years, 100 000 years, 100 000 000 years or more..
In the Lotus Sutra...

Queequeg said:
Actually, Buddhahood can be instantaneous.

Malcolm wrote:
The Naga girl was already an eighth stage bodhisattva, so, not exactly.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, December 2nd, 2021 at 9:16 PM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:


Sherab said:
As I have argued previously, it is all mental representations based on your argument.  Because of that kind of argument, whether things that are out there actually exist from their own side is not a knowledge accessible to such a mind which itself is also a convention.

Malcolm wrote:
Things can’t exist from their own side because if they did, that would require them to exist inherently. Further, no one at any time has ever beheld an inherently existing thing.

Sherab said:
You missed my point.

If all things are only mental representations (as you have argued previously)  to your mind which itself is also a mental representation (as you have argued previously), how can your mentally represented mind know the nature of things are are only known to your through your mental representations of those things?

Therefore, if you say that things do no exist inherently, that would only be your assertion.  If you say that things exist inherently, that too would only be your assertion.

Malcolm wrote:
I never argued all things are merely mental representations, not once. That’s not what “conventional” means. A “convention” is a term for a dependent designation.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, December 2nd, 2021 at 8:41 AM
Title: Re: Realization and realized masters
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Full awakening is rare. But awakening is less so. You don't need a buddha for a teacher, you just need a bodhisattva on the paths and stages, and then, maybe not even a first stage bodhisattva, but someone who has some measure of training and realization on the path of application.

clyde said:
You’ve lowered the bar to “someone who has some measure of training and realization” which could be almost any serious Buddhist practitioner.

Malcolm wrote:
I never claimed a high bar. I just said “realized.”


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, December 2nd, 2021 at 5:58 AM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
The common perceptual object is liquid. How it appears to beings in the six realms is a mere appearance for the mind of a sentient being in one of the six realms. However, the point here is that there is a common perceptual object.

Matt J said:
This is exactly the position that Mipham negates. He also negates the idea that there are degrees of emptiness or existence, or that there is a separation between emptiness and appearances.

Malcolm wrote:
He is just negating what Gorampa has already negated: in other words, the appearance of liquid in the human realm is invalid in the preta realm. Calling liquid a common perceptual object is merely a convention to conform to the fact that different beings perceive liquids. It does mean that one is asserting some really existing common perceptual object.

And of course, there are no degrees of existence or emptiness, nor is there a separation between appearance and emptiness. No one suggested there was.

Matt J said:
Illusions are perceptual objects. How can there be an illusion without the sticks, mud, paper, mantra of the illusionist?
Interestingly, in his explanations in the autocommentary to the Sems nyid ngal gso (212: 3-223:4), he says phenomenon are "hallucinatory appearances produced by the mind's habitual tendencies." (Trans Padmakara Trans Group) and then references phlegmatic seeing hairs in the sky. No mud necessary.

Malcolm wrote:
This is only one of the eight examples. One can only understand them by using all eight.

As I have pointed out to you before, specifically, Longchenpa rejects that idea that, conventionally-speaking, there are no outer objects. This is well known. He summarizes a long complex argument about illusionists, mountains, and dead people and so on, with this statement, "That appearance for that deceased is no more, but because the cessation of the outer play cannot be accepted, and there is a difference between appearances and apparent objects, there is no fault and it is valid." He then cites Samadhirāja sūtra to the effect that everything is just a designation.

So, positing a common perceptual object is just a designation; likewise the liquid, likewise the water. Likewise the moon in the water. These things are neither true nor false, as Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen points out:
The moon in the water is not the moon in the sky,
but without the latter the former will not appear.
Similarly, the nature of all things
is taught in the two truth.
There are no dharmas
not included in the two truths.
Because the nature is not true and not false,
grasping to the two truths is deluded.
It is a fools errand to try and prove that there are no outer objects. The very endeavor itself proves that there are, just as in absence of water there is no reflection of the moon, and in absence of the moon, there is no reflection either. As Chandra points out:

Empty things, reflections and the like,
dependent on conditions, are not imperceptible.
And just as empty forms reflected in a glass
create a consciousness in aspect similar,
so all things, though empty, 
strongly manifest within their very emptiness,
and since inherent nature is in neither truth,
phenomena are neither nothing nor unchanging entities.

Intro to Middle Way, pg. 73, Padmakara.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, December 2nd, 2021 at 3:30 AM
Title: Re: Realization and realized masters
Content:
LucasGP said:
. . . can one achieve realization in Zen even if one cannot find any realized teacher?

Matylda said:
no

clyde said:
If there are no realized (fully awakened) living Zen Masters (This is not a position I hold, but seems to be a position held by many and which also applies to other Buddhist traditions.) and realization is not possible without a realized teacher (Again, not a position I hold, but one held by many.), then it would seem that the effort, at least in this lifetime, is fruitless.

And if there are realized Zen Masters (or teachers in other Buddhist traditions), who are they?

Malcolm wrote:
Full awakening is rare. But awakening is less so. You don't need a buddha for a teacher, you just need a bodhisattva on the paths and stages, and then, maybe not even a first stage bodhisattva, but someone who has some measure of training and realization on the path of application.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, December 1st, 2021 at 10:45 PM
Title: Re: Realization and realized masters
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
50,000 years ago, you could cross by land from Asia to what is now North America. Today, you need to rely on a boat or a plane. You can’t do it just by yourself.

Malcolm wrote:
You couldn't do it by yourself at the time either.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, December 1st, 2021 at 10:42 PM
Title: Re: Awareness, and consciousness, (rig pa) ... oh my!
Content:
Riju said:
Consciousness is bound by an ego. Awareness goes beyond ego and Emptinesss.

PadmaVonSamba said:
This has sort of been my understanding.

Malcolm wrote:
This has nothing to with with the teachings of the Buddha. The Buddha never identified something as "awareness" which is separate from the consciousness and which "goes beyond the ego and emptiness." This is some kind of Advaita idea.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, December 1st, 2021 at 6:50 AM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:


Sherab said:
What you say is all in your mind, not mine.

Malcolm wrote:
Conventionally, there are things out there. It's not a problem unless one wants to propose that things exist from their own side. That includes everything, both subject and objects, insides and outsides.

Sherab said:
As I have argued previously, it is all mental representations based on your argument.  Because of that kind of argument, whether things that are out there actually exist from their own side is not a knowledge accessible to such a mind which itself is also a convention.

Malcolm wrote:
Things can’t exist from their own side because if they did, that would require them to exist inherently. Further, no one at any time has ever beheld an inherently existing thing.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, December 1st, 2021 at 4:54 AM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:
Matt J said:
This is Mipham's phrasing in his Beacon at 6.2.1.3.2.1 states that "the common perceptual object is a mere appearance (snang tsam)." This is not to say that things exist from the mind's side, or that the mind exists. However, it is unclear how a non-existent object can appear absent a mind.

Malcolm wrote:
The common perceptual object is liquid. How it appears to beings in the six realms is a mere appearance for the mind of a sentient being in one of the six realms. However, the point here is that there is a common perceptual object.

Matt J said:
Even Longchenpa cites scriptures about how everything is an illusion. How can there be illusions absent minds?

Malcolm wrote:
Illusions are perceptual objects. How can there be an illusion without the sticks, mud, paper, mantra of the illusionist?

Matt J said:
criticizes the notion that there is some nature to objects apart from their various appearances, positing a common substance with multiple appearances, or some sort of slightly existing object.

Malcolm wrote:
Mipham is criticizing here Tsongkhapa's assertion that the common perceptual object is composed of six parts, making it possible for it to appear as six different entities to six different kinds of sentient beings.

All we need to know is that, conventionally speaking, there are common perceptual objects. Even Mipham cannot avoid using the term "object" as the basis for a mental appearance. Why? Because it is incoherent to posit the arising of a sense consciousness in absence of a sense organ and a sense object. Hence nothing in the triad exists from its own side.

Matt J said:
However, it is unclear how a non-existent object can appear absent a mind.

Malcolm wrote:
A nonexistent object cannot appear at all, for example, the child of a barren women or the horns of a hare. An existent object can certainly appear, such as liquid to the sentient beings of the six realms, without having to posit that existence as anything more than a convention. Certainly, one cannot establish such an object ultimately, but on the other hand, one cannot speak of the emptiness of a nonexistent, such as the child of a barren women either. Thus appearances are neither true, nor are they false, just like the moon in the water. Without the moon reflected in the water, an appearance of the moon in the water cannot exist, and thus a mind in which the moon in the water appears cannot exist. The mind in which the moon appears to be reflected in the water cannot exist before the moon is reflected in the water, nor after. The mind in which the moon appears to be reflected in the water can exist only while it is apprehending the moon reflected in the water. When the moon is no longer reflected in the water, the mind in which the moon reflected in the water appears ceases.

Nothing exists from its own side. Objects are not primary, nor are minds. They are mutually dependent, therefore, neither are established in truth, and all is conventional. This is the meaning of arising from conditions.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, December 1st, 2021 at 1:59 AM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
You are changing the terms.

An appearance indeed belongs to a mind; but an apparent object does not (as Longchenpa shows in both chapter 8 and chapter 12 of his commentary on the Treasury of the Dharmdhātu). For this reasons there are appearances for sentient beings, but not for rocks and trees. Saying that neither appearances nor apparent objects exist from their own side does not entail that that both exist from the mind's side. The mind itself does not exist from its own side.

Matt J said:
Well, if they don't exist from their own side, and are only mere appearances, and mere appearances only appear in minds...
How about the snang ba - snang yul dichotomy?

Malcolm wrote:
Neither exists from its own side.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, December 1st, 2021 at 1:07 AM
Title: Re: Realization and realized masters
Content:
clyde said:
Nevertheless, the OP’s question was whether realization is possible without a realized teacher, so the existence of Pratyeka Buddhas of the past and the potential of Pratyeka Buddhas in the future seems to answer the question in the positive.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, you see, even pratyekabuddhas trained under a buddha, so yes, a realized teacher is still needed.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 at 12:29 PM
Title: Re: Sakya Trichen and Sakya Trizin Avalokiteshvara Empowerment and Instructions
Content:




Johnny Dangerous said:
Cool, thanks. I could swear it is not Thangtong Gyalpo though, I thought that was Filling Space to Benefit Beings. I'll check my copy.

EDIT: it's credited to Ngorchen Gonchok Lhundrub. This sadhana (it is not restricted and ok to discuss here afaik) contains a "mahamudra" section and in the preface refers to itself as combining Great Compassion and Mahamudra in the preface by Dagchen Rinpoche, that is why I am asking whether it is the same.

Malcolm wrote:
BTW:
At the vajra advice of His Holiness the Sakya Trichen, Vajrayana texts are not to be posted or transmitted by electronic means in order to preserve the samaya commitment of secrecy. Therefore, The Simultaneous Practice of the Greatly Compassionate One and Mahamudra with Instructions by Very Venerable Dezhung Rinpoche is available only in paper copy through the postal service.
Granted, in this day and age…

Johnny Dangerous said:
Ok so to be clear though, the initiation is for the text I’m talking about? I don’t mind ordering it if not, if it is the text I’m talking about, I own it and have had the lung, initiation, etc.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, it’s for that transmission.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 at 11:20 AM
Title: Re: Sakya Trichen and Sakya Trizin Avalokiteshvara Empowerment and Instructions
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
Is this the same Sadhana called ‘Ocean of Compassion’ or a different one?

Malcolm wrote:
Completely different. That is from Thagthong Gyalpo. HHST gave the transmission for that a few weeks ago.


Johnny Dangerous said:
Cool, thanks. I could swear it is not Thangtong Gyalpo though, I thought that was Filling Space to Benefit Beings. I'll check my copy.

EDIT: it's credited to Ngorchen Gonchok Lhundrub. This sadhana (it is not restricted and ok to discuss here afaik) contains a "mahamudra" section and in the preface refers to itself as combining Great Compassion and Mahamudra in the preface by Dagchen Rinpoche, that is why I am asking whether it is the same.

Malcolm wrote:
BTW:
At the vajra advice of His Holiness the Sakya Trichen, Vajrayana texts are not to be posted or transmitted by electronic means in order to preserve the samaya commitment of secrecy. Therefore, The Simultaneous Practice of the Greatly Compassionate One and Mahamudra with Instructions by Very Venerable Dezhung Rinpoche is available only in paper copy through the postal service.
Granted, in this day and age…


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 at 11:12 AM
Title: Re: Sakya Trichen and Sakya Trizin Avalokiteshvara Empowerment and Instructions
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
Is this the same Sadhana called ‘Ocean of Compassion’ or a different one?

Malcolm wrote:
Completely different. That is from Thagthong Gyalpo. HHST gave the transmission for that a few weeks ago.


Johnny Dangerous said:
Cool, thanks. I could swear it is not Thangtong Gyalpo though, I thought that was Filling Space to Benefit Beings. I'll check my copy.

EDIT: it's credited to Ngorchen Gonchok Lhundrub. This sadhana (it is not restricted and ok to discuss here afaik) contains a "mahamudra" section and in the preface refers to itself as combining Great Compassion and Mahamudra in the preface by Dagchen Rinpoche, that is why I am asking whether it is the same.

Malcolm wrote:
Ok, that’s not the actual Tibetan title of Konchok Lhundrup’s text, but yes, it is that text.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 at 7:09 AM
Title: Re: CV Jones - The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
What LJS says in Gongchig is that TG relates with Buddha activities.

Malcolm wrote:
That's unsurprising, since that is the basic point of the Uttaratantra.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 at 6:53 AM
Title: Re: Thrangu R. on prayer and deities, etc.
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
But not even buddhas exist from their own side.

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
They don’t have to in order to function in the way Rinpoche explains.

Malcolm wrote:
of course. If they did, they couldn't.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 at 5:39 AM
Title: Re: Sakya Trichen and Sakya Trizin Avalokiteshvara Empowerment and Instructions
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
Is this the same Sadhana called ‘Ocean of Compassion’ or a different one?

Malcolm wrote:
Completely different. That is from Thagthong Gyalpo. HHST gave the transmission for that a few weeks ago.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 at 5:35 AM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:
Matt J said:
How about the snang ba - snang yul dichotomy?

Malcolm wrote:
Neither exists from its own side.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 at 4:55 AM
Title: Re: Thrangu R. on prayer and deities, etc.
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
ibid p.144: [of the old edition]
Thrangu R. said:
Q: Could you talk about the relationship between purification and blessing?

A: These two--purification and receiving blessings--are distinct. They are not exactly the same. Purification means that the obscurations--the cognitive obscurations, which is ignorance, and the afflictive obscurations, which are the mental afflictions and the karmic obscurations or the negative karma that you have accumulated--are gradually purified, which means removed from you. And receiving blessing means that through your supplication of the Buddhas or of the Dharma, you receive their blessing. For example, when you supplicate the Medicine Buddha, through the power of you own supplication combined with the power of the twelve aspirations made by the Medicine Buddha, something happens, and that is called blessing. On the other hand, while purification and blessing are distinct, either one can cause the other. The removal of obscurations allows you to receive the blessings (more fully) and receiving blessings brings about the removal of obscurations.

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
(formatting mine)

Okay, so "something happens"? Tell me more! Oh well, I guess he just doesn't want to go there.
we start to feel faith, and then we become diligent. We feel love and compassion, and we develop tranquility and insight.

Malcolm wrote:
There is your something.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 at 4:38 AM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:
Sherab said:
What I was asking is whether the thing being referred to in "fundamentally there is no thing", only refers to the mental image in the mind and not to the physical thing from which the perceiving mind generates its image, or the physical thing or both.  We all know that the mental image of a thing is NOT a true representation of the physical thing.  The mental image is only a functional represention of the physical thing.  Since it is only a functional representation, that thing being represented does not truly exist.  But the physical thing out there could still truly exist.  Therefore how the thing in "fundamentally there is no thing" is interpreted needs clarification.

krodha said:
This phenomena-noumena dichotomy is not found in Buddhist teachings. Positing a noumena beyond your senses is positing a svabhāva.

Sherab said:
What you say is all in your mind, not mine.

Malcolm wrote:
Conventionally, there are things out there. It's not a problem unless one wants to propose that things exist from their own side. That includes everything, both subject and objects, insides and outsides.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 at 2:33 AM
Title: Re: Sakya Trichen and Sakya Trizin Avalokiteshvara Empowerment and Instructions
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
It will be on facebook, Sakya Dolma Phodrang, and Youtube.

Seeker12 said:
Do you happen to know the exact name of the empowerment and/or any other information about it?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, it is literally the initiation of the Union of Mahākāruṇika and Mahāmudrā. Here is the full text in Tibetan:

http://www.tbrc.org/eBooks/W23681-2418-13-28-any.pdf

It is an important Sakya sadhana tradition that comes from Sachen Kunga Nyingpo, and ultimately from Mahāsiddha Vajrasanapa, the guru of Bari Lotsawa. Bari Lotsawa was Sachen's tutor and the second throne holder of Sakya.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 at 2:23 AM
Title: Re: Realization and realized masters
Content:
clyde said:
I don’t think that is the understanding in the Zen tradition. (This is a Zen forum.) Can you provide references?

Lobsang Chojor said:
I received these teachings in the grounds and paths material, I believe it's from Asanga in the abhidharma-samuccaya. Malcolm will know far more than me here though.

It's also in the dharmagupta vinaya

clyde said:
Can you or Malcolm provide the text (or a pointer to its location) which states that Pratyeka Buddhas cannot appear “while Sakyamuni's dharma is existent” I know of no Zen teacher or text that states such a thing.

Malcolm wrote:
It's basic buddhism.

clyde said:
II. I. The Period In Which No Buddha Exists
Paccekabuddhas are said to exist only in periods when there are no Buddhas. “A person realises Paccekabodhi only when reborn at a time when there is no Buddha” (S-a III 189 and 208). Other expressions to denote this period are: ”the time which lies between (the appearances of) a Lord” (A-a I 194); ”a period in which no Teacher has appeared” (Pv-a III 144); and “the period between the Buddha (-periods)” (A-a II 192). One of the main characteristics of the Paccekabuddha’s career is that he attains insight during such a period. But this does not mean that his whole aspiration to enlightenment is restricted to this time; it is invariably a matter of many existences of hard work, during which he practises the perfections and accumulates the conditions for enlightenment.

Malcolm wrote:
https://www.bps.lk/olib/wh/wh305_Kloppenborg_Paccekabuddha-Concept-In-Pali-Canon-Commentary.pdf, pg. 41.

We are in the period of Buddha Śakyamuni, hence there are no prayekabuddhas in our age.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 at 12:12 AM
Title: Re: Thrangu R. on prayer and deities, etc.
Content:
Astus said:
Blessings are the inspiration gained by devotion to progress on the path.

'Sometimes people think that blessings are something that will  make them shake, tremble, and even levitate. But that is not what blessings are. Blessings are the power of the Dharma. When we encounter the power of the Dharma, we start to feel faith, and then we  become diligent. We feel love and compassion, and we develop tranquility and insight. This is what blessings are. They are the absence of  greed, aversion, and delusion. If we can entirely rid ourselves of those three things right away, that is wonderful, but even if not, we can  decrease and suppress them. That is blessings.'
(Vivid Awareness by Thrangu Rinpoche, p 41)

Malcolm wrote:
Exactly.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 11:09 PM
Title: Re: Biden is doing a great job.
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
That depends. If the SCOTUS overturns Roe, it might just be the push needed to keep all three houses in the hands of the Democrats, because there will a huge number of pissed of women in the USA.

PeterC said:
It may well be.  The republican takeover of the judiciary is really the worst part of their project. A majority of the court throwing out settled precedent may make people wake up to the fact that the third branch of government no longer protects them.

Malcolm wrote:
It's funny, you know. One thing the right wing media never talks about is the globalization of the media. CNN, for example, for all its faults, is fully committed to liberal democracy, and is fully US based. Fox, on the other hand, is controlled by a corrupt media oligarch who has been pushing a far right wing agenda as long as anyone can remember, first destroying the British media, and now ours, for their own financial gain and power. It pretends to be "patriotic," but it is not, because it does not support democracy at all. Democracy is inconvenient for oligarchs.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 11:02 PM
Title: Re: Sakya Trichen and Sakya Trizin Avalokiteshvara Empowerment and Instructions
Content:
KoreanDharma said:
Will there be a link to the for the YouTube livestream?

Seeker12 said:
This is all I have

https://sites.google.com/sakyatemple.org/great-compassion-mahamudra/home

Malcolm wrote:
It will be on facebook, Sakya Dolma Phodrang, and Youtube.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 10:49 PM
Title: Re: Thrangu R. on prayer and deities, etc.
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
The King of Samadhi Sutra extols the benefits is supplications and offerings the result being the samadhi of non origination of phenomena aka dharmakaya.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, of course.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 10:01 PM
Title: Re: Thrangu R. on prayer and deities, etc.
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
So from the Vajrayana point of view, there is in fact something topiary to, and doing so does facilitate one's attainment of the result.
DW has a lot of threads and posts about these points. I just thought I'd share how an authority on Karma Kagyu view sees it.

Malcolm wrote:
Of course there is an object of supplication, relatively speaking, and the merit of making such supplications supports the attainment of buddhahood. No one rejects this.

But not even buddhas exist from their own side.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 9:15 PM
Title: Re: CV Jones - The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Text critical scholarship moves slowly. Frankly, we don't have time. Someone can always come along later and improve our translations.

Zhen Li said:
Translation simply isn't the priority I think. In the west, it doesn't usually count for tenure review or hiring considerations, so academics, if they do it, do it in their spare time. This seems to gradually be changing, but the situation is still not ideal.

Malcolm wrote:
Correct, academics, in Western Buddhist studies, resemble forensic pathologists.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 9:12 PM
Title: Re: Biden is doing a great job.
Content:
PeterC said:
He almost certainly loses the senate (formally) in the mid-terms next year, and may actually lose congress at the same time.  Then in 2024 it's going to be very hard to get a democrat elected with all the gerrymandering and election board dismembering that the republicans are doing in the states they lost in 2020.  So three years from now we could have a republican president, house and senate again.

Malcolm wrote:
Agreed.


PeterC said:
The republicans have abandoned democracy at this point.

Malcolm wrote:
Clearly. The GOP “elites” have fully embraced Fascism.

PeterC said:
Biden isn't a turning point, he's a pause before the downwards journey continues.

Malcolm wrote:
That depends. If the SCOTUS overturns Roe, it might just be the push needed to keep all three houses in the hands of the Democrats, because there will a huge number of pissed of women in the USA.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 9:06 AM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:


Sherab said:
So, a cause is a convention of a cause which is a convention of a convention of a cause ......

Malcolm wrote:
All the way down, and there is no bottom,

Sherab said:
Since conventions are mind made, therefore, as far as your analysis goes, it applies only to whatever is in the mind.  It cannot say anything as regards whatever is external to the mind, and the nature of whatever is external to the mind.

Malcolm wrote:
“Mind” is also a convention, just like everything else, both external and internal.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 6:28 AM
Title: Re: Comparison of Kagyu and Gelug schools?
Content:


tobes said:
I think you need to examine more closely. In Highway of the Conquerors

Malcolm wrote:
I'll read it and get back to you. The auto-commentary to which you refer, the Utterly Clear Lamp (yang gsal sgron ma), is not terribly long.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 6:14 AM
Title: Re: Comparison of Kagyu and Gelug schools?
Content:
tobes said:
I'm not sure why you think a 19th century master takes precedence on this question, over the actual genesis of the tradition as it unfolded 1500's'ish.

Malcolm wrote:
Because said master was the main lineage holder of the Ganden Mahāmudra tradition, so according to your reasoning, as the main person responsible for this transmission, his opinions on related matters should hold considerable sway.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 5:40 AM
Title: Re: Awareness, and consciousness, (rig pa) ... oh my!
Content:
Matt J said:
I think this is not uncommon error among neo-Advaitins and self-taught people who lack access to proper instruction.

Malcolm wrote:
Sure, Smṛtijñanakīrti, in his Commentary on the Bodhcittavivarana remarks that svasaṃvedana (so so rang rig), often translated as self-awareness, etc., simply refers to sensations that one has that one is unable to communicate with others. He defines it in this in contrast to the svasaṃvedana proposed by cittamantrins, as self-aware aspectless consciousness.
Yes, and in fact also Dzogchen texts, as you know, take great pains to distinguish rang rig, as the term is used in Dzogchen texts, from the false-aspectarian Yogacāra usage, etc., specifically so that people do not mistake Dzogchen view for the position of Yogacāra.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 5:15 AM
Title: Re: Comparison of Kagyu and Gelug schools?
Content:
Nalanda said:
Sustained interaction with Manjushri seems like a pretty serious deal, no?

Should we view Master Tsongkapa a Buddhisatva or Buddha?

zerwe said:
He has been regarded as a "second Buddha." Padmasambhava, at an earlier time, was also given this title by his devotees.

Malcolm wrote:
As was Nāgārjuna, the original second Buddha.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 5:07 AM
Title: Re: Does the Mo Divination System Require Empowerment?
Content:
Gaden_Wangchuk said:
but ALL mantras?

Malcolm wrote:
All mantras.

There exist dharāṇis, which may not require a lung. But all mantras do, especially for texts like Mipham's Mañjuśrī dice mo.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 3:30 AM
Title: Re: Realization and realized masters
Content:
clyde said:
Yes.

jimmi said:
If that is so, how would you know?

clyde said:
It is accepted Buddhist doctrine across all traditions that there are Pratyeka Buddhas; so a teacher, realized or not, may be beneficial, but is not necessary.

Malcolm wrote:
Not while there is the doctrine of a samyaksambuddha in the world.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 29th, 2021 at 3:26 AM
Title: Re: Comparison of Kagyu and Gelug schools?
Content:
zerwe said:
How is this reconciled with the Pabongkha's promotion of Vajrayogini within Gelug, which is purported to be the Naro Khacho from the 13 Golden Dharmas of the oral transmission lineage of the Sakya father and sons? Are you saying he continued with his established precedent and omitted the instructions as followed by the Sakyapa?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, that is precisely what I am saying. He deliberately excluded a key part of the Sakyapa transmission on the grounds that Tsongkhapa rejected such introductions. It's not a big deal as it sounds, really, as this introduction is not necessarily given in Sakya during the standard ten day instruction.

In any case, Tsongkhapa had already rejected a key point in the Sakya system of Cakrasamvara over all, the idea that the "ultimate secret" (guhyānta) means what the Sakyapas claim it means. You can read about that in Gray's intro to his translation of  the Laghusamvara.

conebeckham said:
Are you referring to Gray’s translation of Tsong  Khapa’s commentary?  I don’t recall it in the volume of the actual Tantra….

Malcolm wrote:
Its in the intro of the translation of the root text.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 10:55 PM
Title: Re: Biden is doing a great job.
Content:
Rick said:
Alas in the post-truth world, doing a great job in a way statistics bear out only has real meaning for those who support the party in power. Opponents will either ignore the statistics, spin them in a negative way, or flat out deny them.

Malcolm wrote:
I think the point is that people will not ignore money in their pockets and increased services.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 10:51 PM
Title: Re: Who can give Refuge?
Content:


Karma Dorje said:
We aren’t taking refuge, like under a bus shelter in the rain. We go for refuge by practicing the path.

Malcolm wrote:
Correct, we go for refuge, we don't take anything. In Tibetan: "skyabs [refuge] su [for/to] 'gro [go]."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 10:41 PM
Title: Re: Comparison of Kagyu and Gelug schools?
Content:
zerwe said:
How is this reconciled with the Pabongkha's promotion of Vajrayogini within Gelug, which is purported to be the Naro Khacho from the 13 Golden Dharmas of the oral transmission lineage of the Sakya father and sons? Are you saying he continued with his established precedent and omitted the instructions as followed by the Sakyapa?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, that is precisely what I am saying. He deliberately excluded a key part of the Sakyapa transmission on the grounds that Tsongkhapa rejected such introductions. It's not a big deal as it sounds, really, as this introduction is not necessarily given in Sakya during the standard ten day instruction.

In any case, Tsongkhapa had already rejected a key point in the Sakya system of Cakrasamvara over all, the idea that the "ultimate secret" (guhyānta) means what the Sakyapas claim it means. You can read about that in Gray's intro to his translation of  the Laghusamvara.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 10:18 PM
Title: Re: CV Jones - The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman
Content:
Javierfv1212 said:
General question: is Tathāgataguhyaka Sūtra available in english translation somewhere?

Zhen Li said:
I completed a translation from Chinese and am still editing it, but I should finish it very soon.

84000 is translating from Tibetan, but its page says "Current version v 0.0.1 (2019)", so I am unsure where it is currently.

I heard of around 3 or 4 people who, for the past decade, have been translating or doing critical editions of it. So, there's definitely a lot of interest, but maybe a lack of concentration or motivation.

Malcolm wrote:
Text critical scholarship moves slowly. Frankly, we don't have time. Someone can always come along later and improve our translations.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 9:41 PM
Title: Re: Biden is doing a great job.
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
And although nobody is calling it a “General Strike” it seems that through stimulus money or whatever, that’s what the administration has empowered much of the low-pay-range workforce to accomplish. As a result, the minimum wage is going up, the value of labor is higher, and I think much business-model restructuring will take place, probably for the better. Not to mention much overdue infrastructure upgrades.

Malcolm wrote:
We just to blackmail Manchin and Sinema, and the BBB bill will pass.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 9:34 PM
Title: Re: Changing tradition and Guru yoga
Content:
Vajradhara said:
Hello everyone,

I found myself changing tradition and i fear my practice of guru yoga could be weaken by this. I still keep the samayas and vows taken with my previous guru but i didn't speak about my change with them.

Do you know how to manage this situation? Should i retake the initiation with the tradition i'm following right now?

Thank you

Malcolm wrote:
Unify all gurus in one guruyoga.

Vajradhara said:
Do you mean to look at everyone as an emanation of Vajradhara?

Malcolm wrote:
I mean that you visualize Vajradhara, and you understand that Vajradhara embodies all of your gurus.

Unify all gurus in one guru yoga.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 9:30 PM
Title: Re: Comparison of Kagyu and Gelug schools?
Content:



tobes said:
I said "different Gelug masters/scholars have different opinions on the question." Pabhongka is one - and only one - such master.

So yes, it is quite possible that there were ear whispered transmissions from TK to close disciples which were intentionally not written down/kept from wider circulation.

It is also quite possible that there weren't, and later Gelug Mahamudra masters (such as CG) moved a little from TK's explicit position.

At the end of the day, this is something no one today can really answer with much evidence.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, we have two pieces of evidence— Tsongkhapa’s own writing, and Pabhongkha’s confirmation of that position.

There is a third piece as well, Gorampa’s refutation of Tsongkhapa’s position…

tobes said:
Since what's at stake here is the question of what might have been transmitted but not written - i.e. the possibility of an ear whispered lineage - neither Tsong Khapa's own writing, nor Gorampa's refutation of that really count as evidence. The same problem also applies to Pabhongkha, except that it is deepened, given that he existed many centuries later.

One needs to examine the Gelug Mahamudra texts, such as Highway of the Conquerors, and ask: what connections (if any) exist between those statements and Tsong Khapa? And people arrive at different conclusions from that task.

Malcolm wrote:
Considering that Pabhongkha is considered to the main person who transmitted the Ganden Mahāmudrā tradition in the last century to the present generation, and since he explicitly writes that Tsongkhapa rejected introductions, using this as a precedent for excluding the introduction to dharmatā that is part of the Sakyapa Naro Khachö system, I'd say we can definitely accept his opinion.

On the face of it, the Ganden Mahāmudra is little different than the other Mahāmudra systems in Tibet that trace their origin to Saraha. The Panchen Lama calls it "sutra mahāmudra" ostensibly because he is not requiring an empowerment, but the instructions themselves are virtually identical to such texts as "In Front of the Stupa" in Sakya, differing only in that some empowerment is required to practice the former. Also, recall, Ganden Mahāmudra provoked considerable controversy in the beginning, since up to that point the Gelukpas pretty consistently followed Sapan's rejection of so-called sūtra mahāmudra, and it even annoyed the Great Fifth, who was involved in an actual war with the Karma Kagyu school.

There is also the fact that you and I may mean different things by "introduction."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 9:07 PM
Title: Re: Does the Mo Divination System Require Empowerment?
Content:


Gaden_Wangchuk said:
I can see having the lung for the Manjushri mantra being useful for this system, but still can't find a definitive answer on it being required.

Malcolm wrote:
All mantras require a lung.

A friend of mine, an old student of HH Sakya Trichen, went to him for a mo. HHST went to get his dice, stopped, and asked my friend, "Do you need the dice?"


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 8:18 PM
Title: Biden is doing a great job.
Content:
Unknown said:
Has the Biden administration accomplished anything? It has created a sea change in our country, rebuilding its strength by orienting the government away from the supply-side economics that led lawmakers to protect the interests of the wealthy, and toward the far more traditional focus on building the economy by supporting regular Americans.

Malcolm wrote:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-27-2021?r=62xtc&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 10:12 AM
Title: Re: Comparison of Kagyu and Gelug schools?
Content:
tobes said:
There is an ambiguity about what Tsong Khapa thought/practiced/transmitted with respect to DI-mahamudra.

i.e. we have to make inferences based on what was written, but some things may have been transmitted as (unwritten) secret teachings. Different Gelug masters/scholars have different opinions on the question.

Malcolm wrote:
Well we don’t really, since Pabhongkha clearly states that Tsongkhapa rejected direct introduction. Are you suggesting that there is some secret teaching in Geluk Pabhongkha didn’t hold?

tobes said:
I said "different Gelug masters/scholars have different opinions on the question." Pabhongka is one - and only one - such master.

So yes, it is quite possible that there were ear whispered transmissions from TK to close disciples which were intentionally not written down/kept from wider circulation.

It is also quite possible that there weren't, and later Gelug Mahamudra masters (such as CG) moved a little from TK's explicit position.

At the end of the day, this is something no one today can really answer with much evidence.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, we have two pieces of evidence— Tsongkhapa’s own writing, and Pabhongkha’s confirmation of that position.

There is a third piece as well, Gorampa’s refutation of Tsongkhapa’s position…


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 9:26 AM
Title: Re: Comparison of Kagyu and Gelug schools?
Content:
tobes said:
There is an ambiguity about what Tsong Khapa thought/practiced/transmitted with respect to DI-mahamudra.

i.e. we have to make inferences based on what was written, but some things may have been transmitted as (unwritten) secret teachings. Different Gelug masters/scholars have different opinions on the question.

Malcolm wrote:
Well we don’t really, since Pabhongkha clearly states that Tsongkhapa rejected direct introduction. Are you suggesting that there is some secret teaching in Geluk Pabhongkha didn’t hold?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 9:12 AM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:


Sherab said:
And what is a cause which is not a thing but a convention of a cause?

Malcolm wrote:
A convention.

Sherab said:
So, a cause is a convention of a cause which is a convention of a convention of a cause ......

Malcolm wrote:
All the way down, and there is no bottom,


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 5:00 AM
Title: Re: CV Jones - The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
I disagree, it has a huge impact on how your practice today is shaped. The debates and controversies at Nalanda and Vikramashila had a huge impact on what was transmitted to Tibet, by whom, and when. Those impacts continue to resound today even here on Dharmawheel.
I’m a Shentongpa. That didn’t exist in India.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, actually it did, in the work of Ratnakāraśanti, a paṇḍita of Vikramaśila. Apart from tathāgatagarbha, which he ignored, his arguments about the ultimate existence of gnosis are taken directly  from his works by such gzhan stong scholars as Shakya Chogden, Taranatha, etc. There is also his attempt to reconcile Nāgārjuna with the Maitreyan corpus, which also inspired these gzhan stong scholars. One of his works was translated by his student, the Nepali paṇdita, Śantibhadra, complete with a colophon complaining bitterly of the annihilationism of Candrakīrti. Someone recently did a paper on this text which you can find on Academia edu.

Incidentally, you contradict your own tradition, which asserts that gzhan stong entered Tibetan through the Kashmiri Paṇḍita Sajjana, so again, an Indian paṇḍita...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 4:44 AM
Title: Re: CV Jones - The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
If my teacher is enlightened, all I care about is whatever teachings and practices he had to get that way. That’s my gold standard.

Malcolm wrote:
And how would you know he or she was "enlightened?" Because that is a big IF.

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
What they did 1,000 years ago in India is of some intellectual interest, but it’s not all that relevant to me or my practice.

Malcolm wrote:
I disagree, it has a huge impact on how your practice today is shaped. The debates and controversies at Nalanda and Vikramashila had a huge impact on what was transmitted to Tibet, by whom, and when. Those impacts continue to resound today even here on Dharmawheel. But this little diversion is

What I am referring to is that fact that subitist* tendencies are quite pronounced in Chinese Buddhism, because of the embrace of TG; whereas they are quite suppressed and reigned in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, where the TG has, with difficulty, been absorbed. The reason for this clearly is the absence of Indian influence on the one hand, and its presence on the other. Even the schools that embrace wholeheartedly the TG doctrine in Tibet are still gradualist in orientation. And most Tibetan Buddhist scholars (but not all), historically, have not paid much attention to the TG doctrine, other than polemically, and as at best a provisional teaching. And this again has everything to do with what some Indian dudes thought.

*Subitism: The application of the term "subitism" to Buddhism is derived from the French illumination subite (sudden awakening), contrasting with 'illumination graduelle' (gradual awakening). It gained currency in this use in English from the work of sinologist Paul Demiéville. His 1947 work 'Mirror of the Mind' was widely read in the U.S. It inaugurated a series by him on subitism and gradualism.[web 1][5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subitism


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 4:36 AM
Title: Re: Comparison of Kagyu and Gelug schools?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
He had to talk to Manjusri to write books.

Malcolm wrote:
More than that— his experience of awakening, according to Gelug lore, came from his sustained interactions with Mañjuśrī, first through Lama Umapa and next, through his own visionary experience.

It would be interesting to see a comparison made between the six yogas of Naropa texts he wrote with the Jigten Sumgon texts. Thubten Jinpa's bio of Tsongkhapa (well written and interesting) states that in the colophons of his Vajrayāna texts made it clear that he had realized the meaning of these teachings, before he felt comfortable setting them down in the last ten years or so of his life.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 4:24 AM
Title: Re: CV Jones - The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
…that were systematically rejected by Indian pañḍitas at the major centers of learning in India from the time of Asanga onwards.

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
While you are free to hold up this time and place as the gold standard for doctrinal purity for yourself, please understand that is not universally shared.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, there are a few people who seem to think that Indian paṇḍitas, both Madhyamaka and Yogacāra, really have no authority in their own teachings in their native language. Isn't strange that both Madhyamaka and Yogacāra systematically rejected subitism? One wonders why this would be the case. Could it possible be that it is because India is the source of Buddhadharma?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 3:18 AM
Title: Re: CV Jones - The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman
Content:
tingdzin said:
One should also take into account that Tathagatagarbha teachings (according to Williams) were much more popular in China than in India,  and may be a reflection of doctrinal approaches which began in the early centuries CE rather than indicating a continuity of such an approach from the times of Shakyamuni.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, because it played to subitist tendencies in China that were systematically rejected by Indian pañḍitas at the major centers of learning in India from the time of Asanga onwards.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 3:14 AM
Title: Re: Comparison of Kagyu and Gelug schools?
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
He learned Mahamudra from the DK lineage master.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, he learned one stream of mahāmudrā from Kagyu masters; the other, from Sakyā masters, connected with the traditions of Cakrasamvara, Kalacakra (six limb yoga), and Guhyasamāja. Mahāmudrā is common to Kagyu, Gelug, Sakya, and Jonang. No one schools "owns" mahāmudrā.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 1:48 AM
Title: Re: 48 secondary Bodhisattva downfalls
Content:
Dharmasherab said:
Could someone tell me or send me a link to the 48 secondary Bodhisattva downfalls as transmitted by Atisha, compiled by Shantideva  which is found in Siksasamuccaya.

(I have already come across the secondary Bodhisattva downfalls which comes from Asanga, so I am not searching for this one).

Malcolm wrote:
How about in the Siksasamuccaya?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 1:32 AM
Title: Re: CV Jones - The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman
Content:
Zhen Li said:
The arguments in the Laṅka with regard to TG and a self are not oppositional in my opinion because the MPNS is not positing the kind of self that the Laṅka is refuting.

Malcolm wrote:
The Lanka is claiming that the TG is just a palliative for those who are not prepared to accept emptiness, and that functionally, it is the all-basis consciousness. That seems oppositional to me, which is why the Mādhyamikas seized on that definition in the Lanka.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 12:14 AM
Title: Re: Changing tradition and Guru yoga
Content:
Vajradhara said:
Hello everyone,

I found myself changing tradition and i fear my practice of guru yoga could be weaken by this. I still keep the samayas and vows taken with my previous guru but i didn't speak about my change with them.

Do you know how to manage this situation? Should i retake the initiation with the tradition i'm following right now?

Thank you

Malcolm wrote:
Unify all gurus in one guruyoga.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 11:54 PM
Title: Re: Comparison of Kagyu and Gelug schools?
Content:


Crazywisdom said:
It's where he got instructions on the nature of mind.

Malcolm wrote:
He received instructions on the nature of mind from Sakya, Kagyu, and Nyingma teachers, but mostly, according to Geluk accounts, from Mañjuśrī in person. Also, Tsongkhapa rejected direct introduction.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 10:35 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Then there’s the whole “Godhead” thing, where there’s no idea of a creature.

Malcolm wrote:
And why should we care about such Christian foolishness?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 9:23 PM
Title: Re: Great Vegan Debate
Content:
ConfusedOne said:
The Buddha did say to kill a animal cleanly and quickly

seeker242 said:
Where does the Buddha say this?

Malcolm wrote:
The Buddha never said this, anywhere.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 8:06 PM
Title: Re: Comparison of Kagyu and Gelug schools?
Content:
Crazywisdom said:
Tsonkhapa's lama was Drikung Kagyu. So...

Malcolm wrote:
Tsongkhapa’s principle teacher was the Sakya Master, Rendawa Zhonnu Lodro, from he received Go transmission of Guhyasamaja. Tsongkhapa also studied at Drikung, where he received the Marpa transmission of Guhyasamaja as well as the six yogas of Naropa. But Tsongkhapa’s Sakya connections were sufficiently strong that in the early days, his school was called “New Sakya.” He also self-identified as a Sakyapa in several of his earlier works. To my knowledge, he never identified as A Kagyu, though he certainly had Kagyu teachers.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 11:35 AM
Title: Re: The History behind the transition from Adi-Buddha Samantabhadra to Vajradhara
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Actually, the Guyhasamaja -- the root tantra of the so-called father tantra's of the Yoga-niruttara Tantra class -- it is Vajradhara.
So,you’ve read the Guhyasamaja? In Tibetan or Sanskrit? I’ll provide the citation tomorrow.
Samantabhadra as a name of the dharmakȳa occurs 10 times in the Guhasamāja; Vajradhara, 14 times.

Also both names appear in the Mañjuśrīnamasamgiti.

The name Samantbhadra also appears Sandhivyakarana explanatory tantra:

Immaculately pure by nature,
the mind is Samantabhadra.

And in the Vajramala Explanatory tantra:

The supreme basis of all bliss,
the nature of all things, 
this is explained to be Samantabhadra.

And:

Vajra is Vajrasattva, 
Vajrabhairava, Iśvara,
Heruka, Kālacakra, 
Adibuddha, Mahāmuni, 
Samantabhadra, Mañjuśrī...

And in the Compendium of Principles of All Tathāgatas it is also said:

Samantabhdra is the nature of all,
the lord of all migrating beings of the desire realm.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 10:17 AM
Title: Re: The History behind the transition from Adi-Buddha Samantabhadra to Vajradhara
Content:


SubduerOfNegativity said:
Vajradhara, as depicted in Sakya and Geluk, demonstrates the so-called seven limbs of the three kāyas, which is the result of the fourth empowerment and represents realization of mahāmudrā. The source of this presentation is the Jñānavajrasammucaya Tantra.

The simplest way to explains this is that the limb of the dharmakāya is naturelessness, or lack of inherent existence (rang bzhin med pa); the three limbs of the sambhogakāya are complete enjoyment, union, and great bliss; and the three limbs of the nirmanakāya are being filled with compassion, not being interrupted, and never ceasing. Sometimes the limbs of not being interrupted or ceasing is placed with the dharmakāya.

There is no "transition" from Samantabhadra to Vajradhara. Samantabhadra is the name given to the dharmakāya in the root tantra of yoga tantra, the Compendium of the Principles of the Tathāgatas as well as the Guhyasamāja Tantra, the root tantra of the so-called father tantras in highest yoga tantra.

Malcolm wrote:
Thanks for you reply, Malcolm!

Actually, the Guyhasamaja -- the root tantra of the so-called father tantra's of the Yoga-niruttara Tantra class -- it is Vajradhara.  [/quote]

So,you’ve read the Guhyasamaja? In Tibetan or Sanskrit? I’ll provide the citation tomorrow.




SubduerOfNegativity said:
And I've read the Compedium of Principles of the Tathagatas, and it is (Maha)Vairocana who takes the central role…

Malcolm wrote:
How do you explain this  citation then?

I, Samantabhadra, have no form,
But exhibit the form of a bodhisattva 
To teach bodhisattvas.

SubduerOfNegativity said:
Just looking for some more accurate and detailed information about how in the evolution of Indian Buddhism, Buddha Vajradhāra gradually displaced Samantabhadra, who is the 'Primordial Buddha'

Malcolm wrote:
The Guhyasamaja was first translated during the imperial period.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 10:06 AM
Title: Re: Awareness, and consciousness, (rig pa) ... oh my!
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
There needs to be an established word-for-word English language standard for translating Sanskrit /Pali/Tibetan concepts.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, in a hundred years or so.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 5:17 AM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:


Sherab said:
A convention of what?

Malcolm wrote:
A cause.

Sherab said:
And what is a cause which is not a thing but a convention of a cause?

Malcolm wrote:
A convention.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 4:33 AM
Title: Re: Who can give Refuge?
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
The better question is; what kind of ‘refuge’ is being offered? In English, ’refuge’ implies safety from danger. Obviously simply becoming a Buddhist does not guarantee that bad things will not happen to you.

So what are we even talking about?

KathyLauren said:
The way it was explained to me was that Refuge means "refuge from suffering".  Taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha means acknowledging that only those three things, and nothing else, can free one from suffering.  Looking elsewhere for refuge from suffering is futile and is breaking the spirit of one's Refuge Vow.

Om mani padme hum
Kathy

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Years ago a lady I knew that was entirely devoted to Kagyu Dharma died in a house fire. My personal understanding of Refuge has had to include that information. So you can see why I ask such questions.

Malcolm wrote:
Everyone who goes for refuge will die, somehow. The question you have to ask, is "Did she go to lower realms after she died?"


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 2:32 AM
Title: Re: Awareness, and consciousness, (rig pa) ... oh my!
Content:



Arnoud said:
Could you share that please? Thank you.

Malcolm wrote:
Sure, Smṛtijñanakīrti, in his Commentary on the Bodhcittavivarana remarks that svasaṃvedana (so so rang rig), often translated as self-awareness, etc., simply refers to sensations that one has that one is unable to communicate with others. He defines it in this in contrast to the svasaṃvedana proposed by cittamantrins, as self-aware aspectless consciousness.


Arnoud said:
Thanks. Is your translation of that forthcoming?

Malcolm wrote:
No, just part of my reading.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 2:16 AM
Title: Re: Who can give Refuge?
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
The better question is; what kind of ‘refuge’ is being offered? In English, ’refuge’ implies safety from danger. Obviously simply becoming a Buddhist does not guarantee that bad things will not happen to you.

So what are we even talking about?

Josef said:
According to Tsongkhapa the initial protection is from the three lower realms and eventually all six realms of samsara. This is the refuge we seek as dharma practitioners.

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
This can either mean that:
1. having accepted proper guidance, we no longer act in such a wa so as to have the result of being born in the lower realms. Or,
2. it could mean active intervention on the part of the 3 Jewels to prohibit experiencing the 3 lower realms. Or,
3. both.

Malcolm wrote:
It is option one. The merit of taking refuge is what prevents one from going to lower realms. However, if you don't sincerely observe the commitments of refuge to the best of your ability, then all bets are off.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 2:06 AM
Title: Re: Happy Belated Thanksgiving
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
November 24, 2021
Heather Cox Richardson Nov 25

The Biden administration has announced it will convene the first of two virtual “Summits for Democracy” on December 9 and 10, 2021. The gatherings will bring together leaders from 110 countries who work in government, civil society, and the private sector, to come up with an agenda to renew democratic government and work together to keep the ideals of democracy strong.

Authoritarianism is growing around the world, including in America, and the administration is hoping to create practical ideas and strong alliances to defend against authoritarianism, fight corruption, and promote human rights, all values central to democracy.

That this announcement comes at Thanksgiving is fitting, since Thanksgiving is rooted in a defense of democracy during the Civil War.

The Pilgrims and the Wampanoags did indeed share a harvest celebration together at Plymouth in fall 1621, but that moment got forgotten almost immediately, overwritten by the long history of the settlers’ attacks on their Indigenous neighbors.

In 1841, a book that reprinted the early diaries and letters from the Plymouth colony recovered the story of that three-day celebration in which ninety Indigenous Americans and the English settlers shared fowl and deer. This story of peace and goodwill among men who by the 1840s were more often enemies than not inspired Sarah Josepha Hale, who edited the popular women’s magazine Godey’s Lady's Book, to think that a national celebration could ease similar tensions building between the slave-holding South and the free North. She lobbied for legislation to establish a day of national thanksgiving.

And then, on April 12, 1861, southern soldiers fired on Fort Sumter, a federal fort in Charleston Harbor, and the meaning of a holiday for giving thanks changed.

Southern leaders wanted to destroy the United States of America and create their own country, based not in the traditional American idea that “all men are created equal,” but rather in its opposite: that some men were better than others and had the right to enslave their neighbors. In the 1850s, convinced that society worked best if a few wealthy men ran it, southern leaders had bent the laws of the United States to their benefit, using it to protect enslavement above all.

In 1860, northerners elected Abraham Lincoln to the presidency to stop rich southern enslavers from taking over the government and using it to cement their own wealth and power. As soon as he was elected, southern leaders pulled their states out of the Union to set up their own country. After the firing on Fort Sumter, Lincoln and the fledgling Republican Party set out to end the slaveholders’ rebellion.

The early years of the war did not go well for the U.S. By the end of 1862, the armies still held, but people on the home front were losing faith. Leaders recognized the need both to acknowledge the suffering and to keep Americans loyal to the cause. In November and December, seventeen state governors declared state thanksgiving holidays.

New York Governor Edwin Morgan’s widely reprinted proclamation about the holiday reflected that the previous year “is numbered among the dark periods of history, and its sorrowful records are graven on many hearthstones.” But this was nonetheless a time for giving thanks, he wrote, because “the precious blood shed in the cause of our country will hallow and strengthen our love and our reverence for it and its institutions…. Our Government and institutions placed in jeopardy have brought us to a more just appreciation of their value.”

The next year Lincoln got ahead of the state proclamations. On July 15, he declared a national day of Thanksgiving, and the relief in his proclamation was almost palpable. After two years of disasters, the Union army was finally winning. Bloody, yes; battered, yes; but winning. At Gettysburg in early July, Union troops had sent Confederates reeling back southward. Then, on July 4, Vicksburg had finally fallen to U. S. Grant’s army. The military tide was turning.

President Lincoln set Thursday, August 6, 1863, for the national day of Thanksgiving. On that day, ministers across the country listed the signal victories of the U.S. Army and Navy in the past year and reassured their congregations that it was only a matter of time until the United States government put down the southern rebellion. Their predictions acknowledged the dead and reinforced the idea that their sacrifice had not been in vain.

In October 1863, President Lincoln declared a second national day of Thanksgiving. In the past year, he declared, the nation had been blessed.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, he wrote, Americans had maintained their laws and their institutions and had kept foreign countries from meddling with their nation. They had paid for the war as they went, refusing to permit the destruction to cripple the economy. Instead, as they funded the war, they had also advanced farming, industry, mining, and shipping. Immigrants had poured into the country to replace men lost on the battlefield, and the economy was booming. And Lincoln had recently promised that the government would end slavery once and for all. The country, he predicted, “with a large increase of freedom,” would survive, stronger and more prosperous than ever. The president invited Americans “in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands” to observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving.

In 1863, November’s last Thursday fell on the 26th. On November 19, Lincoln delivered an address at the dedication of a national cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He reached back to the Declaration of Independence for the principles on which he called for Americans to rebuild the severed nation:

​​”Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Lincoln urged the crowd to take up the torch those who fought at Gettysburg had laid down. He called for them to “highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The following year, Lincoln proclaimed another day of Thanksgiving, this time congratulating Americans that God had favored them not only with immigration but also with the emancipation of formerly enslaved people. “Moreover,” Lincoln wrote, “He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions.”

In 1861, Americans went to war to keep a cabal from taking control of the government and turning it into an oligarchy. The fight against that rebellion seemed at first to be too much for the nation to survive. But Americans rallied and threw their hearts into the cause on the battlefields even as they continued to work on the home front for a government that defended democracy and equality before the law.

And they won.

My best to you all for Thanksgiving 2021.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-24-2021


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 1:07 AM
Title: Re: Who can give Refuge?
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
The better question is; what kind of ‘refuge’ is being offered? In English, ’refuge’ implies safety from danger. Obviously simply becoming a Buddhist does not guarantee that bad things will not happen to you.

Malcolm wrote:
If you maintain your refuge commitments, the likelihood of "bad things" happening to you decreases, even more so if you generate bodhicitta.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 27th, 2021 at 1:00 AM
Title: Re: Awareness, and consciousness, (rig pa) ... oh my!
Content:



PadmaVonSamba said:
If you are dreaming, you are asleep but not unconscious.
This is why I say that there is awareness which precedes consciousness (Malcolm disagrees).

Malcolm wrote:
That’s because awareness, sensation, is just a mental factor that arises with consciousness. I recently read a brilliant take down of so-called self awareness where is it is explained that rig pa aka awareness ividya) is just a name for sensation (vedana).

Arnoud said:
Could you share that please? Thank you.

Malcolm wrote:
Sure, Smṛtijñanakīrti, in his Commentary on the Bodhcittavivarana remarks that svasaṃvedana (so so rang rig), often translated as self-awareness, etc., simply refers to sensations that one has that one is unable to communicate with others. He defines it in this in contrast to the svasaṃvedana proposed by cittamantrins, as self-aware aspectless consciousness.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 26th, 2021 at 8:21 AM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:
Sherab said:
If a cause if not a thing, what is it?

Malcolm wrote:
A convention.

Sherab said:
A convention of what?

Malcolm wrote:
A cause.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 26th, 2021 at 2:42 AM
Title: Re: Awareness, and consciousness, (rig pa) ... oh my!
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
If you are unconscious, you are not aware of anything.
But you can be conscious and not aware of many things.

conebeckham said:
IF you are unconscious, can you dream?  If so, what sort of awareness is aware of the dream while you are unconscious?

If you are sleeping, and a sudden loud noise startles you awake, what awareness was there, to wake you from your unconscious state?

PadmaVonSamba said:
If you are dreaming, you are asleep but not unconscious.
This is why I say that there is awareness which precedes consciousness (Malcolm disagrees).

Malcolm wrote:
That’s because awareness, sensation, is just a mental factor that arises with consciousness. I recently read a brilliant take down of so-called self awareness where is it is explained that rig pa aka awareness ividya) is just a name for sensation (vedana).


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 25th, 2021 at 9:17 PM
Title: Re: Extinction as a result of global warming
Content:
Dharmasherab said:
There is no point trying to defile our minds when this rare human life can be used for transcending suffering by practicing the BuddhaDharma. Trying to create a better Samsara is a pointless exercise.

Malcolm wrote:
What happened to your Mahāyāna bodhicitta? Of course we cannot improve samsara. No one is suggesting that we ought to. We work with the samsara we have. And as Mahāyāna Buddhists, we help others work with the samsara they have, right down to the amoeba, plankton, and yes, even plants and other nonsentient creatures.

Dharmasherab said:
Expecting politicians to make help with the global warming issue, whether that works or not, it doesnt matter. Because politics will eventually always let us down.

Malcolm wrote:
What you are essentially saying is this: since climate change does not matter, the extinction of billions of creatures does not matter, and therefore, their happiness does not matter.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 25th, 2021 at 8:01 PM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:
Sherab said:
If a cause if not a thing, what is it?

Malcolm wrote:
A convention.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 25th, 2021 at 9:46 AM
Title: Re: Question about dependent origination
Content:
Rick said:
In Chapter 1 of the MMK, Nagarjuna appears to argue against <a certain understanding of> causality. But he never argues against dependent origination, quite the contrary: emptiness and dependent origination are definitive teachings.

So, Nagarjunaphiles, if causality is kaput, how in tarnation does dependent arising work?

(Feel free to correct all my misstatements and chastise me for my ignorance.)

Malcolm wrote:
Nothing arises from itself, other, or without a cause…


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 25th, 2021 at 5:05 AM
Title: Re: The History behind the transition from Adi-Buddha Samantabhadra to Vajradhara
Content:
SubduerOfNegativity said:
I've read in one of my teachers books, like you said, that Vajradhara is the Sambhogakaya acspect of Dharmakaya Samantabhadra, but I practice in the Nyingma lineage and this is a Nyingma view(Samantabhadra shown without the adornments to emphasis the naked-like, pure, openness of Dharmakaya); whereas in the Sarma schools, Vajradhara is the Dharmakaya(for the most part in most cases).

Malcolm wrote:
Vajradhara, as depicted in Sakya and Geluk, demonstrates the so-called seven limbs of the three kāyas, which is the result of the fourth empowerment and represents realization of mahāmudrā. The source of this presentation is the Jñānavajrasammucaya Tantra.

The simplest way to explains this is that the limb of the dharmakāya is naturelessness, or lack of inherent existence (rang bzhin med pa); the three limbs of the sambhogakāya are complete enjoyment, union, and great bliss; and the three limbs of the nirmanakāya are being filled with compassion, not being interrupted, and never ceasing. Sometimes the limbs of not being interrupted or ceasing is placed with the dharmakāya.

There is no "transition" from Samantabhadra to Vajradhara. Samantabhadra is the name given to the dharmakāya in the root tantra of yoga tantra, the Compendium of the Principles of the Tathāgatas as well as the Guhyasamāja Tantra, the root tantra of the so-called father tantras in highest yoga tantra.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 25th, 2021 at 1:43 AM
Title: Re: Awareness, and consciousness, (rig pa) ... oh my!
Content:
Rick said:
Understood. Makes sense. I read somewhere that Tibetan had as many terms for consciousness as, well, you know, Eskimos have for snow.

Malcolm wrote:
Not really.

Rick said:
I'd come to think of the term awareness, as used in Buddhist contexts, to have little to nothing to do with awareness as used in Vedanta. Lo and behold, in the Mingyur Rinpoche meditation course I'm taking, the two views on awareness are very similar! Awareness in both points to clarity, radiance, cognizance, and always-present shining brightness.

Malcolm wrote:
The difference is emptiness, of course. RIg pa is baseless, without foundation, and empty.

Madhyamaka focuses on the outer objects, which are not sentient. Vajrayāna in general focuses on the subjective mind. Its cognizance (rig pa) clear, present, radiant, etc. But it's emptiness is the same emptiness as outer objects.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 25th, 2021 at 12:51 AM
Title: Re: Awareness, and consciousness, (rig pa) ... oh my!
Content:
Rick said:
Given the subtle to gargantuan differences in how different Buddhist schools translate/interpret the terms awareness and consciousness, how does a student of Buddhism, rather than of one particular school of Buddhism, avoid getting heinously confused? I.e. is there universal agreement across all of Buddhism about the essence, or certain aspects of the two terms? Or is looking for agreement a fool's errand?

Malcolm wrote:
The terms "awareness" and "consciousness" are English terms. Therefore, one needs to look at the word list of equivalents to see which Sanskrit or Tibetan terms are being used for these two English terms, and their context. At that point, you can make useful comparisons and contrasts.

For example, you will be hard pressed to find the term "awareness" used at all in my translations.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 24th, 2021 at 11:15 PM
Title: Re: The Yogis of Tibet
Content:


heart said:
Nevertheless the oldest known yoga text is a Buddhist text. Amritasiddhi was for a long time thought to be a Hindu text but it turned out that the oldest original is Buddhist. Mallison is a scholar of yoga and a Hindu yogi (so you can trust him ).
Anyway, it isn't "my argument" it is in the hand of scholars at this point.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, if you exclude the Yoga Sūtras. But even this text is clearly a reaction to Buddhism.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 24th, 2021 at 11:06 PM
Title: Re: Citations regarding the Alaya
Content:
Seeker12 said:
I'm interested in primary, or as close to primary, citations regarding whether there is a singular alaya that contains the seeds for all beings

Malcolm wrote:
There are no citations for this at all.

If you want to understand the ālayavijñāna in a proper way, you should read the Mahāyānasamgraha of Asanga, where he explains how common appearances among sentient beings arise from each one's ālaya; as well as Vasubandhu's proof of distinct mindstreams in absence of outer objects.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 24th, 2021 at 10:59 PM
Title: Re: Does learning Lamrim Chenmo mean you've learn the other Lamrim by other TB sects as well?
Content:
zerwe said:
Not to mention we are forgetting the root text for the sarma schools later literature--> Atisha's Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment.

Malcolm wrote:
No, we didn't.

https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?p=609202#p609202


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 24th, 2021 at 10:53 PM
Title: Re: Refuge from the view of Dhammapada
Content:
Aemilius said:
In the beginning period of Buddhism that wasn't always so formalized.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, and then ordination rites were fixed by various sanghas later, with various procedures which differ from sect to sect.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 24th, 2021 at 3:25 AM
Title: Re: The Yogis of Tibet
Content:
clyde said:
Is this yogic practice unique or are the other similar Tibetan Buddhist “secret practices”? Is this yogic practice performed by only a few adepts or is it generally practiced?

Malcolm wrote:
Generally practiced. Tibetan Buddhism is, more than anything else, a yogic tradition.

Scholasticism is the exoteric side, which is why one sees it more than the other.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 24th, 2021 at 3:22 AM
Title: Re: Skillful living
Content:
Rick said:
What's a skillful way to live in an era of profound political/social/cultural division and (ever increasing) violence?

Malcolm wrote:
Avoid people with whom you disagree and who you find disagreeable.

Archie2009 said:
I've been living by that principle for a long time now, but it can leave you very isolated. No regrets, though.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, that's why we have Dharmawheel, so we can enjoy disagreeable people at a distance with whom we disagree, who at least more or less have the same view we do.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 24th, 2021 at 2:59 AM
Title: Re: Skillful living
Content:
Rick said:
What's a skillful way to live in an era of profound political/social/cultural division and (ever increasing) violence?

Malcolm wrote:
Avoid people with whom you disagree and who you find disagreeable.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 24th, 2021 at 1:59 AM
Title: Re: Does learning Lamrim Chenmo mean you've learn the other Lamrim by other TB sects as well?
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
Thanks, makes sense.

Malcolm wrote:
For this reason, The Sakyapa Three Appearances and the Three Tantras literature belong to the "stages of the path" rather than "the stages of the doctrine." WOMPT and my forthcoming translation (late 2022?) of the Sakya Ngondro text also belong here.

Johnny Dangerous said:
Which Ngondro text are you translating, the one by Deshung Rinpoche? That’s the only one I’m familiar with.

Malcolm wrote:
It is a commentary by Khenchen Ngalo, HH Sakya Trichen's first tutor, on the preliminary practices in connection with Hevajra, Vajrayogini, Tsembupa's Avalokiteśvara system, and Vajrabhairava, which covers the common foundations, and contains instructions for how to adapt the uncommon recitations to each of these systems, refuge, Vajrasattva, Mandala, Guru Yoga, etc. The basic text is about 300 folios, so roughly six hundred pages long when published in English.

Dezhung Tulku's Ngondro text was composed much later, in the US. This book is not a commentary on that, though can be applied to that text too.

Johnny Dangerous said:
Sorry, WOMPT and your translation belong where? Path of doctrine?

Malcolm wrote:
Lamrim.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 24th, 2021 at 12:36 AM
Title: Re: Tiantai three truths and Tibetan Madhyamaka
Content:
Dharmalight889 said:
Is there any relation between the two here (for example do any of the Tibetan schools teaching something similar to the three truths)? Or are the three truths something only found in Tiantai? I know there are a lot of Madhyamaka texts in Tibet so I am curious if any of the Tibetan schools teaching something similar.

Malcolm wrote:
No, they don't. The Buddha only taught two truths, there isn't a third, as far as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism goes.


[Mod note 2024: The thread continues here :] https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?p=691485#p691485


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 24th, 2021 at 12:06 AM
Title: Re: Who can give Refuge?
Content:



Malcolm wrote:
Anyone who has has Mahayana refuge vows, and understands the procedure for bestowing refuge vows, can bestow refuge vows. There is no special qualification needed other than that one’s own refuge is intact.

The question is, does one really wish to be granting such vows?

Toenail said:
Why is this the question? What responsibility etc comes with giving someone refuge vows?

KonchogUrgyenNyima said:
I also would love to know what acharya means here. Can we also bestow the bodhisattva vow? are there any qualifications around this besides the bestower’s own vows being intact?

Malcolm wrote:
One has to know how to properly conduct the rite. If one bestows refuge vows and bodhisattva vows there is no particular responsibility, but I think it can become kind of an ego trip. Even some Tibetan Lamas will incorrectly claim that having bestowed refuge, now the student has samaya with that teacher and so on. I just think it is better to encourage people to receive refuge and bodhisattva vows from qualified lamas, preferably lineage heads, and among those, bhikṣus like HH Dalai Lama are preferable to upasākas. One should recall that among vajramasters, a bhiḳsu with intact vows is supreme, according to Kalacakra. On the other hand, though this is ideal, life is short, and if one does not want to use the rite of administering refuge and bodhisattva vows to oneself, then any qualified teacher who is willing to give them will do.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 at 11:56 PM
Title: Re: Does learning Lamrim Chenmo mean you've learn the other Lamrim by other TB sects as well?
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
Thanks, makes sense.

Malcolm wrote:
For this reason, The Sakyapa Three Appearances and the Three Tantras literature belong to the "stages of the path" rather than "the stages of the doctrine." WOMPT and my forthcoming translation (late 2022?) of the Sakya Ngondro text also belong here.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 at 10:58 PM
Title: Re: Does learning Lamrim Chenmo mean you've learn the other Lamrim by other TB sects as well?
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
Sakya: Three Visions/Three Levels of Spiritual Perception

Nyingma: Words of My Perfect Teacher

Sherab Rigdrol said:
I wouldn’t consider WOMPT a Lam Rim text.

For Nyingma either Jigme Lingpa’s Treasury of Precious Qualities or The Light of Wisdom.

Johnny Dangerous said:
Why, is it not graduated enough? Perhaps I have always misunderstood the formal use of the actual term.

I was thinking more in general terms of "preliminaries" and assumed the question was asked in that regard, not in the technical sense of being or not being Lamrim literature formally.

If we are doing that then for I think for Sakya it's maybe Clarifying the Sage Intent, but IMO it's tougher reading than the others.

Malcolm wrote:
Technically, Sapan and Gampopa's texts are "stages of the doctrine" (bstan rim) rather than "stages of the path" (lam rim).

The former are based on Maitreya's Ornament of Mahāyāna Sutras, which begin with the discussion of gotra, or inclination for awakening and conclude with a discussion of the three kāyas. The latter are based on Atisha's Lamp of the Path of Awakening, begins with a discussion of the qualities of the teacher and conclude with a discussion of śamatha and vipaśyāna and the desirability of practicing Vajrayāna.  This is how one discerns the distinction between these two genres of texts.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 at 8:23 PM
Title: Re: Taking Refuge formally
Content:
chokyi lodro said:
Would I need to formally take Refuge again?  Is there some act of purification that ought to be done to mend breaking that promise?

Malcolm wrote:
You can recite the sutra of three heaps.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 at 7:44 PM
Title: Re: Refuge from the view of Dhammapada
Content:
Aemilius said:
OK. I intended it [mod note: the quote from Dhammapada - https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?p=608961#p608961] as an answer that it is your own self who attains Refuge by realizing the Four noble truths, i.e. by following and realizing the Dharma. According to Buddha any member of the Sangha can teach you the Dharma. In the Sravakayana sutras even a laywoman can act as a teacher, as in the case of the lay-woman Visakha, who converted her father-in-law, wealthy merchant Migara, into Buddhism. Thereafter she was called "Migara's mother", being his "mother" in the spiritual sense, because she had caused Migara's spiritual birth in Buddhism.

Malcolm wrote:
But in Shravakayana, not everyone can perform the rite of ordaining a male or female upasaka, only a bhikshu can do this. In Mahayana, however this restriction does not apply.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 at 10:22 AM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
hmmmm...I prefer being gutted with a katana to being gut shot with the 12 gauge, etc.

PeterC said:
That depends on a number of factors.  You could live on for a reasonable amount of time in a lot of pain with both of those.  If it was a katana, and not a tanto, then by definition you're in combat and not committing seppuku, so there isn't a second waiting to decapitate you before you dishonor yourself by crying out.  Since you're in combat, there's a reasonable chance that your opponent will follow up with a lethal blow pretty quickly.  However with the shotgun, it depends a bit on whether its sawn off or not.  If it is, then it just blows a big hole in you and you probably die as quickly as if disemboweled by a katana. But if it's not sawn off, and the pellets exit the barrel in a spread, you could live in agony for a day or so after the injury - perhaps even survive if you happened to get shot right outside a hospital and weren't hit at close range.  But in any case your assailant is using a two-shot weapon, so it's most likely that they will run away rather than administering a prompt coup de grace.

This is why cross-cultural comparisons are so different, there are so many social factors that are hard to correlate directly.

Malcolm wrote:
It’s all pretty bad..that’s my point.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 at 5:51 AM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:


Queequeg said:
My point is that we have these raw impulses as human beings that are then processed through our culture

Malcolm wrote:
I don't think it has anything to with Anglo-Saxons. I would blame for the Normans for that.


Queequeg said:
Typical Anglo response: blame it on the French.

Malcolm wrote:
Sure, the Anglo Saxons lost of control of England in 1066 at the battle of Hastings. Anglo-Saxon language and customs under the Norman Yoke:

Norman saw on English oak.
On English neck a Norman yoke;
Norman spoon to English dish,
And England ruled as Normans wish;
Blithe world in England never will be more,
Till England's rid of all the four.

-- Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 at 5:33 AM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:


Queequeg said:
My point is that we have these raw impulses as human beings that are then processed through our culture

Malcolm wrote:
I don't think it has anything to with Anglo-Saxons. I would blame for the Normans for that.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 at 3:45 AM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
Brunelleschi said:
Fair enough. I just mean that there seems to be some inherent qualities to (the current) Japanese society that inhibits violent tendencies in people. As opposed to say the UK or the US.

Malcolm wrote:
After their adventure with colonialism, they got nuked. I would say that was the major influence on Japanese culture in terms of externalizing violence. Now they just internalize it in child pornography and rape fantasies in cartoon books.

Brunelleschi said:
I see the common trope of Japanese people being perverted as more of a racist stereotype.

Malcolm wrote:
I did not say they were more perverse, I am just using this as example of internalized violence and repression.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 at 3:35 AM
Title: Re: Tibetan words for "look, see, release"
Content:
climb-up said:
Hello lovely folks,

In his teachings on trekchod, Lama Surya Das often gives the instructions to look, see and then release. Sometimes he also says to open, recognize and release.
I don't know how direct these translations are (for example, I know that he often translates the chogshaks as 'the four droppings' ), but I'm curious if anyone knows the tibetan word for these.

Malcolm wrote:
ngo shes, rtogs pa, grol ba.

Recognize, realize, release.

climb-up said:
I don't know how direct these translations are (for example, I know that he often translates the chogshaks as 'the four droppings' ), but I'm curious if anyone knows the tibetan word for these.

Malcolm wrote:
cog bzhag, literally, "put down and leave." They refer to the method of equipoise (bzhags thabs) in Dzogchen trekchö. They may be an ancient translation of the term "samāpatti" (snyoms par 'jug).


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 at 2:28 AM
Title: Re: Restoring Broken Five Lay Precepts
Content:
Denam said:
Perhaps you could suggest a specific practice that will allow me to restore the five precepts that have been broken?

Malcolm wrote:
You can recite the Sutra of Three Heaps:

https://sakyatemple.org/how-to-recite-the-three-heap-sutra/


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 at 1:22 AM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
And just for some historical parallel, ‘keeping the peace’ or acting as ‘security’ at political rallies, etc. is how the SA got started...

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, the same with the "Blackshirts" or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squadrismo in Italy. Ironically, the blackshirts were originally the garb of the anarchists.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 at 1:19 AM
Title: Re: Restoring Broken Five Lay Precepts
Content:
Denam said:
Is it possible to restore the Five Lay Precepts if they have been broken?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, you just recite the refuge again. If you feel really terrible, recite the aspiration of the conduct of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 11:59 PM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:


Johnny Dangerous said:
Proto-fascists have been waiting for years to shoot protesters. My little podunk town had doughy dipshit 40-something on top of liquor stores with AR 15s.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, the rise of paramilitaries is consistent with a breakdown of democracy.

https://scholars.org/contribution/twenty-lessons-fighting-tyranny-twentieth-century

Johnny Dangerous said:
6. Be wary of paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.

Malcolm wrote:
For example, no one arrested Rittenhouse.

Johnny Dangerous said:
This kid went out with an AR 15 with at least some idea that he might use it, and he did, and to some degree was vindicated in doing so. That’s an escalation to our already fraught situation.

Malcolm wrote:
He was completely vindicated in the eyes of the far right.

Johnny Dangerous said:
So I am not even talking the veracity of the verdict, just the significance of this happening and the likely result, it’s not hard to guess.

Malcolm wrote:
Indeed.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 11:04 PM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
Brunelleschi said:
Fair enough. I just mean that there seems to be some inherent qualities to (the current) Japanese society that inhibits violent tendencies in people. As opposed to say the UK or the US.

Malcolm wrote:
After their adventure with colonialism, they got nuked. I would say that was the major influence on Japanese culture in terms of externalizing violence. Now they just internalize it in child pornography and rape fantasies in cartoon books.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 10:32 PM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:


Brunelleschi said:
There's far less crime and violence in Japan than there is in the US. How does this not express a difference in culture?


Malcolm wrote:
I was making a comment about essentialization.

QQ was not making a quantitative argument, he was making a qualitative argument, "malicious and cruel." Cruelty and malice are cruelty and malice, no matter whether they are spiced with salt and pepper, seaweed and soy, or a hundred different chiles. Victims of cruelty and malice don't really care much about the culture of those being malicious and cruel to them, hmmmm...I prefer being gutted with a katana to being gut shot with the 12 gauge, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 10:25 PM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
Queequeg said:
I was just expressing opinions that I have no intention of standing by.



Malcolm wrote:
Good Dharmawheel.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 9:58 PM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
Queequeg said:
There is no living memory of war permeating our society

Malcolm wrote:
In your generation. Our government sanitized war. They decided after the debacles in Korea and Vietnam they were not going to allow full media access to war zones anymore.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 9:53 PM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
Queequeg said:
Anglo-Saxon culture has a malicious, callous edge to it...

Malcolm wrote:
Uhuh. Unlike Japanese culture, I suppose.

Queequeg said:
I didn't make any such distinction. Its got a different flavor in Japan. Brutality of samurai is qualitatively different. What, are you feeling picked on? Thought you were above that kind of identity.

Malcolm wrote:
I think you can pick any Colonial power and make the same statement. That was my point. Imperial Japan in the 1920's and 30's, with their fondness for Prussia, was also malicious and callous.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 9:37 PM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
Queequeg said:
Anglo-Saxon culture has a malicious, callous edge to it...

Malcolm wrote:
Uhuh. Unlike Japanese culture, I suppose.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 9:24 PM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
Queequeg said:
A bunch of kids, overwhelmingly white, lined up according to their political ideologies...Nothing has changed. Its not open season on protesters.

Malcolm wrote:
Protesting police violence against black people is just a rumble? White people are not supposed to protest violence against black people? That's just ideology? Sheesh.

Yes, actually, the rules have now changed. White men with guns can shoot unarmed protestors if they feel threatened. You are going to see a lot more guns on both sides now.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 8:08 PM
Title: Re: Doubts on Samaya and Empowerment
Content:



Malcolm wrote:
This is a kriya tantra practice. It only comes with refuge and bodhisattva vows.

LucasGP said:
And this practice also produces good results and it's a way to start on Vajrayana, even if don't have a guru yet?

Malcolm wrote:
You have a guru, HHST.  And yes, this practice is a way to begun in Vajrayana. What you don’t have are samaya vows of highest yoga tantra.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 6:36 AM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
Svalaksana said:
The American society is fed on violence and only the banality of it prevents one from acknowledging the effects.

Malcolm wrote:
Let's be fair here: violence has been the centre of human entertainment for untold millenia.

Svalaksana said:
Surely. But can one compare watching one day or another some gladiators cutting each other up or some presumed witches and heretics burning at the stake with what we have today?

Malcolm wrote:
Oh definitely. And it was worse back in the day. Sociopaths ran rampant, no laws, etc. Angulimala would not really be possible in America in this day and age.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 5:39 AM
Title: Re: Who can give Refuge?
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
There's Guru Yoga in this life, and there's Guru Yoga in the Bardo. Except for the venue they really aren't very different. If your practice of Guru Yoga is strong during life there's no reason it will disappear in the Bardo.

I suspect our ideas of what Guru Yoga entails may be different.

Malcolm wrote:
Probably not.

Sure, one can practice guru yoga in the bardo, but that is not the "guru following you into the bardo." This is a result of your presence of mind which allows you to practice guru yoga in the bardo, and I agree, this is a result of practicing guru yoga in this life with strong diligence and devotion.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 5:25 AM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
Svalaksana said:
The American society is fed on violence and only the banality of it prevents one from acknowledging the effects.

Malcolm wrote:
Let's be fair here: violence has been the centre of human entertainment for untold millenia.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 5:18 AM
Title: Re: Where are the enlightened Westerners?
Content:
PeterC said:
If you aren’t a bodhisattva on the stages yourself, you can’t tell another practitioner’s level of achievement.

Malcolm wrote:
Indeed.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 4:22 AM
Title: Re: Doubts on Samaya and Empowerment
Content:
Toenail said:
I received this gangi lodro from hhst 10 years ago and it was not just Lung. He called it an empowerment and it worked with front visualization.

Malcolm wrote:
This technically then a rig gtad, an entrustment of a vidyā mantra, and as it is kriya tantra, it has no samayas, just refuge and bodhicitta vows.

LucasGP said:
self generate as Manjushri, only in front of us. At least I thought that the sadhana and etc wouldn't characterize as only part of the prayer, but I really don't know s*** so...

Malcolm wrote:
This is a kriya tantra practice. It only comes with refuge and bodhisattva vows.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 21st, 2021 at 11:57 PM
Title: Re: Who can give Refuge?
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
My Kagyu Lama said that in order to REALLY give Refuge you have to be able to follow someone's consciousness into the Bardo.
I don't think that happens very often though.

Malcolm wrote:
This is just an opinion. This is not stated anywhere in sutra.

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Correct.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, the problem with this idea is that guru can’t do anything for you in the bardo, other than recite some prayers and maybe recite the bardo thodrol for you, which you may or may not be aware of in the blooming buzzing confusion of the bardo. If the guru could not pick you up by the neck and liberate you in this life, what makes you think they can do so in bardo? If you’ve received Vajrayana teachings, and you experience the bardo, it’s your fault for not practicing hard enough.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 21st, 2021 at 11:11 PM
Title: Re: Who can give Refuge?
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
My Kagyu Lama said that in order to REALLY give Refuge you have to be able to follow someone's consciousness into the Bardo.
I don't think that happens very often though.

Malcolm wrote:
This is just an opinion. This is not stated anywhere in sutra.

In the shravakayana, refuge vows must be received from a fully ordained bhikshu, but they only last until death.

Mahayana refuge vows are also lost at death, but since they are connected with bodhicitta, bodhisattva vows last until one attains buddhahood, unless one gives up,the motivation for buddhahood.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 21st, 2021 at 11:08 PM
Title: Re: Who can give Refuge?
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
My Kagyu Lama said that in order to REALLY give Refuge you have to be able to follow someone's consciousness into the Bardo.
I don't think that happens very often though.

Malcolm wrote:
One can take Mahayana refuge and bodhicitta vows without a teacher. One just has to visualize the Buddha and bodhisattvas before one in space. This system is taught in the sutras.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 21st, 2021 at 10:50 PM
Title: Re: Who can give Refuge?
Content:
KonchogUrgyenNyima said:
Simple question. Who is authorized to give refuge to people? Posting in nyingma, since that is where I practice. Is this the sort of thing that varies between schools/lineages? Or is it more static?

Thanks in advance

Malcolm wrote:
Anyone who has has Mahayana refuge vows, and understands the procedure for bestowing refuge vows, can bestow refuge vows. There is no special qualification needed other than that one’s own refuge is intact.

The question is, does one really wish to be granting such vows?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 21st, 2021 at 10:42 PM
Title: Re: Doubts on Samaya and Empowerment
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
If I were you I'd just get the text and go for it. I've had a number of Initiations in the Sakya lineage and I've found they are often going to expect you have a basic background of understanding in the Mahayana, which means you might have some confusion initially if you don't. You practice, ask questions, and refine. I was taught that Bodhicitta motivation and genuine enthusiasm are the main factor.

The first few I went to were crazy affairs, monks running around frantically, seemingly everyone but me knew better was what going on, rice flying all over the place, etc. Over the years they came to mean a lot to me and especially now with Covid, I really recall them fondly. I can see that they did much for me, however confusing at the time.

At any rate, if you paid attention for any of it and are attracted to the practice, IMO it is a waste of time to worry much about whether or not you "got it", and you should just do it, but YMMV.

Nicholas2727 said:
What if someone does the practice wrong? I don't have much Vajrayana experience but if the person did not realize what they were getting into, isn't it possible they do the visualizations or mudras wrong? Or is an attempt good enough to start?

Malcolm wrote:
The attempt is good enough, if the person is sincere.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 21st, 2021 at 10:37 PM
Title: Re: Doubts on Samaya and Empowerment
Content:


LucasGP said:
Given that context, what I want to ask is: Now I need to be engaged to vajrayana because of the vows and etc?

Malcolm wrote:
No. HHST, as I understand it, just gave a reading transmission for a famous prayer to Manjushri. Thus is not an empowerment, thus is not even an initiation. As for refuge and bodhicitta, that’s for you to decide, whether you were happy to receive those vows or not. If you are not happy, then you didn’t receive them.

You are not bound by anything.

M


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 21st, 2021 at 10:17 AM
Title: Re: Birth Control Question
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Condoms are preferable to vasectomies, tubal ligations, etc., in my opinion, unless there is a pressing medical reason.

Seeker12 said:
Does “condoms are lame” count as a pressing medical reason?

Thanks.

Malcolm wrote:
Ummm, no. Unless you are ok with having children.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 21st, 2021 at 9:43 AM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
Svalaksana said:
You are correct. The American culture unfortunately is thoroughly "guncentric", it's psychologically very unhealthy, naturally. Not that Americans are as such by their own selves of course, since this has been manufactured, unwittingly or not, by several media moguls and corporations that have profited immensely from the pernicious content they have innocently classified as "entertainment" and "culture".

Malcolm wrote:
Starting with the Sears Catalogue, the Amazon of its day.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 21st, 2021 at 6:21 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:



Toenail said:
Just a paying job and liquid courage.

Malcolm wrote:
How are you feeling?

Toenail said:
My pcr test came back negative on Thursday evening. I got tested on Wednesday, 10 days after infection. So I am quarantine free and am considered safe in regards to infecting people. I still have a chronic cough though.

Malcolm wrote:
Clove tea will help.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 21st, 2021 at 5:29 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:



Toenail said:
Ill be happy to sponsor if you have paypal.

Archie2009 said:
You have a wish-fulfilling jewel?

Toenail said:
Just a paying job and liquid courage.

Malcolm wrote:
How are you feeling?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 21st, 2021 at 4:50 AM
Title: Re: Where are the enlightened Westerners?
Content:
Montoya said:
Vajrayana promises enlightenment in this lifetime. Where are all the enlightened Western Buddhists? We are roughly 60 years into the experiment of Westerners practicing Vajrayana. I know many people who have benefitted greatly from Vajrayana Buddhism, myself included, so this isn't really an indictment of Vajrayana, per se. But curious, to hear others thoughts?

PadmaVonSamba said:
Define “enlightened”

Toenail said:
Do we really need to define it? It is not really open for discussion or opinion what it means if you are a tibetan buddhist.

Malcolm wrote:
"Awakening" means one has realized at least either stream entry in a śrāvakayāna school, or the path of seeing in Mahāyāna. "Full awakening" is buddhahood.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 21st, 2021 at 12:25 AM
Title: Re: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
Inedible said:
Kyle was found not guilty, so he doesn't have victims.

Malcolm wrote:
He is still open to civil suits. He was found innocent of murder, but that does not mean he has no victims. For example, some one may be found innocent of killing the victim of a car accident, but still, there was an accident and there was a victim.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021 at 11:42 PM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:
FiveSkandhas said:
Ippen,

Malcolm wrote:
Def. my favorite pure land guy.

FiveSkandhas said:
You never fail to impress me as a man of refined intellectual taste. Ippen is definitely for gourmets.

As an aside, I'm scheduled to go to the Jishu head temple tomorrow as it so happens, and I will quite possibly be buried at my in-law's ancestral Jishu temple, where they are registered among the dwindling number of danka followers of Master Ippen's way.

Malcolm wrote:
I first read No Abode thirty-three years ago or so. I still have a copy.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021 at 11:29 PM
Title: Re: Skepticism of Pure Land among Mahayana adherents
Content:
FiveSkandhas said:
Ippen,

Malcolm wrote:
Def. my favorite pure land guy.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021 at 10:07 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
To me the value of this discussion lies in challenging settled opinions.

Malcolm wrote:
Challenging proliferation just creates more.
But because this  is proliferation party:

https://academia.edu/resource/work/34415687


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021 at 9:43 PM
Title: The victims of Kyle Rittenhouse
Content:
rupam said:
Please pray for the victims of Kyle Rittenhouse, Joseph Rosenbaum, 36 and Anthony Huber, 26. Please pray for BIPOC(Black, Indigenous, people of color) in the US who have been fighting against the institutional racism that they don’t die and they accomplish their missions.

Malcolm wrote:
Yeah, that court in WI just declared open season on protestor.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021 at 9:40 PM
Title: Re: Birth Control Question
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
That’s a different issue, inclined to agree.

Seeker12 said:
You mean that you’re inclined to agree that if one might engage in such practices then it is best to not use methods which impair fertility? Can you explain why, whether generally or specifically? What would appropriate methods of birth control be then - condoms, timing, etc? Methods short of basically semen retention that is.

Malcolm wrote:
I am saying that i think one should avoid unnecessary surgery. Condoms are preferable to vasectomies, tubal ligations, etc., in my opinion, unless there is a pressing medical reason.

Of course this only relevant to secret mantra practitioners.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021 at 9:02 PM
Title: Re: Are Oysters Sentient? (Split from Giving up Masturbation)
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
I suspect we won't agree on what omniscience means. As Dharmakīrti said, Buddha's omniscience does not apply to the number of worms in the ground.


Sādhaka said:
I believe that I remember in one of your older posts, you saying that omniscience doesn’t mean that a Buddha is aware of all things at all times; however that a Buddha could know the number of worms in the ground, if they were to direct their mind towards such....

Malcolm wrote:
Maybe. The definition of Buddha's omniscience does not come from sūtra, it comes from śastra. And it has limits. Strictly speaking it is knowledge of all phenomena. But "all phenomena" simply refers to one aggregate, one sense base, and one sense element. It does not refer to everything in the universe, known and unknown. It refers to that which is one's personal range. Thus, to bring up another contentious point, the Buddha can be "incorrect" (that is to say, bow to conventions of his day) about Meru, but still be entirely correct about the paths and stages. We do not need to ascribe super powers to the Buddha even he didn't claim.

The second point is that killing animals does not violate one's vows of refuge. If it did, it would be a parajika for monks, but it isn't. It is merely an offense requiring confession, without a punishment, like drinking alcohol and damaging plants, and about 88 other acts. The vow not to kill, means not to kill human beings.  The deliberate killing of animals does go against the commitment of training in the Dharma, non-harming, but that is not one of the five vows, it is a commitment than even butchers who go for refuge aspire to. And arguably, farming goes against that commitment as well, hence the reason monastics are forbidden from agricultural work in its entirety. For this reason, Buddhajñānapāda was astonished when he met Mañjuśrīmitra, who was a bhikṣu, the latter was plowing a field, and later came home staggeringly drunk in the evening. Mañjuśrīmitra's wife gutted a fish for their meal, and so on. In other words they lived like many Tibetan lamas do, in robes, behaving like laypeople. Go figure.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021 at 8:43 AM
Title: Re: Birth Control Question
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
We are not Catholics.

Seeker12 said:
To be clear this teacher was basically very pro sex and pro birth control, so it’s not a moralistic thing. He was very encouraging of healthy sexual expression.

My impression is that it had something to do with some yogas or something. He had done six yoga practice in the Kagyu tradition I believe.

Malcolm wrote:
That’s a different issue, inclined to agree.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021 at 8:14 AM
Title: Re: Birth Control Question
Content:
Seeker12 said:
I once heard a Dharma teacher say that a Dharma practitioner shouldn’t use methods of birth control which interrupted fertility.

Malcolm wrote:
Total bullshit. We are not Catholics.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021 at 8:11 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
To me the value of this discussion lies in challenging settled opinions.

Malcolm wrote:
Challenging proliferation just creates more.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021 at 6:15 AM
Title: Re: An Important Reminder
Content:
Sādhaka said:
My understanding is that Yongdzin Rinpoche and/or his Guru had consulted the Protectors about it. Although perhaps what I’d read was misinformation; but I don’t think so.

Malcolm wrote:
His guru had, some years before his death, consulted the bon protectors whether the time was right to teach Dzogchen more openly, not about whether to publish Thogal texts with Snow Lion.

We can see very clearly that none of the translations Zhang Zhung sNyan rgyud texts have been published in a way that they are available to anyone, other than Achard's book on the Six Lamps. I can tell you for sure that it is because the Bonpos do not want such texts published. Of course, if you know Tibetan, it is a different story.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021 at 2:48 AM
Title: Re: Classification of hypnagogic states/images in teachings
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
namtok generally?

Malcolm wrote:
Yup.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021 at 2:24 AM
Title: Re: An Important Reminder
Content:
Astus said:
Sharing secret teachings...

Malcolm wrote:
There is no problem with sharing Vajrayāna teachings, when it is done correctly, according to the rules. Those rules are set down in the tantras. People seem to think tantras were forever kept behind lock and key. We know this is not true. But there are rules, and people should try to respect them.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 20th, 2021 at 2:16 AM
Title: Re: An Important Reminder
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Responding to Sadhaka:
So you doubt that ChNN told people...
Responding to JD:
First, I only began to even consider publishing...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 11:07 PM
Title: Re: Are Oysters Sentient? (Split from Giving up Masturbation)
Content:


Sonam Wangchug said:
I just appealed to Sapan because he was the master you were quoting as the example and authority in another thread

Malcolm wrote:
Different people are authorities for different things.

Sonam Wangchug said:
Just wondering, do you believe any of the Masters in Tibet were fully enlightened with the quality of omniscience or that any of your present life teachers were/ are ?

Malcolm wrote:
I suspect we won't agree on what omniscience means. As Dharmakīrti said, Buddha's omniscience does not apply to the number of worms in the ground.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 10:36 PM
Title: Re: An Important Reminder
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
So you doubt that ChNN told people who had no thogal transmissions not to read Heartdrops in 1992, at the first Santi Maha Sangha base retreat, which I attended. The fact that CHNN might have asked Adriano to go and study with Loppon Tenzin Namdak as part of Adriano's research in the 80's is quite irrelevant to what ChNN might have said, repeatedly I might add, about people who lack transmission reading thogal texts. He repeatedly has told the tale of the man on the bus in Tibet reading his notes on thogal with chinese guides present. [/quote]

First, I only began to even consider publishing my translations after being repeatedly encouraged to do so by multiple Tibetan lamas. As of 2011, I was pretty sure I would never publish them.


Yes, these editions of my translations are expensive, deliberately so. They are so expensive, I received virtually no royalties from them as they have not even paid for the cost of their printing. I didn't publish them for the money. I published them for practitioners, in the most efficient way possible, through a publisher. If I had wanted to make money I would have self-published them. I chose distribution over money. Of course, I later learned at a conference that when one self-publishes, one more or less commits publishing suicide with Wisdom and and Shambhala. Nikko Odiseos was extremely clear on this point, and another editor at Wisdom, Brianna Quick, was in agreement with him. The other advantage to publishing with a top publishing house is peer-review.
So to your point of people being responsible for themselves, the reason we put such strong warnings in books is that the "restricted" approach does not work. People lie. So the choice is a) either make the books available without imposing restrictions on purchase, Wisdom; or b) impose restrictions on purchase, Shambhala, and have people lie.

Finally, Sapan is quite clear that hearing or reading tantric material—let along trying to practice it—without transmission creates obstacles (Three Codes, pp.100-102). He dismisses as incoherent the concept of "self secrecy (Three Codes, pg. 109).

So of course, you are free, but encouraging people to ignore the clear intent of the tantras is a little strange. Yes, of course translators and publishers are at fault for publishing Vajrayāna material in a public way, but then again, there is a risk benefit analysis, and at this point, the benefits to practitioners clearly outweighs to risk to translators and publishers.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 9:19 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
tobes said:
I also think they're very complementary, and if one is practicing rather than intellectualising, a lot of these apparent inconsistencies dissolve into irrelevancy.

I thought it was interesting how Jay Garfield - who as we all know has been schooled in Gelug Prasangika with special emphasis on Chandrakirti - recently took a bit of a Yogacaran turn. I haven't listened to all of the lectures, but the gist of it is: Yogacara gives more detail on the subjective-phenonemological side, which is generally quite implicit in Madhyamaka.

Malcolm wrote:
The Madhyamaka school has always focused more on view, whereas the Yogacara school focuses more on the path — this is obvious from looking at their respective texts. This is not news.

As for Jay, he is expert in Western Philosophy, including Bishop Berkeley’s idealism, and has been teaching the latter at Sarnath to Tibetans there for almost three decades. His interest in Yogacara idealism is longstanding, not nascent. We are acquainted as he and my late father were colleagues at Smith College.

tobes said:
The point though is that he previously interpreted Yogacara as very close to idealist systems such as Berkeley's, and therefore philosophically untenable. Then he decided to investigate the matter more diligently and discovered that there was rather a big gap between Gelugpa polemics (which he had adopted) and what's actually in the texts.

Malcolm wrote:
Sure, yogacara is not simple Berkeley’s idealism.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 8:58 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Matt J said:
The key point is that appearances are not apart from mind, and we never experience any appearances apart from mind. In addition, our mind not only flavors and colors those experiences, it generates them.

Malcolm wrote:
It does not generate those appearances independently.

Matt J said:
This is phenomenology, about what we experience, not about labelling those experiences and drawing inferences.

Malcolm wrote:
Everything you are talking about is conventional, all experiences are labeled right out the box. That’s why we don’t pay attention to them very much, other than path experiences, which fit a very narrow, phenomenological profile.

But the real point here is “What is going to produce realization of the path of seeing.” For example, the Uttaratantra is entirely descriptive, not prescriptive at all, unlike the other Maitreya texts like Distinguishing the Middle from Extremes, and the Ornament of Mahayana Sutras. The latter is the basis of the presentation of how to practice the Mahayana path for all schools. Most yogacara literature that has come down to us is commentary on this text. Even beyond this, we can understand all this business about tathagatagarbha is purely speculative because only Buddhas can perceive it. We cannot. It is cognitively closed to us, according to tathagatagarbha sutras themselves. So while I appreciate your appeal to meditative experience, you will never experience or perceive tathagatagarbha until you are a Buddha and have realized the dharmakaya. And the consequence of this is that this topic is, from beginning to end, including Karls remarks, total intellectual proliferation with no relevance to anyone’s practice, your’s, mine, or anyone else.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 8:26 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
haha said:
It says the Buddha-potential is named after its result and all beings possess the buddha essence.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, however the sound bite version being promulgated here states the opposite, Buddhanature is not a possession of sentient beings, and that they cannot enjoy the result.

haha said:
Whatever that I provided above is just a possibility; it is an example which might fit to that sound bite version. Other examples are defilement covering the object (in the context of Ratnagotravibhaga). It could be the problem of container and contain and how one defines it.

Malcolm wrote:
It’s a little similar to Ganden Chophel proving the Buddha was not awakened. Sometimes Tibetan scholars argue formal positions they themselves do not personally accept.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 8:22 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
So, you can verify there is no external world? You can prove experientially that the server you are reading this on is just a ripening of traces in your own mind stream? Or are you a half-eggist? I mean, seriously, who you kidding here? The ultimate of the lower is the relative of the higher. Ultimates represent conceptual limitations. Tenet systems exist to reveal and expose these conceptual limitations, so that we don’t reify things in practice like “everything is mind” or “Buddhanature is like the sky”, “Sentient beings and Buddhanature are mutually exclusive” etc.

Matt J said:
I disagree--- these are clearly descriptions of practice that can be verified first hand, not intellectual positions to be believed. They are just put into a specific conceptual framework.


Johnny Dangerous said:
We cannot prove that one does not exist, that would be proving a negative in a sense, since we have no direct experience of anything outside the mind, by definition.

Malcolm wrote:
That is half-eggism,


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 8:19 PM
Title: Re: Are Oysters Sentient? (Split from Giving up Masturbation)
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Shucking oysters kills them immediately. But they are not sentient, so it’s moot.

Most of the pearls one sees in Tibetan monasteries are of the freshwater variety. They certainly didn’t get their on their own.

While I respect Sapan for his views on Dharma, his grasp of biology was a bit more shaky. He argued, after all, that ants have no eyes.


Adamantine said:
PeterC you’ve made two comments like this however they are flagrantly incorrect. Freshwater oysters are a thing. Really a type of mussel, however they are commonly called oysters and produce their own pearls. In fact a friend just recently showed me two pearls from his hometown in Indiana. Freshwater oysters were, and likely still are, quite common in the Tibetan region, and it’s something of a certainty that both Sapan and Patrul Rinpoche would be experientially confident in their proclamations. It’s your, and everyone else’s choice on Dharmawheel whether you listen to Patrul Rinpoche and Sapan on this matter, or Malcolm. I’ll stick with the former. Especially since avoiding eating live oysters has no downside, yet continually eating living sentient beings against the advice of Sapan and Patrul Rinpoche would be an ongoing serious breech of refuge vows. Here’s a link to a survey of various species of these in an Eastern Himalayan region, for an example:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312023535_Evaluation_of_pearl_mussels_diversity_in_Terai_region_of_Eastern_Himalaya_India


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 10:21 AM
Title: Re: An Important Reminder
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
So, why take issue with the readers?

Malcolm wrote:
Every single one of my translations comes with a strong statement in the introduction that it should only be read by people with the proper transmission.

In my opinion, a responsible practitioner does not read that which they do not have transmission for. That’s been my approach, even before I became a formal Buddhist, with respect to Vajrayana material. YMMV


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 10:12 AM
Title: Re: An Important Reminder
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
IME Dzogchen texts are mostly impenetrable prior to introduction and likely some practice anyway.

SilenceMonkey said:
And that shouldn’t be an invitation to read them, as some sort of challenge... because doing so would be dangerous to our path.

Malcolm wrote:
Absolutely correct.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 10:05 AM
Title: Re: An Important Reminder
Content:



Johnny Dangerous said:
Not every teacher thinks this way about them, I've directly had a group conversation with TWR about it, he felt that the "self secret" nature of the teachings just means that most people won't get anything out them. They might be wasting their time but probably aren't harming themselves by exposure.

Malcolm wrote:
ChNN was pretty clear about what he thought of the Bonpos pov on this. He didn’t approve.

Johnny Dangerous said:
He also taught people to be responsible for themselves

Malcolm wrote:
Sure, he also wasn’t kidding. He was absolutely pissed (I was there) when heartdrops was published and basically told all his students they should not read it,if they had not received thogal transmission. There is a solid reason why if one was not present at his thogal and yangti retreats one will never see his longsal teachings on these subjects. He wasnt kidding.

Johnny Dangerous said:
not enough concerned with actual "boots on the ground" Dharma.

Malcolm wrote:
I’ve seen the casualties, that is, people who read stuff without transmission they ought not be reading, and their ensuing, and saddening, misconceptions. When one reads stuff protected by samaya that one does not have samaya for, one causes obstacles in one’s own path,


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 9:58 AM
Title: Re: An Important Reminder
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
IME Dzogchen texts are mostly impenetrable prior to introduction and likely some practice anyway.

SilenceMonkey said:
And that shouldn’t be an invitation to read them, as some sort of challenge... because doing so would be dangerous to our path.

Johnny Dangerous said:
Not every teacher thinks this way about them, I've directly had a group conversation with TWR about it, he felt that the "self secret" nature of the teachings just means that most people won't get anything out them. They might be wasting their time but probably aren't harming themselves by exposure.

Malcolm wrote:
ChNN was pretty clear about what he thought of the Bonpos pov on this. He didn’t approve. He felt so strongly about it he said that people can block their realization. Exhibit 1. Jax and his followers. I have many people who basically ruined their path through reading certain kinds of Dzogchen texts without guidance. And not only Dzogchen, but secret mantra texts in general. We see it here in thus forum, regularly.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 9:47 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
So, you can verify there is no external world? You can prove experientially that the server you are reading this on is just a ripening of traces in your own mind stream? Or are you a half-eggist? I mean, seriously, who you kidding here? The ultimate of the lower is the relative of the higher. Ultimates represent conceptual limitations. Tenet systems exist to reveal and expose these conceptual limitations, so that we don’t reify things in practice like “everything is mind” or “Buddhanature is like the sky”, “Sentient beings and Buddhanature are mutually exclusive” etc.

Matt J said:
I disagree--- these are clearly descriptions of practice that can be verified first hand, not intellectual positions to be believed. They are just put into a specific conceptual framework.
I don't get why we can't appreciate different presentations without needing to assert the superiority of one over the other, or reducing one into the other.

Malcolm wrote:
We can, but Candrakīrti's presentation is the best, when all is said and done.

I don't study these things for their aesthetics, though there is much that is aesthetically pleasing in Yogacāra theory. I study these things for my practice. And the traditions in which I practice, Sakya and Dzogchen, for many reasons, find Madhyamaka to be the definitive Mahāyāna view. Also the Indian Buddhist tantras show a clear bias towards Madhyamaka.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 9:41 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:




Johnny Dangerous said:
Naw, it’s about a lot more than analyzing texts for me,  though they can certainly be part of it. Exactitude in language only goes so far, though sure it can be vital at certain times.

Malcolm wrote:
When we are discussing a complicated treatise such as the one this sound bite has been extracted, it is pure dilettantism to imagine one has understood the entirety of the thought of a sophisticated scholar like Mikyo Dorje based on such a snippet, especially a scholar whose work demonstrates a marked shift in views over several decades.

Johnny Dangerous said:
I don't really know what you're on about specifically, but you're not my teacher and I don't need to be called a dilletante for not thinking like you, so we can simply agree to disagree, and I'll leave the thread to you and your insistence that everyone be on your page.

Malcolm wrote:
I didn’t call you a dilettante. Read it again.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 9:38 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
The Brunnhölzl video is from the Tsadra Foundation website that is focused on Buddha Nature. They have staff person that will answer questions for free. His credentials are quite good.

Malcolm wrote:
The point I am making is that you seem to think that these issues, which come from long, complicated texts, with complex intellectual histories, can be encapsulated in sound bites.

But they can’t.

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
My doctor doesn’t have to put me through med school to tell me what’s wrong with me. He summarizes it.

So I posted a link to a reputable source that has expertise in the subjects. I’ve not had direct contact, but he’s there to answer questions. Somebody might find that useful.

Malcolm wrote:
My issue is not that you posted the sound bite, but that you presented it as a definitive take on this masters oeuvre. It’s as dumb as people who represent Sapan as rejecting tathagatagarbha based on the fact that he refers to Candrakirti’s opinion, failing to pay attention to the preceding verses as well his other works. I have no problem with what Karl said, we are colleagues and we correspond, he is one of best scholars working in the field. The point is not what he said, the point is how you present it. Abd in my opinion, irresponsibly.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 9:30 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
Same here. I feel like at different times different presentations have helped my practice, but picking one as some forever -definitive view above all the other views isn’t a thing that attracts me in particular, because for me all the argumentation and assertion is annoying and pulls me away from simple things like maintaining presence in daily life.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, you see here we are talking about a tenet system. Even though Karl can claim this is about practice, it isn't. It is about analyzing texts and what they say, and my point, is that these issues are too intricate and complicated to be well addressed by the presentations of sound bites.


Johnny Dangerous said:
Naw, it’s about a lot more than analyzing texts for me,  though they can certainly be part of it. Exactitude in language only goes so far, though sure it can be vital at certain times.

Malcolm wrote:
When we are discussing a complicated treatise such as the one this sound bite has been extracted, it is pure dilettantism to imagine one has understood the entirety of the thought of a sophisticated scholar like Mikyo Dorje based on such a snippet, especially a scholar whose work demonstrates a marked shift in views over several decades.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 9:23 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
tobes said:
I also think they're very complementary, and if one is practicing rather than intellectualising, a lot of these apparent inconsistencies dissolve into irrelevancy.

I thought it was interesting how Jay Garfield - who as we all know has been schooled in Gelug Prasangika with special emphasis on Chandrakirti - recently took a bit of a Yogacaran turn. I haven't listened to all of the lectures, but the gist of it is: Yogacara gives more detail on the subjective-phenonemological side, which is generally quite implicit in Madhyamaka.

Malcolm wrote:
The Madhyamaka school has always focused more on view, whereas the Yogacara school focuses more on the path — this is obvious from looking at their respective texts. This is not news.

As for Jay, he is expert in Western Philosophy, including Bishop Berkeley’s idealism, and has been teaching the latter at Sarnath to Tibetans there for almost three decades. His interest in Yogacara idealism is longstanding, not nascent. We are acquainted as he and my late father were colleagues at Smith College.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 9:15 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
The Brunnhölzl video is from the Tsadra Foundation website that is focused on Buddha Nature. They have staff person that will answer questions for free. His credentials are quite good.

Malcolm wrote:
The point I am making is that you seem to think that these issues, which come from long, complicated texts, with complex intellectual histories, can be encapsulated in sound bites.

But they can’t.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 5:31 AM
Title: Re: Self-generation with transmission
Content:
Hazel said:
Hello Dharma friends,

I have been given transmission and permission to practice a Sadhana that includes visualizing yourself as the deity. My understanding is that without empowerment, you can only front-visualize even if you have transmission. Is this correct?

Thank you!
Hazel.

zerwe said:
Yes, this is usually correct. If you are uncertain I would follow up with whoever gave the transmission. However, HYT sadhanas are absolutely restricted to only those who have received a complete "Great" initiation.

Shaun

Hazel said:
How can one tell the difference between a HYT and a non-HYT sadhana?

Malcolm wrote:
For novices, it is not so easy.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 5:13 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
Same here. I feel like at different times different presentations have helped my practice, but picking one as some forever -definitive view above all the other views isn’t a thing that attracts me in particular, because for me all the argumentation and assertion is annoying and pulls me away from simple things like maintaining presence in daily life.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, you see here we are talking about a tenet system. Even though Karl can claim this is about practice, it isn't. It is about analyzing texts and what they say, and my point, is that these issues are too intricate and complicated to be well addressed by the presentations of sound bites.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 5:10 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
So there are two minds now? One impure, the other pure? So nine consciousnesses, rather than eight? Sapan already dispensed with this absurdity. The gnyug ma sems is just the clarity aspect of the all-basis consciousness, that's the point.

Matt J said:
That's Mikyo Dorje's formulation, not mine.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, I am pointing out this this idea has already been negated, and that there is no doubt Mikyo Dorje is aware of this.

And I not sure, in this little sound bite exchange, if this is really representative of Mikyo Dorje's views. As I understand things, Mikyo Dorje went through a number of shifts in his life, like Shakya Chogden, Tsongkhapa, Dolbupa, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 4:01 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Matt J said:
The point of the snake-rope analogy generally is because once the illusion is removed, there is nothing left to be done. You don't remove the snake then create, build, or cultivate the rope. Nor is there nothing at all.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes there is, then you examine the rope. If you don't, well, you haven't finished your job. You are settling for another appearance, true relative truth, instead of false relative truth, but still not ultimate truth.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 3:58 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Matt J said:
I don't get why we can't appreciate different presentations without needing to assert the superiority of one over the other, or reducing one into the other.

Malcolm wrote:
We can, but Candrakīrti's presentation is the best, when all is said and done.

I don't study these things for their aesthetics, though there is much that is aesthetically pleasing in Yogacāra theory. I study these things for my practice. And the traditions in which I practice, Sakya and Dzogchen, for many reasons, find Madhyamaka to be the definitive Mahāyāna view. Also the Indian Buddhist tantras show a clear bias towards Madhyamaka.

Anyway, you quote Shakya Chogden, you should always remember that Shakya Chogden's view was kicked out of Sakya by the protector Caturmukha Mahākāla in favor of Gorampa's. And in truth it is not even clear that gshan stong was really his final view. It's been speculated that since his main sponsors were Kagyus, he was writing for his audience.

Actually, the problem with Tibetans, and I have said this before, is that because Ratnakāraśānti asserted in his Madhyamaka texts that Asanga was a third stage bodhisattva and Nāgārjuna was a first stage bodhisattva, and also the main translator of them, Śantibhadra, was hostile to Candrakīrti's school, there has been a push amongst Tibetans to reconcile the treatises of Maitreya and Nāgarjuna.

Personally, I see no need to reconcile Madhyamaka with Yogacāra, since the former is higher than the latter; and even Karl admits that the gzhan stong approach to the three natures, for example, is not precedented in the Indian traditions from which the gzhan stong school draws its inspiration.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 3:16 AM
Title: Re: How to read Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra?
Content:
Nalanda said:
Is it supposed to be read allegorically or literally? Is there a way to read this without having some sort of misunderstanding of other standard doctrines?

Malcolm wrote:
allegorically


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 2:59 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:


undefineable said:
Alayavijnana may seem to be another matter, since it's widely agreed that -in some manner of speaking- it doesn't survive enlightenment.

Malcolm wrote:
There are two ways to understand this: one is that ālayavijñāna vanishes when the seeds it contains are exhausted (Vasubandu in Karmasiddhiprakarana). The other is that it undergoes a transformation into gnosis, along with the other skandhas. They are not discarded, they are subject to a "a transformation in the basis" or as Karl has it, "a fundamental change" (āśrayaparivṛitti). His section on ālayavijñāna in the introduction to his translation of the Mahāyāna Samgraha is worth reading. Also the relationship between dharmakāya and ālayavijñāna is discussed in chapter 10 of the MS, pg. 238. The main problem with Yogacāra that everyone points out, is that there is a internal contradiction when one claims something compounded (the ālayavijñāna) transforms into something uncompounded (the dharmakāya).

In short, the one cannot really appreciate the nuances of Yogacara, tathāgatagarbha theory from soundbites of videos of scholars on the internet. Its not even responsible to present these teachings in that way.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 1:59 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Matt J said:
I think your translation makes the point stronger, actually. Buddhanature is not a possession. Per Higgins, Mikyo Dorje's whole point is that deluded mind doesn't become pure mind--- rather, once, the impure mind is destroyed, only the pure mind remains. So it is not that the alayavijnana is a deluded tathagatgarbha, but rather the alayavijnana IS the delusion.

Malcolm wrote:
So there are two minds now? One impure, the other pure? So nine consciousnesses, rather than eight? Sapan already dispensed with this absurdity. The gnyug ma sems is just the clarity aspect of the all-basis consciousness, that's the point.

This is one of the problems with tathāgatagarbha theory. You have one sūtra proclaiming it is dharmakāya encased in afflictions; another claiming it is just a name for ālayavijñāna. The Yogacārins, as Karl correctly points out, won't have anything to do with it. And then you have Tibetans with too much time on their hands trying to reconcile all these conflicting doctrines, which do not actually have to be reconciled at all.

Just stick with Prasanga. You'll be happier.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 19th, 2021 at 12:16 AM
Title: Re: An Important Reminder
Content:
SilenceMonkey said:
(Or, as Lama Pema’s teacher said, before realizing them?)

Malcolm wrote:
As Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen has said:

Until it has been realized, 
do not discuss the view in words.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 11:51 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:


Matt J said:
Query: What, then, is the innate mind?
Reply: It is simply this natural awareness (tha mal gyi shes pa) in one’s own mind-stream in the present moment.


Malcolm wrote:
This passage is not correctly translated because Higgens mistakes a genitive for an locative:

’o na gnyug ma’i sems ni gang zhe na de ni da ltar rang rgyud kyi tha mal gyi shes
pa ’di’o

"If it is asked what is the innate mind, that is the ordinary consciousness of one's continuum at this moment."

The distinction between the locative case and the genitive case here is crucial. All this means is that the so-called "innate mind" is the clarity aspect of the all-basis. Also he mistakes for a locative, the dative "da ltar," it is an easy mistake to make in Tibetan since they have the same morphology, and the difference is context driven.

Otherwise, the problem arises of supposing there are two minds.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 11:39 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Matt J said:
Omniscience literally means "all knowing," the science being the correlate of "jna" in Sanskrit (as in sarvajna) in this translation. So knowing is present, not absent.

Malcolm wrote:
It is also relative, not ultimate.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 10:07 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Matt J said:
What Tibetan word is "apprehender" here? '

Also, how does anyone know if it vanishes at the time of result if there is no knowing/cognition/awareness?

Malcolm wrote:
'dzin pa.

At that point, all that remains is omniscience, like every other presentation of buddhahood. There are some variations in how that works. Some maintain, Gelukapas mostly, that buddhas need to have conceptual apparatus capable of seeing the faults of sentient beings. Others, Sakya, Nyingmas, etc., negate this, because relative truth is defined from the point of view of sentient beings, and buddhas are free of all obscurations and only have pure vision.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 9:11 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
haha said:
It says the Buddha-potential is named after its result and all beings possess the buddha essence.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, however the sound bite version being promulgated here states the opposite, Buddhanature is not a possession of sentient beings, and that they cannot enjoy the result.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 9:07 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
tobes said:
This position leaves a lot of questions begging. Namely: if Buddhas do not perceive obscurations of sentient beings, then what of upaya? What of teaching Dharma itself, which is contextually attuned to the specific afflictions of specific sentient beings? i.e. the point of view of the result is not the only relevant point of view here.

Malcolm wrote:
The general example is the wish-fulfilling gem. Buddha activity is spontaneous, and manifests because of their aspirations as bodhisattvas on the path.

tobes said:
But how can it manifest in a way that specifically addresses the very particular obscurations of sentient beings, if it does not have the capacity to see/understand/perceive/apprehend those obscurations?

Malcolm wrote:
The same way a wish fulfilling gem grants whatever is wished to anyone who encounters it, spontaneously, according to their wishes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 10:55 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
From the same interview session he defines Buddha Nature in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmB7lZm3jBc

Malcolm wrote:
The question Is not Karls definition, but Karmapa 8’s.

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Oh.

Malcolm wrote:
Now you get it.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 10:47 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
I'm no court stenographer, so there could be an error here or there, but here's my transcript of the video in question. I'm starting the transcription around 1:15 into the video since it isn't pertinent to the thread and I wanted to save myself some work.

Malcolm wrote:
Yeah, it is a sound bite. It leaves a whole range of questions unanswered, how is Buddhanature being defined here and so on.

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
From the same interview session he defines Buddha Nature in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmB7lZm3jBc

Malcolm wrote:
The question Is not Karls definition, but Karmapa 8’s.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 10:29 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
I'm no court stenographer, so there could be an error here or there, but here's my transcript of the video in question. I'm starting the transcription around 1:15 into the video since it isn't pertinent to the thread and I wanted to save myself some work.

Malcolm wrote:
Yeah, it is a sound bite. It leaves a whole range of questions unanswered, how is Buddhanature being defined here and so on.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 10:25 AM
Title: Re: An Important Reminder
Content:
PeterC said:
The quoted language is a little polemical, but who knows in what context it was said.  However he's not really wrong.  If you had to choose between a library of a thousand dzogchen texts but no master ever, and one hour of instruction from a qualified teacher, you should always choose the latter. And there is something about having the right explanation at the right time that makes the difference between a load of vague-sounding words and a precise sense of what is being explained.

Malcolm wrote:
It’s certainly true that if one has not received transmission of any Vajrayana material, one should not be reading it. This does not apply only to Dzogchen, it applies to everything in Vajrayana.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 10:14 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
And quite frankly, Tibetan scholars make errors. If such an opinion cannot be grounded in both scripture and reasoning, it should be disregarded as erroneous, no matter whose opinion it is.
The entire premise of this thread is based on the Brunnhölzl vide linked in the first post. The premise of that video is that Brunnhölzl is responding to the idea that Buddha Nature is, or at least can be, a radical Teaching. He is deliberately responding with what is probably the most outrageous interpretation of Buddha Nature which he credits to both HHK8 and HHK3. So I don't think "error" enters into the equation no matter how much it conflicts with more mainstream thought. That's the point--it's radical!

Malcolm wrote:
If it’s wrong, it is just wrong.  But as I said, I’ll need to look at the text itself. For example, what is KVIII definition here of Buddhanature and so on? As we know, tathagatagarbha has been defined in sutras from the all-basis consciousness to dharmakaya and everything in between.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 9:44 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Matt J said:
What Tibetan word is "apprehender" here?

Also, how does anyone know if it vanishes at the time of result if there is no knowing/cognition/awareness?

Malcolm wrote:
This "nonexistent apprehender," indicates the union of the two truths. Even rig pa is something relative, that is why it is a path dharma, not a result dharma. It vanishes at the time of the result.
‘dzin pa, as far as I recall.

Buddhas possess nonreferential gnosis.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 9:30 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Have I misunderstood even some Shentong teachers through reading and listening that they view Buddhahood as not illusory tho? I would have to find some exact quotes and possibly re-read them, but I remember it sounding like they were saying Buddhahood is real/not illusory. Don't mean to take this too far off track either
There’s not just one way to look at this. So I’m sure some people say that.

conebeckham said:
For instance,  8th Karmapa says, in his commentary on the Abhisamayalamkara, that Tathagatagarbha is the only ultimately real entity, and that this entity and sentient beings are mutually exclusive.  It is not the case that sentient beings possess Buddha Nature.  Instead, Sentient being seem to exist in Buddha Nature, like clouds in the sky which do not actually affect the sky.  Paraphrasing from Brunnholzl, When the Clouds Part.

Malcolm wrote:
I’ll need to look at the Tibetan text itself before I believe this is what Karmapa VIII intended to say. Sound bites on Dharmawheel are not conclusive of anything.

And quite frankly, Tibetan scholars make errors. If such an opinion cannot be grounded in both scripture and reasoning, it should be disregarded as erroneous, no matter whose opinion it is.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 7:05 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
tobes said:
This position leaves a lot of questions begging. Namely: if Buddhas do not perceive obscurations of sentient beings, then what of upaya? What of teaching Dharma itself, which is contextually attuned to the specific afflictions of specific sentient beings? i.e. the point of view of the result is not the only relevant point of view here.

Malcolm wrote:
The general example is the wish-fulfilling gem. Buddha activity is spontaneous, and manifests because of their aspirations as bodhisattvas on the path.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 5:27 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Matt J said:
Also the vivid, wakeful awareness that some people don't like to talk about.

Malcolm wrote:
You mean rig pa. Rig pa is also empty, baseless, and not established in anyway at all. The Dzogchen tantras and Longchenpa declare this univocally.

Matt J said:
Retinue of nonexistent superficial appearances, listen!
There is no separate object in me, the view of self-originated pristine consciousness. Passing away in the past does not exist. Arising in
the future does not exist. Appearing in the present does not exist in any way. Karma does not exist. Traces do not exist. Ignorance does not exist. Mind does not exist. Intellect does not exist. Wisdom does not exist. Saṃsāra does not exist. Nirvāṇa does not exist. Not even vidyā (rig pa) itself exists. Not even the appearances of pristine consciousness exist. All those arose from a nonexistent apprehender.

Malcolm wrote:
-- Tantra Without Syllables.

This "nonexistent apprehender," indicates the union of the two truths. Even rig pa is something relative, that is why it is a path dharma, not a result dharma. It vanishes at the time of the result.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 2:24 AM
Title: Re: The Myth of Progress
Content:


PadmaVonSamba said:
But limitless beings (buddhas) aren’t sentient.

Malcolm wrote:
Silly. Of course buddhas are sentient.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 1:14 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:


Sādhaka said:
Therefore emptiness, yet not only emptiness.

Malcolm wrote:
Indeed, because the mind is relative and momentary.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 12:43 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


Queequeg said:
6 of 9 Supreme Court Justices are also Catholic, though I can't imagine Sotomayor lining up with the other ones.

Malcolm wrote:
This is quite deliberate on the part of the people who wish to overturn Roe.

Queequeg said:
They're banking on that pernicious guilt inculcated in Catholic School. Wow.

Malcolm wrote:
The vanguard of the Pro-Life movement has always been Catholics. Remember the recent outrage at Joe Biden taking communion?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 12:33 AM
Title: Re: Dune
Content:
Matt J said:
Spoilers, but on point.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 12:26 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


Queequeg said:
6 of 9 Supreme Court Justices are also Catholic, though I can't imagine Sotomayor lining up with the other ones.

Malcolm wrote:
This is quite deliberate on the part of the people who wish to overturn Roe.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 12:21 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Nicholas2727 said:
I thought the attainment of Buddhahood was not illusory? What is the point of working so hard for so many life times if the final result is an illusion? Maybe I have gotten this bias since many teachers or authors I have read lean in the Shentong direction, but maybe you can clarify.

Malcolm wrote:
You need to read the Heart Sutra:
There is no wisdom, nothing to obtain, and also nothing not to obtain.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 11:11 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Matt J said:
Making a similar point in When the Clouds Part, it is only "somewhat shocking."

"[S]entient beings are nothing but the adventitious flaws of thoughts and therefore one familiarizes with them as being nonentities."

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, flaws of the thoughts (sems)...The funny thing is, in Tibetan, sentient being is "sems can" "possessor of a mind." Well, without a mind, there can't be flaws of thoughts, can there?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 10:55 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


Queequeg said:
Christ. We're dealing with hurt little boys who haven't gotten over their myths.

Malcolm wrote:
Bannon is a Catholic, pretty serious one too, at least ideologically. He is pretty open about his fantasies:
"We're at the very beginning stages of a very brutal and bloody conflict, of which, if the people in this room, the people in the church, do not bind together and really form what I feel is an aspect of the church militant, to really be able to not just stand with our beliefs, but to fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity that's starting."


Not surprisingly, Flynn is also Catholic, who said the other day:
"If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God and one religion under God."
These people are dangerous. They must be put in their place.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 10:28 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
You are characterizing what he is saying as "not controversial" I am saying it is radical. The title of the video is about how radical Buddha Nature can be.

I think you're the one that is mistaken here.

Malcolm wrote:
Of course you do. What he is saying is radical and novel to those who have not studied Abhisamayālaṃkara of Haribhadra. Nāgārjuna states in the Verses of Dependent Origination:

Here, there is nothing to remove, 
there is nothing to add;
See the real correctly.
Having seen the real, liberation.

This statement is cited verbatim by Maitreyanātha in the Abhisamayālaṃkāra.

Karl is saying nothing more than this.

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
OK, time to transcribe the video word for word. That won't happen fast, probably not today.

Malcolm wrote:
You are wasting your time. What Karl says is nothing more than the above. The problem with your position that is that it makes obscurations inherently existing obstacles to buddhahood. That's not what Karl is talking about.

What Karl is talking about is taking a facet of buddhanature theory to a logical extreme, which is that idea that the Uttaratantra is wrong, that buddhanature cannot be a "possession" of sentient beings. But as I said, this is not a problem at all. Buddhanature is a provisional doctrine, according to the Uttaratantra itself, taught to eliminate five faults. It is training wheels for baby bodhisattvas who are scared of emptiness.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 10:24 PM
Title: Re: Physical issues around sitting
Content:
NoName said:
Hi,

I don't know if this is right to put here, but I have a physical issue with a varicose vain that makes sitting still not particularly safe for me. It is annoyingly placed under the knee, so any position where the knee is bent, including chair meditation can potentially exacerbate it.  I can sometimes sit with my leg stretched, or further out, or in a keeling sit with legs spread wider, but it is not ideal.

Are there any traditions where the sitting practice is not necessary, or where I can sit in a variation of a pose/change it up in a while? Are there any recommendations for particular poses that I should try out?
Thank you

Malcolm wrote:
You can sit with that knee raised up, like this:


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 10:20 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
You are characterizing what he is saying as "not controversial" I am saying it is radical. The title of the video is about how radical Buddha Nature can be.

I think you're the one that is mistaken here.

Malcolm wrote:
Of course you do. What he is saying is radical and novel to those who have not studied Abhisamayālaṃkara. Nāgārjuna states in the Verses of Dependent Origination:

Here, there is nothing to remove, 
there is nothing to add;
See the real correctly.
Having seen the real, liberation.

This statement is cited verbatim by Maitreyanātha in the Abhisamayālaṃkara.

Karl is saying nothing more than this.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 9:58 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Funny that "my interpretation" got placed in the title of the video!

Malcolm wrote:
No, the only thing related to the title of the video and your misunderstanding is the adjective "radical".

And you have failed to address my objections, since they undermine the "radicalness" of Karl's observation.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 9:36 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
The video is short. People following this thread should watch the entire thing. It's ridiculous to discuss what Brunnhölzl means if we don't listen to what he says.

Malcolm wrote:
I did. I know Karl. I am sure Karl is quite sure he exists, conventionally speaking, and is equally confident he will realize buddhahood eventually, that his rosary of moments of empty clarity, the all-basis, will continue through the state of Vajradharahood, once his adventitious obscurations are eliminated. What he is talking about is the consequences, as he sees it, of the point of view of Karmapa III and VIII. But as I outline above, this is not the radical departure you imagine it to be.

Your idea is the radical misunderstanding of what he is saying.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 9:25 PM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
but the entirety of our experience is the obscuration.

Malcolm wrote:
That would make bondage inherent and liberation impossible. You sure you want to go down that route?

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Brunnhölzl has already gone down that route for me. The sentient being cannot become a Buddha. The sentient being has to cease in order for a Buddha to arise. It's like the cessation of a Shravakayana Arhat, but unlike the coma-like nothingness of an Arhat, a Buddha arises. That is what I've been trying to bring people's attention to. Play the video. It's short. If people are impatient then can fast forward to 1:30.

Malcolm wrote:
I doubt very much that Karl is an annihilationist. You have really misunderstood his point, quite grievously. What he and the karmapas are implying is that there never were sentient beings to begin with. This is not controversial. Haribhadra, a Madhyamaka, points out than when one realizes buddhahood, one realizes too there was never a time when one was not a buddha. This insight does not depend on the Buddhanature doctrine at all, since it is straight out of the PP Sutras. Moreover, it is commonly stated that from the point of the view of the result, Buddhas only perceive other Buddhas, they do not perceive sentient beings, because to perceive obscurations would equal being obscured. Buddhas have no obscurations, hence they do not perceive them, ergo, they have no perception of sentient beings at all. Thus is another reason why Haribhadra points out that the path is entirely illusory from beginning to end, including the attainment of buddhahood.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 9:12 PM
Title: Re: The Myth of Progress
Content:



Konchog Thogme Jampa said:
It will just take a few kalpas

Malcolm wrote:
As I said, it will never happen. sentient beings are limitless.

PadmaVonSamba said:
“Limitless” only if you are thinking in terms of quantity.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, I am, relatively speaking.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 10:41 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
tobes said:
This question is much easier to understand/answer now. It really is something approaching a mass-collective psychosis. When it is happening in real time, there is virtually no way to undo it. The libidinal investment is so strong that there basically has to be a big crash landing for it to end.

Malcolm wrote:
This is what Wilhelm Reich thought.


KristenM said:
It’s not like we ever had an actual Golden Age of Justice and Democracy, we’re just going sideways down the wrong path and some of us are now more aware of the forces that are in play. And how do we respond to this neo-fascist movement? Do we take up arms and fight them in the streets? We don’t even believe in taking up arms, I thought.

Malcolm wrote:
It’s been pretty good since WWII.

One of the reasons FDR passed the New Deal was to prevent a right wing fascist movement from gaining power. America First started in the 1930’s.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 10:10 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
KristenM said:
I’d at least like to try to bring some sense and reason to the table and dial the rhetoric down a notch, for the sake of the country.

Malcolm wrote:
The problem is that we have a genuine Fascist movement now in thus country. They won’t dial down the rhetoric, it’s all they have.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 9:57 AM
Title: Re: Commentaries on the Canonical Sutras?
Content:


Zhen Li said:
Maybe a more controversial claim,

Malcolm wrote:
It’s not at all controversial, it’s obvious.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 7:06 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
tobes said:
We've been here before. It did not end well.

Malcolm wrote:
Yup, and people poo pooed me here six years ago when I first raised the alarm about Fascists in the house.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 7:03 AM
Title: Re: video of Brunnhölzl: Buddha Nature as a radical teaching
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
but the entirety of our experience is the obscuration.

Malcolm wrote:
That would make bondage inherent and liberation impossible. You sure you want to go down that route?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 2:16 AM
Title: Re: Great news on the vajrayana book front
Content:
Norwegian said:
Anybody knows who are translating the Nyingma volumes from the gdams ngag mdzod and when they are to be published?

Malcolm wrote:
Wulstan Fletcher and Helena Blankleder. No idea.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 1:44 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
KristenM said:
Should we just punch everyone in the face for voting for these people, is that going to really make things better? Yes, of course, that's the best solution, so never mind.

Malcolm wrote:
Have you ever seen that talking with Fascists ever solved anything? I mean, look, the Germans tried it, it didn't work, the Fascists just subverted democracy in Germany, with the help of a conservative newspaper (sound familiar) that was filled with xenophobic lies and fake news.

We can only tolerate intolerance for so long. Its getting to the point where that tolerance is not working, and the arguments of the Bannons and his ilk are not being effectively rebutted in the news (well they are, but people don't trust the newspapers anymore, they trust Tucker and Sean).

Don't worry, I am not going to go out and actually look for fascists to punch, I haven't done that since I was a skinhead back in the early 80's. But my point is that we have a Fascist fifth column in the US right now, and they need to be put down with prejudice.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 1:04 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
So yeah, the US is no shining example of consistency or evidence based practice. I mean, they try  their best, but sometimes people’s best is not very good.

Malcolm wrote:
This is because of the 5 micron dogma about airborn diseases. Anything larger, according to epidemiology manuals used around the world for the last 80 years, must be droplet transmitted.

But, we found out a) that those manuals had the physics wrong, and b) covid transmission is principally airborne. So for this reason, since the covid virus is larger than 5 microns, medical establishment dogma set in, despite obvious contradictory evidence, like the early transmission through ventilation systems on cruise ships, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 17th, 2021 at 12:59 AM
Title: Re: Self-generation with transmission
Content:
Hazel said:
Hello Dharma friends,

I have been given transmission and permission to practice a Sadhana that includes visualizing yourself as the deity. My understanding is that without empowerment, you can only front-visualize even if you have transmission. Is this correct?

Thank you!
Hazel.

Malcolm wrote:
Correct.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 9:53 PM
Title: Re: How does Karma purification work?
Content:



Könchok Thrinley said:
This is a point I have seen quite often. And I mean ... it probably kind of probably works like that but I am not sure entirely. Anyone has something to back this point?

Malcolm wrote:
This is a popular idea in the west. I have never ever seen any Indian or Tibetan text that makes this assertion. I think it can be consigned to the dustbin of pop Buddhism, personally.

Toenail said:
Maybe not in some classic text or treatise etc., but I have seen such ideas in tibetan texts. For example in the Life story of Yeshe Tsogyal (?) where it is written that she did prostrations during Ngondro or so and blood and puss came out of her orifices or so until she was fully purified. It was described as purification. It may just be prose and fantasy., but it is in there.

Malcolm wrote:
I am just going in the basis of logic, and what ChNN said. It is unreasonable to expect that Vajrasattva, for example, and wipe out countless eons of negative karma.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 9:34 PM
Title: Re: Credibility of (institutional) Tibetan Buddhism
Content:


nyonchung said:
Marerialism being often a bedfellow of nihilism.

Malcolm wrote:
Depends. I find that materialists are much more attached the things than Buddhists, in general. Just because someone does not accept rebirth does not render them a nihilist. Materialists also have strong theories in ethics, morals, and so on. The term "nihilist" is tossed around promiscuously by Buddhists, when they actually mean "annihilationist."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 9:12 PM
Title: Re: Stained Glass Windows in a Buddhist context?
Content:
Queequeg said:
but I'm afraid we're going to go deep into a phase of human history soon where material profligacy is simply not going to be an option due to scarcity and expense of resources.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, we are heading back to the good old days where excess material profligacy will a required sign of power among people where virtually everyone is surviving on a subsistence level. Those good old days were just three hundred years ago.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 12:07 PM
Title: Re: On vegetarianism
Content:
Nicholas2727 said:
there are plenty of Mahayana sutras where the Buddha discourages meat eating. I am biased but if we have the option to eat meat or not, I feel it is best to not.

Malcolm wrote:
If one is either a Śrāvakayāna practitioner or a Vajrayāna practitioner, eating meat is permitted. If one is a common Mahāyāna practitioner, it appears it is is not permitted. But even here, we have the opinion of Bhavaviveka that as long as the meat is pure in three ways, it is permitted, for the same reason that wearing leather, wool, and so on is permitted.

KonchogUrgyenNyima said:
Would you care to elaborate on those three pure ways? Or point me to where I can learn about that?

Malcolm wrote:
You didn’t hear it, see it, or have it killed for you.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 11:53 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:


Johnny Dangerous said:
Anyway, most people I see are wearing shoddy things that might prevent some goobers flying your way but I am skeptical they do a whole lot personally.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, these people are dumb, but not as dumb as the unvaxxed.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 11:47 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
One of those is the Indian study I mentioned earlier (surgical masks), the other two are not RCT's, they are observational studies, etc... nor are they are about cloth masks.

from the last link



The study on natural immunity I posted is more reliable (being an RCT) than either of the other two studies and is more comparable to the Indian study, by my understanding.

I started wearing surgical masks based on the indian study, btw.

Malcolm wrote:
Covid is airborn, this has been proven by physicists.

Masks work.

Johnny Dangerous said:
FFS man, I'm not saying "masks don't work", but if you honestly think it is that simple you really haven't looked at the data that closely. yes, wearing an N95 -definitely- works, there is some decent evidence for surgical masks, and not much for cloth masks. That is the state of the data.

Malcolm wrote:
Why would anyone think wearing less than a n95, etc., be adequate? Even surgical masks are less effective.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/

At this point, we are talking past each other.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 11:43 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
One of those is the Indian study I mentioned earlier (surgical masks), the other two are not RCT's, they are observational studies, etc... nor are they are about cloth masks.

from the last link
"There are few published data on the efficacy of masks or respirators against coronavirus infections."
The study on natural immunity I posted is more reliable (being an RCT) than either of the other two studies and is more comparable to the Indian study, by my understanding.

I started wearing surgical masks based on the indian study, btw.

Malcolm wrote:
Covid is airborn, this has been proven by physicists.

Masks work.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 11:30 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
Again, there is even less clinical evidence for things like cloth masks (basically none other than poorly done mechanistic studies and observational data), yet we still use them. Virtually no evidence for masking  young children, and it is pretty much just the Boneheaded US doing that in schools.

Malcolm wrote:
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-masks-covid-19.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7263249/


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 11:04 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:



Johnny Dangerous said:
That is true of most things with Covid, it is too new to have anything but provisional clinical evidence in many areas. I posted the study, it is not a study that anyone has found problems with or takes issue with, it simply hasn't been peer reviewed yet, and of course other studies have found other things.

Natural immunity for Covid exists obviously, not sure why you'd want to debate that, it's kind of a no-brainer.

Malcolm wrote:
The thing I am asserting is that there is no clinical evidence that natural immunity is superior to immunity from vaccines.

I don’t think this is true, I know people personally who had covid 1.0, were fully vaxxed afterwards, and still managed to contract covid 2.0 aka delta.

Johnny Dangerous said:
Again I posted the link to the study, so I am not sure what we are trying to debate. Yes, other studies found that natural immunity is more variable, and less durable, though sometimes perhaps more efficacious. Obviously, anecdotal stuff is probably not worth addressing if we are trying to stick to data that currently exists.

Malcolm wrote:
My point is that we don’t have clinical evidence for the claims you are making. Data is not evidence. Public health evidence can be distilled from data, but we are not there yet.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 10:59 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:



Johnny Dangerous said:
It's been known for a while, but I'm not hunting down the study, I'm not making it up. It was accepted by the medical community AFAIK with some caveats. It's been out and known about for months, and a subject of debate.

Malcolm wrote:
Subject to debate means no clinical evidence.

Johnny Dangerous said:
That is true of most things with Covid, it is too new to have anything but provisional clinical evidence in many areas. I posted the study, it is not a study that anyone has found problems with or takes issue with, it simply hasn't been peer reviewed yet, and of course other studies have found other things.

Natural immunity for Covid exists obviously, not sure why you'd want to debate that, it's kind of a no-brainer.

Malcolm wrote:
The thing I am asserting is that there is no clinical evidence that natural immunity is superior to immunity from vaccines.

I don’t think this is true, I know people personally who had covid 1.0, were fully vaxxed afterwards, and still managed to contract covid 2.0 aka delta.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 10:50 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
So, the long and short of is it that natural immunity -can- be more effective than vaccination but probably is not overall due to things like it's varying durability, etc.

Malcolm wrote:
I have seen opinions which contradict this completely.

I would like to see clinical evidence. Not opinions.

Johnny Dangerous said:
It's been known for a while, but I'm not hunting down the study, I'm not making it up. It was accepted by the medical community AFAIK with some caveats. It's been out and known about for months, and a subject of debate.

Malcolm wrote:
Subject to debate means no clinical evidence.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 10:34 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
So, the long and short of is it that natural immunity -can- be more effective than vaccination but probably is not overall due to things like it's varying durability, etc.

Malcolm wrote:
I have seen opinions which contradict this completely.

I would like to see clinical evidence. Not opinions.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 9:31 AM
Title: Re: Commentaries on the Canonical Sutras?
Content:


Nalanda said:
Do you know of any Mahayana commentaries on the Agama contents?

Malcolm wrote:
Doesn’t exist.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 8:51 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:
Toenail said:
I've heard immunity after having contracted it is more efficient than the immunity you get from vaccination.

Malcolm wrote:
Don’t think there is any clinical evidence for this.

Toenail said:
It is the opinion of the leading virologist dude of the Berlin Charite. I saw it in a recent interview with him.

Malcolm wrote:
As I said, no clinical evidence.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 7:55 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:
Toenail said:
I've heard immunity after having contracted it is more efficient than the immunity you get from vaccination.

Malcolm wrote:
Don’t think there is any clinical evidence for this.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 7:15 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:
Toenail said:
Maybe group therapy setting or 1on1.. But none of my patients has had symptoms. And almost everyone is vaccinated there as well.

I do hear a lot of people getting it though despite having been vaccinated. In my friend circly one other dude at the same time as I. And everyone you ask knows someone who got it or has it despite having been vaccinated. I am pro vaccination btw, I don't mean to make a point against it.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, I understand you are vaxx positive.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are not designed to provide high immunity from Delta, they are based on an older variant. I am afraid as long as there is fear of vaccines out there, and people refuse to get vaccinated, we will be getting boosters every six months, and the real issue is that fact that the first world is not rolling out vaccines to the rest of the world rapidly enough.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 6:54 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:
Toenail said:
I'm sick with covid since a week now and I was fully vaccinated.

Malcolm wrote:
Sorry to hear that and, frankly, were you engaged in risky behavior, nightclubbing, etc?

Toenail said:
I have been to one club 3 weeks ago (it was vaccinated only) . First time in years. But I do not think I have it from there, because my symptoms just started a week ago and all my tests were negative before that. I work in a clinic so I get tested regularly. I also have not used public transportation or seen friends for 2 weeks before. At work I wear FFP2.

Malcolm wrote:
I see, well, clinics are risky places too, especially parts of structures where there is insufficient ventilation, like bathrooms, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 6:12 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:
Toenail said:
I'm sick with covid since a week now and I was fully vaccinated.

Malcolm wrote:
Sorry to hear that and, frankly, were you engaged in risky behavior, nightclubbing, etc?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 3:49 AM
Title: Re: Commentaries on the Canonical Sutras?
Content:
Nalanda said:
I'm hoping not to do that. Meaning I'm hoping to learn only the works of our tradition. Mahayana and Vajrayana. For example, I would like to know what the Mahasanghika, Nagarjuna, Je Tsongkapa would say about a certain passage in the Agamas, etc.

Malcolm wrote:
They discuss the agamas very little.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 2:27 AM
Title: Re: Commentaries on the Canonical Sutras?
Content:
Nalanda said:
Do we have a collection of sutra commentaries from ancient times (as early as Early Buddhism) to present of every part of the sutra?

For example, if we are reading MA190, and we want to know what the ancient Buddhists think or say about this agama, we could then learn it from their perspective.

Is there something like that I could check whenever I read the agamas?

Malcolm wrote:
You are asking this on the wrong website. Go to dhammawheel.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 1:43 AM
Title: Re: On vegetarianism
Content:
Nicholas2727 said:
there are plenty of Mahayana sutras where the Buddha discourages meat eating. I am biased but if we have the option to eat meat or not, I feel it is best to not.

Malcolm wrote:
If one is either a Śrāvakayāna practitioner or a Vajrayāna practitioner, eating meat is permitted. If one is a common Mahāyāna practitioner, it appears it is is not permitted. But even here, we have the opinion of Bhavaviveka that as long as the meat is pure in three ways, it is permitted, for the same reason that wearing leather, wool, and so on is permitted.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 12:53 AM
Title: Re: Cosmology Question on Eternal Realms
Content:



Seeker12 said:
It appears to me that based on what's written, the Bṛhatphala worlds and the Pure Abodes are never destroyed by the elements, no matter what type of destruction it is (whether by wind, water, or fire).

Why would we then not say that these are eternal realms?

Malcolm wrote:
Well, one, they are conditioned in so far as only never returners can be reborn there, and the fact that all sentient beings, having exhausted there karma for the lower desire and form realm, take birth there.


Seeker12 said:
Is it that they only 'exist' or manifest when there are beings that have the karma to be born in them, and that is not always the case, so otherwise they do not manifest - as such, they themselves are not eternal realms but manifest only dependently in accord with the karma of beings?

Malcolm wrote:
If there were not more never returners, I don't think they would exist. The pure abodes are places where only aryas take birth. The Bṛhatphala is where all the other sentient beings take rebirth.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 12:48 AM
Title: Re: Stained Glass Windows in a Buddhist context?
Content:
Matt J said:
This is one of the reasons Tergar doesn't have any Western facilities. Some of the senior leaders were senior Insight Meditation Society instructors, and learned that in order to pay the bills, you need a constant influx of money, which requires constant retreats. Accordingly, YMR chose to invest in online platforms and rents facilities for retreats.

Malcolm wrote:
Yup, and then it is mostly paid for by having volunteers, who work for retreats, etc. It's crazy, but even crazier is that at least during the 80's and 90's IMS in Barre, MA was always full, and I think it still is.

The Goenka people at the Vipassana Meditation Center let you go for free, but then they do exit interviews where they hit you up hard for donations. But their place, near by me in Shelburne, MA, is still very busy.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 12:39 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


Johnny Dangerous said:
I don’t think they want dialogue.

Malcolm wrote:
Nope, all they want is power, and f**k democracy if they can't have it. This is all a predictable result of Nixon's Southern Strategy, which played on the Dixiecrat anxiety about civil rights and the absorption of the Dixiecrats into the GOP in the 1970's. The modern GOP playbook is taken right out of the Southern Democrats playbook, post Reconstruction. If you are not reading Heather Cox Richardson's ongoing, daily analysis of what's happening in the news, you should.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 12:35 AM
Title: Re: On vegetarianism
Content:
KonchogUrgyenNyima said:
Hello all,

I’m wondering about vegetarianism

Seeker12 said:
...Devadatta asked the Buddha to mandate vegetarianism for the monastics and while the Buddha was fine if individuals voluntarily did so, he refused to mandate it for the entire Sangha.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, this is well known, and it was also one of the reasons Devadatta went to hell without passing go, as he caused a schism over it.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 at 12:32 AM
Title: Re: On vegetarianism
Content:
Charlie123 said:
I would encourage you to use the search bar to read old threads on this subject. This very might be the single most discussed subject in the history of this forum.

KonchogUrgyenNyima said:
Yah I tried that but it seemed like the threads I was seeing there were not really discussing this topic. Maybe I didn’t go back into the results far enough though. I will do more digging.

Hazel said:
https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=110&t=26037&hilit=the+great+vegan+debate

51 pages long.

This one might even end up being merged into it.

Malcolm wrote:
Please don't. We are discussing vegetarianism in a specific context, Tibetan Buddhism, thanks.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 15th, 2021 at 11:49 PM
Title: Re: On vegetarianism
Content:



seeker242 said:
http://www.shabkar.org/ has a bunch of references to scripture, teachers, etc.

Malcolm wrote:
The funny thing about Shabkar, is after he goes through all the reasons to not eat meat, he turns around, in the same text, and goes through the reasons one should eat meat.

KonchogUrgyenNyima said:
Is that text translated anywhere?? I would love to read that haha.

Malcolm wrote:
Food of Bodhisattvas: Buddhist Teachings on Abstaining from Meat.

Zhabkar's approach is pragmatic, not dogmatic. He understands that in the Tibetan context, people just are not generally going to live on vegetables, grain, and dairy alone. It is a myth, BTW, that Tibetans could not grow vegetables in Tibet. They grew plenty of things: peas, barely, wheat, etc. They merely selected for things that were could be stored long term, and that excluded fresh vegetables, which require a lot of agricultural resources for a limited return in a cold,  dry alpine climate. And of course, Tibetan diets varied regionally.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 15th, 2021 at 11:40 PM
Title: Re: Stained Glass Windows in a Buddhist context?
Content:


Queequeg said:
Perhaps Western sanghas have put the cart before the horse in many situations, acquiring facilities before having a community needing facilities.

Malcolm wrote:
In the case of Tibetan Buddhist communities, this was virtually always done at the encouragement of a lama, with the thinking, "If you build it, they will come."

The reality is quite different. Most of the centers built in the 80's and 90's for example, are aging out, and are not drawing new students. When I see people like Alan Wallace buying multimillion dollar facilities in the middle of nowhere in Colorado,Italy, and New Zealand, I really have to wonder just what he and people like him are thinking.

One of the things I admire about Eric Columbel, the director of Tsadra, is that he has no interest in bricks and mortar. He is only interested in books. He understands that the future of Dharma lies in translations, not expensive properties.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 15th, 2021 at 10:58 PM
Title: Re: Vajrayana. How do I begin my path?
Content:
tingdzin said:
Contrary to what a lot of people are saying, choosing a Vajrayana guru is not somthing you do "first" when wanting to walk the path, as your initial attraction may based on something quite trivial in the scheme of things, such as charisma or an over-elaborate list of personal quaifications, or a big organization. There are so many horror stories posted here about people whose initial attraction to a guru, whom they had been sure they would trust with their life, resulted in disaster. That way lies disillusion and inability to stay with the practice.

Malcolm wrote:
That said, one cannot go wrong with teachers like HHDL, HHST sr., Chokyi Nyima, and other senior lamas like them.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 15th, 2021 at 10:11 PM
Title: Re: On vegetarianism
Content:
KonchogUrgyenNyima said:
Hello all,

I’m wondering about vegetarianism, especially as it pertains to nyingma traditions. Did guru Rinpoche ask us to be vegetarian? Why is taking a vow of no killing seen as the same as taking a vow not to eat meat?

Also interested in the scriptural bases for vegetarianism in the sutras.

I have been vegetarian for a long time, and am starting to question it, based on my lack of knowledge on what the masters mentioned above actually said about it.

To be clear, I’m not interested in a conversation about the political implications of vegetarianism/veganism.

Thanks so much for your time and i’m really looking forward to what y’all have to say.

seeker242 said:
http://www.shabkar.org/ has a bunch of references to scripture, teachers, etc.

Malcolm wrote:
The funny thing about Shabkar, is after he goes through all the reasons to not eat meat, he turns around, in the same text, and goes through the reasons one should eat meat.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 15th, 2021 at 10:03 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


KristenM said:
I personally think people need to listen to other's viewpoints on both sides without knee-jerk responses and demonizing.


Malcolm wrote:
Before I listen to anyone, I’ll need a firm acknowledgement that Trump is bad for democracy. Failing that, I have nothing to say to Republicans, and no interest in hearing one word they have to say.

KristenM said:
I think a lot of Republicans don’t want Trump to run again precisely because of that reason. But I didn’t vote for him and don’t vote Republican, so...I just wonder if the Democrats are backing themselves in a corner.

Malcolm wrote:
Fascists deserve to be punched, not heard. Because that is what we are facing, American fascism, just as Wallace described it back in 1944.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 15th, 2021 at 11:21 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


KristenM said:
I personally think people need to listen to other's viewpoints on both sides without knee-jerk responses and demonizing.


Malcolm wrote:
Before I listen to anyone, I’ll need a firm acknowledgement that Trump is bad for democracy. Failing that, I have nothing to say to Republicans, and no interest in hearing one word they have to say.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 15th, 2021 at 8:45 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:


KristenM said:
So is the 2nd Amendment. But, do you agree with it? I'm sure you have a very good argument why the two things are not equivalent, or how they are.

Malcolm wrote:
I don’t believe that people have a right to endanger other peoples lives. It’s be one think if it these idiots were only harming themselves, but that’s not the case.

As for the second amendment, the rulings on it have been nothing short travesties of jurisprudence. I’d repeal it in a second if I could. At the very least I would insist on prohibitive insurance, and strict licensing.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 15th, 2021 at 8:00 AM
Title: Re: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:
KristenM said:
I'm all for people getting the vaccine, but I don't know about this. How about making proof of vaccine up to the businesses/establishments that choose?

Malcolm wrote:
The legality of Vaccine mandates are well established law in the US. It’s state by state however, not federal.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 15th, 2021 at 4:10 AM
Title: Re: On vegetarianism
Content:
KonchogUrgyenNyima said:
Did guru Rinpoche ask us to be vegetarian?

Malcolm wrote:
Sometimes he did, sometimes he did not. That answer to that is that it is usually practice dependent. For example, if you are engaged in strenuous yantra yoga and tummo, Guru Rinpoche advises in several places is to rely on mild alcohol (chang) and meat. In other places, he strongly discourages people from drinking alcohol and eating meat.

KonchogUrgyenNyima said:
Thanks for this answer Malcolm. That is helpful. This does not address eating meat/drinking beer solely as sustenance. Just in one’s mealtimes. Or am I wrong? Is it that someone practicing tummo should eat some meat/beer with their meals? Or that they should eat it in a ritual setting outside of their sustenance?

Malcolm wrote:
It means they should rely on meat and mild alcohol during meals to keep up their strength and stamina. In general, in Mahāyāna one should avoid meat. But in Unsurpassed Yoga Tantra, the consumption of meat is permitted. Despite this, there is a strong inclination to avoid meat other than in feasts. And as the link between industrial agriculture and climate change has become clear, many Buddhists are steering away from meat because of their conscience.

If one is a serious practitioner of Unsurpassed Yoga Tantra, you can eat meat. But one is not, then it is better to avoid it, apart from feasts.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 15th, 2021 at 3:47 AM
Title: Re: On vegetarianism
Content:
KonchogUrgyenNyima said:
Did guru Rinpoche ask us to be vegetarian?

Malcolm wrote:
Sometimes he did, sometimes he did not. That answer to that is that it is usually practice dependent. For example, if you are engaged in strenuous yantra yoga and tummo, Guru Rinpoche advises in several places is to rely on mild alcohol (chang) and meat. In other places, he strongly discourages people from drinking alcohol and eating meat.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 15th, 2021 at 2:47 AM
Title: Austria will confine the unvaccinated to their homes in a targeted lockdown.
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Austria will confine unvaccinated adults and minors over age 11 to their homes as part of a targeted lockdown, lawmakers announced Sunday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/14/world/europe/austria-unvaccinated-lockdown.html


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 14th, 2021 at 10:24 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


Queequeg said:
The only important political issue as far as I am concerned is the environment. Everything else doesn't mean shit if that's not fixed. I will vote for the bigoted, America-first, jinogoistic red neck promoting solar panels and electric ATVs if I have to.

Malcolm wrote:
That problems we have caused with environment will not be solved through nationalism, it will only be solved through total and complete international cooperation. Nationalism exacerbates climate change.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 14th, 2021 at 10:05 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


Malcolm wrote:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/opinion/biden-foreign-policy.html

Queequeg said:
Blah blah. The most elegant ideas don't mean shit if you can't get elected.

The American electorate is not interested in this.

Malcolm wrote:
Then the planet is f**cked. I guess we should only cater to what the American electorate imagines they want, screw everyone else, right?

Well, I’ll persist in my idealism, you can keep your cynicism.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 14th, 2021 at 9:54 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:



PeterC said:
NAFTA has been around for almost three decades now and despite all the “great sucking sound” rhetoric, there was no group that obviously lost out from it. The border was open for decades before that, agriculture in California and elsewhere has depended on a mobile Mexican workforce for well over half a century.

The problems caused by having an open border have a lot more to do with explicitly illegal actions, eg the demand for drugs in the US and the supply of weapons back into Mexico, the social problems of having a large mobile workforce for the maquiladoras, etc.  The phantasm of Mexican criminals in the US is not really an open border problem.  The US does perfectly well at generating both indigenous criminal gangs and economic inequity without the help of any other country.

Malcolm wrote:
Like the death squads in Cemtral America, the gangs there gained their criminal expertise in American Institutions, the Military in the case of the former and federal prisons in the case of the latter.

Even so, there is far more to be gained for every one with NAU then lost.

Pax Americana is not without its problems, but the alternative…? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Queequeg said:
All the sense in the world doesn't matter. In the end, you'd lose to the guy who's platform is, "Murca!" Camps on the border, whatever the actual back story, just looks to the ordinary voter like chaos.

Until the border issue is fixed, Dems will continue to get clobbered over the head with it. Doesn't matter that's its manufactured. Its not an issue that Dems can ever lead and win with. It may well be an intractable issue. It will likely get worse.

Needs to be downplayed and other stuff needs the oxygen. That likely means quietly continuing Trump's border policies.

Malcolm wrote:
The border issue will be fixed by good policies south of the border, not a Fortress Amerika mentality.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 14th, 2021 at 9:40 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Pax Americana is not without its problems, but the alternative…? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

PeterC said:
Pax Americana doesn't really involve a lot of pax - the primary beneficiaries seem to be the defense contractors.  In the Americas it generally reduces to undermining governments that don't show sufficient deference to the US. This has never resulted in a country becoming better governed or a more pleasant place to live.

Malcolm wrote:
South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, England, France, Western Europe in general counter examples.

I will grant that the main benefit of the US for those south of the border is a place to emigrate and work. Our record in Central America is terrible.


PeterC said:
It is very hard to point to a situation where the US intervened in or coerced another country that actually benefited the US, let alone the country itself. That's my real complaint about it - not the methods, the lack of results.

Malcolm wrote:
Since WWII, it has mostly been a CF.


PeterC said:
So I'm not sure what the alternative would be, but if it was nothing, then at least for the Americas that would probably be an improvement.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, this is my point.

From the NYT today:
Globalism is not mushy government idealism — far from it. It does not deny the existence or importance of government — at the local, state, national and international levels — or of intergovernmental diplomacy. But it insists that the great-power games, as deadly as they have been and could still be, must give way to planetary politics, in which human beings matter more than nationalities. Competition itself is fine and natural, but it needs to be competition to achieve a goal that benefits us all.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/opinion/biden-foreign-policy.html


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 14th, 2021 at 9:20 PM
Title: Re: How to avoid heretical/heterodox teachers?
Content:
Nalanda said:
My question is, what is the right attitude towards these teachers who still cling to the practice of that specific deity protector? Should they be avoided altogether?

Malcolm wrote:
Pity.

Yes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 14th, 2021 at 9:17 PM
Title: Re: Question about awareness
Content:


PadmaVonSamba said:
I’m not sure that I’m confused about the distinction between consciousness and awareness other than perhaps in mixing up the two terms,  using one term to refer to the other. Both are ambiguous English language words referring to the mental experience of subject-object interaction. Perhaps the Sanskrit terms, clearly defined, would be better to use.

Malcolm wrote:
We have a Sanskrit term we normally use to refer to "consciousness," that is "vijñāna;" not so for the term "awareness."

PadmaVonSamba said:
If, as you say, consciousness + object = awareness
(A+B=C) then one would assume that A and B occur prior to their interaction. It seems as though your argument is that neither occur until they interact: there is no A until there is B (and vice-versa). I am familiar with this view, but I would like it explained better.

Malcolm wrote:
No, sense organ (A) plus object (B) gives rise to a sense consciousness (C). Of course there are problems with this basic scheme of the Sarvastivadins, but we take it as a base line, since it is the scheme the Buddha taught as the eighteen sense elements.

PadmaVonSamba said:
Another issue I have with the argument that contact relies on sense-faculties is that there are many examples of living organisms which demonstrate intentional interactions with objects in their external environments, but which, themselves, do not possess brains or sense organs. The simplest example is that of a spermatozoa which is “attracted” by the chemicals given off by the ovum, and swims towards it.

Malcolm wrote:
That is not intentional action, since a spermatozoa has no mind.

However, cetana, volition/intention is a mental factor that arises with all minds in the desire realm, it is one of the ten neutral mental factors.

PadmaVonSamba said:
But there are other examples involving simple yet more complex organisms, certain types of jellyfish, and I think, for example, those microscopic manatee-looking things that supposedly live on the surface of one’s eyelashes.

Malcolm wrote:
In order to have intentions, one must have a mind.

PadmaVonSamba said:
What about the being who is in the bardo, said to be attracted to its future parents? Does it have eye consciousness? Does it possess awareness of the various visions and lights in the bardo? If it does, then by what means is this possible since it has no organ of sight, if not for some kind of innate awareness?

Malcolm wrote:
Bardo beings have complete sense organs and aggregates, according to Abhidharma. What they are unable to see is the sun and moon, since they are apparitionally-born, lacking the solar and lunar elements on their bodies from a female and a male, thus the explanation goes.

PadmaVonSamba said:
BTW, when I said that awareness is “absolute” (and perhaps the word, “consciousness” would have been the correct term) I meant that nobody can deny that it is happening, because to even deny it requires awareness of that denial.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, when we investigated our minds, even though we cannot find anything, we cannot deny there is looking. This is generally termed gsal rig, clear and knowing, and is the characteristic of the mind. The essence of the mind is emptiness.

The nature of the mind has three aspects, it is clear, knowing, and empty. Clarity and knowing are somethings collapsed for convenience into clarity, to make it easier to map the resultant three kāyas to the causal nature of the mind.

In both Dzogchen and Mahāmudra meditation, one first identifies the clarity aspect by looking for the mind, when it is not found, this is called "sealing clarity with emptiness." When one concludes that despite not being able to find anything, one cannot deny there is an act of looking for the mind, this is called sealing "emptiness with clarity." When one is able to rest in the clear and empty nature of the mind without tending to one side or the other, this is called "sealing inseparability with inseparability."

If there is anything absolute about the nature of the mind, it is the inseparability of clarity and emptiness, which itself is uncompounded, naturally perfected, nonarising, beginningless, and unceasing.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 14th, 2021 at 1:18 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
Supramundane said:
Isn't the border de facto open anyway? Why not legalize crossing, then you can regulate it. Sort of like the argument for drugs, I guess.

One of the first free trade experiments in the world was Benelux, Belgium - Luxembourg - Netherlands. After a few years of open borders and free trade, although a number of businesses had been wiped out in a flurry of creative destruction as tariffs and protective measures fell away, overall trade increased, and the economy surged, way above the European average.

This proved that open borders creates an intensification of business due to the free flow of goods and services.

Kim O'Hara said:
(1) One example is not proof of any general rule.
(2) What's 'good for business' is not necessarily good for people, e.g. industries move off-shore where workers can be freely exploited, putting workers back home out of their jobs. Closed borders may, on the whole, be better.


Kim

PeterC said:
NAFTA has been around for almost three decades now and despite all the “great sucking sound” rhetoric, there was no group that obviously lost out from it. The border was open for decades before that, agriculture in California and elsewhere has depended on a mobile Mexican workforce for well over half a century.

The problems caused by having an open border have a lot more to do with explicitly illegal actions, eg the demand for drugs in the US and the supply of weapons back into Mexico, the social problems of having a large mobile workforce for the maquiladoras, etc.  The phantasm of Mexican criminals in the US is not really an open border problem.  The US does perfectly well at generating both indigenous criminal gangs and economic inequity without the help of any other country.

Malcolm wrote:
Like the death squads in Cemtral America, the gangs there gained their criminal expertise in American Institutions, the Military in the case of the former and federal prisons in the case of the latter.

Even so, there is far more to be gained for every one with NAU then lost.

Pax Americana is not without its problems, but the alternative…? It doesn’t bear thinking about.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 14th, 2021 at 9:43 AM
Title: Re: Reversing Global Warming - Science and Politics (split from: Reversing Global Warming -Prayers and Aspirations")
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59274686

Unknown said:
Some 450 more people were injured by scorpion stings, a health ministry official said.
The hail and thunder storm in the area near the River Nile on Friday was particularly violent.
Scorpions are regularly washed into the streets by heavy rain, while snakes have also been disturbed.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 14th, 2021 at 5:34 AM
Title: Re: The Myth of Progress
Content:



Konchog Thogme Jampa said:
The goal is to empty Samsara completely...

Malcolm wrote:
That is an aspiration, but it is impossible. It will never happen.

Konchog Thogme Jampa said:
It will just take a few kalpas

Malcolm wrote:
As I said, it will never happen. sentient beings are limitless.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 14th, 2021 at 4:38 AM
Title: Re: The Myth of Progress
Content:



Konchog Thogme Jampa said:
The goal is to empty Samsara completely...

Malcolm wrote:
That is an aspiration, but it is impossible. It will never happen.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 14th, 2021 at 12:35 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
nyonchung said:
I can imagine, its about "Temple des Traditions", not ChNN, or any well-meaning Buddhist master
Since long, many teachers spent time to uproot animal sacrifice in Tibetan-speaking areas of the Himalayan range - where they actually still exist here and there in nominally Buddhist areas (one letter of the Karmapa XVI to Manang is available)
They still exist in Latö
We can mention also Nedo Karma Chagmé for Kham and numerous Mongolian teachers but I'm  going

Malcolm wrote:
Also in Eastern Bhutan, where Kunzang Dechen Lingpa had to correct Nyingmapas who thought they had to slaughter animals for ganapujas.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 13th, 2021 at 3:51 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
reiun said:
Sekida's opinions are therefore irrelevant and also unsupportable, if taken literally as you have presented them.
Relevant and supportable opinions about experiences, because those experiences can be certified by a proper teacher.

Malcolm wrote:
The idea that there can be awakening without analytical insight, aka, vipaśyanā, has been rejected in Tibetan Buddhism since the eighth century.

Evidence shows that samadhi is not necessary for awakening at all, actually, as we see from the large number of people who attained stream entry and even arhatship through what is called dry vipaśyanā. Certainly samadhi, aka śamatha, aka calm-abiding can help stabilize the mind, thus making insight more stable, but the crucial factor in awakening, achieving the path of seeing, is in sight, not samadhi.

Just as a bird needs two wings to fly, generally speaking a practitioner needs both wisdom (prajñā) and method (upaya); vipaśyāna and śamatha in union.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 13th, 2021 at 3:41 AM
Title: Re: Question about awareness
Content:
undefineable said:
Vis a vis reality, wouldn't it be more correct to say that the aggregates insinuate themselves[?!] as objects of awareness, but that awareness arises with them and centers itself within the ones mentioned?

Malcolm wrote:
Awareness is a function of being conscious. If you are not conscious, you are not aware.

The dharma has very precise language with which we discuss the mind and its functions. It's called abhidharma. If people do not ground their discussions of dharma in vinaya, sūtra, or abhidharma, they are just making shit up.

If anything, what people are here calling "awareness" is either samjñā, perception, the third skandha; or manaskāra, attention, which is a mental factor. Well, they are both mental factors, but the reason "perception" gets it own skandha is that it is one of two mental factors that pull us most strongly towards afflictive objects. The other being vedana, sensation.,


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 13th, 2021 at 2:40 AM
Title: Re: What do they do with the hair???
Content:
SilenceMonkey said:
I thought it was so the lama can pray for us every day.

Malcolm wrote:
Why would they need our hair to do that?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 13th, 2021 at 1:59 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


reiun said:
Not at all.
The wisdom of experience trumps (sorry!) the wisdom of cognition. As you stated: we are discussing a process. Also: insight depends on experience.

Malcolm wrote:
I don’t think we are using the same language.  Merely sitting in samadhi will never lead to awakening.

reiun said:
Just the opposite

Malcolm wrote:
This is Tibetan Buddhism forum, in case you didn't notice.

Sekida's opinions are therefore irrelevant and also unsupportable, if taken literally as you have presented them.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 13th, 2021 at 1:50 AM
Title: Re: Question about awareness
Content:


PadmaVonSamba said:
I would say the aggregates actually arise within awareness. There is awareness of the aggregates.

Malcolm wrote:
This is incorrect. The Buddha never identified anything called "awareness" in which the five aggregates are situated and arise.

What you are terming "awareness" is just the combination of the aggregates of sensation and perception.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 13th, 2021 at 12:59 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


Queequeg said:
Surveying history, democracy has sparkled like a gem for brief moments. Maybe this is the fading twinkle of one of those moments. I fear what comes.

Malcolm wrote:
As long as we keep allowing the huge wealth disparities that have arisen, our democracy will fold. We are living through another gilded age. Where's Teddy Roosevelt when we need him?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 13th, 2021 at 12:48 AM
Title: Re: Question about awareness
Content:
Rick said:
Good to know. What are the Sanskrit and Tibetan terms for awareness-consciousness?

Malcolm wrote:
Rig pa, often translated as awareness, derives from Sanskrit, vid: knowing , understanding , a knower.

Rnam shes is generally a translation of vijñāna, the aggregate of consciousness, or one of the six senses consciousnesses.

Shes pa is generally a translation of jñā, to know , have knowledge , become acquainted with (acc. ; rarely gen. MBh. iii , 2154 Hariv. 7095) , perceive , apprehend , understand (also with inf. [Pa1n2. 3-4 , 65] MBh. ii , v Das3.) , experience , recognise , ascertain , investigate RV. &c. ; to know as , know or perceive that. This generally, in Tibetan texts, refers the five sense consciousnesses.

The usage of the term rig pa in Kagyu and Sakya texts is more straightforward, where it refers the knowing aspect of the all-basis.

In Dzogchen texts it is a much more complicated term. However, it has in general two interrelated meanings: the first is knowledge of the basis, that is, recognition of nature of the mind. Secondly, it refers to abiding in the nature of consciousness itself. Teacher like MIgyur Dorje and so on, and most modern translators working in Dzogchen material, tend to have taken up Herbert Guenther's early translation of rig pa as "awareness." Chogyal Namkhai Norbu coined the term "instant presence."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 12th, 2021 at 11:57 PM
Title: Re: Question about awareness
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Add to this the Neo-advaitan use of the term, etc., and it is a real puttanesca.

Rick said:
Yes! A huge problem for clear communication, a Tower of Babbl'wareness. Add to that that some people differentiate awareness and consciousness, and others don't.

Malcolm wrote:
In Buddhism, there is no valid reason for doing so, at all.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 12th, 2021 at 11:47 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


Queequeg said:
The problem is getting from here to there. The reason people think the borders are necessary is due to the disparities. If the disparities were not so pronounced, the perceived need for borders would not be so great. Chicken and egg.

Look, if you can figure the problem of development out, you'd readily have a job in any number of organizations or government agencies and undoubtedly a Nobel prize.


Malcolm wrote:
Democracy is hard in countries where there are are huge class disparities. That's what's happening to the US.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 12th, 2021 at 11:03 PM
Title: Re: Is impermanence the same or different than emptiness?
Content:


iskaral said:
What i do buy is that the teachings are supposed to reduce our dukkha and aid us in reducing the dukkha of others.

Malcolm wrote:
Without seeing things as they are (yathabhūta), then this goal is unattainable, just as without a proper diagnosis, one cannot remove an illness.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 12th, 2021 at 10:57 PM
Title: Re: Question about awareness
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
Awareness is absolute.

Malcolm wrote:
Part of the aggregates or different?

undefineable said:
Does it make a difference?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes. People use the term "awareness" (rig pa) very promiscuously without defining it or the tradition they are drawing the term from. Even within one tradition, for example, Nyingma, the term rig pa can mean several different things depending on context, not to mention that the term is used differently in Sakya, Kagyu, Gelug, and Nyingma.

Add to this the Neo-advaitan use of the term, etc., and it is a real puttanesca.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 12th, 2021 at 10:04 PM
Title: Re: Question about awareness
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
Awareness is absolute.

Malcolm wrote:
Part of the aggregates or different?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 12th, 2021 at 9:38 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


reiun said:
Meditation as experience can stand independent, and more meaningful, than any cognitive process (analysis).

Malcolm wrote:
Some people assert that, but such people cannot distinguish awakening from samadhi. This was the fault the Buddha ascertained in the teachings of his two teachers, confusing samadhi for awakening. Awakening is strictly a result of insight. Insight depends on view. View depends on analysis. Analysis depends on discernment.

reiun said:
Not at all.
The wisdom of experience trumps (sorry!) the wisdom of cognition. As you stated: we are discussing a process. Also: insight depends on experience.

Malcolm wrote:
I don’t think we are using the same language.  Merely sitting in samadhi will never lead to awakening.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 12th, 2021 at 10:19 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


Malcolm wrote:
My point is that meditation without analysis is method sans wisdom, just as analysis without meditation is wisdom sans method.

reiun said:
Meditation as experience can stand independent, and more meaningful, than any cognitive process (analysis).

Malcolm wrote:
Some people assert that, but such people cannot distinguish awakening from samadhi. This was the fault the Buddha ascertained in the teachings of his two teachers, confusing samadhi for awakening. Awakening is strictly a result of insight. Insight depends on view. View depends on analysis. Analysis depends on discernment.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 12th, 2021 at 9:24 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


conebeckham said:
....and of course this comes from the tradition of Mahamudra.  The tradition of practice, and not the tradition of commentary and analysis.

Malcolm wrote:
Mahāmudrā has plenty of commentary and analysis, whole volumes of it.

conebeckham said:
Well, yes, of course...but I think you are missing my point.
I am making a distinction between the mode of explication and analysis, and the mode of meditative instruction and pith.

But, meh...you know what I mean, I am sure.

Malcolm wrote:
My point is that meditation without analysis is method sans wisdom, just as analysis without meditation is wisdom sans method.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 12th, 2021 at 5:41 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


conebeckham said:
....and of course this comes from the tradition of Mahamudra.  The tradition of practice, and not the tradition of commentary and analysis.

Malcolm wrote:
Mahāmudrā has plenty of commentary and analysis, whole volumes of it.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 12th, 2021 at 1:57 AM
Title: Re: Do all refuge vows include the precepts?
Content:
Hazel said:
My understanding was when we take formal refuge, we take 1-5 of the precepts (the minimum being not killing). However, when my lama gave me these vows privately (and again when I renewed them recently) he did not mention the precepts. Are they ever not included?

Drikung Kagyu

Malcolm wrote:
They are never not included.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 12th, 2021 at 12:38 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
Matt J said:
You know what they say: “not existent since even a buddha does not see it, but it is also not nonexistent since it is the basis of both samsara and nirvana.”

Malcolm wrote:
Of course.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 11th, 2021 at 11:02 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Khenpo’s point is that Madhyamaka reasoning doesn’t have jurisdiction since Buddha Nature can’t be taken as an object of consciousness. I don’t think rephrasing that idea to be a “different orientation” is much of a leap.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, if it can't be taken as an object of consciousness, not even buddhas could know it, which stands in direct contradiction to the tathāgatagarbha sūtras themselves.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 11th, 2021 at 8:05 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Im not saying its not buddhist. Im saying its a different frame/doctrine/concept that is independent to madhyamaka.
Although the premise of Buddha Nature is widely accepted, there are those that say Dolpopa’s interpretation isn’t Buddhist. I’m not one of them. But I’m agreeing with you it’s a different orientation than Nagarjuna.

Malcolm wrote:
Very few people say this. Rendawa, maybe some extremist Gelugpas.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 11th, 2021 at 4:40 AM
Title: Re: Mahayana Arhat?
Content:
Nalanda said:
Mahayana arhat

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, a Mahāyāna arhat is a buddha, this why a buddha is called a "tathāgata, arhat, samyasaṃbuddha."

The sixteen Arhats are bodhisattva in the guise of śrāvaka arhats.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 10th, 2021 at 12:22 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
As presented by Khenpo Tsultrim, Shentong absolutely accepts Prasangika Madhyamaka as valid. However it does not apply to Wisdom Mind/Buddha Nature.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 at 11:41 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


krodha said:
That is all well and good, but I do not have to accept gzhan stong as a view in order to accept tathāgatagarbha.

Malcolm wrote:
The gzhan stong thing is dead horse that we have reduced to mince meat.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 at 11:33 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
iskaral said:
rangjung dorje on nagarjunas praise of dharmadhatu by brunnholzlz)


Malcolm wrote:
There is no possibility that the praise to the dharmadhātu is a text by Nāgārjuna I. There are no citations of it in any Indian text that can be dated prior to the mid-10th century.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 at 7:25 PM
Title: Re: Illuminating Quotes by Malcolm Namdrol-la
Content:



Malcolm wrote:
Simulacrum, not real sambhogakāya, again just the ripening of traces in your own mind. And you should ask about such things on line.

Tata1 said:
So something like the example wisdom is to dharmakaya?
Ups sorry. Just read the last line.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, something like that.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 at 9:50 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Or a heretical Shentongpa. I feel fairly confident that some Gelugpas see Karma Kagyupas as crypto Hindus because of their Shentong view(s).

Malcolm wrote:
Gzhan stong pas are not heretical, they are just confused about the meaning of dependent origination. But that can be said about all three of the lower tenet systems.  But at least they are Mahayanis.

nyonchung said:
Crypto-hindu, some said this about Jonangpas (namely: Rendawa's biography, debate with Jonangpas in Sakya, alas date unknown, some of his letters and advice)

Malcolm wrote:
Rendawa really knew his Madhyamaka. Which is more than I can say for Dolbupa.

The truth is that there will always be some who find Madhyamaka too austere.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 at 9:39 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
This means that nature of all things is that they are unconditioned.

clyde said:
And how is this different from all dharmas (things) share the nature of the Unconditioned?

Malcolm wrote:
It’s the difference between an adjective and a noun. And in that lies a world of difference.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 at 9:15 AM
Title: Re: Mahayana Arhat?
Content:
Nalanda said:
What would that entail? Would you be following strictly the sutrayana path and not developing bodhicitta?

Is it "accidental" on the part of the practitioner? or can it be deliberate too?

If one attains arhatship, is that the same arhatship as the sravakayana? If not, how does mahayana arhatship differ?

Malcolm wrote:
The Mahayana arhat is the Buddha.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 at 8:48 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
clyde said:
Is it accurate to say that there’s not nothing (void), but an ineffable something and all things share its nature?

Malcolm wrote:
It would be accurate to say that if you were a Hindu, etc., but not a Buddhist.

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Or a heretical Shentongpa. I feel fairly confident that some Gelugpas see Karma Kagyupas as crypto Hindus because of their Shentong view(s).

Malcolm wrote:
Gzhan stong pas are not heretical, they are just confused about the meaning of dependent origination. But that can be said about all three of the lower tenet systems.  But at least they are Mahayanis.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 at 6:22 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
clyde said:
Malcolm, I explained that the Buddha didn’t teach that there is nothing (nihilism), that the Buddha taught that there is an Unconditioned and that is ineffable.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, emptiness is unconditioned since it does not arise. But it still isn't anything at all.

You see, there are only four unconditioned things in Buddhism: space and the two kinds of cessation: analytical cessation (nirvana), non-analytical cessation (simple absence of causation), and emptiness. But emptiness and nirvana are synonyms.

The perfection of wisdom states three things, which are all synonymous: all things are empty. All things are nonarisen. All things have always been in a state of nirvana. This means that nature of all things is that they are unconditioned. Everything that seems conditioned, is in reality, unconditioned. But that unconditioned state is still a negation. That's why it isn't anything at all. The unconditioned is not even unconditioned because there isn't anything to be unconditioned, since by definition, the unconditioned never arises. That which does not arise does not exist, for example, the sprout of burnt seed.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 at 5:46 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
clyde said:
Is it accurate to say that there’s not nothing (void), but an ineffable something and all things share its nature?

Hazel said:
By ineffable here, do you simply mean that it can not be put to words/described?

clyde said:
Yes, but not being able to be put into words doesn’t mean
Malcolm wrote:
it isn't anything at all.
In this case, it does. emptiness isn't anything at all. It does not exist, since it does not arise. It does not not-exist, since it does not perish, it does not both exist and not exist, or neither, because of the fault arising from the previous two alternatives. One cannot speak coherently about that which does not arise.

On the other hand, emptiness does not negate things, since it is the nature of things. The nature or essence of things is that they are natureless and essenceless. If there are no things, there is no emptiness of things to speak of.

Emptiness and nonexistence are similar terms, for example, a bucket that is empty and a bucket that does not exist. In the first case we say a bucket is empty because there is nothing in the bucket, such as water and so on. To say a bucket is empty is to say nothing exists in the bucket. In the second case, when we say that bucket does not exist, it makes no sense to speak of an empty bucket at all. There is no bucket to be empty.

When we say that things are empty, we are saying that things have no nature. There is nothing in things. Nothing fills them up. There is nothing to describe in things. That's why its fine to say that the nature of things is inexpressible. If there were something in things we could describe, being, existence, and so on, then we could describe that. But even nonexistence does not exist in things. Things are just empty. They are not filled with existence. they are not filled with nonexistence, and so on. They have not nature at all. They are hollow, mere appearances, nonarising by nature, like dreams, illusions, mirages, and other examples of empty things.  And when we examine things carefully, we find there are no things to be empty.

Still, empty buckets make the most noise, as the saying goes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 at 4:56 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


Sādhaka said:
Devil’s advocate for a minute:

I think that I ‘know’ the answer to what I’m about to say; however, how does what you just said differ from what Jiddu Krishnamurti seems to often say?

Malcolm wrote:
I don't what Krishnamurti seems to say. I generally ignore him. Perhaps you can provide a quote that you have in mind?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 at 3:35 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


clyde said:
I agree, emptiness is a character of phenomena and not the ineffable. Emptiness is not a dharma, but merely the lack of self-existence.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, that lack of self-existence is the nature of all phenomena, and it is ineffable, since it isn't anything at all.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 at 3:31 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
clyde said:
Is it accurate to say that there’s not nothing (void), but an ineffable something and all things share its nature?

Malcolm wrote:
It would be accurate to say that if you were a Hindu, etc., but not a Buddhist. The only nature that all things share is no nature at all, and since that nature isn't anything at all, nothing can be said about it.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 8th, 2021 at 11:54 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
iskaral said:
I think it possible that Tsongkhapa’s interpretation of Madhyamaka could be disparaged this way
This is what i was referring to as the semantic interpretation: “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth”, but this says nothing about the conventional and you can have both flat (all conventional truths have equal status, something close but different to the only real thing is appearance) or thick (allowing for hierarchies of conditionality in which no one level has intrinsic reality with what appears being merely on level among many) conceptions of conventional truth.

Malcolm wrote:
Not all relative truths are conventional truths. This is a well established principle in Madhyamaka. So, there is a hierarchy of relative truths, i.e. true and false relative truth; and true relative truth is also called conventional truth, which is validated through a correspondence between naming and function. A thing is conventionally true only if it is efficient in producing a named result (arthakriya). The purpose of this distinction is to account for conventional transactions in the world, and also to account for the ability of words and meanings to contribute to realization of emptiness and so on. Even in Dzogchen tantras, the efficiency of language is accepted. It is a universally accepted Mahāyāna Buddhist dogma, derived from Nāgārjuna, that one needs to rely on conventional truth in order to understand ultimate truth, and without such understanding, realization is impossible.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 8th, 2021 at 10:04 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


undefineable said:
That's because I made a mistake in wording, as explained. I could equally have overshot in the other direction in trying to support my point, and said "claim[s] *nothing* is real", but then no-one likes being associated with nihilism...

Malcolm wrote:
You would have been correct. Buddhism does claim that nothing is real, that is, that there is no underlying state of being which pertains to things, no substrate. On the other hand Buddhism does not say everything is nonexistent, like a sky flower, a child of a barren women, etc.

PadmaVonSamba said:
I prefer to say that appearances only “arise” or “happen” or “occur” (to the senses) just as a breeze occurs, which suggests that they are indeed objects awareness, but doesn’t suggest any intrinsic reality.
“Exist” is such a loaded term.

Malcolm wrote:
Appearances don’t even occur, happen, or arise, as that suggests they transition from nonbeing to being. The only way this can be discussed coherently is with reference to dependent origination.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 8th, 2021 at 8:57 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
krodha said:
Buddhism makes the definite ontological claim that only appearances are real.

Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
I’ve never seen such a claim.

undefineable said:
That's because I made a mistake in wording, as explained. I could equally have overshot in the other direction in trying to support my point, and said "claim[s] *nothing* is real", but then no-one likes being associated with nihilism...

Malcolm wrote:
You would have been correct. Buddhism does claim that nothing is real, that is, that there is no underlying state of being which pertains to things, no substrate. On the other hand Buddhism does not say everything is nonexistent, like a sky flower, a child of a barren women, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 8th, 2021 at 8:54 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


undefineable said:
Buddhism makes the definite ontological claim that only appearances are real.

Malcolm wrote:
Absolutely not. Buddhists make any number of ontological claims, but this not among them.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 8th, 2021 at 5:20 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
Matt J said:
"Everyone does it" is the bandwagon fallacy. I agree that few people apply critical thinking, but I don't think it warrants the rejection of critical thinking.

Malcolm wrote:
The fallacy of false equivalence. Appealing to an authority does not necessary imply a lack of critical thinking. Indeed, it may imply the opposite.

Matt J said:
The gauntlet was thrown down by the Pyrrhonists and never successfully answered for over 2000 years in the West. Rather, skeptical arguments are even today used to attack one's opponent, and then usually dismissed as applied to one's own theories.

Malcolm wrote:
Pyrrho is just an equivocator:

"There are, bhikkhus, some recluses and brahmins who are endless equivocators.[9] When questioned about this or that point, on four grounds they resort to evasive statements and to endless equivocation. And owing to what, with reference to what, do these honorable recluses and brahmins do so?

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.01.0.bodh.html#fnt-9

Matt J said:
Similarly, to say that no one but Buddhists achieve any level of liberation is simply unfounded, i.e. an article of religious faith.

Malcolm wrote:
No, it is not simply a matter of faith. Buddha defined liberation in a very specific way, and excluded other definitions. Now, it is possible to argue that there are other definitions of liberation, and I agree with you, there are other such definitions. But they all require what you might call "dogmas."

In the case of Buddhadharma, however, all that is required is insight into dependent origination. There is nothing particularly esoteric about it, apart from the mind's resistance to accepting its inevitable consequences: "Where that does not exist, this does not exist; with the ceasing of that, this ceased." That's all liberation is, according to the Buddha, or those texts which represent the Buddha to us.

Matt J said:
There are intriguing neurological studies suggesting that most of our creative and logical power is used to rationalize our pre-conceived notions.

Malcolm wrote:
Then you are hoisted on your own petard.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 8th, 2021 at 3:43 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
undefineable said:
The Buddhist claim that there is no supporting substrate to mental activity is pretty counterintuitive.

Malcolm wrote:
That is because absence of identity is counterintuitive when one has spent a lifetime reinforcing the identity of self and other. But once it is dismantled...it's pretty intuitive.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 8th, 2021 at 3:38 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


undefineable said:
And although there are Buddhist texts that suggest that craving is the root not only of dukkha but of all reality as well, this doesn't explain how a) the external roots of the objects of craving manage to make an appearance,

Malcolm wrote:
They arise from causes and conditions. This is not mysterious.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 8th, 2021 at 12:27 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
Matt J said:
Except Buddhist ones, evidently.

PadmaVonSamba said:
Buddhist teachings tell us not to even hold onto our concepts, much less our spiritual experiences. This is the profound difference between still holding on and truly letting go.

Malcolm wrote:
Now you are simple being argumentative, with no purpose other than to nay say.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 8th, 2021 at 12:22 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Certainly, the Buddha never said pranadukkha. He taught self and no self to people depending on context.

Matt J said:
The whole "Buddha said" argument is fallacious for a few reasons.

1. It is a basic appeal to authority.

Malcolm wrote:
Everyone appeals to authority except materialists (and even they do).

Matt J said:
2. Who knows what the Buddha actually said? All of the sources are second hand. Bhikkhu Analayo says the Pali chants even a few hundred years ago are different than today. As far as I know, the Buddha didn't write anything down. Ever play telephone?

3. Even if the Buddha said it, was it meant as provisionally or not?

4. Buddha supposedly said lots of stuff. There are monks who believe the world is flat, or that atoms are composed of earth, air, fire, water, and light elements, of that lay people shouldn't meditate, or many other ridiculous things, because "Buddha said."

But you know what else Buddha said? Check it out for yourself.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, one must find out for oneself. However, your attack on the authority of inference and testimony is simplistic, and amounts to little more than the skepticism exemplified by Krishnamurti. It’s also characteristic of the materialist position, which claims only direct perception is valid.

Matt J said:
You should study tenet systems. The point of studying things is eliminate concepts and views one is unaware one is holding.
Exactly. No point is escaping one conceptual prison to confine oneself in a Buddhist one. But all I see here are concepts and stories.

Malcolm wrote:
The point is how one uses concepts to escape such confines. That’s the point of understanding to two truths, for example. In order to realize ultimate truth, one must understand it. In order to understand it, it must be understood through the words and conventions of relative truth. You might think that’s also just a story, and you are right. But it’s an efficient story, capable of bring about the result of liberation, the other stories are not efficient.

The point is this: does one think one has an existential problem to solve? Yes or no. If yes, what is that problem? Is it engendered externally or internally? If the latter, if one’s problem arises from oneself and is not imposed externally, how does one resolve that problem? Is that problem innate, and therefor irresolvable or is it adventitious? If it is the latter, then how is it resolved? If it comes from within, it cannot solved through any external condition, etc.

So we Buddhists are nang pas, we think that our problem comes from ourselves, from the unique causes and conditions which led to our present condition. Since we have this understanding, for us there can be no question of relying on some external solution, we cannot. Therefor, we must look into our own minds for the solution. Since we never can find any permanent entity within our mind, all we discover is that the mind continues based on cause and condition. When we examine those causes and conditions, we cannot find anything among them which we can say “this is it, this is my mind.” This is the famous emptiness we hear so much about. When we discover this, now we have wisdom with which we can burn away what we have identified as the cause of our existential problem, which from our perspective, is identifying an existent self, a person, and so on.

Some other systems have identified the problem as not recognizing our true self that somehow exists in the middle of these causes and conditions. The problem they have, however, is proving such an unconditioned entity exists within a conditioned entity. Thus why they also are not nangpas, because they claim that our true nature is something other than our conditioned, and hence empty, existence.

We don’t have this problem, because for us, there is no ultimate truth that can ever be divorced from relative truth. For this reason, it is quite reasonable reject the truth claims of other systems because in the end they must depend solely on the authority of testimony as proof of their ultimate truths, whereas ours are accessible even to analysis that can be conducted by ordinary people, not dependent upon grace, or anything else. This is the principle difference, then, between my school and the school,of others. YMMV. I also have no Advaita background because I found it’s arguments in in incung from the beginning, and when I did study yoga, Samkhya, and Advaita under a qualified Hindu instructor of these systems, my understanding of those systems was both refined and confirmed.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at 11:27 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


SilenceMonkey said:
Well, they are higher than we are now in the samsaric ladder. Therefore “higher” is an apt term, even if their station in Samsara is not permanent. But the highest of beings live in their abodes for billions and trillions of kalpas. Much more than us, haha.

Malcolm wrote:
Such beings do not have a higher birth than we do. It’s simple, they lack a precious human birth and so cannot attain awakening through practicing the path.

SilenceMonkey said:
One very small portion. Conditioned phenomena is referring to all of reality itself, not just how human minds are influenced by society.

Malcolm wrote:
And social conditioning is a part of conditioned phenomena. And that is what we are talking about when we talk about the conventional experience of ordinary people.

SilenceMonkey said:
Even Buddhists are deluded until we achieve realization. And yet, we still have all kinds of spiritual experiences.

Malcolm wrote:
Valid path experiences are accounted for in texts such as Abhidharmakosha, Abhisamaya-Alamkara, etc.

SilenceMonkey said:
Sounds like you think all experiences are just made up until one realizes emptiness... is that what’s going on?

Malcolm wrote:
All experience is conceptual, dualistic experience until the path of seeing. The useful experiences for the path have been precisely mapped for us by the siddha-scholars of the past.  The others are completely irrelevant.

SilenceMonkey said:
Also, one doesn’t need to be able to explain the aggregates in order to have visions of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas (and  devas).



Malcolm wrote:
Such things are dualistic and conceptual.

SilenceMonkey said:
Visions are not dependent on our intelligence but the lack of obscurations.

Malcolm wrote:
So ask yourself, when are obscurations removed on the path? They are not even removed on the path of seeing. They only begin to be removed on the path of cultivation. So why should anyone place any trust in the random experiences and visions of anyone who is below the path of seeing, let alone the experiences reported by people who do not even have a precious human birth?

One expects someone on the path of seeing to be able to explain the five aggregates; actually, they should be able to explain this on the path of accumulation.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at 10:24 PM
Title: Re: Credibility of (institutional) Tibetan Buddhism
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
We are a fringe phenomenon.
The number of star trek fanatics is probably greater.

FiveSkandhas said:
There is something rather depressing about this statement.

PeterC said:
On one level, yes. But we are in the age of degeneration of the teachings.  If you look back over most major lineages of the Dharma - I don’t just mean schools of the Vajrayana - you see multiple times over the decades when they were in pretty bad shape, very few good practitioners.  But it only takes one great teacher to restore a lineage. That’s why it’s important that there are some, however few, really good teachers in the world - that’s a lot more important than the average level of practitioners, or the outer respect that a lineage has.

Malcolm wrote:
The corollary is that it only takes one really bad teacher to spoil a lineage.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at 10:06 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


SilenceMonkey said:
To say there is no higher being and that non-Buddhist spiritual experiences are just social conditioning is a bit naive. But that’s actually beside the point of this discussion... the rest of your post is quite good.

Malcolm wrote:
Please prove there is a higher being. What are its characteristics, how is it to be known?

SilenceMonkey said:
There are many higher beings and higher powers in the universe. Buddha never dismissed this, and called them devas. Some devas have enormous power. This is a traditional aspect of Buddha’s teaching. Are we really debating this?

Malcolm wrote:
They are not higher beings at all, since they are inevitably going to take birth in lower realms. They are to be pitied as they do not have a precious human birth.


All religious experience is a result of conditioning, because nothing arises without causes and conditions.
I see, so that’s what you mean by “social conditioning.” I think it’s confusing if you conflate the terms “social conditioning” and “conditioned phenomena” in a Buddhist sense.
Social conditioning is part of conditioned phenomena, no?

By saying an entire religion’s spiritual experiences are merely social conditioning makes it sound like there are no spiritual experiences and people who have them are just making them up or following the herd. (Which may be true for a lot of people these days, but obviously it’s not categorically true.)
Yes, there are no “spiritual” experiences, since all these nonBuddhist people are deluded, by definition. So yes, given that they are subject to conceptual delusion, and have yet to met the authentic path, they have no way out. They either fabricate their “experiences” or they follow the herd. This is also true of some Buddhists, who in order to gain importance etc., claim to have visions of this bodhisattva and that, etc., even though they cannot properly explain even the five aggregates.

Even if someone has an experience of a visitation of some entity, like the Virgin of Guadalupe, one might charitably decide this was a visitation of Tara filtered through a cultural lens, but still this is not certain, and would just be a personal fabrication, absent any proof.

This is exactly how controversies about protectors in Tibet arise.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at 9:39 PM
Title: Re: Video on Mipam R and Buddha Nature.
Content:



treehuggingoctopus said:
Doubly weird, since Duckworth knows and appreciates the piece and its author in general. I will try to re-read MoBN when I find some time, and see how he deals with the problem.

Malcolm wrote:
It is extremely clear that the term refers to a gnosis that one realizes for oneself without depending on another. It is the same category of terms like translating rig pa as awareness.

Dharmasagara said:
Malcom, would you please offer your own rendering of the term so sor rang gyis rig pa'i ye shes?

Thanx in advance

Malcolm wrote:
Gnosis that one personally Intuits or knows.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at 9:35 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


SilenceMonkey said:
To say there is no higher being and that non-Buddhist spiritual experiences are just social conditioning is a bit naive. But that’s actually beside the point of this discussion... the rest of your post is quite good.

Malcolm wrote:
Please prove there is a higher being. What are its characteristics, how is it to be known?

All religious experience is a result of conditioning, because nothing arises without causes and conditions.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at 9:30 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
yagmort said:
imho, buddhism, as any other religion, contains dogmas.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, all religions contain doctrines (dogma).

yagmort said:
view is a subject to personal interpretations. for example,

Malcolm wrote:
No, this is not correct at all.


yagmort said:
according to Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Buddha has never said "Life is suffering" or "There is no self". is he right or wrong?

Malcolm wrote:
Certainly, the Buddha never said pranadukkha. He taught self and no self to people depending on context.

yagmort said:
some people will agree, some others will disagree, but who is the ultimate judge to say what view is correct/incorrect? view is described through the media of language and concepts. view is a changing thing.

Malcolm wrote:
You should study tenet systems. The point of studying things is eliminate concepts and views one is unaware one is holding.

yagmort said:
true nature of things has to be experienced directly as it is beyond language, concepts and explanations. how people can be so sure that only buddhism can provide the experience of true nature of things is beyond me..

Malcolm wrote:
The true nature of things is that they are dependently originated, arising from cause and conditions. This is something you can directly experience here and now in your direct perception. The true nature of things is not hidden, it’s right there in the open. The reason we miss this is that we mistake the conventions we label appearances that arise from cause and condition, cars, people, etc., for being integral or real things in and of themselves. They are empty of inherent existence, free from extremes.

The fact is that every sentient being already experiences the true nature of things, but they don’t recognize it because either hasn’t been pointed out to them or it can’t be because of their cognitive limitations (animals, etc.).

Your problem, quite honestly, is that you have not properly reflected upon the eighteen freedoms and endowments that make up a precious human birth. That goes go for everyone who doubts that Buddhadharma is the sole path to liberation.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at 8:33 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


tobes said:
....and you know this because you checked with everyone of them? Studied all the different systems and theories and theologies etc through world history? Silently communed with all those myriad of contemplatives who kept 30 years of silence on mountaintops......and therefore established that, yep, **you** can see for sure what they have realised.

Malcolm wrote:
We know this for three reasons:

The teaching of dependent origination and emptiness does not exists outside of the Dharma. The Buddha has taught repeatedly that outside his Dharma and Vinaya there are no aryas, and even when there are pratyekabuddhas, they do not teach the dharma they realize on their own. So, if there were a such a person on Mt. Athos, for example, it would not matter to the world because they don’t teach the Dharma.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at 8:25 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


tobes said:
It's simply a question of how you can know another person's interior experience.

Malcolm wrote:
There are two ways: inference and direct knowledge of their minds.

Since we know there is no godhead, no higher being, etc., people who report such experiences, we can infer, are merely being overwhelmed by some cognitive state they are labeling a “mystical experience,” “grace,” etc., based on their social conditioning.

Honestly, from the point of view of the Buddhist path, we don’t care very much about the conceptual mishmash that other religions refer to as “spiritual experience.” It is not at all conducive to what we in the Buddhist fold understand liberation to be. We don’t even care very much about what Buddhists call “experience.” Why? Experience is conceptual and transient. Even the experience of nonconceptuality is a very subtle conceptual experience.

As for whether one can drawn equivalencies between the experience of emptiness, that is, nonconceptuality, in Buddhists and nonBuddhists, no one has claimed that nonconceptual experience is confined to Buddhists. But the experience of nonconceptuality is not the realization of emptiness, nor does it necessarily lead to the view of emptiness required for realizing emptiness. And indeed, the experience of emptiness aka nonconceptual can be a serious deviation even for Buddhists.

As Buddhists we are constantly told our experiences are not important, and that we should not get trapped in experiences, because experiences may be indicators of approaching realization, but attachment to them hinders realization. Since these experiences have been carefully mapped out along the stages of the path, it’s pretty easy, once one knows these stages and their indicators, to sort out where one is on the path, as well as where others are, if they happen to be on a path. We never bother to categorize the experience of worldly people because their experience is completely samsaric, whether they are so-called religious people, spiritual people, or not.

The only indicator that concerns us about people in other religious traditions is whether they demonstrate compassion or not. And even then, the compassion and idea of compassion in other traditions is crippled and limited. Otherwise, Buddhists and nonBuddhists have nothing in common, other than our common humanity.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at 9:28 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
tobes said:
know and understand the minds of each particular theist......

Malcolm wrote:
This is a completely specious standard. It basically means that you, like Matt, entirely dismiss the fundamental Buddhist principle that liberation is a result of view.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at 8:19 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


tobes said:
And extraordinary, extraordinary epistemic claim!

But if not this, then what? How are you so sure?

Malcolm wrote:
Emptiness and anatma are not the view of nonBuddhist systems. So, not an extraordinary claim at all. And why, on a Buddhist website, is this even a question?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at 8:15 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


Matt J said:
The only way to really know if a given path has liberative value for a particular person is to practice that path. If it liberates, then it has value, and if not it doesn't. The rest is just speculation, second hand reports, and yes, dogma.

Malcolm wrote:
Nope, unlike other systems, dependent origination is a matter of direct perception, which requires no speculation at all. Anyone can observe it, unlike godhead, etc.

Since other systems are not predicated on dependent origination, they have no actual value in terms of liberation from suffering.

Paths are either liberative or they are not, it’s not a matter of preference and choice. In Dharma, liberation is strictly defined as freedom from afflictions that result in suffering. No special mystical experience is required to verify this.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at 3:55 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
Matt J said:
Maybe. The only way to really know is to become a Buddha and then see what's what.

Malcolm wrote:
Silly. You just have to realize emptiness. Full buddhahood is not required.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, November 7th, 2021 at 3:50 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
Matt J said:
What I'm saying is that if you want to know the basis for theism, one would have to engage with theism rather than just building and knocking over conceptual models.

Malcolm wrote:
I disagree with this idea entirely. The idea that one must practice theism in order to know its basis is as silly an idea as claiming that one must practice Facism in order to knows its basis.

Matt J said:
As for liberative value, who can say? No one has a coherent model for evaluating competing claims like that.

Malcolm wrote:
Of course there are such coherent models for evaluating these things. One merely looks at the claims various soteriological models make. That said, different claims for what constitutes liberation are made in different traditions, and one merely needs to examine them alongside what one understands liberation to be and see how they match up.

Matt J said:
Rather, each tradition appears to fall back on various dogmas, inferences, and second hand knowledge.

Malcolm wrote:
No. Buddhism does not fall back on dogmas to defend its model of liberation. Its model is straight-forward: "Where this exists, that exists, where this arose, that arises; where this does not exist, that does not exist, where this has ceased, that ceases."

Matt J said:
In addition, they appear to interpret new ideas and data in light of existing models. I suppose that's fine if the goal is to memorize and repeat a complex conceptual model, but spiritual practice seems to have a different goal.

Malcolm wrote:
Practicing Dharma eliminates the afflictions of desire, hatred, and ignorance that are the cause of all suffering in the world, and the root of that is seeing that there is nothing in the world that is not dependently originated, therefore, empty. That insight into emptiness and dependent origination directly incinerates the afflictions that cause suffering.

This is the unique teaching of the Buddha.

I understand there are other alternatives out there, but as far as I am concerned, unless they make people more compassionate, their theoretical content is just so much hot air with no substance. They certainly cannot lead to the insight bequeathed to us by the Buddha.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 11:53 PM
Title: Re: Credibility of (institutional) Tibetan Buddhism
Content:
treehuggingoctopus said:
For what it is worth, more and more teachers are realising that Western Buddhists all too often use Dzogchen and Mahamudra (and Zen, etc) as an excuse to continue being heartless egoists or narcissists.

Malcolm wrote:
This is a problem identified among Tibetans as early as the 12th century.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 11:49 PM
Title: Re: Nirguṇa Ultimates
Content:
Matt J said:
Depends on who you ask.

Malcolm wrote:
Not really.

There is no Buddhist text which asserts that ultimate truth is unknowable. There are many texts which state that ultimate truth is inexpressible. But that inexpressibility is the inexpressibility of the true nature of things, since there is no independent ultimate truth which stands apart from relative truth. The two truths are always inseparable.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 10:35 PM
Title: Re: Nirguṇa Ultimates
Content:
Rick said:
Does the mysterious or unfathomable or unknowable play a role in Buddhist dharma? Because it sure does in the Vedas!

Malcolm wrote:
Nope.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 10:27 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


Matt J said:
Listening to Buddhists debate theism reminds me of when I was a kid listening to other middle schoolers talk about sex.

Malcolm wrote:
It appears you are saying without engaging in and practicing theistic traditions on their own terms, we cannot have any basis for accepting or rejecting their liberative value.

Since it is the case that the ultimate truth can only be understood on the basis of conventional truth, there is no direct or intuitive way that an ordinary person can detour around the conventionally-ascertained ultimate truth, in order to realize it properly. The reason for this is that there is nothing beyond the ultimate truth of conventional entities to realize at all. There is no ultimate truth to be realized beyond the true nature of compounded entities, since space and the two kinds of cessation are the only types of uncompounded phenomena.

Based on this fact we can dispense with the fantasy that theistic traditions are anything but nests of wrong view and confusion. This is because dependent origination and emptiness are found only in the Buddha’s teaching, and not in the teachings of other doctrines. They have no equivalents which would allow us to extend them the charity of allowing that their teachings lead to liberation. But it’s also not our job to correct then. As HHDL said, emptiness is none of their business.

The other possible consequence to your statement is that view doesn’t matter at all. But this is similar to claiming seed oil can be extracted from pressing sand.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 9:51 PM
Title: Re: Nirguṇa Ultimates
Content:
Matt J said:
the ultimate unknown

Malcolm wrote:
Good things that’s emphatically not what ultimate truth is in Dharma.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 8:01 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:



tobes said:
No, the point here is that conceptual belief about emptiness does not equal direct realisation of it.......and the amount of Buddhists who have subtly or not so subtly incorrect conceptual beliefs about emptiness far, far exceeds those who have direct realisation. Theists like Maimonides make similar arguments about correct and incorrect beliefs about god.

This is an epistemological point, not a metaphysical one. The content of what emptiness or god might be is not relevant here.

Malcolm wrote:
Trivial point. All you are saying is that realization of the first bhumi is rare. But that certainly does not allow one to draw a false equivalence  between Buddhists who have a nominally correct view (many) and nonBuddhists who universally suffer from wrong view.

tobes said:
The point is not trivial, and I am not drawing an equivalence about view.

What's at stake is the question of epistemic access to something which is non-conceptual, ineffable etc. One can refute metaphysics, theology etc, to the degree that they are stated in language or asserted as beliefs. But one can't really refute people's experiences of religious or spiritual kinds. Reading, for example, sociology of religion on such topics, it is perfectly obvious that theistic people experience various kinds of religious-spiritual states through their prayer, practices etc....and very often have difficulties matching that with particular creeds or ideas or dogmas.

Who are we to tell them: it's all b/s, because we know Chandrakirti? What conceit!

Malcolm wrote:
Nonbuddhists have all kind experiences which they regard as profound and spiritually transformational. But these experiences, categorically, lead them no closer to liberation.

One cannot really describe the taste of sugar, but no one expects tasting something sweet, as inexpressible as it may be, leads to salvation or liberation.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 7:56 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


Sherab said:
The ultimate is timeless.

Malcolm wrote:
There is no ultimate separate from things. Things exist in time. So, this is a meaningless statement. And it renders the rest of your statement moot.

Your "ultimate" can't produce anything, otherwise, it would be compounded, and therefore, in time.

Sherab said:
Your position has to be that there are no things ultimately.  Existences only exist tenuously via dependent origination.  When everything ceases, there is nothing.  So ultimately, there is or will be a big fat nothing.  So, you have to assume that somehow, something must keep dependent origination itself from ceasing.  Or, you will have to assume that dependent origination itself exists and is eternal.

By the way, science is now questioning whether time is fundamental.  Who knows, if one day science actually proved that time is indeed non-fundamental, we all will have to give up Buddhism, if Buddhism as understood by Malcolm is correct.

Anyway, I am done here.  I have no wish to debate with you.  You can have the last word.

Malcolm wrote:
Where this exists, that exists.
With the arising of that, this arose.
— The Buddha.

There is no dependent origination which is separate from dependently originated things; and since there is no beginning to dependent origination-since nothing arises from itself, from another, or in absence of a cause-there is is no reason to assume that dependent origination will ever cease.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 7:08 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:



tobes said:
I would add to this: who among any of us is beyond conceptual beliefs to the degree that we 'see' any of this kind of stuff? The basic problem of emptiness also applies to many theistic theologies - talking about it, conceiving it, believing it etc is not "it" - whatever that "it" is supposed to be or not be.

Malcolm wrote:
Dharma is not a via negativa. Dependent origination = emptiness.

Inexpressibility simply means that we cannot point to anything and declare “this is how this appearance is.” It means there is nothing behind the relative to describe, and it means that descriptions of appearances fail to capture the reality of those appearances. But there is certainly nothing behind nor beyond them, just as there is nothing behind a mirage, illusion, etc., but causes and conditions that lack inherent existence themselves.

tobes said:
No, the point here is that conceptual belief about emptiness does not equal direct realisation of it.......and the amount of Buddhists who have subtly or not so subtly incorrect conceptual beliefs about emptiness far, far exceeds those who have direct realisation. Theists like Maimonides make similar arguments about correct and incorrect beliefs about god.

This is an epistemological point, not a metaphysical one. The content of what emptiness or god might be is not relevant here.

Malcolm wrote:
Trivial point. All you are saying is that realization of the first bhumi is rare. But that certainly does not allow one to draw a false equivalence  between Buddhists who have a nominally correct view (many) and nonBuddhists who universally suffer from wrong view.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 7:04 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
are you suggesting that the difference in the three kayas is purely based on how they are perceived?

Malcolm wrote:
The three kayas are a result of the accumulation of merit and wisdom. Simply put, dharmakaya is realized for one’s own benefit, the rupakaya is realized in order to benefit others.

PadmaVonSamba said:
can you clarify…
Realized by whom?
The practitioner, or the Buddha?

Malcolm wrote:
A person who starts out a sentient being and ends up a Buddha by practicing the path.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 10:17 AM
Title: Re: Credibility of (institutional) Tibetan Buddhism
Content:


Montoya said:
Can you say more about where Kali Yuga comes from in a Buddhist context? I've seen a lot of references to it on DW, but I've always associated it with Hindu cosmology and can't ever remember any of my teachers talking about it.

Malcolm wrote:
It’s discussed quite a bit in traditional Buddhist sources. In Tibetan it is called rtsod dus, the age of strife.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 9:45 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


PadmaVonSamba said:
In the context of this discussion, that’s not much different than saying God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are likewise three-in-one.

Got any better cards to play, Malcolm?

Malcolm wrote:
The three kayas are not three different entities. The dharmakaya is just a Buddha’s realization of suchness, which results in their attainment of qualities such as the eighteen unshared dharmas such as the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, and so on. The sambhogakaya is just the major and minor marks of the mahapurusha, and the nirmanakaya is just a Buddha’s ability to emanate in any suitable form to tame beings.

PadmaVonSamba said:
are you suggesting that the difference in the three kayas is purely based on how they are perceived?

Malcolm wrote:
The three kayas are a result of the accumulation of merit and wisdom. Simply put, dharmakaya is realized for one’s own benefit, the rupakaya is realized in order to benefit others.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 9:38 AM
Title: Re: Credibility of (institutional) Tibetan Buddhism
Content:
Montoya said:
. No one wants to be the new guy to the forum who says "oMG wHy IS tIBetAn bUdDhIsM SO cOrRuPt?!?"

Malcolm wrote:
It’s the Kali Yuga. The corruption of dharma is normal.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 9:07 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


Heimdall said:
What about Buddha's dharmakaya body? Isn't that distinct from Buddha's human body?

Malcolm wrote:
The three kayas are inseparable.

PadmaVonSamba said:
In the context of this discussion, that’s not much different than saying God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are likewise three-in-one.

Got any better cards to play, Malcolm?

Malcolm wrote:
The three kayas are not three different entities. The dharmakaya is just a Buddha’s realization of suchness, which results in their attainment of qualities such as the eighteen unshared dharmas, that is, the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, and so on. The sambhogakaya is just the major and minor marks of the mahapurusha, and the nirmanakaya is just a Buddha’s ability to emanate in any suitable form to tame beings.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 8:46 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


Sherab said:
The ultimate is timeless.

Malcolm wrote:
There is no ultimate separate from things. Things exist in time. So, this is a meaningless statement. And it renders the rest of your statement moot.

Your "ultimate" can't produce anything, otherwise, it would be compounded, and therefore, in time.

Heimdall said:
What about Buddha's dharmakaya body? Isn't that distinct from Buddha's human body?

Malcolm wrote:
The three kayas are inseparable.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 8:42 AM
Title: Re: Nirguṇa Ultimates
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
So what?

Astus said:
So he advocated a view that was not in harmony with the Dharma, and was quite open about it too.

Malcolm wrote:
It was sufficiently similar that he was chided by Buddhists for not following the Buddha, and by Vedantins for being a crypto-Buddhist, despite his prophylactic protestations, which were in vain.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 8:39 AM
Title: Re: Credibility of (institutional) Tibetan Buddhism
Content:
Montoya said:
Thanks Malcolm. Not saying you are wrong, but my experience in Tibet/India did not echo this. Lhasa was a tourist trap. Chinese monks infiltrated everywhere.

Malcolm wrote:
I definitely wasn’t talking about the TAR.

Montoya said:
As for India, the abuse and general laziness of monks was openly joked about.

Malcolm wrote:
The institutions depend on lay support. Being a monk is a job, and not a particularly good one.


Montoya said:
Perhaps you are referring to other lineages (I'm less familiar with Gelug/Sakya) or non-monastics, though I'm not familiar with many communities of serious lay practitioners in either Tibet or India.

Malcolm wrote:
Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet and India continues to have a client population, as long as they do, the institutions will do fine.

But I don’t think you are really asking about institutions. You are asking about the dharma. Well, Sakya Pandita observed in the 13th century that all that remained was a reflection of the dharma. I am sure that reflection is less distinct now than ever.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 6:23 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


Sherab said:
The ultimate is timeless.

Malcolm wrote:
There is no ultimate separate from things. Things exist in time. So, this is a meaningless statement. And it renders the rest of your statement moot.

Your "ultimate" can't produce anything, otherwise, it would be compounded, and therefore, in time.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 6:20 AM
Title: Re: Credibility of (institutional) Tibetan Buddhism
Content:
Montoya said:
Some form of this question has been nagging at me for a decade plus now. Are we reaching a point where the religious institution of Tibetan Buddhism is nearing a breaking point?

Malcolm wrote:
Not in Tibet and India.


Montoya said:
To be clear, I've spent more than half my life as a practicing Buddhist in the Nyingma/Kagyu lineages and (for me) the *lived* spirituality and the teachings themselves are as relevant as ever. That said, the credibility of the *institution* itself seems to be degrading by the year.

Malcolm wrote:
Among westerners, but we are a tiny percentage of the total.

Montoya said:
Guru scandals have intensified to the point where even the highest lineage heads are clouded with allegations of impropriety. RInpoches considered impeccable two decades ago have seen their reputations entirely destroyed. Even gurus who have not been personally implicated in wrong doing are often only a few degrees of separation from wrong doers or (even worse) complicit in the Tibetan omerta that prevents them from calling out the bad apples. In addition, stories of mass sexual abuse in monasteries have gone from rumor to accepted consensus. Any number of gurus now have websites where one can go and purchase wealth blessings and other such nonsense. Given the centrality of the guru in Vajrayana, it feels increasingly difficult to overlook the fact that the core is rotting from the middle.

Malcolm wrote:
Oh well.

Montoya said:
Centers which used to be full of practitioners have seen membership dwindle and are often full of 60+ yo diehards. The young people who do come often see their interest peter out or run when they start to uncover the seedier side of things of a tradition that is often portrayed in the media as squeaky clean. Even a simple Google trends search of "Tibetan Buddhism" shows that interest has been waning for almost two decades.

Malcolm wrote:
Vajrayāna is not for everyone.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 5:14 AM
Title: Re: Nirguṇa Ultimates
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
And thus, Śantarakṣita mocks Advaitans who assert an ajativāda without also accepting the teaching of the Tathāgata, and likewise, the reason that Śankarācārya is mocked by later Vedantins for being a crypto-buddhist.

Astus said:
I think Shankara was aware of some Buddhist teachings, and has differentiated his view from them intentionally.

Malcolm wrote:
So what?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 11:35 PM
Title: Re: Children Covid Vaccinations
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
Good article on overall COVID policy, and some stuff to consider wrt to vaccinating different populations, namely tagging while vaccinating kids has it’s own rationale, it won’t compensate for unvaccinated adults.

This is especially true if the goal is fewer hospitalizations to free up the healthcare system, because a huge chunk of the hospitalizations are elderly folks.

Not an argument against vaccinating them mind you, but as the article points out hospitalization rates are directly correlated with the number of elderly vaccinated in a community.

At any rate, a short and decent article on the fact that the US needs Covid policies with an actual purpose, rather than the random shitshow we have.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/what-americas-covid-goal-now/620572/?utm_source=pocket-newtab


Malcolm wrote:
This is the real point of the article I posted, with respect to this thread:
Chertow’s sleuthing points to the coronavirus as the culprit and offers clues about a rare inflammatory condition that occurs mostly in children after a mild case of Covid.

“They show up later with sometimes life-threatening inflammation in different organs,” Chertow says over Zoom from his office at the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md. “In a way, he fits into that category, so what’s driving that?”


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 11:28 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


Harimoo said:
For the audience, it was a game over for the buddhist.

Malcolm wrote:
What do you expect at an interfaith conference? These things just are not serious at all, and demographically speaking, favor eternalists.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 11:10 PM
Title: Re: Nirguṇa Ultimates
Content:
Astus said:
thus nirguna would mean sunya and would be quite preferable to us Buddhists.

Malcolm wrote:
And thus, Śantarakṣita mocks Advaitans who assert an ajativāda without also accepting the teaching of the Tathāgata, and likewise, the reason that Śankarācārya is mocked by later Vedantins for being a crypto-buddhist.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 11:05 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
iskaral said:
God is a master signifier. Kinda like “capitalism”

Malcolm wrote:
Unlike Capitalism, God never appears in the world.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 8:20 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
”God” is an abstract term. It’s like “art”.

Malcolm wrote:
Unlike art, however, god never appears.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 8:11 PM
Title: Re: Children Covid Vaccinations
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Covid Has Killed 5 Million People, But Only Hundreds Have Been Autopsied
To get a clearer picture of the virus’s aftermath, pathologists are pushing to resurrect a dying practice.
Read in Bloomberg Businessweek: https://apple.news/AbB7HWVhSQUaA3IRTNuxl6Q

To get a clearer picture of the virus’s aftermath, pathologists are pushing to resurrect a dying practice.
By Jason Gale

In an air-locked chamber in the world’s largest research hospital, Daniel Chertow and a half-dozen doctors and scientists clad in astronaut-inspired protective gear are carrying out a microscopic search inside a 26-year-old man.

The patient went to the hospital with chest pain in spring 2020. He didn’t have typical Covid-19 symptoms, but Chertow wants to study him as part of a broader mission to understand where in the body the coronavirus goes and what it does in each of those places. If you’re a Covid case in Chertow’s emerging pathogens lab, you’re not there for treatment; you’re the subject of an autopsy.

The man died at the hospital and tested negative for SARS-CoV-2, so he doesn’t fit the definition of a Covid-related fatality. He succumbed to viral myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle. Chertow’s sleuthing points to the coronavirus as the culprit and offers clues about a rare inflammatory condition that occurs mostly in children after a mild case of Covid.

“They show up later with sometimes life-threatening inflammation in different organs,” Chertow says over Zoom from his office at the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md. “In a way, he fits into that category, so what’s driving that?”

An autopsy provides a snapshot of what’s occurred at the moment a patient has died, enabling pathologists to infer what happened up to that point. By comparing a large number of autopsies on Covid patients at different time courses, scientists can begin to assemble something akin to a record of the virus’s journey through the body and the disease that arose in its wake.

Autopsies were a cornerstone of medical discoveries for more than two millennia, but sophisticated diagnostic tools and health-system budget cuts have made them a dying practice. Among the first 4 million fatal Covid cases worldwide, only several hundred autopsy findings were reported in international medical journals.

Several scientists are pushing to raise those numbers. “It’s critically important that thousands of autopsies are done, so we can put this picture together,” says Jeffery Taubenberger, a pathologist who heads the viral pathogenesis and evolution section of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda. “What we’re trying to figure out here is, what goes wrong under the worst circumstances where people die—to try to understand how the virus causes disease in less severe cases. And then: What are the therapeutic implications of that?”

The National Institutes of Health is spending $1.15 billion over four years to learn about the aftereffects of Covid-19, including a push to conduct more autopsies. Answers are urgently needed. At least 1 in 10 survivors of the disease experience what the World Health Organization calls “post Covid-19 condition”—a constellation of symptoms that can debilitate sufferers for months.

“The post-Covid stuff is very, very real,” says Chertow, a 47-year-old critical care physician. “If you’re going to begin to conceive of ways to prevent or treat those manifestations, you need to understand what’s driving it.”

Authorities were concerned in the panic-stricken early months of the pandemic that dissecting coronavirus-infected patients could spread the infection, resulting in at least half of the autopsy units in the U.S. being shut down, according to L. Maximilian Buja, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Texas’s McGovern Medical School in Houston.
Buja, who finished his pathology training in 1972, co-led a call to action for detailed autopsies on Covid victims in April 2020 and kept his own academic center’s autopsy suites open. That enabled him to report findings from one of the earliest autopsy case series that showed the propensity for the coronavirus to cause tiny clots to form in patients’ blood.

“I take some credit, or partial credit, for getting across the idea that clinically, we need to institute early anticoagulation therapy,” he says. “We have glimmers of knowledge that have contributed to improved treatment for the patients, but there’s a lot more we have to learn. The key to this is to continue to do the autopsy investigations.”

Hamburg forensic pathologist Klaus Puschel defied Germany’s official recommendation to avoid autopsies, permitting 80 comprehensive post-mortem exams on fatal cases in March and April 2020. The findings showed SARS-CoV-2 can spread beyond the respiratory tract to affect the heart, kidney, liver, and brain.

A study Puschel co-authored that was published in October based on 17 autopsies showed the infection was associated with an increased number of defective capillaries in the brain that may explain the cognitive impairment, memory deficits, and fatigue experienced by at least a subset of long Covid patients. The authors also found that an experimental drug known as a RIPK1 inhibitor could potentially avert the damage if given to Covid patients during the acute phase of the illness.
Researchers in Norway showed in July that individuals who tested positive for the coronavirus eight months earlier were almost five times more likely than uninfected people to report memory problems. The NIH’s Chertow says he’s concerned about what such health effects may lead to in the future.
“Is there going to be some subclinical effects on your brain that are going to cause neurocognitive issues later in life that perhaps are not immediately noticeable or detectable?” he says. “If you’re going to begin to conceive of ways to prevent or treat those manifestations—either in the next group that might be exposed or among the group that are suffering—you need to understand what the drivers are.”

Chertow, who also trained as a disease detective with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s epidemic intelligence service, says he was inspired to pursue autopsy research from studying Ebola and treating patients with the deadly disease in Liberia in 2014. “It started with this idea that first [we’ve] got to go find where this virus is going—what it’s doing in those places—and then we’ve got to try to link it back to what we’re seeing clinically.”

Chertow helped identify the role of the salivary glands in SARS-CoV-2 transmission. He sees more valuable clues about the virus’s distribution across the body among the more than 10,000 biospecimens his team has collected from 44 fatal cases since April 2020. The post-mortem exams and dissections take three hours in a secure facility that’s required for work involving microbes that can cause serious and potentially lethal disease. Bioengineers on the NIH campus custom-built an enclosure that fits over the head and shoulders of the deceased to contain aerosols when the top of the skull is removed.
The seven or so doctors, scientists, and technicians working inside the autopsy suite wear multiple layers of personal protective equipment, says David Kleiner, chief of the post-mortem section of the National Cancer Institute, who worked with Chertow on the research. Usually a plastic apron is worn over a surgical gown, over an impermeable coverall, over surgical scrubs. Sometimes arm-sleeve protectors are worn. Investigators also don three pairs of gloves and two pairs of shoe coverings. And instead of N95 face masks, they breathe through controlled air-purifying respirators, which provide HEPA-filtered air under a hood that fits over their head and shoulders.

It’s cumbersome, but that’s not the only aspect of these Covid autopsies that makes the work painstaking. “We’re sampling way above and beyond what is done in any sort of typical autopsy,” Chertow says. Samples are taken from almost 100 different regions of the body and brain.
And for each one of those areas, adjacent pieces of tissue are also collected and preserved in different ways that are amenable to different methods of analysis, including whether the virus is capable of replicating in the sites from which it’s collected. “We’ve done, simply put, a much more extensive sampling than others have,” he says.

That partly reflects the diminishing capability to perform autopsies outside of academic and medical examiner settings.

“Autopsies are expensive procedures,” says Linda Isles, head of forensic pathology services at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine in Melbourne. “In reality, not many people want to spend money on dead people.” Private autopsy fees vary widely, but typically cost $2,000 to $4,000 in Maryland.

Doctors are ordering fewer autopsies, relying instead on lower-cost X-rays, MRI scans, and other tests to ascribe the cause of a patient’s death. This means pathologists have less experience performing post-mortem exams. In addition, autopsy facilities are expensive to maintain at a safe standard, Isles says.

“So it’s this spiral of decreased experience—and therefore decreasing confidence—and then underutilization of the facilities leading to some of the facilities essentially being mothballed,” she says. “And then when you want to reinstitute them, they’re no longer really safe for modern practice.”
Isles, who finished medical school at the University of Tasmania more than 20 years ago, performed 200 to 300 autopsies during her pathology training. “That might not seem like very many,” she says, “but if you compare that to anatomical pathology trainees now, then that is a very large amount.”
In 1918, doctors performed thousands of autopsies on victims of the Spanish flu and shared their findings widely in illustrated reports, says Taubenberger at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “It’s terrible that here we are with our ability to do advanced molecular studies and advanced imaging studies, and yet so few autopsy studies are being done,” he says. “That’s really the tragedy.”


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 7:51 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:


Soma999 said:
There is a Mystery that exists, both within yourself and outside, both manifested and not manifested which is pure love. How do we know ? Many have touched this source, and miracles could manifest from it. At our level, we feel guided and empowered. Not by a « being », but by the highest manifestation of consciousness which vibrates on the frequency of love

Malcolm wrote:
There is no source, no pure love, or anything like it. The highest manifestation of consciousness is a person who has realized how things are 100%, in other words, a buddha.

Now, to the extent that Buddhas are motivated by love, the wish that sentient beings be happy, we can say they are embodiments of love. But there is nothing at all mysterious about that, just as there is nothing mysterious about a mother’s love for an only child.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 7:42 PM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
I think the basic question is, what’s the difference between the theistic belief in an eternal god, and the Buddhist concept of Infinite Buddhas with their infinite pure realms and all that stuff.

tobes said:
I would add to this: who among any of us is beyond conceptual beliefs to the degree that we 'see' any of this kind of stuff? The basic problem of emptiness also applies to many theistic theologies - talking about it, conceiving it, believing it etc is not "it" - whatever that "it" is supposed to be or not be.

Malcolm wrote:
Dharma is not a via negativa. Dependent origination = emptiness.

Inexpressibility simply means that we cannot point to anything and declare “this is how this appearance is.” It means there is nothing behind the relative to describe, and it means that descriptions of appearances fail to capture the reality of those appearances. But there is certainly nothing behind nor beyond them, just as there is nothing behind a mirage, illusion, etc., but causes and conditions that lack inherent existence themselves.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 7:03 PM
Title: Re: Sojong vows and tsog
Content:
Könchok Thrinley said:
Hi,

since tomorrow is a newmoon I'd like to ask a question about sojong vows and tsog offerings. Is it permissable to take full one day sojong vows and still participate in tsog offering (by that I mean taste the food and drink without rejecting)?

If yes, why and also should then one just taste a bit of the food and maybe just touch lips symbolically with the alcohol?

Malcolm wrote:
Tantric vows supercede prātimokṣa vows, so, not only is it ok, it’s required.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 6:59 PM
Title: Re: Why Buddhism's Decline in India?
Content:
Nalanda said:
Okay dropped.

So what caused the decline.

Malcolm wrote:
Loss of political support.

Aemilius said:
The real reasons are not available for discussion. This means that there were hidden, secret and esoteric practices going on already at the time of Shakyamuni, what we find in the sutra/suttas  describes only the aspects that were/are available for public discourse. Something else takes place simultaneously in the dark, so to speak. This can be called spiritual warfare, and it had new developments in the centuries  after the beginning of the common era. The influence of Buddha Shakyamuni and his teaching had spread through the continents of this planet, and the secret & invisible spiritual war or battle for supremacy had never been confined to India. Big and small cultures on all continents have always been involved. May all beings living in the ten directions and three times be happy and have the causes of happiness!


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 4:42 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
KristenM said:
The Democrats are letting the perfect get in the way of the good (kinda hate that phrase, but it fits).

Malcolm wrote:
F**k Joe Manchin, to the melody of "Let's Go Brandon."


KristenM said:
The constituents and area he represents leans Republican so likely even if he was out, there will be a Republican in his place. He’s just representing his constituents. I don’t agree with him,  just saying.

Malcolm wrote:
Indeed. nevertheless.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 12:51 AM
Title: Re: I'm confused about Buddhist arguments against a creator God and what that entails for buddha activity?
Content:
Nadereme said:
Relative truths don’t necessarily apply to everyone or everything.

Malcolm wrote:
Of course they do.

Nadereme said:
Also there are arguments in favor of geocentricity and flat Earth...

Malcolm wrote:
No good ones.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 12:30 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
I don’t remember who it was, but I think someone connected policy wise to FDR WRT to the New Deal said something like ‘give them social reforms or they will give you social revolution’. Can you imagine the Democratic Party of today understanding this point? They don’t live in reality.

Malcolm wrote:
It was in England, and it was Lord Hailsham in 1943.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintin_Hogg,_Baron_Hailsham_of_St_Marylebone


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, November 5th, 2021 at 12:24 AM
Title: This tribe helped the Pilgrims survive
Content:
Unknown said:
They still regret it 400 years later.

Long marginalized and misrepresented in U.S. history, the Wampanoags are bracing for the 400th anniversary of the first Pilgrim Thanksgiving in 1621

.....

By the fall, the Pilgrims — thanks in large part to the Wampanoags teaching them how to plant beans and squash in a mound with maize around it and use fish remains as fertilizer — had their first harvest of crops. To celebrate its first success as a colony, the Pilgrims had a “harvest feast” that became the basis for what’s now called Thanksgiving.

The Wampanoags weren’t invited.

Ousamequin and his men showed up only after the English in their revelry shot off some of their muskets. At the sound of gunfire, the Wampanoags came running, fearing they were headed to war.

“One hundred warriors show up armed to the teeth after they heard muskets fired,” said Paula Peters.

Told it was a harvest celebration, the Wampanoags joined, bringing five deer to share, she said. There was fowl, fish, eel, shellfish and possibly cranberries from the area’s natural bogs.

Malcolm wrote:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/11/04/thanksgiving-anniversary-wampanoag-indians-pilgrims


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 11:59 PM
Title: Re: Nirguṇa Ultimates
Content:
Caoimhghín said:
What, to you, is the meaningful key distinction between dharmatā and nirguṇabrahman?

Malcolm wrote:
The former is emptiness, the latter is an ultimate consciousness.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 11:56 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
KristenM said:
The Democrats are letting the perfect get in the way of the good (kinda hate that phrase, but it fits).

Malcolm wrote:
F**k Joe Manchin, to the melody of "Let's Go Brandon."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 11:30 PM
Title: Re: Question about inherent existence
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
No, it is taking things to exist just as they appear to us. That's the whole point, things do not exist as they appear.

Rick said:
If a person with the right view looked at a table, how would what they see/experience/understand differ from a person with the wrong view?

Malcolm wrote:
Dependently designated and empty rather than integral and real.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 11:24 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:


Queequeg said:
1880s - Its too bad the Grangers couldn't put their racism aside and form a coalition with urban immigrants who were building the labor movement. Free Silver!
1930s - I quite like the New Deal.

Malcolm wrote:
I thought so.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 9:41 PM
Title: Re: Question about inherent existence
Content:
lhaksam.dorje said:
I think inherent existence is a subtle trickster of a thing

Malcolm wrote:
No, it is taking things to exist just as they appear to us. That's the whole point, things do not exist as they appear.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 9:36 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
I think it’s different. Manchin is going to primary Biden from the right.

PeterC said:
He's just about enough of an asshole to do that.

But I really don't see what the DNC's strategy is here.  Biden is not up for a second term, never was.  Harris cannot win.  So...what's the plan?

Malcolm wrote:
Not idea, and they seem not to have one either.

PeterC said:
Why?  Or rather - since the US has torched its relationship with France, that job is no longer anything but a pleasant sinecure, so why not let her...

Malcolm wrote:
She likes wine and she wont have to do anything but wear clothes and shop.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 8:57 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
Queequeg said:
I'd trade a Democratic party of an uncouth economic populism…

Malcolm wrote:
How does that make you different than Bannon and Rubio?

Economic populism is just Nationalism.

I thought we learned that doesn’t work in the 1930’s, and the 1880’s, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 8:10 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:



Queequeg said:
Part of the reason they never deliver is because they can't rally critical momentum. It doesn't help when they push ideas that to most people are too radical and use that as the litmus test for whether they can collaborate.

In these conversations I'm reminded of the time Verizon workers who were going on strike showed up at Zucotti Park while Occupy was going on. Those hardhats took a look at the loafing hippies and said, "f-ck this. A drum circle isn't going to get me better benefits." And that was it for organized labor's involvement in Occupy. Activists need to get serious and read the room. If they want shit done, efforts need to be recalibrated.

Malcolm wrote:
You know, in thus case it’s not that. It’s a narcissist who takes her wardrobe from scoopydo and a coal baron posing as a democrat. The house already has all this passed. It’s two assholes on our side of the aisle blocking things.

Queequeg said:
If W.Va. wasn't so schizo on one hand having a recent memory of the power of labor while getting sucked up into Trumpism, Manchin would have flipped already. Sinema is just a whacko.

But it comes back to Demorcratic party alienating working classes. If Dems had working class loyalty, this would have been passed. That's a different world that never existed. Instead here we are after the Clintons and Third Way Dems sold out thinking demographics would save the party.

Malcolm wrote:
I think it’s different. Manchin is going to primary Biden from the right.

Sinema wants to be an ambassador to France.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 7:38 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
PeterC said:
I don't think the objection to 'progressives' is their ideas per se, it's that they never deliver.  So all you get is the rhetoric but not the results.

Queequeg said:
Part of the reason they never deliver is because they can't rally critical momentum. It doesn't help when they push ideas that to most people are too radical and use that as the litmus test for whether they can collaborate.

In these conversations I'm reminded of the time Verizon workers who were going on strike showed up at Zucotti Park while Occupy was going on. Those hardhats took a look at the loafing hippies and said, "f-ck this. A drum circle isn't going to get me better benefits." And that was it for organized labor's involvement in Occupy. Activists need to get serious and read the room. If they want shit done, efforts need to be recalibrated.

Malcolm wrote:
You know, in thus case it’s not that. It’s a narcissist who takes her wardrobe from scoopydo and a coal baron posing as a democrat. The house already has all this passed. It’s two assholes on our side of the aisle blocking things.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 4:56 PM
Title: Re: Are Oysters Sentient? (Split from Giving up Masturbation)
Content:



Nadereme said:
I hope you’re aware that scientists are often some of the most deluded beings.

PeterC said:
Mods, if this is the sort of comment we get, please close this thread for good

Nadereme said:
I find it interesting how you’re not necessarily objecting, but rather perplexed someone would say such a thing. Many beings have been indoctrinated by scientific materialism, and people take scientists for Buddhas. That will have a lot of ripening.

Malcolm wrote:
We are not perplexed about someone saying such a thing, just bored with hearing such trivial sentiments.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 4:52 PM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:



KristenM said:
I see...I’m cool with that.

PeterC said:
Not sure any of the countries in that region other than the US like the idea of being de facto run by the US, which is how they would see this

KristenM said:
Yeah, that was my initial point. It’s a nice idea and all, but really wouldn’t be popular with a bunch of folks down south and up north imo.

Malcolm wrote:
It certainly isn’t popular with those who profit through the present state of affairs, north and south of the border.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 9:02 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
KristenM said:
. But an open border?

Malcolm wrote:
I am suggesting no border. I am suggesting that we should create a NAU, from Canada to Panama.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 7:55 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
Queequeg said:
Dems have to stop looking like they want open borders. This pisses everyone off - including a lot of naturalized Americans who resent that they did things by the book only to watch others not follow the rules.

Malcolm wrote:
The economic benefits of open borders would make everyone north and south rich. But people are dumb.

Queequeg said:
So, you're saying Dems should keep up with the formula they've proven time and again loses elections? Lecture the electorate, tell them to eat their vegetables?

Liberalizing immigration is a loser.

Malcolm wrote:
Ummm, you miss the point. Do you have any idea how much impressive as well as cheap real estate there is south of the border? I am talking about creating a NAU, a North American Union.

Everyone wins.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 5:58 AM
Title: Re: A Texas lawmaker is targeting 850 books that he says could make students feel uneasy
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
All this is like something out of the 50s, ridiculous.

Archie2009 said:
So is segregation. "Progressive" Democrats are also working to bring that back. Americans are so full of shit. lmao.

Genjo Conan said:
what are you even on about

Malcolm wrote:
CRT.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 5:10 AM
Title: Re: Question about inherent existence
Content:
Rick said:
Could you say that if you take X to be *real* you are in fact taking it to be inherently existent?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes. It is the error of taking things to exist just as they are.

A table is a table (pre-analysis).
A table is not a table (analysis).
A table is a table (post-analysis).


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 4:43 AM
Title: Re: US Election Day Aftermath
Content:
Queequeg said:
Dems have to stop looking like they want open borders. This pisses everyone off - including a lot of naturalized Americans who resent that they did things by the book only to watch others not follow the rules.

Malcolm wrote:
The economic benefits of open borders would make everyone north and south rich. But people are dumb.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 4:39 AM
Title: Re: Illuminating Quotes by Malcolm Namdrol-la
Content:
Tata1 said:
What about thogal visions?

Malcolm wrote:
Simulacrum, not real sambhogakāya, again just the ripening of traces in your own mind. And you should ask about such things on line.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 2:04 AM
Title: Re: Are Oysters Sentient? (Split from Giving up Masturbation)
Content:
Könchok Thrinley said:
There has been a request to open this threat since some aspects were not addresed. I would like to remind everyone to play nice and while sperm jokes can fun, please try to avoid them.

Malcolm wrote:
Oh FFS.

Please kill it.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, November 4th, 2021 at 1:02 AM
Title: Re: Illuminating Quotes by Malcolm Namdrol-la
Content:
Arnoud said:
So if someone “sees” a Buddha during meditation, that’s always deluded? Not blessings with delusion?

Malcolm wrote:
It could be the ripening of traces of positive karma of someone is below the path of seeing, it could be a delusion of māra (especially if it talks to you and tells you what a good pratitioner you are, etc.), it could be a sign of heat on the path of application, but in all cases it is just your own mind.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021 at 9:17 PM
Title: Re: Illuminating Quotes by Malcolm Namdrol-la
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
The point is simple: ordinary human beings, like you and I, cannot take teachings from anyone other than a nirmāṇakāya. In order to receive teachings from the sambhogakāya, one must be an eighth stage bodhisattva or higher.
Really? Wow. I thought it was pretty common.

Malcolm wrote:
No, it is functionally impossible for an ordinary person, or even a sixth stage bodhisattva to see the sambhogakāya. This is due to their not having eliminated the afflictive obscuration. This is really an elementary principle that should surprise no one.

PadmaVonSamba said:
What higher power is there than the mind?
Is not the essence of mind dharmakaya?
How is mind’s true nature separate from sambhogakaya?

Malcolm wrote:
You are confusing the three kāyas of the basis with the three kāyas of the result. In essence, because the mind's nature is inseparable clarity and emptiness, emptiness is the basis for the realization of the dharmakāya, clarity is the basis for realizing the nirmanakāya, and inseparability is the basis for realizing the sambhogakāya. But this does not mean that the nature of your mind innately possesses the 32 major marks and the eighty minor marks.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021 at 7:55 PM
Title: Re: Children Covid Vaccinations
Content:



Malcolm wrote:
Small lesions all over the man's lungs, consistent with covid infection, like his lungs had been shot with birdshot.

Johnny Dangerous said:
That’s clinically interesting, but clearly they weren’t affecting his breathing or lung function in a noticeable way -I assume, so I’m confused as to what the significance of them is thought to be in the long term.

PeterC said:
I'll try to find the research but there's been a number of imaging studies of cases one year post recovery finding persistent damage even for asymptomatic cases.  I don't think any did imaging of the brain.  I can understand why they wouldn't, nobody really likes to expose their brains to extra doses of radiation unless clinically necessary.

Purely anecdotally - I'm pretty convinced that symptomatic cases can lead to persistent neurological deficits.  I've now seen it in enough people.

Malcolm wrote:
I am personally convinced that covid infection is contributing to rage disorders as a result of neurological damage.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021 at 10:15 AM
Title: Re: The GOP has lost it
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Henry Wallace, whom I have frequently quoted on this board, had it right, Fascism will come decked out in the flag, etc.


Sādhaka said:
As if leftists don’t love flags....

Malcolm wrote:
Don’t be an idiot. But then, you have no love for democracy either.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021 at 9:39 AM
Title: Re: The GOP has lost it
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
It is a result of the past four years and the fact that the GOP has finally abandoned any pretense of supporting democracy.

Norwegian said:
I fear that the past four years has given the GOP a foundation to build on, where it will only get worse. I saw this GOP-in-action example recently: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/11/01/greg-abbott-texas-schools-books/ Imagine that books about LGBTQ issues, anti-racism, etc. is deemed so outrageous that it must be banned from libraries. It's so absurd, and so surreal, to see the things the GOP does, slowly unfold.

Malcolm wrote:
Fascism has been growing slowly in America for decades, like a cancer. Henry Wallace, whom I have frequently quoted on this board, had it right, Fascism will come decked out in the flag, etc.

We may finally be at the point where the far right needs to be put down with force.

The point that seemingly eludes our friend, is that recognition of the unfortunate origins of the US, etc., is not a sufficient reason to throw everything into chaos because of some ideological commitment. One cannot practice Dharma very well in the middle of a civil war or economic uncertainty. If businesses abandon the US because our political climate becomes hostile to business, it’ll be tough times. Democracy and well-oiled markets go together because trust is high. When that trust is eroded, markets suffer and poverty ensues.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021 at 9:31 AM
Title: Re: The GOP has lost it
Content:
Heimdall said:
"It's the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it" - Aristotle probably

What makes fascism bad?

KeithA said:
My word. Can't believe that is actually a question.

Malcolm wrote:
Kids these days don’t really remember fascism, and they don’t actually know anyone who fought fascists, like both my grandfathers.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021 at 9:27 AM
Title: Re: The GOP has lost it
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
From Heather Cox Richardson:
Today, Time magazine ran a story by Molly Ball about business leaders who are starting to stand up for democracy. The lower taxes and less regulation Republicans promise aren’t much good without a stable democracy, some business leaders told Ball. “The market economy works because of the bedrock foundation of the rule of law, the peaceful succession of power and the reserve currency of the U.S. dollar, and all of these things were potentially at risk,” former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer said. “CEOs are normally hesitant to get involved in political issues, but I would argue that this was a fundamental business issue.”

Republicans disagree. Today, in a remarkable op-ed in The American Conservative, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) called “corporate America... the instrument of anti-American ideologies.” He accused Wall Street of “devoting hundreds of billions of dollars to advance corporate propaganda” that promotes Marxist tactics. Rubio wants to “require that the leadership of large companies be subject to strict scrutiny and legal liability when they abuse their corporate privilege by pushing wasteful, anti-American nonsense.”

In a passage that sounds much like that of a political purge, he warned readers of “the current Marxist cultural revolution among our corporate elite,” and said that “the ultimate way” to stop them “is to replace them with a new generation of business leaders who consider themselves Americans, not citizens of the world…. That is how we defeat this toxic cultural Marxism and rebuild an economy where America’s largest companies were accountable for what matters to America: new factories built in America, good jobs for American families, and investments in American neighborhoods and communities.

zerwe said:
Have to say that's bizzaro stuff there, but does it top the last 4 years? Almost nothing is shocking at this point. Well, who p*ssed in Rubio's Cornflakes?
Shaun

Malcolm wrote:
It is a result of the past four years and the fact that the GOP has finally abandoned any pretense of supporting democracy.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021 at 9:21 AM
Title: Re: The GOP has lost it
Content:


Heimdall said:
[Bunch of self-involved, immature bullshit.]

Malcolm wrote:
Grow up, kid.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021 at 4:04 AM
Title: Re: The GOP has lost it
Content:


Heimdall said:
You don't get to speak out of both sides of your mouth. Either our corporate institutions are oppressive or they aren't.

Malcolm wrote:
Its not that simple.


Heimdall said:
By the way, posting this is incredibly anti-Buddhist and the Buddha would be ashamed of you posting this.

Malcolm wrote:
Piss off, pee wee.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 11:27 PM
Title: Re: Children Covid Vaccinations
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
This is exactly why it’s important to take an evidence based approach to this stuff.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, and I as I pointed out, the evidence is not in yet. But from what evidence we have, it is looking worse and worse.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 11:23 PM
Title: Re: The GOP has lost it
Content:
Queequeg said:
Yankee ideals that have been the spine of the republic are unpopular with right and left. The last gasps of democracy and the rule of law will be local in the areas with the wealth and education to practice it.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, it goes without saying, but I am a Yankee. Though I was born in Ithaca NY, I was raised in Massachusetts, and have lived 90% of my life here, with a couple of years in Vermont.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 9:28 PM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:


Sonam Wangchug said:
What if someone is a conservative Christian who by their religion believes in two genders, are they legally forced to use third pronouns even if it offends them? How do we value one set of beliefs over another one?

Malcolm wrote:
One's religious beliefs do not permit one to violate the civil rights of others.


Sonam Wangchug said:
The scientific research absolutely backs this, an it's all published.

Malcolm wrote:
Your claims that "scientific research backs this" is just a questionable as the science the young lgtbq activists are go on about. Anyway, you think Meru and the four continents is real based on the specious arguments of some Tibetans, so your claims of adherence to science are a little suspect.

Sonam Wangchug said:
My religion tells me my true nature is Vajrakilaya, but I'm not going to go around and demand people see me as a deity. & that it offends me if they do not.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, it would be a violation of your samaya vows to even tell people without samaya what deity you practice.

Sonam Wangchug said:
Open-mindedness must go both ways to allow space that some people simply won't agree with you. As long as people are not intentionally trying to disrespect of cause suffering to another, and yet I hear in conversations that if someone doesn't agree with one about ones view on gender and sex, this person cannot even talk or be friends with another person, I find this extreme.

Malcolm wrote:
Different people have different tolerances for different things. I find it difficult to be friends with people who support Donald Trump and the present iteration of the GOP.

Sonam Wangchug said:
Even though I am a biological male, Still then as a Vajrayana practitioner, I believe we all have female and male channels. However, what I feel is that, when gender is discussed as being illusory or relative in Buddhism such as famously in the Vimalamitra sutra, it's with the emphasis of having less distinctions.

Malcolm wrote:
Are you talking about gender or sex here?

Sonam Wangchug said:
There are some whose gender expression is that they can be a Man on monday, and a women on tuesday depending how they feel, how exactly can this work out with the law?

Malcolm wrote:
I know a transmanwoman fairy shaman druid Buddhist, a lovely person, who has exactly this going on for them. The best way to deal with this is to desex bathrooms and dorm rooms, and learn to behave like adults.

Sonam Wangchug said:
What about an increasing number of youth identifying as being furries...

Malcolm wrote:
There are all kind of fetishes out there, including fetishes around so-called preserving gender "norms".

Sonam Wangchug said:
I also like to ask, (as a buddhist) that if it can be acknowledged that someone may have been another gender in a previous life, and so karmically have that be an active force, since we believe anyone can have been born another race in their previous life, then why can they not identify as trans-racial? We don't know what unresolved karma they have playing out from another lifetime.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, Chapelle does bring this up. "Race" is a cultural and regional marker, not biological marker.

And here is the difference—unlike sex, of which there are basically three, there is only one human race. We are all the same species, the same genus. There are differences in skin tone, hair texture, and eye color, and these are rather recent developments in human evolution, within the past 40,000 years.

If you are making the point that a white person might have a marked preference for jazz, blues, etc., and this might be a result of a karmic trace from a previous like time as a black person, maybe, but unlikely, given the rarity of human birth.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 8:40 PM
Title: Re: The GOP has lost it
Content:
Queequeg said:
It would be fantastic if the Republican party actually alienated corporate leadership. Somehow, I'm not sure how far either side, Republican leadership and corporate leadership, actually believes in the rupture. Corporate leadership just wants the money to flow and I'm not convinced they're really all that worried about the health of the democracy. Actually, I don't think most Americans care all that much about democracy. Sad to write that on this election day here in the US.

We're at the stage that Bread and Circuses is all we want.

Malcolm wrote:
Here is link to full article.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-1-2021


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 7:39 PM
Title: Re: Why Buddhism's Decline in India?
Content:
Nalanda said:
Okay dropped.

So what caused the decline.

Malcolm wrote:
Loss of political support.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 7:24 PM
Title: Re: At what point does one become a Bodhisattva in the Tibetan schools?
Content:
Pårl said:
Hello, I have a question.

At what point does one become a Bodhisattva according to Tibetan tradition? Is announcing oneself to be a Bodhisattva in and of itself a negation of that status?

Can a lay person become a Bodhisattva within their current human incarnation? Is it necessary to have been in an audience with Buddha to reach the end of the path?

I have heard myriad and wide-ranging views on this topic.

I am currently reading Shantideva's The Way of the Bodhisattva and I am seeking to put it into a practical context.

Any thoughts?

Malcolm wrote:
When one rouses bodhicitta.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 7:00 PM
Title: Re: Children Covid Vaccinations
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
I’m confused as to what lung damage which shows up on imaging but has no symptoms would be, but other than that I don’t find it too surprising I guess.

Malcolm wrote:
Small lesions all over the man's lungs, consistent with covid infection, like his lungs had been shot with birdshot.

Johnny Dangerous said:
That’s clinically interesting, but clearly they weren’t affecting his breathing or lung function in a noticeable way -I assume, so I’m confused as to what the significance of them is thought to be in the long term.

Malcolm wrote:
Damage is damage. We don’t know the long term affects of this. For example, whether this kind of damage makes one more susceptible to pneumonia, etc.

Moreover, covid affects the pancreas, kidneys, etc., and some scientists speculate we are looking at a rash of early diabetes, chronic kidney disease, etc. As I said, to quote Rumsfeld, there are a lot of known unknowns with covid.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 6:49 PM
Title: The GOP has lost it
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
From Heather Cox Richardson:
Today, Time magazine ran a story by Molly Ball about business leaders who are starting to stand up for democracy. The lower taxes and less regulation Republicans promise aren’t much good without a stable democracy, some business leaders told Ball. “The market economy works because of the bedrock foundation of the rule of law, the peaceful succession of power and the reserve currency of the U.S. dollar, and all of these things were potentially at risk,” former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer said. “CEOs are normally hesitant to get involved in political issues, but I would argue that this was a fundamental business issue.”

Republicans disagree. Today, in a remarkable op-ed in The American Conservative, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) called “corporate America... the instrument of anti-American ideologies.” He accused Wall Street of “devoting hundreds of billions of dollars to advance corporate propaganda” that promotes Marxist tactics. Rubio wants to “require that the leadership of large companies be subject to strict scrutiny and legal liability when they abuse their corporate privilege by pushing wasteful, anti-American nonsense.”

In a passage that sounds much like that of a political purge, he warned readers of “the current Marxist cultural revolution among our corporate elite,” and said that “the ultimate way” to stop them “is to replace them with a new generation of business leaders who consider themselves Americans, not citizens of the world…. That is how we defeat this toxic cultural Marxism and rebuild an economy where America’s largest companies were accountable for what matters to America: new factories built in America, good jobs for American families, and investments in American neighborhoods and communities.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 6:40 AM
Title: Re: Children Covid Vaccinations
Content:
Archie2009 said:
Would this heal?

Malcolm wrote:
Since this was a year out from his initial infection, one suspects the damage is permanent.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 6:36 AM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
We cannot have a discussion of gender identity in absence of a discussion of sex. If you try, people will fail to understand you.

KathyLauren said:
If you talk about sex without talking about gender identity, you are contributing to the failure to understand.

Malcolm wrote:
Fair point, but as you can see, I did not.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 5:16 AM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:


KathyLauren said:
Don't fight me on my efforts to educate people and then tell me that it is up to me to educate them.

Malcolm wrote:
I am not. I am telling you that people do not make the distinction you want them to make.

We cannot have a discussion of gender identity in absence of a discussion of sex. If you try, people will fail to understand you.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 5:13 AM
Title: Re: Children Covid Vaccinations
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
I’m confused as to what lung damage which shows up on imaging but has no symptoms would be, but other than that I don’t find it too surprising I guess.

Malcolm wrote:
Small lesions all over the man's lungs, consistent with covid infection, like his lungs had been shot with birdshot.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 4:26 AM
Title: Re: Children Covid Vaccinations
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
Perhaps you and they will end up being right, but claiming secret knowledge based on anecdotal experiences -even anecdotal experiences of very qualified folks- is not the same as actual empirical data.

Malcolm wrote:
Here is an empirical fact for you.

My friend's cousin contracted covid. He lost his sense of smell and had a headache for an afternoon, next day fine. No symptoms after this.

Move forward a year, has major medical event, unrelated to covid, unrelated to his lungs, or anything (kidney problems), and when they look at the results of his tomography, the damage to his lungs was extensive, and the pathologist agreed that damage was indeed from covid.

There will be many more instances of such cases. The reason we are not hearing about them now, is that finding this damage requires sophisticated imaging, and that is something which HMOs are unwilling to pay for in the US, but in Mexico it is very cheap.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 4:17 AM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:


KathyLauren said:
It only becomes confusing if one refuses to recognize gender identity as different from sex.

Malcolm wrote:
Most people do not make this distinction. That's the point. For most people gender = sex.

It's not up to them to figure it out on their own. It's up to you and others to educate them.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 4:00 AM
Title: Re: Teachings from non-living human gurus (split from Guru Yoga/historical guru thread)
Content:
Unknown said:
You are a vastly more accomplished scholar (and almost certainly practitioner) than I am, but I think we will need to accept that neither has convinced the other here. I don't ever recall understanding that when Vajrahdara taught Tilopa it was in human form, but I'm open to hearing more about that. Similarly with dakinis, as you know, there are many classes of dakinis across the human/non-human spectrum, but generally 3-4 classes. I simply don't have the interest or time to drag this further, but I think without scratching the surface one could come up with dozens more examples of masters receiving (claiming to receive) teachings from non-humans. Virupa and Nairatmaya, etc. (yes, yes....pre-ripened).

Malcolm wrote:
When my book on the Path with Its Result comes out on May 22nd, 2022 from Shambhala, in the introduction I discuss in some detail the Sakya account of the origin of Vajrayāna teachings, including the origin of the Hevajra Tantra and its related tantras. My discussion of Nairatmyā, her identity, and her relationship with Virupa is to be found there as well.

Nairatmyā is clearly described as a nirmānakāya. Virupa first had a dream of her, then he met her the following day in person as a nirmāṇākāya. He received empowerments from this human women and achieved the first bhumi that first night. This is clearly explained in the Path with Its Result (lam 'bras) literature. There are two other women, identified as Nairatmya, in the other two primary lineages of Hevajra who are also clearly described as human women, one of them is named Vilaśyavajra, the guru of Anaṅgavajra, who in turn is the guru of Padmavajra.

As far as the historical record of Tilopa is concerned, there is no room for doubt that his his gurus were Vijaya and Antarapa and that he received Cakramsavara and its intimate instructions from them. This does not rule out his having received visionary transmissions from Vajradhara, but this would only be possible if a) Tilopa was himself a nirmāṇakāya (the Kagyu position), which means he was born fully realized, a buddha, or b) he received those transmissions after he attained mahāmudrā siddhi (the more conventional account). I have already explained how this works by using the examples of Ghantapada and Naropa.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 3:44 AM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:


KathyLauren said:
One also only has one gender identity: masculine, feminine, or non-binary. And it does not necessarily correspond to one's biological sex. When it doesn't correspond, the person is transgender.

Malcolm wrote:
Of course it is relevant, and this is why the topic is confusing for people.

Also your assertion that people can only have one gender identity is false. A better way to put it is that people can only have one gender identity at a time.

The word gender is used a) a signifier for sex b) a signifier for identity.

When Chapelle declares "Gender is a fact," he means gender as a signifier for sex. So, he is not wrong.

The term "gender" is used promiscuously on both side of the issue, and often at cross purposes.

There is likely a biological basis for gender identity. Human physiology is complicated and it is not perfectly understood. There is an established biological basis for sex.

This is the reason, principally, where people used to refer to sex change operations, they now refer to such procedures as gender reassignment surgery and gender confirmation surgery.

For whatever reason, there are more transgender males (female --> male) than transgender females, with a ratio of about 2:1, but the transgender males generally do not provoke very much anxiety in people. What provokes anxiety in people is transgender females. They are the ones who experience the most hate violence around the public expression of their gender identity (this does not mean that transmen are not victims of violence).

This is why I suggested above that from a Buddhist point of view, there are definitely three sexes, and likely five, if we add transmen and transwomen.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 11:45 PM
Title: Re: Children Covid Vaccinations
Content:
Johnny Dangerous said:
What we know of COVID is already scary, we’ve seen what it does.

Malcolm wrote:
I know the head of nursing in a major Boston Hospital. I know a top surgeon in the best hospital in Mexico City. You have no idea what they see. The public is largely unaware of how damaging this virus can be to unvaccinated people. The damage of Covid can be severe, even for many so-called "asymptomatic people." We have no data yet on how damaging it can be for people who have contract it after being properly vaccinated.

In three or four years, when we have more perspective and data, only then will the world at large have a true picture.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 11:38 PM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:
KathyLauren said:
It happens to kids who actually ARE biologically transgender, and who are forced to wear the clothes and use the pronouns of their birth gender.

Malcolm wrote:
One only has one birth sex: male, female, or intersexed.

It often happens that intersexed children are misidentified at birth and labeled male or female, Later, when they begin to present intersex traits, it causes them and others a great of confusion. For example, an intersexed child who is identified as a girl, but begins to display clear male sexual development at puberty, and vice versa. Generally, by adulthood, one sex or another becomes predominant. But such people are still intersexed.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 11:32 PM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:
Archie2009 said:
A UK Labour politician called biological sex a social construct on national television.

Malcolm wrote:
Sex, from a Buddhist point of view, is a fact of karma and biology. It is not something one can change.

But Buddhism also recognizes that there are more than two sexes. There are at, minimum, three, and perhaps as many as five.

Archie2009 said:
Of course children that genuinely suffer from disphoria should be helped to transition.

Malcolm wrote:
They should certainly receive support, counseling, etc. What they should not receive is hormone therapy, etc. until they are adults.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 11:21 PM
Title: Re: Teachings from non-living human gurus (split from Guru Yoga/historical guru thread)
Content:


Montoya said:
More seriously, I think it's an interesting topic. A lot of Western Buddhists were attracted to Buddhism believing it is wholly compatible with modern, Western scientific thought and while that might be true in certain instances, I think we need to explore areas where it may raise uncomfortable questions (for some anyway). Personally, I fall into the camp of 'dharma and practice are useful in and of themselves' and don't mind poking into areas that may demand a measure of leaps of faith/credulity.

Malcolm wrote:
For me there is no discomfort. Most of what we consider to be "visionary" is a product of experiential vision of yogis. Below the path of seeing these are mostly uncomfortable because the nāḍīs, vāyus, and bindu in our body are stuck, frozen, and not pliable. For those who have attained the path of seeing and so on in previous lifetimes, they have a difference experience of yoga, and thus, their visionary experiences seem more incredible.

If you have ever wondered why advanced yogis die painless deaths, it is because they have unravelled the nāḍīs which the vāyus and bindus to move freely within their bodies. It basically amounts to plumbing. Our pipes are clogged, theirs are not.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 11:16 PM
Title: Re: Teachings from non-living human gurus (split from Guru Yoga/historical guru thread)
Content:


Montoya said:
If you want to use the "ripened" argument for Tilopa, fine, but the *entire* history of terma and Mahayana more broadly is full of examples of humans taking teachings from non-humans.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, if you mean taking teachigns from nāgas, nāgas take teachings from buddhas and bodhisattvas, not the other way around.

I am not sure where you get the idea that buddhas and bodhisattvas are not humans, since it is only human beings who can practice a path.

I think you are confusing "visionary" with "nonhuman."  Ḍākas and ḍākinīs, for example, are human beings, as are buddhas and bodhisattvas.


Montoya said:
We can argue that the human/non-human interface is a metaphor, a upaya, or simply nirmanakya Buddhas in human form, but the record is clear here.

Malcolm wrote:
There is no human/non-human interface. Ḍākas and ḍākinīs, for example, are human beings, as are buddhas and bodhisattvas.

The point is simple: ordinary human beings, like you and I, cannot take teachings from anyone other than a nirmāṇakāya. In order to receive teachings from the sambhogakāya, one must be an eighth stage bodhisattva or higher.

Montoya said:
Personally, I find the teachings stand on their own merits, so its all a bit pedantic.

Malcolm wrote:
It isn't pedantry at all. Because people are ignorant of the paths and stages there is a great risk they will be deceived. If someone comes along, say some Tibetan lama, and claims "I have received teachings from the sambhogakāya" people need to be able to ascertain whether this person is really an eighth stage bodhisattva or not, otherwise they run the risk of being seriously deceived. The qualities of realization of an eighth stage bodhisattva can be ascertained with some ease if one has studied the sūtrayāna and vajrayāna stages of realization (abhisamaya).

In order to reveal treasures, the minimum requirement is that one must have attained the first bodhisattva stage. But revealing treasures, even mind treasures, is not receiving teachings directly from the sambhogakāya. The intermediary here is Padmasambhava, who is a nirmāṇakāya.

There is a class of teachings called "pure vision," and here one does not have to be first stage bodhisattva, but one must have some heat on path of application, that is some training in samadhi. And frankly, most people do not trust the pure vision teachings of anyone who is not a mahāsiddha, that is, someone who has not attained the path of seeing.

It is certainly true that that one can cultivate samadhis in order to see buddhas and receive teachings, and vague indications of these are framed in such sūtras as the Pratyutpana Samadhi Sūtra, and so on. But this will still not be a sambhogakāya buddhas one sees, but nirmāṇakāyas.

The reason for this is that ordinary people such as ourselves are incapable of seeing the sambhogakāya because we possess the obscuration of affliction, and until that is removed on the seventh bhumi, we are unable to perceive the sambhogakāya.


Montoya said:
Curious to hear your view on Dudjom Lingpa? His visions came as a child. Would you say he was ripened by human teachers in a former life? In the womb?

Malcolm wrote:
Dudjom Lingpa reports interesting dreams and visions as a child, there is no doubt. But he himself says these are all a result of his good karma and aspirations. He met his lama, Lama Jamyang in 1845, and clearly describes receiving empowerments from this lama, along with the claim that this person was his lama for many lifetimes. It is some years before he begins to reveal termas, after he does some retreats, especially Mañjuśrī Simhanada.

As for his claim that he did not receive view and meditation from any human lama, no one receives the view and meditation from anyone. We receive transmissions, but the view and meditation we must discover for ourselves. So I do not find his claim to be as extraordinary as others do.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 11:26 AM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:


Heimdall said:
Laws aren't real, merely a social construction, so why don't we deconstruct some of those?

Malcolm wrote:
That happens with some regularity, by necessity. Personally, I think the constitution needs a rewrite.

Heimdall said:
Let's get rid of legal prohibitions against theft, especially considering that the rich get away with so much more!

Malcolm wrote:
The rich have been deconstructing the tax code since forever.

Heimdall said:
In fact let's just get rid of penal punishments for violent crimes. As people are a product of their social circumstances moreso than individuality, the reason for rape and murder is perpetuated by the lower class status they find themselves stuck in. If you murder someone, just send them to a psychiatrist where they can be rehabilitated after a couple years or so!

Malcolm wrote:
I thinks that’s what they do in Norway. They seem to have a very low rate repeat offenders.

Heimdall said:
All of these are parodies of leftist positions (although day by day we are getting closer to satire being a reality), but I can legitimately justify them all by arguing they are imaginary, social constructions, right? No. Obviously, if something is a "social construction", that doesn't mean it's "unimportant" or "deserves to be deconstructed".

Malcolm wrote:
Why don’t you parody some right wing positions for a change?

Heimdall said:
Your next argument will be the classical "well it's not harming you" argument, but I've already demonstrated the ways it is harming children.

Malcolm wrote:
You haven’t actually, you’ve made an assertion, that’s all. Incidentally, I am personally opposed to allowing minors access to hormones and son on.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 10:27 AM
Title: Re: Merigar webcast OK?
Content:
oldbob said:
Yes, he wanted everyone to be Members, but this was changed by someone from a voluntary system to a fixed system.  Fixed charges for membership fees are not in harmony with the spirit of number 4. "according to their wishes."

Malcolm wrote:
All I know is the way it is, so I  with work circumstances as they are. Thus I pay my dues and I don’t complain.

The dues are $0.76 a day.

You said you pay your dues, so,I don’t really see what you’re bitching about.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 5:30 AM
Title: Progress or Decline?
Content:


Heimdall said:
Most of Western political discourse is a product of Judeo-Christian values, including "secular" left-wing paradigms which honor the moral superiority of the lower classes, decry hierarchical power as "greed", "evil", and "oppression", and seek to transform the human being into something, super natural through the civilization of nature. The whole idea of "progress" towards some terminal point of divinity (secular or religious) is also explicitly Judeo-Christian.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes. But I am follower of Buddhadharma. This is the Kali Yuga, not the Krita Yuga, and things are getting worse, and will get much worse, before they get better, if they even do. So my "left wing politics" are conservationist, rather than ideological. I am not an ideological person (well, that's not completely true, if I had a political ideology it would Deep Ecology ala Arne Naess). I don't have time for it. I do have likes and dislikes around policies however, and in general, while I don't much like the policy decisions of most Democrats, I think the policy decisions of the GOP are just f*&king tragic.

Heimdall said:
The idea that Western leftist politics is fully disconnected from an Abrahamic culture and is totally harmonious with Ancient Indian and East Asian Buddha-dharma, whereas Western conservative politics is a direct product of Abrahamic culture and irreconcilable with Ancient Indian and East Asian Buddha-dharma is laughably falsifiable.

Malcolm wrote:
It's also a strawman, hence easy to knock down.

Heimdall said:
Why is it that you people constantly advocate for a "deconstruction of patriarchal gender norms" in East Asia then?

Malcolm wrote:
What have patriarchal gender norms ever done for anyone? Is there a reason they should be treated as sacred cow?

Heimdall said:
Did the evil white man corrupt the Ancient Chinese and Japanese civilizations, who described the local tribal outsiders as "barbarians"? Who were also monogamous? Whose traditional gender roles mirrored somewhat traditional Western civilization?

Malcolm wrote:
I am pretty sure the Chinese and Japanese were excellent at corrupting themselves before we came along and put the nail in the coffin of their feudal societies.

Heimdall said:
We all know that contemporary Western Buddhism is a product of upper-middle class white people from West Coast and urban areas in the 60s and 70s, adopting a façade of East-Asian mysticism not only to live their colonial fantasy of the "noble savage", but also to find any mystical religious paradigm which could justify their pre-existing moral, political, and philosophical beliefs.

Malcolm wrote:
It would seem, according to you, Western Buddhists are just trying justify Christian belief systems they already have, such as belief in a soul, patriarchy, subordination of women, great white savior, and so on? Not sure what you are trying to say here.

I know why I am a Buddhist, how about you? I don't find the Dharma to be particularly mystical, that's something I associate with theistic religions.

Heimdall said:
I someday wish to be as philosophically transcendent and objective as you Malcolm.

Malcolm wrote:
It comes with age, plenty of good wine and good sex. Also actually studying Dharma in an original Buddhist language helps a lot.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 2:53 AM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:
Virgo said:
This is a Christian game through and through on both sides. That this is not completely obvious to everyone, I find amazing.

Malcolm wrote:
Of course it is. 100%. In Indian myths, people mate with rivers and so on, and gender/sex transformation was quite normal in India narratives. This shit made Christian missionaries quite uncomfortable. Our friend here is an conservative ex-Christian, still apparently working out the John Bircher  propaganda he absorbed as a child.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 2:48 AM
Title: Re: Teachings from non-living human gurus (split from Guru Yoga/historical guru thread)
Content:
Schrödinger’s Yidam said:
Well, if it ain’t just b.s. that’s pretty cool. The problem is, how to differentiate?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, I have also observed tertons in action. But all of the tertons I know (3) had human gurus to whom they were profoundly devoted.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 2:12 AM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:
Heimdall said:
Look here dude, history is both descriptive and interpretative. To suggest that a critical race analysis of "history" is purely descriptive and not at all ideologically intepretative is not honest.

Malcolm wrote:
I am not using a CR analysis of history, or a Marxist analysis of history. One does not need to have an ideological agenda to understand that the United States was founded on the twin pillars of genocide and slavery. We certainly cannot do anything to change these facts. We can either acknowledge them, in which case most US History courses as they are presented in modern grade school curriculums should be jettisoned, or we can keep our eyes closed (the GOP approach in order to protect the feelings of white children) and continue to pretend that Democracy in America has been available to everyone in America since the founding of the Republic.

But this is getting off topic, and has not much to do with Chapelle, transphobia, or anything else.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 1:20 AM
Title: Re: Merigar webcast OK?
Content:
oldbob said:
I am throughly confused about everything and always mistake Samsara for Nirvana and vice versa.

What I am not confused about is that there will be a short Ganapuja in 15 minutes on Practicing together Closed.

http://melong.com/the-virtues-of-generosity-chogyal-namkhai-norbus-oral-message-on-april-30-2014-at-merigar-west/


Malcolm wrote:
https://webcast.dzogchen.net/index.php?id=practicing-together-html5

It's here and it is open.

oldbob said:
ChNN wanted the fixed expenses for Teachings to be paid by sponsorship / donation, not by a Membership tax on all Members.

Malcolm wrote:
He wanted everyone to pay dues. Responsible citizens pay their taxes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 1:13 AM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:
Heimdall said:
Are you suggesting that Capitalism has subverted leftist political movements in order to maintain the status quo and focus on unimportant issues?

Malcolm wrote:
I am suggesting that the far right is using issues like these to distract from more important issues, like climate mitigation, and so on. But Americans are, in general, poorly educated, and becoming more so. An uneducated populace is more easily manipulated with conspiracy theories and false news.

Heimdall said:
CRT is not being taught in any schools.
And now we lost it. I guess there is no God.

Malcolm wrote:
Teaching school children historical facts about European colonialism in the "New World," the history of slavery, the The Indian Removal Act of 1830, and so on is not CRT. This has been discussed to death.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, November 1st, 2021 at 12:45 AM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:
Heimdall said:
Yet it's the entire basis of contemporary leftist discourse, hence the outcry from parents about "Critical Race Theory" being taught in schools.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, no, it isn’t, it’s at best a distraction from more important issues which the left pursues, such as the reigning in the environmentally destructive forces of free-market capitalism, etc., which the far right uses in their  Christian Fascist, policy-free, culture war against democracy.

CRT is not being taught in any schools.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 11:18 PM
Title: Re: "You can't post that fast"
Content:
Caoimhghín said:
Why do I now have to wait ~5 minutes between posts? Is it because I think Chapelle's an idiot? I'm not sorry, I swear!

Malcolm wrote:
No, someone turned on flood control. I get the same message.and have for some days.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 11:08 PM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:
Caoimhghín said:
I think Chapelle is an idiot and a bigot, but that he's a funny example of both.

Malcolm wrote:
Maybe a bigot, definitely not an idiot.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 10:47 PM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:
Nemo said:
. His point being many LGBT people are LGBT until they need to be white and call the cops on a black person.

Malcolm wrote:
Correct, that’s exactly what he was pointing out.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 10:25 PM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:


PeterC said:
"Identity" is like the child of a barren woman or the horns of a rabbit.  Whenever you try to analyze it, it becomes incoherent.

Malcolm wrote:
Unless you being oppressed for your identity, of course. Then it becomes pretty coherent for you.

PeterC said:
Yes.  Violence, discrimination etc. against trans people should be denounced and stopped, as should hate-based violence directed against any group. Nobody's identity, in the sense that we are using that term, poses any sort of threat to anyone else.
For whatever reason, I know personally four transwomen, karma, I guess. And I know two more online. They are all Buddhists.
I would guess that trans people are a bit like Starbucks - they tend to cluster together in areas with favorable conditions. That the trans people you know are Buddhists may reflect selection bias. But if Buddhists can't be tolerant of different gender identities, they're not very good Buddhists.

Malcolm wrote:
I wasn’t really taking issue with anything you said. I was just pointing out that for Chapelle, identity is very much at issue here, and his principle resentment lies with white transpeople claiming the same status of oppression as black people in general. I was not evaluating his claim one way or the other.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 10:03 PM
Title: Re: Teachings from non-living human gurus (split from Guru Yoga/historical guru thread)
Content:


Montoya said:
Sorry, but I find all of this rather unconvincing. Even if you accept that Tilopa was ripened before meeting Vajradhara, how was he ripened? He was ripened by the four special siddhis. And where did he receive those? From human teachers. And where did they receive them? From dakinis.

The broader point I am attempting (and apparently failing) to make, is that we as Westerners must confront and accept (or not) rather outrageous claims such as receiving teachings from non-human sources. Your approach seems to be "well, yes, those teachings did occur, but they were not necessary as there were humans involved elsewhere in the process." That seems a bit of a side step, but okay.

As for the Karma Kagyu specifically, I make no claims to it being the definitive voice of Tibetan Buddhism, but it is one strain of lineage which claims descent from Tilopa and as such worthy of having its own views on the matter unless you choose to dismiss them on polemical grounds.

Malcolm wrote:
He was ripened by receiving the four empowerments from his guru, Vijaya. He then went and practiced in a charnel ground. The accounts of his life could not be more clear. If there is a claim to be litigated, it would be the claim of Gampopa that Tilopa was an emanation. It does not correspond with Abhayadatta’s biography of Tilopa in the life stories of the eighty four mahasiddhas.

I’ve already addressed all of your other points.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 9:41 PM
Title: Re: Dune
Content:
Matt J said:
The issues of colonialism and race are intertwined.

Malcolm wrote:
The slate article provides a lot of historical background to the Dune novels, the unrest in Algeria, etc., a lot of the first novel is a transposition of European colonialism in North Africa. The choice of Islam as the universal religion is not accidental.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 8:16 PM
Title: Re: Dune
Content:
Queequeg said:
Maybe. But maybe everything looks like a nail to a hammer, too. You didn't quite call out the colonialist trope, though... You called out the white messiah figure... The Atreides in the book are olive skinned... The guy who played the Duke was probably cast right. I don't know why they chose Chamalet. Maybe because he's so pretty. I don't know if race is really critical to the story, but of course, it's a contemporary creative work based on a decades old source; all choices are open to contemporary critique.

Malcolm wrote:
It is definitely a novel about colonial exploitation. The story does not stay there, of course, but the recall, the reason the empire is there at all is to keep the spice flowing.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 7:44 PM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:


PeterC said:
"Identity" is like the child of a barren woman or the horns of a rabbit.  Whenever you try to analyze it, it becomes incoherent.

Malcolm wrote:
Unless you being oppressed for your identity, of course. Then it becomes pretty coherent for you.

For whatever reason, I know personally four transwomen, karma, I guess. And I know two more online. They are all Buddhists.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 9:27 AM
Title: Re: Merigar webcast OK?
Content:
oldbob said:
I don't know!

My Membership History page on dzogchen.net shows that I have been a continuous member since 2012 which is as far back as they go.


Malcolm wrote:
Great, than you should have no problem logging in.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 9:19 AM
Title: Re: Fixing Samsara
Content:


Heimdall said:
The Gelug Tibetan School would disagree with that, but anyways, I think that "anarchistic" is way too harsh of a word. Otherwise the Buddha wouldn't have established an organized Sangha.

Malcolm wrote:
The Geluk school elects it’s leader who serves a set term.

When I say Buddhism is essentially anarchistic, i am saying there is no central authority deciding how it should be understood and practiced, despite occasionally reactionary attempts to enforce a fleeting orthodoxy.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 3:58 AM
Title: Re: Merigar webcast OK?
Content:



Tata1 said:
You dont have to pay for this retreat. Only requirment is having transmission

Malcolm wrote:
he is complaining that it is password protected, and to have a user account, one must be a member of the IDC. And to be a member of the IDC, one must pay dues to a gar, something he is not inclined to do.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 3:23 AM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:
Könchok Thrinley said:
Chappelle is brilliant. I really can't wait to see The Closer to see how he walks the line.

However, I just cannot understand why Chappelle continues going there. I mean... why transpeople?

Malcolm wrote:
It's not transpeople in general, it's white transpeople, the ones he views as abusing their privilege. Whether one agrees with him or not, that's his point.

Our situation as Black people necessitates that we have solidarity around the fact of race, which white transwomen of course do not need to have with white men, unless it is their negative solidarity as racial oppressors.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 3:07 AM
Title: Re: Merigar webcast OK?
Content:
oldbob said:
So if we want to harmonize the social structures of the IDC, today, with the principle of Generosity as stated by ChNN above, should not all webcasts after April 30, 2014, be without the requirement to pay a fee?  Is not Membership in the IDC which many cannot afford, a fee?

By simple logic then, and simple kindness, shouldn't all webcasts (access to the Teachings) be open and free?

Malcolm wrote:
Then when we did the retreats some people would come to the retreats and ask why they would have to pay for teaching. Nobody pays for the teaching.  They pay for the organization, for the place, for all the expenses.

This still applies. Someone has to pay for the servers, the gars, etc. So if your membership is not current, you are not paying "for the organization, the place, for all the expenses."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 1:57 AM
Title: Re: Why did Buddhism take a drastic focus into emptiness at the turn of the new era? (1st century CE)
Content:
Nalanda said:
If these teachings need to be secret/hidden in the Naga realms for a few hundreds of years after the Buddha's parinirvana, what was so special about our new era (first century forward) that it was then that we saw the blossoming of these teachings?

Malcolm wrote:
The advent of Nāgārjuna, someone who could understand and explicate the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras. We still don't really know exactly when Nāgārjuna I lived. It is pretty clear he lived during Satahavana Dynasty (100BCE-200CE) and had royal support. The capital of th Satahavana Dynasty was Amaravati and it is very clear they were strong supporters of Buddhism.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 1:42 AM
Title: Re: Making sense of types of thought
Content:
LastLegend said:
Do you want to say pure and unpure cannot established either?

Malcolm wrote:
Of course, they are also relative.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 1:01 AM
Title: Re: Fixing Samsara
Content:
Virgo said:
Getting  angry at people for using plastic bags is so far off the mark as to be astoundingly ridiculous.

Malcolm wrote:
Plus, it is very difficult to freeze soup in a paper bag.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 12:45 AM
Title: Re: Chappelle's The Closer
Content:
Queequeg said:
At the risk of getting myself canceled, Chapelle is, as he brags, the GOAT. Its brilliant, with nods to Lenny Bruce.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, many people refuse to see his point.

But he isn’t really saying anything different than this:

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977/

Queequeg said:
Although we are feminists and Lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand. Our situation as Black people necessitates that we have solidarity around the fact of race, which white women of course do not need to have with white men, unless it is their negative solidarity as racial oppressors. We struggle together with Black men against racism, while we also struggle with Black men about sexism.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 31st, 2021 at 12:10 AM
Title: Re: Dune
Content:
Queequeg said:
And actually, the hero of the whole series is Duncan Idaho, Jason Momoa's character. Its gets quite ridiculous.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, Dune’s Kenney.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 11:30 PM
Title: Re: Fixing Samsara
Content:



seeker242 said:
Not using plastic bags and being vegetarian is not extreme.

Malcolm wrote:
They can be.

seeker242 said:
Because they can be does not mean they are. It was claimed they are, which is false.
Feeding hungry people is not extreme.

Yes, that never is, but sometimes you have to feed then meat and send then off with leftovers in plastic bags.

And giving them beans and paper bags instead is not a function of a wrong view.

Malcolm wrote:
Neither is giving them meat and plastic bags. We work with circumstances.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 11:15 PM
Title: Re: Fixing Samsara
Content:



seeker242 said:
Which has no bearing on the fact that it's not a wrong view for one to aim to live harmlessly.

Malcolm wrote:
Taking it to extremes is wrong view.

seeker242 said:
Not using plastic bags and being vegetarian is not extreme.

Malcolm wrote:
They can be.


seeker242 said:
Feeding hungry people is not extreme.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, that never is, but sometimes you have to feed then meat and send then off with leftovers in plastic bags.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 11:12 PM
Title: Re: Dune
Content:
Matt J said:
It seemed weird to me that no one has an issue with a ruling class rich white kid coming to be the Messiah for a bunch of indigenous people of color. Seemed a bit colonialist to me.

Malcolm wrote:
See Slate review above.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 10:59 PM
Title: Re: Fixing Samsara
Content:



seeker242 said:
There is also no point in creating more pollution for the environment and creating more suffering for animals, etc. The idea that one should live harmlessly is not a wrong view.

Malcolm wrote:
Ahimsa is not an absolute value in Dharma, unlike Jainism, however. The Buddha clearly rejected the Jain idea of extreme ahimsa as well as Devadatta’s.

seeker242 said:
Which has no bearing on the fact that it's not a wrong view for one to aim to live harmlessly.

Malcolm wrote:
Taking it to extremes is wrong view.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 10:46 PM
Title: Re: Fixing Samsara
Content:
Toenail said:
I feel like so called buddhists should move away from the wrong view that somehow you can fix or make samsara better by avoiding the use of plastic bags and being vegetarian. There is no happiness in samsara and there is no point trying to create some enlightened society, solving world hunger etc., it is just a waste of time.

seeker242 said:
There is also no point in creating more pollution for the environment and creating more suffering for animals, etc. The idea that one should live harmlessly is not a wrong view.

Malcolm wrote:
Ahimsa is not an absolute value in Dharma, unlike Jainism, however. The Buddha clearly rejected the Jain idea of extreme ahimsa as well as Devadatta’s.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 10:41 PM
Title: Re: Dune
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
https://slate.com/culture/2021/10/dune-2021-movie-vs-book-white-savior-islam.html


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 10:21 PM
Title: Re: Fixing Samsara
Content:



Toenail said:
It is general buddhist view. That there is no happiness in Samsara. It is not controversial at all.


Malcolm wrote:
While it is true that one cannot fix samsara, striving to make others happy is not fruitless or worthless. It is an end in itself. I suggest you study the Bodhicarya-avatara.

Bodhisattvas engage in three main forms of generosity: material generosity, the generosity of freedom from fear, and the generosity of Dharma.

In general, seeking to make the world a safer place, in what limited ways we can, makes it possible to practice Dharma. One notes that the places where Dharma flourishes most today are places where Democracy is a high value. It is true there are a couple of toy kingdoms like Sikkim and Bhutan, but they survive only due to the grace of India's protection from the PRC, and they emulate the British constitutional monarchy now, thus, democratic. They are incapable of protecting themselves. Thailand can protect itself, but its government is rife with corruption, as is its sangha over all. Buddhism is repressed in countries like Russia, not to mention China, and other dictatorships like Vietnam, etc.

Buddhism itself is essentially anarchistic, and the idea of a supreme head of anything in the Sangha at large was quashed by the Buddha in the beginning.

Toenail said:
Thank you, I studied it. What you are saying is the same as I am saying. I am not propagading some kind of nihilist view. You say that path has an end. It is buddhahood. So that is the goal that one seeks to achieve through all these actions. Gathering the two accumulations in order to benefit beings. But they are not truly benefitted through giving them an apple or medicine, or else we would all have to join Doctors beyond borders and abandon dharma practice etc. They can only truly be benefitted through dharma and thats why we gather the two accumulations that include actions like the three types of generosity amongst which giving of the dharma is (understandably) seen as supreme.

Malcolm wrote:
Baby steps. If ones political actions are motivated by selfishness, it’s better not to be political. If ones politics are motivated by policies which actually will support practice of dharma,then it’s better to be political.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 9:20 PM
Title: Re: Fixing Samsara
Content:
narhwal90 said:
You keep saying such things.   How have you tested this view?

Toenail said:
It is general buddhist view. That there is no happiness in Samsara. It is not controversial at all.


Malcolm wrote:
While it is true that one cannot fix samsara, striving to make others happy is not fruitless or worthless. It is an end in itself. I suggest you study the Bodhicarya-avatara.

Bodhisattvas engage in three main forms of generosity: material generosity, the generosity of freedom from fear, and the generosity of Dharma.

In general, seeking to make the world a safer place, in what limited ways we can, makes it possible to practice Dharma. One notes that the places where Dharma flourishes most today are places where Democracy is a high value. It is true there are a couple of toy kingdoms like Sikkim and Bhutan, but they survive only due to the grace of India's protection from the PRC, and they emulate the British constitutional monarchy now, thus, democratic. They are incapable of protecting themselves. Thailand can protect itself, but its government is rife with corruption, as is its sangha over all. Buddhism is repressed in countries like Russia, not to mention China, and other dictatorships like Vietnam, etc.

Buddhism itself is essentially anarchistic, and the idea of a supreme head of anything in the Sangha at large was quashed by the Buddha in the beginning.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 7:47 PM
Title: Re: Fixing Samsara
Content:
SilenceMonkey said:
Helping in small ways is nice. But politics gets too complicated, and draws us deeper into samsara...

Malcolm wrote:
Samsara only has one level.

SilenceMonkey said:
You're talking about there being no difference within duality? (That as long as something is dualistic, it is samsara)

Malcolm wrote:
All three realms are samsara. They are all suffering.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 6:10 PM
Title: Re: Making sense of types of thought
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
No, it is the view of Candrakīrti, but perhaps it's too subtle for some people to grasp.

Astus said:
Do you know perhaps others who picked up that interpretation? On the other hand, wouldn't it be quite close to what Gorampa criticised in Tsongkhapa interpreting conventional phenomena as purely designations?

Malcolm wrote:
Rongton, etc.

And no. Gorampa is faulting Tsongkhapa for not getting this point. Gorampa argues this point more thoroughly in his yet to translated commentary on MAV.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 10:45 AM
Title: Re: Fixing Samsara
Content:
SilenceMonkey said:
Helping in small ways is nice. But politics gets too complicated, and draws us deeper into samsara...

Malcolm wrote:
Samsara only has one level.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 4:20 AM
Title: Re: Making sense of types of thought
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
The imputation itself is the agent and recipient of action, that's the point.

Astus said:
That is more likely the view of Gorampa.

Malcolm wrote:
No, it is the view of Candrakīrti, but perhaps it's too subtle for some people to grasp.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 3:09 AM
Title: Re: Are Oysters Sentient? (Split from Giving up Masturbation)
Content:
Toenail said:
even though I usually trust and follow what Malcolm is saying I would not eat oysters because I think it could be killing if they are alive and are indeed sentient.

Malcolm wrote:
It's possible, but I just don't think they are. But remember, I never said any where in this thread or the one it was spawned from that other people should eat oysters.

All I said that I would rather eat oysters than my own cum for its nutritional value, just to put it in the plainest possible terms. Then Adamantine opined that he hoped I did not mean on the half-shell. And I responded by saying that I did not and do not think oysters are sentient. Then some people in the peanut gallery got super indignant, and the rest is history.

So can we please close this f*&^ing thread?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 3:03 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:



Montoya said:
Are you claiming that the lineage through Vijaya (back through Saraha) is an unbroken human lineage back to Shakyamuni?

Malcolm wrote:
Cakrasamvara does not come through Śākyamuni at all.

Why? Because the Cakrasamvara mandala still exists in this world in the 24 places, it was never closed unlike Hevajra, Guhyasamāja, Kālacakra, etc., and in these 24 places the nirmāṇakāya is still teaching this mandala (its one of the reasons it is so effective in this age). And of course, the nirmānakāya is inseparable from the sambhogkāya and the dharmakāya. In any case, this transmission was bestowed by Vajradhara upon Vajrapāṇi. Vajrapāṇi is a tenth stage bodhisattva, but he is also a human being, as is the nirmāṇakāya who teaches in the 24 places. So it is an unbroken human lineage, all the way back to nirmāṇakāya Śrī Heruka Vajradhara in the 24 places.

Now, Vajrapāṇi bestowed this upon Saraha at Śrīparvata in S. India along with the root tantra. etc., the latter in turn transmitted this to Nāgārjuna in S. India and the rest is history.

Montoya said:
Well, yes and the time you speak of is also the time of yakshas, rakshasas, the mighty and fearsome Bhairava, etc. I'm afraid that once we are at the point of them being tenth stage bodhisattvas also incarnated as humans then we have drifted into deep waters and there is really no further discussion to be had.

Malcolm wrote:
All of the information I have provided to you is sourced from authoritative tantras in Kenjur, and their commentaries which one can find in the Tengyur, as well as the Naropa oral tradition.

The compiler of the tantras is Vajrapāṇi. There are many emanations of Vajrapāṇi, but in particular, the Indrabhūtis, all three, are regarded as Vajrapāṇi emanations and are predicted in the Tantras, and they too all had human gurus. In the case of the first, it was Śākyamuni Buddha, the later two had different gurus.

You seem to think I am making an argument that transmissions through visions and dreams are impossible. I never said that. But ordinary people have to be ripened by human gurus. There is no precedent at all for an ordinary human being to have some kind of visionary empowerment from an awakened being. Such an idea represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the paths and stages. A nirmāṇakāya is an awakened being in the form of an ordinary human being, for example, Śākyamuni Buddha; his voice is the sambhogakāya, and his mind is the dharmakāya. Not even tenth stage bodhisattvas can perceive the dharmakāya. Only buddhas can perceive this.

Even then, the account of Tilopa in the Life Stories of the 84 Mahāsiddhas by Abhayadatta is sure to disappoint. He describes Tilopa as a pandita and a court priest, who becomes disgusted when he recognizes that when he gives teachings, everyone is distracted. He then leaves for a charnel ground outside of Kañci where he begs for alms and practices. He then meets Naropa, who provides Tilopa with provisions for the next ten years, after which time, Tilopa attains mahāmudra siddhi. He departs to deva realms where he continues to practice, and attains the siddhis of body, speech, and mind, and eventually physically departed to Khecari realm. So according to this this account, when Naropa first met Tilopa, the latter had not even attained siddhi.

My question to you is this: can your mind comprehend that there are different accounts? Or is the "Mah lineage" the only one that matters to you. Because if it is the latter, what makes you any different than a fundamentalist Christian?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 1:28 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:
Montoya said:
Sorry, but I find all of this rather unconvincing. Even if you accept that Tilopa was ripened before meeting Vajradhara, how was he ripened?

Malcolm wrote:
By receiving the four empowerments from Vijaya while he was still a bhikṣu called Prajñabhadra, then he went off practiced, and realized mahāmudra through practicing the two stages. I mean, why do you think he was sent to pound sesame? This type of caryavrata was very common in the Cakrasamvara lineage. Luipa sent Darikapa, a prince, to be the servant of a courtesan in a strange city, etc.

Montoya said:
The broader point I am attempting (and apparently failing) to make, is that we as Westerners must confront and accept (or not) rather outrageous claims such as receiving teachings from non-human sources. Your approach seems to be "well, yes, those teachings did occur, but they were not necessary as there were humans involved elsewhere in the process." That seems a bit of a side step, but okay.

Malcolm wrote:
Vajradhāra is the dharmakāya expressed as the sambhogakāya. As the Tattvasamgraha Tantra states:

I, Samantabhadra, have no form, 
but I manifest in the form of a bodhisattva 
to teach bodhisattvas.

Not even bodhisattvas on the impure stages can see Vajradhara. Only eighth stage bodhisattvas and beyond are capable of seeing the sambhogakāya.


Montoya said:
As for the Karma Kagyu specifically, I make no claims to it being the definitive voice of Tibetan Buddhism, but it is one strain of lineage which claims descent from Tilopa and as such worthy of having its own views on the matter unless you choose to dismiss them on polemical grounds.


Malcolm wrote:
You are certainly entitled to your own story, just don't confuse stories with facts.

We actually have quite of bit of information about Tilopa, his career, his teachers, his practices, and so on. But if you want to obliterate them because "Mah lineage," there is nothing I can do about that.

Montoya said:
Are you claiming that the lineage through Vijaya (back through Saraha) is an unbroken human lineage back to Shakyamuni?

Malcolm wrote:
Cakrasamvara does not come through Śākyamuni at all.

Why? Because the Cakrasamvara mandala still exists in this world in the 24 places, it was never closed unlike Hevajra, Guhyasamāja, Kālacakra, etc., and in these 24 places the nirmāṇakāya is still teaching this mandala (its one of the reasons it is so effective in this age). And of course, the nirmānakāya is inseparable from the sambhogkāya and the dharmakāya. In any case, this transmission was bestowed by Vajradhara upon Vajrapāṇi. Vajrapāṇi is a tenth stage bodhisattva, but he is also a human being, as is the nirmāṇakāya who teaches in the 24 places. So it is an unbroken human lineage, all the way back to nirmāṇakāya Śrī Heruka Vajradhara in the 24 places.

Now, Vajrapāṇi bestowed this upon Saraha at Śrīparvata in S. India along with the root tantra. etc., the latter in turn transmitted this to Nāgārjuna in S. India and the rest is history.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 30th, 2021 at 12:56 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:


Seeker12 said:
So essentially you just completely wrote off what Jigme Lingpa wrote then. Is that fair to say?

Are you of the opinion that the only valid type of empowerment is the first type - "all empowerments given according to an empowerment ritual"?

Malcolm wrote:
I wrote off the examples Jigme Lingpa uses as faulty and disputable, since they had already been refuted 700 years before him. And he is just literally copying Pema Karpo either directly or through some intermediate source.

You have to read the whole text by Atisha, then the meaning becomes clear.

In the beginning he says:

My guru, Samayavajra, said, This vehicle is superior to the pāramitāyāna, superior in terms of the guru, empowerment, samaya, intimate instructions, and diligence.

The passage in question comes about from a description of how one receives vows:

For the first vow, an abbot and a master is required. For the second vow, one needs a guru, or even if that is lacking, it can be taken. For the last, there are four divisions: there is the empowerment that arises from the mouth of the guru, there is the empowerment of the blessing of the gnosis deity, there is the empowerment of the prediction of the ḍākinīs, and there is the empowerment of the obtained through the power of one's own mind.

This is just a description of the four empowerments, the vase, secret, third, and fourth, and not a description of four separate kinds of empowerments.

After this, after describing the benefits of the four empowerments, he says:

"Never avoid the meditation practice and dharma practice with the pledged deity, never avoid faith and respect with the guru; never avoid samayas and vows with the ḍākinīs..."

Seeker12 said:
You also didn't address the other question about if one could attain realization via non-Vajrayana methods...

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, you can practice common mahāyāna for ages and ages, eventually you will attain the path of seeing, and you can visit one hundred buddhafields, see one hundred nirmāṇakāyas, and so on. You can continue to practice for two incalculable eons, attain the eighth bhumi, and then you can see the sambhogakāya; and at the end of the third incalculable eon, you attain buddhahood and see the dharmakāya. There is no other way, no short cuts, even if you take birth in Sukhavati. It is unlikely you will meet Vajrayāna, but maybe, if you are lucky.

Seeker12 said:
and then connect with, say, the wisdom body of Longchenpa, or receive empowerment from Guru Rinpoche directly, or whatever.

Malcolm wrote:
Unlikely.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 11:42 PM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:
Montoya said:
Sorry, but I find all of this rather unconvincing. Even if you accept that Tilopa was ripened before meeting Vajradhara, how was he ripened?

Malcolm wrote:
By receiving the four empowerments from Vijaya while he was still a bhikṣu called Prajñabhadra, then he went off practiced, and realized mahāmudra through practicing the two stages. I mean, why do you think he was sent to pound sesame? This type of caryavrata was very common in the Cakrasamvara lineage. Luipa sent Darikapa, a prince, to be the servant of a courtesan in a strange city, etc.

Montoya said:
The broader point I am attempting (and apparently failing) to make, is that we as Westerners must confront and accept (or not) rather outrageous claims such as receiving teachings from non-human sources. Your approach seems to be "well, yes, those teachings did occur, but they were not necessary as there were humans involved elsewhere in the process." That seems a bit of a side step, but okay.

Malcolm wrote:
Vajradhāra is the dharmakāya expressed as the sambhogakāya. As the Tattvasamgraha Tantra states:

I, Samantabhadra, have no form, 
but I manifest in the form of a bodhisattva 
to teach bodhisattvas.

Not even bodhisattvas on the impure stages can see Vajradhara. Only eighth stage bodhisattvas and beyond are capable of seeing the sambhogakāya.


Montoya said:
As for the Karma Kagyu specifically, I make no claims to it being the definitive voice of Tibetan Buddhism, but it is one strain of lineage which claims descent from Tilopa and as such worthy of having its own views on the matter unless you choose to dismiss them on polemical grounds.


Malcolm wrote:
You are certainly entitled to your own story, just don't confuse stories with facts.

We actually have quite of bit of information about Tilopa, his career, his teachers, his practices, and so on. But if you want to obliterate them because "Mah lineage," there is nothing I can do about that.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 11:32 PM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:


Seeker12 said:
The third is exemplified by the story of Nagarjuna and Jagadbhadra. Without permission, they took from a Buddhist temple in Oddiyana two texts: the Two Segments and the Tantra of Mahamaya. They were pursued by the vajra dakinis, who caught them and commanded them to become inheritors of these teachings and to expound them....

It would seem to me that for example King Ja, here, did not receive empowerment in the way we would often think, in the manner of the first category.

Malcolm wrote:
The example of King Jah is a very poor one, actually, and is much disputed. There isn't even a tantra called The Continuation of the Śrī Samvarodaya Tantra. Instead the citation comes from one of the Anuyoga Tantras.

Also the tale about Nāgārjuna is just so much gossip. Sonam Tsemo (1142-1182) writes in the General Presentation of Tantras:

Some claim “The Hevajra Tantra was revealed by the great master called ‘Dombi Heruka.” Others claim “Master Nāgārjuna stole it disguised as an idiot” These are a source of laughter. 

How are these a source of laughter?  The masters will be slandered because there is no magical power to be attained from stealing on the first bodhisattva stage. The ḍākinīs will be slandered because how would the caretaker of the books not recognize Nāgārjuna, the theft, and so on? Our own Dharma will be slandered because the lineage would be from a stolen book. 

Likewise, the Mahāmāya Tantra was revealed by master Kukuripa...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 10:54 PM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:
Soma999 said:
If you don’t have this opportunity yet, you can still perform guru yoga as the guru principle is everywhere.

Malcolm wrote:
No, one cannot. This is a farce. No empowerment, no guru yoga. Guru yoga is a practice only found in unsurpassed yoga tantra. It does not exist in the lower tantras nor does it exist in sūtra. The permission to practice guru yoga only comes from receiving the unsurpassed yoga tantra empowerment in full or alternately, with direct introduction of Dzogchen or Mahāmudrā.

Can one supplicate the Buddha, the great bodhisattvas, and important teachers of the past? Is there merit in that? Yes and yes. But this is not guru yoga.

The essence of guru yoga resides in the living connection one has with one's guru and the merging of the guru's body, speech, and mind with one's own body, voice, and mind forged through empowerment. That living connection is based on the transmission of the special gnosis one receives at the time of empowerment. Without this introduction, there is no basis for the practice of guru yoga at all.

Even in practices such as the guru yogas of Milarepa, Padmasambhava, and so on, the point is that while the form of the guru is in the aspect of this or that historical teacher, the essence is one's own root guru. This point is extremely important. Our root gurus are the conduit through which we are able to access the true blessings and empowerment of the lineage going back to Buddha Vajradhāra. This is why it is so important to maintain pure samaya and so on.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 10:30 PM
Title: Re: “Bodhisattva Gaia” and “Vairocana Sun”
Content:
Zhen Li said:
I may change my opinion after reading it, but it seems like he is suggesting here that brāhmaṇas simply passed over passages that didn't work for them, and that's their canon.

Malcolm wrote:
he actually makes a more interesting proposal, that brahmins were more interested in dhyānas, while non-brahmins were more interested in insight.

Zhen Li said:
I read through it just this morning. It was very interesting.

My take is that it is not that non-brāhmaṇas were more interested in insight, but that brāhmaṇas were simply not taught about anātman (he suggests, for instance, that Mahākāśyapa is never depicted as having been taught the doctrine) and that their "canon" consisted of sūtras that would be entirely amenable to their existing worldview. The goal, in the end, is to get people awakened, and if they're going to be repulsed upon their first meeting with the Buddha, the teaching strategy is flawed.

Malcolm wrote:
And there is a third option, which we find the PP sūtras, that is, absence of self/emptiness was (and remains) an advanced teaching, and was not simply promiscuously proclaimed as it is today.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 10:24 PM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:


Montoya said:
We can debate the order he received teachings or dismiss it as hagiography, but there's no getting around the fact that the Karma Kagyu party line heavily emphasizes the fact that both dakinis and Vajradhara were the *primary* causes of Tilopa's realization as noted here:

https://www.karmapa.org/karma-kagyu/lives/tilopa/

"It is said that he was given direct transmission of Mahamudra by the Buddha Vajradhara (Tib. Dorje Chang), who became his main teacher."

Malcolm wrote:
Sure, he received the transmission of mahāmudra from both Vijaya and Antarapa, who were, for him, Vajradhara just as our own guru, for us, should be Vajradhara. The lineages lists are really very clear about who received what from whom. So you imagine that the mahāmudrā siddhas were Tilopa's teachers were incapable of giving him the introduction of mahāmudrā? Why would you believe that?

Montoya said:
There is a reason that the Karma Kagyu lineage tree starts at Vajradhara and not one of Tilopa's human teachers.

Malcolm wrote:
Sure, and the Sakya Yoginī starts Vajradhara --> Vajrayogini--> Naropa.  But this does not mean that Tilopa was not Naropa's guru, nor that Vijaya was not Tilopa's guru, and so on.

Similarly, Ghantapāda's guru was the mahāsiddhā Darikapa, but the lineage for his system is Vajradhara --> Vajrayogini--> Ghantapāda. And guess what, in this lineage, Tilopa is preceded by Vijaya. So, it is no disrespect to Darikapa that he is not included in the Ghantapāda lineage. Just as it is no disrespect to Vijaya that the Karma Kagyu lineages begins Vajradhara--> Tilopa, just as it is no disrespect that Naropa is preceded by Yoginī, and so on. But in reality, Darikapa was Ghantapāda's guru, Vijaya was Tilopa's guru, and Tilopa was Naropa's guru. The gurus of each of these mahāsiddhas was themselves a mahāsiddha. What do mahasiddhas realize? Mahāmudrā. So it is a strange claim to argue that Tilopa only received mahāmudrā transmission from "Vajradhara," when a) there is the fact that Tilopa received mahāmudra introduction from another of his gurus, Antarapa, b) and any practitioner worth their salt regards their guru/s as Vajradhara in person.

Montoya said:
Again, I am not proposing this as a valid path for students today, but we can't ignore that this is very much 'a thing' in the history of Tibetan Buddhism.

Malcolm wrote:
Kagyus do not own Tilopa anymore than they own Naropa. I would say that quite frankly, you are making arguments from a paucity of information. There are many histories of the Cakrasamvara lineage which you can read, if you know Tibetan. I think you will be surprised at what you discover, and much of your present certainty will vanish.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 9:52 PM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:
Montoya said:
There are really three questions at play here:

1) Is there precedent for humans to receive teachings from non-human/deceased teachers?

Malcolm wrote:
Not without realization, no.

Montoya said:
2) Is it possible/likely that we too could receive such teachings?

Malcolm wrote:
Not without realization, no.

Montoya said:
3) Is it advisable to attempt to pursue such a path (setting aside the obvious issue of how one would even do so)?

Malcolm wrote:
Not without realization, no.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 9:42 PM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:



Sonam Wangchug said:
I will defer to Lord Gampopa, Dusum Khyenpa, and Gotsanpas opinion on the issue all of whom said it was possible.

Malcolm wrote:
Amazing. You are deferring to opinions on  mere hearsay, opinions you have not even read for yourself.

By the way, I have no qualms about supplicating masters from the past, I do it everyday, but the idea that one can arbitrarily decide Tilopa is one’s root guru because you don’t have sufficient faith in your actual guru is just pathetic. This is the sort thing that harms the teachings.

Sonam Wangchug said:
Hearsay? yes

Malcolm wrote:
We don’t rely on hearsay to confirm points of the doctrine.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 9:13 PM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:



Montoya said:
I think it's safe to assert that they both received the good stuff, the juice, their magnum opus material from the 'other realms'. Take Tilopa. I mean, tummo is cool and all, but I think we can all agree that Mahamudra coming down from on high was a *slightly* more meaningful transmission. Now, do you want to claim that it was the human gurus who prepared him to see the light, softened him up so to speak? Feels like a bit of goal post shifting, but sure, perhaps.

Malcolm wrote:
Tilopa's mahāmudrā realization came about as a result of his own meditation on the creation and completion stage systems of Cakrasamvara, which he received from his guru, Vijaya. Tilopa was originally a kṣatriya, ordained as a bhikṣu, was called Prajñābhadra, become a paṇḍita, and was ordered by Mahāsiddha Vijaya to become a sesame pounder. Since Tilopa realized mahāmudrā, there is no fault or contradiction with the idea that he also received teachings and transmissions directly from Buddha Vajradhara. But he started as an ordinary person, no different from you or me. Indeed, there is a Vajravārāhī sadhana in the Tengyur authored by him under the name "Prajñābhadra."

Montoya said:
And Tilopa received the Chakrasamvara transmission from a dakini that came to him in a vision!

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, after he attained mahamudra siddhi, having already received Cakrasamvara from Vijaya.



Montoya said:
Look, I'm not trying to argue for arguments sake, but there is simply no getting around the fact that many times, in many places, revered teachers within Tibetan Buddhism claimed to have accessed teachings/transmissions/realizations from non-human teachers.

Malcolm wrote:
After they attained realization, sure.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 9:06 PM
Title: Re: Are Oysters Sentient? (Split from Giving up Masturbation)
Content:
Sonam Wangchug said:
Sakya Pandita from the book Ordinary wisdom

"People with some learning but no merit
Destroy themselves with their knowledge
Oysters forfeit their lives
Because of the pearls to which they cling"

Team oysters are sentient,
Patrul rinpoche, Sapan, Check.

PeterC said:
Neither Sapan nor Patrul R ever saw an oyster in their lives.  I doubt they ever talked to a person who had seen an oyster.  Now they are authorities that I would normally accept, but what does their authority rest on here?

Sonam Wangchug said:
They weren't idiots, they possessed Wisdom.

Malcolm wrote:
I admire Sapan more than anyone, but he wasn’t right about everything. For example, he famously argued that ants had no eyes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 10:02 AM
Title: Re: Are Oysters Sentient? (Split from Giving up Masturbation)
Content:
Nalanda said:
Sorry to ask. Seeing this thread here, is the subtext, we have to be vegetarians?

Sonam Wangchug said:
No, it is not, as it's not a point anyone in this particular thread has made, we were debating purely whether Oysters were sentient or not.

Even if Buddhists eat meat, meat that is suspected of being killed in the three ways, is forbidden. In other words you cannot specifically have an animal die for you, nor suspect that it died for you(specifically), consuming living beings obviously contradicts this which is why it is relevant to the precept of refuge and killing.

Malcolm wrote:
Plants are also living beings.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 9:57 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:



Sonam Wangchug said:
This is incorrect, the OP asked whether it was possible to take ( and they mentioned several kagyu masters ) as their Root Guru, and I said yes it was, because the masters in question said in their own will that it was valid, so that is the end of the question. This is the view of the Kagyu lineage BTW so I would be careful with saying the Kagyu lineage holds views which harm the essence of dharma, or that these statements have been made without thought, when they are the last will and testament of the lineage masters, because that would be, to put it in the best of words, extremely unskillful.

Malcolm wrote:
We do not just accept such statements uncritically.

The idea you can decide some teacher in the past whom you never met is now your root guru is ridiculous on its face, and I honestly don’t care who claims it to be so. There is no valid precedent for this. One can never receive empowerment from such a person. For the same reason no one alive today can claim the Buddha is their root guru, abd one certainly cannot hope to find a more perfect teacher than the Buddha.

Sonam Wangchug said:
I will defer to Lord Gampopa, Dusum Khyenpa, and Gotsanpas opinion on the issue all of whom said it was possible.

Malcolm wrote:
Amazing. You are deferring to opinions on  mere hearsay, opinions you have not even read for yourself.

By the way,I have no qualms about supplicating masters from the past, I do it everyday, but the idea that one can arbitrarily decide Tilopa is one’s root guru because you don’t have sufficient faith in your actual guru is just pathetic. This is the sort thing that harms the teachings.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 9:53 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:



Sonam Wangchug said:
True, Dudjom Lingpa had some human teachers but they were not his major teachers,

Malcolm wrote:
It’s clear you never read his autobiography carefully.

Sonam Wangchug said:
I have,

Malcolm wrote:
Yeah, you didn’t read it carefully enough. Dudjom Lingoa is quite clear about his devotion to his human guru.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 8:36 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:



Malcolm wrote:
There is also the glaring, historical fact that Tilopa, Dudjom Lingpa, and so on started out with regular old human gurus.

Montoya said:
I think it's safe to assert that they both received the good stuff, the juice, their magnum opus material from the 'other realms'. Take Tilopa. I mean, tummo is cool and all, but I think we can all agree that Mahamudra coming down from on high was a *slightly* more meaningful transmission. Now, do you want to claim that it was the human gurus who prepared him to see the light, softened him up so to speak? Feels like a bit of goal post shifting, but sure, perhaps.

Sonam Wangchug said:
True, Dudjom Lingpa had some human teachers but they were not his major teachers,

Malcolm wrote:
It’s clear you never read his autobiography carefully.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 8:30 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:
Sonam Wangchug said:
It is permissible, and it is valid.

Malcolm wrote:
Neither permissible, valid, nor taught in any tantra.

A root guru is a person from whom one has at minimum received empowerments. No empowerment, no guru.

It’s amazing how people like you get all upset about minor issues, but boldly proclaims doctrines that harm the essence of the Dharma with barely a thought.

Sonam Wangchug said:
This is incorrect, the OP asked whether it was possible to take ( and they mentioned several kagyu masters ) as their Root Guru, and I said yes it was, because the masters in question said in their own will that it was valid, so that is the end of the question. This is the view of the Kagyu lineage BTW so I would be careful with saying the Kagyu lineage holds views which harm the essence of dharma, or that these statements have been made without thought, when they are the last will and testament of the lineage masters, because that would be, to put it in the best of words, extremely unskillful.

Malcolm wrote:
We do not just accept such statements uncritically.

The idea you can decide some teacher in the past whom you never met is now your root guru is ridiculous on its face, and I honestly don’t care who claims it to be so. There is no valid precedent for this. One can never receive empowerment from such a person. For the same reason no one alive today can claim the Buddha is their root guru, abd one certainly cannot hope to find a more perfect teacher than the Buddha.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 6:02 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:
Montoya said:
Setting aside the narrow question of Guru Yoga itself, one has to contend with the glaring historical fact that many revered lineage holders claimed to receive teachings directly from deceased gurus and/or non-human beings. Tilopa, Dudjom Lingpa, etc.

Malcolm wrote:
There is also the glaring, historical fact that Tilopa, Dudjom Lingpa, and so on started out with regular old human gurus.

Montoya said:
I think it's safe to assert that they both received the good stuff, the juice, their magnum opus material from the 'other realms'. Take Tilopa. I mean, tummo is cool and all, but I think we can all agree that Mahamudra coming down from on high was a *slightly* more meaningful transmission. Now, do you want to claim that it was the human gurus who prepared him to see the light, softened him up so to speak? Feels like a bit of goal post shifting, but sure, perhaps.

Malcolm wrote:
Tilopa's mahāmudrā realization came about as a result of his own meditation on the creation and completion stage systems of Cakrasamvara, which he received from his guru, Vijaya. Tilopa was originally a kṣatriya, ordained as a bhikṣu, was called Prajñābhadra, become a paṇḍita, and was ordered by Mahāsiddha Vijaya to become a sesame pounder. Since Tilopa realized mahāmudrā, there is no fault or contradiction with the idea that he also received teachings and transmissions directly from Buddha Vajradhara. But he started as an ordinary person, no different from you or me. Indeed, there is a Vajravārāhī sadhana in the Tengyur authored by him under the name "Prajñābhadra."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 5:38 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:
Soma999 said:
There is no « guru academy » and three years retreat does not automaticaly make someone a guru in its highest sense.

Malcolm wrote:
An authentic teacher has indeed gone to "guru school."

There is gurukula and guruparamparā. If one has not received empowerment, one not is a member of the Vajragurukula, the family of the vajra guru, one has no samaya, and one has no guruparamaparā, no lineage of gurus. Thus one has no business even looking at the tantras, etc.

These days, in this degenerate era, there are some people who have fallen prey to evil views, and feel that they are smarter than the Buddha, who taught the tantras; the mahāsiddhas, who realized their meaning; the paṇḍitas who commented upon them; the translators, who made them available to us to practice.

In this degenerate age is very important to hold fast to the way the tantras should be taught, and not substitute our own fabrications for the authentic teachings of the Buddha. That is, find a qualified guru of an authentic lineage, request teachings, and then follow their instructions as best one can, and avoid people who do not respect this path, even if they claim themselves to be Vajrayāna practitioners.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 5:23 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:
conebeckham said:
Just a comment---there are "LaDrup" practices that center on "historical gurus"--quite a few of them, and for all the Tibetan lineages, I think.  But the key instruction is that this "Guru" has to be understood as one with one's actual root guru.

Malcolm wrote:
Correct. The difference between rnam pa, aspect, and ngo bo, essence. The aspect can be whatever the sadhana is; the essence is always one's own root guru/s (yes, there can be more than one guru if you have received the same practice from more than one guru).

Könchok Thrinley said:
So if one has Zhitro empowerment from Lama A, then one regards withing the practice of Zhitro root guru as Lama A and if one has Vajrakilaya from Lama B, it is Lama B for Vajrakilaya?

What if one feels more affinity and karmic connection to Lama C?

And what about the principle of unifying all teachers? By which I mean for eg. one does GY of Padmasambhava from Lama D and trains to see Guru Padmasambhava as the embodiment of all ones teachers?

Malcolm wrote:
All I can tell you is how ChNN practiced. One, he did unite all gurus into one, and this is appropriate. This is also how I practice.

But when he was practicing a specific practice, such as Zhitro of Namcho, he would bring to mind that guru from whom he received that transmission, Gongkar Rinpoche; or when practicing Adzom Drukpa's Tāra, Gyalsey Gyurme Dorje; etc., or Simhamukha, Ayu Khandro, etc.

So there is no contradiction here, and indeed, it strengthens one's connection to the practice. So for example, if I practice any practice, I unite all gurus there, and I also recall specifically the guru from whom I received it. I try not to play favorites with my gurus.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 5:18 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:
Montoya said:
Setting aside the narrow question of Guru Yoga itself, one has to contend with the glaring historical fact that many revered lineage holders claimed to receive teachings directly from deceased gurus and/or non-human beings. Tilopa, Dudjom Lingpa, etc.

Malcolm wrote:
There is also the glaring, historical fact that Tilopa, Dudjom Lingpa, and so on started out with regular old human gurus.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 5:06 AM
Title: Re: Making sense of types of thought
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
No, it is an imagined, nonexistent self that causes and experiences everything, for example, when a car is in accident, it is the imagined car for which one pays the damages, not the wrong view of the imagined car. But perhaps this is a special point of Candrakīrti's Madhyamaka, unlikely to be found the Visuddhimagga.

Astus said:
In one manner of speaking it can be said so that it's the self/car that acts or is damaged, but at the same time, any type of self-view is imputed in dependence on the aggregates (according to Candrakirti too: MA 6.150 and 6.162-164), just as a car is imputed in dependence on its parts. And just as if the windshield is broken then saying 'the car is damaged' is talking in general terms, similarly, whatever actions and results occur are the causal events of the aggregates, even if commonly it can be said to be that of a self or being.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, that's not the point really. The imputation itself is the agent and recipient of action, that's the point. Otherwise, one faces the contradiction of asserting that something real passes from this life to the next (consciousness), but we know that nothing at all passes from this life to the next. Certainly other Mādhyamikas make allowances for this and are prepared admit consciousness is an appropriate basis of imputation for a self, which can pass from this life to the next, and is the agent and recipient of action, conventionally speaking, but Candra will not go that far:

MAV, verse 6:162

Likewise, the self is asserted to be the appropriator
in dependence on the aggregates, sense elements,
and sense basis that worldly acknowledge—
appropriation is the action, this is also the agent.

The commentary clarifies:

Although the self is not defined as a mundane convention in relative truth, but like a chariot, it is asserted to be the appropriator.

The next three passages bring the point to bear well. Not sure what translation you are using, but the Padmakara version is fuzzy on this point.

So, this is a special point of Candrakīrti's which one can discover more fully discussed by Gorampa in his Differentiation of Views.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 4:11 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:
conebeckham said:
Just a comment---there are "LaDrup" practices that center on "historical gurus"--quite a few of them, and for all the Tibetan lineages, I think.  But the key instruction is that this "Guru" has to be understood as one with one's actual root guru.

Malcolm wrote:
Correct. The difference between rnam pa, aspect, and ngo bo, essence. The aspect can be whatever the sadhana is; the essence is always one's own root guru/s (yes, there can be more than one guru if you have received the same practice from more than one guru).


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 2:27 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
So, would it be correct to regard who caused this experience to arise, a root guru as well?
Yes. There are three basic kind of gurus, empowerment gurus, reading transmission gurus, and explanation gurus. The one from whom one receives all three is called "a supreme guru." One has samaya with all three kinds of gurus, incidentally. It's very important to realize that receiving vajrayāna lungs and explanations from lamas also carry commitments. This is why it is important to receive these things from the proper sources.


Hazel said:
What are the commitments for non empowerment gurus?

Malcolm wrote:
The same as for empowerment guru, the 22 general samayas apply, including the first.

Hazel said:
I didn't realize about the explanation guru. I visualize everyone I've received a transmission from at the start of practice and make offerings to them, but I do not include everyone I have received teachings from.

Malcolm wrote:
It only applies really to those whom one has received Vajrayāna teachings from.

Hazel said:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche says to also regard your Tibetan alphabet teacher as a guru if you learned for the purpose of Dharma. I do this for my calligraphy teacher, but not for the YouTube videos I watched.

Malcolm wrote:
This kind of teacher is not a vajrayāna guru. But they need to be respected too.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 2:13 AM
Title: Re: Question about grasping
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Craving does not involve speculation.

Rick said:
Craving is more direct, urgent, concrete, and there is universal agreement as to what it is, all humans know it first-hand, feel it. Both ignorance and belief in self are more abstract, indirect, and there is lots of disagreement about their origin, essence. So the decision to formulate Truth Two as craving was skillful, pedagogical, craving is a clearer and more direct descriptor than ignorance or belief in self.

?

Malcolm wrote:
Correct.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 1:49 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:


zerwe said:
I think "the one whom your actual understanding of rig pa arose" is what I was looking for--is this equivalent to who introduced you to the true nature of your mind?

So, it is possible for someone other than who you received the 4 empowerments from to actually bring about such an understanding?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes. This person can also be a root guru, in all four schools, providing one has received empowerment.

zerwe said:
So, would it be correct to regard who caused this experience to arise, a root guru as well?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes. There are three basic kind of gurus, empowerment gurus, reading transmission gurus, and explanation gurus. The one from whom one receives all three is called "a supreme guru." One has samaya with all three kinds of gurus, incidentally. It's very important to realize that receiving vajrayāna lungs and explanations from lamas also carry commitments. This is why it is important to receive these things from the proper sources.


People are very promiscuous with the Dharma these days and will just go to any lama and receive any kind of empowerment, lung, and explanation without checking out anything. They will spend days and months agonizing about what kind of school to go to, what kind of car to buy, what kind of partner to have, but when it comes to the Dharma, they seem to be content with the first thing that comes along without any investigation at all. It's really sad.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 1:41 AM
Title: Re: Question about inherent existence
Content:
Sherab said:
I was talking about direct knowing.

Malcolm wrote:
Perhaps because you still have not defined what you mean by “direct knowing.”

Sherab said:
Just to remind you that conebeckham used the term "direct knowing" first.

Malcolm wrote:
Right, and I understood him to mean pratyakṣa, mngon sum, direct perception, which is what he meant, whereas it is clear you are referring to abhijñā, mngon shes, direct knowing. So the confusion is due to you for not asking cone to clarify what he was referring to, pratyakṣa or abhijñā. Thus, the entire exchange was stupid and remains so.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 1:36 AM
Title: Re: Question about grasping
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
The ignorance that imagines there is a self.

Rick said:
Given this, why do you think the Buddha formulated Truth 2 as grasping rather than ignorance, or belief in a self? Is 'grasping' easier to grasp?

Malcolm wrote:
Craving does not involve speculation.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 1:16 AM
Title: Re: Question about grasping
Content:
Rick said:
Noble Truth Two says craving (tanha) is the root cause of suffering (dukkha).

What is the root cause of craving?

Malcolm wrote:
The ignorance that imagines there is a self.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 1:13 AM
Title: Re: Is it permissable in Guru Yoga to choose an historical guru?
Content:
Soma999 said:
Heterodoxy is not necessarily heresy.

We don’t give new sense to things. We expand their meaning based upon observation, practice, experimentation, and following gurus who are not sectarian and accessed a level of consciousness where they are not limited by only one perspective.

This is scientific approach. We can not understand, have a lot of questions... still, experiences force us to open to a new way of seeings.

Dharma is not replaced. Dharma is lived and makes us evolve. And as a consequence, dharma in its form evolve also.

Malcolm wrote:
In other words, you just make shit up as you go along.


