﻿Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011 at 4:12 PM
Title: Re: Triyik Yeshe Lama.
Content:


heart said:
So why would ChNN make people in the SMS do unnecessary practices?

Malcolm wrote:
SMS level one is connected with the Dzogchen sems sde system of Sogdog Lodo Gyalpo. In his system one does a short ngondro retrea before main practice.

But if you are not an SMS student, then you are free to do what you like. Not everyone is in SMS.

In General, ChNN prefers people to understand their primordial state and to do Guru Yoga (which are the same thing). This, he feels, is much superior to any of the other uncommon preliminaries. So basically, he prefers people to skip over the other uncommon preliminaries and to make Guru Yoga their main practice until they have real knowledge (rig pa) of their primordial state. For example, he considers purification of the five elements better than Vajrasattva. And if you are going to do Vajrasattva, one week is sufficient, etc.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011 at 6:44 AM
Title: Re: Triyik Yeshe Lama.
Content:
heart said:
You can of course chose to ignore that if you want.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, he should, his master is not all these other teachers -- his master is ChNN.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011 at 6:39 AM
Title: Re: Triyik Yeshe Lama.
Content:


heart said:
Isn't there is Ngondro in SantiMaha Sangha also?

/magnus

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, one to three weeks of each for the main four, refuge and so on. But this is only for SMS people. Otherwise only rushan is considered vital.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011 at 3:12 AM
Title: Re: Madyamika Sautrantika vs Prasangika
Content:
conebeckham said:
Well, the thread wouldn't exist if we relied only on the Indian Texts...


Malcolm wrote:
Yes and that would be wonderful...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 at 5:20 PM
Title: Re: Triyik Yeshe Lama.
Content:
deepbluehum said:
I realize this thread is about Triyik Yeshe Lama, but the Bonpo Dzogchen practitioner might be interested to know that the Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen text translated as "Heartdrops of the Dharmakaya" is a very useful instruction that covers all the same topics covered in Yeshe Lama, but has the nice feature of not being wordy and being very down to earth. Of course there are those who will disagree, but I feel the description of the view in the section on Trekcho is very good. I have had the transmissions of many Dzogchen texts and I find myself coming back to "Heartdrops" more and more, especially as my practice develops, I find its simplicity to be easy to read when you need a short glance and don't want to get too heady into information.


Malcolm wrote:
Many years ago, in 1992, ChNN advised us not to look at thogal texts prior to receiving total instructions. So people in the DC should not read that or any other togal text just because they feel like it. They should wait until ChNN or some other qualified master can bestow the teaching on them in a proper way.

My point about availability is a little different, however. I feel the text classical texts should be available, since to a large extent they are self-secret. But this does not mean people should just go ahead and read them without having had the instruction from a qualified teacher. If they do, there is a good chance they will create obstacles for their practice. So people should be mature.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 at 12:26 AM
Title: Re: Madyamika Sautrantika vs Prasangika
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
The svatantrika and prasangika views are both "rangtong" madhyamaka views since they both state that genuine reality is self-empty.

Malcolm wrote:
This is incorrect. There is no such thing as rang stong, at least, not in real madhyamaka.


"If there were something subtle not empty, there would be something subtle to be empty;
as there is nothing not empty, where is there something that could be empty?"

--MMK

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 31st, 2011 at 4:28 PM
Title: Re: Tögal for dzogchen beginners?
Content:
Namdrol said:
...
Tenerife is awesome.
̄

Pero said:
I'm glad you were able to go to these teachings!
And a little bit envious too I guess haha. One question, was it his Longsal Thogal?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 30th, 2011 at 10:29 PM
Title: Re: Tögal for dzogchen beginners?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
For all interested people:

ChNN is giving a wonderful teaching on tögal. He even permitted people to come who have never before received teachings or transmission. Anyone who asked him was allowed to come or so I understand.  There are 1100 people in attendance from all over the world. This is probably that largest single group of people outside of Tibet to receive tögal teachings at one time.

There was no empowerment. Rinpoche did only the very simplest of introductions during the first session and has spent the last three days explaining how to do this practice very thoroughly through all four visions, how to recognize them, how to develop them and the signs of attaining each one.

Namo Guru Bhyah!

He also explained very carefully why and how Dzogchen is a separate vehicle; how and why it is also related to Vajrayāna; and how and why Dzogchen does not need to depend on the methods common to Vajrayāna. He also explained why people should not be averse to the methods of Vajrayāna and why they are useful and important. All in all a balanced presentation.

He also clearly explained the principle of rainbow body and great transference body similarities and differences.

Tenerife is awesome.

N




̄


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 at 9:08 AM
Title: Re: Lazy people should just give up, right?
Content:
padma norbu said:
Crowley rejected Buddhism.

Malcolm wrote:
Not really. He considered it to be a "Yellow" school, outside of western teleologies and so therefore, something to draw from, but irrelevant to his overt rebellion against Christianity.

Nothing in Buddhism to rebel against.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 at 8:58 AM
Title: Re: Lazy people should just give up, right?
Content:
padma norbu said:
It's clear he has a Buddhist understanding and he applies that to Thelema for some reason. Not entirely sure why.

Malcolm wrote:
Rebranding.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 at 7:04 AM
Title: Re: Trungpa Rinpoche's "Crazy Wisdom": Padmasambhava's Crime
Content:
Caz said:
You work with convention to benefit others not against it.

Malcolm wrote:
Tell that to Tilopa.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 at 7:03 AM
Title: Re: Trungpa Rinpoche's "Crazy Wisdom": Padmasambhava's Crime
Content:
Food_Eatah said:
Now, no one here has been in the same room with the Buddha.  Yet where are all the scandals involving him?


Malcolm wrote:
Well, there was the girl who accused the Buddha of getting her pregnant for a starters....


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 at 5:43 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism and the relation between mental and physical
Content:
coldmountain said:
yet I know Buddhism doesn't posit a dualism.

What is physical? What is mental? Are they independent? Could the physical exist without the mental? Is one metaphysically prior to or dependent on the other?

Thanks and peace.

Malcolm wrote:
Buddhism does posit a substance dualism until you get to Yogacara.

Physical is anything made of the four elements.

Mental is all cognitions and their associates.

No.

Matter depends on the mind, even in Abhidharma.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 at 5:40 AM
Title: Re: Ayurveda = Smoke & Mirrors
Content:
Epistemes said:
Breathe like this, breathe like that.  Stretch like this, stretch like that.  Eat like this, eat like that.  Drink like this, drink like that.

And you'll still get punched in the stomach by a virus.


Malcolm wrote:
Not necessarily, and even if you do, you will recover much faster.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 24th, 2011 at 8:18 AM
Title: Re: Poll: Which Operating System Do You Use?
Content:
maybay said:
Ubuntu's come a long way in the last few years Namdrol. Once its setup its a breeze.
Its a pity about Unity though. Gnome 2 was just fine. Hardware support is the main issue for me.

Namdrol said:
I never had problems with Linux. But for what I do, a mac is a far superior machine in terms of the support for unicode Tibetan and so on. Also I need to use acrobat quite a lot in my work with Tibetan texts.Linux equivalents won't cut it for me.

N

maybay said:
THDL provides Tibetan fonts for Ubuntu. They even package them in debians so you can download through the software center. Otherwise any font can be converted with the right program. PM me.

Acrobat reader is provided on Ubuntu. But if its straight Acrobat - for creating and editing - you can install it on Wine. Wine is a Windows emulator. Essentially you can install any Windows program. Only programs I've had trouble with are full-screen games. But I didn't give it much attention.

LibreOffice is the (free) Unix equivalent of Microsoft Office, and it exports to PDF just fine. I never had a problem. It can't edit PDFs though.

Malcolm wrote:
The best Tibetan Font, Monlam, is part of the Mac OS 10 operating system. Why bother with WINE? Windows programs leak memory like crazy and generally slow down any system they run on. Also font technology in the Mac beats Windoes and Linux handily. The screen redraw programs on the Mac cannot be outdone by Windows or Linux.

I need to edit PDF, and mamipluate them. Even Preview, on the Mac, is inadequte for this task. Also Mac OS 10 Lion is like 30 bucks and can downloaded for one price on multiple machines.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 24th, 2011 at 1:19 AM
Title: Re: Subdivide Tibetan Medicine forum?
Content:
dakini_boi said:
Why not subdivide the TM forum so there's a section just for questions which only authorized TM practitioners can answer, but another section where amateurs who have an interest in TM can post their comments.  That way, Tara wouldn't have to constantly "clean up" the board, and also, posts relating to TM would be easy to find, without getting lost in another more general category.  At the same time, the rigorous standards of the TM board would be retained in the "only professionals are qualified to answer" section.

Malcolm wrote:
It would be better to gave an alternative health forum.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 24th, 2011 at 12:12 AM
Title: Re: Poll: Which Operating System Do You Use?
Content:
Will said:
Too dense to understand any OS, so I stuck with Windows for years.  Even after I got an "all-in-one" just so the desk would be clearer of machines.  That AiO was an iMac; but I had a techie split the drive so I could have the familiar OE email etcetera.  Then it got sick & died.  I was going to replace it with one of the PC AiO machines now out there, but found out that Windows 7 cannot handle Outlook Express.  So, what the hell, I got another iMac and am finding it not so terrible to figure out (provided I ignore 90% of its features).

I am using Snow Leopard because I heard of too many bugs in Lion.  Anyone confirm or deny the flea-invested Lion rumors are true?


Malcolm wrote:
They fixed it with the iCloud release, OS X 10.7.2

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 24th, 2011 at 12:10 AM
Title: Re: Poll: Which Operating System Do You Use?
Content:
maybay said:
Ubuntu's come a long way in the last few years Namdrol. Once its setup its a breeze.
Its a pity about Unity though. Gnome 2 was just fine. Hardware support is the main issue for me.

Malcolm wrote:
I never had problems with Linux. But for what I do, a mac is a far superior machine in terms of the support for unicode Tibetan and so on. Also I need to use acrobat quite a lot in my work with Tibetan texts.Linux equivalents won't cut it for me.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 at 9:06 PM
Title: Re: Trungpa Rinpoche's "Crazy Wisdom": Padmasambhava's Crime
Content:


Epistemes said:
So, nobody was actually (conventionally) killed?



Malcolm wrote:
It's a didactic tale, not history.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 at 9:05 PM
Title: Re: Trungpa Rinpoche's "Crazy Wisdom": Padmasambhava's Crime
Content:


Epistemes said:
Huh??  Padmasambhava accidentally murders two people and karmically gets away with it?


Malcolm wrote:
If it was an accident, there is no karmic retribution. "Karma is volition and what proceeds from volition" -- this is the definition of karma given by the Buddha.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 at 9:28 AM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:
Namdrol said:
No, the most damaging thing to Ojas is anxiety and worry. The next most damaging thing to ojas poor food. The next most damaging thing to Ojas is releasing it along with semen during the summer when Ojas is not produced abundently since one's food is too "pale" i.e. lacking substantial nutrition. During this season it is more difficult to separate.

Lhug-Pa said:
Agreed, about the anxiety and poor food part; but still, according to my understanding, Ojas should not be released with the semen at all, regardless of the season. Perhaps lay people were advised to, but Initiates (whether Buddhist or not) should transmute it to the Heart Center instead of expelling it.

Malcolm wrote:
But indeed it is, if imperfectly separated from sukra.



Lhug-Pa said:
As for the context of all of this in the Buddhist Tantras, I would have to study them more in order to understand the proper context, that is instead of simply taking your word for it based on your interpretations.

Malcolm wrote:
this is not my interpretation. This is what the texts actually say.


Lhug-Pa said:
So I'll reference what you've said here, and see what I come up with in comparing it to other Buddhist teachings whether Sutra or Tantra (and also what is within the Sacred-Sex link in my signature).

yet I also respect the already mentioned teachers of other traditions (Hindu, Gnostic, etc.), and want to take some time to learn more as well, before saying too much more on the topic.

Malcolm wrote:
I have no problem with Hindus. Caraka was a rishi. His authority in the matter is undisputed.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 at 9:15 AM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:


Lhug-Pa said:
Given the above citations, among others, it is well known in Indian Yoga and Tantra that the physical Bindu and/or Ojas can be transmuted into non-physical Ojas and stored in the Brain and Heart Center (again, please see the above quotes and links in my previous posts in this thread).

Malcolm wrote:
Really, prove it. Give me a source text, a direct quotation. With Sanskrit.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 at 8:50 AM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:
Lhug-Pa said:
Fair enough, if we can at least explore the possibility of Ojas being both physical and non-physical.


Malcolm wrote:
Sorry, this is just bullshit. To be frank. It is based on a misunderstanding, someone's mystical fantasies.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 at 8:49 AM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:


Lhug-Pa said:
And from what I understand, its not even the loss of physical semen that's necessarily the most damaging to ones storing of Ojas. It's the spastic movements of the orgasm that releases tremendous amounts of Ojas; Ojas that ought to be saved (in the heart centre as radiance, as Keith Dowman says in Sky Dancer ).

Malcolm wrote:
No, the most damaging thing to Ojas is anxiety and worry. The next most damaging thing to ojas poor food. The next most damaging thing to Ojas is releasing it along with semen during the summer when Ojas is not produced abundently since one's food is too "pale" i.e. lacking substantial nutrition. During this season it is more difficult to separate.

Basically, Lhugpa-- I could care less what Sivananda and Auer say. I care what Medicine Buddha says, Padmasambhava,Caraka, Sushruta, Vagbhata, etc. People are very confused about this issue because the tantras discuss these issues in an indirect and obscure way and people ignorant of their true meaning interpret them in many incorrect ways. On the other hand the Ayurvedic traditon and Tibetan Medical tradition discuss these things clearly and openly.

For example, Padmasambhava, since he knows medicine quite well, in the text I mentioned in the KN, discusses how to divided the rasa and kitta of the bindu. Why? Because ojas is the final physical product of the digestion of food, the final rasa.

For example, the explanatory tantra states:

"The final state of the semen (sukra) of the physical constituents (saptadhātu) is the supreme one called "ojas"; located in the heart, pervading the entire body, and causing longevity, and causing a radiant complexion and a brightness."

As I said, Caraka, etc. identify this as a clear fluid in the body, surrounding the heart etc. It is physical, not non-physical.

You do not seem to understand that in the Tibetan translation of the Aṣtangahridayasamhita, ojas is translated as mdang when it refers to ojas, and gzi mdangs when referring to a radiant complexion, and mdangs 'gyur when referring to pitta that exists in the skin, i.e. bhrajaka pitta.


N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 at 8:20 AM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:
Lhug-Pa said:
Well perhaps some of those Lamas such as the ones you referred to as not being educated in medical knowledge, agree with teachers such as Swami Sivananda and Samael Aun Weor, in that all of the physical semen can literally be transmuted into non-physical Ojas.

Malcolm wrote:
Ojas is a physical fluid. It is stated so quite clearly by Caraka, Sushruta, and Vagbhata. However, many people do not understand these texts because they do not understand the underlying anatomy of the body in Indian culture. I however am a fully trained Tibetan doctor, someone who has done three year retreat, have read literally thousands and thousands of pages of these texts in Tibetan.

Ojas is a physical fluid. People who think otherwise are simply mistaken.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 at 6:20 AM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:
Namdrol said:
The Dzogchen term, "mdangs", i.e., radiance, has nothing to do with ojas, and nor does, gdangs, i.e., luminesence.

Lhug-Pa said:
I'm sure that in Dzogchen these terms have a much deeper context and meaning than they do in Tantra; however I doubt that the said deeper Dzogchen context and meaning completely excludes the Tantric context related to Ojas.

Malcolm wrote:
The Dzogchen context completely excludes the Tantric context related to Ojas. The word mdang does not only tanslate ojas. It is also translates chavi i.e. chavi	f. skin , cuticle , Pa1rGr , iii , 12 Hariv. 15709 Sus3r. VarBr2S. lxix , 28 ff. ; colour of the skin , colour MBh. iii , 12387 Mr2icch. Megh. &c. ; beauty , splendour Ragh. ix , 34 S3is3. ix , 3 Naish. xxii , 55 ; a ray of light L. ; cf. %{kRSNa-cch-}.

When you do not know Tibetan well, or lack a grasp of how Tibetans translate various diffent Sansksrit terms using the same word into Tibetan, you can mislead yourself into making unwarranted conclusions.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 at 6:18 AM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:
Lhug-Pa said:
[

Namdrol said:
Conserving semen is a non-issue in Dzogchen. This is clearly explained in the Khandro Nyinthig.

Lhug-Pa said:
Are these the very words of Padmasambhava or Longchenpa? Or are they the words of another commentator?

Malcolm wrote:
Padmasambhava.

Namdrol said:
In terms of highest yoga tantra, Jetsun Dragpa Gyaltsen and Sapan clearly explain there is no fault in ejaculating if one is not practicing the completion stage practices such as tummo and union yoga.
That may be, but I don't see any benefit in expelling the physical aspect of Thigle/Bodhicitta (semen) from one's body at all, whether in the context of Tantra or Dzogchen.

Malcolm wrote:
There is a very good reason: if you block or forcefuly prevent ejaculation, it will result in semen stones and impotence long term. It is bad for the health of your body. If the semen moves, you should just let it go. Sukra is a kitta (snyigs ma, waste product), it is an impurity to be expelled from the body, like it's female counterpart, menstrual tissue and the oocyte, like all the kittas in the process of digestion, for example, sweat, hair, nails, rectal grease, and so on.

What is important to conserve is ojas, this is the real thigle or bindu we should care about. Ojas is most likely to be lost with semen in hot seasons like the summer (from the first day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar to the first day of the seventh month) when people are eating food with little rasa or bcud -- therefore one should only ejaculate bi-weekly during this season. In the winter one can ejaculate as much as one likes (up to five times a day) because people generally eat food that is very oily, (snum, snigdah̨) and nutritious (rasa, bcud) during this season. Every other day is the proper ratio during early spring and the fall.

Namdrol said:
Nevertheless, the world's spiritual traditions are unanimous regarding the benefits of the absolute conservation of semen or complete chastity (and by chastity I don't mean exoterically as in repression. I mean chastity from the esoteric viewpoint of sublimation and transmutation).

Malcolm wrote:
No, they are not. And definitely not in Anuttarayoga tantra. Peope who think there is something to sublimate or transform do not understand the principles of physiology that informs the tantras (and this is shockingly in common in Lamas who lack medical educations). There is something refined to retain, and something that is a residue or a waste product (of the process of refinement) to eliminate. Ojas is the former, and sukra is the latter. Really.

Namdrol said:
Is this available in English?

Malcolm wrote:
No, I am afraid it is not.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 at 4:19 AM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:
Namdrol said:
The whole point of Ayurveda and Tibetan Medicine is to refine and purify ojas in the body for longevity etc. In Tibetan the term ojas is translated as "mdangs".

Lhug-Pa said:
Interesting. Are mdangs and gdangs different?

And how are they related to Thugs-rJe, gDangs, Rolpa, and rTsal in the context of Dzogchen? With Ngo-bo (Ngowo) and Rang-bZhin (Rangzhin) already in mind of course.

Malcolm wrote:
The Dzogchen term, "mdangs", i.e., radiance, has nothing to do with ojas, and nor does, gdangs, i.e., luminesence.

Conserving semen is a non-issue in Dzogchen. This is clearly explained in the Khandro Nyinthig.

In terms of highest yoga tantra, Jetsun Dragpa Gyaltsen and Sapan clearly explain there is no fault in ejaculating if one is not practicing the completion stage practices such as tummo and union yoga.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 at 3:11 AM
Title: Re: So this forum is comprised mostly of former New-Age hippies?
Content:
padma norbu said:
Bah, Portishead ain't psychedelia.

gregkavarnos said:
Pedant!  Trip Hop then...


Malcolm wrote:
Modern psychedelia is like the magic mushroom band, ozric tentacles, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 at 10:59 PM
Title: Re: Triyik Yeshe Lama.
Content:
padma norbu said:
Namdrol,

Well, to be fair, I think Tony didn't want to sell it to me for good reasons; either he didn't want me to get mixed up and confused or waste my time in a practice I was not ready for or hurt myself or whatever the possible disadvantages are of starting thogal before you're ready. If you own texts about thogal would you fax me a copy? Probably not, eh?

Malcolm wrote:
You can read all about togal on the internet.

I own many texts about togal, hundreds of them. No one asked me for my credentials to buy them. Many I downloaded. Others I bought in Tibet. Others I had shipped from India.

It is appalling that books in Tibetan that freely available to anyone with a buck can are "restricted" in English.

Things will be changing soon, I guarantee it.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 at 10:46 PM
Title: Re: Tibetan Buddhist sadhana practice for non-Buddhists
Content:
padma norbu said:
Is there such a thing published anywhere?

My mother is getting a bit old and I have noticed her emails are more and more depressed sounding. I don't know if it is possible to edit out the Buddhism of a sadhana and still have it work. Has anyone ever seen a book like this? She is very Christian and supposedly gets joy from her beliefs, but I think the only joy she gets is clinging to hope. Other than that, she looks around and sees nothing but wickedness everywhere... except in little babies and animals, which she also enjoys.

I know that sadhanas really work and work quickly, but I suppose without refuge and bodhicitta and mantra they are not going to work too well, eh? My mom wouldn't even chant anything because she thinks meditation is a way for evil spirits to enter you. It seems like she might say something like "God my creator, Jesus my savior, my wish is to be filled with love for all beings, that I may help as many as possible and leave judgement in God's hands..."

Ah, this is a stupid question, but I'm going to post it anyway just in case anyone knows of such a thing.

Malcolm wrote:
Hail Mary and the Lord's Prayer. You should buy her a really nice new rosary.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 at 10:17 PM
Title: Re: Triyik Yeshe Lama.
Content:
padma norbu said:
congrats on rising to the challenge? Also... see Pero's response. I have zero remorse. Why? Because I did nothing wrong, no matter how hard you look for it. I had just read this other forum, literally, the day before this thread began and I literally posted my FIRST response from memory to help. My second response (after Heart's) was to clarify (complete with link pulled from my browser history). Yours? Just bullshit. Start to finish. Bullshit.

Case in point:

Yontan said:
Tony has some fine translations, but this is not the only of his works of texts previously translated that make a point to note how his is superior. He has a personal interest in selling his translations, I'm sure. We all need to eat. Grain of salt.

padma norbu said:
Right... I suppose that's why he responded to my request for the book with a brief dismissal. Because he wanted to sell it to me by not selling it to me, even after I mentioned that Snow Lion would sell me their version if I proved I have received transmission (which I have several times). Yeah... hmmm... Duff apparently wants to sell it so bad that his full response was a complete mystery to the uninitiated, along the lines of "there's no point in saying more than this, but I won't sell it to you" (paraphrased).


Malcolm wrote:
All this business of "restricted books" is elitist bullshit. Gyurme Dorje's translation of Longchenpa's commentary of Guhyagarbha is avaialble for free and to anyone with a browser.

Every classical Dzogchen text can be read by anyone who knows Tibetan and can downloaded for free from TBRC.

The time has passed for so called "restricted translations".

While I respect the right of a given terton to maintain brand control over his treasures, in terms of classical literature, there should be no more "restricted" texts. Its a bunch of bullshit, and these days it is perpetuated mostly by westerners.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 at 9:53 PM
Title: Re: Poll: Which Operating System Do You Use?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
I use an iMac. Superior machine.

Linux is ok, but I am no longer a systems engineer and I am too busy to worry about running shell scripts, recompiling apps, and so on. I used to use linux all the time, but mostly for network hacking when I worked as a systems engineer. Also, I have zero interest in unix as a hobby. I like the user experience on OS X. I used to be a certified MSCE, but I hate Windows. Windows sucks.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 at 9:10 PM
Title: Re: Spleen Qi Deficiency
Content:
dakini_boi said:
Couldn't you say that weak jatharagni would be the Ayurvedic equivalent of spleen qi deficiency?   It's not an exact match, but I think that would probably be the closest thing.

I have more to say about spleen qi deficiency, but I will wait until the topic has been moved.


Malcolm wrote:
In Tibetan Medicine the spleen is the spleen, located on the left side of the body, above the pancreas. These are the types of spleen illnesses we identify explicitly as "spleen" illnesses: hot spleen illness, blood bloating, wind spleen, phlegm spleen, and swollen.

Weak stomach heat i.e. jaṭaragni is not related to the spleen itself in either Tibetan Medicine or Ayurveda. However, your intuition is good.

It seems that in Chinese medicine the spleen means the liver, and the liver means the spleen. The liver is indeed responsible for transformation and nourishing blood and muscles in Tibean Medicine. So in my opinion when Chinese medicine is talking about spleen deficiencies we would understand this as a problem with the liver's ability to process nutrients. Our approach would be to restore liver heat, and then one can eat whatever one likes without avoiding anything. The possible approach to this would be to do a round of Pancakarma or failing that, a seasonal cleanse to remove lymphatic blockages, cleanse the biliary pathways, and cleanse the intestines of excess mucous which is blocking the uptake of nutrients in general.

This is essentially a cold liver disease from a Tibetan Medical POV.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 at 8:52 PM
Title: Re: So this forum is comprised mostly of former New-Age hippies?
Content:
Tarpa said:
Old mod / traditional skinhead here,

Malcolm wrote:
I was the first old mod /traditional skinhead in Boston circa 1980.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 at 4:10 AM
Title: Re: Spleen Qi Deficiency
Content:
Epistemes said:
Does TM have a parallel diagnosis for Spleen Qi Deficiency as in Traditional Chinese Medicine?  What is it called?

Malcolm wrote:
Not really, different theory.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 20th, 2011 at 10:11 PM
Title: Re: So this forum is comprised mostly of former New-Age hippies?
Content:
himalayanspirit said:
What I did not like is that the hippies take up Buddhism due to their drug experiences, and also go on to preach about how drugs could be beneficial for Buddhists.

Malcolm wrote:
No one said this. What was said was that for many people in the west, beginning in the sixties, having some experiences with hallucingens expanded their consciousness so they became interested in Eastern religion.

Everyone here recognizes that Buddha taught that one should avoid intoxicants.

However, everything in the world is medicine when one knows how to use it. Everything in the world is poison when one does not know how to use it. This also applies to hallucinogens. For example, there is promising research that taking LSD,etc., reduces anxiety about death in terminally ill patients. There is research that shows that MMDA helps permenantly alleviates PTSD. Marijuana is proven to reduce nausea in people doing chemo-therapy, and those who have long term chronic pain, and its effects are much less destructive that opiates. Alcohol also has many medicinal effects. The Buddha permitted monks to use alcohol for medical conditions. So we must have a flexible view.

Perfectly respectible non-Buddhist people are better people because they have had spiritual experiences from taking Ayahuasca, and so on. We may not make that choice for ourselves, but we are in no position to judge them.

Some people destroy their lives with food. But no one suggests that we all stop eating.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 20th, 2011 at 9:57 PM
Title: Re: Spontaneous Presence
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
There is no practice of spontaneous presence [lhun grub] per se. Lhun grub in fact refers to natural [lhun] formation [grub] of the basis. There is a practice related to this aspect of Dzogchen teachings, however, called thögal. It has nothing to do with anything taught by Tolle.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 20th, 2011 at 4:16 AM
Title: Re: astrology
Content:
maybay said:
Most modern Indian astrologers use the sidereal zodiac which puts all the symbolism out by a sign and a half.
Some like Ernst Wilhelm say use the tropical for the signs and sidereal for the nakshatras.



Malcolm wrote:
Kalacakra uses tropical for everything.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 at 8:00 PM
Title: Re: Gayatri Mantra in Tibetan Buddhism
Content:
dharmasack said:
I have defitnely heard recordings of Tibetan Monks chanting it, but other than that I don't know much.

Malcolm wrote:
Nope, you have not. The Gayatri does not exist as a tradition in Buddhism of any kind. There may however be some Western Tibetan Buddhists that are fond of chanting it (I know one too).

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 at 7:58 PM
Title: Re: Debunking Homeopathy
Content:


catmoon said:
So who can you trust? Sadly, you can't trust anyone all the time, but the standard doctor in a white coat does have a nearly 100% success rate with some things. You can trust him to set your broken bones, suture your cuts and scrapes, lance boils and they are pretty good with infections. But the moment he hands you a pill with a name a yard long, you're on your own. It might be good, it or might wreck your kidneys, or your liver, or send you into some psychotic hell of no return in twenty years. There's just no way to know.


Malcolm wrote:
The difference between modern pharmaceuticals and Tibetan and Ayurvedic formulas (as well as Chinese formulas) is that the former have no track record and are relatively recent. The latter have been tested on human popluations for 1000 years+ and their effects, dosages, indications, and counter-indications are well known and described.

The caveat is that herbal medicines, like their allopathic counterpart, require a) a medical theory which underlies a nosology b) a clinically experienced doctor trained in that field of medicine.

I personally have no confidence in the efficacy of homeopathic formulas. But they are also not harmful. So if people want to spend their money on them, I have no problem with it.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 at 7:28 AM
Title: Re: Debunking Homeopathy
Content:
Epistemes said:
My girlfriend's mother is a big advocate of homeopathic medicine.  I don't know even know what it is.
All I've gathered is that it is supposedly better than allopathic medicine for the sole reason that it isn't allopathic medicine and a stranger to Big Pharma.
It seems like a pretty generic term for anti-allopathic medicine.
I think my girlfriend is actually currently seeing a homeopathic doctor for her angioedema.  Or maybe it's an Oriental medicine doctor?  All I know is that she's taking some Chinese herbs and getting acupuncture done.  It's hard to keep track since she's been to so many doctors with this thing.

Malcolm wrote:
CHinese medicine and not homeopathy.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 at 3:26 AM
Title: Re: Debunking Homeopathy
Content:
AdmiralJim said:
It is my plan along with the Humanist Society in Aberdeen city, to hold a stall advocating removing funding for Homeopathic remedies at the cost of the National Health Service.  currently the uk government supports despite hard financial times funding for 4 homeopathic hospitals. Medical studies have shown no effect of homepathy besides the placebo effect.  It is my plan this Sunday to have a mass overdose of homeopathic remedies - anyone with a elementary knowledge of chemistry should understand that there is no active ingredient in these remedies.


Malcolm wrote:
You're just jealous that you didn't think of the $20 million duck first.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 at 3:19 AM
Title: Re: Tibetanmedicine-edu.org 3 year online course
Content:
AdmiralJim said:
How much does it cost? I have often wondered what the benefits of a dual qualification in western and tibetan medicine would be.


Malcolm wrote:
One will be able to practice Tibetan medicine without obstacles.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 at 10:53 PM
Title: Re: Tibetanmedicine-edu.org 3 year online course
Content:
Inge said:
Do you know if the three year Tibetan medicine distant learning online course of Dr. Pasang Y. Arya T. Sherpa at http://www.tibetanmedicine-edu.org/index.php/tibetan-medicine-course is a good program?


Malcolm wrote:
He is a qualified doctor, so I am sure it is fine.

There are two other options as well.

My Alma mater:

http://tibetanmedicineschool.org/programs/4-year-program/ " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Nida Chenagtsang's program:

http://www.thesoriginstitute.com/ " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

All three are fine programs, all have their strengths and their weaknesses. All three are run by qualified Tibetan doctors who speak english well.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 at 7:48 AM
Title: Re: Buddhist Military Sangha (U.S.)
Content:
kirtu said:
I also see this hyperconservatism in... Massachusetts ..."

Malcolm wrote:
Maybe the Massachusetts in some alternate universe, but not in the Massachusetts I live in. Of course, I am merely 15 miles from the VT border as the crow flies (go bernie!).


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 at 5:12 AM
Title: Re: longterm use of agar-35 & semde
Content:
pemachophel said:
Namdrol,

One other question: Paltul Rinpoche has had me on the same three sets of TM pills for almost a year now. Does that mean they are being absorbed as food and not as medicine?


Malcolm wrote:
Depends on the medicine and depends on the disease. Some chronic diseases, like Padkan Mugpo, have to be treated for a year or more. In this case one takes usually one herb for a very long time, and other herbs are often, but not always, changed for season and so on.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 17th, 2011 at 9:41 PM
Title: Re: Killing Insects and Buddhism
Content:
Namdrol said:
[quote="edearl"
...
A house mice may not be able to survive in a forest, they have adapted to living with humans and in open fields, according to Wikipedia.

edearl said:
This is an example of where Wiki and reality do not meet. The mice we have in our house _are_ field mice.

N
I checked some additional sources.
According to http://faculty.njcu.edu/fmoran/vol4fieldmouse.htm " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; the long tailed field mouse never lives in houses.


Malcolm wrote:
They should come to my attic, then. They will understand something different.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 17th, 2011 at 8:32 PM
Title: Re: Ayahuasca and Buddhism
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Is there anything in experience that is not a hallucination?

I'm not much of a fan of Batchelor but he had one metaphor that I thought was good - practice is like climbing the mountain, psychedelics are like being helicoptered to the summit.  Certainly for the long term it doesn't seem like a good idea to rely on the helicopter. But it may give some boost to faith.

gregkavarnos said:
Except that after taking you for a brief trip to the summit, they then drop you off at the lowest level of the subteranean cave system which exists below the mountain, rather than at the base of the mountain.  Thus one requires to expend twice as much energy just to get to zero again.  Then with every subsequent use they drop you even further until in the end you don't even bother trying to reach the summit anymore, you're happy enough to just briefly gaze upon the summit after every hit.


Malcolm wrote:
According to Garab Dorje, the purpose of using hallucinogens is to the see that the mind is malleable, not a fixed or permanent substance. So, in fact hallucinogens do have a use in Dharma, albeit an extremely limited and narrow one.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 17th, 2011 at 7:05 PM
Title: Re: Killing Insects and Buddhism
Content:
Epistemes said:
...
We've captured squirrels before in a cage, driven a few miles away, then let them out.

Pero said:
Hm yeah, I suppose I could drive them to the forest nearby.

edearl said:
A house mice may not be able to survive in a forest, they have adapted to living with humans and in open fields, according to Wikipedia.

Malcolm wrote:
This is an example of where Wiki and reality do not meet. The mice we have in our house _are_ field mice.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 17th, 2011 at 7:03 PM
Title: Re: Killing Insects and Buddhism
Content:
Ryoto said:
The other day I had mice in my house who were leaving crap everywhere and chewing into packaged foods so I got these glue traps which caught 3 of them in one night. They will die a slow death but it had to be done.

Tilopa said:
It didn't have to be done like that. There are other ways of catching mice that don't involve killing:

http://members.aceweb.com/patrussell/mousetrap/Mousetrap.htm " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pero said:
That's cool, we have mice in our house too and I was thinking if there was another way instead of killing them. The thing is though, it is not a complete solution. What do you do with the mice? Throwing them out is no solution IMO, they'll just come back.


Malcolm wrote:
You have to drive them about 3 miles away from your house. Preferably across a stream. That is what I do.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 17th, 2011 at 8:02 AM
Title: Re: longterm use of agar-35 & semde
Content:
pemachophel said:
Namdrol,

Sorry, I did not read your previous explanation of this, but can you please explain how the body processes foods differently than medicines according to TM? My initial impression is that the body is going to process anything that is ingested p.o. in the same way via the same digestive processes. How does the body distinguish between a food/herb and a medicine?

Sorry if I'm being obtuse here.

Thanks.


Malcolm wrote:
According to the four tantras, it states that medicines are completley digested within an hour or so after after being ingested. Food take seven days to fully digest. When you use herbs for too long, the herb in question is no longer digested rapidly. By digest, we mean for the rasa of the food to work its way through the blood, muscle, fat, bone, marrow and semen.

There are of course some exceptions, but not many.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 17th, 2011 at 7:59 AM
Title: Re: Evolution of humans and Mahayana Buddhism
Content:
Aemilius said:
I've never read the Vedas myself, except maybe some short excerpts, but a friend of mine who works in the University Library said that in Vedas there is a description of Earth being like an iron ball in space, that is held in place by invisible magnets.


Malcolm wrote:
As far as I know, this cosmological description is found in the Surya Siddhanta, which cannot be later the 5th century. But I don't think it is found in the Vedas.

In the Surya siddhanta, the earth is described as round, suspended in space like a peice of iron held in place by the forcefield of two magnets. Mt Meru is at the North Pole, where the gods live, and the anti-Meru is at the south pole, where the asuras live.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 16th, 2011 at 7:01 AM
Title: Re: Lazy people should just give up, right?
Content:
padma norbu said:
Dzogchen way is not creative visualization.

Malcolm wrote:
The Dzogchen way does not exclude visualization. Quite the contrary.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 16th, 2011 at 5:26 AM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:


Namdrol said:
You are going to have to ask them. If you ask the same question over and over again, it starts to become a little annoying.


dakini_boi said:
It's impossible to tell on an internet forum if the question was overlooked, misunderstood, or if no one had the answer.  In all honesty, Namdrol, you're so incredibly knowledgeable that I assumed you probably would have had an answer, and therefore must have either overlooked or misunderstood the question.  I didn't mean to be annoying.


Malcolm wrote:
Ok.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 16th, 2011 at 5:11 AM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:
dakini_boi said:
But in all other cases besides the b/v issue, you can easily recover Sanskrit pronunciation just from looking at the Tibetan text - for example, even though Tibetans say "Bhekhandze" or "Sutokhayo" etc, the Tibetan text retains the Sanskrit pronunciation.  So why would they have chosen to transcribe Sanskrit व in such a way that it is unclear whether it should be pronounced v or b?  Since no Tibetan words contain ཝ, then presumably this character was invented specifically to transcribe व.  So why was it not used uniformly?

Malcolm wrote:
I did not say there were no Tibetan words that use ཝ, just that there are very few. If you examine that construction of ཝ you will see that it is a modified བ.

ཝ means fox, BTW. For example, I have seen varttika spelled with both a བ and ཝ. Just chalk it up to human inconsistency and move on.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 16th, 2011 at 5:08 AM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:
dakini_boi said:
So why was it not used uniformly?

Malcolm wrote:
You are going to have to ask them. If you ask the same question over and over again, it starts to become a little annoying.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 16th, 2011 at 4:38 AM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:
dakini_boi said:
Also, from this conversation it appears likely that even Guru Rinpoche himself might have said "Bajra," being that he was from the north.  This would also explain why written Tibetan Sanskrit uses བ instead of ཝ for many cases where originally you would have व.


Malcolm wrote:
No, this is more easily explained than that: in Tibetan,  བ and ཝ are pronounced the same way in some dialects such as Amdo. Also, བ following a ད is also pronounced ཝ, as in དབང་. There, it is like that at the point when Thonmi was formalizing Tibetan grammar, བ and ཝ were pronounced very similarly and were in some sense interchangable. In fact, there were very few Tibetan words that begin with ཝ, and no words that contain it.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 15th, 2011 at 11:10 PM
Title: Re: Killing Insects and Buddhism
Content:
cooran said:
Hello all,

What are the karmic results of deliberately killing insects?

Kai said:
Just like the normal karmic effect coming from unwholesome action of killing combined with having ill will or aversion;

Illness, disability and short life in the next rebirth, born in war zone area, unattractive, lots of enemies, etc........

cooran said:
Thanks Kai.  Though I'm not sure many people in this thread accept or believe the Teachings on this matter - as they write about intentionally killing other beings frequently.

Malcolm wrote:
Accept and beleive. Also, one must keep in mind that a karmic act is perfect only if you are happy about it.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 15th, 2011 at 10:11 PM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:
ratna said:
Slightly off-topic -- the difference between ba and va is not as great as one might think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCvdZhrEmm4&feature=related " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Malcolm wrote:
Doesn't work on me.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 15th, 2011 at 9:12 AM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:
Greg said:
Do all of these things apply to "va" sounds in the middle or end of a word? It wouldn't be "Bajrasatba" would it?

Malcolm wrote:
According to my Varanasi trained Lama, Wajrasattwa. Hewajra, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 15th, 2011 at 5:30 AM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:


tantular said:
To Namdrol: is Sapan's description in the Khenjug? I'd love to read it. While the absence of different characters for v and b is strong evidence that in ordinary speech these 2 consonants had already merged in Sapan's time, if he explicitly states that they were distinguished, it could indicate that in special circumstances care was taken to pronounce them correctly. And just to be clear, I wholeheartedly agree with your main point: there is such a thing as "correct" Sanskrit pronunciation, and people should make an effort to follow it. śuddham astu!

Malcolm wrote:
Sapan says that in some places va is pronounced ba, like in Kashmir.

It is in collected works, I will get you the reference.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 15th, 2011 at 12:03 AM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:
Karma Dorje said:
It is unlikely that they were reading mantras from books and pronouncing them differently than their preceptors.

Malcolm wrote:
We will agree to disagree.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 14th, 2011 at 11:51 PM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:
tantular said:
There is evidence that the sound change v –> b is quite old; the post-Gupta, 6--7th century CE Buddhapālita manuscript in Beijing, for example, does not distinguish the characters for b and v. This is also a standard feature for all the scripts used in 11--12th century manuscripts from north eastern India & Nepal (the earliest period for which large numbers of manuscripts survive). So I think it's quite likely that the gurus from Nepal and Pala-lands during the later transmission said "bajra."

Malcolm wrote:
Sakya Pandita notes these regional differences circa 1210 ad.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 14th, 2011 at 10:17 PM
Title: Re: Lamrim Chenmo in Tibetan
Content:
Totoro said:
Does anyone know where I can download Lamrim Chenmo in Tibetan? I've tried TBRC but don't seem to have any scanned there. Thanks.

Malcolm wrote:
http://tbrc.org/link/?RID=O00EGS10257%7CO00EGS10257365$W22272#library_work_Object-O00EGS10257%257CO00EGS10257365$W22272


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 14th, 2011 at 9:59 PM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:
tantular said:
Bengalis, including educated Brahmins, pronounce vajra as bɔdʒɾɔ (in IPA). To English-speaking ears, this does indeed sound alot like "bodzro." English speakers hear the short vowel a as a short o or u; witness loan-words like pundit, pyjamas, juggernaut, etc. In my experience Nepali and Bengali pandits are the most difficult to understand if you are only used to the "standard" pronunciation.

Namdrol said:
yes, but one cannot infer from this that Tibetan pronunciations descend from modern Bengali pronunciations.

Karma Dorje said:
I certainly wasn't suggesting that.  As I said, the Tibetan's Indian gurus *might* have been closer to the Tibetan pronunciation than we would surmise taking Varanasi pronunciations as our guidepost.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, it is not likely. Why?  Because we have on hand Sakya Pandita text on how to pronounce mantras, and he was student of various panditas from various parts of India, and his uncle and grandfather were all fluent in Sanskrit.

Tibetan pronunciation of mantras can be accounted for very easily. Most Tibetans did not know Sanskrit, and pronounced mantras in texts phonetically as they saw them, rather than as they were intended, for example pronouncing ཛ་ as dza rather than ja, which is what was intended, or  pronouncing ཙི་ཏཏ་as tsitta rather than citta.

We do the same thing to Tibetan. I know many people in Dzogchen Community who still pronounce the o in dzog as in dog, rather than as in oak. Or people who pronounce prajna as if the j were to pronounced as in ajax, rather than a gñ complex.

N

Etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 14th, 2011 at 9:00 PM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:
tantular said:
Bengalis, including educated Brahmins, pronounce vajra as bɔdʒɾɔ (in IPA). To English-speaking ears, this does indeed sound alot like "bodzro." English speakers hear the short vowel a as a short o or u; witness loan-words like pundit, pyjamas, juggernaut, etc. In my experience Nepali and Bengali pandits are the most difficult to understand if you are only used to the "standard" pronunciation.

Malcolm wrote:
yes, but one cannot infer from this that Tibetan pronunciations descend from modern Bengali pronunciations.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 14th, 2011 at 7:17 PM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:
Karma Dorje said:
For instance, vajra in Bengali is pronounced "bozro".
.

Namdrol said:
Where did you discover this?

Karma Dorje said:
From Bengali friends in our local Kalibari.  Why do you ask?


Malcolm wrote:
Well, this inference of yours is a bit synchronic. Pronunciations tend to evolve over time, unless artificially frozen.

How to Bengali Brahmins pronounce Vajra in Sanskrit?

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 14th, 2011 at 8:15 AM
Title: Re: Is Buddhism hopeless?
Content:


Epistemes said:
Vimala is a wonderful medicine.

Namdrol said:
Dharma is better. But sometimes the medicine does not appear to taste good.

Epistemes said:
I agree, but:

"It's no good building a new crystal cage out of the [Buddhist] teachings. However beautiful it might be, it's still a cage[.]"
--Chogyal Namkhai Norbu


Malcolm wrote:
You have apparently mistaken me for a dogmatist.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 14th, 2011 at 3:59 AM
Title: Re: Is Buddhism hopeless?
Content:


Epistemes said:
Vimala is a wonderful medicine.

Malcolm wrote:
Dharma is better. But sometimes the medicine does not appear to taste good.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 14th, 2011 at 2:09 AM
Title: Re: Gardasil and tanning beds
Content:
Nangwa said:
The simple truth is that if you are a parent and dont get your child (male or female) the HPV vaccination you are putting your child at unnecessary risk.

Malcolm wrote:
I personally think it is wrong to force children and teenagers to have vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases when they are not sexually active.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 14th, 2011 at 12:19 AM
Title: Re: 100 Syllable Mantra SUPO KAYO ME BHAVA
Content:
heart said:
I think someone told me a long time ago that Sanskrit probably never was a spoken language, is that not true?
/magnus

Greg said:
What I've been told is that for the most part there was never anyone monolingual in Sanskrit. That is, Brahmins who used Sanskrit for religious purposes would nonetheless always converse with their wives (for example) in a prakrit, and generally conduct their secular affairs in prakrit.


Malcolm wrote:
Depends, Sanskrit was like Latin. It is what educated people spoke to on another in.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 11:49 PM
Title: Re: Killing Insects and Buddhism
Content:
ananda said:
Since insects are ignorant of morality and we humans are the higher form of life then shouldn't we practice ahimsa towards even household flies and pests despite the problems they create for us ?

Malcolm wrote:
Up until the point that they become a problem like spreading disease, ruining our food and so on. That being said, I have not knowingly killed a single creature on purpose since I became a Buddhist 25 years ago.

However, if my house were infested with carpenter ants, for example, and so on, I would exterminate them, even though I would feel bad about it.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 10:50 PM
Title: Re: What body is this?
Content:
DarwidHalim said:
When Buddha gave Abhidhamma teaching, he was in Tusita Heaven. Tusita heaven is a higher realm in samsara. It is not a pure land.

My question is: what kind of body did he use when he appear in front of his mother and other audiences? Is it nirmanakaya form or sambogakaya form?


Malcolm wrote:
His physical body.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 7:14 PM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:
dakini_boi said:
The topic about the 100-syllable mantra got me thinking.  ( https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=5234 " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

It makes perfect sense to use Sanskrit pronunciation if one is able to.  At least for mantras that were transmitted in a lineage starting in India - but what about mantras originally revealed as Tibetan terma, which have no precedent in India?

Malcolm wrote:
They nevertheless are written down with the full compliement of diacritics unless they are using words that are Tibetans like 'shig shig, sod sod" etc.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 7:11 PM
Title: Re: Questions for those who prefer Sanskrit mantra pronunciation
Content:
Karma Dorje said:
For instance, vajra in Bengali is pronounced "bozro".
.


Malcolm wrote:
Where did you discover this?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 6:43 AM
Title: Re: Cheerful Thought For The Day
Content:
Virgo said:
Impermanence.

Kevin


Malcolm wrote:
Indeed, but there is no need to hasten the process through poor ecological management.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 4:29 AM
Title: Re: Is Buddhism hopeless?
Content:
Virgo said:
Hi Acchantika,

I'm not sure that differs from what I said.

Virgo:

"Samatha simply calms your mind and may temporarily supress some gross defilements, that's about it (in general)"

Kevin

Acchantika said:
Best to ask a qualified teacher, which I am not.

According to the quote, gross defilements are not temporarily supressed but "subside in their own place".

Shamatha is effortless, always.

Supression requires effort, always.

So, always, supression is not shamatha.

Therefore, the difference between the quote and what you said is the difference between shamatha and not-shamatha.

Malcolm wrote:
No, Kevin is basically correct in what he says, and it does not contradict Ranjung Dorje.

Shamatha by nature only suppresses afflictions, it does not uproot them. It doesn't mean that when you are doing shamatha you are supressing anything.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 3:58 AM
Title: Re: Is Buddhism hopeless?
Content:
Namdrol said:
Had you not practice dharma in the past, you would not be interested in it today.

Epistemes said:
Do you mean past lives, or 12 years ago when an ex-girlfriend gave me Steve Hagen's introduction for my birthday?

If the former, I don't believe you.

Malcolm wrote:
Your conceptual limitations are irrelevant.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 3:56 AM
Title: Re: Is Buddhism hopeless?
Content:
Virgo said:
Samatha simply calms your mind and may temporarily supress some gross defilements, that's about it (in general).

Acchantika said:
I'm not sure what you are referring to, but shamatha as taught in the Tibetan traditions has nothing to do with this.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, it is the same. Please read, for example Sakya Pandita, Tsongkhapa, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 3:27 AM
Title: Re: Is Buddhism hopeless?
Content:
Namdrol said:
But when you have Dharma, then your life has meaning, and your relationships, and your job, etc.

Epistemes said:
I, at one time, said that about Jesus Christ.  Just saying.

I'm holding up one finger, not two.


Malcolm wrote:
The difference is, Jesus is outside, and he does not exist [well, dead, at any rate]. The dharma is inside of your lived experience, and depends on no one but you. It lives with you and is carried with you from life to life time. Had you not practice dharma in the past, you would not be interested in it today.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 2:50 AM
Title: Re: Is Buddhism hopeless?
Content:
Epistemes said:
The thing which we all wrestle with is the death of our loved ones.  Especially if you're strongly attached like me.  You spend countless hours and dollars with them and on them, all of which has the appearance of meaning, and then it's over one way or another.  I understand the Buddhist premise that we should be more emotionally available to all beings and not limited in our loving-kindness, but, while not impossible, it doesn't necessarily completely dispense with certain attachments that we're naturally going to have with our loved ones.  But what do I know?  I'm afflictively attached to people in my life, to myself, to "my world," and so much more, and I probably have accumulated only about 45 total hours on the cushion.

Malcolm wrote:
Life has no meaning, your relationships, your job, etc.

But when you have Dharma, then your life has meaning, and your relationships, and your job, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 at 11:53 PM
Title: Re: Is Buddhism hopeless?
Content:
Epistemes said:
Buddhists believe in rebirth. Buddhists also claim that there is no chronological first beginning to the series of past lives. We have all of us been reborn an infinite number of times. No God is needed to start the series off – for there simply was no first beginning. Things have been around (somewhere) for all eternity.

If rebirth is true, realistically we really have no hope. It is a hopeless doctrine.

I cannot imagine being reborn as a stinkbug precisely because there is nothing to imagine. I quite simply would not be there at all. If rebirth is true, neither I nor any of my loved ones survive death. With rebirth, for me – the actual person I am – the story really is over. There may be another being living its life in some sort of causal connection with the life that was me (influenced by my karma), but for me there is no more.  There is no more to be said about me.

If Buddhism is correct, then unless I attain enlightenment or something like it in this lifetime, I have no hope.  Clearly, I am not going to attain enlightenment in this life.  Many of you will be inclined to accept that as true about myself and about your own enlightenment, as well, since enlightenment is a supreme and extremely rare achievement - not for the likes of someone like me.  So I and all my friends and family have in themselves no hope.  More than that, from a Buddhist perspective, in the scale of infinite time, the significance of each of us as such, as the person we currently are, converges on nothing - for each of us lives our lives and then perishes.  Then we're lost forever.

Again, if rebirth is true, we really have no hope. It is a hopeless doctrine.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, Buddhism is a hopeless doctrine. Hope is bullshit. It's just the other face of fear. Joe is right, incidentally, your comments here are an expression of intense grasping at identity. Your identity is a conceptual fiction. You are attached to a delusion.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 at 11:45 PM
Title: Re: Is Buddhism hopeless?
Content:
Epistemes said:
If rebirth is true, realistically we really have no hope. It is a hopeless doctrine.

Chaz said:
If that's what you think, then that's what it is.

For you it's hopeless.
For you it's meaningless.
For you it's pointless.

We get it.

Can we move on now?

Epistemes said:
You're about as useful as a compliment from a whore.

Malcolm wrote:
In the meantime, apart from all the hand-wringing about existential issues, you should do something spiritually useful that requires no beliefs in anything whatsover.

Yoga. There are several yoga studios where you live.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 at 9:06 PM
Title: Cheerful Thought For The Day
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
We're doomed:

How bad could it get? A recent study by MIT projects that without "rapid and massive action" to cut carbon pollution, the Earth's temperature could soar by nine degrees this century. "There are no analogies in human history for a temperature jump of that size in such a short time period," says Tony McMichael, an epidemiologist at Australian National University. The few times in human history when temperatures fell by seven degrees, he points out, the sudden shift likely triggered a bubonic plague in Europe, caused the abrupt collapse of the Moche civilization in Peru and reduced the entire human race to as few as 1,000 breeding pairs after a volcanic eruption blocked out the sun some 73,000 years ago. "We think that because we are a technologically sophisticated society, we are less vulnerable to these kinds of dramatic shifts in climate," McMichael says. "But in some ways, because of the interconnectedness of our world, we are more vulnerable."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/climate-change-and-the-end-of-australia-20111003 " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 at 7:19 PM
Title: Re: Rebuilding civilization in North America
Content:
Namdrol said:
Passive solar has limited effectiveness in New England. However, you are right, new homes can be designed to maximize their solar uptake. But it is exorbinant to retrofit a home. For example, I live in a 1829 farmhouse. I would like us to refit our house with a geothermal system because I think this is the most efficient way to heat in the winter. But we do not have the money at present.
N

edearl said:
Here is a link about a passive solar home in Ontario, Canada. http://www.glenhunter.ca/passive-solar/ " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They do not seem to have a way to seal their south facing windows, such as window blankets, which would help during the coldest weather. They report using auxiliary heating only in January. I think anywhere in the US, except parts of Alaska. is a good place for passive solar.


Malcolm wrote:
That's not going to be useful in the majority of presently existing homes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 at 7:17 PM
Title: Re: Rebuilding civilization in North America
Content:
kirtu said:
You should have seen when Ani Kunga told me in the 1700's Colonists clear cut the woods around their towns (and that we probably have denser forests on average on the East Coast than we've had for 200 years).

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, they did, they were bent on recreating England. They did it on purpose to warm microclimates. Ben Franklin talks about this.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 at 5:25 AM
Title: Re: Rebuilding civilization in North America
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Passive solar has limited effectiveness in New England. However, you are right, new homes can be designed to maximize their solar uptake. But it is exorbinant to retrofit a home. For example, I live in a 1829 farmhouse. I would like us to refit our house with a geothermal system because I think this is the most efficient way to heat in the winter. But we do not have the money at present.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 at 5:15 AM
Title: Re: Medical Studies
Content:
AdmiralJim said:
Hi there,
I have training in western medicine and I am curious if there have been any randomised control studies conducted using Tibetan Medicine.  I know studies have been done regarding certain chinese medical treatments. for instance the efficacy of chinese acupuncture in rheumatic conditions has been well verified.


Malcolm wrote:
They have done some, both in China and India (Ayurveda).


But things like the three dośas, which are fundamental to Tibetan Medicine as Ayurveda are phenomenological ways of looking health i.e. you cannot identify a substance in the body called pitta. Translating it as bile is innacurate, since as we know, bile is an alkaline substance which neutralize stomach acids in the small intestine. But pitta, which is considered to be the heat of the body, primarily, has various functions which frankly, you can't observe. All you can do is observe, "they have this theory. Based on the this theory, are the treatment outcomes effective or not for the conditions they are treating".


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 at 5:01 AM
Title: Re: longterm use of agar-35 & semde
Content:
Namdrol said:
ONe should generally not use any herb for more than three months.

Epistemes said:
Why?  Dependency?


Malcolm wrote:
No, as I explained once before, it is because the herbs are treated by the body as food, rather than medicine.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 at 4:20 AM
Title: Re: longterm use of agar-35 & semde
Content:
dakini_boi said:
Is it safe to use these formulas long-term - like for a year, or even years?  This is assuming one doesn't have any major health risks.

Malcolm wrote:
ONe should generally not use any herb for more than three months.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 at 4:03 AM
Title: Re: Rebuilding civilization in North America
Content:
Namdrol said:
134-14 acres of northern wardwood stand will last such a place an indefinite period of time if cut carefully -- first taking out old tree and sick trees, leaving saplings, middle aged trees so on and so on.

If you are in NE, you can use this as a guide to figure it out:

http://extension.unh.edu/resources/files/Resource001044_Rep1200.pdf " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Common idea is that you can can get 1 cord an acre. But I think this is not based on a very scientific understanding as that sheet shows.

Basically, if we are talking maple, for exampe, it takes 20 years for a maple tree to reach an ideal size for firewood. If you have a large enough lot you can rotate through your acerage preserving mother trees and always having abundant fuel and more for your descendents. All it takes is a little thought.

Sönam said:
In your rotation you will need some more space to let the regeneration of the earth ...

Malcolm wrote:
Not really. This is not like growing crops. This is selectively picking trees and felling them in a rotation, while trying to maintain a whole population.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 11:43 PM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Kai said:
He defined the Kadag Chenpo as the union between Kadag and lhun grub

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, of course.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 11:04 PM
Title: Re: Rebuilding civilization in North America
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
134-14 acres of northern wardwood stand will last such a place an indefinite period of time if cut carefully -- first taking out old tree and sick trees, leaving saplings, middle aged trees so on and so on.

If you are in NE, you can use this as a guide to figure it out:

http://extension.unh.edu/resources/files/Resource001044_Rep1200.pdf " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Common idea is that you can can get 1 cord an acre. But I think this is not based on a very scientific understanding as that sheet shows.

Basically, if we are talking maple, for exampe, it takes 20 years for a maple tree to reach an ideal size for firewood. If you have a large enough lot you can rotate through your acerage preserving mother trees and always having abundant fuel and more for your descendents. All it takes is a little thought.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 10:23 PM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Namdrol said:
BTW:

de nas ye shes kyi snang ba la gnas pa ni
sa bcu bzhi pa la gnas pa yin no

After that, abiding in the appearances of wisdom is abiding on the fourteenth bhumi. No name is given.

Pero said:
Ahh right, I didn't pay enough attention, saw 14th and gnas pa and didn't look deeper hehe. Thanks for the correction.

Malcolm wrote:
It also means, despite mmy failure to examine the version in the NGB, that Carpiles is incorrect in asserting that Vajradhara is only a name for Mahayoga and Anuyoga results.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 10:07 PM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Kai said:
it is possible to reach a fifteenth level, designated as “Vajradhara level,” and a sixteenth level, known as the “level of supreme primordial gnosis”[/b] (however, even when the Path is explained in terms of this multi-level optics, the individual is said not to go through the levels in the gradual way typical of the Mahayana, but in such a way that it is not possible to pinpoint the precise level the individual is going through at any given moment)

Namdrol said:
Yes, Capriles made an small error, marked in red.

Rig pa rang shar:
"...is mounting the thirteenth stage, the wheel of letters. Next, abiding in the vision of wisdom is mounting the fourteenth stage, Great Bliss.  Next, obtaining certainty in the stage of natural formation is mounting the fifteenth stage, Samadhi. Next, the non-existence of anything higher after wisdom naturally arises on the stage of original purity is mounting the sixteenth stage, Highest Wisdom."

Wheel of Letters is a synonym for Vajradhara.

Pero said:
I don't think it's a mistake by Capriles. In the version of RR I'm looking at the 15th level is called Vajradhara. 13th level is the great accumulation of the wheel of letters like yours. The 14th bhumi is strangely called just "gnas pa".

Malcolm wrote:
I take it back:

Shabkar states:

Reaching the stage of original purity after completing them
is called “the Stage of the Protector Vajradhara”.

Here he is referring to the 16th bhumi. The citation I was drawing from was a citational gloss in the Khandro Nyinthig. It obviously is drawing on a different manuscript tradition then the version present in the Nyingma GB.

BTW:

de nas ye shes kyi snang ba la gnas pa ni
sa bcu bzhi pa la gnas pa yin no

After that, abiding in the appearances of wisdom is abiding on the fourteenth bhumi. No name is given.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 9:45 PM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:


Kai said:
Other than that, I presume the rest of the details is intact.


Malcolm wrote:
No, actually the whole passage relates the progress of togal to the five paths of standards Buddhist systems, so Capriles apparently really does not understand the principle being enunciated here.

This passage from the rig pa rang shar:

Then, the free arising of appearances having understood the appearances of wisdom is seen to be like a cloud of Dharma, mounting the tenth stage, Clouds Of Dharma. That is the resting place of those persons who have seen the truth, without giving this up they mount the stage.

Means that in these schemata, this tenth stage is only equivalent to Mahāyāna first bhumi. In the rig pa rang shar scheme, bhumis 1--9 are equivalent to the common Mahāyāna path of accumulation and application. Bhumis 10-16 are equivalent to the Mahāyana path of seeing, cultivation and so on.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 9:01 PM
Title: Re: Rebuilding civilization in North America
Content:
edearl said:
Deforestation is a major contributor to global warming. How much forest do you need to own or control to have a sustainable supply of wood?

Malcolm wrote:
According to Ben Franklin, an average home requires 13 acres of tended woods for a renewable source of wood for heat. Obviously this is not feasable as a renewable resource for 300,000,000 americans. But it can work fine as a low cost alternative for a small community living in one structure. Also, axe cutting of trees as opposed to sawing them helps. You cannot coppice a tree with a chainsaw, only with an axe.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 8:44 PM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Kai said:
it is possible to reach a fifteenth level, designated as “Vajradhara level,” and a sixteenth level, known as the “level of supreme primordial gnosis”[/b] (however, even when the Path is explained in terms of this multi-level optics, the individual is said not to go through the levels in the gradual way typical of the Mahayana, but in such a way that it is not possible to pinpoint the precise level the individual is going through at any given moment)

Malcolm wrote:
[/quote]

Yes, Capriles made an small error, marked in red.

Rig pa rang shar:
"...is mounting the thirteenth stage, the wheel of letters. Next, abiding in the vision of wisdom is mounting the fourteenth stage, Great Bliss.  Next, obtaining certainty in the stage of natural formation is mounting the fifteenth stage, Samadhi. Next, the non-existence of anything higher after wisdom naturally arises on the stage of original purity is mounting the sixteenth stage, Highest Wisdom."

Wheel of Letters is a synonym for Vajradhara.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 7:56 AM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Pero said:
Hm I don't know but an interesting thing is that in the Rigpa Rangshar that is available in wylie on the internet there is no mention of "realization". I suppose they could have used a different version. Anyway, after looking at the Tibetan of those lines and a bit after the description of the 16 bhumis I think it really is referring to thogal and nothing else. So maybe better to not speak about it much anymore hehe.

Kai said:
Thats what I thought initially but Namdrol said that there is another interpretation out there.....oh well........

But even if thats the case, thanks to the quotation in the previous page, I now have an general idea on how the confusing Bhumis scheme works out. Following from the previous page;

Mahayoga ==> 13th Bhumi and anuyoga===> 14th Bhumi and Atiyoga ===> 15th or 16th Bhumi

Given the fact that only Longde and Menngagde had the four visions that lead to the Full Buddhahood which is the 16th Bhumi. Its suffice to say that Semde ===> 15th Bhumi

Now, this is how it was represented in the nine yanas system and we know that after evolving for centuries, Anuttarayoga is not the same as Mahayoga, anuyoga, etc. Indeed, it has often been stated that the four yogas of Mahamudra is synonymous with the four yogas of Atiyoga Semde and several masters and practitioners had stated the same thing over the years. Gelug and Kagyu share the same teachings on Mahamudra while Sakya integrated it into their tantric system. And the Jonang school practiced Kalachakra in which Mipham stated before that it contained the Dzogchen teachings on Trekchod. In conclusion, all the Sarma schools do contain methods and viewpoints that can bring one to the 15th Bhumi which is called "Vajradhara".

That could be the reason why over the years, several masters are so quiet about sixteen Bhumis thingy because its really a non issue as there is only a minor difference in the level of ultimate final attainment between two systems. I guess this finally (at least partially) resolves the few major discrepancies and confusion that exists between the presentations of various systems.

And had none of us been arguing, we wouldn't have known so much or that we have been doing a non argument. So everyone

Malcolm wrote:
Thirteenth bhumi is referred to as Vajradhara. The fourteenth and fifteenth bhumis have their own names, and the sixteenth bhumi is well know as Uttarajñāna, Highest Wisdom or Yeshe Lama, the realization of ka dag chen po.

The final four bhumis are termed "the bhumis of those who dwell in wisdom".


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 5:51 AM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
heart said:
I am not that used to you agreeing with me.

/magnus

Clarence said:
He agrees with you when you are right.

Sorry, I have been watching "Suits" and Malcolm reminds me of one of the main characters.


Malcolm wrote:
As long as it is not Louis Litt...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 4:37 AM
Title: Re: Translation needed
Content:
Namdrol said:
bskyabs - protected, protection, saved, protect, SA skyob pa, past of skyob

kalden yungdrung said:
Tashi delek,

Thanks a lot Namdrol lak  

So the translation would be saved / protected  by Yungdrung Bon?

Mutsog Marro
KY

Malcolm wrote:
Protected by Yudrung Bon


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 4:31 AM
Title: Re: Translation needed
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
bskyabs - protected, protection, saved, protect, SA skyob pa, past of skyob


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 3:43 AM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:



Namdrol said:
WE are talking about the same thing. It is just a name for the experiencing of recognizing rigpa for real. What TNR is talkign about is not realization of the first bhumi. He is basing his presentation on this discussion about togal visions.

heart said:
That is indeed true, all the talk about bhumis and paths only appear in the togal part of Circle of the Sun.

/magnus


Malcolm wrote:
You see, that wisdom of vidyā, which is your basis neither increases nor decreases, hence it is said in many Dzogchen texts, there is no path, no stages, etc. On the other hand, our knowledge of that wisdom is either lacking or partial, and thus we can speak of stages, paths and practices.

Basically, you folks are having an non-argument (after pages and pages) because in Dzogchen both perspectives, gradual and non-gradual, are equally true for everyone at the same time.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 3:31 AM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:


heart said:
On the contrary, Tsele Natsok Rangdrol says that the bhumis, have the same name but that the meaning is exalted in Dzogchen. He also mentions that in the "Tantra of Great All-illuminating Sphere" there is a discussion how the 5 paths are related to Dzogchen. ChNN seems to favor the view of the one bhumi of Dzogchen. I am just a simple practitioner I can't say who is right in this matter. But the system of bhumis is about realization and it seems strange to say that being present at a webcast without even recognizing anything in particular would make one arrive on the first bhumi. It don't make sense to me.

/magnus


Namdrol said:
It is very simple, actually. The first vision, since that is what is being discussed, resembles the first bhumi because you are observing an actual sign of your vidyā. This is why it is termed personal experience of dharmatā. Since the thigles and so on are your actual state, you are observing, with your eyes, your real nature, or rather it's sign projected into space.

This must be introduced to you in the rig pa''i rtsal dbang. You will not understand it otherwise, as you know.

N

heart said:
Make sense Namdrol. But, Tsele Natsok Rangdrol says;

"To assimilate the introduction of Trecho and Thogal within one's being and feel extremely delighted is the first is the first bhumi of The Truly Joyous"

I think the point I am trying to make is in the word "assimilate".

/magnus


Malcolm wrote:
WE are talking about the same thing. It is just a name for the experiencing of recognizing rigpa for real. What TNR is talkign about is not realization of the first bhumi. He is basing his presentation on this discussion about togal visions.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 3:07 AM
Title: Re: Dzogchen Community of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu
Content:
mint said:
Why doesn't ChNNR require his students to take refuge in the Three Jewels prior to recieving DI?


Malcolm wrote:
Recieving direct introduction itself is going for refuge.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 2:42 AM
Title: Re: My chakras
Content:


Epistemes said:
What does this mean?


Malcolm wrote:
Absolutely nothing in tibetan medicine.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 10th, 2011 at 11:41 PM
Title: Re: What is your marital status?
Content:
mint said:
I'm just curious how we all here shape up in this regard.

No need to identify your choices.

2 options per person as I've tried to include all possible configurations.  You can change your answer.



Malcolm wrote:
You forgot:
unmarried/committed relationship
polyamorous
friends with benefits

etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 10th, 2011 at 10:30 PM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:


heart said:
On the contrary, Tsele Natsok Rangdrol says that the bhumis, have the same name but that the meaning is exalted in Dzogchen. He also mentions that in the "Tantra of Great All-illuminating Sphere" there is a discussion how the 5 paths are related to Dzogchen. ChNN seems to favor the view of the one bhumi of Dzogchen. I am just a simple practitioner I can't say who is right in this matter. But the system of bhumis is about realization and it seems strange to say that being present at a webcast without even recognizing anything in particular would make one arrive on the first bhumi. It don't make sense to me.

/magnus


Malcolm wrote:
It is very simple, actually. The first vision, since that is what is being discussed, resembles the first bhumi because you are observing an actual sign of your vidyā. This is why it is termed personal experience of dharmatā. Since the thigles and so on are your actual state, you are observing, with your eyes, your real nature, or rather it's sign projected into space.

This must be introduced to you in the rig pa''i rtsal dbang. You will not understand it otherwise, as you know.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 10th, 2011 at 9:45 PM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:


Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
In the Menngagde or Upadeshavarga series of Dzogchen, the unsurpassable Fruit that the Rigpa Rangshar identifies as the sixteenth level is the final attainment of the practice of Thögel (a practice that, as we have seen, is carried out in the bardo of the dharmata or chönyi bardo though most people believe this bardo is only experienced in the second of the three stages of the process between death and rebirth, in Thögel and the Yangthik one goes through it while the organism is clinically alive).[/i]
Capriles

Malcolm wrote:
This is a novel interpretation. I have read many thousands of pages of Dzogchen texts in Tibetan and I have yet to see any of them say this. That being said, of course there is an important connection between thogal and the bardo. Doing thogal makes it easier to recognize the bardo of dharmatā, its sound, lights and rays.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 10th, 2011 at 9:32 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Heruka said:
i would prefer a more common sense approach.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
OK well out of curiosity which would be what - live like the lakota?



Hehe.

See as everyone is pointing out, even if all this is frak and BS, at some point, some way down the line someone has to decide what kind of goddam political way of life we're going to adopt. And the reason I have sympathy with anarchism right now is that of course it does not solve all problems but at least it solves the problem of "who watches the watchers". It lets people decide for themselves what kind of micro-associations or micro-communities they are going to set up. You don't like the one you're in, move to another one.


Malcolm wrote:
Well, the problem with anarchism, like deep ecology, is that there is no clear path from here to there.

Societies generally form based on resource availability. Ancient Celts after all were not much different than North American Indians of the Eastern Forests in their mode of life. But they way they were different can be summed up in three terms: wheel, metal, cattle.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 10th, 2011 at 8:30 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:


Namdrol said:
if science directed policy, then we would have continued with the transistion to alternative energy begun in seventies, reserved the Alaska and North Sea oilfields (rather than glutting the market with the cheapest oil (adjusted for inflation) in history).

Heruka said:
The problem here is the energy principle makes "green" technologies more expensive than what we have already, for example wind mill farms produce X amount of energy, and requires more power from the electric coal or nuclear grid to transport that wind energy into the grid than without it.

Malcolm wrote:
I am not a blind advocate of wind, or solar (Point of fact, I oppose wind development in my area since it is not appropriate here nor effective). My point is that we are thirty years behind the curve of where we should be with alternative energy R&D. What you are talking about is the fact that there is no way to store power. The grid is the storage, wind and solar are not able to maintain power to the grid consistently.

But this is simply an engineering issue.


Heruka said:
Yes im aware of the grand daddy Edward Bernay  and how social engineering Madison ave, Hollywood works, only need to observe from a distance to see this. The leipzig connection is a good read, im certain you have come across that.

Malcolm wrote:
Smoking is a massive (as well as expensive) public health issue. If you read Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden: Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians (Orginally published as Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians: An Indian Intrepretation, Universtity of Minnesota, 1917), you will find that Buffalo Bird Woman commented that young men in her tribe who smoked (very few of them at that) were not able to hunt as effectively and were more easily killed in raids simply because they could not run as fast since it ruined their breathing. Therefore, in her tribe, young men virtually never smoked, since it was recognized that smoking was bad for you. However, old men, over 60 were enouraged to smoke as much as they liked, since they were finished with hunting and warring.


Heruka said:
only people with money have a choice N.

Malcolm wrote:
Everyone has choices.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 10th, 2011 at 8:09 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:


Namdrol said:
Oh, it's worse than that:

The consumed unrenrewable materials are replaced by synthetics, the exterminated human beings are replaced by zeks, by human beings who amenable to labor-camp existence. Since even the best of zeks are not altogether amenable to the self-repression reauired by efficient labor-camps, they too are replaced by synthetics, by machines, namely, by things made of Leviathon's own substance (i.e. undead)...


Heruka said:
this sounds like a transhumanist's wet dream come true, after all, is it not the intent to merge man with machine? is not transhumanism the natural progression of Galton, Malthus, Darwin, Shaw and the eugenics Fabian Society?

Malcolm wrote:
I guess so, but I am not a transhumanist.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 10th, 2011 at 8:55 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Heruka said:
you, like me, have no trust or authority to give or delegate, since we have waved our rights by entering into contracts with a power called a government. we are not free men or women, we are in fact sharecroppers on a government plantation. All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation.

Malcolm wrote:
Oh, it's worse than that:

The consumed unrenrewable materials are replaced by synthetics, the exterminated human beings are replaced by zeks, by human beings who amenable to labor-camp existence. Since even the best of zeks are not altogether amenable to the self-repression reauired by efficient labor-camps, they too are replaced by synthetics, by machines, namely, by things made of Leviathon's own substance (i.e. undead)...

But:

In ancient Anatolia people danced on the earth-covered ruins of the Hititte Leviathan and built their lodges with stones which contained the records of the vanished empire's great deeds. The cycle has come round again. Ameruca is where Anatolia was. It is a place where human beings, just to stay alive, have to jump, to dance, and by dancing revive the rhythms, recover cyclical time. An-archic and pantheistics dancers no longer sense the artifice and its linear His-story as All, but as merely one cycle, one long night, a stormy night that left Earth wounded, but as a night that ends, as nights end, when the sun rises. (Against His-story, Perlman, Detroit, 1983)


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 10th, 2011 at 8:10 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Heruka said:
at the end of the day its about who controls resources and who decides about shutting that down in the name of sustainability. Its about ideaologs cherry picking and directing the science instead of the science directing policy,

Malcolm wrote:
if science directed policy, then we would have continued with the transistion to alternative energy begun in seventies, reserved the Alaska and North Sea oilfields (rather than glutting the market with the cheapest oil (adjusted for inflation) in history).

Heruka said:
im afraid at the heart of the green movement is just more power grabing in the name of telling others what is good for the earth means austerity for you.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, I agree with you because the present green movement in general works from the principles set out by the social ecologists i.e communalism. While I have no problem with people who want to live together in such a way, I do not. Bookchin writes:

Property, in this ethical constellation, would be shared and, in the best of circumstances, belong to the community as a whole, not to producers ("workers") or owners ("capitalists"). In an ecological society composed of a "Commune of communes," property would belong, ultimately, neither to private producers nor to a nation-state.
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/socecol.html " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Deep ecology in general does not support the notion that it is proper to own nature in any sense. This is one difference we have with social ecologists. But we live in a society governed under an inherited Roman Jurisprudence. Even so, though people think that there is such a thing as private property, in reality all people have a lease.

Heruka said:
That is also true about insider crony captalism.

its classic pressure from above and pressure from below.

Malcolm wrote:
You and KTD often complain of regulation. Naess writes:

"Private industy is, in spite of its official "free and competitive" nature, shot through with internal regulations, mostly unknown to the general public, but no less coercive for all of that. The smaller unit industry of green societies will, because of less hierachichal power structure among other reasons, need less regulation. Much depends on the change of mentality: the less mental change in the green direction, the more regulations." (Ecology, community and lifestyle: Naess, Cambridge Univerisity Press, 1989)

What Naess is arging here is that with the fundamental shift in ethical priorities, the need to regulate of industrial harmful side effects (pollution, deforestation, etc.,) will be ameliorated through culture change, just as less and less people smoke and drink these days, just as attitudes towards race have shifted dramatically in the past 50 years (even despite some reactionary back lash) towards egalitarianism), in the same way, cultural transformation will render these discussions we are having obsolete. Just as it is more or less second nature for most people in the US these days to avoid smoking, likewise, when we wean our culture off the crystal meth of oil, someday the idea that we would need regulation to make sure that people did not pollute the water or the air, or cut down vast swaths of forest for short term profits will seem unthinkable.

The ecological society of the future will not be a choice. The ecological society that emerges after this one, however, can scarcely be imagined. But we cannot continue the way we are moving as a civilization.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 10th, 2011 at 1:01 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
See N-la this is where my concern is. I mean an ant on an anthill is "part of the matrix". So I mean what's to stop a human queen bee with all her soldier ants making all of us "part of the matrix" too? This is where I still think that the Western idea of property rights is of some use because it is a safeguard against precisely that kind of concern.

I totally accept your concern about large scale rapacious capitalism. But where do we meet in the middle here? You yourself said that we could still have businesses and factories "where permissible" - again that scary word. So how do we meet in the middle here? At what point does someone trading a basket for someone else's spear become rapacious upon the environment? In other words at what point does trade that is "free" become harmful?

When I say I am an anarcho "capitalist" what I really mean is that collectivism scares me more than individualism. And being subsumed back into the "matrix that spawned us" sounds to me an awful lot like a type of collectivism that is going to have to be enforced via coercion.

I mean when we have collapsed the cave of hope and fear are we still deep ecologists? Isn't it just another reference point?

Malcolm wrote:
From my perspective, your concerns are more appropriately voiced with reference to social ecology, which for all of its pretense to be an ecological theory, is still basically marxist, still basically a collectivism, now rebranded as communalism. Trust me, I am no more interested in living on a commune, or a kibbutz, than you are.

Permissible in this context means that when the necessary cultural transformation occurs that will allow for a deep green society to unfold, people will understand what kinds of industries are appropriate and what are not. Will there be needs for some kinds of controls (regulations), sure. Everyone can see that markets, for example, are part of the commons, and therefore, also require protection. This is actually the underlying notion of a so called "free" market. It is free because everyone can participate in it. It is also something which needs protection from time to time because markets show a marked inability to regulate themselves when subject to certain pathological pressures. When you understand that markets are a commons, then you will understand why it is necessary to protect everything that can enter a market. Markets are no more self-regulating than any other natural system. Like every other natural system, they only find a balance when they are in their proper niche. When they invade other niches, other "commons", they become unhealthy and cancerous. Free Market Ideology and the ensuing liberalization of trade around the world has lead to this state of affairs. These are all faults not of regulation, but of deregulation. Cap and trade is a failure because it represents an attempt to let the market determine the price of pollution, thus leading to the atrocities mentioned by Heruka. The present form of green capitalism is doomed to failure for the same reasons the housing industry failed. It is another bubble. You heard it here first.

Capitalism eats itself. This is the main problem with unrestricted capitalism.

So the issue comes, how do we determine how much capitalism, how much manufacturing, what kind, etc. All of these are problems for which I confess I have no solution apart from a radical change in our social values, what we find important.

Property rights translated into civil rights when the notion of ownership transitioned from "pater famililias" to the individual person. We need to both extend the notion of rights to creatures (as we already do in Buddhism) and to our environment. We need to understand that all creatures have rights merely by virtue of being sentient. From a Buddhist POV, after all, this is what natural virtue and non-virtue is based on i.e. the fundamental recognition that taking the life of creatures of immoral, and so on. Sooner or later we have to realize that destroying our environment is immoral because of the "civil" rights of our environment. Our world is not inert dead matter. It is teaming with life, and it is not just there as ours to take and dispose of as we wish.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 11:33 PM
Title: Re: Ngondro
Content:


Pema Rigdzin said:
Wow, you had to get the permission of four different people just to begin ngondro?!

Chaz said:
Yep.  Four people.

And "just" to begin Ngondro?  Well, it's only the most important step in my practice since I took my Refuge Vows.  Had it been ten peoples' permission, including a trip to India to seek the Karmapa's blessing, I would have done that - "just" to begin Ngondro.

If you didn't have to jump through all those hoops, that's fine, but you did have someone's permission to begin the practice.  However, it seems like there are people who have commenced the practice without permission from a lama qualified to give such blessings and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that.


Malcolm wrote:
To do prostrations to the Buddha requires no one's permission.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 10:23 PM
Title: Re: Rebuilding civilization in North America
Content:
kirtu said:
This isn't impossible of course but harvesting water from precipitation may not be everyone's cup of tee.

Namdrol said:
Believe it or not, it is also illegal in most Western states.

N

edearl said:
Earthishp homes do harvest rainwater as their only source of water, and according to the earthship.org website, they have been built in all 50 states. Essentially, all the fresh water we use, whether from aquifers, rivers and lakes, is rainwater or snow melt--regardless of local laws.



Malcolm wrote:
You won't find disagreement from me about your basic premise, however:

http://www.hcn.org/issues/40.18/a-good-idea-2013-if-you-can-get-away-with-it " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As I said...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 10:12 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Sad but true...

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 10:09 PM
Title: Re: Rebuilding civilization in North America
Content:
kirtu said:
This isn't impossible of course but harvesting water from precipitation may not be everyone's cup of tee.

Malcolm wrote:
Believe it or not, it is also illegal in most Western states.

kirtu said:
Some inexpensive land in mild climates such as Maine, New York, and some of the mid-West is available.  There may be land available in Canada as well.

Malcolm wrote:
The greatest ongoing cost of building a sustaintable community is not land, it is labor. Combine that with the rising costs of fuel, and you have a combination that makes it very hard to succeed in building an intentional community.

What we are basically talking about is switching back to a nineteenth century economy (localized) where wood is your primary energy source, supplemented by oil, with human and animal labor as your primary labor force. In order to make this community work, you will have become largely proficient in providing the majority of your own food. This means convertible husbandry.  Thus, you will need to build a manure factory. If you have 30 acres of arable land, you will need to maintain a herd of fifteen cows (one cow produces enough manure every year to fertilize two acres), manure ponds, etc. In other words, you will need to become an expert in composting manure. You will need to do this to maintain the fertility and health of your land. You will need to learn (if you don't already know) how best to can, preserve and otherwise maintain your summer and fall harvests for the winter, as well as feed your animals through the winter. And you will need a lot of committed people who are willing to live on just food and lodging to help you out in the howling wilderness we call "post-industrial" civlization. Most communes, or whatever you want to call it, fail because they do not adequately understand how to farm. In short, if you really want to make this work, you will have to become a farmer.

Good luck! Really, I mean it.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 8:41 PM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Virgo said:
So it is innacurate to say that "the ground, path and fruition is the same, but this is from the point of view of realized beings."

Malcolm wrote:
The result differs from the basis, in Dzogchen,  much in the same way that butter differs from milk.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 8:37 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:


Heruka said:
you see, really, truly there has only ever been man and nature.

what makes for division and seperation, is man vs nature.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, this is the basic argument of deep ecology, and ecological thinking in general. What do we do with this self-reflexivity that has caused us to imagine ourselves to be outside of the matrix that spawned us? Do we continue to use it destructively, as the Greco/Roman/Abrahamic civilization has done? Shall we exhaust our resource base, as the Mayans and Roman civilization in North Africa did? Or do we overcome the otherness our own self-awareness has spawned and understand limitations  imposed upon us by our world?

I really suggest you read Greer, or at least read his blog.

"Think back, dear reader, to the time when you first became aware of peak oil. Odds are that when you first encountered the concept, you found it disquieting or even repellent, but at a certain point—maybe in that first encounter, maybe later on—something suddenly shifted. A moment later you were living in a different world, one in which earlier priorities and beliefs had to make room for the immense and terrifying fact that your civilization was in deep trouble and next to nobody was willing to see that, much less do anything about it. That was your initiation into peak oil, and the feverish reading and thinking that most of you probably did over the weeks and months that followed were the equivalent of the magical student’s daily meditations and rituals, which stabilize the new pattern and begin the hard work of teaching the initiate how to make constructive use of what the initiation has provided."
https://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/10/peak-oil-initiation.html " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 8:28 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:


tobes said:
What does he think the 'ultimate goals of humankind' are? How is that worked out?


Namdrol said:
Pleasure, happiness, and self-realization.
N

Heruka said:
"A" typical sociopath.


Malcolm wrote:
Guess that makes all Buddhists sociopaths then, since the point of practicing Dharma is pleasure (freedom from physcial suffering); happiness (freedom from mental suffering), and self-realization (freedom from ignorance and affliction).

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 7:53 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:


Namdrol said:
But here is a quintessential and often ignored principle of Naess's thinking. Many people unfairly claim that deep ecology insists that human beings must sacrifice themselves on the cross of environmental martyrdom, and sadly, many people professing the deep ecology view do make these kinds of claims -- but both parties have either not read Naess clearly, or they are choosing to ignore him. He writes:

tobes said:
Right, I haven't read Naess directly.....my critique of deep ecology comes more from the kind of ethos I have seen expressed and embodied by people who endorse it. But like all movements, misreadings and misinterpretations are probably rife. Sounds like he's worth reading.


Malcolm wrote:
The Ecology of Wisdom in many ways is more accessible than some of his other writing.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 7:44 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:


tobes said:
What does he think the 'ultimate goals of humankind' are? How is that worked out?


Malcolm wrote:
Pleasure, happiness, and self-realization. The goal of deep ecology is to work this out, since it is obvious to me, the Dalai Lama, and so on, that the great malaise of modern industrial society is that people are not happy and they have no path to self-realization because of the alienaton caused by the trenchant inversion of human relationships with the natural world.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 1:23 AM
Title: Re: Digital Tibetan Buddhist Altar
Content:
Ng'mu said:
critisize Malcomn


Namdrol said:
That would be "Malcolm". And what is your name?

N

deepbluehum said:
He said is name dchen rinpoche


Malcolm wrote:
No, that is not a name. This person claims to know me personally. I don't know anyone named dchen rinpoche.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 12:38 AM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Namdrol said:
All it is one group of people who were mad that Tibetan termas were competing with Indian nidhi (treasures).

kirtu said:
Could you elaborate on this please?  Also, are Indian nidhi the same as or similar to Tibetan terma?  If so, was there an entire genre of nidhi?  Was this material produced by sadhu types or was it produced by people from a variety of backgrounds like in Tibetan terms (so more visionary people who were not necessarily obviously in the mahasiddha tradition)?

Thanks!

Kirt

Malcolm wrote:
Nidhi means treasure in Sanskrit. The standard Nyingma reply to anti-terma polemics is to point out that all Indian Mahāyāna and Varjayāna literature is also recovered from treasures troves.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 12:36 AM
Title: Re: Digital Tibetan Buddhist Altar
Content:
heart said:
Ng'mu, why don't we talk Dharma instead of rehashing e-sangha?

/magnus


Malcolm wrote:
Sometimes people like to come here and bitch about my imagined sins against them, I guess they find catharsis in directly addressing the imagined source of their discontent.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 11:36 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Heruka said:
http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/peakoil1.html

the ebb and flow of the abiotic vs peak oil debate.


Malcolm wrote:
What a real petroleum geologist has to say about abiogenic oil (it's bullshit, of course and is only used as FUD by right wing conspiracy theorists). *Note that following paper is dated after 2004,the year of the debate among your journalists.

Geoffrey P. Glasby of the Laboratory for Earthquake Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo writes:

"Summary
The preceding sections have outlined the two principal
theories of abiogenic formation of petroleum hydrocarbons.
The Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic
petroleum origins was an attempt to formulate a scientifically
rigorous theory of hydrocarbon formation
which could play a major role in the exploration and
exploitation of hydrocarbon deposits in the Soviet
Union in the immediate post-war period. The theory is
rigorous in its interpretation of the thermodynamic data
for the conversion of methane to higher hydrocarbons at
high temperatures and pressures. However, the formation
of higher hydrocarbons from methane is only one
step in the complex chain leading to the formation of
commercial petroleum deposits and there are several
major objections to this theory. First and foremost is the
fact that the mantle is too oxidizing for methane to form
there in abundance. Furthermore, most volatiles including
methane are transported from the mantle to the Earth’s
crust in magma and not by faults as required by the theory.
The occurrence of major oil and gas fields in crystalline
basement rocks was also taken as confirmation of
the abiogenic theory. However, this assumption predates
modern theories of fluid migration in the Earth's crust.
The theory also identified a number of mechanisms by
which higher hydrocarbons can be formed abiogenically,
of which serpentinization of ultramafic rocks does have
the potential to produce commercial oil and gas fields.
Proponents of the abiogenic theory have also emphasized
perceived inadequacies of the biogenic theory for the formation
of petroleum hydrocarbons.
However, at the time that the abiogenic theory was at
its peak from the 1950s to the 1980s, it was not possible
to assess the relative merits of these two theories objectively
on the basis of the then existing scientific data
and this only became possible with the development of
much more sophisticated techniques for the analysis of
the organic constituents in petroleum such as GC/MS in
the 1980s. As a result, a much more detailed understanding
of the pathways of organic constituents from
source rocks to petroleum was established which
offered convincing evidence to support the biogenic
theory. By contrast, the abiogenic theory made no real
attempt to explain the formation of the very complex
mixture of organic compounds which make up oil.
A major claim of the Russian-Ukrainian theory of abiogenic
hydrocarbon formation is that it had major successes
in the discovery of oil and gas deposits in crystalline
basement rocks. However, it now appears that the great
oil fields of the Volga-Urals region, the northern Urals
and western Siberia were discovered not as a result of
application of this theory as its proponents claim but by
the use of conventional exploration methods which gave
“the final word to the borehole”. Furthermore, recent studies
of the petroleum resources of the Dnieper-Donets
Basin in the Ukraine by the U.S. Geological Survey have
been interpreted entirely within the framework of conventional
petroleum geology with no mention made of an
abiogenic source of hydrocarbons. These failures of the
Russian-Ukrainian theory in areas where it has claimed its
greatest successes essentially bring its role as a viable theory
on which to base exploration programmes for commercial
hydrocarbon deposits to an end. As a matter of
fact, this theory is now largely forgotten even in the
Former Soviet Union and virtually unknown in the west.
The deep gas theory of Thomas Gold is based on the
assumption that deep faults play the dominant role in
the continuous migration of methane and other gases to
the Earth's surface and that this methane is then converted
into oil and gas in the upper layers of the Earth’s
crust. However, this reaction is not thermodynamically
favourable under these conditions and can not be facilitated
by the presence of bacteria. In addition, deep
drilling of the Siljan Ring did not offer any convincing
evidence for a dominant mantle source for hydrocarbon
formation there. This theory is therefore invalid."

http://static.scribd.com/docs/j79lhbgbjbqrb.pdf " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


(***If you quote an economist at me about anything anymore, I will vomit, since they are only useful for forensics, and should not be trusted to predict anything at all with accuracy.Economists get paid to make predictions which inevitably fail. As for people in the financial industry who crow about their predictions in terms of the housing crisis etc. Three words: "All Bubbles Pop". It does not take sophisticated computer modeling to figure this out.)


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 10:42 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Heruka said:
http://real-agenda.com/2011/10/04/honduran-farmers-slaughtered-in-name-of-global-warming/

Honduran Farmers Slaughtered In Name Of Global Warming

23 farmers in Honduras were slaughtered in cold blood by hired mercenaries as they tried to protect their land from being seized by a corporation who wanted to use the land to produce biofuels as part of a United Nations-accredited EU carbon trading scheme.
 
“Protests erupted in July when six international human rights advocacy groups presented a report to the EP detailing what they called murders and forced evictions of peasants in El Bajo Aguán Valley of northern Honduras, ” reports the New American.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/9243-honduran-deaths-trigger-eu-carbon-credit-clash " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Malcolm wrote:
Anyone who understands anything in the ecology movement, understands that stripping third world nations of agricultural land and pristine forests to plant monocrops for so called biofuels is a disaster. This is not an example of the failure of the climate change science, but a failure on the part of a colonialized goverment to protect its citizens againt rapacious corporate interests.

WTO and UN are in close league with one another. The WTO implements the treaties that UN engineers. The environment has largely been compromised by free trade liberalization; the UN mainly is a janitor for sweeping up the debris left in the wake of the world globalization of trade.

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
-- Adam Smith


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 10:33 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Heruka said:
if (typeof bbmedia == 'undefined') { bbmedia = true; var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = 'bbmedia.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); }
https://phpbbex.com/ [video]


Malcolm wrote:
Better hope so, because oil's time is running out.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 10:24 PM
Title: Re: Digital Tibetan Buddhist Altar
Content:
Ng'mu said:
critisize Malcomn


Malcolm wrote:
That would be "Malcolm". And what is your name?

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 10:21 PM
Title: Re: Digital Tibetan Buddhist Altar
Content:
Ng'mu said:
and esanhga's maric fall


Malcolm wrote:
E-sangha was hacked by tamil tiger hackers who were pissed at a debate about Sinhalese nationalism occuring on E-Sangha at the time-- then the hosting company pooched the backup when the database was corrupted. All very straightforward and nothing mysterious.

For the most part, all the other successful Buddhist boards are running under modified sets of rules developed out of their experience at e-Sangha.

E-Sangha, for the most part, failed because it tried to satisfy the competing values of three major Buddhist traditions, Thervada, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism. Now there are three boards, with three different sets of former E-Sangha moderators in these three spheres. And they all have policies more or less derived from E-Sangha with modifications made according to their own experience.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 10:14 PM
Title: Re: Digital Tibetan Buddhist Altar
Content:
Ng'mu said:
no luv you flamed it and the account went dead... so I couldnt respond with fudo-udo
I found it odd, until I saw what happened later
then it appeared to be a habit
Must say I was once banned from esangha by my vajra bro Namdrol.


Namdrol said:
Unlikely.


Malcolm wrote:
Wasn't me. I don't flame peope either. Not for incorrect opinions. If you were banned, it was by someone else. I never banned anyone for simply disagreeing with an opinion of mine. In fact, I banned very few people. People who persisted in signing in under multiple user names, who tried to get around suspensions, and so yes, but never for disagreeing with something I said. So you are mistaken. Also, when I banned someone, I always let them know why. If you did not receive an email from me informing you of why you were being banned, then I did not do it. I cannot speak for other moderators.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 10:08 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
tobes said:
Deep ecology is an interesting one. I'm not convinced that a Buddhist ontology naturally leads in that direction....usually there is a Spinozist kind of monism underpinning deep ecology, and/or a German romanticism which reifies "nature" to be God's playground.

Malcolm wrote:
Naess's thinking was influenced by Spinoza, Mahāyana Buddhism, eetc.

However, Buddhist ethics are not androcentric.

tobes said:
I think maybe in some of the East Asian Buddhisms, where there are Taoist influences coupled with Buddha Nature extended into the phenomenal world, a deep ecology could be defended. And I suppose within the context of Tibetan Buddhism, the kinship between humans, spirits and environment involves a very delicate interdependence. So I suppose that is where the idea is coming from.

Malcolm wrote:
Classical ecological appeals in Buddhist literature (and always to kings) tend be social in their wording, but the assumptions they spring from are deep.

tobes said:
But I'm not sure about the Indian traditions per se. The natural world is considered conditioned like everything else. Impermanent, something to be liberated from. There is no metaphysical reason to privilege the natural or biological world ahead of the world of production and social relation. There are all imbued with the same ontology.

Malcolm wrote:
I don't agree. What one is liberated from are the afflictions, one is liberated in the world. The common metaphor of environmental harmony in classical Indian sources is the rishi surrounded by predators and prey in a jungle retreat where all are abiding peacefully.

tobes said:
And actually, I quite like EF Schumacher's argument: a Buddhist inspired economics would begin by an ethical consideration of what is really valuable for humans. Production is important because, not only do we need to eat, but if it is structured ethically, it offers the possibility of kusala activity.

I think maybe deep ecology devalues production too much. As far as I can see, the problem is not production per se, but how it is currently configured and what motivates it.

Malcolm wrote:
I think you are conflating anarcho-primitivism with deep ecology. Deep ecology is not a form neo-ludditism.

For example, Naess writes:

"The early morning sun also lightens up a faraway (thirty miles long) string of metallic electric masts and thick wires -- hydroelectric power destined for Oslo, two hundred miles away. Each mast is an elegant structure revealing much love and ingenuity on the part of the engineers, but such a string of masts transforms the landscape. If only a few mountainous landscapes were changed in this way -- why complain and feel sorrow? But the number of landscapes without these strange beings diminishes rapidly. There are now more than two million gigantic masts around. The masts would have have a less disturbing character if the power was used to increase the quality of life. But to a large extent, the power is wasted, which contributes to making people unaware of their fantastic material richness..." (An Example of Place: Tvergastien, The Ecology of Wisdom, Naess, Counterpoint, 2008)

However, he also notes:

"The environmental crisis could inspire a new rennaissence; new social forms for co-existence together with a high level of culturally integrated technology, economic progress (with less inteference), and a less restricted experience of life." (Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy, Naess, Cambridge University Press, 1993)

But here is a quintessential and often ignored principle of Naess's thinking. Many people unfairly claim that deep ecology insists that human beings must sacrifice themselves on the cross of environmental martyrdom, and sadly, many people professing the deep ecology view do make these kinds of claims -- but both parties have either not read Naess clearly, or they are choosing to ignore him. He writes:

"The special obligation we have for our own species requires us in the long run to ensure that a population has what is necessary to provide the conditions for reaching the ultimate goals of humankind and satisfying vital needs. Beyond that, our obligation is to life in general and to the earth as a whole aquire priority."
This is an echo of Santideva' instruction to preserve one's own health in order to benefit others.

And:

"High level humanitarian norms justify ecologically negative policies. The policies however should be short-range. And often, these short-range, ecologically harmful policies can be avoided through the cooperation of rich and poor nations on a greater scale than ever before." (Sustainability! The Integral Approach, The Ecology of Wisdom, Naess, Counterpoint, 2008)


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 10:07 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
mispost...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 5:03 AM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:


Kai said:
You sure that you really have no issue with that?


Malcolm wrote:
I could really care less about what Sakya Pandita or Gorampa thought of Nyingma Tantras. Sarma tantras are on no more a solid footing that Nyingma tantras. The issue of Indian vs. Tibean authorship is a non-starter.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 5:01 AM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Actually, most of Tibetan history is just Sarma propaganda of one type or another.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 3:12 AM
Title: Re: Is crying healthy?
Content:
Ng'mu said:
The Sancrit term Rudra means to cry.  So it is a fundamental aspect of samsara, suffering, sickness and death.
All of which one could argue, are not healthy.


Malcolm wrote:
Crying in the sense of yelling out....

rudra	mfn. (prob.) crying , howling , roaring , dreadful , terrific , terrible , horrible


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 3:11 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
Truthfully, deep green or left-biocentric thinking emphasizes bioregionalism, it is anti-capitalist and anti-industrial
N


Malcolm wrote:
This does not mean that people should not have businesses, or factories, but it does mean redefining what kinds of businesses and factories, as well as practices, are permissible.

Also, de-indivuation is bullshit worry. Post industrial Capitlism in it's present form is much de-individuating then deep ecology ever could be. Actually, deep ecology supports species diversity, including diverse speciation of humans.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 3:06 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:


Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
I mean "undermines the necessity to mentally prepare"? What does that mean exactly? It's just sounding very, very dangerous to me Namdrol-la, like was said in the excerpt I posted earlier. If we say well, we mustn't be "anthropocentric" doesn't that  seem like another excuse for people to "de-individuate" into a disenfranchised mass instead of empower themselves?

Malcolm wrote:
Buddhism is a eudaemonic view, and also suspectible to reactionary appropriation. But here the author is taking pains to point out that Naess's personal take on how to best prosecute deep ecology is too polite.

In other words, he is saying that deep ecologists need to be less worried about rocking boats, or thinking that by rocking boats, they are being bad deep ecologists, he provides the answer right here:

Deep ecology presents a dominant ‘social harmony’ view of social change. This can smother over contradictions in industrial capitalist societies, whereas a ‘social conflict’ view (which Left Biocentrism takes), which has historical roots in Marx and Marxism, is needed to combat ecocide and social injustice.

In order to engage in social conflict, people need to have discipline. The social harmony view, in Orton's mind, undermines the ability of deep ecology to be relevant to the social justive issues, which he regards as unfortunate since he sees human social justice issues as unfolding out of environemental issues. If you are too concerned with social harmony, then the trenchant inequalities and social justice issues of industrial capitalist societies will just go unheeded.

But since social justive issues actually spring from our unhealthy relationship with the biosphere, Orton says:
the left-right distinction is subordinate to the anthropocentric-deep ecology divide. Coming into a new relationship with the natural world is primary, and social justice for humans must keep this in mind ...
[/quote]

In other words, if we change how we relate to the world, human social justive issues will be more easily addressed.

Further, we frequently talk past each other because of how deep ecology has redefined the right/left divide. You are still thinking an terms of androcentic right/left terms. I do not. For me, androcentric = right wing; biocentric = left-wing.

The deep ecological intuition is that true social justice for human beings will flow out of a human social and economic reorientation with the the rest of our biosphere, and not until then. Since the deep ecological inuition transcends the androcentic right/left squabbles, the left biocentrism is free of the constraints of the old left/right paradigm. The struggle at present is that the green movement internationally has been largely coopted by post-marxists like social ecologists whose thinking is pervaded by moribund anthrocentrism. It is hard for people to see that deep greens are really green all the way through and not merely watermelons. Though I joke about being a watermelon, in reality, the watermelon analgy is sad. The real deep ecology approach is green all the way through.

Truthfully, deep green or left-biocentric thinking emphasizes bioregionalism, it is anti-capitalist and anti-industrial, advocates radical decentralization of power and governments, is concerned with human social justice issues because they arise out of our fractured relationship with our world etc. The underlying principle though is inclusion of all beings in all descision making, hence John Seed's Council of All Beings, etc.

Anarchism, too, is entirely androcentric, and that places it to the right of the equation.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
I would just be very, very worried and concerned about this approach instead of a social-sustainability and social-justice model.

Malcolm wrote:
Nothing to worry about, it is not like deep ecology/left-biocntrism is taking the world by storm, though it would be better for everyone if it did.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 2:20 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
World Trade, World Bank, Privatization

IMF Chief Economist Goes Public


World Bank: Chief Economist, Stiglitz Goes Public


From The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Greg Palast, reporter for the London Times

New York Times bestseller, part of two articles on the global economy taken from this excellent expose

The Globalizer Who Came in from the Cold: The IMF's Four Steps to Economic Damnation


"It has condemned people to death," the former apparatchik told me in a scene out of a Le Carre novel. The brilliant old agent comes in from the cold, crosses to our side and, in hours of de­briefing, empties his memory of horrors committed in the name of a political ideology he now realizes has gone rotten. Here be­fore me was a catch far bigger than some used Cold War spy. Joseph Stiglitz was chief economist of the World Bank. To a great extent, the new world economic order was his theory come to life.

I "debriefed" Stiglitz over several days—at Cambridge Univer­sity, in a London hotel and finally in Washington during a big con­fab of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in April 2001. Instead of chairing the meetings of ministers and cen­tral bankers as he used to, Stiglitz was kept safely exiled behind the blue police cordons, the same as the nuns carrying a large wooden cross, the Bolivian union leaders, the parents of AIDS victims and the other "antiglobalization" protesters. The ultimate insider was now on the outside.

In 1999 the World Bank fired Stiglitz. He was not allowed a discreet "retirement"; U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, I'm told, demanded a public excommunication for Stiglitz's having ex­pressed his first mild dissent from globalization World Bank-style.

In Washington we talked about the real, often hidden, work­ings of the IMF, World Bank and the bank's 51 percent owner, the U.S. Treasury.**

In addition to the Ecuador document, I had by 2001 obtained a huge new cache of documents, from sources unnamable, from inside the offices of his old employer, marked "confidential," "re­stricted" and "not otherwise [to be] disclosed without World Bank authorization." Stiglitz helped translate these secret "Country As­sistance Strategies" from bureaucratese.***

There is an Assistance Strategy specially designed for each na­tion, says the World Bank, following careful in-country investiga­tions. But according to insider Stiglitz, the Bank's staff "investigation" consists of close inspection of a nation's five-star ho­tels. It concludes with the Bank staff meeting some begging, busted finance minister who is handed a "restructuring agreement," pre-drafted for his "voluntary" signature (I have a selection of these).

Each nation's economy is individually analyzed; then, accord­ing to Stiglitz, the Bank hands every minister the exact same four-step program.

Step l
Step 1 is Privatization —which Stiglitz says could more accurately be called "Briberization." Rather than object to the sell-offs of state industries, he says national leaders—using the World Bank's demands to silence local critics—happily flog their electricity and water companies. "You could see their eyes widen" at the prospect of 10 percent commissions paid to Swiss bank accounts for simply shaving a few billion off the sale price of national assets.
And the U.S. government knows it, charges Stiglitz—at least in the case of the biggest "briberization" of all, the 1995 Russian sell-off. "The U.S. Treasury view was this was great as we wanted Yeltsin reelected. We don't care if it's a corrupt election. We want the money to go to Yeltsin" via kickbacks for his campaign.

I have to interject that Stiglitz is no conspiracy nutter ranting about Black Helicopters. The man was inside the game, a member of Bill Clinton's cabinet as chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers.

Most heinous for Stiglitz is that the U.S.-backed oligarchs' corruption stripped Russia's industrial assets, cutting national out­put nearly in half, causing economic depression and starvation.

Step 2
After briberization, Step 2 of the IMF/World Bank's one-size-fits-all rescue-your-economy plan is Capital Market Liberalization. This means repealing any nation's law that slows down or taxes money jumping over the borders. In theory, capital market deregu­lation allows foreign banks' and multinational corporations' in­vestment capital to flow in and out. Unfortunately, in countries like Indonesia and Brazil, the money simply flowed out and out. Stiglitz calls this the "hot money" cycle. Cash comes in for specu­lation in real estate and currency, then flees at the first whiff of trouble. A nation's reserves can drain in days, hours. And when that happens, to seduce speculators into returning a nation's own capital funds, the IMF demands these nations raise interest rates to 30 percent, 50 percent and 80 percent.

"The result was predictable," said Stiglitz of the hot money tidal waves in Asia and Latin America. Higher interest rates de­molished property values, savaged industrial production and drained national treasuries.

Step 3
At this point, the IMF drags the gasping nation to Step 3: Market-Based Pricing, a fancy term for raising prices on food, water and domestic gas. This leads, predictably, to Step 3l/2: what Stiglitz calls "the IMF riot." The IMF riot is painfully predictable. When a nation is "down and out, [the IMF] takes advantage and squeezes the last pound of blood out of them. They turn up the heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up"—as when the IMF elimi­nated food and fuel subsidies for the poor in Indonesia in 1998 and the nation exploded into riots. There are other examples—the Bolivian riots over water price hikes pushed by the World Bank in April 2000 and, in early 2001, the riots in Ecuador over the rise in domestic gas prices that we found in the secret Ecuador "Assis­tance" program. You'd almost get the impression that the riot is written into the plan.

And it is. For example, we need only look at the confidential "Interim Country Assistance Strategy" for Ecuador. In it the Bank states—with cold accuracy—that they expected their plans to spark "social unrest," their bureaucratic term for a nation in flames.

Given the implosion of the economy, that's not surprising. The secret report notes that the plan to make the U.S. dollar Ecuador's currency has pushed 51 percent of the population below the poverty line, what Stiglitz called their squeeze-until-they-explode plan. And when the nation explodes, the World Bank "Assistance" plan is ready, telling the authorities to prepare for civil strife and suffering with "political resolve." In these busted nations, "resolve" means tanks in the street.

Each new riot (and by "riot" I mean "peaceful demonstration dispersed by batons or bullets") causes panicked flights of capital and government bankruptcies. Such economic arson has its bright side, of course—foreign corporations can then pick off a nation's remaining assets, such as the odd mining concession or port, at fire-sale prices.

Stiglitz notes that the IMF and World Bank are not heartless adherents to market economics. At the same time the IMF stopped Indonesia from "subsidizing" food purchases, "when the banks need a bail-out, intervention [in the market] is welcome." The IMF scrounged up tens of billions of dollars to save the coun­try's financiers and, by extension, the U.S. and European banks from which they had borrowed.

A pattern emerges. There are lots of losers in this system, but two clear winners: the Western banks and U.S. Treasury. They alone make the big bucks from this crazy new international capital churn. For example, Stiglitz told me about an unhappy meeting, early in his World Bank tenure, with the president who had just been elected in Ethiopia's first democratic election. The World Bank and IMF had ordered Ethiopia to divert European aid money to its reserve account at the U.S. Treasury, which pays a pitiful 4 percent return, while the nation borrowed U.S. dollars at 12 per­cent to feed its population. The new president begged Stiglitz to let him use the aid money to rebuild the nation. But no, the loot went straight off to the U.S. Treasury's vault in Washington.

Step 4
Now we arrive at Step 4 of what the IMF and World Bank call their "poverty reduction strategy": Free Trade. This is free trade by the rules of the World Trade Organization and World Bank. Stiglitz the insider likens free trade WTO-style to the Opium Wars. "That too was about opening markets," he said. As in the nineteenth century, Europeans and Americans today are kicking down the barriers to sales in Asia, Latin America and Africa, while barricading their own markets against Third World agricul­ture.

In the Opium Wars, the West used military blockades to force markets open for their unbalanced trade. Today, the World Bank can order a financial blockade that's just as effective—and some­times just as deadly.

Stiglitz is particularly emotional over the WTO's intellectual property rights treaty (it goes by the acronym TRIPS, of which we have more to say later in this chapter). It is here, says the econo­mist, that the new global order has "condemned people to death" by imposing impossible tariffs and tributes to pay to pharmaceuti­cal companies for branded medicines. "They don't care," said the professor of the corporations and bank ideologues he worked with, "if people live or die."

By the way, don't be confused by the mix in this discussion of the IMF, World Bank and WTO. They are interchangeable masks of a single governance system. They have locked themselves to­gether by what they unpleasantly call "triggers." Taking a World Bank loan for a school "triggers" a requirement to accept every "conditionality"—they average 114 per nation—laid down by both the World Trade Organization and IMF. In fact, said Stiglitz, the IMF requires nations to accept trade policies more punitive than the official WTO rules.

Stiglitz's greatest concern is that World Bank plans, devised in secrecy and driven by an absolutist ideology, are never open for discourse or dissent. Despite the West's push for elections through­out the developing world, the so-called Poverty Reduction Pro­grams are never instituted democratically, and thereby, says Stiglitz, "undermine democracy." And they don't work. Black Africa's productivity under the guiding hand of IMF structural "as­sistance" has gone to hell in a handbag.

Did any nation avoid this fate? Yes, said Stiglitz, identifying Botswana. Their trick? "They told the IMF to go packing."

So then I turned on Stiglitz. Okay, Mr. Smart-Guy Professor, how would you help developing nations? Stiglitz proposed radical land reform, an attack at the heart of what he calls "landlordism," on the usurious rents charged by propertied oligarchies worldwide, typically 50 percent of a tenant's crops. I had to ask the professor: As you were top economist at the World Bank, why didn't the Bank follow your advice?

"If you challenge [land ownership], that would be a change in the power of the elites. That's not high on [the Bank's] agenda." Apparently not.

Ultimately, what drove Stiglitz to put his job on the line was the failure of the Bank and U.S. Treasury to change course when confronted with the crises—failures and suffering perpetrated by their four-step monetarist mambo. Every time their free market so­lutions failed, the IMF demanded more free market policies.
 
"It's a little like the Middle Ages," the insider told me. "When the patient died they would say, 'Well, he stopped the bloodletting too soon; he still had a little blood in him.'" I took away from my talks with the professor that the solution to world poverty and cri­sis is simple: Remove the bloodsuckers.

http://www.skeptically.org/wto/id6.html " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 1:58 AM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Kai said:
The historical issue is that somewhere along the past in Tibet, there appeared, out of nowhere, a wide variety of Dzogchen teachings and many of this teachings were said to cause people to practice wrongly and were Bon-influenced. In retaliation to prevent further unwholesome actions and misunderstanding of the Dharma, Sarma schools started a campaign to criticize some specific false Dzogchen teachings, scholars re-examined certain tantras and discovered some of them to be fake, etc.


Malcolm wrote:
This is just Sarma propaganda. So called tantras that were causing people to "practice wrongly" were such tantras as Guhyagarbha, Vajrakilaya, and so on. Gorampa identifies the kun byed rgyal po as a "fake" and so on.

But who cares? Really, this is just bullshit.

All it is one group of people who were mad that Tibetan termas were competing with Indian nidhi (treasures).

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011 at 12:30 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:



Malcolm wrote:
http://www.newsociety.com/Books/W/The-Wealth-of-Nature " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 11:49 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:



Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1108PSISHOVD/PPSIM847/PR


Malcolm wrote:
Oh, it is simple. Obviously we just renege on the debt. The Chinese are going to "reposses us"?

Simple declaring our goverment insolvent is the best thing to do.

Really.

Then, we enter a period of trade isolationism, rebuild our manufacturing, etc. And abandon the globalization that is actually at the root of all our problems, since Nixon.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 8:43 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
if (typeof bbmedia == 'undefined') { bbmedia = true; var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = 'bbmedia.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); }
https://phpbbex.com/ [video]


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 8:07 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
From the late David Orton, addressing dissonances between the left, especiaially social ecology and deep ecology:

https://deepgreenweb.blogspot.com/2011/01/deep-ecology-and-left-contradictions.html " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;:

Deep Ecology and the Left – Contradictions
“There is clearly both in capitalist and socialist politics things which can be modified and used in sane eco-politics but essentially green politics will be something deeply different.” Arne Naess, Ecology, community and lifestyle, p. 160.

“The most forceful and systematic critique of capitalism is found in socialist literature. This makes it natural for supporters of the deep ecology movement to use socialist criticisms of capitalism in their own work, and, looking at the slogans of green parties it is immediately clear that many of these slogans are also socialistic or at least compatible with some sort of socialism. As examples: no excessive aggressive individualism. Appropriation. Community, production for use, low income differentials, local production for local needs, participative involvement, solidarity. On the other hand, it is also clear that some socialist slogans still heard are not compatible: maximise production, centralization, high energy, high consumption, materialism…It is still clear that some of the most valuable workers for ecological goals come from the socialist camps. One of the basic similarities between socialist attitudes and ecological attitudes in politics is stress on social justice and stress on social costs of technology.” Naess, Ibid, p. 157.

“Deep ecology comes home as the strategy of advanced capitalist elites, for whom nature is what looks good on calendars.” Joel Kovel, The Enemy of Nature, 2002, 1st Ed., p. 172.


INTRODUCTION

This blog post is an examination of the contradictions I see in the relationship between deep ecology and the Left. I contrast in this discussion the human-centered traditional Left, with the ecocentric Left which has come into a relationship with deep ecology. With some notable exceptions (e.g. Judi Bari, Andy McLaughlin, Richard Sylvan, Fred Bender, Stan Rowe, Andrew Dobson and Rudolf Bahro), the Left has been hostile to deep ecology. Why is this? Is there something intrinsic to deep ecology, which is seen as incompatible with the beliefs of a person of the Left? Arne Naess, the philosophical founder of deep ecology, had an evident sympathy towards the social justice side of socialism. The above quotes by Naess clearly show this, as does the 1973 foundational article, “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement. A Summary.” However, for Naess and countless others, a new ecopolitics will be “deeply different” from socialist and capitalist politics and will not be some kind of add-on to socialism. The ecological question cuts across all “isms.”

The Left, no matter what its myriad forms have been, is politically associated with social justice for the human species. This is its universal symbolism and important contribution. I am a person of the Left. Concerning human-centered politics, my main sympathies are on the communist/socialist side. Anti-communism ends up signalling an alliance with Capital. There are legions of ‘Leftists’, particularly in North America, who do not share this perspective, having had anti-communism and the Cold War pounded into them and internalized from an early age. However, I believe that the ecocentric Left has to be Earth-rooted. It can be non-communist, but not anti-communist. Ecological justice for all species and the planet must be primary. For Arne Naess, this primacy of the natural world is considered an “intuition” and not logically or philosophically derived. We are first Earthlings, in personal and social consciousness, but we must also be involved in social justice issues for our own species. As the environmental cliché says, “There can be no social justice on a dead planet.”


DISCUSSION

I consider myself as both a supporter of deep ecology and a long-time Canadian leftist. Over the years my meshed sense of being has been sorely tested by fellow leftists – as in the misleading attitude towards deep ecology, conveyed, for example, by the Joel Kovel quote above. (See my review of his book.) But my personal identity has also been tested by my own criticisms of deep ecology, made from an ecocentric Left perspective. As I have written in the past, much deep ecology writing is obscure and not particularly relevant to practical environmental or green work. Also, most deep ecology writers do not present any real political, economic or class guidelines for activists. The response of deep ecology writers to criticisms from the Left and to my own writings, has helped me work out my contribution to the left biocentric theoretical tendency within deep ecology.

As the left biocentric tendency has gathered some support (the internet discussion group “left bio”, for example, has been running for over eleven years), I have found it necessary to distance myself from a few supporters who could not ditch their anti-communism and anti-Marxism, or who have attempted to bring into contemporary ecopolitics echoes of past Left divisive battles – often, it seems, associated with Trotskyism.

This distancing has also been directed at people who could not face criticism of their social justice support, e.g. for aboriginal positions. These people are opposed to seeing Earth justice as a priority (see for one example, my recent review of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry), or are uneasy about public calls for human population reduction (as in the eight-point Deep Ecology Platform. They also see deep ecology as a reformist eco-philosophy within capitalism; and are uncomfortable with my critical, yet friendly, support for someone like the Finnish eco-philosopher Pentti Linkola (see my review of his book).

Another problem for me concerns ecocentric Leftists who are stuck on being defenders of Israel and are seemingly blind to the horrible situation of the Palestinians.

Green parties have become shallow ecology defenders of industrial capitalist society, even if Arne Naess was supportive of them. The German Green Party theoretician Rudolf Bahro resigned from the party in the early 1980s, and pointed out that green party shallow ecology  is content to “brush the teeth” of industrial society. Nothing happened since Bahro made this statement which calls his observations into serious question. My limited experience with the Canadian federal Green Party reinforces Bahro’s statement.


SOME LEFT CONTRADICTIONS

Why is the Left so negative about deep ecology? And why is it misleadingly alleged by ecosocialist Joel Kovel that, “Like many deep greens, however, Orton hates socialism and considers it doomed to remain in its twentieth-century form”? (Kovel, The Enemy of Nature, 2nd ed., p. 302)

For the traditional Left, human interests have priority, not the health of ecosystems and their non-human inhabitants. There is a basic reductionism – “we have the answers” – in the thinking of the Left. I have found an intrinsic conservatism towards new ideas among the Left. This has always puzzled me, given that socialists want a new society, allegedly different from capitalism. Shouldn’t the Left be open to and embrace new ideas? The Left has to fundamentally move beyond its traditional human-centered thinking, to see what contemporary Earth-centered ecopolitics is about. Left reductionism takes various forms, but the current eco-Marxist variant claims that Marx really is an ecologist, if only we understand him correctly and therefore he is a (or the) role model for ecological work today. The 1988 proposal for a “Left Green Network”, inspired by Murray Bookchin and the ideas of social ecology, took the position that, to be a Green and also on the Left, could only mean to be a supporter of social ecology: “Left Greens are social ecologists.” There was no room at this network inn for left deep ecology supporters. (As a Canadian, one has to also note that the network proposal reflected the imperial nature of U.S. society, with Canada being considered an appendage for signing-on purposes.)

There is arrogance among socialists who think that they should be leading the ecological movement, because they have a “class analysis” and are anti-capitalist. What comes across is that the Left believes it is entitled to intellectual hegemony in the green and environmental movements, by virtue of prior knowledge. The Left does not seem to be able to absorb the pluralism of green and environmental politics – as Naess informed us, “the front is long” – let alone accept the earned leadership of others by virtue of their practical or theoretical work. Ed Abbey noted, through the character Doc Sarvis in The Monkey Wrench Gang, the importance of practical involvement in actual environmental struggles: “Let our practice form our doctrine, thus assuring precise theoretical coherence.” (p. 68) The idea that deeper environmentalists and greens can come to an anti-capitalist critique based on their own experiences, without studying Marxism or social ecology, but based on field experience, seems, apparently, difficult to grasp for the Left.

A contemporary manifestation of this Left arrogance, is their desire to define a future post-industrial-capitalist society as “ecosocialist”, and not as something being struggled over by countless environmental and green activists. By using this name, ecosocialists imply that they have the answers and know the path forward. Yet there are lots of tentative ideas about the shape of future post-industrial-capitalist societies. These are being widely discussed, experimented with, and written about, but it is a work in progress. There is no “ecosocialist society” on the horizon to which we all can rally.

Ecosocialists traditionally attack the ecocentric Left around population, aboriginal issues and about being critically supportive of theorists like Pentti Linkola. (This Finnish thinker has been called an eco-fascist. I do not believe this to be true, as my review of his recent book makes clear. In my next blog post I will further examine what “eco-fascism” is all about. I have recently become aware that those sympathetic to national socialism are not adverse to “borrowing” analysis from deep ecology to further their own ends.)

Other fault lines between the “ecosocialist” and ecocentric Left concern:
a) The ecosocialist hostility toward the spiritual component of social change as well as the promotion of a animistic spiritual/psychological transformation, so that the interests of all species override the self-interest of the individual, the family, the community and the nation.

b) Ecosocialists deny the role of individual responsibility in destructive ecological and social actions. They don’t recognize the necessity to practice voluntary simplicity so as to minimize one’s personal impact on the Earth.

c) A disagreement that it is not capitalism per se, but industrial societies that create the social formation at the heart of our dilemmas. The ecocentric Left believes that these societies can have a capitalist or socialist face.

Left doctrines in the past have focussed on the human condition, not on the well-being of other species and of Nature itself. From a Left perspective, nature and other species have been viewed as “resources” for human consumption. Deep ecology has zeroed in on this. John Livingston, the late Canadian eco-philosopher, who was not a person of the Left but who was a supporter of deep ecology – really Canada’s Arne Naess – has laid out in his writings the implications of “resourcism” for planetary health. (See “John Livingston – An Appreciation”. The benefits from this focus on human kind have been enormous for a number of us but deadly for the planet.


DEEP ECOLOGY CONTRADICTIONS

“The deep ecology movement carries an excessive amount of rubbish with it (in contravention, so to say, of its own platform). That does not imply that there is not a clean sound position to be discerned when the often inessential rubbish is removed...” Richard Sylvan

“Personally, I agree with almost everything you say in the Left Biocentric Primer...It’s a real shame that the Green parties came under the influence of Bookchin and not your version of Left Biocentrism – it’s obvious that’s where they need to head. So, I have no necessary bones to pick with your idea of a Left wing of the Deep Ecology movement, more power to you and your colleagues. I wonder if the word ‘Left’ is the appropriate one to use (as opposed to social justice).” Extract taken from a personal letter written by deep ecologist George Sessions to me, and also copied to Arne Naess, Bill Devall, Andrew McLaughlin and Howard Glasser, dated 4/19/1998.

Since coming to support deep ecology in the mid-1980s, I have tried to maintain a critical, yet supportive, stance towards it and, where it seemed appropriate, have given my dissenting views publicly. Richard Sylvan, the late “deep green” Australian philosopher and forest activist, was an early role model for me on this. In the past, I have raised various issues, for example:

a) I examined the criticisms that are raised about the key concept of Self-realization within deep ecology, e.g. that it ignores the importance of “place.” I emphasized that Self-realization must avoid feeding the self-help, self-cultivation, or personal transformation movement, at the expense of collective change. (See the My Path to Left Biocentrism document, “Notions of Self in the Age of Ecology”.)

b) I explored the confused views of Naess on ‘sustainable development’.

c) I disagreed with the view (by Naess and others within deep ecology) on the separation of the peace, social justice and ecology movements. I argued that this can feed a right-wing image and makes deep ecology supporters seem uncaring about human issues.

d) I criticized the anti-communist and anti-China attitudes of some Buddhist Tibetan supporters of deep ecology (including some left biocentrists) like Joanna Macy, past CIA employee (see my review of her autobiography Widening Circles: A Memoir.)

e) I exposed the self-absorption of some deep ecology-inspired academics – whose writings dominate journals like The Trumpeter – because the articles lack relevance to problems faced by movement activists which need deep ecology insights and analysis.

f) I supported the work of George Sessions and Bill Devall, in introducing and popularizing the thought of Arne Naess at an early stage in North America. Sessions and Devall are not of the Left and this was reflected in how they handled, or did not handle, criticisms (some justified) and attacks from Left-leaning critics of deep ecology. Note in this regard, Sessions’s uneasiness with the term “Left”, in the quote above; and Devall’s eagerness to state that the environmental movement was a “loyal opposition” and that “Political revolution is not part of the vocabulary of supporters of the deep, long-range ecology movement.” (See Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism, p. 386)

There are two important contradictions within deep ecology, which need to be resolved so that this eco-philosophy can further unfold its revolutionary potential:

1. Deep ecology presents a dominant ‘social harmony’ view of social change. This can smother over contradictions in industrial capitalist societies, whereas a ‘social conflict’ view (which Left Biocentrism takes), which has historical roots in Marx and Marxism, is needed to combat ecocide and social injustice. The social harmony perspective undermines the necessity to mentally prepare for the coming social strife associated with working for ecological and major social change.

Naess’s social harmony view (“Ultimately all life is one – so that the injury of one’s opponent becomes also an injury to oneself.” Selected Works, Volume Five, p. 26) produced some guidelines for activists which seem to be out to lunch. For example, “It is a central norm of the Gandhian approach to ‘maximize contact with your opponent!’”; or “Do not exploit a weakness in the position of your opponent.” I think this social harmony view has given an entry to those who have tried to smear deep ecology as being linked to fascism. In my tribute to Naess on his death, I quoted him as saying, when speaking of “intrinsic value” – a fundamental component of his philosophy – “This is squarely an antifascist position. It is incompatible with fascist racism and fascist nationalism, and also with the special ethical status accorded the (supreme) Leader.” (See “Remembering Arne Naess, 1912-2009”) While I unequivocally believe that deep ecology is not “fascist”, yet it does seem to me that a social harmony view of the natural world and the place of humans within this can be used by reactionaries in a fascist manner. Thus the “fatherland” or the “motherland” can be upheld as the supreme good to which the citizen must subordinate herself or himself.

2. A key belief in the philosophy of Naess is that “The ideology of ownership of nature has no place in an ecosophy.” (Ecology, community and lifestyle, p. 175) This is a powerful weapon to undermine the “private property” legitimacy of bourgeois society and its view towards the natural world, that our species has the ‘right’ to decide life and death over other species. Yet not many deep ecology writers in North America are articulating this belief, nor is the US-based Foundation for Deep Ecology promoting it. The now defunct magazine Wild Earth, subsidized by the Foundation, had a number of articles trying to uphold the ecological nature of private property ownership, in an American context. Today the Foundation, through its publications, celebrates “private lands philanthropy”, in North and South America – that is, using and hence reinforcing, the private property laws of bourgeois society to acquire lands for restoration ecology purposes. They never mention the basic deep ecology position of Arne Naess about land ‘ownership’.

I myself have joined with others to contribute funds to buy forest land here in Nova Scotia, in order to prevent its destruction from industrial forestry. But in my writings about this project I have pointed out the contradictions of buying land, resulting from the basic tenet of deep ecology that humans cannot ‘own’ Nature. (See “Community Lands and Deep Ecology”) Industrial capitalist societies are not ecologically or socially sustainable and have to be replaced. This must be said in all our restoration work. Restoration work has no long term future, if the dictatorship of industrial capital is not finally overthrown and replaced by an ecocentric society, which upholds the welfare of all species and is also socially just for humankind.


CONCLUSION

Perhaps it needs to be emphasized that whatever the contradictions within deep ecology, the thinking of Arne Naess, as I noted in my tribute to him when he died in 2009, “has presented a needed pathway for coming into a new, yet pre-industrial old, animistic and spiritual relationship to the Earth, which is respectful for all species and not just humans”. This is the needed message for our time. For left biocentrists, the left-right distinction is subordinate to the anthropocentric-deep ecology divide. Coming into a new relationship with the natural world is primary, and social justice for humans must keep this in mind. The Left can have a meaningful contributory role in a future ecologically focused and socially just post-industrial society, if it accepts and is transformed by the contribution of deep ecology and comes to see itself, in theory and in practice, as an ecocentric Left.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 7:59 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
1. Left biocentrism is a left focus or theoretical tendency within the
deep ecology movement, which is subversive of the existing industrial
society. It accepts and promotes the eight-point Deep Ecology Platform
drawn up by Arne Naess and George Sessions. Left biocentrism holds up
as an ideal, identification, solidarity, and compassion  with all life. "Left"
as used in left biocentrism, means anti-industrial and anti-capitalist, but
not necessarily socialist. The expressions 'left biocentrism' or 'left
ecocentrism' are used interchangeably.


2. Left biocentrism accepts the view that the Earth belongs to no one.
While raising a number of criticisms, left biocentrism is meant to
strengthen, not undermine, the deep ecology movement which identifies
with all life.


3. Left biocentrism says that individuals must take responsibility for
their actions and be socially accountable. Part of being individually
responsible is to practice voluntary simplicity, so as to minimize one's
own impact upon the Earth.


4. Left biocentrists are concerned with social justice and class issues,
but within a context of ecology. To move to a deep ecology world, the
human species must be mobilized, and a concern for social justice is a
necessary part of this mobilization. Left biocentrism is for the
redistribution of wealth, nationally and internationally.


5. Left biocentrism opposes economic growth and consumerism.
Human societies must live within ecological limits so that all other
species may continue to flourish. We believe that bioregionalism,
not globalism, is necessary for sustainability. The perspective of the
late German Green philosopher Rudolf Bahro is accepted that, for
world-wide sustainability, industrialized countries need to reduce
their impact upon the Earth to about one tenth of what it is at the
present time. It is also incumbent upon non-industrialized nations to
become sustainable and it is necessary for industrialized nations to
help on this path.


6. Left biocentrism holds that individual and collective spiritual
transformation is important to bring about major social change, and to
break with industrial society. We need inward transformation, so that
the interests of all species override the short-term self-interest of the
individual, the family, the community, and the nation.


7. Left biocentrism believes that deep ecology must be applied to
actual environmental issues and struggles, no matter how socially
sensitive, e.g. population reduction, aboriginal issues, workers'
struggles, etc.


8. Social ecology, eco-feminism and eco-marxism, while raising
important questions, are all human-centered and consider human-to-
human relations within society to be more important and, in the final
analysis, determine society's relationship to the natural world. Left
biocentrism believes that an egalitarian, non-sexist, non-discriminating
society, a highly desirable goal, can still be exploitive towards the Earth.


9. Left biocentrists are "movement greens" in basic orientation. They
are critical of existing Green political parties, which have come to an
accommodation with industrial society and have no accountability to the
deep ecology movement.


10. To be politically relevant, deep ecology needs to incorporate the
perspective advanced by left biocentrism.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 7:47 PM
Title: Re: Digital Tibetan Buddhist Altar
Content:
Ng'mu said:
Must say I was once banned from esangha by my vajra bro Namdrol.


Malcolm wrote:
Unlikely.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 9:12 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:


padma norbu said:
Neat. I feel we have a similar history of punk, outsider art, rebellious-streaking, drug-abusing, occult-dabbling, youthful nonsense.

Did you appear on any Psychic TV or Throbbing Gristle albums?.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes we do, and no I do not.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 9:10 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:


Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
What makes this Eco-la-la [deep ecology] especially sinister today...
http://libcom.org/library/social-versus-deep-ecology-bookchin " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Malcolm wrote:
Naess needs to be read on his own. Devall and Sessions are tired. No so important-- early adopters who were somewhat clumsy.

But the point that Bookchin misses is that Deep Ecology is not an ideology that can be easily summarized into a theory. Deep Ecology is more of a view, in the sense that we understand view in Buddhist terms. Boockchin is too caught up in leftist polemics to "get" Deep Ecology. There is nothing for a left-wing polemicist to grasp. Why?

The criteria of rights, for a deep ecologist is total. If you want to put into property rights terms, all sentient beings have a right to their own bodies and all the whole planet is a commons owned by none and shared by all living beings upon up. Human beings have the capacity to observe the harm we wreak on the environement, so we have a moral obligation not to do it or to allow. We have an obligation to attempt to preserve the commons of the whole environment for all beings.

Social ecology just doesn't get this.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 6:11 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Virgo said:
Namdrol, you were born in the Tiger year, but it was either month, day, or hour of the Snake, right?

Kevin


Malcolm wrote:
June 12th, 11:30 am, 1962.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 6:10 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
Occupational hazard of being a musician.

Virgo said:
The music of you sharing Dharma is far greater.

Kevin


Malcolm wrote:
In fact, the reason I ultimately wound up being a Tibetan Buddhist had everything to do with TOPY and PTV. The first time I heard a kangling was on the the bonus Themes when Force the Hand of Chance was issued in 1982. It may not have been available until 1983, and within a year I had procured my kangling and damaru, both of which I still possess and use, nearly 28 years later. Originally, I used them both in performances.

I played fiddle, guitar, synths, bass, etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 5:53 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
And by the way you look completely wasted in that photo.



Malcolm wrote:
In those days, I was wasted a lot. Occupational hazard of being a musician.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 5:27 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
padma norbu said:
Cool...

Namdrol, were you ever into TOPY and that kind ov stuff? See thee new TOPY "Bible" he put out a year or so ago?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, I was a member of TOPY, with designation Eden 59.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 5:14 AM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Virgo said:
Dzogchen, having no path

Malcolm wrote:
Don't be an idiot, Kevin. Dzogchen has a path.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 5:11 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
You will convince yourself once you develop compassion.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Again with the pronouncement.

Malcolm wrote:
Yup. Here is another one: is no such a thing as a right side in politics. Libertarians are frak, Socialists are frak, Commies are frak, Dems, Repubs, it is all bullshit.

Therefore, don't base your politics on ideology. Base it on the real world. In the real world, there are limited resources, limited energy, limited environment, limited water, etc.

Unless, one doesn't give a shit about anyone other than oneself -- then all these politics will make sense.

All of the things you are saying are just abtract talking points -- they do not relate to your life at all. But global warming does, lack of adequate health care does, depletion of rainforests habitat does.

A Buddhist recognizes that all sentient beings, ideally, have a right to live undisturbed. When I say "preserve" the commons, I don't just means for human beings. The libertarian view, specificially, is just more of the same tired old judeo christian roman property rights bullshit. It is entirely androcentric. This is why libertarians are some of strongest foes of the environmental movement and the worst climate-change deniers. It definitely isn't Buddhist. But then niether is communism, socialism, etc. The only position that is remotely Buddhist is deep ecology. But people don't like it because it is not androcentric enough.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 4:09 AM
Title: Re: Rang gzhan gnyis su byung
Content:
kalden yungdrung said:
Tashi delek dear Dzogchenpas, 

Below a term used in Dzogchen which does mean translated, originate as oneself and as another 

rang gzhan gnyis su byung - originate as oneself and as another.
 

Maybe some usefull suggestions? 

Mutsog Marro
Kalden Yungdrung


Malcolm wrote:
Arising as both self and other.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 4:07 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:



Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 3:39 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
And you haven't convinced me.

Malcolm wrote:
You will convince yourself once you develop compassion.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 3:27 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Ooo love Throbbing Gristle.

Though they asserted they wanted to provoke their audience into thinking for themselves rather than pushing any specific agenda (as evidenced by the song "Don't Do As You're Told, Do As You Think" on Heathen Earth), Throbbing Gristle [was] also frequently associated with the anarchist punk scene.
Almighty Wikipedia



Malcolm wrote:
TG were hardly anarchist punks. I was there. GPO and Namdrol -- 1984:


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 3:20 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Health care costs are inflating.


Malcolm wrote:
Yes, because American doctors charge more, and get away with it.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 3:18 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Virgo said:
Why is it so expensive?  Well the same medicines that are sold here for 20x the price or more are sold in South America for example for much, much less.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
So let's get rid of all trade tariffs. Eeek gasp horror globalization.

And who do you think was the biggest lobbier for ObamaCare? Big Pharma baby.

Malcolm wrote:
The Romney plan, adopted by Obama, is not health care reform. It is health insurance reform, done badly.

Single payer is the only way.

Yes, Globalization is a horror.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 3:14 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
And you haven't convinced me.

Malcolm wrote:
There's never a way
And there's never a day
To convince people
You can play their game
You can say their name
But you won't convince people

There's several ways
There's several ways
To convince people
It's the name of the game
It's the name of the game

Convincing people
Convincing people

There's several ways
There's several ways
To convince people
And there's several days
And there's never a way
To convince people


There's one way though
That you'll never convince people
And that's when you try
To be someone
Who's not telling
And who's not trying to compel
Who's trying to tell you
What you ought to be
Convinced of

So there's several ways
And there's several day
To convince your people
And you are the people

Convincing people
Convincing people
There's never a way
And there's never a day
To convince people

There's several ways
There's several days
We don't want to convince people
Let me tell you
I'll tell you what I want you to do
It's no way, no way, no way
To convince people

From Twenty Jazz Funk Greats, Throbbing Gristle, 1979


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 2:24 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Sönam said:
After you did provoke me, I'm estonished my questions are not answered ? ... are they unrealistic or even surealistic ?

Sönam

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Sorry. I'm having rant fatigue.

Je suis desole. J'ai la fatigue de déclamation extravagante.



Malcolm wrote:
Yes, there is no point in talking about these issues with crypto-fascist right wing nut jobs who are bent on destroying the planet because they believe in this fantasy called a free market -- even if they are our vajra siblings. We have to save them from themselves by making sure the commons is protected, that corporations are strictly limited in where they can and where they cannot do business [regulate them into submission, the bastards], and we have to make sure that everyone receives free health care, no matter who they are or where they live. But most importantly, and I shit you not, we have to save them from destroying the planet, which they will do if left to their own devices. But engage them in dialogue? There is no point.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 2:19 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
That by way, requires government adjudication. Legals question also require goverments. etc.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
If this was true then the vast majority of disputes in the U.S. today would not take the form of some form of ADR.

Malcolm wrote:
Who do you think instituted the ADR process?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 1:52 AM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:


Namdrol said:
Starts next tuesday.

Adamantine said:
Namdrol,  I found this below link via google, but when I hit the link it goes to the website for the anytime- cleanse and doesn't give any info about following it on these dates..
Fall Colorado Cleanse: October 11-24, 2011
http://www.lifespa.com/cc_now.aspx " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Join our 2-week at home detox and digestive reset program this Oct 11-24, 2011 which will be guided by John Douillard, DC.
\

I assumed the fall cleanse would be different then the spring one, and the link description sounds like it is guided in real-time.. but the link goes to just the anytime-cleanse..are you following this and do you have any insight?

Also-- in regards to the two options they give you for the warm-digest formula or the cool digest-- I am not sure which would suit me because I have symptoms that could indicate either-- any thoughts?

Thanks!


Malcolm wrote:
Go for the warm digest.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 1:25 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
taxes ought not be levied without consent

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Well, right on! Just insert the word "individual" before "consent", just like the original Articles of Confederation did, and we have liftoff!

Malcolm wrote:
If you want to play, you have to pay. If you owned land in the colonies, you were subject to taxes. People had some differences of opinion about what that meant, for example Shea's rebellion, which happened in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts, where I live. Shea lost.

There is fanatsy, and then there is reality. Libetarians are all right-wing political romantics, even the so called left-wing ones. Being allied to the right is an inevitable consequence of asserting property rights as a moral foundation for a government. It also inevitably leads to imperalism, since the commons are regarded as a resource to divided up into owned parcels. That by way, requires government adjudication. Legals question also require goverments. etc.

You will never see  a human speciies that does not have a centralized goverment. It will never happen and especially now as we are becoming more complex as a soceity.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 1:23 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Fact check:
John Smith married Pocahontas


John Smith did not marry Pocohontas. That distinction went to one John Rolfe.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 12:12 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Unknown said:
In particular, once a place or good has been first appropriated by, in John Locke's phrase, 'mixing one's labor' with it, ownership in such places and goods can be acquired only by means of a voluntary – contractual – transfer of its property title from a previous to a later owner.

Malcolm wrote:
And here we see why capitalism requires goverments -- Capital derives from labor; to protect that capital, one must forms protective associations from those who would seek to wrest the product of your labor from your grasp. As Locke points out, governments are expensive, but taxes ought not be levied without consent. Hence, is laid the ground for the citizen government that levies taxes against its own participants. Hence the fundamental requirements that a democracy have an educated citizenry. etc.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 12:07 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
The reviewer missed the section where the book chides Americans for wishing to impose an idealized vision of Southern England onto the American landscape.

The book is well worth reading because it shows how American agriculture has proceeded along the destructive lines of southern planters, rather than mid 19the northern restorative husbandry, despites its roots in an idealized vision of the English countryside. Restorative husbandry was introduced to the North in the mid nineteenth century because of the exodus to the west, farmers were abandoning exhausted farms and moving by the thousands to the new territoroes because they would expect to grow another 20 years of crops without having to make manure.

You really need to read the book itself. It is worthwhile and interesting.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
A few more questions on this and then I will shut up about it because I admit I really am not an expert on environmentalism.

Did the pre-improver farmers deliberately and with full knowledge of the consequences predate upon their own private property? Or was this basically pretty much a kind of lack-of-knowledge problem? And were the improvers a bunch of pro-statist legislators trying to regulate their way out of trouble? I mean from what little I can glean about this at some point Roosevelt (the first one) got involved but by then the improver movement was done. Or were they a bunch of farmers who basically said, um hey listen guys look at what's happening to our land and we need to start dumping massive amounts of cow poop back on to the soil for us to stay in the game here?

Malcolm wrote:
Basically, what happened was that after the revolutinary war, people in the colonies began abandoning their farms because erosion was rampant, rivers were so polluted with run off fish were dying, and so on. In other words, the agricultural practices of colonial farming was having wide ranging impacts on the whole civilization and everyone was being negatively effected. In reponse to this, northern farmers began to adopt sustainable husbandry practices from the English, and at the same time became critical of the westward push into the midwest by people who were abandoning what these "improvers" felt was perfectly good land, it properly cared for. Indeed, the book points out that Madison himself was something of a proto-Gaiean theorist who argued that we needed to understand the world as a total environment. These folks knew that warming was a result of deforestation and so on. The improvers were people who felt that current practices in the north, the practices of southern planters, and so on were regressive and ultimately, bad for the country.




Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
And - I'm sure you knew this was coming - if we're talking about self-ownership and agriculture, let's talk about federal farm subsidies. There's a prime example where the privatization of the commons has been utterly buggered up by the state.

Malcolm wrote:
We have fundamental philosophical disgagreement here -- the commons must never be privatized. It must be protected against privatization as well as overuse.




Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
It's the same kind of logical inconsistency that bothers me about "Occupy Wall Street". Here you have a bunch of Starbucks latte-sipping, iPhone using granola-heads chanting capitalism bad, capitalism bad, capitalism bad outside of Goldman Sachs ... and they don't realize that if we had pure 100% proof capitalism going on then Goldman Sachs by now would have gone the way of the dodo thank you very much. Because the only reason Goldman Sachs is still around is because of the statist policy of "too big to fail", because of statist bailouts, because it has its hands in the pockets of the state. If we can survive without Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers then why the hell can't we survive without Goldman Sachs? Well again don't ask Goldman Sachs why - all they're doing is cashing the checks the government is giving them baby, just like an old person cashes their social security checks. I mean, again, wouldn't you?

Malcolm wrote:
Your thinking is too simplistic -- like all political zealots.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 11:46 PM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Karma Dorje said:
The context in which all Buddhist teachings occur is that of the sutric explanation of bhumis and paths, so it only makes sense that apologists for a particular viewpoint like Dzogchen will couch their defense in these terms, particularly when they have come in for harsh criticism as being non-buddhist.  The point that I was making earlier is that the paths and bhumis themselves are conventional truth.  They are perhaps useful guideposts for one's practice and can certainly inspire one to develop the tremendous scope of a bodhisattva.  They are not, however objective ontogenetic stages that must be traversed in anything but a metaphorical sense.  They are most certainly not necessary to awaken.

A map is not the territory itself, nor the menu the meal.  They are useful tools, nothing more.

Malcolm wrote:
As I said, bhumis measure qualities, paths measure realization.

Since common Mahāyāna has no method connected with the human body, progress is measured by successive appropriation [via rebirth] of ever more refined bodies which are reflected in the gradual refinement of a person's continuum through the process of eradicating the two obscurations and gathering the two accumulations. These are a hard limitation which cannot be detoured around thorugh some conceptual and philosophical trick.

Vajrayāna, including Dzogchen has a methods connected with the body, and the the resulting paths and stages are measurable via experiences which are described in detail in both Vajrayāna texts and Dzogchen texts. Someone who does not have these experiences does not have the corresponding realizations. These are a hard limitation as well.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 11:40 PM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:


booker said:
Also, what you say seem to be asserting there's nothing which is not conditioned by time and space, by causes and conditions but in this way then also liberation (that is releasing from the cycle of rebirth) is not possible, since it would be just another conditioned state.

Malcolm wrote:
Liberation in Dzoghen, like all Buddhist schools, is predicated on the cessation of afflictions, and that is predicated on the eradiction of ignorance (avidyā), which is the obscuration of knowledge. Therefore, liberation is not a conditioned state in any Buddhist school.


booker said:
Please, what you mean by things like "a condition beyond time, beyond dualism, pure and perfect"? Is that simply an experiential absence of perception of time, space and dualism?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes.



booker said:
What does it mean when it's said a particular tantra has been written beyond time therefore it can't be can answer when someone is asking when it was written?

Malcolm wrote:
It means the tantra in question arises directly out of someone's experience of being liberated. That experience of liberation may exist in time [x was liberated on y date], conventionally speaking, but it's content is not dependent on time, since it is not dependent on really existing objects and so on, upon which time itself depends. Therefore, asking when a tantra was written is a text critical question, rather than a question of ultimate authorship.


booker said:
In Madhyamika treastises and oral traditions, dependent arising is often
said to be synonymous with emptiness. The term "dependent arising" never
appears in Authenticity, and in any case, it does not sufficiently characterize
how things occur. They are more significantly seen to arise from wholeness
through a manifestation process that gradually splits into apparent subject and
object, hardening and coarsening until they become solid materiality.20 To call
these phenomena "dependent arisings" is not wrong in this view but fails to
indicate their final nature.21 "Dynamic display" (rtsal) is a more precise term
ontologically for Dzogchen because it indicates this connection with the base;
it acknowledges the table as a spontaneous occurrence through the sound, rays,
and light that move forth from the base. As the process coarsens, thought
begins to designate it in certain ways. Thus, it is both spontaneous and reified
due to thought processes of designating it as such.

Whereas to understand dependent arising is to understand the emptiness
of Madhyamaka, such an understanding does not lead to the Dzogchen view.
From a Dzogchen perspective, the same table that Madhyamaka describes as
a dependent arising and therefore empty is, in addition, the dynamic display
of the base (gzhi'i rtsal). The main difference between spontaneous presence
and dependent arising comes not in connection with ordinary objects like
tables, however, but in relation to the base itself, especially in its aspect as
ultimate subject and in the way that phenomena, including thoughts, emerge
from that base.

Malcolm wrote:
Bonpos can say all they like there are no processes in the basis, but then they render their whole explanation unintellgiable.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 10:16 PM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:
booker said:
Thanks, didn't yet know Buddhists Dzogchen and Bon Dzogchen are different Dzogchen to degree of disagreement on (a seem to be) one of essential points.

About what you said on processes: whether they are casual or not - actually from the point of DO this is very important as DO is not beyond causes and conditions, that is, it relates to dependent phenomenas only. If someone says rays, light, and sound has nothing to do with causes and conditions means they has nothing to do with processes which DO is about. And how they actually possibly could, being beyond time and space? Process needs time and space, this trio is not in time and space.

How this is not relevant?

Malcolm wrote:
From a Madhyamaka pov there no phenomena which do not dependently orginate. From a Buddhist Dzogchen pov, the basis is not established as something real.

If you think there is something real that exists outside of time, you are deluded beyond hope of recovery.

The reason we say that the basis is "outside of time" is that from the perspective of the basis itself there are no objects, and time depends on objects. If no objects or entities can be established, how can we talk about dependencies or time? But that does not mean there are no processes, because if there were no processes, the basis could never arise from the basis, and so on.

There are a lot of differences between Bon and Buddhist Dzogchen. Since Bon Dzogchen is not fully grounded in Buddhism, it is a somewhat eternalistic in its presentation of these issues.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 9:10 PM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
"If one is attached to the swamp of debate, it is the māra of the afflictions. "
-- Tantra of The Great Self-liberated Vidyā


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 9:07 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Secondly, Locke basically invented the libertarian idea of land appropriation via homesteading. His entire theory of justice pertains to taking land out of “the commons” and respecting the resulting property rights:

Malcolm wrote:
A position I heartily disagree with. Homesteading violates your non-aggression principle. Some always claims possession of land. Your politics are entirely androcentric, as are the judeo-christian-roman underpinnings of it.

BTW, the Lockean principle of homesteading was the same used by Zionists to steal land of Palestinians. They have been working out the compensation ever since.




Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Finally, quoting Jefferson to support a statist position is as wierd as Ralph Nader quoting Patrick Buchanan. Jefferson was an anti-federalist.

History has informed us that bodies of men as well as individuals are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny.
Jefferson

Malcolm wrote:
I wasn't quoting Jefferson to support a statist position (though he was a statist, was a president, and so on), I was quoting Jefferson to show Jefferson understood and agreed with the Lockean principle of forming goverments or commonwealths to protect property, by using nearly identical language to Locke in the cited passage.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 8:58 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Ah, the tacit social contract. Always "tacit". Never explicit. There is no reason ever to suppose that individuals, in full possession of their natural rights, would ever in fact subordinate themselves voluntarily to a government. No government has, in fact, ever emerged from such explicit consent. The Constitution, if you read Howard Zinn, for example, was just a way for a bunch of rich human-farmers to consolidate their power into a statist entity.

Malcolm wrote:
You really don't pay attention, do you:

ec. 124. The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.

Means:

"...just a way for a bunch of rich...farmers to consolidate their power into a statist entity."

Why? To protect their property. And they do so voluntarily. As I said, Buddha's protection association principle.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 8:47 PM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:
booker said:
Hmmmm, Namrdol ofen says emptiness in Madhyamaka and Dzogchen has the same meaning, however currently I'm reading "Undbounded Wholeness" by Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and there's a part called "Core Philosophical Issues" where it's stated "Dzogchen and Madhyamaka speak of emptiness, they differ in their actual understandings of this".

Malcolm wrote:
Bon Dzogchen and Buddhist Dzogchen are slightly different.

What we say is that the main difference between Dzogchen view and Madhyamaka view is that the former is experiential and the latter is intellectual. But their content, their meaning, is the same as Jigme Lingpa writes:

“ I myself argue ‘To comprehend the meaning of the non-arising baseless, rootless dharmakāya, although reaching and the way of reaching this present conclusion “Since I have no thesis, I alone am without a fault”, as in the  Prasanga Madhyamaka system, is not established by an intellectual consideration such as a belief to which one adheres, but is reached by seeing the meaning of ultimate reality of the natural great completion.

Norbu Rinpoche states in his Questions and Answers on the Great Perfection:

That view established intellectually we need to establish consciously in dependence upon one’s capacity of knowledge and on convention. The way of establishing that is the system of Prasanga Madhyamaka commented upon by the great being Nāgārjuna and his followers. There is no system of view better than that.

What the Bonpos say is that Dzogchen view of emptiness and the Madhyamaka view of emptiness are different. We Buddhists definitely disagree.


booker said:
"a vital point: only if wisdom and delusion do not exclude each other can wisdom be primordial."

Malcolm wrote:
That does not match well with this statement in the String of Pearls Tantra:

The mere term delusion cannot be described
within the original purity of the initial state,
likewise, how can there be non-delusion?
Therefore, pure of delusion from the beginning.

booker said:
" Wisdom's status as primordial has to do with its being spontaneously arisen from the base and thus not dependent on causes."

Malcolm wrote:
The Unwritten Tantra states:

There is not object to investigate within the view of self-originated wisdom: nothing went before, nothing happens later, nothing is present now at all. Action does not exist. Traces do not exist. Ignorance does not exist. Mind does not exist. Discriminating wisdom does not exist. Samsara does not exist.  Nirvana does not exist. Even vidyā itself does not exist i.e. nothing at all appears in wisdom. That arose from not grasping anything.

If it arose, that means that even in wisdom there are processes. Wisdom is the basis, BTW.

booker said:
"Sound, rays, and light are thus neither dependent on the base nor dependency arisen from the base. They are spontaneously present to it. This is not understood as a relationship of cause and effect."

Malcolm wrote:
The basis possess three wisdoms, essence, nature and compassion. They manifest as sound, lights and rays. However, the Bonpos place much more emphasis on this doctrine than Buddhist Dzogchen does (where it mainly appears as an explanation of the experience of the bardo).

My point was that the there are processess in the basis, whether you want to call them "causal" or not is really quite irrelevant.

And actually Buddhist Dzogchen disagrees with this Bon assessment above. Padmasambhava states:

"Though the trio of essence, nature and compassion exist in reality, they occur as cause, condition and result because of ignorance."

But this is partly why I did not want to get into this. This topic is very complex, and is just a bunch of intellectual proliferation if you are not a practitioner of tögal. Just understand that there are processes in the basis. You can call them spontanous if you want.

Padmasambhava again states:

The luminous part of vidyā in the basis stirs as the five lights. The karmic winds, the condition of vidyā, cause the colors to appear as a house of light. Since that is not understood as wisdom, delusion cognizing the part of dualistic appearances produces delusion about the duality of subject and object.

Garab Dorje explains the reason why there is stirring in the basis in his commentary on The Single Son of the All the Buddhas Tantra:

At that time, from the naturally occurring blessings of the personal experience of the realization of the heart essence (snying thig), having recognized one's own state, in one lifetime, everyone will attain the result of Buddhahood. From now on, the emptied pit of samsara will not appear as the six kinds of living beings. For twenty thousand eons, sentient beings will not appear possessing a bodily form having severed the stream of samsara. After that, from the arising of the subtle latent defilements of different actions, samsara and nirvana will arise in the same way as before.

Why is this possible? Again, the String of Pearls clarifies:

Luminosity itself stores traces.

Luminosity ['od gsal], the nature [rang bzhin], which is the naturally formed [lhun grub] aspect of the basis, stores traces.

As I said, these issues are subtle, difficult and would take a long time to properly flesh out. Since these things take a long to time to flesh out, and since the explanation of the basis and the arising of the basis and so on and forth is really only relevant to tögal practice and is meant to provide a basis for understanding the result of that practice, delving into explorations of that topic prior to understanding the context of that explanation causes people to become trapped in a lot of useless conceptual proliferation.

Incidentally, I do not appreciate the tone of your comments.


N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 9:24 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
There is no question that such a life is appealing to the mind of us brooding intellectuals and arm chair farmers. No question that such a utopian vision is grand and would, no doubt, be superior to the life most lead in urban areas. No question of our inability to impose it upon a free society.
[/i]
http://www.conservativemonitor.com/society/2002016.shtml " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Malcolm wrote:
The reviewer missed the section where the book chides Americans for wishing to impose an idealized vision of Southern England onto the American landscape.

The book is well worth reading because it shows how American agriculture has proceeded along the destructive lines of southern planters, rather than mid 19the northern restorative husbandry, despites its roots in an idealized vision of the English countryside. Restorative husbandry was introduced to the North in the mid nineteenth century because of the exodus to the west, farmers were abandoning exhausted farms and moving by the thousands to the new territoroes because they would expect to grow another 20 years of crops without having to make manure.

You really need to read the book itself. It is worthwhile and interesting.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 6:34 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
Sure, and white is actually black.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
It cannot be supposed that [the hypothetical contractors] they should intend, had they a power so to do, to give any one or more an absolute arbitrary power over their persons and estates, and put a force into the magistrate's hand to execute his unlimited will arbitrarily upon them; this were to put themselves into a worse condition than the state of nature, wherein they had a liberty to defend their right against the injuries of others, and were upon equal terms of force to maintain it, whether invaded by a single man or many in combination. Whereas by supposing they have given up themselves to the absolute arbitrary power and will of a legislator, they have disarmed themselves, and armed him to make a prey of them when he pleases ...
Locke


Malcolm wrote:
This is not an argument against having a state. This mere selective citation. You need to include the beginning of the section:

Absolute arbitrary power, or governing without settled standing laws, can neither of them consist with the ends of society and government, which men would not quit the freedom of the state of nature for, and tie themselves up under, were it not to preserve their lives, liberties and fortunes, and by stated rules of right and property to secure their peace and quiet. It cannot be supposed ...

Locke does not in the end actually serve liberatarian ideology since he is interested in how a government will work in the interests of everyone.

His trip about private property merely is a continuation in British jurisprudence of Roman law around private property, which continues also in the American legal system.

In fact Locke says:

Sec. 123. IF man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom? why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and controul of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others: for all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him willing to quit a condition, which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers: and it is not without reason, that he seeks out, and is willing to join in society with others, who are already united, or have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property.

Sec. 124. The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property. To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting.


Ring any bell?  " lives, liberties and estates" = property. People form states to protect it. Jikan's statement is perfectly correct.


George Mason, in his declaration of rights for Virgiania wrote just that i.e. " That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

Jefferson modified this in the Declaration of Independence to read the following way:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

This is pure Locke.

Your anarcho capitlism is a desire to return to a state of nature of which, as Locke says, "there are many things wanting". It is in the end really no different than communism or any other utopian fantasy.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 6:23 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
The whole concept that ownership of property makes people care for the environment more is complete nonesense, as anyone knows who has bothered to study the history of agricutural in the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
If land is not owned by anybody, although legal formalism may call it public property, it is used without any regard to the disadvantages resulting. Those who are in a position to appropriate to themselves the returns — lumber and game of the forests, fish of the water areas, and mineral deposits of the subsoil — do not bother about the later effects of their mode of exploitation. For them, erosion of the soil, depletion of the exhaustible resources and other impairments of the future utilization are external costs not entering into their calculation of input and output. They cut down trees without any regard for fresh shoots or reforestation. In hunting and fishing, they do not shrink from methods preventing the repopulation of the hunting and fishing grounds.
Von Mises


Malcolm wrote:
You totally missed the point of my comment. I am talking about the ecological havoc wreaked upon the colonies by land--owning southern planters who had no interest in restorative husbandry at all, and land_owning northern farmers who refused to learn how engage in restorative husbandry properly. There is a vast literature in 19th century writing about these issues, should you care to read about them.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 6:05 AM
Title: Re: Lazy people should just give up, right?
Content:
Fa Dao said:
Correct me if I am wrong but isnt laziness, (like everythng else for that matter) to be viewed as an ornament of ones Rigpa?


Malcolm wrote:
yes, except when it is an ornament of one's marigpa.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 6:02 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Jikan said:
the state's role under capitalism is to maintain property rights

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Quite the reverse.

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/caging_the_beasts32.mp3


Malcolm wrote:
Sure, and white is actually black.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 3:47 AM
Title: Re: Lazy people should just give up, right?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Just give up. There is no hope for you. You don't even have Buddha nature.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 3:33 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed//environmentalism_part_1.mp3

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed//environmentalism_part_2.mp3

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed//environmentalism_part_3.mp3


Malcolm wrote:
The guy on this show is an environmental idiot and he has no clue.

The whole concept that ownership of property makes people care for the environment more is complete nonesense, as anyone knows who has bothered to study the history of agricutural in the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Larding the Lean Earth: Soil and Society in Nineteenth-Century America
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0809064308/ref=rdr_ext_tmb " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 9:36 PM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Pero said:
Maybe so, but as far as I understand it, in Dzogchen they are completed instantly.

Namdrol said:
No, that is the two accumulations.

Pero said:
Well yes but in Practice of Dzogchen (p.76), Paltrul Rinpoche is quoted as writing: "In Dzogpa Chenpo these Five Paths are perfected instantly."

Malcolm wrote:
Well, then, something is not working.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 9:19 PM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Kai said:
.........A certain Indian translator in Tibet at that time "had seen certain dzogchen texts in Magadha in the possession of some learned Indian masters there. Furthermore, many excellent practitioners in Tibet have achieved advanced pathway minds (Five Paths) and bodhisattva levels (Ten Bhumi) based on dzogchen practice. Therefore repudiation of these teachings is an appropriate cause for a fall to rebirth in one of the three worse forms of life."..................
As you could see Dzogchen practitioners do follow the five paths and ten bhumis in reality regardless of what people said. And the masters' explanations are not pure diplomacy but elaboration of the actual results.

Pero said:
Maybe so, but as far as I understand it, in Dzogchen they are completed instantly.

Malcolm wrote:
No, that is the two accumulations.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 9:08 PM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:
booker said:
Okay, but then, in causality, a certain effect can not be own cause, is that correct?

You were saying basis arises from (or out of) basis so that would mean it is own cause?

Also, typically what is illusion is "within" causes and conditions. In Dzogchen it is often said about out true condition, or true state (which I believe is equivalent terms to basis or kunzhi) which is beyond causes and conditions. Meaning basis does not depend on causes and conditions. How then you say base is illusory?

Or is simply basis name for shunyata, which means not "a thing", and means rather "how" everything works, like say a law. And in this way obviously a law has no condition, because it's just how we express the way of how stuff works. So in this case Dzogchen would not say anything above what is taught in Mahayana. Right?

But then again no, because Dzogchen speaks of rays, light and so on. And AFAIK these are beyond causes and conditions, but how they work is they manifest samsara if one has marigpa or they manifest nirvana when one has rigpa, right? But since they are esssence of those, they're not conditioned by those (by samsara/nirvana).

So what happens here we have say five rays, but they're not phenomenas right? (since all phenomenas arise from causes and conditions, and they "exists" in samsara/nirvana).

Not sure what is precisely about Advaita and I do not really care, however if we say basis is empty, that would mean rays for example would arise from causes and conditions - but this doesn't make sense, since they don't, right? They're essence of elements, so they can't be conditioned by elements, or anything. No?

Malcolm wrote:
You need to study this in a systematic way. It would take me days and days to fully answer these questions -- I am sorry, but I do not have the time. Perhaps one of our resident dzogchen masters is up to the task.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 8:42 PM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:
Namdrol said:
However, since there is causality in the basis, it also must be empty (...)

booker said:
I heard basis is empty, however it is also said it is beyond causes and conditions, beyond time and space. What causality you mean here?

Malcolm wrote:
The causality that causes the lights to shine out of the basis, which when recognized (rig pa) results in nirvana and when not recognized (ma rig pa) results in samsara.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 8:37 PM
Title: Re: Why don't Tibetan Lamas resurrect the old "Kapalika" type?
Content:
Karma Dorje said:
In point of fact most Hindus are scrupulously vegetarian whereas most Tibetan buddhists eat meat.

Malcolm wrote:
No, most Hindus avoid eating cows, but that does not make them vegetarians. There is still chicken, fish, lamb, goat, and so on.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 8:33 PM
Title: Re: Why don't Tibetan Lamas resurrect the old "Kapalika" type?
Content:
Karma Dorje said:
I should have put a finer point on that.  Amongst spiritually inclined Hindus rather than those merely accidentally born into a Hindu family, sattvic food is the norm...

Malcolm wrote:
Hot, spicey, oily, etc., food are not sattvic at all. Even the Indian vegetarian diet is more rajasic than sattvic. Hot/pungent, oily, salty, etc., foods are rajasic, whether from animals or not. Moreover, among sattvic foods, like honey, ghee, curds, and so on, these are derived from animals, and their quality depends on the type of farm they derive from and manner of production. There are vegetarian foods that are even tamasic, eggplant dishes, etc., not to mention processed foods, frozen foods, and so on that may be "vegetarian" but are all crap.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 8:26 PM
Title: Re: Longde Four Da practices of Vairocana
Content:
sunjohn said:
and few people in the community (and no other Dzogchen teachers that I met) seemed to focus on longde.

Malcolm wrote:
You should communicate with Jim Valby.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 8:23 PM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:
Adamantine said:
Namdrol, in TM is ashwagandha also considered a helpful herb to rebuild ojas?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, but better to take it in the preperation called dashmula which you can easily find which was other building herbs in it.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 8:22 PM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:
sangyey said:
Namdrol, in terms of cleansing the body, someone suggested to drink 8 glasses of water when you wake up (perhaps Chinese influence) and I have tried this a few times and notice that I do feel better afterwards. I have not kept up with this type of ritual but I wonder what Tibetan Medicine says about this type of water therapy as it seems that it would be naturally a rather good way to cleanse the body?

Thank you.

Malcolm wrote:
That sounds to me like a terrible idea and bad for the kidneys, if done regularly; done on occasion, and making sure the water is warm (boiled then cooled to drinking tempurature) it might be of some benefit, especially if someone is prone to stones.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 8:03 PM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:
Namdrol said:
Emptiness is the same thing in Dzogchen and Madhyamaka. Even rigpa is completely empty. But in Dzogchen we do not say that emptiness is dependent origination because of the way the term dependent orgination is used in Dzogchen. Not because Nāgārjuna is wrong.

booker said:
Thanks.

You answered Rigpa is not dependent originated awareness, but you say it's empty. Obviously this is a contradiction, but you say in Dzogchen dependent origination means something else. Can you please clarify?

Also, in Dzogchen there is said "emptiness" is our real nature, but also there's term "base", then base is explained in terms of essence, nature and energy. How this is the same as Dependent Origination from Madhyamaka? Is Madhyamaka DO different to traditional Pali DO (12 links, starting with ignorance, from it fabrications, from it consciousness, from it name-and-form... and so on).

Cheers.


Malcolm wrote:
First, one has to distinguish the general theory of dependent origination from the specific theory of dependent origination. The general theory, stated by the Buddha runs "where this exists, that exists, with the arising of that,this arose". The specific theory is the afflicted dependent origination of the tweleve nidanas. There is however also a non-afflicted dependent origination of the path. For the most part, Madhyamaka covers the principle general dependent originationi order to show that all dependent phenomena are empty. Since, according to Madhyamaka, there are no phenonomena that are not dependent, the emptiness of non-dependent phenomena is never an issue, like hair on a tortoise or the son of a barren woman, since there are no non-dependent phenomena at all.

Nagarjuna however does discuss the twelve nidanas, ignorance and so on, in chapter 28 of the MMK.

The basis in Dzogchen is completely free of affliction, it therefore is not something which ever participates in afflicted dependent origination. Unafflicted causality in Dzogchen is described as lhun grub, natural formation. However, since there is causality in the basis, it also must be empty since the manner in which the basis arises from the basis is described as "when this occurs, this arises" and so on. The only reasons why this can happen is because the basis is also completely empty and illusory. It is not something real or ultimate, or truly existent in a definitive sense. If it were, Dzogchen would be no different than Advaita, etc. If the basis were truly real, ulimate or existent, there could be no processess in the basis, Samantabhadra would have no opportunity to recognize his own state and wake up and we sentient beings would have never become deluded. So, even though we do not refer to the basis as dependently originated, natural formation can be understood to underlie dependent origination; in other words, whatever is dependently originated forms naturally. Lhun grub after all simply and only means "sus ma byas", not made by anyone.

Rigpa is not a phenomena, it is not a thing, per se. It is one's knowledge of the basis. Since it is never deluded, it never participates in affliction, therefore, it is excluded from afflicted dependent orgination. However, one can regard it as the beginning of unafflicted dependent origination, and one would not be wrong i.e. the nidanas of samsara begin with avidyā; the nidanas of nirvana begin with vidyā (rigpa).

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 10:38 AM
Title: Re: Creation Stage and the attainment of Bhumis
Content:
Karma Dorje said:
The bhumis are various lessening gradations of *ignorance*

Malcolm wrote:
Not so -- the bhumis are a progressive measurement of increasing qualities.

Paths measure realization.

The whole thing, however, beginning to end, is utterly illusory.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 10:36 AM
Title: Re: Buddhist Tantra has "unstruck sound" like Hindu Tantra?
Content:
Karma Dorje said:
I would hazard a shared genesis of much of the tantric tradition and a soteriology much closer than most partisan adherents of either system allow.


Malcolm wrote:
Definitely hazardous.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 10:34 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
The far bigger challenge to wrestle with as an anti-statist is not nukes or large scale weapons controlled by statists but what do you want to do about the issue of private ownership of guns - which is a better example of a voluntary exchange of goods which goods many consider to be dangerous.

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed//guns_part_1.mp3

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed//guns_part_2.mp3

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed//guns_part_3.mp3

Malcolm wrote:
From a Buddhist POV, trading in arms is wrong livelyhood.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 10:31 AM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:
deepbluehum said:
The Tathagata's emptiness is not DO'd in Nagarjuna's world, and ignorance never never came into being. I think this complies quite nicely with Dzogchen's understanding of gzhi.

Namdrol said:
What do you think a tathāgata's emptiness is?

deepbluehum said:
Unafflicted so no arising, dependent or independent.

Malcolm wrote:
You are asserting that dependent origination has afflicted emptiness? How can emptiness be afflicted?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 10:29 AM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:
Namdrol said:
If there is no mind, there cannot be a nature of the mind. The one depends on the other.

deepbluehum said:
This denies a conventional usage based on valid relative cognition. Everyone knows what is meant by the term "mind." Everyone has one. When describing conventionally "what is this mind like?", then we use the term "nature of mind" to describe a valid object of negation for the purpose of either analysis or meditative investigation.


Malcolm wrote:
Now you are just uttering refutations for the hell of it -- without bothering to read context.

It was queried whether the nature of the mind could exist whether there was a mind or not -- but such an assertion has obvious flaws, like asserting wetness without water, or heat without fire.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 4:59 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:


Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Under ahimsa, we must let that voluntary exchange occur.

Malcolm wrote:
No, it should be prevented.



Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
However when it comes to voluntary exchange of fissile material that type of transaction is pretty much entirely enmeshed with statist entities...

Malcolm wrote:
Not anymore, and not for some time.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 4:38 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
You are not answering the question because even you can see that the so called principle of non-agression is inferior to Avihimsa.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
You are the president of the United States. You have good intelligence that Iran is about to weaponize its uranium which it obtained through voluntary exchange with Russia. You believe in the principle of ahimsa. What do you do?

I would say ahimsa gets you about as far as the principle of non-aggression in this scenario.


Malcolm wrote:
The principle of Avihimsa permits violent interventions to prevent harm to others.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 4:03 AM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:
deepbluehum said:
The Tathagata's emptiness is not DO'd in Nagarjuna's world, and ignorance never never came into being. I think this complies quite nicely with Dzogchen's understanding of gzhi.

Malcolm wrote:
What do you think a tathāgata's emptiness is?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 3:54 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
Two people can voluntarily agree to exchange goods which are nevertheless harmful to those around them, for example, fissionable material.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
So the answer to this problem is to rely on the existing members of the nuclear club who own the existing fissile material in the first place to police this new transaction?

interesting little rant about Iran:

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_870_Current_Events_Sep_26_2007_Iranian_President.mp3

Malcolm wrote:
You are not answering the question because even you can see that the so called principle of non-agression is inferior to Avihimsa.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 3:51 AM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:
Unknown said:
It is that everything is emptiness, including dependent origination (samsara) and nirvana (not originated).

Malcolm wrote:
There are no other phenomena apart from dependently originated phenomena. Space and the two cessations are not real.

As Buddhapalita explains. "If there is something which exists, it must originate dependently and be designated dependently. Why? There are no phenomena at all that are not dependently originated, therefore, a non-empty phenomena does not exist."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 3:10 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
Well, it is unlikely you are going to get all those impure capitalists to go along with you.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
These things take time, it can't be implemented from the top down that's the whole point, that would just be a statist solution which would replace the old superstructure with another, like cutting off the head of the hydra and another taking its place, it can only grow from the bottom up.


Malcolm wrote:
As long as people are under the influence of the three poisons, for that long this sort of thing will never happen. You would better off abandoning libertarian social fantasies and focusing on the Dharma.

Buddha has already described how human beings devolved from a state of relatively peaceful anarchy. It all began when people began hoarding crops. As I said, states were created by a group of people to protect resources for common consumption. Corporations are formed by a group of people to exploit resources for personal consumption.

According to the Buddha, the first state was created in the form of a protection association, this is why the so called Kṣatriyas (protectors of the fields) with a rāja at its head, arose.

Anarchism is a form of political romanticism, as is libertarianism, as is my preferred pidgeon hole, deep ecology/left biocentrism.

I am a cynic. I do not believe that under present social and economic conditions, human beings are capable of living without governments. As a species, we are too afflicted to be able to treat each other with the proper respect idealist systems like anarchy, communism, and so on imagine we ought to behave.

I guess I am a Kali Yugaist at heart and regard such utopianism as pure romantic folly.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 3:03 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
Well, it is unlikely you are going to get all those impure capitalists to go along with you.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
These things take time, it can't be implemented from the top down that's the whole point, that would just be a statist solution which would replace the old superstructure with another, like cutting off the head of the hydra and another taking its place, it can only grow from the bottom up.

Namdrol said:
I personally do not need a principle of non-agression, since as a Buddhist I already observe the principle of Avihimsa which more wide ranging.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
If it was more wide-ranging it would include within its scope two persons making a voluntary exchange of goods and services without the interference of a third party pointing a gun at someone's head.


Malcolm wrote:
It is more wide ranging since the principle of Avhimsa extends to any transaction which can harm others, including all economic, interpersonal, and inter-species interactions. Two people can voluntarily agree to exchange goods which are nevertheless harmful to those around them, for example, fissionable material. Under your principle of non-aggression, this must be permitted as long as those two parties are engaging in this transaction without aggression. No one should prevent this exchange.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 2:20 AM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:
Adamantine said:
Namdrol, in TM is ashwagandha also considered a helpful herb to rebuild ojas?

I've never had a Tibetan doctor tell me to fast/cleanse--- I've had them tell me many other things.. once I was told to definitely not have sex or drink alcohol when I was very depleted and couldn't digest food well. Is there a recommended season to do a cleanse from TM POV? And would you want to be in prime good health before attempting this? Is there a Tibetan version of a cleanse, rather than the "colorado cleanse" Is it good for anyone to do on a regular basis, or is there some sign that indicates you really need to do it...

Namdrol said:
Seasonal cleanses are recommended in the rgyud bzhi. But the Tibetans do not have the custom even though it is taught in the textbooks of Tibetan medicine.

The reason I recommend the colorado cleanse is that it is based on very sound Ayurvedic principles, and it is the one I personally use. The week long cleanse in the rgyud bzhi is fine, very simple, but, in my opinion, is a little too simple. It is for a time when people were less toxified in general.

Everyone, across the board, who is in reasonable good health, should so a cleanse in the spring and in the fall. Ayruvedic practitioners time it with two festivals, one that occurs in April, another than occurs in October. So that is when I do it to.

Adamantine said:
Great, thanks Namdrol! When is the festival in October? Maybe I will try then too.

Malcolm wrote:
Starts next tuesday.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 2:20 AM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:
Clarence said:
Is there a place online where one can find how to do it or does one need to buy dr. Bouillard's book? It sounds interesting.

Malcolm wrote:
you can buy it at lifespa.com


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 2:17 AM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:
heart said:
So rigpa is dependent originated awareness?

/magnus


Namdrol said:
Not from a Dzogchen pov.

booker said:
If Rigpa is not dependently originated then what is emptiness in Dzogchen (since emptiness then can't be equated with DO, right)?


Malcolm wrote:
Emptiness is the same thing in Dzogchen and Madhyamaka. Even rigpa is completely empty. But in Dzogchen we do not say that emptiness is dependent origination because of the way the term dependent orgination is used in Dzogchen. Not because Nāgārjuna is wrong.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 12:29 AM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:
Namdrol said:
Different systems, different terms, different understanding. It is good to understand these differences and not conflate the terms of one system with another.

Kai said:
Agree with you.....Actually, thats what I'm trying to tell you when we discussed about "16 Bhumis and the five paths" thingy not long ago....

Malcolm wrote:
Right, but in Dzogchen, the sixteen path thing both encopasses the ten and thirteen bhumi system, as well as it is also used to describe thogal visions. It has both readings.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 12:28 AM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:


heart said:
So you are saying that emptiness and DO is not synonyms in Dzogchen?

/magnus

Malcolm wrote:
Of course not.

They are synonymous in Madhyamaka.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 12:13 AM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:
heart said:
So rigpa is dependent originated awareness?

/magnus


Malcolm wrote:
Not from a Dzogchen pov.

It would be considered something relative from a Madhyamaka POV.

Different systems, different terms, different understanding. It is good to understand these differences and not conflate the terms of one system with another.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 12:10 AM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:


Namdrol said:
If there is no mind, there cannot be a nature of the mind. The one depends on the other.

N

Acchantika said:
That which originates dependently is not "self-originated", "not created by anything whatsoever" etc.

Hayagriva said:
From Samantabhadra's prayer: The underlying basis is non-composite. It is an ineffable, self-arisen vast expanse named neither “samsara” nor “nirvana.” If just that is known, such is buddha; if not, such is a sentient one drifting through samsara. May every sentient one in the three realms know the ineffable fact, the basis.
I agree with Acchantika - this doesn't sound very dependently originated.

Malcolm wrote:
There are other texts in the cycle of the dgongs pa zang thal that define the basis further: The Second Vairocana aural lineage from the dgongs pa zang thal cycle claries this:

Since the basis was understood to be emptiness that has been forever cleansed, the path was not deluded by conceptual dualism. Since the result, the great wisdom expanded, the example of the great empty essence is “like space”. The example for the great luminosity of one’s vidyā is like the union of the sun and moon.

The way the Adibuddha arose: that latent basis is not established at all. When the time arrived, since that previously explained trio of vāyu, vidyā and space separated, the energy of space self-originated as kayās; the energy of vāyu self-originated as speech, and the energy of vidyā self-arose as mind. Since the body, speech and mind originated as self-originated from that basis that was not established in any way, compassionate vidyā did not engage in pride, object and mind were not separated into two. The mind that grasps external and internal did not arise, there was no clinging to the non-dual, he recognized his own face, severed mental proliferation, reversed clinging into dharmatā, instantly understood objects of knowledge, and since wisdom arise in himself, he fully awakened.

The point here is that the referred to basis is emptiness and it is not established in anyway at all.

Because the basis is emptiness, dependent origination is not contradicted.

The term dependent orgination is used differently in Dzoghen texts that in Madhyamaka. In Dzogchen texts it refers generally to post imuting ignorance state of six realms.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 11:53 PM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:


deepbluehum said:
This is a nice label to give, but it doesn't withstand scrutiny...

Namdrol said:
Sure it does.

deepbluehum said:
In your dreams.


Malcolm wrote:
Whatever arises dependently, 
just that you hold to be emptiness
Lokātītastava

That is dependent orgination,
that you hold as emptiness...
Emptiness is not different than things,
there is also no thing without it;
therefore, you have shown dependently originated
phenomena are empty.
Acintyastava`

I could go on in many other treatises not by Nagarjuan, but these suffice to make my point.

Dependent origination = emptiness. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 11:05 PM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:


deepbluehum said:
This is a nice label to give, but it doesn't withstand scrutiny...

Malcolm wrote:
Sure it does.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 10:34 PM
Title: Re: DO and Emptiness
Content:
Kelwin said:
If there is no dependently originated mind, there is no mind at all, and hence there is would be no nature of the mind of which to speak.

N
True, mind has of course dependently originated. But it's nature hasn't, has it?
And actually, the nature of mind, or Buddha-nature, doesn't ultimately really on the existence of mind I think.

Therefore, my position would be that all phenomena, and relative mind included, are both empty and dependently originated. And mind's nature is empty of any inherent existence, but has itself not dependently arisen. It actually is the ground within which dependent origination happens.

I must be one of the really slow ones, because I don't see where the above is wrong?

Malcolm wrote:
If there is no mind, there cannot be a nature of the mind. The one depends on the other.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 10:24 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
This is not a capitalist principle per se. It may form a part of libertarian theory, but it is naive and will not scale to whole societies.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
That's what they said about ending slavery.

Malcolm wrote:
Well, it is unlikely you are going to get all those impure capitalists to go along with you.

I personally do not need a principle of non-agression, since as a Buddhist I already observe the principle of Avihimsa which more wide ranging.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 10:21 PM
Title: DO and Emptiness
Content:
Unknown said:
That which is dependent origination
is explained to be emptiness.
-- Mulamadhyamakakarikas.

As you know one sentence can be taken out of context. Which this one is. But you two are free to continue with the same short shrift nonsense ad nauseam, if it makes you feel warm and cozy.

....

Readers should not think these two have settled the issue with DO=Emptiness. This simplistic formulation based on a quote taken out of context of what it was meant to teach has led apparently both of them to negate the efficacy of karma.
deepbluehum



Malcolm wrote:
I was purely responding to your assertion that dependent origination does not equal emptiness. The two terms are in fact synonyms.

I nowhere stated that I negated the conventionlly observed efficacy of karma and its results, nor would I.

However, we can examine karma too if you like. Nāgārjuna states:

"Why? This action
does not arise from conditions,
and does not arise without conditions, 
therefore, there is also no agent. 

If there is no agent, 
how can there be an result which arises from an action?
If there is no result, 
where will a consumer be observed?

Just as the Teacher's emanation
is emanated through his consummate magical power,
if likewise the emanation also makes an emanation,
there is again a further emanation; 

in same the way, though that agent
performs an action, it has the form an emanation.
For example, it is like another emanation created by an emanation
making a [third] emanation.

Affliction, actions, bodies,
agents, and results
are like fairy castles
mirages, and dreams.

I take Nāgārjuna's view. All phenomena are completely equivalent with illusions.

N

*in my previously rendered verses from the 4NT chapter in the other thread, through a fault of vision I misread brten (བརྟེན) as bden (བདེན) as so mistranslated "desginated through relation" as "designated through truth". My apologies. I was unable to fix it as the thread is locked.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 8:31 PM
Title: Re: What are some "must have" books?
Content:
Namdrol said:
Ummmm, Huifeng, you just proved my point -- this passage comes from the 內藏百寶經, i.e. the ārya-lokānusamānāvatāra-nāma-mahāyāna-sūtra or the  'phags pa 'jig rten gyi rjes su 'thun par 'jug pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo.

N

Huifeng said:
By the time of your sources, it has got "mahāyāna" in the title, but not at first.
It's probably been co-opted by the mahāyāna after the fact.
Using later Sanskrit names is not going to show what it was originally recognized as.

~~ Huifeng


Malcolm wrote:
Looks to me like Lokakṣema was primarily involved in translating Mahāyāna sūtras. My objection still stands.

Verses from it exist in the Prasannapāda(as well as Mahāvastu) but that merely shows that it may have reworked some earlier material.



It was first translated into Tibetan in 8th century.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 8:16 PM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:
Adamantine said:
Namdrol, in TM is ashwagandha also considered a helpful herb to rebuild ojas?

I've never had a Tibetan doctor tell me to fast/cleanse--- I've had them tell me many other things.. once I was told to definitely not have sex or drink alcohol when I was very depleted and couldn't digest food well. Is there a recommended season to do a cleanse from TM POV? And would you want to be in prime good health before attempting this? Is there a Tibetan version of a cleanse, rather than the "colorado cleanse" Is it good for anyone to do on a regular basis, or is there some sign that indicates you really need to do it...

Malcolm wrote:
Seasonal cleanses are recommended in the rgyud bzhi. But the Tibetans do not have the custom even though it is taught in the textbooks of Tibetan medicine.

The reason I recommend the colorado cleanse is that it is based on very sound Ayurvedic principles, and it is the one I personally use. The week long cleanse in the rgyud bzhi is fine, very simple, but, in my opinion, is a little too simple. It is for a time when people were less toxified in general.

Everyone, across the board, who is in reasonable good health, should so a cleanse in the spring and in the fall. Ayruvedic practitioners time it with two festivals, one that occurs in April, another than occurs in October. So that is when I do it to.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 8:58 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:



kirtu said:
You mean like the Dutch East India Company, or the British East India Company or Jamestown and similar ventures.

Malcolm wrote:
Nope.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 7:30 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
Since when has "pure non-aggression" ever been a capitalist principle?

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
if (typeof bbmedia == 'undefined') { bbmedia = true; var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = 'bbmedia.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); }
https://phpbbex.com/ [video]


Malcolm wrote:
This is not a capitalist principle per se. It may form a part of libertarian theory, but it is naive and will not scale to whole societies.

Capitalism in general, in any of its forms, right, left or center, is pernicious.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 4:18 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
Yes, groups _always_ form governments to protect their interests. This is why anarcho-capitalism is such a joke.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Mindstreams always form egos to protect their interests. This is why Buddhism is such a joke.

Malcolm wrote:
I don't think you can compare Buddhism with anarcho capitalism.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 4:17 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
They would have crumbled into little micro-corporations - as they were meant to do, and as they would have done in a pure capitalistic system.


Namdrol said:
No, this is not correct. In a pure capitalist system, a megacorporation would have become the government by now. Why Because they would have either bought or manufactured the guns to make it so.

N

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
The it would no longer be a pure capitalist system. Whenever anyone anywhere violates the nonaggression principle, you have lost any appeal to morality and are back to lions and antelopes.

The answer to the question of "who watches the watchers" however cannot be "well, the people who had the guns in the first place". That is just coercion, which has nothing to do with voluntarism.

Malcolm wrote:
Since when has "pure non-aggression" ever been a capitalist principle?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 3:50 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
They would have crumbled into little micro-corporations - as they were meant to do, and as they would have done in a pure capitalistic system.


Namdrol said:
No, this is not correct. In a pure capitalist system, a megacorporation would have become the government by now. Why Because they would have either bought or manufactured the guns to make it so.

N

Virgo said:
Agreed.  Greedy groups will always vie for power.  Generally, whoever can muster the most force or power, wins.

Kevin


Malcolm wrote:
Yes, groups _always_ form governments to protect their interests. This is why anarcho-capitalism is such a joke.

There is only one way to be any kind of anarchist, and that is to refuse to play at all.

However, no one lives in an isolated world, and we are not sufficiently advanced as species to live free of the social fiction we call "a government" since there are still resources that various groups wish to protect for their own consumption.

One can choose not to play, however, to some extent, and that is about as anarchist as most of us are going to get.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 3:46 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Namdrol said:
Deopendent origination and emptiness are synonyms.

N


alwayson said:
Thats what I said many times




Malcolm wrote:
Some people are a little slow, padawan.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 3:45 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
heart said:
Just find me a quote from Nagarjuna then saying that emptiness if dependent origination or else we are finished with this discussion.

/magnus

Namdrol said:
That which is dependent origination
is explained to be emptiness.
-- Mulamadhyamakakarikas.

Kelwin said:
Ok I don't know anything like you guys do. But again, this says DO is empty. It doesn't say that all of emptiness is DO? Does it?

Could we say for example that the nature of mind is empty, but not dependently originated?


Malcolm wrote:
If there is no dependently originated mind, there is no mind at all, and hence there is would be no nature of the mind of which to speak.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 3:41 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
The full passage, for context:

That which is dependent origination
is explained to be emptiness,
that is designated from truth, 
that is the middle path.
 
Why? A phenomena
that is not dependently originated does not exist,
therefore, a phenonomena
that is not empty does not exist.

If everything were not empty, 
there would be no arising and perishing,
and the consequence would be that for you
the four truths of āryas would not exist.

Deopendent origination and emptiness are synonyms.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 3:29 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
heart said:
And everything green is grass and Namdrol agrees with everything you say.

/magnus

alwayson said:
What the hell is that supposed to mean?

What do you think emptiness means?

"empty" = "dependently originated"

They are synonymous phrases.

This is not rocket science.



heart said:
Just find me a quote from Nagarjuna then saying that emptiness if dependent origination or else we are finished with this discussion.

/magnus

Malcolm wrote:
That which is dependent origination
is explained to be emptiness.
-- Mulamadhyamakakarikas.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 3:24 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
They would have crumbled into little micro-corporations - as they were meant to do, and as they would have done in a pure capitalistic system.


Malcolm wrote:
No, this is not correct. In a pure capitalist system, a megacorporation would have become the government by now. Why Because they would have either bought or manufactured the guns to make it so.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 3:20 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:


Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
You peak oil doomers always say tar sand development is only happening now because oil prices are high, but you also always say that prices are only high because of scarcity. In which case if more crude fields are developed, prices fall and we go back to crude for a while. So what's the problem? High prices fund the development of the sands, low prices fund the development of the crude.

Malcolm wrote:
There are finite limits to both, and both, along with coal, are destroying the environment.



N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 1:34 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
This guy's notion that wealth is created out of thin is air is pure Neo-con snake oil.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
I acknowledged myself he was a Tea-Partier.

So you, against Smith, basically don't agree that the means of production can produce something that is valued excess of those means?

Malcolm wrote:
One word:

Commodity fetish.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Then why bother to institute a system of redistribution if nothing excess of the means of production has been generated in the first place?

Malcolm wrote:
People do need to be fed, clothed, and housed. It is as simple as taking energy from one place, where it is stored, and expending it somewhere else.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 1:31 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
Unless you place your confidence in as of yet undiscovered energy sources, we are facing a wall. That energy wall will severly limit all global wealth production.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Two words for you - tar sands.


Malcolm wrote:
Peak oil does not mean there is no more easily recoverable oil. It does mean that we are past the peak where there will continue to be easily recoverable supplies of oil -- this will dwindle rapidly as our civilization requires increasingly large quanities of energy.

Tar sands merely prove my point. It is profitble now because oil is very expensive at the moment resulting from a increasing shortage of easily recoverable oil.

Oil from tar sands is very expensive to recover, compared to conventional oil. It is also an environmental nightmare.

You might want to read this:

http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34258_20071211.pdf " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There is in fact a finite amount of usuable energy on the planet. It comes from burnable recources like oil, coal, wood, corn, and shit and other forms of bio-mass.

That means there is a finite amount of wealth that can be generated from from the world at any given time. Since the world is also not infinite, we do not have infinite energy generators, as much as solar and wind advocates would like to imagine.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 12:20 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Eel-wriggling.



deepbluehum said:
You are not catching my meaning friend.

I'm trying to make Gorampa's point, perhaps in an unwieldy way.

...the thought that, having broken through the reification of grasping at truth, conceptualizes [things] to be mere imputations, is also said to be a form at grasping at the self of phenomena.
--lta ba'i shan 'byed

If you say "DO is emptiness," it is just a convention, a label. That is different than saying, "DO is emptiness. The Tathagata is emptiness. Therefore, the Tathagata is DO'd, and is just a mere label in my mind." This reasoning reifies the conventional as truth. Then, a Madhayamakan has to show that no, she or he has not made the logical argument that DO is emptiness, and that DO and emptiness are just labels. So just because that which arises conditionally is labelled "emptiness," does not mean the Tathagata is an object which we called "emptiness." In fact, the Tathagata cannot arise conditionally, because that would mean that which has transcended impermanence would not have done so. A "Tathagata" has relinquished grasping at truth and falsity, and so having cut the root of samsara, is unarisen.

"I didn't say DO is not emptiness," because first off a Madhyamakan doesn't make claims, and second of all because this conventional parlance is convenient, like bowing to a Buddha photo, because you can't bow to the nonarising essence.

"None of them said DO is emptiness," because Nagarjuna explicitly stated that "empty" and "DO" are just a labels. The key point being these labels do not justify negating the Buddha, karma, etc., by claiming the Buddha is a mere imputation.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 3rd, 2011 at 11:39 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Namdrol said:
Since we do not have infinite resources, "anarcho-capitalism" aka neo-liberalism, will and is destroying the planet.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
You are quite wrong. Wealth can be generated ad infinitum, that is the whole point.

Malcolm wrote:
You are living in a fantasy.

Economic activity requires energy, of which there are only finite sources.

For example, peak oil- we are past the point of peak oil. It used to be the ratio to expenditure to extraction was 300:1 (circa 1920). It is now 10:1 and rapidly declining.

Unless you place your confidence in as of yet undiscovered energy sources, we are facing a wall. That energy wall will severly limit all global wealth production.

This guy's notion that wealth is created out of thin is air is pure Neo-con snake oil.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 3rd, 2011 at 9:03 PM
Title: Re: What are some "must have" books?
Content:


Huifeng said:
But, as I mentioned earlier, check out the so called Mahāsūtras (cf. Skillings).  These are Sautrāntika sūtras that have some definition "all dharmas are empty" type teachings.  They are not present in the Pali, and even some of them have been lost.  Vasu quotes them a fair bit in the Kosa, too.  And, check out the Mahāsaṅghika commentary to the Ekottarāgama in Chinese, as well.  Also the Mahāsaṅghika school Lokānuvartana Sūtra 《佛說內藏百寶經》, which is heavy on the emptiness thing.

~~ Huifeng

Namdrol said:
Saying that all dharmas are empty or lack svabhava is not the same thing as saying that all dharmas are completely unreal and mere nominal designations of appearances.

Huifeng said:
So ... what do those texts I mentioned say, then?

《佛說內藏百寶經》卷1：「佛知諸經法本空本亦無所有。」(CBETA, T17, no. 807, p. 752, c7)
... the Buddha knows all dharmas as essentially (?) empty, and non-existent ...

etc. etc.

Many of these texts refer to all phenomena as "merely name", non-existent, and so on.

~~ Huifeng

Malcolm wrote:
Ummmm, Huifeng, you just proved my point -- this passage comes from the 內藏百寶經, i.e. the ārya-lokānusamānāvatāra-nāma-mahāyāna-sūtra or the  'phags pa 'jig rten gyi rjes su 'thun par 'jug pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 3rd, 2011 at 8:40 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
deepbluehum said:
Conventional language does not recognize that all things are DO'd, but conceives of them as unitary wholes.

Malcolm wrote:
That depends on the convention. That certainly is not the convention around things that are understood to possess parts, for example, machines.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 3rd, 2011 at 8:39 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
deepbluehum said:
Not sure if this is addressed to me, but I didn't say DO is not emptiness.

Malcolm wrote:
Ahem:
deepbluehum wrote:

None of them said dependent origination is emptiness.
N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 3rd, 2011 at 8:18 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
tobes said:
Without sovereignty to intervene, capitalism itself would have collapsed.

The fiction of state-less markets has proved to be utterly catastrophic.

A more misguided optimism, I could scarcely conceive.


Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
You are just worshipping a giant idol called the state that some rich dude made up.

Remove the idol and presto no more "too big to fail". No more corporate bailouts. No more lobbying. No more federal paybacks.

Statism is debt because democracy is debt. Democracy is bribery, bribery requires ever increasing debt, ever-increasing debt always collapses. Always.

if (typeof bbmedia == 'undefined') { bbmedia = true; var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = 'bbmedia.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); }
https://phpbbex.com/ [video]


Malcolm wrote:
Your vision is a world divided up among copoprations. It is essentially, coporate fascism meaning, that in end everything will be divided amongst corporations, with nothing to stand in their way.

States develop because people ally to protect common rescources. Corporations form in oder to exploit those resources. Without state invervention, time and again corporations have shown that they are rapacious and incapable of self-control when it comes to exhausting resources.

Since we do not have infinite resources, "anarcho-capitalism" aka neo-liberalism, will and is destroying the planet.



N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 3rd, 2011 at 8:17 PM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
tobes said:
Without sovereignty to intervene, capitalism itself would have collapsed.

The fiction of state-less markets has proved to be utterly catastrophic.

A more misguided optimism, I could scarcely conceive.


Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
You are just worshipping a giant idol called the state that some rich dude made up.

Remove the idol and presto no more "too big to fail". No more corporate bailouts. No more lobbying. No more federal paybacks.

Statism is debt because democracy is debt. Democracy is bribery, bribery requires ever increasing debt, ever-increasing debt always collapses. Always.

if (typeof bbmedia == 'undefined') { bbmedia = true; var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = 'bbmedia.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); }
https://phpbbex.com/ [video]


Malcolm wrote:
Your vision is a world divided up among copoprations. It is essentially, coporate fascism meaning, that in end everything will be divided amongst corporations, with nothing to stand in their way.

States develop because people ally to protect common rescources. Corporations form in oder to exploit those resources. Without state invervention, time and again corporations have shown that they are rapacious and incapable of self-control when it comes to exhausting resources.

Since we do not have infinite resources, "anarcho-capitalism" aka neo-liberalism, will and is destroying the planet.

The only sane alternative:



N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 3rd, 2011 at 9:40 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Virgo said:
This is what you guys should be listening to: http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1108PSINEWVD/6PSIM903/PR

Kevin


Malcolm wrote:
Porter Stansberry is an idiot. He is the guy who recently said that geology does not create oil, capital does.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 3rd, 2011 at 8:10 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
very optimistic about the future of free-market capitalism. I’m not optimistic about the future of state capitalism—or rather, I am optimistic, because I think it will eventually come to an end. State capitalism inevitably creates all sorts of problems which become insoluble.
Rothbard

tobes said:
Good luck with that optimism! Post-GFC has seen the unimaginably utopic dream of 'pure' free market capitalism collapse into a shoddy mess of irresolvable debt.

Without sovereignty to intervene, capitalism itself would have collapsed.

The fiction of state-less markets has proved to be utterly catastrophic.

A more misguided optimism, I could scarcely conceive.


Malcolm wrote:
Indeed.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 3rd, 2011 at 8:09 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:


deepbluehum said:
None of them said dependent origination is emptiness.

Malcolm wrote:
?

That which is dependent origination
is explained to be emptiness.
-- Mulamadhyamakakarikas.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, October 3rd, 2011 at 12:08 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
"Anarcho-communism" is just neo-liberalism without the need to actually justify its own existence in the marketplace i.e. Noam Chomsky academic ivory tower bullshit.

Malcolm wrote:
No, not even close.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 2nd, 2011 at 7:48 PM
Title: Re: Why don't Tibetan Lamas resurrect the old "Kapalika" type?
Content:



Namdrol said:
Souls, of course.


alwayson said:
Well, bundles of (dependently originated) skandhas designated as mere conceptual labels.

Malcolm wrote:
designated by mere conceptual labels, not as.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 2nd, 2011 at 7:39 PM
Title: Re: What are some "must have" books?
Content:


Huifeng said:
But, as I mentioned earlier, check out the so called Mahāsūtras (cf. Skillings).  These are Sautrāntika sūtras that have some definition "all dharmas are empty" type teachings.  They are not present in the Pali, and even some of them have been lost.  Vasu quotes them a fair bit in the Kosa, too.  And, check out the Mahāsaṅghika commentary to the Ekottarāgama in Chinese, as well.  Also the Mahāsaṅghika school Lokānuvartana Sūtra 《佛說內藏百寶經》, which is heavy on the emptiness thing.

~~ Huifeng

Malcolm wrote:
Saying that all dharmas are empty or lack svabhava is not the same thing as saying that all dharmas are completely unreal and mere nominal designations of appearances.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 2nd, 2011 at 7:37 PM
Title: Re: What are some "must have" books?
Content:
Huifeng said:
The status of the *Satyasiddhiśāstra is in dispute:  Some Chinese took it as Mahāyāna

Malcolm wrote:
Both Vasumitra and Paramartha identify the Bahuśrutīya as pro-Mahāyāna, with Satyasiddhiśāstra as their basic text. Of course, Satyasiddhiśāstra identifies the present moment as ultimately real, so hardly a non-realist postion like Madhyamaka.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 2nd, 2011 at 7:54 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Yes it was a silly argument.

But I stand by the rest.

This is just the old anarcho-communism versus anarcho-capitalism battle.


Malcolm wrote:
"Anarcho-capitlism" is just neo-liberalism i.e. Ayn Rand libertarian bullshit.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, October 2nd, 2011 at 7:03 AM
Title: Re: What are some "must have" books?
Content:
maybay said:
Which Hinayana texts teach the emptiness of all phenomena?

Jnana said:
For example, the Satyasiddhiśāstra. If more Mahāsaṅghika texts had survived, we would likely have many more examples.


Malcolm wrote:
The Satyasiddhi is a Bahuśrutīya text, an off-shoot of the Mahāsaṅghika. But it is not a representative of general Mahāsaṅghika, and it is not representative of so called Hināyāna school that fully embraces full śūnyatā since the Bahuśrutīya deliberately followed Mahāyāna. See Nāgārjuna in Context. Instead it is yet another example of post PP sutra schools.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 1st, 2011 at 9:19 PM
Title: Re: Evolution of humans and Mahayana Buddhism
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
He said that since we have to live in a world in which things appear to exist...

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, "things appear to exist". That is quite different than the blanket statement, "things exist".


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, October 1st, 2011 at 9:14 PM
Title: Re: Breathing Ashtanga Style
Content:
Clarence said:
So, I just finished an introduction to Ashtanga Yoga this morning. Very interesting I must say. However, some question arose. We were taught the three bandhas and how to hold the two lower bandhas while performing the Asanas. Now, I was always taught (in different yoga classes and pranayama exercises) to breathe through my stomach. When holding the bandhas, one breathes in a manner they call high thoracic breathing. Is that what is called vase breathing in Tibetan Yoga and how do I reconcile the discrepancy with the earlier learned stomach breathing?

Many thanks, C

Malcolm wrote:
No.

A bum can is concentrating the vāyu below the navel. But it can involved all three locks. So there are some similarities.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 9:43 PM
Title: Re: Why don't Tibetan Lamas resurrect the old "Kapalika" type?
Content:
alwayson said:
Why don't Tibetan Lamas resurrect the old Buddhist "Kapalika" type ascetics to compete with the Hindu sadhus in India?

Come on, its a competition and the Buddhists are losing.

booker said:
Competition for what?


Malcolm wrote:
Souls, of course.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 8:21 PM
Title: Re: Buddha Nature
Content:
DarwidHalim said:
May be I will answer in this way
Even now, we are already Buddha. The difference between Siddharta Gautama and us are Siddharta Gautama is the Buddha who is already wake up from his sleep, while we are buddha who are still sleeping.

Dharmakid said:
I like this interpretation, also. It's simple and it makes sense, at least to me.

Does anyone here object to the simple explanations? And why?


Malcolm wrote:
It's a contradiction in terms.

"Buddha" means "fully awakened one". Someone who is "asleep" is therefore not a buddha by definition.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 8:12 PM
Title: Re: What are some "must have" books?
Content:


Huifeng said:
It may just be.  The Chinese and East Asian systems in general had a range of stuff across the strict Vaibhasika / Sarvastivadin to Sautrantika spectrum, such as the various sastras, the Kosa, Sara, Avatara, as well as the *Satyasiddhi and *Catursatyani sastras; not to mention the PP Upadesa.

~~ Huifeng


Malcolm wrote:
This still means that Sarvastivada is the gold standard for Mahāyāna authors. The Mahāvibhaṣa was the dominant abhidharma text in India for centuries. The only reason Vasubandhu's Kośa became so famous is that he did such and excellent job of summarizing it's many details in a short form.

There was an attempt by Tibetans to translate the Mahāvibhaṣa, but according to tradition, only Bagor Vairocana was capable of finishing his section. This translation supposedly still existed as of early twentieth century.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 8:08 PM
Title: Re: What are some "must have" books?
Content:
Virgo said:
What I am saying is, in Theravada paramattha dhammas have sabhava.  They are said to really exist.

Jnana said:
Ah yes, you adhere to the doctrine of the "big four." Good thing that Ven. Ñāṇananda has sufficiently shredded that nonsensical commentarial tenet!

But again, none of this pertains to this thread. If you want dhammas to have sabhāva -- even though the Paṭisambhidāmagga explicitly states that dhammas are empty of sabhāva -- then that's fine by me.

Malcolm wrote:
Paṭisambhidāmagga is definitely post-Prajñāpāramita and likely post-Nāgārjuna.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 7:50 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Virgo said:
Are you committed to Bodhicitta?

Kevin


alwayson said:
Yes

When someone teaches the full path to Buddhahood, and not piecemeal, let me know.

Even Norbu does not teach the full path by his own admission.

Essentially you got to put in a lot ngondro, retreats and money to get the full teachings right?


Malcolm wrote:
Nope. ChNN does teach the complete path, the four visions, etc.

It does not mean that he teaches everything in every retreat. But webcast retreats are free for the cost of a yearly membership (180 in the US). That is many, many hours of teachings a year, plus access to many texts not otherwise available.

He will be in the US next year. I suggest you meet him in person.

Don't be like a musk hunter, leaving the corpse and stripping only the glands.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 7:35 PM
Title: Re: WOMPT & Sex
Content:
Namdrol said:
It is from Tibetan Medicine as well as Dzogchen Nyinthig.

Simply put, sukra [semen], both male and female is the the byproduct [kita] that is left over when the final product of digestion, ojas, is formed. Ojas is the real "bodhicitta" in the body, and directly supports the indestructible drop in the heart. N

wayland said:
Thanks Namdrol. So I guess, on this basis, the level of Ojas has more to do with correct diet than semen loss or retention?


Malcolm wrote:
That depends on a number of factors. Ojas can be lost with semen if a man's digestion processes are not good, if they are not eating well, etc. Other causes for the deterioration of ojas is stress, worry, poor habits such as staying up to late, not getting proper rest and so on. Also one is more likely to loose ojas with semen in the summer when one's diet is less nutrititous, less oily, lighter, rougher, and so on.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 5:42 AM
Title: Re: Why don't Tibetan Lamas resurrect the old "Kapalika" type?
Content:
alwayson said:
Why don't Tibetan Lamas resurrect the old Buddhist "Kapalika" type ascetics to compete with the Hindu sadhus in India?

Come on, its a competition and the Buddhists are losing.

Malcolm wrote:
We have Chö


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 4:59 AM
Title: Re: Evolution of humans and Mahayana Buddhism
Content:
PadmaVonSamba said:
You are arguing a commonly misunderstood meaning of sunyata (emptiness).

Malcolm wrote:
You are arguing a commonly misunderstood meaning of sunyata (emptiness).

As Nagarjuna says:

Whoever sees inherent existence, dependent existence,
existence or non-existence,
that person does not percieve
the truth in the Buddha's teachings.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 4:44 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:


alwayson said:
Logically you are saying that anything below the Third, is a false rigpa "known by the mind" as you put it (since no changes to the body's channels have yet occurred).

Malcolm wrote:
Not a false knowledge, an incomplete knowledge. The state it knows however is neither incomplete nor false, hence it deserves the name "knowledge" or rigpa.

Dzogchen does not work with the channels of the body in the same way as tantra, so it is a completely irrelvant point.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 4:09 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Kelwin said:
Bit of a miss-communication there. If you realize rigpa, you indeed realize emptiness. However, if you only momentarily experience rigpa, you don't realize emptiness.
Correct me if I'm wrong Namdrol, I know you will


alwayson said:
I don't get it either.

One's mirror-like nature AND emptiness are BOTH defined as beyond conceptuality.


Namdrol said:
I did. It is pretty straight forward. To put it another way, when a person ceases to reify phenomena in terms of the four extremes, that is the direct perception of emptiness. Until that point, their "emptiness" remains an intellectual sequence of negations; accurate perhaps, but conceptual nevertheless.

N


Malcolm wrote:
Mirrors don't think about reflecting images, they just reflect images. The same thing with the mind. It is just clear. That's all. That clarity is empty i.e. images do not belong to the clarity of the mind nor are they found apart from the mind. Moreover, that clarity of the mind itself is not established in anyway. It is not real. This principle can be known (rig pa) by the mind, but cannot be realized with the mind. This is why, in Dzogchen teadchings, the realization of emptiness and the so called "full measure of rig pa" occur at one and the same time. At that time your knowledge of reality becomes complete. Your rig pa, or knowledge has gone to its fullest extent. Then, after that, it is time to exhaust dharmatā.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 2:36 AM
Title: Re: HHDL speaks about .....
Content:
kirtu said:
There are no long term pacifist Buddhist states, Bhutan being the only exception.
Kirt

Sönam said:
... and there could be a lot to say about!

Sönam


Malcolm wrote:
And not even then...the last war Bhutan was directly involved in was 1865. There were was a civil war between 1882-1885 as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhutan_War " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugyen_Wangchuck " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Bhutan was basically a protectorate of the UK until 1947. That relationship was taken over by India in1949 and revised in 2007 which allows India full military access to Bhutan because of a border incident in 2005 between PRC and Bhutan. Bhutan has a standing army of 16,000 troops, so it is hardly "pacifist".

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 12:45 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Frankly, I get bored of answering the same questions by the same people over and over again. Even I have limited patience.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 12:44 AM
Title: Re: 5 organs, elements, spirits
Content:
Namdrol said:
"Elements", yes, for example, wood for liver, metal for lungs and so on. Spirit, no.


dakini_boi said:
So I take it, TM uses Chinese elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water) when discussing the organs, but Hindu elements (eart, water, fire, air, space) for everything else?

Malcolm wrote:
It uses the five phases for pulse diagnosis; the five elements (India) for everything else.



dakini_boi said:
I should clarify that by "spirits of the organs" I was referring to the wu shen (5 shen) - not spirits in the sense of entities that cause disease (which also exist in TCM), but 5 aspects of consciousness of a human being that are said to reside in the 5 solid organs.

Malcolm wrote:
That concept never made it into Tibetan medicine.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 12:29 AM
Title: Re: WOMPT & Sex
Content:
Namdrol said:
Semen, like feces and urine, is a waste product.

wayland said:
Hi Namdrol,
I have never yet encountered any instructions which equate the qualities of semen with those of feces or urine...Just curious, is the teaching on the parity of these substances a feature of your school or is it more widespread?

Malcolm wrote:
It is from Tibetan Medicine as well as Dzogchen Nyinthig.

Simply put, sukra [semen], both male and female is the the byproduct [kita] that is left over when the final product of digestion, ojas, is formed. Ojas is the real "bodhicitta" in the body, and directly supports the indestructible drop in the heart.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 29th, 2011 at 11:12 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Namdrol said:
No. Why? The creation stage can only bring one to the sixth bodhisattva bhumi. To progress further, the completion stage, therefore, is indispensible.

N

Kai said:
A unique Sakya school doctrine?


Malcolm wrote:
Perhaps.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 29th, 2011 at 8:35 PM
Title: Re: Buddhist Tantra has "unstruck sound" like Hindu Tantra?
Content:



Namdrol said:
I just this moment read an explanation in Pradīpoddyotanābhisaṃdhiprakāśikā by Bhavyakirti:

"A is Bhagavan Akshobhya; O is Bhagavan Amitabha and Ma is Mahavairocana".

N

Adamantine said:
Nice.. that just leaves Ratnasambhava and Amoghasiddhi unaccounted for


Malcolm wrote:
Not really, body, speech and mind are included here.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 29th, 2011 at 6:03 AM
Title: Re: Vimala
Content:
Namdrol said:
You should seperate Vimala from Magnesium citrate by about an hour. Vimala may be used as needed. It can be made a little more effective by taking it with warm milk or a small spot of brandy, port, or other aged alchohol. Vimala may also be taken early in the morning to calm anxiety.

Epistemes said:
What are your primary reasons for suggesting that Vimala be taken separately from Magnesium citrate?  Magnesium citrate has a number of benefits aside from my primary reason for making it a daily supplement.  Is there something in Magnesium citrate that could counter-act Vimala?

How does one determine when Vimala is needed versus making it a daily supplement?

Malcolm wrote:
Mostly because in Tibetan medicine we don't load up on pills all at the same time.

The purpose of Vimala is to help one sleep and otherwise reduce symptoms of vata disturbances.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 29th, 2011 at 2:50 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
alwayson said:
So basically realizing emptiness occurs when the mind winds stop moving?

Is that right?

Malcolm wrote:
not necessarily.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 29th, 2011 at 12:06 AM
Title: Re: Vimala
Content:


Epistemes said:
Thanks for the link.  I'll make sure to do a cleanse in the very near future.

But why is my solution bad, and why is being completely dependent on it not good?  I currently look at it from the standpoint of 'If they keep manufacturing this or similar products, I'm good 'til death.'  Plus, taking Metamucil has helped with cholesterol.

Malcolm wrote:
Because it means that you are not digesting food properly, and that will lead to major health crises later on. Better to prevent it now while you are still young.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 11:18 PM
Title: Re: Vimala
Content:
Namdrol said:
Why are you taking magnesium citrate?

Epistemes said:
I have to take this plus Metamucil everyday to prevent constipation.  I may have some form of collitis.  I went to a GI doctor about 3-4 years ago due to some problems with constipation, but by this time I had found the above remedy for preventing it.  He said that if the remedy worked, he would advise against a colonoscopy unless the symptoms got worse, which they haven't.


Malcolm wrote:
This a bad long term solution. You will become completely dependent on this.

I reccomend doing some sort of cleanse. Colorado Cleanse I think is one of the best designed.

lifespa.com

This should solve your issue.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 10:15 PM
Title: Re: Vimala
Content:
Epistemes said:
I recently purchased some Vimala from Siddhi Energetics.

When is the best time to take it - in the morning or before bed?
If in the morning, how long before a meal?
I also take Magnesium Citrate in the evening for digestion.
Should Vimala be taken before or after taking the Magnesium Citrate supplement?
Will Magnesium Citrate reduce the efficacy of Vimala?

Malcolm wrote:
You should take Vimala about an hour before sleeping.

Why are you taking magnesium citrate?

You should seperate Vimala from Magnesium citrate by about an hour. Vimala may be used as needed. It can be made a little more effective by taking it with warm milk or a small spot of brandy, port, or other aged alchohol. Vimala may also be taken early in the morning to calm anxiety.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 9:21 PM
Title: Re: Nakayamashingoshoshu Exorcism Gone Wrong - Buddhist Cult?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Exorcism by waterboarding ...


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 9:13 PM
Title: Re: Buddhist Tantra has "unstruck sound" like Hindu Tantra?
Content:
Gyalpo said:
In ChNN Rinpoche: Precious Vase, in the explanation of four understanding, there is understanding thrue nature of letters. O alone stands for body, because it is something concrete, for A you dont have to do anything, just open mouth, but O we have to make some effort and so on. May be this is the point for OM. And rigpa is explained as anuswara...


Malcolm wrote:
I just this moment read an explanation in Pradīpoddyotanābhisaṃdhiprakāśikā by Bhavyakirti:

"A is Bhagavan Akshobhya; O is Bhagavan Amitabha and Ma is Mahavairocana".

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 8:32 PM
Title: Re: Namkhas (colored-thread elemental) are they only Bon?
Content:
Adamantine said:
I have the book compiling ChNN's teachings on the meaning of and how to make a Namkha. . in the introduction, it seems to imply this is primarily a Bon practice. Is this true? I was thinking of making one and getting it blessed by one of my Nyingma Lamas but if it is primarily a Bon thing he may not know much about it or even approve.. does anyone have any insight? The book alludes to similar practices being widespread among indigenous cultures around the world, which is interesting..

If it is mainly Bonpo, is there an equivalent and effective practice among Buddhists to harmonize the elemental energies of the individual?

Malcolm wrote:
No, thread crosses began as Bon thing and were adapted to Buddhist practice by Guru Rinpoche.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 8:19 PM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:


catmoon said:
Now who would these people of poor understanding be? Who uses the term illusion-like?

Namdrol said:
Sometimes [quite often] teachers will speak the level of their students, when their own view is in fact higher or different. Why? Because sometimes teachers realize that they must feed the truth to their students in small doses.

Some people, hearing that all phenomena are completely equivalent with illusions freak out. Some people who hear that phenomena are empty, freak out. This is why it is a bohdhisattva downfall to teach emptiness to the immature.

N

tobes said:
By all means practice and teach Dzogchen, but do not pretend that every interpretation of emptiness must conform to it.


Malcolm wrote:
If an explanation of emptiness does not conform to Dzogchen, then it does not conform to Madhyamaka since the explanation of emptiness in Dzogchen and Madhyamaka are identical.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 8:16 PM
Title: Re: Buddhist Tantra has "unstruck sound" like Hindu Tantra?
Content:
Adamantine said:
If OM represents all three kayas then why when receiving the empowerments during Guru Yoga does it relate to the body - blessing, aka nirmanakaya?

Malcolm wrote:
Om is made of three parts A O Ṃ i.e. ཨ,    ོ , and   ཾ , hence it represents the three kāyas.

Though I am certain there is an explanation for why Oṃ represents the body out of body speech and mind (oṃ aḥ hūṃ), I don't have a ready answer.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 9:24 AM
Title: Re: Buddhist Tantra has "unstruck sound" like Hindu Tantra?
Content:
alwayson said:
Ok thanks

Is OM associated with Dharmakaya?

I've heard that before.


Malcolm wrote:
Om stands for the three kāyas.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 2:42 AM
Title: Re: Buddhist Tantra has "unstruck sound" like Hindu Tantra?
Content:
alwayson said:
I was wondering if Buddhist Tantra has an "unstruck sound" like Hindu Tantra?

In Hindu tantra the unstruck sound is OM, and it resonates from the Heart Chakra.


P.S.  If this is some top secret classified Vajrayana information, then ignore this thread.

Malcolm wrote:
The term anahata is translated intp Tibetan as mi zhig, which then gets translated in English as "indestructible", as in anahata bindu i.e indestructible drop.

but the meaning is quite different.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 2:40 AM
Title: Re: 5 organs, elements, spirits
Content:
dakini_boi said:
I know TM is influenced by both Chinese medicine and Ayurveda.  In the Chinese system, each of the organs has an elemental correspondence, as well as a "spirit" or aspect of the psyche associated with it.  Was any of this integrated into Tibetan medicine?

Further, TCM describes the dying process and what happens to the spirits of the organs.  For example, at least in one interpretation, the liver hun (ethereal soul) is what carries our karma/experience of past lives.  Is any of this discussed in TM texts/teachings, alongside typical Buddhist descriptions of the dissolution of the elements at the time of death?


Namdrol said:
"Elements", yes, for example, wood for liver, metal for lungs and so on. Spirit, no.


nirmal said:
This may sound a little silly but it is said that if the spiritual disturbance is removed first, then medicine taken by the patient will be very effective and the road to recovery is very fast. Does TM believe in that, Namdrol?

Malcolm wrote:
There are some cultural differences between Tibet and China, and the way "spirits" are understood is one of them.

AFAIK, while there are spirits or demons associated with most diseases, called "disease lords", they are not specific to a given organ, but rather govern a class of disease as a whole. Religious practice is always a component in any Tibetan medical treatment. So, the answer is yes and no. Yes in general, no on the specifics.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 12:19 AM
Title: Re: 5 organs, elements, spirits
Content:
dakini_boi said:
I know TM is influenced by both Chinese medicine and Ayurveda.  In the Chinese system, each of the organs has an elemental correspondence, as well as a "spirit" or aspect of the psyche associated with it.  Was any of this integrated into Tibetan medicine?

Further, TCM describes the dying process and what happens to the spirits of the organs.  For example, at least in one interpretation, the liver hun (ethereal soul) is what carries our karma/experience of past lives.  Is any of this discussed in TM texts/teachings, alongside typical Buddhist descriptions of the dissolution of the elements at the time of death?


Malcolm wrote:
"Elements", yes, for example, wood for liver, metal for lungs and so on. Spirit, no.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at 11:24 PM
Title: Re: Angioedema
Content:
Epistemes said:
My partner has angioedema, including hives and swelling in the fingers and toes.  Does TM cover how to treat something like this?

Namdrol said:
Yes, seeing a Tibean doctor may be of some benefit. Exact treatment would depend on a whole host of factors I cannot begin to predict.

N

Epistemes said:
Would going to an ayurvedic doctor be of similar benefit?


Malcolm wrote:
Yes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at 9:00 PM
Title: Re: 1st Lay vow ...what is the definition of 'physical actions'?
Content:
minimayhen88 said:
The 1st lay vow / lay precept / upasaka ..... of non violence


I was informed that ...."The vow or precept of not killing (harmlessness) only extends to physical actions" ..... Do these 'physical actions' include harsh speech and the mental actions of the mind? Or quite litorally only 'not killing'



Kindly,

A young lay follower, who wishes to keep their vow pure

Malcolm wrote:
Quite literally, only "not killing". The five lay precepts as a total apply only to one's physical actions (speech being a physical action).

Basically, there are ten non-virtues: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct for the body; lying, harsh speech, calumny and gossip for speech; malice, envy and wrong view for the mind.

Of these, killing, stealing, sexual misconduct and lying are covered in the vows, as well as intoxicants, for a total of five lay precepts or vows.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at 4:17 AM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:
Namdrol said:
It is the realization of your own emptiness to the fullest possible degree.

alwayson said:
Which is tactile bliss?


Malcolm wrote:
Well, that is a side effect.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at 4:05 AM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:
alwayson said:
If the Dharmakaya is free from extremes.

Then logically it cannot be separate from me??


Malcolm wrote:
Dharmakāya is not a thing, It is the realization of your own emptiness to the fullest possible degree.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at 3:33 AM
Title: Re: Ankle, Knee, Elbow Itch
Content:


Clarence said:
Will a good ayurvedic store know what pitta pacifying oil to give me when I ask?

Many thanks once again,

C

Malcolm wrote:
Yup.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at 3:16 AM
Title: Re: Lojongs, Rushens, and Semdzins
Content:
padma norbu said:
I don't remember the exact details, but I believe what I heard is that there are 9 levels. I asked how many people have completed and was told that nobody has even passed the 3rd or 4th level (forgot). I think actually the words were that the highest level as of right now is 3rd or 4th and nobody has completed them. In other words, the other levels only exist theoretically, I guess, because they are not even written out or discussed since there are no students. I don't know. But, since SMS has been going on for quite a while and involves quite a lot of old hats at this stuff who have been sitting on their bums for quite a long time now chanting mantras, writing books translating Tibetan texts (Jim Valby), I just don't see the point of even attempting it. Why get involved in something nobody will ever likely finish?

Pero said:
Oh I see. Rinpoche hasn't taught more than the 4th level. Apparently it gets quite difficult after the second level. They are written out though. Sort of. There exists a booklet called Santi Maha Sangha (I got it in Merigar, didn't see it online) and in it all levels of SMS are outlined in the form of a poem. There you can see SMS is really something alive, it's really about your own practice developing. Looking at it, it seems to me that completing level 9 basically means achieving Rainbow body haha.

As for your question. Why do you concern yourself whether others will finish it or not? Why don't YOU try to finish it?


alpha said:
what do you learn at the second and third level?

Malcolm wrote:
1-3 sems sde
4-6 klong sde
7-9 man ngag sde

BTW, everything that Rinpoche teaches in these nine levels he also teaches in general. The difference is that SMS is more systematic and a bit more detailed. But he teaches everything to everyone.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at 2:56 AM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:


Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Aren't you being a teenyweeny bit sneaky now Loppon?

...

Which is pretty much standard Sakya spros bral view. But now you use Buddhapalita to support mere non-affirming negation view, which slides back into Gelug emptiness.

Malcolm wrote:
No, Buddhapalita corresponds with spros bral. Buddhapalita's view and the statement gnas lugs med pa are completely consistent with one another.

You cannot ascertain Tsongkhapa's view in Buddhapalita. It is impossible.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 11:51 PM
Title: Re: Dalai Lama speaks on reincarnation
Content:


alwayson said:
I'm simply a supporter of HH Dalai Lama, although I am not a Vajrayanist.

Malcolm wrote:
HHDL is a self-proclaimed marxist.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 11:47 PM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:


Kai said:
Haribhadra, the same guy who wrote the famous Abhisamayalankara commentary?

Malcolm wrote:
indeed.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 11:39 PM
Title: Re: In need of guidance about vows....
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
The vow or precept of not killing only extends to physical actions.

However, the comittment of taking refuge in the Dharma is that one must abandon harming sentient beings in thought and deed.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 11:11 PM
Title: Re: Dalai Lama speaks on reincarnation
Content:
alwayson said:
P.S. Supporting socialism on a Buddhist board is improper, considering it is pure evil.

Malcolm wrote:
Which socialism did you have in mind? You sound like a follower of Ayn Rand.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 11:09 PM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Why push nihilism side so hard?


Malcolm wrote:
Who's pushing nihilism? Not me, sir.

As Buddhapalita quips "We do not advocate non-existence. We simply remove claims that existents exist."


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 11:08 PM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:
Namdrol said:
Omniscience is not as scary as it sounds. A Buddhas omniscience is predicated on the fact that all objects of knowledge, including buddhahood itself, are completely illusory.

This is also the view of Dzogchen i.e. everything, including buddhahood, etc., is completely equivalent to an illusion; not "like an illusion", as some people in Mahāyāna with a poor understanding hedge -- completely equivalent.

Kai said:
This is more extreme than some Yogacara originated schools, certainly a POV that Theravada and other Nikaya schools will never accept.........

Malcolm wrote:
This is the standpoint of Haribhadra presented his perfection of wisdom commentaries, so it is pretty standard Mahāyāna.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 9:34 PM
Title: Re: 2 Tibetan monks self-immolate amid Dalai Lama feud
Content:
mr. gordo said:
BEIJING (AP) — Two Tibetan monks set themselves on fire Monday in a protest over China's tight rein over Buddhist practices, a rights group said as the Chinese government reiterated it will choose the next Dalai Lama.

The London-based Free Tibet campaign said Lobsang Kalsang and Lobsang Konchok, both believed to be 18 or 19 years old, self-immolated Monday at the Kirti Monastery in Sichuan province's Aba prefectuture.

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/2-Tibetan-monks-self-immolate-amid-Dalai-Lama-fued-2188768.php


Malcolm wrote:
Fortunately they did not badly hurt themselves.

I don't approve of these acts of self-immolation.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 9:33 PM
Title: Re: Evolution of humans and Mahayana Buddhism
Content:
Aemilius said:
Another interesting point is the plurality of worlds that we find in Theravada and Mahayana buddhism. The idea was known in ancient Greek world, it was known in the islamic world,  one sentence in Quran speaks of worlds, it is also present in the Thousand and One Nights collection of stories. In Europe it re-emerges during the Era of Enlightenment. Thus for example Voltaire, in his novel Zadig,  says that besides Earth there are millions of inhabited planets like Earth in the Universe, each unique and different.


Malcolm wrote:
Sarvastivada Buddhist cosmology holds that there are a billion Jambudvipas, each one basically identicle.

Mahāyāna cosmology is a little more diverse, including the idea that the entire universe is contained in the body of the mahāsambhogakāya, Vairocana Himasara, with our world system being located with another world system called kusumatalagarbha alamkara which in turn is in the palm of his hand.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 9:25 PM
Title: Re: Evolution of humans and Mahayana Buddhism
Content:
Aemilius said:
Another interesting point is the plurality of worlds that we find in Theravada and Mahayana buddhism. The idea was known in ancient Greek world, it was known in the islamic world,  one sentence in Quran speaks of worlds, it is also present in the Thousand and One Nights collection of stories. In Europe it re-emerges during the Era of Enlightenment. Thus for example Voltaire, in his novel Zadig,  says that besides Earth there are millions of inhabited planets like Earth in the Universe, each unique and different.


Malcolm wrote:
No one said that Buddhist intuitions about multiple worlds was wrong. Just that rather late Sumeru Cosmology presented Buddhist texts dating from the common era is obsolete and has been superceded.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 8:55 PM
Title: Re: Dalai Lama speaks on reincarnation
Content:
alwayson said:
WOW

HH Dalai Lama is REALLY throwing down the gauntlet with the commies / socialists here.
Hopefully China becomes capitalistic, so we don't have to put up with their crap anymore.

Embrace Capitalism China!!!!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edf7xPbPZrc " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

narraboth said:
1. Religious freedom is not linked to socialism or capitalism. The main idea here is, Chinese Communist Party denies religion, but they want to get involved with religious issue, that's shameless.

2. China is kind of a capticalism country now, maybe more capitalist than some european countries, just china is without democracy.

3. Talking about making crap, maybe chinese government think the US national debt they hold are more dodgy. How about thinking capticalism's own problem before raising an unproper/controversial/Tea Party idea.

Malcolm wrote:
China is a mercantile state. This is a pre- Capitalist phase. Wiki states: "Mercantilism is the economic doctrine that says government control of foreign trade is of paramount importance for ensuring the prosperity and security of a state. In particular, it demands a positive balance of trade."

It continues:

Mercantilist policies have included:
High tariffs, especially on manufactured goods; [x]
Monopolizing markets with staple ports; [x, i.e. walmart]
Exclusive trade with colonies;
Forbidding trade to be carried in foreign ships;
Export subsidies; [x}
Banning all export of gold and silver;
Promoting manufacturing with research or direct subsidies; [x]
Limiting wages; [x]
Maximizing the use of domestic resources; [x]
Restricting domestic consumption with non-tariff barriers to trade. [x]


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 8:51 PM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:


catmoon said:
Now who would these people of poor understanding be? Who uses the term illusion-like?

Malcolm wrote:
Sometimes [quite often] teachers will speak the level of their students, when their own view is in fact higher or different. Why? Because sometimes teachers realize that they must feed the truth to their students in small doses.

Some people, hearing that all phenomena are completely equivalent with illusions freak out. Some people who hear that phenomena are empty, freak out. This is why it is a bohdhisattva downfall to teach emptiness to the immature.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 8:37 PM
Title: Re: Ankle, Knee, Elbow Itch
Content:


Clarence said:
P.S. I will look into shingles, don't know what those are off the top of my head.

Malcolm wrote:
Adult chicken pox.

Sounds to me like you might have a mild allergy to dog dander.

You need to wash all the clothes that you were wearing when you contacted the dog.

You need to rub a good quality pitta pacifying ayurvedic oil on the affected areas after you shower.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 9:22 AM
Title: Re: Tibetan Acupuncture
Content:
Fa Dao said:
While it is obviously true that Tibet is colder on the whole, there are places in China that are bitterly cold as well. As to the moxabustion unless you were discussing this with some older precommunist practitioners your information about Chinese moxabustion will be limited. Sadly nowadays in China as elsewhere moxabustion is only used for cold and deficiency disorders. It used to be used for both hot and cold disorders as well as deficiency and excess disorders. Not a lot that are doing that nowadays. This is due to a number of factors, one of which was not its lack of efficacy. Both moxabustion and acupuncture came close to becoming lost arts in China.

Malcolm wrote:
Moxa is used in number of ways in TM -- as a therapy in and of itself, it is mostly used for cold/kapha diseases -- it is also used to dispell the vata which comes at the end of an serious heat diseases, and so on.

It is generally contraindicated as a main treatment for virtually all heat diseases, the only exception is heat being driven by vata.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 7:56 AM
Title: Re: Tibetan Acupuncture
Content:
Fa Dao said:
Namdrol, I have to respectfully disagree...China is not only a "hot" place. In fact the weather there is quite varied. Ranging from below freezing to dry and arid to tropical. As to whether or not Tibetan moxabustion is superior to Chinese moxabustion, unless you are a practitioner of both Tibetan and Chinese medicine you cant really claim that either.

Malcolm wrote:
I have dicussed the way Chinese moxa is practiced with several OMDs and I have clinical experience in Tibetan hospitals with doctors who are fully cross trained in both systems. Tibetan moxabustion is more developed than Chinese Moxa. Acupuncture is more developed in Chinese medicine. This is just a fact, nothing to really argue about.

In general, compared to Tibet, the Chinese climate is quite warm.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 4:34 AM
Title: Re: Ankle, Knee, Elbow Itch
Content:
Clarence said:
Ah, that is too bad, but thanks for the answer anyway.


Malcolm wrote:
Has the heat gone on?

Do you have a food allergy, new clothes, new soap, new pet, new lover, new job? What has changed besides your recent cold?

Are you getting shingles perhaps?

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 4:14 AM
Title: Re: Ankle, Knee, Elbow Itch
Content:
Clarence said:
The last 2 nights I have been unable to sleep because I have very strong itching sensations around the ankles, on the front of my knees and at the back of my elbows. So, all places where the skin is very thin. Tonight it is also itching on my outside thighs. However, there is no rash to be found. Nowhere. I have been having a little cold the last 3 or 4 days. Nothing major and the first one in 2 years. I am generally healthy, so this is pretty strange. Any idea what this could be? Oh yeah, I don't have problems during the day. At least, nothing like when I sit down.

Many thanks, C


Malcolm wrote:
No clue.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 3:33 AM
Title: Re: Dzogchen Community of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu
Content:


Sönam said:
That I know, and Rinpoche underline it again and again, and I also say "he always teaches in "direct introduction mode"" ... what is not clear for me is why there is "special webcast cession for direct introduction" as all cessions include direct introduction. And when I said there must be a trick, I was thinking Rinpoche makes "special sessions" called direct introduction for those listenning could have no doubt about it (the fact that it includes direct introduction).

Sönam

Malcolm wrote:
IN that case he is not only giving introduction he is giving transmission of three roots, etc., depending on the day.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 3:26 AM
Title: Re: Tibetan Acupuncture
Content:
Fa Dao said:
thanks Namdrol...was there a time when it was used for more than that?


Malcolm wrote:
Never. It has to do with the theory of needle in Tibetan medicine -- i.e. it is used mainly for inflammation and heat diseases i.e. pitta and blood. It is considered a cold and rough therapy, not good for vata and kapha at all. So I always especially recommend that vata-deranged people generally avoid acupuncture unless there is serious reason for them to use it to cut the end of a heat disease.

Tibet is a cold place, China is a hot place. There are more heat diseases in China than Tibet. Our Moxa is much more developed than Chinese moxabustion. Why? Tibet is a cold country.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 3:20 AM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:
AlexanderS said:
This is one of the reasons I find it very hard to know what we working towards in buddhism and impossible to explain to anyone else.

Malcolm wrote:
All traditions are of buddhism are working towards the same goal, freedom from afflictions that are the cause of suffering. Some buddhist traditions, from Mahayāna on up, also aim at omniscience.

Omniscience is not as scary as it sounds. A Buddhas omniscience is predicated on the fact that all objects of knowledge, including buddhahood itself, are completely illusory.

This is also the view of Dzogchen i.e. everything, including buddhahood, etc., is completely equivalent to an illusion; not "like an illusion", as some people in Mahāyāna with a poor understanding hedge -- completely equivalent.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 3:17 AM
Title: Re: Tibetan Acupuncture
Content:
Fa Dao said:
I dont remember where I read it but I remember reading that at one time Tibet had as a part of its treatment therapies its own system of acupuncture. But for some reason it was banned or something. I am a Doctor of Chinese medicine primarily focusing on acupuncture and would love to know about its Tibetan counterpart.


Malcolm wrote:
We use needle on moxa as well as bloodletting points. But we generally only use needle on heat and nerve diseases, unlike Chinese medicine where they use it on everything.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 2:00 AM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:


Acchantika said:
I mean only that in sems sde the central focus seems to be on a basic, unconditioned awareness that is free from duality, which, coincidentally, is the premise of Advaita and what "nondual" actually refers to, at least in the latter. That is where the perceived similarities end.

At the very least, I think it is understandable the two would be conflated by the uniformed. Like me.

Malcolm wrote:
One: bodhicitta in sems sde is not something that is considered real; cit is sat i.e. real in Advaita.

Two: there are two basic ways the term "non-dual" is used in Buddhism: free from subject and object perception (trivial) and free from ontic extremes (non-trivial).

Three, sometimes the word "non-dual" in translation is misleading. Here is an example from sem sde. This:

rgyu dang 'bras bu gnyis las 'das
sems can sangs rgyas gnyis med pas
sangs rgyas sems kyis sgrub ma byed

It might be translated as:
Beyond the duality of cause and result,
since sentient beings and buddhas are non-dual,
buddhahood is not accomplished with the mind.

But that translation would be a little wrong.

A better way to render it would be:

Beyond both cause and result,
since both sentient beings and buddhas to do not exist
buddhahood is not accomplished with the mind.

What is the difference you ask? Here there is a pair, a cause and a result i.e. sentient being are a cause, buddhas are a result. But since neither exist, therefore, buddhahood cannot be accomplished with mind.

These issues are often quite subtle.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 12:21 AM
Title: Re: Dzogchen Community of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu
Content:
Sönam said:
As far as Rinpoché is giving teaching, he gives direct introduction ... he always teaches in "direct introduction mode" (and he did confirm that in today's teaching)

Sönam

booker said:
I guess there's a formal difference in the direct transmission over the webcast, which involves extra practice (empowerment) and one needs instructions from senior students -  and this happens only three times per year. Other than this there are open webcasts, like now happening from Paris or upcoming from Barcelona.

No?

Sönam said:
I must admit that something is not clear there ... as Rinpoché did repeat this w-e that he was giving direct transmission in each of his teaching (maybe there is atrick there ...).

Sönam


Malcolm wrote:
Direct introduction simply means the teacher teaches Dzogchen from his true knowledge of Dzogchen. It does not mean he necessarily shouts something, or holds up something, or shocks the students, and so on. These are methods that can be part of an introduction or not, at the teacher's discretion.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 25th, 2011 at 10:45 PM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:
Acchantika said:
There is of course more than one way to interpret statements like "there is no condition or state that is free from extremes" etc.

Malcolm wrote:
The view of dzogchen is "gnas lugs med pa" i.e. no reality.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 25th, 2011 at 10:43 PM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:


Acchantika said:
Mistaking Advaita for Dzogchen et al is not like mistaking fire for ice...

Malcolm wrote:
I don't agree. It is exactly like mistaken fire for ice.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 25th, 2011 at 9:18 PM
Title: Re: Lama Migmar at Kripalu Januray 2012
Content:
Virgo said:
Hi everyone,

"Mother Tara Empowerment" by Lama Migmar Tseten

http://www.kripalu.org/program/view/MTE-121/mother_tara_empowerment

It seems that Lama Migmar will be giving empowerments for White, Gold, Red, and Green Taras in MA.

Unfortunately the page is worded sligtly strangely since it is probably written by somebody from Kripalu (I don't know).

Does anybody know if these are the full empowerments for each, and will the practice texts and instructions for all these Sadhanas be given or be available?

Thank you,

Kevin

Malcolm wrote:
They are intitiations. All the practice texts will be available.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 25th, 2011 at 9:16 PM
Title: Re: Completion of the path of Tögal
Content:


heart said:
So you are saying he reached the third vision himself? Or isn't that necessary to be able to guide people through the visions?

/magnus

Malcolm wrote:
I don't know. I don't know Lama Drimed personally.

I have friend of mine who did an 8 year retreat under Chagdud Tulku focusing on thogal. But I don't think he got past the second vision himself.

It took Kunzang Dechen Lingpa seven years to reach the third vision in strict retreat.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 25th, 2011 at 7:49 AM
Title: Re: Completion of the path of Tögal
Content:
Pema Rigdzin said:
Not sure what to make of this couple...

On a sidenote, apparently Batman is a togal practitioner too: http://thelostyak.com/2010/02/25/the-comics-connection-i-batman-does-togal/ " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

padma norbu said:
Thank you, I was able to learn more about Togal from that blog about batman than anyone on this board or anywhere else has been willing to share.

Malcolm wrote:
"So it might not be too far fetched to see tögal as something of a rehearsal for the events that occur during the death process.

Traditionally, however, tögal is not usually presented in this way."

In fact, traditionally, tögal is frequently presented in this way.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 25th, 2011 at 7:33 AM
Title: Re: What are some "must have" books?
Content:
Namdrol said:
You are down playing something very critical.

Jnana said:
Developing an understanding of the foundational teachings is important. Whether this is interpreted through a classical Indian Sarvāstivāda filter or a Theravāda filter is not so important. By the time of the classical period (i.e. the first few centuries of the common era) both of these exegetical systems had accreted to a point where they were unnecessarily complex. Old Guatama likely wouldn't have been very impressed with any of their large classical treatises.


Malcolm wrote:
In general, the point of departure for most Sanskrit-writing Mahayana Indian authors which have any relevance at all in Tibetan Buddhism, whether sutra or tantra, is the Kosha.

Perhaps it is merely a Tibetan Buddhist thing.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 24th, 2011 at 11:55 PM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:
Namdrol said:
There is no actual state or condition that is free from duality. If one should think that there is, one will have not understood one single thing about Buddha Dharma.

Because people think there is a real state free from dualistic extremes, they fall into the pit of eternalism and grasping, never even recognizing emptiness correctly, let alone realizing it, and hampering their understanding of dependent origination.

Thinking there is such a thing as a real state of non-duality is precisely the Advaita Vedanta, Trika and so on.

N

Acchantika said:
By the same token, people will read this and think it equates to nihilism, not understanding a single thing about the Buddha Dharma, falling in to the pit of nihilism and mental dullness and so on.

Language is dualistic, and as language so thought; it is better to use this to our advantage than spend our lives dodging traps.

Malcolm wrote:
As Nāgārjuna states:

By relying on the conventional, the ultimate will be understood;
by realizing the ultimate, nirvana will be attained.

It is extremely important that key concepts be treated with care. It is also very important to avoid using language shared with other philosophical systems. I know any number of people who really are under the impression that there is really no difference between Dzogchen, Advaita and so on. And mostly, it is because of this pesky word "non-duality".

There is just as much danger of mental dulness and so with an eternalist view as there is with a nihilist view. In both cases, the conclusion will be reached that view is not important, karma does not matter, and so on.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 24th, 2011 at 10:33 PM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:
Namdrol said:
It is an important issue only because it is at the root of much confusion for so many people.

Acchantika said:
Nondual means free from duality. Nonduality means the state or condition of being free from duality. Neither is a philosophical position, in any tradition that uses the terms.

I think overcomplicating the issue is what is at the root of confusion for so many.

Malcolm wrote:
There is no actual state or condition that is free from duality. If one should think that there is, one will have not understood one single thing about Buddha Dharma.

Because people think there is a real state free from dualistic extremes, they fall into the pit of eternalism and grasping, never even recognizing emptiness correctly, let alone realizing it, and hampering their understanding of dependent origination.

Thinking there is such a thing as a real state of non-duality is precisely the Advaita Vedanta, Trika and so on.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 24th, 2011 at 8:24 PM
Title: Re: What are some "must have" books?
Content:
Namdrol said:
This is not really the case. There is a continuity of ideas that run through Sarvastivada right up through both wings of Mahāyāna and on into Vajrayāna.

Thervāda and Sarvastivāda tenets are very different in a number of important ways.

Jnana said:
The only Sarvāstivāda ideas that a bodhisattva aspirant would need to understand on any level is the Sarvāstivāda version of causes and conditions and the Sarvāstivāda version of the intermediate state. And in each case, one doesn't have to be a Sarvāstivāda scholar. Other areas such as the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths and the defilements eliminated at each of the four arya stages aren't really relevant to the Mahāyāna.

Malcolm wrote:
You are down playing something very critical.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 24th, 2011 at 8:09 PM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
It appears that gnyis med can also be legitimately translated "non-duality" without fear that it will be mistaken for Avdaita.

Wise and learned people realize the non-duality (gNyis-Med) (of enlightenment and unenlightenment) ...
The Practice of Dzogchen, Longchen Rabjam, p.16

Malcolm wrote:
Appearances are often deceiving.

While Tulku Thundup is certainly a qualified teacher -- he is not a native English speaker, I don't think he knows Sanskrit all that well, and he does not edit his own material.

As I said, gnyis med is certainly used frequently in Buddhist texts, but it should never be translated as non-duality, since it is missing the -ity part i.e. nyid or tā.

Because of imprecise translations there are many people indeed who think that basic message of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Zen, Dzogchen, Mahāmudra, and so on are exactly the same as Advaita. In particular this is demonstrated the by the convergance of Zen and Advaita in such teachers as Adyshanti, etc., and some of his students, such as Loach Kelley, who also has studied Dzogchen.

Crystal is a book taught by a Tibetan in Italian, not his native language, translated on the fly by someone without deep knowledge of Buddhism in general [Barry Simmons] and edited by John Shane, also someone without a deep knowledge of Buddhism.

While Crystal is one of my favorite books of all time, it is not without its flaws, and for this and that reason it was almost allowed to die. It was re-edited quite a bit, however, and has its present form. It is still not a perfect book in every respect.

I also know a lot of people in Dzogchen Community who are confused about the difference between non-dual and non-duality.

It is an important issue only because it is at the root of much confusion for so many people.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 24th, 2011 at 7:59 PM
Title: Re: Tanpai Rinpoche at Yogaville
Content:


Jikan said:
What's going on here?

Malcolm wrote:
Marketing.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 24th, 2011 at 6:14 AM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:


Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Again, "non-duality" is used, no need to fear the boogey-man Advaita.

Malcolm wrote:
Those who don't really know what Advaita is quickly wind up becoming crypto-advaitans by obsessing about the word "non-dual".

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 24th, 2011 at 4:03 AM
Title: Re: What are some "must have" books?
Content:
Jnana said:
The point is this: There's no need for anyone aspiring to enter the Mahāyāna to learn two different Sthaviravāda abhidharma systems. If one has already learned the Theravāda system there is no need whatsoever for learning the Sarvāstivāda system.

All the best,

Geoff

Malcolm wrote:
Hi, Geoff:

This is not really the case. There is a continuity of ideas that run through Sarvastivada right up through both wings of Mahāyāna and on into Vajrayāna.

Thervāda and Sarvastivāda tenets are very different in a number of important ways.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 24th, 2011 at 2:31 AM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:
Namdrol said:
The term non-dual (gnyis med, or advaya) is used frequently in Buddhist texts. The term non-duality (gnyis med nyid, advaita) is virtually never used, showing up only one time in the entire Kengyur, in a single passage in the Kalacakra tantra

Jinzang said:
What do you think is the distinction between non-dual and non-duality?

Malcolm wrote:
The first refers to an absence of extremes. The second is advocating a philosophical position.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 24th, 2011 at 12:02 AM
Title: Re: Completion of the path of Tögal
Content:
username said:
Is the 9th bhumi beyond falling?

Malcolm wrote:
Eighth bhumi on up are irreversible


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 23rd, 2011 at 10:02 PM
Title: Re: Completion of the path of Tögal
Content:
username said:
It is naive and absurd to say confidently they completed the third vision or validating their experiences as genuine thogal visions from afar in cyberspace is a complete misunderstanding of Dzogchen. All sorts of experiences and classes of beings can arise and though possible I very much doubt either of these business people who are fallen and fugitives from their lineage masters ever reached even the beginnings of the first vision.


Namdrol said:
In fact, the Old's had their experiences confirmed by their teacher, Lama Drimed, up to the second vision. But they mistakenly concluded they were finished with the four visions when they had not actually finished the second vision, or so the story runs. Then there was a disagreement and they left Lama Drimed after having spend nine years in retreat.

At this point, apparently, they do not even consider themselves Buddhists, and perhaps never did.

N

heart said:
I don't get it, Lama Drimed is capable of leading other people on that level?

/magnus


Malcolm wrote:
Yes. He has a number of people in retreat under his guidance doing the main practices of Dzogchen.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 23rd, 2011 at 10:00 PM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:
alwayson said:
There is NO such thing as nonduality in Buddhism, including Zen.


Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
[T]he real condition of existence appears in different forms, either pure or impure, but its real nature does not change. This is why it is said that it is nondual. "Nondual" is in fact a term that is used in dzogchen a great deal[.]
Dzogchen: the Self-Perfected State, Chogyal Namkhai Norbu

You can't ape arrogance, son. You can only earn it. Then it'll be the real thing. Good luck with that.


Malcolm wrote:
The term non-dual (gnyis med, or advaya) is used frequently in Buddhist texts. The term non-duality (gnyis med nyid, advaita) is virtually never used, showing up only one time in the entire Kengyur, in a single passage in the Kalacakra tantra (hooray for a text searchable Tibetan canon!); and nineteen times in the Tengyur, the translations of Indian commentaries.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 23rd, 2011 at 8:42 PM
Title: Re: Dzogchen Community of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu
Content:
Pero said:
I'm pretty sure for today and for Lama Zabdon Nyingthig it said open webcast on Merigar schedule. Anyway you can try to tune in even if you're not sure if it's closed or not. If it will be a closed webcast you just won't be able to. Almost every webcast nowadays is open BTW. Maybe one per year is closed.

Epistemes said:
I tried tuning into the webcast this morning from both a PC and my iPad with no luck.  There's about 6 hours difference between where I am and Paris.  It's 8:39 AM here, so it's 2:39 AM in Paris.  Something should be going on with the retreat by now, I would think, and something should be webcasted if it was available, right?

I'm really confused by this definition of "open."  One person says I should view the open webcasts, but another says THE open webcast is the direct transmission, and then another says almost every webcast is open.


Malcolm wrote:
The evening session should start at 2:pm eastern time today.


http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=195 " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 23rd, 2011 at 8:36 PM
Title: Re: Completion of the path of Tögal
Content:
username said:
It is naive and absurd to say confidently they completed the third vision or validating their experiences as genuine thogal visions from afar in cyberspace is a complete misunderstanding of Dzogchen. All sorts of experiences and classes of beings can arise and though possible I very much doubt either of these business people who are fallen and fugitives from their lineage masters ever reached even the beginnings of the first vision.


Malcolm wrote:
In fact, the Old's had their experiences confirmed by their teacher, Lama Drimed, up to the second vision. But they mistakenly concluded they were finished with the four visions when they had not actually finished the second vision, or so the story runs. Then there was a disagreement and they left Lama Drimed after having spend nine years in retreat.

At this point, apparently, they do not even consider themselves Buddhists, and perhaps never did.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 23rd, 2011 at 8:31 PM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Andrew108 said:
If ChNN says the brain is like an office then I don't have to accept it as a definitive truth. I can see it as a relative truth. If ChNN says the brain is appearance/emptiness inseparable then I would accept that as a definitive truth and proceed accordingly.

Malcolm wrote:
That reason why Norbu Rinpoche says this is because Dzogchen is predicated on an understanding of the human body that founded on medical ideas current in Tibet and India at that time.

In Dzogchen,the rtsal or energy of wisdom, ye shes, is specifically stated to be located in the brain. And the brain is specifically stated to be the organ that coordinates input from the five material sense organs. This is symbolized by the presence of the mandala of the 58 herukas in the brain, just as the eight consciousness are symbolized by the presence of the 42 peaceful deities in the heart.

Also, the two truths is not an important concept in Dzogchen, or as ChNN put it to me in person 19 years ago, "In Dzogchen there is only one truth, not two truths".

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 23rd, 2011 at 6:43 AM
Title: Re: They killed him!
Content:


Sönam said:
don't play it too much ! about democracy you still have a lot to do, as for exemple suppress the first item of your constitution "In God we Trust", and better to have real democratics elections, not "great" electors ... but there is no need to go further, we already had this discussion with some folks here (or there).

Malcolm wrote:
""In God We Trust" was adopted as the official motto of the United States in 1956. It is also the motto of the U.S. state of Florida. The phrase has appeared on U.S. coins since 1864 and on paper currency since 1957.[1] Its Spanish equivalent, En Dios Confiamos, is the motto of the Central American nation of Nicaragua.[2]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And first part of constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

No mention of God.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 23rd, 2011 at 4:00 AM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:
ajax said:
Not to suggest that there is no such thing as non-duality, no, of course not. The existence of non-duality is beyond questioning.

Namdrol said:
A) There is no such a thing as non-duality

B) The existene of non-duality is not beyond question in any sense.

N

Kyosan said:
Non-duality is part of Buddhism. It is taught in the Mahayana sutras, not just in the Zen literature. It is the middle way and it is beneficial because it helps beings overcome their attachments. It is also a term used to describe the underlying nature of all things.

Malcolm wrote:
Non-duality is not a thing. There is no non-dual thing or state and so on.

There is a difference between an absence of duality (Madhyamaka, and so on) and so called  "non-duality".


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 23rd, 2011 at 2:03 AM
Title: Re: They killed him!
Content:
Sönam said:
But concerning Obama ... could he interfere? could he say, no it won't happen!, easy or not easy. If it was not for electoralist reasons, could he says no, as far as I am President no one will die from the death penalty? If he was a real great President, could he choose to act so?

Sönam


Malcolm wrote:
No, he can't do that. The death penalty was suspended in by the supreme court of the united states in 1972, and reauthorized by the supreme court in 1976.

It is a state by state issue and it is legal to execute prisoners for capital crimes outlined by the 1976 decision.

The President of the United States has no authority to end the death penalty unilaterally, even if he wanted to.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 10:35 PM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Namdrol said:
I don't see how -- concepts are the basic unit of measuring time in Buddhism. One concept lasts a kṣana, and a kṣana is 1/75th (00.0013) of a second.

Andrew108 said:
I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean to say that concepts are too quick to be brain-based?

Malcolm wrote:
No, neurons transmit about at .5 m/s, whereas a concept, according to this, last about 1.3 m/s.

The neurons responsible for thinking, which reside within the gray matter of the brain, are not myelinated. They are very thin, and transmit at speeds around 0.5 m/s.
http://www.examiner.com/biology-in-chicago/how-fast-is-a-thought#ixzz1Ygy6U7fa " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What I mean is that irrespective of whether a mind has appropriated a coarse physical body or not, this is how long a thought endures i.e. 1.3 milliseconds.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 10:27 PM
Title: Re: They killed him!
Content:
el_chupacabra said:
I think his name was Troy Davis btw
(not being able to find anything about Roy Davies I immediately suspected the news had chosen to bury the story!)

The jail stats for the U.S. are pretty incredible - 25% of the global jail population is in the U.S. and when you break it down according to colour/race the figures look even worse. On top of that is the work they do for very little money, its a form of legalized slavery.


Malcolm wrote:
Yup, prisons are big business in the US. But our large prison population is actually a sign of wealth. Poorer nations cannot afford to keep large incarcerated popluations and they cannot afford the police forces that put them there.

This article explains a bit. Salient point:

...The United States, in fact, has relatively low rates of nonviolent crime. It has lower burglary and robbery rates than Australia, Canada and England.

People who commit nonviolent crimes in the rest of the world are less likely to receive prison time and certainly less likely to receive long sentences. The United States is, for instance, the only advanced country that incarcerates people for minor property crimes like passing bad checks, Whitman wrote.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html?pagewanted=all " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 10:19 PM
Title: Re: They killed him!
Content:




Sönam said:
http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/104/article_1446.asp

Malcolm wrote:
That place is a condo compared to this:


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 10:07 PM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Sönam said:
As ChNN explains it clearly, brain is "only" a senses storage unit.

Andrew108 said:
Unfortunately I have to disagree. I think it is more than that. I think concepts are also brain-based. Would you agree?


Malcolm wrote:
I don't see how -- concepts are the basic unit of measuring time in Buddhism. One concept lasts a kṣana, and a kṣana is 1/75th (00.0013) of a second.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 10:04 PM
Title: Re: Me
Content:


Epistemes said:
The nuances of "me" are so incredibly subtle.  The way some of you here on this forum write and answer questions displays an aspect of "me"-ness.  Even our very usernames display that aspect.  And more.  It seems rather inescapable.


Malcolm wrote:
Buddhism is not about losing your personality. Buddhism is about getting over false thinking about it.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 9:16 PM
Title: Re: Zen and the dogma of non-duality
Content:
ajax said:
Not to suggest that there is no such thing as non-duality, no, of course not. The existence of non-duality is beyond questioning.

Malcolm wrote:
A) There is no such a thing as non-duality

B) The existene of non-duality is not beyond question in any sense.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 8:54 PM
Title: Re: Ka Dag Chen Po
Content:
Kai said:
Longchenpa seem to disagree:

Namdrol said:
There is a difference between ka dag and ka dag chen po.

Kai said:
Just to ask, for sake of verification, what is the verse from the tantra that specifically state the actual difference?

Malcolm wrote:
See above.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 8:49 PM
Title: Re: They killed him!
Content:


Sönam said:
USA is not the great country american citizen think it is ... that's a lie.

Malcolm wrote:
USA is pretty nice place to live, actually.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 4:58 AM
Title: Re: Wall Gazing
Content:
Astus said:
There is "wall contemplation" (biguan 壁觀) and there is "facing the wall" (mianbi 面壁). In Bodhidharma's story the two becomes the same eventually. As for why in Soto Zen they rather sit facing the wall and how they call it, I do not know.


Malcolm wrote:
When translated into Tibetan, "faced a wall" was translated as "faced reality".


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 2:43 AM
Title: Re: Chulen
Content:


AilurusFulgens said:
Namdrol, do there exist Tibetan texts, which would deal exclusively with Chulen?

In what way does the "religious" chulen differ from a yogic one? And how does a medical one differ from those two just mentioned?

Are the differences just in the substances employed or are there also some other factors at play?

A. Fulgens

Malcolm wrote:
As for question one:

Yes, many.

Long life practice combined with using blessed pills, without the benefit of the medical approach, is a kind of religious chulen.

Yogic chulen means working with prāṇāyāma.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 1:24 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism on God
Content:
Hayagriva said:
But does God have a brain?


Malcolm wrote:
Well, Buddha does not have one apparently.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 1:23 AM
Title: Re: Schizophrenia and depression
Content:
Gyaltsen Tashi said:
Dear all,

What causes these mental illnesses - schizophrenia and depression? How are they treated in Tibetan medicine?

Regards,
Gyaltsen Tashi


Malcolm wrote:
There are many possible causes of depression. These will be treated according to their causes which are imbalances in the dośas (humors) caused by diet, behavior, season or spirits or a combination of these.

What western medicine terms "schizophrenia" will generally be considered a spirit induced disorder. This will be treated generally with massage, herbs, diet and lifestyle, depending on the type of spirit diagnosed.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 at 9:14 PM
Title: Re: Chulen
Content:


Namdrol said:
If you are looking for mundane rasāyana, then taking Chavyanaprasha regularly is your best bet.

Epistemes said:
Can Chyavanprash be taken alongside Vimala?


Malcolm wrote:
yes


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 at 8:13 PM
Title: Re: Ka Dag Chen Po
Content:
Kai said:
Longchenpa seem to disagree:

Malcolm wrote:
There is a difference between ka dag and ka dag chen po.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 at 2:31 AM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Andrew108 said:
There is definitely a sense that the realization that matters is not really human - goes beyond or steps out of the space of human cognition.

Malcolm wrote:
Or, a buddha has a mind whose cognitive range exceeds that of ordinary persons and whose realization merely expands the potential of what human cognition is capable of.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 at 2:27 AM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Andrew108 said:
In fact if we say something like timeless awareness

Malcolm wrote:
Please don't.

Translating ye shes as "timeless awareness" is terrible. " Ye shes " translates only the word jñāna.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 at 1:21 AM
Title: Re: I am the director of the documentary TULKU. Ask me anything.
Content:


Chaz said:
Why can't a tulku live his or her life as they see fit and to hell with what everyone else wants?

Malcolm wrote:
Usually because there is money/power/property wrapped in tulku recognitions.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 at 12:42 AM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Namdrol said:
Not only that, Longchenpa is held to have been a buddha. I have some of his brain relics. So clearly, these two Buddhas had brains. (can't beleive I am having this conversation).

Andrew108 said:
Well do you have any Guru Rinpoche brain relics? To what extent was Longchenpa's brain a contributory factor in his enlightenment?

Malcolm wrote:
Very important -- I dare say that without he is could not have engaged in the cultivating the three prajñā: hearing, reflection and cultivation. Not to mention his memory would have been terrible without a brain.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 at 12:16 AM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Andrew108 said:
So does the practitioner who achieves 'great transformation body' and I'm thinking only of Guru Rinpoche and Garab Dorje still have a brain after this transformation?

Malcolm wrote:
Apparently the concept of a Buddha having a brain is non-controversial run a search on the following:

Buddha Kasyapa's Brain relics.

Not only that, Longchenpa is held to have been a buddha. I have some of his brain relics. So clearly, these two Buddhas had brains. (can't beleive I am having this conversation).

Furthermore, the Dzogchen tantras list a kind of ring sel, a ka ri ram, which is based on the brain and the nerves.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 at 12:05 AM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Namdrol said:
A buddha without a human brain however is an impossibility since possession of a fully favored human body with all senses intact and functioning is a defined precondition for awakening.

Andrew108 said:
So was the buddha a buddha or a human?

Malcolm wrote:
The Buddha was a human being who fully awakened. Then he was a buddha. You can consider human beings to be larval buddhas, just as caterpillars are larval butterflies and moths.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 at 12:04 AM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Andrew108 said:
@ your previous post - Yes that seems to be the case - however the point with the four visions is that they are experiences that infer rather than embody. You have experience of what it is like but until the body passes away you don't embody 'the inconceivable'.

Malcolm wrote:
That is completely not true. If it were, the so called "great transformation body" ['pho ba chen po] would not be possible. Your view is more similar to the Gelug interpretation of illusory body i.e. one needs to discard this gross body at the time of death etc. Such a view is definitely not the view of Dzogchen.

Andrew108 said:
The 4 visions are a body/brain-based simulacrum until the body passes.

Malcolm wrote:
This is also not how the four visions function according to the anatomy of Dzogchen.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 11:56 PM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Andrew108 said:
A brain can't hold the knowledge of a buddha.

Malcolm wrote:
Why? This is a mere assertion on your part.

Why limit one part of a Buddha's sensory apparatus when you don't, for example, limit his tongue? A Buddha's tongue, according to reports, can see and hear. Why should a Buddha's brain be restricted to some limitation if the rest of his body is not?

The reason why buddhas are omniscient is that all objects of knowledge are illusory. Omniscience is not a function of memory addresses in a chip, after all. There should be no reason why having a human brain should limit a buddha at all. A buddha without a human brain however is an impossibility since possession of a fully favored human body with all senses intact and functioning is a defined precondition for awakening. It is also a defined precondition for receiving Vajrayāna empowerments. Why? If one's organs are damaged and incomplete, it is held that ones body mandala is incomplete and that one will not be able to fully awaken in a single lifetime via Vajrayāna methods.
N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 11:48 PM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Andrew108 said:
That whatever my limited brain-based view perceives is not mistaken for the ultimate - and that would include the 4 visions.

Malcolm wrote:
The entire point of the detailed analysis of gestation in Dzogchen is to explain the physical development of the channels that make the four visions possible.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 11:43 PM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
AlexanderS said:
So is awakening possible in Dewachen? Of course I could suppose one has a body there too.

Malcolm wrote:
Even in sutra it is stated that in order to awaken one must be a human being. Threfore, embodiment in general is precondition of awakening; human embodiment is the specific precondition.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 10:56 PM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
AlexanderS said:
The 16th karmapa could teach meditation to birds. Apparantly Thaye Dorje has also demonstrated this.

I honestly think some birds are more advanced meditators than I am

Point being, a bird with it's little brain can enter a state of samadhi apparrantly.


Malcolm wrote:
Samadhi is a mental factor present in all beings in the desire realm. So this is nothing suprising at all.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 10:54 PM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Andrew108 said:
His enlightenment was not brain-based.

Malcolm wrote:
The Hevajra Tantra states the following:

Vajragarbha asked: “This yoga of the completion stage,
its bliss is called great bliss,
completion is not a meditation,
so why do creation?”
The Bhagavan replied: “Incredible, the great bodhisattva
has lost the power of faith.
Where does bliss come from without the existence of the body?
Such a bliss cannot be spoken of.
Bliss pervades all migrating beings 
in the form of pervaded and pervader;
just as the fragrance present in a flower,
cannot be known without the flower’s existence.
In the same way, since form and so on won’t exist,
also bliss itself won’t be perceived.


The Vajrayāna view of awakening is that awakening is very much based in the body as this passage from the Hevajra Tantra shows. The key to awakening in Vajrayāna in general is embodiment. The mind/matter dualism (ala Decartes) we find in sutra is superceded in Vajrayāna, that is the key to why Vajrayāna is more rapid.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 10:06 PM
Title: Re: Pointing Out / Systematic Instruction
Content:
Astus said:
What I really admire in his approach - and Kagyu Mahamudra generally - is the detailed methodology they apply in this training.

Malcolm wrote:
Dzogchen etc., also have very detailed methodologies. They are just less sutra oriented.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 9:55 PM
Title: Re: Benefits of Nagarjuna / Dangers of Existence & Non-Existence
Content:
Epistemes said:
I'm going to sound really stupid, but I'm here to learn, so:

When Nagarjuna says that there is no existence, is he claiming that the Earth, universe, and multi-verses do not exist in the sense that they cannot be sensually experienced?  Or, is he, in a spirit of recognizing the universality of pratītyasamutpāda and sūnyatā, saying that the Earth, universe, and multi-verses do not intrinsically exist as such?

Malcolm wrote:
For Nāgārjuna, stating that things exist is a statement that they inherently exist.

Therefore, the only existence that Nāgārjuna was willing to grant phenomena was what we term a relative or nominal existence. Thus he is saying "...that the Earth, universe, and multi-verses do not intrinsically exist as such" "in a spirit of recognizing the universality of pratītyasamutpāda and sūnyatā".

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 8:31 PM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Andrew108 said:
Any type of buddha.

Malcolm wrote:
I am pretty sure that Sakyamuni had a brain, just like he had a heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidney, etc.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 8:25 PM
Title: Re: The brain and Dzogchen...
Content:
Namdrol said:
Really? The Buddha had no brain?

Andrew108 said:
And Buddha Amitahba's brain is where?

Malcolm wrote:
Which type of Buddha are you talking about?

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 8:05 PM
Title: Re: Lungta
Content:
rai said:
hi all,

need some tips and trics what to do to raise the lungta (or what to avoid)! it seems i am going down with everything =D

also i tried to understand the concept of Lungta relying on materials i've managed to find but still i have very vague idea so if you know any helpful materials, books in english it would be very appreciated.

thanks!

Malcolm wrote:
raise prayer flags on a proper day with a sang offering.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 8:04 PM
Title: The Buddha had no brain?
Content:
Andrew108 said:
in that buddhas don't have a brain.

Malcolm wrote:
Really? The Buddha had no brain?

(Awesome!)


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 8:50 AM
Title: Re: Ka Dag Chen Po
Content:
Pero said:
Is there a difference with realization in dissolving into atoms? If one achieves the latter, is one a Buddha on the 16th bhumi as well? Or 13th at least?

Namdrol said:
Yes, there is a difference in realization. Someone who has this realization will return as a tulku. A Buddha of the sixteenth bhumi will not. Or so it is said.

Pero said:
But doesn't that mean that one can't get totally realized through trekcho alone? And consequentially one can't get totally realized through any of the other inner tantras since their completion stage is basically trekcho too?


Malcolm wrote:
The completion stages in the sarma tantras is not confined to tregchö.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 4:08 AM
Title: Re: WOMPT & Sex
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
It is the first of the eight -- i.e. relying on an unqualified consort.


xylem said:
i'm curious which branch downfall so that i can ask my own teachers about this....

-xy



Zenda said:
Interesting. What does this mean for tantric practitioners who are married to someone from another faith tradition? Does this vary by school?

Namdrol said:
No, the vows are pretty consistent over all.

It means that they are constantly comitting a branch downfall.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 2:38 AM
Title: Re: WOMPT & Sex
Content:
Chaz said:
I haven't actually asked my Lama, but I'm pretty sure he's ok with my Wiccan wife - everybody else in the Sangha is.  At least they haven't taken my Super-Secret Vajra Decoder Ring away yet.

Malcolm wrote:
There is hope for Wiccans. There is hope for anyone who likes to dance nude in the woods under full moons.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 2:18 AM
Title: Re: Ka Dag Chen Po
Content:
Pero said:
Is there a difference with realization in dissolving into atoms? If one achieves the latter, is one a Buddha on the 16th bhumi as well? Or 13th at least?


Malcolm wrote:
Yes, there is a difference in realization. Someone who has this realization will return as a tulku. A Buddha of the sixteenth bhumi will not. Or so it is said.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 1:36 AM
Title: Re: Is Pure Land "Buddhism" contradictory to Buddhism?
Content:
alwayson said:
Pure Lands are just bardo experiences.

Huifeng said:
Reading these words is also a bardo experience.

Which bardo are you referring to?


Malcolm wrote:
Bardo of the time of death.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 1:32 AM
Title: Re: WOMPT & Sex
Content:



Zenda said:
Interesting. What does this mean for tantric practitioners who are married to someone from another faith tradition? Does this vary by school?

Namdrol said:
No, the vows are pretty consistent over all.

It means that they are constantly comitting a branch downfall.


Dhondrub said:
And here we go again... reminds me of good old e-sangha


Malcolm wrote:
This issue was not a bg deal in Tibet, since everyone was a Vajrayāna initiate by the time they were ten.

In India, where these vows were elaborated, it was more important.

And naturally, some Vajrayāna practitioner married to a non-Buddhist is going to get all freaked out, get all angry, tell me I am wrong, that their Lama said it was ok, blah blah blah.

N

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 1:21 AM
Title: Re: WOMPT & Sex
Content:



Zenda said:
Interesting. What does this mean for tantric practitioners who are married to someone from another faith tradition? Does this vary by school?

Malcolm wrote:
No, the vows are pretty consistent over all.

It means that they are constantly comitting a branch downfall.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 12:14 AM
Title: Re: The four kayas
Content:


conebeckham said:
As for the Sambhogakaya being the "physical body in it's natural state," I don't think there is a such a thing as the "Natural State of the Physical body."   If you're talking about Light Bodies, then it's not really appropriate to say they are "physical," is it?


Malcolm wrote:
The rūpakāya is two fold. Rūpa here means material. Light is a part of matter since it is an object of the eye.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 11:16 PM
Title: Re: Ka Dag Chen Po
Content:
Pero said:
...does this mean that Kadag Chenpo is attained only by completing the four visions?

Malcolm wrote:
Correct.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 9:42 PM
Title: Re: The four kayas
Content:
AilurusFulgens said:
What is then the "Rainbow Body of Great Transference" as possessed by Padmasambhava in this trikaya-doctrine?

Where does it fit in?


Malcolm wrote:
Generally considered to be a sambhogakāya.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 9:37 PM
Title: Re: Ka Dag Chen Po
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
The Rig pa rang shar tantra states:
"Child of a good family, at the time of nirvana when wisdom moves in the sky from the appearance of wisdom rising up from the basis having slipped from grasp of the body,vidyā moves in the sky traveling through the pathway of the eye. Furthermore, it should be understood in the following way: the vidyā from the heart dissolves into a thigle. The thigle dissolves into a lamp. The lamp dissolves into light. The light dissolve into a form. The form dissolves into a cluster. The cluster dissolves into wisdom. Wisdom dissolves into natural formation (lhun grub). After natural formation dissolves into great original purity, the stages are complete. The appearance of the manner of dissolution and the manner of liberation of those persons who have seen the truth is just like that."

The Great Tantra of Beatiful Good Fortune states:
Since the reality of vidyā and dharmatā
exist like the surface of a mirror,
never being obscured by the condition of ignorance (avidyā)
is called "great original purity".


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 8:16 PM
Title: Re: The four kayas
Content:
Namdrol said:
These terms get used differently in Vajrayāna systems where the three kāyas are understood as different aspects of the nature of the mind, clarity, emptiness and the inseparability of the two.

Epistemes said:
What about svabhavikakaya?  My understanding of it is that it is the highest (greatest) of all the kayas and incorporates the other three - which seems to be suggesting that svabhavikakaya is synonymous with actual Buddhahood.

Malcolm wrote:
It can be a name for the intrinsic idenitity of all three kāyas in Vajrayāna; in sutra, in general, it is a synonym of Dharmakāya.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 8:49 AM
Title: Re: The four kayas
Content:
Epistemes said:
Can someone give me some reference point for understanding the four kayas?

I've read definitions, seen the terms used in context, etc., but they don't make much sense to me.

Malcolm wrote:
This is a species of Buddhist doceticism.

Dharmakāya, in brief, has several different versions. The basis version is that Dharmakāya is the complete realization of emptiness and the omniscience that springs from that realization.

Sambhogakāya is, in this basic version, rarified form body which exists outside samsara and is responsible primarily for communicating dharma to advanced bodhisattvas.

Nirmanakāya manifest to ordinary beings.

These terms get used differently in Vajrayāna systems where the three kāyas are understood as different aspects of the nature of the mind, clarity, emptiness and the inseparability of the two.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 5:57 AM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:
deepbluehum said:
...I have been drinking green smoothies and eating greens, fruits, nuts and seeds for long enough to attribute strong confidence to my account.

Namdrol said:
I predict you will have a variety of vata disorders before too long, with all due respect.

N

deepbluehum said:
It would have happened by now. Besides, I don't need cooked foods to fix a vata disorder. Raw organic cumin, cayanne, ginger and other hot plants will do.

Malcolm wrote:
It's not that simple. I wish it were.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 4:35 AM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:
deepbluehum said:
...I have been drinking green smoothies and eating greens, fruits, nuts and seeds for long enough to attribute strong confidence to my account.

Malcolm wrote:
I predict you will have a variety of vata disorders before too long, with all due respect.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 3:24 AM
Title: Re: WOMPT & Sex
Content:
Namdrol said:
It is a branch downfall to regard a consort who has not been ripened by empowerment as deity.

Kelwin said:
Yup, I know that, but I find that difficult to combine with other instructions. How could I possibly have sex in a state of awareness and not regard my girlfriend to be a deity? What distinction am I missing here?

Malcolm wrote:
Ultimately it means that tantric Buddhists should not have sexual partners who are not also practitioners.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 2:17 AM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:
deepbluehum said:
Raw plant foods only is an excellent support for dharma practice.


Malcolm wrote:
This diet is not good for Dharma practice since it is bad for one's health, from a Tibetan Medical POV.

Virtually all plant foods need to be cooked before eaten, or eaten with digestive enhancements like vinegar and oil, as in a salad.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 2:13 AM
Title: Re: WOMPT & Sex
Content:


Kelwin said:
1) How would you respond to Adamantine saying earlier that 'If I understand and remember correctly one of the tantric vows involves avoiding falling into the trap of pretending one or one's partner is deity and thinking of ordinary sex as leading to enlightenment, etc..'?

Malcolm wrote:
It is a branch downfall to regard a consort who has not been ripened by empowerment as deity.



Kelwin said:
2) If the yoga of passion (which is a new term to me) is creation stage only, does this answer still apply for those doing completion stage practices?

3) Would the choice of orifice not have a significant effect on inner energies being exchanged?

Malcolm wrote:
There is no "exchange" of energy in the yoga of passion.

The yoga of passion is a term from Lamdre, BTW. But it can be applied across the board to any anuttarayoga tantra practice. For example, in Cakrasamvara, ordinary intercourse without the three perceptions is a downfall.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 2:11 AM
Title: Re: WOMPT & Sex
Content:
Namdrol said:
The yoga of passion is not connected with the completion stage, it is connected with the creation stage, so there is no need to worry about losing semen and so on.

wayland said:
Hi Namdrol,
Isn't it the case that emission of semen expels the 'essence' of deities which reside at points within the subtle body of the practitioner? Does it not contravene tantric vows?


Malcolm wrote:
No.If that were true, then defecation and urination would also be a problem. Semen, like feces and urine, is a waste product.

No, not in general. However if one is engaged in karma mudra practice and so on, it does. Tantric vows are different for people doing different practices.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 18th, 2011 at 9:00 PM
Title: Re: WOMPT & Sex
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
If you are a lay tantric practitioner you need to practice the yoga of passion, perceving yourself as a heruka and your partner as a dakini (for example, Kalacakra and Vishvamata). The yoga of passion is not connected with the completion stage, it is connected with the creation stage, so there is no need to worry about losing semen and so on.

As far as which orifice, etc., this is mainly a sutrayāna affair. There are no restrictions for a practitioner practicing the yoga of passion. The body of a deity is completely pure.


N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 at 8:08 AM
Title: Re: Chronic Gastritis
Content:
AdmiralJim said:
Have you connected this inflammation to any types of food?

What time of day/ which meal to you experience it?

Before or during meals, immediately after meals, or after digesting a meal (about an hour)?

It never completely goes away.  I have noticed that fatty foods upset it, specfically milk and cheese and mince, although I have noticed if the milk is used in something cooked ( porridge or sauces) it doesn't have the same impact.  I have also bizarrely noticed that it gets worse if I am around people who are wearing strong perfume/aftershave.  I get it the worst after digesting meal a but it can happen during a meal or before too.


Malcolm wrote:
I think you should investigate whether you have a food "allergy".

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 at 7:06 AM
Title: Re: Getting Real, Getting Dirty
Content:
xylem said:
people shouldn't have affairs with people in the sangha.



Malcolm wrote:
I assume by "affair" here you mean consensual relations between adults who are not otherwise in relationships already?

If so, then I think you are being very extreme.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 at 3:22 AM
Title: Re: Getting Real, Getting Dirty
Content:
Namdrol said:
PC Buddhism, yuck, spare me.

kirtu said:
What's PC about no hitting on people and trying to be welcoming to everyone and not making women do most of the cleaning?

Kirt


Malcolm wrote:
First of all, Buddhists, male and female, have a hard enough time getting laid.

Secondly, woman do most of the cleaning because men are slobs. It is not a plot. Woman, in general, have different needs around neatness than men do. Proof? Men's bathrooms and women's bathrooms.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 at 2:34 AM
Title: Re: Christian explorations of Rainbow Body
Content:


deepbluehum said:
That's apparently open to interpretation.

Malcolm wrote:
No, it isn't.


deepbluehum said:
Rainbow Body is irrelevant for some in these schools.

Malcolm wrote:
Rainbow body is a central concern in Lamdre as well as Yogini.

It is also a central topic in Cakrasamvara literature as well.

This is heading off topic.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 at 2:25 AM
Title: Re: Renounced Catholicism
Content:
alwayson said:
Yes exactly what are the prerequisites for webcast transmission?

Malcolm wrote:
You sign on.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 at 2:03 AM
Title: Re: Christian explorations of Rainbow Body
Content:
deepbluehum said:
Please keep in mind that the concept of Rainbow Body is only of particular importance to Dzogchen. Few other teachings lineages discuss it.


Namdrol said:
Not so, it is discussed in Kagyu and Sakya as well.

deepbluehum said:
True. I should have said "made into a core teaching."


Malcolm wrote:
It is a core teaching of Kagyu and Sakya as well.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 at 2:03 AM
Title: Re: Renounced Catholicism
Content:
Dechen Norbu said:
I'm too a student of Chogyal Namhkai Norbu and what you say is over simplistic and, in fact, pretty far from what he teaches.

Epistemes said:
What does he teach?


Malcolm wrote:
He is a teacher of Dzogchen. Very famous, has a number of books Crystal and the Way of Light being chief among then. He is one of my main teachers.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 at 2:00 AM
Title: Re: Chronic Gastritis
Content:
AdmiralJim said:
Do you have acid reflux?

when do you eat, what do you eat, how do you eat it?

?
No I don't have acid reflux.  I eat three meals a day.  For breakfast I eat toast and porridge (around 7am/8am), for lunch (between 12-2pm) light soup or sushi.  My main meal at night ( 8 or 9pm), I eat a variety of things from indian/asian cooking. but usually chicken or read meat and at the weekends i eat quite lightly so usually a veg stir fry for a main meal.

Malcolm wrote:
Have you connected this inflammation to any types of food?

What time of day/ which meal to you experience it?

Before or during meals, immediately after meals, or after digesting a meal (about an hour)?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 at 1:23 AM
Title: Re: Chronic Gastritis
Content:
AdmiralJim said:
I am wondering there are any dietary changes which you would recommend to help with this condition.  The doctors do not know what is causing my chronic stomach inflammation as I don't drink any alcohol or smoke and I am negative for a common bacteria that causes stomach inflammation.  I have been told I will have good and bad days and given a leaflet on indigestion which isn't even gastritis grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr


Malcolm wrote:
Do you have acid reflux?

when do you eat, what do you eat, how do you eat it?

?


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 at 1:21 AM
Title: Re: Air's function
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Not to my knowledge, no.

Virgo said:
In a general sense, does the element of air ever perform the function of "pulling" per se?  I know air usually has to do with movement and that is has a quality of "pushing" (or is it displacing?) due to it's function of manifesting as pressure.

I know there is the downward-clearing wind in the body, and at other times other winds move "downward" but does the wind ever perform the function of "pulling", ie. acting as a force or in conjunction with other forces to pull something to a certain destination.  Pulling (attracting, bringing, causing something to tag along) it seems, would be different from pushing (repelling, moving something towards something else based on pressure exerted).

I ask this question because I am trying to understanding physics a little better (especially gravity as explained in Einsteins Theories) from the perspective of the elements.

Kevin


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 at 12:56 AM
Title: Re: Getting Real, Getting Dirty
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
PC Buddhism, yuck, spare me.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 at 12:55 AM
Title: Re: Is crying healthy?
Content:
Epistemes said:
A Buddhist discussion board is probably the most inane place to post a thing like this...

...but Western centers for natural healing claim that crying is a sign of emotional healthiness.

Crying most surely is a sign of attachment and samsara, as the Buddha indicates, but what if it's physically healthy?

Malcolm wrote:
Like any physical function supressing the urge is not healthy, forcing it is also not healthy.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Saturday, September 17th, 2011 at 12:54 AM
Title: Re: Christian explorations of Rainbow Body
Content:
deepbluehum said:
Please keep in mind that the concept of Rainbow Body is only of particular importance to Dzogchen. Few other teachings lineages discuss it.


Malcolm wrote:
Not so, it is discussed in Kagyu and Sakya as well.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 11:17 PM
Title: Re: Prayers for my girlfriend
Content:
Epistemes said:
Please continue your prayers to the medicine Buddha, as I cannot.

She still suffers.

Namdrol said:
Medicine Buddha's dharani:

Oṃ namo bhagavate bhaiṣajye guru vaiḍūryaprabharājāya tathāgatāya arhate saṃyak saṃbuddhāya tadyathā oṃ bhaiṣajye bhaiṣajye mahā bhaiṣajye rājā samudgate svāhā

Anyone can recite this.

Epistemes said:
"Cannot" not just being privilege, but ability (those are some odd words) and understanding of what's being said.



Malcolm wrote:
Oṃ — auspicious
Namo — homage
Bhagavate — transcendent conquerer
bhaiṣajye guru — guru of physicians
vaiḍūryaprabharājāya —  to the king of sapphire light
tathāgatāya — to the tathagata
arhate — the arhat
saṃyak saṃbuddhāya — to the true perfect buddha
tadyathā — thus
Oṃ — as above
bhaiṣajye bhaiṣajye — physician, physician,
mahā — great
bhaiṣajyerāja — king of physicians
samudgate — his special power heals disease
svāhā — well established


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 10:15 PM
Title: Re: Prayers for my girlfriend
Content:
Epistemes said:
Please continue your prayers to the medicine Buddha, as I cannot.

She still suffers.

Malcolm wrote:
Medicine Buddha's dharani:

Oṃ namo bhagavate bhaiṣajye guru vaiḍūryaprabharājāya tathāgatāya arhate saṃyak saṃbuddhāya tadyathā oṃ bhaiṣajye bhaiṣajye mahā bhaiṣajye rājā samudgate svāhā

Anyone can recite this.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 7:47 PM
Title: Re: Christian explorations of Rainbow Body
Content:
Epistemes said:
I'm not incredibly sure what to make of this.  It's the first I've ever heard of such a phenomenon, and I can't quite see how such a phenomenon fits within a Buddhist view of life, death, humanity and the cosmos.

http://www.snowlionpub.com/pages/N59_9.html " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Malcolm wrote:
The notion of rainbow body is tied up with tantric concepts about the human body and the four elements which constitute it.

At basis is the idea that at the most subtle level, relatively speaking, physical matter exists as light which we reify as solid matter. When we have remove the afflictions that obscure our vision of reality, ordinary phenomena, including our own bodies, are revealed to us as compositions of dynamic light-energy and we become free of course matter since we no longer reify it.

This is possible because everything is empty, insubstantial and not real.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 7:06 PM
Title: Re: Chulen
Content:
rai said:
is the idea of rasāyana that we are eating more of things like chulen or Chavyanaprasha and less normal food?


Malcolm wrote:
The Ayruvedic/Tibetan medical idea of rasayāna is that one does a week long cleanse; then one relies on a very pure diet combined with a rasayāna preparation like Chavayanaprash.

There is also a more "religious" idea of chulen, where one, having done a similar cleanse, relies on a practice such as White Tara, Amitayus, or Mandarava combined with special chulen pills.

Finally, there are yogic chulens that depend mainly on prāṇāyama exercises.

One can consider these outer, inner and secret rasāyanas. The use of these depends on one's health and needs.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 9:31 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:
tobes said:
So maybe you're playing some upaya game here, or maybe you hold two opposing positions: one when you argue within the discourse of Madhyamaka and one when you talk about Madhyamaka.

Malcolm wrote:
When trying to direct people to the correct aisle in a grocery store so they can buy beans, I don't send them to the meat counter.

Likewise, when trying direct people to where they can find the eight fold path, I don't send them to Santeria or Taoism, since they won't find it there.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 9:29 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:


tobes said:
It's neither pointless nor semantic: you know very well that it is utterly arbitrary which place you put apples and which place you put oranges.

Malcolm wrote:
For intellectuals who pointlessly like to quibble with others it is arbitrary. For grocers, it is practical to place apples with apples and oranges with oranges.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 9:16 AM
Title: Re: Logical Fallacies
Content:


el_chupacabra said:
That seems a strange reading to me.

Malcolm wrote:
It is nevetheless, the correct one, and the only one that rescues Nāgārjuna from the fetter of being accused of being a terrible logician. In fact, the caturskoti is not all that important in Madhyamaka -- too much of if it has been made by Western enthusiaists of Nāgārjuna.

In fact, the whole eight-fold negation of the mangalam is predicated on the fact that dependently arisen phenomena do not in fact arise, hence Nāgārjuna says of dependent origination: not ceasing, not arising, etc., when he praise the Buddha for teaching dependent origination.

Since phenomena do not arise , here again is a cascading negation of the other seven possibilities. If there is no arising, there can be no cessation, permanence, impermanence and so on.

In reality it is very simple, but if one should approach these texts with the wrong set of assumptions about language and so on, they will seem very strange and illogical. If you approach them with the correct set of assumptions about language (i.e. Nāgārjuna's) based on a close read of the texts in either Sanskrit or Tibetan, freed from the constraints of later Tibetan polemics or later Sino-Japanese Buddhist metaphysical speculations ala tathāgatagarbha, it is all very straight forward and somewhat boring.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 8:47 AM
Title: Re: Chulen
Content:
Epistemes said:
Could this replace a daily multivitamin?

Malcolm wrote:
Definitely.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 8:29 AM
Title: Re: Logical Fallacies
Content:
Kyosan said:
All dharmas (things) are neither existent nor nonexistent.

Namdrol said:
The statement means that dharmas do not come into existence in the first place, therefore, they cannot perish and become non-existent. It is not a dialectical statment, but one meant to show that the categories of existent and non-existent do not apply to dependently originated phenomena.

el_chupacabra said:
erm... isn't this exactly the fourth proposition in Nagarjuna's dialectic?

Malcolm wrote:
No, since Nāgārjuna is not asserting some phenomena either exists nor does not exist.

The point is since no phenomena have arisen in reality there are no phenomena to which any of the four predicates in caturskoti may be applied.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 7:59 AM
Title: Re: Logical Fallacies
Content:
Kyosan said:
The original statement itself is logically inconsistent. Because existent and nonexistent are mutually exclusive, they can't both be either true of false according to formal logic.

el_chupacabra said:
Yes, according to formal logic either something is true or not. Dialectical logic adds the two other propositions of "both" or "neither".

Malcolm wrote:
The Caturskoti establishes a cascading negation where both and neither are also not true since a truth was not established to begin with.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 7:58 AM
Title: Re: Logical Fallacies
Content:
Namdrol said:
The statement means that dharmas do not come into existence in the first place, therefore, they cannot perish and become non-existent. It is not a dialectical statment, but one meant to show that the categories of existent and non-existent do not apply to dependently originated phenomena.
It is perfectly logical when you understand the assumptions upon which it is drawing. Context is King.

el_chupacabra said:
yes, but that original assertion is not based simply upon assumption, the context was established through reasoning using the method of catuṣkoṭi - four members in a relation of exclusive disjunction - to which simple formal logic is inadquate.

The key phrase is "understanding of the parts requires understanding their relationship with the whole system" - a method used by the Buddha and by Nagarjuna to great effect, after all, why exclude the idea of dependent origination in the methodology itself?


Malcolm wrote:
The Caturskoti itself is based on assumptions about language and meaning, that is why it is failure when subjected to formal logic as a simple formal statement i.e. -(x, -x, x+(-x), -(x+(-x))).

However, the first statement (x) of the Caturskoti is not established, there is a cascading negation. This has to do with the linquistic parameters Nāgārjuna frames existence and non-existence in, in chapter 15 where he states quite explicitly that a non-existent is what people commonly call an existent that has changed its state into something else.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 6:18 AM
Title: Re: Logical Fallacies
Content:
Kyosan said:
All dharmas (things) are neither existent nor nonexistent.

This statement is logically inconsistent. But in Buddhism, it points to the middle way. It says that existing and non-existing are invented in our minds. It points to suchness and helps free beings from sufferings.

el_chupacabra said:
Importantly in this case, dialectical logic differs from formal logic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic#Dialectical_method_and_dualism " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Another way to understand dialectics is to view it as a method of thinking to overcome formal dualism and monistic reductionism. For example, formal dualism regards the opposites as mutually exclusive entities, whilst monism finds each to be an epiphenomenon of the other. Dialectical thinking rejects both views...In the dialectical method, both have something in common, and understanding of the parts requires understanding their relationship with the whole system. The dialectical method thus views the whole of reality as an evolving process."

Malcolm wrote:
It is also not a dialectical statement -- context is everything.

The statement means that dharmas do not come into existence in the first place, therefore, they cannot perish and become non-existent. It is not a dialectical statment, but one meant to show that the categories of existent and non-existent do not apply to dependently originated phenomena.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 5:25 AM
Title: Re: How do you know if you've recognized rigpa?
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Neither what I said nor secret refuge is a "method" since nothing in dzogchen is causal. The path in dzogchen is not based on causality, but on lhundrub, sponteneity. Rigpa sees that even the stains, confusions and obscurations of samsara were always katak, pure, and lhundrub, perfect, because nirvana and samsara are both of the nature of the Base and the Base always and forever has been katak and lhundrub.


Namdrol said:
No, this is actually not correct. In order for there to be samsara in the basis, there must be ignorance in the basis. But there isn't. This is why it is said that basis is originally pure [ka dag]. The Rosary of Pearls tantra states:
The mere term delusion cannot be described
within the original purity of the initial state,
likewise, how can there be non-delusion?
Therefore, pure of delusion from the beginning.

What you have presented above is a common mahamudra misunderstanding of what "basis" means in Dzogchen.

What you describe is the kun gzhi [ālaya] of the Mahāmudra teachings, not the "gzhi" (sthana) of Dogchen teachings.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Unfortunately I know nothing about mahamudra. Ok, now: what I am understanding from this is that I can't say that nirvana and samsara are in the base since the base is empty of both wisdom and confusion from the start - is that more or less correct?

Malcolm wrote:
What exists in the basis is the three wisdoms of the basis, essence, nature and compassion.

Ignorance has never existed in the basis, per se. Therefore, it is inappropriate to state that either samsara or nirvana have existed or will ever exist in the  basis. Ignorance (ma rig pa) means not knowing what the basis is. RIg pa is knowing (rig pa) what the basis is. Realization means becoming integrated with that knowledge.

Original purity means that there has never been a time when the basis was ever stained in anyway.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 4:39 AM
Title: Re: Logical Fallacies
Content:


Kyosan said:
All dharmas (things) are neither existent nor nonexistent.

This statement is logically inconsistent. But in Buddhism, it points to the middle way. It says that existing and non-existing are invented in our minds. It points to suchness and helps free beings from sufferings.

Malcolm wrote:
It is perfectly logical when you understand the assumptions upon which it is drawing. Context is King.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 3:48 AM
Title: Re: How do you know if you've recognized rigpa?
Content:
deepbluehum said:
lol this is teaching a method; where are you going with this?

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Neither what I said nor secret refuge is a "method" since nothing in dzogchen is causal. The path in dzogchen is not based on causality, but on lhundrub, sponteneity. Rigpa sees that even the stains, confusions and obscurations of samsara were always katak, pure, and lhundrub, perfect, because nirvana and samsara are both of the nature of the Base and the Base always and forever has been katak and lhundrub.


Malcolm wrote:
No, this is actually not correct. In order for there to be samsara in the basis, there must be ignorance in the basis. But there isn't. This is why it is said that basis is originally pure [ka dag]. The Rosary of Pearls tantra states:
The mere term delusion cannot be described
within the original purity of the initial state,
likewise, how can there be non-delusion?
Therefore, pure of delusion from the beginning.

What you have presented above is a common mahamudra misunderstanding of what "basis" means in Dzogchen.

What you describe is the kun gzhi [ālaya] of the Mahāmudra teachings, not the "gzhi" (sthana) of Dogchen teachings.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 3:02 AM
Title: Re: Yidam and Dzogchen
Content:


Kai said:
Jamgon Kongtrul is a great Kagyu master but He is a famed Dzogchen master, so His conclusion can't be far away from the truth and it also resolves certain "dilemmas" in this thread.



Malcolm wrote:
There are two systems. One in which the sixteen bhumis directly correspond with the thirteen bhumis + three. Another where the bhumis are given as descriptive names for experiences through the four visions.

They are both correct explanations.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 2:58 AM
Title: Re: How do you know if you've recognized rigpa?
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
No duality to become free of in the first place.

Chögyäl Namkhai Norbu relates that once someone asked the famous Dzogchen Master, Yungtön Dorje Pel, what his practice consisted of, and he replied with the negative “mepa” or “there isn’t.”
Elias Capriles

deepbluehum said:
Quotes like this are often taken out of context, because this quote refers to the practice of nonmeditation and no one will ever know what this means without instructions and blessings from the lineage. Your comments re paths of renunciation, transformation and self-liberation are innaposite.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
No-one can "know" what non-meditation means by being "instructed" about it or via "blessings". This is the whole point of direct introduction - it can only be realized directly in that moment when my mind is united with my guru's mind. In transformation we still receive "instructions" and "blessings". Not in self-liberation. Are you saying that self-liberation is a causal path?

Malcolm wrote:
no, he is saying that a guru is a requirement.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 2:55 AM
Title: Re: Re Death & Wind, Bile, Phlegm
Content:
pemachophel said:
Got it. Thank you.

Malcolm wrote:
I.e. ultimately, Dharma is the best medicine, and awakening is perfect health.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 1:26 AM
Title: Re: How do you know if you've recognized rigpa?
Content:
deepbluehum said:
I can't agree. The recognition is not always already there and must be recognized utilizing a method that must be taught.

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
IMHO the path in dzogchen is not "try to recognize", that is a path of renunciation or path of transformation path - the path in dzogchen is remaining without doubt, having received direct introduction.


Malcolm wrote:
Direct introduction is not a great translation, in actuality. The phrase is "ngo rang thog du sprad" which means more like "a direct self-encounter with [one's] state [lit. face]".


Author: Malcolm
Date: Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 12:56 AM
Title: Re: Kali Yuga
Content:
Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Sometimes I have intuitions though that the world is progressing toward a point of greater awakening. Is this just romantic BS or is it real?

Malcolm wrote:
In my opinion, romanticism.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 11:57 PM
Title: Re: Angioedema
Content:
Epistemes said:
My partner has angioedema, including hives and swelling in the fingers and toes.  Does TM cover how to treat something like this?

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, seeing a Tibean doctor may be of some benefit. Exact treatment would depend on a whole host of factors I cannot begin to predict.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 11:26 PM
Title: Re: Chulen
Content:
alwayson said:
Can a nonpractitioner take these pills?

If so, what are the highest quality chulen pills on the market?

Malcolm wrote:
If you are looking for mundane rasāyana, then taking Chavyanaprasha regularly is your best bet.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 11:25 PM
Title: Re: Mantra & Medicine
Content:
dakini_boi said:
I'm wondering, what makes a mantra particularly effective in treating physical imbalances?  For example, the vajra armor mantra is supposed to be effective to treat the "404 diseases" - is this presumably because it repels the 8 classes of spirits?  If this is the case, then wouldn't Dorje Drollo or Vajrakilaya practice be just as effective?  Yet I know that accomplished Vajrakilaya or Dorje Drollo siddhas may still do vajra armor for "healing" purposes.

Another question is - in what case(s) is mantra sufficient alone for healing, and in what case(s) are physical medicines also required - how would a Tibetan doctor determine this?

Thank you


Malcolm wrote:
You can use the mani for healing, if you are a mani siddha. All mantras ultimate can be used for healing. But some mantras have a specialized function for this, and Vajra armor is one such mantra.

If you go to a Tibetan doctor, one assumes that your mantra is not working so well.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 10:45 PM
Title: Re: Re Death & Wind, Bile, Phlegm
Content:
pemachophel said:
Namdrol,

When one dies and is reborn, are any imbalances in the wind, bile, and phlegm wiped clean and one starts again with these in relative balance, or does the imbalance that led to death ( assuming the death was due to disease) in some way carry on? IOW, does a propensity for a certain type of imbalance carry on from life to life? Any clarification on this issue would be much appreciated.

Malcolm wrote:
According to Tibetan medicine, imbalances in the three dośas, vata, pitta and kapha, come from the afflictions of desire, hatred and ignorance. Thus, as long as one has three afflictions there will always be imbalances in three dośas. Not all people have the same mix of afflictions, and hence in some people vata disorders will be stronger, and so on.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 10:01 PM
Title: Re: What Tibetan med is this?
Content:
threebit3 said:
Does anyone know a traditional Tibetan med,round pill,that has a white outer coating on it? I took it only on
the full  moon.

Malcolm wrote:
Some kind of precious pill.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 7:27 PM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:
catmoon said:
If your idea above were correct, then any beginner should swiftly attain enlightenment by simply recalling past lives. It just doesn't hang together.

Malcolm wrote:
Actually, this is what that Buddha himself describes.

Now, in order to recall past lives, one has to become an excellent meditator. The recall of past lives is one of the five mundane abhijñās (mundane because you do not need to be an awakened person to possess them) that arise because of developing skill in dhyana.

Of course, this suggests that a person has received teachings from a buddha in the past. Lacking that, one will never figure out the Dharma on one's own. Why? Because one cannot pull oneself out of samsara by one's bootstraps, as it were.

All Buddhas of the past had gurus. All buddhas of the future will have had gurus. All buddhas of the present had gurus.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 7:17 PM
Title: Re: 100 Syllable Mantra SUPO KAYO ME BHAVA
Content:
catmoon said:
So, why not recite mantras in English? The ancient Indians used the common language of the day, why shouldn't we? When the mantras were composed, people would not have considered Sanskrit any less mundane than we consider English.

Malcolm wrote:
Mantras are constructed according to very specific rules. They are not just "phrases in Sanskrit".

Mantras have their roots in a very specific notion of language.

As for mantras being in English, parts of mantras can be, parts of mantras that were translated in Tibetan, for example.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 7:07 PM
Title: Re: Yidam and Dzogchen
Content:
Namdrol said:
Whether they can bring one to the state of perfect buddhahood, however, is a different story. Indirectly, all are capable of doing so. Only the three inner yanas can do so in a single lifetime.

Kai said:
Hmmm, I'm sure that not long ago, you mentioned that only one yana (Dzogchen Upadesha/Mennagade or Longde) can bring one to the Perfect Buddhahood while the rest are only temporal Buddhahood and are hence reversible. No? Or a change in stance?

Malcolm wrote:
From the thirteenth bhumi onwards, they are stages of "abiding in wisdom". Presuming one manages to attain the thirteen bhumi, it is unlikely that one's realization will be blocked.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 6:07 AM
Title: Re: Ojas
Content:
rai said:
Maybe this is stupid question but is there any connection between Ojas and Lungta?

Thank you!

Malcolm wrote:
Not directly.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 4:59 AM
Title: Re: Tonglen: For the novice?
Content:
Namdrol said:
No one can ever take of the sufferings others since no one can take on the karma of others.

deepbluehum said:
This is a very excellent point, but someone practicing this can experience increased suffering and an increase in the five poisons.

Malcolm wrote:
I don't agree with this claim.

Sending and receiving is an inherently virtuous act. There is no way that this practice can increase one's own suffering since the wish to relieve others of their suffering is inherently virtous and and a negative result can never stem from a virtuous act.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 4:12 AM
Title: Re: Tonglen: For the novice?
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
No one can ever take of the sufferings others since no one can take on the karma of others.

The purpose of exchanging oneself and others is develop the courage to deal with helping people in samsara. But there is no danger that one will ever actually take on the suffering of others from this or any other Buddhist practice.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 1:54 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Pero said:
Hmm, but if that is so, creation stage alone would be sufficient to achieve Buddhahood no?

Namdrol said:
No. Why? The creation stage can only bring one to the sixth bodhisattva bhumi. To progress further, the completion stage, therefore, is indispensible.

Pero said:
Ah I see. But what does completion stage have that creation stage doesn't then? And also, what about common Mahayana which has no creation/completion?

Malcolm wrote:
Completion stage contains the rapid methods to eradicate the remaining knowledge obscurations as well as remove the subtle subtle afflictive obscuration required to move from the impure bhumis to the pure bhumis.

In common mahāyāna it take two incalulable eons to attain the pure bhumis and a one more bhumi to traverse the three pure bhumis, since the only available methods for eradicating the two obscurations are the practice of the six or ten perfections.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 1:27 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Pero said:
What do you mean by emptiness here? Path of Seeing?

Namdrol said:
Yes.

Pero said:
Hmm, but if that is so, creation stage alone would be sufficient to achieve Buddhahood no?

Malcolm wrote:
No. Why? The creation stage can only bring one to the sixth bodhisattva bhumi. To progress further, the completion stage, therefore, is indispensible.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 1:25 AM
Title: Re: Yidam and Dzogchen
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Basically there are, in the terminology of Dzogchen itself, three classes of vehicles; vehicles of the cause (sravaka through bodhisattvayānas), vehicles of the result (kriya tantra through anuyoga), and the vehicle beyond cause and result i.e. Dzogchen.

We can classify them by path as well, renunication, transformation and self-liberation.

Each vehicle is so called because it offers a complete path to liberation. One can attain the stature of an ārya through any one of the nine vehicles. In this respect, all nine vehicles stand alone and are independent from one another and may be taught as self-sufficient paths.

So, it is an error to assert that Dzogchen is a seperate vehicle, but the others are not. All nine vehicles have the necessary teachings to bring someone to the state of being an ārya.

Whether they can bring one to the state of perfect buddhahood, however, is a different story. Indirectly, all are capable of doing so. Only the three inner yanas can do so in a single lifetime.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 1:17 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
alwayson said:
Althought he won't confirm it, I believe for Namdrol:

Realizing emptiness = the famous Clear Light  OR fourth consecration

In other words it is a high tantric attainment. This is the only thing that makes sense based on his comment regarding tummo.


Namdrol said:
No, emptiness can be realized on the basis of the creation stage alone.

Pero said:
What do you mean by emptiness here? Path of Seeing?


Malcolm wrote:
Yes.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 1:10 AM
Title: Re: Yidam and Dzogchen
Content:
alwayson said:
Namdrol doesn't think Dzogchen Upadesha / Mennagade is part of "regular" Vajrayana and disagrees with the standard nine yanas classification of the Nyingmas.


Dzogchen Upadesha is an independent Buddhist vehicle.

heart said:
With all respect to Namdrol I will side with the mainstream Nyingmas in this matter. You are of course free to believe whatever you want.

/magnus


Malcolm wrote:
Hi Magnus:

There have been epochs, traditionally speaking, where only the teaching of Dzogchen has been taught, and nothing else. In this respect, then, Dzogchen must be considered an independent and separate vehicle.

It can also be taught as the apogee of the nine yanas.

In our world system, Dzogchen is part of Vajrayana, in general.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 12:39 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
alwayson said:
In that case I bow out.

I will never understand this shit.


Malcolm wrote:
it is just faster when combined with the completion stage.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 12:31 AM
Title: Re: Prostrations - slowly or quickly?
Content:
nirmal said:
]Bhante said,"Suppose a man were condemned to death by a kind king and he came to ask him for a reprieve. Quickly, urgently, he would bow down at the king's feet."  "You are quite right," said the yogi.

Should our prostrations be done quickly or slowly?


Malcolm wrote:
However you can.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 12:30 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
alwayson said:
Althought he won't confirm it, I believe for Namdrol:

Realizing emptiness = the famous Clear Light  OR fourth consecration

In other words it is a high tantric attainment. This is the only thing that makes sense based on his comment regarding tummo.


Malcolm wrote:
No, emptiness can be realized on the basis of the creation stage alone.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 11:50 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Namdrol said:
Further, the experience of emptiness, while necessary, is not at all the same thing as realizing emptiness. The experience of emptiness is experiencing an awareness [shes pa] free of concepts, often referred to as recognizing the gap between two thoughts. If you follow the teaching of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, terming this experience "dharmakāya", as some teachers do, is a big mistake. It is just an impermanent experience.

N

Karma Dondrup Tashi said:
Is this because awareness, whether or not it contains objects, is also itself always already empty i.e. unobstructed?

Malcolm wrote:
You should ask the great meditator.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 11:21 PM
Title: Re: Dzogchen Community of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu
Content:


alpha said:
What i am left with after his teachings is scattered pieces because he is destroying everything .

Namdrol said:
Excellent.

Clarence said:
Why is that excellent?


Malcolm wrote:
Because preconceptions are the hardest thing to drop.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 11:19 PM
Title: Re: Dzogchen Community of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu
Content:


alpha said:
What i am left with after his teachings is scattered pieces because he is destroying everything .

Malcolm wrote:
Excellent.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 11:10 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Andrew108 said:
No actually that is definitely not an experience of emptiness -

Malcolm wrote:
In this case I will defer to the great meditator, since you clearly are a much more realized person than I.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 10:00 PM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:
deepbluehum said:
I'm wondering how are you supposed to help beings overcome their suffering if you don't teach dharma? How are you supposed to teach dharma if you don't realize ultimate bodhichitta? How are you supposed to realize ultimate bodhichitta if you don't receive those teachings from someone else who has? Isn't that someone else a Buddha? No Buddha ever attained Buddhahood who didn't serve countless Buddhas. Dharma is not like water. It doesn't run all over the place. It is special and precious. You have to find a rare source.

catmoon said:
Not at all. If you'll allow me to disregard former lives, the prateyakabuddha works it all out for himself, just as Buddha did. Or, you could look at it this way: It is indeed special and precious, the sources are rare, but it occaisionally happens that the source is oneself.


Malcolm wrote:
Pratyekabuddha recall the teachings they received from past buddhas, and then apply them, just as Śakyamuni did. It is not the case that any person ever awakens by figuring things out on their own.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 9:57 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Andrew108 said:
Emptiness/Rigpa or Rigpa/emptiness your choice but always always always they are together...A genuine understanding of emptiNESS is required otherwise things don't fall into themselves - no collapse.

Malcolm wrote:
A proper understanding of emptiness is required, but not the realization of emptiness. If the realization of emptiness were required to have vidyā (knowledge of the basis), no one who was not an ārya on the stages could practice Dzogchen at all.

The realization of emptiness is also not a requirement for the basic requirement of tregchö i.e. stable placement in a momentary uncontrived awareness (ma bcos pa shes pa skad gcig ma). A proper understanding of emptiness is required.

Further, the experience of emptiness, while necessary, is not at all the same thing as realizing emptiness. The experience of emptiness is experiencing an awareness [shes pa] free of concepts, often referred to as recognizing the gap between two thoughts. If you follow the teaching of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, terming this experience "dharmakāya", as some teachers do, is a big mistake. It is just an impermanent experience.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 9:03 PM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:


catmoon said:
It seems to me that your position contains the assumption that only Buddhists can practice the Eightfold Path.


Namdrol said:
Yes.

The eight-fold path starts with right view, and right view, the view of middle way, belongs solely to the Buddhist school.

tobes said:
It doesn't "belong" anywhere or to anyone.

To say so contradicts the very essence of that view.


Malcolm wrote:
In reply to your pointless semantic quibble:

"Belongs" as in the sense of apples belonging in an apple bin -- an apple bin is where apples go, and it is where apples are found, and when you want to put apples in their proper place, you put them in the apple bin, and not the orange bin.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 8:56 PM
Title: Re: Evolution of humans and Mahayana Buddhism
Content:
Aemilius said:
If you accept the process of rebirth in the six realms to be true, then this Mt Meru map illustrates an important truth.

Malcolm wrote:
Accepting the former does not require acceptance of the latter.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 6:26 AM
Title: Re: Lung?
Content:
kirtu said:
So is lung mostly an indulgence in distraction brought on by chi not flowing correctly in the body and causing emotional excitation issues and distractions?

Kirt


Namdrol said:
No, not at all. It is a disfunction the element of air in the body.

kirtu said:
Well what does it result in?  I ask because Tsoknyi Rinpoche was excerpted recently and I read the entire question and answer series from the document that the excerpt came from and he says that Westerners have lung too high in the body and it needs to be brought down to just below the navel (the dan tien in Taoism/taiqi) and that as a result of lung Westerner's seem to be excitable and easily distracted but actually he's talking to people who already seem to know what the symptoms are so he doesn't go into that too much.  He did the same thing in a video.

Kirt


Malcolm wrote:
These are the general symptoms of a vata disorder:

wishes to move, sighing, instability in the mind; dizziness; roaring the ears; dry, red rough tongue; inclination for bitter tastes; shifting pains; cold and shivering; trembling and pervasive twinges5; fatigue; stiffness; atrophy; chapping, feeling breaks, bulging, constricted; great pain when trembling; prickling; goosebumps; insomnia; yawning, shivering; wishing to stretch; aimless chatter; feeling of having been beaten on hips, waist, bones, and all the joints; twinge and pain in the occipital notch, the chest and the jaw; the vata points become sensitive and are painful when pressed; dry heaves; in the morning, bubbly sputum; bloating, roaring, pain after digesting in the morning.
The reason he says it needs to be brought below the navel is that the natural location of vata in the body is in the pelvic region.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 5:46 AM
Title: Re: Lung?
Content:
kirtu said:
So is lung mostly an indulgence in distraction brought on by chi not flowing correctly in the body and causing emotional excitation issues and distractions?

Kirt


Malcolm wrote:
No, not at all. It is a disfunction the element of air in the body.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 5:42 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:
Kyosan said:
None of these are specifically Buddhist, but all help bring people closer to liberation.

Malcolm wrote:
Not necessarilyy, such things only lead people to higher stations in samsara.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 2:59 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:
Kyosan said:
A bodhisattva however can appear as a non-Buddhist -- but they will not teach.
Why is that? Why won't a bodhisattva appearing as a non-Buddhist teach?

Malcolm wrote:
What would they teach? They would not teach Buddhist Dharma. They might teach things non-Buddhist wish to hear. But those things do not lead to liberation. Even if a Bodhisattvas appearing as non-Buddhists teaches Dharma, the non-Buddhist will hear it as whatever teaching they are accustomed to. The limitation is not on the side of the bodhisattva, but rather on the side of his students.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 2:28 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:


catmoon said:
Isn't it possible to rouse bodhicitta without knowing what a Buddha is?

Malcolm wrote:
No. Not really.

However, sometimes we term the sincere wish to liberate beings from suffering (compassion) "bodhicitta", because cultivating the former inevitably leads to the latter -- since compassion is the seed of bodhicitta. Likewise, we frequently term non-buddhists of exceptional compassion "bodhisattvas" without meaning they are full bodhisattvas in the formal Mahāyāna sense.

It is important to make a disctinction between popular usage, and techincal usage. For example, some people call certain very strong forms of Marijuana "Buddha bud".

What we here are discussing is the formal usage of terms and what they mean.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 2:22 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:
Kyosan said:
You are a follower of Tibetan Buddhism aren't you? The Dalai Lama sides with me on this.

Malcolm wrote:
People misunderstand HHDL all the time.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 2:08 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Namdrol said:
However, there is no gaurantee that one will realize emptiness merely through practicing tregchö. Of this reason then, practices such as tummo, etc. are also recommended.
N

alwayson said:
Ok NOW I am starting to get this.

Based on this comment, realizing emptiness is some special tantric gnosis having to do with the center channel / avadhuti.


Malcolm wrote:
That depends on the practitioner.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 2:05 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:
Kyosan said:
A non-Buddhist can be a bodhisattva and a Buddhist bodhisattva can appear to be non-Buddhist.

Malcolm wrote:
No, a non-buddhist cannot be a bodhisattva. In order to be a bodhisattva, someone must have roused bodhicitta, the wish to attain buddhahood for the benefit of all sentiet beings. A person who has done so, is by definition a Buddhist.


A bodhisattva however can appear as a non-Buddhist -- but they will not teach.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 2:02 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:


Namdrol said:
You can believe what you wish. I have not found any evidence of the middle way, dependent origination, being taught anywhere other than in Buddhism. It is not that case that I have not bothered to look.

N


alwayson said:
um what about Bon?


Malcolm wrote:
Bon is basically a knock off of Buddhism.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 2:01 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:
catmoon said:
It seems to me that your position contains the assumption that only Buddhists can practice the Eightfold Path.

Namdrol said:
Yes.
The eight-fold path starts with right view, and right view, the view of middle way, belongs solely to the Buddhist school.

KeithBC said:
The Eightfold Path is a requirement for enlightenment.  No argument there.  No argument either that only Buddhism teaches it.

However, there is nothing to prevent someone (with exceptionally good karma, no doubt) from discovering the Eightfold Path on his or her own and practicing it, without having encountered Buddhism.  It is not the "-ism" or "-ist" that matters, but the understanding and practice.  Anyone, Buddhist or not, who practices the Eightfold Path well enough can become enlightened.  (I will accept a quibble that the person could be considered a Buddhist even if he or she doesn't know it.)

Om mani padme hum
Keith

Malcolm wrote:
Such a person would, by definition, be a pratyekabuddha.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 2:00 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:
Kyosan said:
If Buddhists can discover the true nature of all things, others can also.

Namdrol said:
Pratyekabuddhas discver the principle of dependent origination through their own power. But they do not teach. Thus, they do not lead others to liberation. Also their liberation is not complete -- in order to become fully awakened, they must also traverse the bodhisattva path.

N

Kyosan said:
The bodhisattva path is much broader than you think it is. A non-Buddhist can be a bodhisattva.


Malcolm wrote:
I am not really that interested in people's vague, ill-formed and speculative ideas about these issues.

I know what the great Mahāyāna Buddhist masters of India have said about these issues, have tested them with reasoning and found them to be sound. Therefore, I follow their advice on these issues. If other people wish to follow their own speculations, they are free to do so.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 1:34 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:


catmoon said:
It seems to me that your position contains the assumption that only Buddhists can practice the Eightfold Path.


Namdrol said:
Yes.

The eight-fold path starts with right view, and right view, the view of middle way, belongs solely to the Buddhist school.


catmoon said:
Nonsense.


Malcolm wrote:
You can believe what you wish. I have not found any evidence of the middle way, dependent origination, being taught anywhere other than in Buddhism. It is not that case that I have not bothered to look.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 1:32 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:
Kyosan said:
If Buddhists can discover the true nature of all things, others can also.

Malcolm wrote:
Pratyekabuddhas discver the principle of dependent origination through their own power. But they do not teach. Thus, they do not lead others to liberation. Also their liberation is not complete -- in order to become fully awakened, they must also traverse the bodhisattva path.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 1:30 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:


catmoon said:
It seems to me that your position contains the assumption that only Buddhists can practice the Eightfold Path.


Malcolm wrote:
Yes.

The eight-fold path starts with right view, and right view, the view of middle way, belongs solely to the Buddhist school.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 at 11:28 PM
Title: Re: Yidam and Dzogchen
Content:


Kai said:
Since Namdrol, you explicitly stated that Mahamudra and Semde give the same result which is the 13th Bhumi Buddhahood of the lower yanas. By logical deduction, Longde should also lead to the same realization as the observation shown above. Therefore its not a far stretch to conclude that only the Menngagde division is able to lead one into the 16th Bhumi.

Malcolm wrote:
klong sde has the four visions, therefore, it has the same result as man ngag sde. Sems sde does not have this, therefore, no "rainbow" body in sems sde.




Kai said:
However, when one reaches the teachings of the highest level, it is suddenly stated that there is only one or a few paths which could lead to the true and ultimate Buddhahood while the rest is just provisional and temporal ones that will eventually degenerate.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, and when you read Yangti tantras, they are critical of ati and spyi ti, and so on.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 at 9:49 PM
Title: Re: Evolution of humans and Mahayana Buddhism
Content:
Aemilius said:
Scientific cosmology supports nihilism.

Malcolm wrote:
There is no scientific cosmology in the sense that there is an Abidharma cosmology, or a Ptolmeic cosmology.

But if you wish to continue to believe that our sky is blue since the southern face of Mt Meru is made of sapphire, no one is going to stop you.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 at 9:41 PM
Title: Re: Yidam and Dzogchen
Content:
Namdrol said:
Really. Please the difference between Hināyāna and Mahāyāna in Gorampa's "Distinguishing views".

kirtu said:
I had "Freedom from Extremes" but had to give it away for the move.  Ok - thanks!

Kirt


Malcolm wrote:
BTW, I don't think this is accepted in Nyingma either.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 at 8:50 PM
Title: Re: Yidam and Dzogchen
Content:
kirtu said:
No that's standard across schools although I don't remember for sure if an Arhat was equated exactly with a 6th bhumi bodhisattva in terms of wisdom (it's the in terms of wisdom where the equating is done on this).  So when Arhats are awakened from their samadhi and they take rebirth they are reborn as sixth bhumi bodhisattvas.

Kirt


Namdrol said:
Hi Kirt:

No, this is not accepted in Sakya, it is rejected by Gorampa. 1) Arhats do not realize emptiness free from extremes 2) They do not have the necessary merit stores.

kirtu said:
Really?  I know Khenpo Kalsang has mentioned it.  So this is accepted by Nyingma, Gelug and Kagyu alone?

Kirt

Malcolm wrote:
Really. Please the difference between Hināyāna and Mahāyāna in Gorampa's "Distinguishing views".


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 at 8:43 PM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:


Kyosan said:
When someone understands what the Buddha meant by "realization" then they will understand that this term does not apply to those outside the Buddhist fold.

N

catmoon said:
Stop a moment and think of all the people who might be counter examples. The silent, self-taught Buddhas. The saints. The peacemakers. Maybe the fellow down the street who runs the deli. Do you really wish to invalidate all their realizations just because they are outside the tribe?

Malcolm wrote:
They are not counter examples. And the Buddha was very specific on this point:
In whatsoever Dhamma and Discipline, Subhadda, there is not found the Noble Eightfold Path, neither is there found a true ascetic of the first, second, third, or fourth degree of saintliness. But in whatsoever Dhamma and Discipline there is found the Noble Eightfold Path, there is found a true ascetic of the first, second, third, and fourth degrees of saintliness.[54] Now in this Dhamma and Discipline, Subhadda, is found the Noble Eightfold Path; and in it alone are also found true ascetics of the first, second, third, and fourth degrees of saintliness. Devoid of true ascetics are the systems of other teachers.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 at 8:32 PM
Title: Re: Yidam and Dzogchen
Content:
kirtu said:
No that's standard across schools although I don't remember for sure if an Arhat was equated exactly with a 6th bhumi bodhisattva in terms of wisdom (it's the in terms of wisdom where the equating is done on this).  So when Arhats are awakened from their samadhi and they take rebirth they are reborn as sixth bhumi bodhisattvas.

Kirt


Malcolm wrote:
Hi Kirt:

No, this is not accepted in Sakya, it is rejected by Gorampa. 1) Arhats do not realize emptiness free from extremes 2) They do not have the necessary merit stores.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 at 8:28 PM
Title: Re: Evolution of humans and Mahayana Buddhism
Content:
el_chupacabra said:
My perception of the situation in Europe is of a growth in materialism, both in the younger generations and in academia.

Kai said:
While in Americas, the sign of increasing fanaticism and religious fundamentalism is becoming a serious issue.....

Malcolm wrote:
No, there has always been a large percentage of religious wingnuts in the US and a religious zeal associated with "Democracy".


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 at 8:25 PM
Title: Re: Evolution of humans and Mahayana Buddhism
Content:



Aemilius said:
Truth is essential to BuddhaDharma...

Malcolm wrote:
But not cosmologies.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 at 8:00 PM
Title: Re: Yidam and Dzogchen
Content:
xabir said:
You guys seem to take Samantabhadra as a literal real account of what happened, but didn't ChNNR says it should be taken metaphorically?

Malcolm wrote:
That is a sems sde prensentation. The presentation in Man ngag sde is very specific.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 at 7:00 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
deepbluehum said:
You hating the words of the precious teacher, the Buddha, makes you the sort of person that my samaya says I cannot associate with. So either you have to recant, or you have to go or I do. The moderators need to speak up here.


alwayson said:
Do you know whats funny?

If you are a Vajrayana practitioner you are not allowed to even stay over at a regular Mahayana guy's house for more than a week.

I think Namdrol said this somewhere.

Malcolm wrote:
No, one is not allowed to remain in a temple where there is no faith in Mahayana for more than a week.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 at 6:40 AM
Title: Re: Yidam and Dzogchen
Content:
Kai said:
In the ongoing development, many Tibetan masters have been trying to get Vajrayana closer to traditional Mahayana by emphasizing that the tenth to Twelfth Bhumis in the tantras are actually equivalent to the Tenth Bhumi as stated in the Sutras. While the tantric thirteenth equates that to the sutric Eleventh, the only minor difference between the two is a formal tantra empowerment.

Malcolm wrote:
That is definitely not a POV that a Sakyapa or a Nyingmapa would be liable to accept.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 at 2:40 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
alwayson said:
Namdrol is my signature correct?

I think it will help some confusion


Malcolm wrote:
Those sambhogakāya forms are not the real Sambhogakāya. The real Sambhogakāya can only be seen by eight stage bodhisattvas on up.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 11:54 PM
Title: Re: Vajra Armor
Content:
dakini_boi said:
Haha, yes that's true.  Thanks for the clarification.

Just one more question about the Vajra Armor mantra - I know there's no visualization for it, but I'm curious - who is the deity associated with it?  Is it Vajrapani, or Guru Dragpo?  Or are these one and the same in this case?

Thanks for answering my questions, I offer you several recitations of Vajra Armor.


Malcolm wrote:
Padmashavari, a form of Vajrapani. There are in fact versions of this practice that are full fledged yidam practices.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 11:33 PM
Title: Re: Vajra Armor
Content:
dakini_boi said:
Thanks you guys.  I didn't know what the 404 diseases were, your clarification helps, Pema Chopel.

Why does the text say  "volume of mantras"? - I thought there was just one Vajra Armor mantra

Malcolm wrote:
There is only one mantra. Here volume is a translation of 'bum,which also means 100,000. So it means this mantra includes everything. If I translated is as "the one hundred thousand mantras of Vajra armor" you would even be more confused, in addition to such a translation being incorrect.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 11:30 PM
Title: Re: Yidam and Dzogchen
Content:
Kai said:
First of all, I believe that its highly speculative but I suspect the reversible effect if occurs, only lasts for a split second or less. In the book "Dzogchen practice", it was stated that the Adi-Buddha, Samantabhadra/Samantabhadri, experienced two of the three innate unelightenments at the start of universe and was able to overcome the delusions by the arising of His wisdom to recognize the eight appearances from the basis. Hence He retains his Buddhahood and become the Adi Buddha. And this might be the same event that happens to all Buddhas eventually if the Dzogchen tantras are to be believed.

Malcolm wrote:
There are three explanations possible, given that Dzogchen tantras and traditions definitely state that Samantabhadra was intiallly subject to either one or two ignorances (ma rig pa, avidyā):

1) The Dzogchen assertion that all sentient beings attain "full awakening (sangs rgyas)" at the end of a given mahākalpa requires interpetation and must not be taken literally.
2) Buddhahood is, up to a point, in fact reversible.
3) Buddhas and sentient beings newly form at the beginning of a mahākalapa.

All three possibilities present problems in terms of traditional Indian Mahāyāna Buddhology.

This controversy first came to my attention when my Sakya khenpo mentioned it in passing in the early '90's.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 10:52 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Namdrol said:
If not, then all people who have recognized rigpa would be first stage bodhisattvas. But they are not.

Andrew108 said:
How do you know they are not?

Malcolm wrote:
I have personal experience of the subject we are discussing and I am not a first stage bodhisattva. In other words, I am relying on my personal authority to answer your question.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 10:47 PM
Title: Re: Vajra Armor
Content:
dakini_boi said:
Just wondering, is Vajra Armor practice used for emotional disorders?
How about lung imbalance, for example insomnia? Or would there be other practices more specific to such things?

Malcolm wrote:
The collection of activities for Vajra armor states:

"This Vajra armor volume of mantras destroys all of the four hundred and four classes of disease, the one thousand and eighty classes of spirits, the eighty-four bad omens, the three hundred and sixty calamities, the eighteen kinds of untimely death, and so on."

I'd say it is pretty inclusive.

M


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 9:11 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Andrew108 said:
this is also what ChNN calls instant presence.

Malcolm wrote:
"Instant presence" is one of the ways in which Norbu Rinpoche translates the term "rig pa", in order to disinguish it from his translation of the term "dran pa", presence, which is usually translated as mindfulness.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 8:51 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Andrew108 said:
You seem to have suggested that recognition of rigpa and realizing emptiness are different.

Malcolm wrote:
Yes, they are quite different.

If not, then all people who have recognized rigpa would be first stage bodhisattvas. But they are not.

The second fault of your assertion above is that people who have not realized emptiness will beleive that they had, and such people will than be incurable.

Andrew108 said:
I don't mind the idea that I may be wrong.

Malcolm wrote:
That is a useful personal quality.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 8:18 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Andrew108 said:
This is far from being a trivial point. But as others have said it is better to check these things with a teacher.

Malcolm wrote:
It is a trivial point because time is merely a convention. There is no time or continuity at all, other than conventionally. In Dzogchen, that which is shared with Madhyamaka can be considered trivial since we are not discussing something unique and specific to Dzogchen teachings.

Also the term "intrinsic awareness" is a translation misnomer that has, unfortunately, gained broad currency. Using the term "intrinsic awareness" for "rig pa/vidyā" is very limiting. First of all, the adjective "intrinsic is misapplied. Intrinsic describes a quality that something else possesses. For example, diamonds are intrinsically hard; gold is intrinsically shiny; water is intrinsically wet. [X] is intrinsically aware? The intrinsic awareness of what? Of what is awareness an intrinsic quality?

There are other problems to this translation which lead people to reify rigpa as some truly existing ground ala Advaita's brahman.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 7:53 PM
Title: Re: Evolution of humans and Mahayana Buddhism
Content:
Aemilius said:
It gives depth to buddhism, and is therefore essential to it.

Malcolm wrote:
It is not essential to Buddhism, any more than Meru Cosmology is.


Aemilius said:
If you don't accept it you will as an implication hold that transcedental vision is nonsense, that great teachers like Karmapa, Tsongkhapa, Nagarjuna and others are liars or worse, when they perceive the events of  previous Yugas and previous Kalpas. I don't think you wish this either, do you ?

Malcolm wrote:
I think they uncritacally accepted the worldview handed down to them. I also think they had no tools to evaluate cosmological statements related to time and so on.

Sorry, when it comes to measuring the physical universe, we have a better understanding of it than ancient peoples.

In terms of eons, modern humans have only been out of Africa for 70,000 years or so.

The rest of it is religious speculation.

This of course does not mean that sentient life is confined to this planet, or that huge time frames mentioned in sutras are not relevant -- but there are issues with applying the fantastic numbers mentioned in sutras and so on to this planet and this crop of human beings.

On the other hand, it is fruitless to provide substitute speculations.

So we have to deal with two facts. Modern humans have only been present on the Indian subcontinent for at most 70,000 years. This fact stands in contradiction to traditional narratives about the history of Jambudvipa.

We should default to modern understanding, since it corresponds with the perception of ordinary people and is all that can be confirmed with any empirical certainty.

The beliefs of ancient Buddhist masters about the history of the world are pretty irrelevant.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 7:28 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Andrew108 said:
The point is that Rigpa has no continuity or time within it..

Malcolm wrote:
This is a trivial point and does not go beyond Madhyamaka.

N


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 8:48 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Andrew108 said:
A genuine experience of emptiness and a genuine experience of rigpa are the same - this experience is glimpsed during direct transmission from teacher to student.

Malcolm wrote:
Many people make this mistake. Such people never understand Dzogchen.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 8:29 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
deepbluehum said:
I say you and Namdrol are both right. You are right because the direct introduction does provide a glimpse into emptiness.

Malcolm wrote:
It is not the same as the realization of the path seeing.

It is an example wisdom only.

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Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 8:28 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Andrew108 said:
The way Rigpa is defined is as self-originated intrinsic awareness.

Malcolm wrote:
No, it isn't.

For this reason all of your other comments are skewed.

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Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 5:34 AM
Title: Re: Garab Dorje Guru Yoga
Content:
Andrew108 said:
The point is to receive the direct transmission. This is a guru yoga practice.


Malcolm wrote:
Yes, Tom seem to be missing that point.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 5:26 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Andrew108 said:
Neither have you answered the question.
But that's o.k as I don't think anyone is capable of answering in an accurate way.

Malcolm wrote:
I did. It is pretty straight forward. To put it another way, when a person ceases to reify phenomena in terms of the four extremes, that is the direct perception of emptiness. Until that point, their "emptiness" remains an intellectual sequence of negations; accurate perhaps, but conceptual nevertheless.

The "recognition" of rigpa, which is simply the knowledge (rig pa) about one's state as a working basis for practice, does not require realization of emptiness as a prerequiste, and can't -- since if it did, no one could practice Dzogchen. '

In terms of the four visions, for as long as one continues to reify phenomena, for that long, one will never reach the third vision. This is the principal reason in modern Dzogchen practice, emphasis is placed on the basis through tregchö, rather the path, tögal. If you are a first stage bodhisattva and so on, then the four visions in Dzogchen will be very, very rapid. However, there is no gaurantee that one will realize emptiness merely through practicing tregchö. Of this reason then, practices such as tummo, etc. are also recommended.

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Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 5:09 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Andrew108 said:
It seems that we may take the notion of Rigpa and the famous concept of emptiness and think that they are something we need...

Malcolm wrote:
All very nice, but you didn't answer the OP's question.

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Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 5:01 AM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:



Adamantine said:
I know south Indian food well, I have eaten it in India as well as regularly in NYC, being a vegetarian it is probably the tastiest veggie cuisine there is. However, between potatoes, basmati rice and various lentil dumplings, pancakes, and crepes

Malcolm wrote:
The crepes are fermented lentils and rice, 50/50.

Anyway, there is plenty of protein in that diet for most people.

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Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 3:20 AM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:


David N. Snyder said:
It is a myth that all vegetarians are healthy.

Namdrol said:
The healthiest vegetarian cuisine is South Indian cooking. It is the most balanced, the most diverse, strong on rice and bean combinations, easy to digest.

It is not Vegan since no Vedic based diet can be.

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Adamantine said:
With all the carbs and dairy though isn't it a bit fattening? I love this food but as I get older and the metabolism slows I need to think about slimming down. Also so many Lamas have diabetes now partially from the Indian white-rice obsession when genetically they are used to whole-grain barely (tsampa).


Malcolm wrote:
South Indian food is not necessarily carb heavy. The reason many Tibetans are getting diabetese is because they like the western diet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Indian_cuisine " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also, Tibetans ignore their own medical system and eat like crap.

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Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 3:03 AM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:


David N. Snyder said:
It is a myth that all vegetarians are healthy.

Malcolm wrote:
The healthiest vegetarian cuisine is South Indian cooking. It is the most balanced, the most diverse, strong on rice and bean combinations, easy to digest.

It is not Vegan since no Vedic based diet can be.

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Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 1:29 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
alwayson said:
Seriously what is this "path of seeing?"

I'm tired of searching for reasonable info on it in books on Buddhism.

What is it already?


Namdrol said:
It is the moment your understanding of emptiness ceases to be an intellectual construct and becomes a valid direct perception.

Malcolm wrote:
The Abhisamaya alamakara will have detailed information.

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Author: Malcolm
Date: Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 1:28 AM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
alwayson said:
Seriously what is this "path of seeing?"

I'm tired of searching for reasonable info on it in books on Buddhism.

What is it already?


Malcolm wrote:
It is the moment your understanding of emptiness ceases to be an intellectual construct and becomes a valid direct perception.


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 11th, 2011 at 10:27 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
Acchantika said:
Is then the initial recognition of rigpa equal to the path of seeing/first bhumi?

Also, is it accurate to describe this as recognition of clarity, whereas "realising emptiness" is effectively recognition of the inseparability of clarity and emptiness?

Malcolm wrote:
As to the first question, no.

As to the second question, yes.

As to the third question, realizing emptiness here in Dzogchen has the same meaning as realizing emptiness in any other mahāyāna school.

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Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 11th, 2011 at 9:51 PM
Title: Re: Do "dzogchen practices" help or hinder your thinking ability
Content:


Dechen Norbu said:
So, having a very good teacher is important, especially because western life brings a lot of challenges if we are to practice more or less "traditionally". It's not like we can go to a retreat and people take care of us while we practice.

Malcolm wrote:
It is also important to remember that we are Mahāyāna practitioners, and engaging in the activities connected with the six perfections is important.

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Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 11th, 2011 at 9:07 PM
Title: Re: "On White Women and Buddhism"
Content:


kirtu said:
So why should we continue to propagate the concept...

Malcolm wrote:
People think tribally. And as long as we continue to look different from one another, for that long people will continue to think in terms of "races" because race is a an effect of culture. "Race" is a result of attraction choices, environment, wealth, and a whole host of other things which result in non-verbal behaviorial cues. These behavarial cues are utilized in establishing human dominance patterns and social heirarchies.

We are all hutus and tutsis.

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Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 11th, 2011 at 9:01 PM
Title: Re: Delusion
Content:
Malcolm wrote:
Hi, it is sixteen consecutive mental cognitions through the four noble truths.

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Namdrol said:
It states it to be the case in the Abhisamayaalaṃkara, and other Mahāyāna texts, as opposed to a sixteen moment path of seeing proposed in Abhidharma kosha.

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Virgo said:
Loppon, in Abhidharma kosha, are path moments mentioned?  If so do these consist of 16 actual consecutive moments?  Or would the path moment be just one moment in a mind door process series of sixteen moments, each other moment in the series performing it's own separate function?

I may be off base here because I am comparing what I have learned in the Theravada Abhidhamma to what you have said above.  However, even "path moment" maybe be understood very differently in the Abhidharma kosha,  I'm not sure. I would really like to know more.

Thank you,

Kevin


Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 11th, 2011 at 9:00 PM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:
Kyosan said:
I'd like to clarify what I said. I think that all of us understand the Dharma at some level and that is why we are Buddhists, and that is especially true for people who choose themselves to become Buddhists. We see truth and value in the Buddhist dharma. But that doesn't mean that we understand the dharma at the same level as a Buddha does.

Namdrol said:
When someone understands what the Buddha meant by "realization" then they will understand that this term does not apply to those outside the Buddhist fold.

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Kyosan said:
I think that the one Buddha vehicle and the way of bodhisattvas can be very broad. That is how I envision them.

Malcolm wrote:
There is a great fault in being closed minded. There are equally great faults in being overly broad minded.

In reality, without the realization of the meaning dependent origination, one is not an awakened person. Dependent origination is solely the teaching of the Buddha. Yes it is true that some persons figure out dependent origination without the benefit of being taught by a Buddha. But such people do not teach.

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Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 11th, 2011 at 8:55 PM
Title: Re: Difference between recognizing rigpa & realizing emptiness?
Content:
alwayson said:
So is it possible for this typical New Age style pseudoBuddhist guru, "Thusness," to have realized material emptiness (aka third vision / eighth bhumi) and is on the way to rainbow body?

Malcolm wrote:
Third vision = path of seeing, not the eighth bhumi.

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Author: Malcolm
Date: Sunday, September 11th, 2011 at 7:41 AM
Title: Re: why did you 'guess' buddhism?
Content:
Kyosan said:
I'd like to clarify what I said. I think that all of us understand the Dharma at some level and that is why we are Buddhists, and that is especially true for people who choose themselves to become Buddhists. We see truth and value in the Buddhist dharma. But that doesn't mean that we understand the dharma at the same level as a Buddha does.

Malcolm wrote:
When someone understands what the Buddha meant by "realization" then they will understand that this term does not apply to those outside the Buddhist fold.

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