Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

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tobes
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by tobes »

freethinker108 wrote:
tobes wrote:
Huseng wrote:
Fine, but I don't see Lama Ole making a subtle argument about the juridical system. He's not saying "sovereign law should be equally applied to all citizens. I am troubled by the friction between the proper functioning of a law and minorities."

Nor are many of the right in Europe, for that matter.

They are, in fact, talking about 'wearing foreign garb.' Legislating to ban it in fact.

:anjali:
Actually, he is saying exactly that. You might want to listen a little more instead of just stereotype the guy or take quotes out of context.

"Buddhists can never be racists because all beings have Buddha Nature"

-Lama Ole Nydahl
He's making an argument in jurisprudence about the relation between Dutch sovereign law and Islamic minorities in Holland?

Evidence?

What I have read are broad sweeping and categorical statements about Islam, as a religion, and Muslims, as practitioners of that religion.

I am busy today, but I will provide evidence tonight. In the meantime, you can provide his subtle legal arguments.

:anjali:
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by freethinker108 »

conebeckham wrote: Taking this statement at face value, we can interpret it two ways...first,no sentient being, and not merely only Buddhists, can ever be racist, because any being possesses Buddha Nature (thus all beings are the same, essentially). Or, second, Buddhists cannot discriminate, by the mere fact of recognizing all beings have Buddha Nature. I believe his statement accords with this second option.....the first would be too naive, for anyone.

But, either way, It is one thing to recognize that all beings have Buddha Nature, and quite another to say that all beings, or even all Buddhists (which is what I think he's saying) recognize the essential equality of all sentient beings. It is also wishful thinking to say that merely because one holds a position regarding Buddha Nature inherent in all beings, one's actions, outlooks, and prejudices will change due to holding that position.
Cone-

One of the fundamental teachings of Mahayana Buddhism is that we go for enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. If you do it for some and not others, you're not practicing Buddhism and therefore not a Buddhist. So you can't be a Buddhist and be a racist at the same time.
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by freethinker108 »

-Lama Ole Nydahl[/quote]

He's making an argument in jurisprudence about the relation between Dutch sovereign law and Islamic minorities in Holland?

Evidence?

What I have read are broad sweeping and categorical statements about Islam, as a religion, and Muslims, as practitioners of that religion.

I am busy today, but I will provide evidence tonight. In the meantime, you can provide his subtle legal arguments.

:anjali:[/quote]


Here's something worth chewing on:

http://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-5866 ... lama_.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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tobes
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by tobes »

Namdrol wrote:
tobes wrote:

Fine minds have made the argument: Fromm, Adorno, Agamben.

I agree that it's very reductive, but their point is not that the Enlightenment caused the Holocaust; but more that the Holocaust stands as very compelling evidence that its political idealism (especially Kant's cosmopolitanism) did not prevail in reality.

:anjali:

You still missed the point of my bringing up the Enlightenment.

And you have hoisted yourself on your own petard. Political idealism never prevails in reality.

N
There's no hoisting going on here: that you take it as self-evident that political idealism never prevails in reality tells us plenty about the failure of the enlightenment.

Precisely because, many enlightenment thinkers did in fact assume that the ideal makes reality what it is. Kant was a transcendental idealist. Hegel......

I am bringing into question your fundamental assumption that the European enlightenment was successful and needs to emulated in the Islamic world.

:anjali:
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by conebeckham »

freethinker108 wrote:Cone-

One of the fundamental teachings of Mahayana Buddhism is that we go for enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. If you do it for some and not others, you're not practicing Buddhism and therefore not a Buddhist. So you can't be a Buddhist and be a racist at the same time.
It is not a given that, just because one goes for enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, one actually maintains some sort of Mind of Equanimity for all sentient beings. This is certainly a goal, an aspiration, but not necessarily a reality.

Even after one has entered the path, the Dharma recognizes that, for those of us who are beginners on the path, the three poisons hold sway, and we have friends, enemies, and those to whom we feel "neutral." Lojong/Mind Training teachings explicitly reflect this fact, you may know, and other Dharma teachings and methods do as well. At this point in our path, as beginners, the path is (largely) an aspirational one, and I think you would agree that it is entirely possible for "Buddhists" to have all kinds of flaws, imperfections, and obscurations-racism being just one manifestation of the poisons among many such possibilities. Some of these flaws are very near the surface, others may be rooted deeper, or hiding.....

If this were not the case, it would be possible to call only Buddhas--those who have purified all obscurations and attained all benefits--"Buddhists." The rest of us, shall we say, have "Issues." :shrug:
དམ་པའི་དོན་ནི་ཤེས་རབ་ཆེ་བ་དང་།
རྟོག་གེའི་ཡུལ་མིན་བླ་མའི་བྱིན་རླབས་དང་།
སྐལ་ལྡན་ལས་འཕྲོ་ཅན་གྱིས་རྟོགས་པ་སྟེ།
དེ་ནི་ཤེས་རབ་ལ་ནི་ལོ་རྟོག་སེལ།།


"Absolute Truth is not an object of analytical discourse or great discriminating wisdom,
It is realized through the blessing grace of the Guru and fortunate Karmic potential.
Like this, mistaken ideas of discriminating wisdom are clarified."
- (Kyabje Bokar Rinpoche, from his summary of "The Ocean of Definitive Meaning")
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mudra
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by mudra »

If we didn't have issues we wouldn't need Buddha Dharma!!!!
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by Malcolm »

tobes wrote:
I am bringing into question your fundamental assumption that the European enlightenment was successful and needs to emulated in the Islamic world.

:anjali:

It was successful in destroying Christianity, intentionally or not. That is all I said it was successful at doing. Islamic nations need a similar secular revolution.
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by freethinker108 »

conebeckham wrote:
freethinker108 wrote:Cone-

One of the fundamental teachings of Mahayana Buddhism is that we go for enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. If you do it for some and not others, you're not practicing Buddhism and therefore not a Buddhist. So you can't be a Buddhist and be a racist at the same time.
It is not a given that, just because one goes for enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, one actually maintains some sort of Mind of Equanimity for all sentient beings. This is certainly a goal, an aspiration, but not necessarily a reality.

Even after one has entered the path, the Dharma recognizes that, for those of us who are beginners on the path, the three poisons hold sway, and we have friends, enemies, and those to whom we feel "neutral." Lojong/Mind Training teachings explicitly reflect this fact, you may know, and other Dharma teachings and methods do as well. At this point in our path, as beginners, the path is (largely) an aspirational one, and I think you would agree that it is entirely possible for "Buddhists" to have all kinds of flaws, imperfections, and obscurations-racism being just one manifestation of the poisons among many such possibilities. Some of these flaws are very near the surface, others may be rooted deeper, or hiding.....

If this were not the case, it would be possible to call only Buddhas--those who have purified all obscurations and attained all benefits--"Buddhists." The rest of us, shall we say, have "Issues." :shrug:
Cone-

Of course being a Buddhist does not make you perfect. No one is trying to say that. The point here is to indicate what, as a practitioner, you are trying to understand. Buddhist methods, ethics, whatever you call them teach that the ultimate goal is not attainable if you hate others. You can't call yourself a Buddhist if you are trying to practice something other than (and in this case diametrically opposed to) Buddhist teachings. Its as simple as that regardless of how deep your self awareness is. The more one practices then the more one can see the truth of the teaching.
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by kirtu »

Namdrol wrote:
tobes wrote:
I am bringing into question your fundamental assumption that the European enlightenment was successful and needs to emulated in the Islamic world.

:anjali:

It was successful in destroying Christianity, intentionally or not. That is all I said it was successful at doing.
It produced radical materialism resulting in capitalism, communism, nazism and fascism. It also immediately undercut the traditional view of the intrinsic value of the person (as that was viewed in Christianity) and resulted in even more mass murder than before in European history with the excesses of the French Revolution. Aggression and hatred found a way to pervert Christianity into a tool of power used by unscrupulous people. But with the Enlightenment reason was the standard and unscrupulous people found it even easier to pervert to accomplish murder.
Islamic nations need a similar secular revolution.
Not so much if they use it to invent enemies and indulge in killing and enslavement. This is the very real dark side of secular societies.

Kirt
“Where do atomic bombs come from?”
Zen Master Seung Sahn said, “That’s simple. Atomic bombs come from the mind that likes this and doesn’t like that.”

"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by conebeckham »

freethinker108 wrote:
conebeckham wrote:
freethinker108 wrote:Cone-

One of the fundamental teachings of Mahayana Buddhism is that we go for enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. If you do it for some and not others, you're not practicing Buddhism and therefore not a Buddhist. So you can't be a Buddhist and be a racist at the same time.
It is not a given that, just because one goes for enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, one actually maintains some sort of Mind of Equanimity for all sentient beings. This is certainly a goal, an aspiration, but not necessarily a reality.

Even after one has entered the path, the Dharma recognizes that, for those of us who are beginners on the path, the three poisons hold sway, and we have friends, enemies, and those to whom we feel "neutral." Lojong/Mind Training teachings explicitly reflect this fact, you may know, and other Dharma teachings and methods do as well. At this point in our path, as beginners, the path is (largely) an aspirational one, and I think you would agree that it is entirely possible for "Buddhists" to have all kinds of flaws, imperfections, and obscurations-racism being just one manifestation of the poisons among many such possibilities. Some of these flaws are very near the surface, others may be rooted deeper, or hiding.....

If this were not the case, it would be possible to call only Buddhas--those who have purified all obscurations and attained all benefits--"Buddhists." The rest of us, shall we say, have "Issues." :shrug:
Cone-

Of course being a Buddhist does not make you perfect. No one is trying to say that. The point here is to indicate what, as a practitioner, you are trying to understand. Buddhist methods, ethics, whatever you call them teach that the ultimate goal is not attainable if you hate others. You can't call yourself a Buddhist if you are trying to practice something other than (and in this case diametrically opposed to) Buddhist teachings. Its as simple as that regardless of how deep your self awareness is. The more one practices then the more one can see the truth of the teaching.

No argument here, and this clarification is much better than saying "you can't be a Buddhist and a racist at the same time."

The question remains, however--is Ole's position based on Dharma and equanimity, or based on something which is diametrically opposed to Buddhist teachings. Your link didn't really give me any reasons to think the former, rather than the latter....this, from your link:
The Abrahamic religions, the ones that follow our constitution, treat women well, don't blow up people, you know, who are not involved in their problems...Judaism and Christianity are fine. Islam, I warn against. I know the Koran, I know the life story of Mohammad and I think we cannot use that in our society today.

People like the Sufis and Bahá'ís are different, right. They are usually being killed as soon as the mainline Muslims come in, they start killing the other guys. They want you to believe just because it's said, and you should not have any proof.
Doesn't strike me as a position of equanimity. Also, most Muslims I know would vehemently disagree with the terrorists being called "mainline Muslims." I find it offensive.

May we all uproot our prejudices and face our flaws directly, and may we overcome and purify our obscurations, and attain enlightenment for the sake of every sentient being.
དམ་པའི་དོན་ནི་ཤེས་རབ་ཆེ་བ་དང་།
རྟོག་གེའི་ཡུལ་མིན་བླ་མའི་བྱིན་རླབས་དང་།
སྐལ་ལྡན་ལས་འཕྲོ་ཅན་གྱིས་རྟོགས་པ་སྟེ།
དེ་ནི་ཤེས་རབ་ལ་ནི་ལོ་རྟོག་སེལ།།


"Absolute Truth is not an object of analytical discourse or great discriminating wisdom,
It is realized through the blessing grace of the Guru and fortunate Karmic potential.
Like this, mistaken ideas of discriminating wisdom are clarified."
- (Kyabje Bokar Rinpoche, from his summary of "The Ocean of Definitive Meaning")
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by Grigoris »

Namdrol wrote:It was successful in destroying Christianity, intentionally or not.
You obviously have never been to Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Norway, Ireland...
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by Malcolm »

gregkavarnos wrote:
Namdrol wrote:It was successful in destroying Christianity, intentionally or not.
You obviously have never been to Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Norway, Ireland...

I have been to Italy. In Tuscany, Catholicism is dead. It is completely Socialist there.

But the last gasp of a dying person does not mean they are alive. Christianity was destroyed by science. No matter how much there may be come reactionary elements that won't let go.

As for those other places, no. I have no been there. But that does not mean Christianity is vital there either.
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by heart »

Namdrol wrote:
gregkavarnos wrote:
Namdrol wrote:It was successful in destroying Christianity, intentionally or not.
You obviously have never been to Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Norway, Ireland...

I have been to Italy. In Tuscany, Catholicism is dead. It is completely Socialist there.
That is only the DC my friend. Who do you think voted for Berlusconi again and again?

/magnus
"We are all here to help each other go through this thing, whatever it is."
~Kurt Vonnegut

"The principal practice is Guruyoga. But we need to understand that any secondary practice combined with Guruyoga becomes a principal practice." ChNNR (Teachings on Thun and Ganapuja)
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by Malcolm »

kirtu wrote: It produced radical materialism resulting in capitalism,
Nope, that was a product of Protestantism.
communism, nazism and fascism.
Facism began as a left wind movement, then got religion. Nazism started out in Catholic Bavaria. Communism is another story.

It also immediately undercut the traditional view of the intrinsic value of the person (as that was viewed in Christianity)
Where the princes of the Church were lords of all, and everyone had his special place ordained by god? Please.
and resulted in even more mass murder than before in European history with the excesses of the French Revolution.
No, that was a result of the reaction against the corruption the Ancient Regime When you starve people for a couple hundred years, they get angry.

Aggression and hatred found a way to pervert Christianity into a tool of power used by unscrupulous people. But with the Enlightenment reason was the standard and unscrupulous people found it even easier to pervert to accomplish murder.
Christianity was perverted by Constantine. Actually, even before that.
Not so much if they use it to invent enemies and indulge in killing and enslavement. This is the very real dark side of secular societies.
Kirt
Religious societies are much worse, IMO.


N
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by freethinker108 »

conebeckham wrote:

No argument here, and this clarification is much better than saying "you can't be a Buddhist and a racist at the same time."

The question remains, however--is Ole's position based on Dharma and equanimity, or based on something which is diametrically opposed to Buddhist teachings. Your link didn't really give me any reasons to think the former, rather than the latter....this, from your link:
The Abrahamic religions, the ones that follow our constitution, treat women well, don't blow up people, you know, who are not involved in their problems...Judaism and Christianity are fine. Islam, I warn against. I know the Koran, I know the life story of Mohammad and I think we cannot use that in our society today.

People like the Sufis and Bahá'ís are different, right. They are usually being killed as soon as the mainline Muslims come in, they start killing the other guys. They want you to believe just because it's said, and you should not have any proof.
Doesn't strike me as a position of equanimity. Also, most Muslims I know would vehemently disagree with the terrorists being called "mainline Muslims." I find it offensive.

May we all uproot our prejudices and face our flaws directly, and may we overcome and purify our obscurations, and attain enlightenment for the sake of every sentient being.
Cone-

To me "you can't be a racist and a Buddhist at the same time" means the same thing. I was surprised by your interpretation, but I understand how you got to it. I've never met a kinder man than Lama Ole, and I've seen him in action for many years, so I would never assume he would be asserting that just because we are buddhists we get a free pass. That would be totally against his personality. Honestly he's not this carnival circus fascist some people try to make him into. Like any person you just have to get to know them to know what they are about, not just read what people say about them on the internet.

Not to start a giant thread about this but...

I don't think being critical of world religions and the suffering they have created over history is offensive at all. Buddhism should also be able to stand the same scrutiny. If you criticized a right wing Christian for their views on abortion, or Israel for their treatment of the Palestinians, would that make you a racist? No it wouldn't. Lama Ole has said many times that he is critiquing the systems themselves but that those caught by them cannot be hated. I mean they are the ones who suffer the most right? Our understanding as Buddhist is that suffering is created not by evil but by stupidity. If someone is being stupid its good to point it out so they can learn something, that is compassion. And let's not kid ourselves about the rampant violence against women happening in the middle east. Why we feel it is somehow OK to make excuses for such harmful cultural behavior as buddhists is really disturbing to me. Its like we're burying our heads in the sand. Read to Koran and the Hadith (Mohammed's life story), the 2 most celebrated texts in this religion. He was great when he was in Mecca but went all crazy when he became a warlord in Medina. Read how he treated women and his enemies. I don't think any reasonable person would say that these are examples we can use in our society today. I mean its just the same with these often quoted passages in the Old Testament regarding slavery or burning others, they are just mid-eval and barbaric.

Churchill said that democracy is a terrible system but its the best one we've got going. We can for sure improve it but we can't consent to legitimizing ancient and backwards cultural practices that go against the humanism we are striving for in our modern world today. Even in old Tibet people used torture and all kinds of old school stuff like that and we have to point it out and say its unacceptable.

Sorry for the rant!

Glad to be part of a fruitful discussion.
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by freethinker108 »

A correction! The life story of Mohammed is called the Sira. The Hadith is Islamic law based on the actions/sayings of Mohammed.
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by dzoki »

off topic as those last posts, but nevertheless interesting and alarming too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN9fOTpi ... re=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by Dhondrub »

dzoki wrote:off topic as those last posts, but nevertheless interesting and alarming too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN9fOTpi ... re=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
what is alrming is that people spread the propaganda of fascist organisations here. Dude-did you google BNP(british national party) before you posted this?
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by dzoki »

Dhondrub wrote:
dzoki wrote:off topic as those last posts, but nevertheless interesting and alarming too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN9fOTpi ... re=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
what is alrming is that people spread the propaganda of fascist organisations here. Dude-did you google BNP(british national party) before you posted this?
I don´t know how that particular video is a propaganda. I am aware that BNP is quite extreme, but believe me, compared to some right wing parties in the Eastern Eurpope, they come out as moderate conservatives.
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Re: Lama Ole Nydahl, what do you think?

Post by dzoki »

Ok I have to admit BNP are quite racist. Nevertheless I don´t think the above video is any sort of propaganda it is just a portrayal of whhat is going on in Birmingham, UK. As I previously said, I don´t think islam is a threat to Dharma. Because Dharma is something in our heart and it cannot be taken from anyone. However i think islam is a threat to western lifestyle, culture and practice of what we consider basic human rights. And regardless of what BNP is, the truth is that islam has been spreading in Europe rather agresively over the past few years.If Ole Nydahl chose to voice his concern, that is ok, although I think the venue of dharma lecture (or supposed dharma lecture) is not really suitable for such thing.
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