Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

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dzogchungpa
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by dzogchungpa »

Malcolm wrote:
dzogchungpa wrote:
Malcolm wrote: DKR has a bad attitude about westerners. Its a pity really.
I kind of agree, but he has had a lot of experience with westerners, and seems to be quite appreciatve of western culture. Maybe he has a point?
A point about what? He does not understand us.
I'm not so sure about that. Have you been to any of his empowerments?
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Huseng »

heart wrote:Actually, Mahayana might have been taught by the Buddha. The archeological proofs are becoming just as solid as for the Hinayana scriptures.

/magnus
Are you just making this up or do you have evidence?
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dzogchungpa
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by dzogchungpa »

Malcolm wrote:His argument is at base a species of cultural chauvinism. This cultural chauvinism that DKR frequently expresses in his lectures is distressingly blind.
As someone said:
One cannot disassociate emptiness from vividness.
This inseparability I was told is the Guru.
Recognizing this should help me
Not to be stuck with depending on chauvinist lamas.
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

Sorry, but I have met many Tibetans and even Tibetan lamas and teachers, for the most part their minds are just as infected with worms as ours appear to be.
It's not that we have defilements and they don't. It's more that our culture creates chaotic and confused people. Our religion's credibility collapsed, and our society is complicated and quickly changing. Philosophically, politically, socially, interpersonally, privately, and even intimately our lives are chaotic. The tendency is for people to become either frightened and overwhelmed ot selfish and happy to get their own needs met. Their society was, on the village level, very simple and straightforward. Their religion, which was 100% credible, gave them a way to see their place in the universe, and it was good. Their educational system took a simple premise and developed it towards true and complete understanding. It's our fundamental chaos that is only expanded/elaborated on by our educational system that they can't get. "How can this person be so intelligent and educated and still be a whack job?" But bless their hearts, they do what they can.
1.The problem isn’t ‘ignorance’. The problem is the mind you have right now. (H.H. Karmapa XVII @NYC 2/4/18)
2. I support Mingyur R and HHDL in their positions against lama abuse.
3. Student: Lama, I thought I might die but then I realized that the 3 Jewels would protect me.
Lama: Even If you had died the 3 Jewels would still have protected you. (DW post by Fortyeightvows)
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Huseng »

smcj wrote: It's not that we have defilements and they don't. It's more that our culture creates chaotic and confused people.
That's a rather romantic and charitable image.

First world and third world problems differ, but nevertheless both sides have their struggles. For the poor, suffering is more physical. For the rich, suffering is more mental.
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Malcolm »

heart wrote:Actually, Mahayana might have been taught by the Buddha. The archeological proofs are becoming just as solid as for the Hinayana scriptures.

/magnus
Really, what proof?
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

Indrajala wrote:
smcj wrote: It's not that we have defilements and they don't. It's more that our culture creates chaotic and confused people.
That's a rather romantic and charitable image.
There are no tibetan Kafkas, Borges or Phillip K. Dicks. And I'll wager that if you got a tibetan lama to read something by them they wouldn't get it, and they'd say, "Huh? WTF is this?" But when we read about Nagarjuna we take it as validating our existential confusion!
Last edited by Schrödinger’s Yidam on Fri Oct 18, 2013 7:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
1.The problem isn’t ‘ignorance’. The problem is the mind you have right now. (H.H. Karmapa XVII @NYC 2/4/18)
2. I support Mingyur R and HHDL in their positions against lama abuse.
3. Student: Lama, I thought I might die but then I realized that the 3 Jewels would protect me.
Lama: Even If you had died the 3 Jewels would still have protected you. (DW post by Fortyeightvows)
Malcolm
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Malcolm »

smcj wrote: It's more that our culture creates chaotic and confused people.
Sorry, I guess I just can't by into this way of thinking. Most of the people I know are neither chaotic or confused. In fact the most chaotic, the most confused people I have ever met, apart from rock and rollers, were Buddhists in Dharma centers.
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

Malcolm wrote:
smcj wrote: It's more that our culture creates chaotic and confused people.
Sorry, I guess I just can't by into this way of thinking. Most of the people I know are neither chaotic or confused. In fact the most chaotic, the most confused people I have ever met, apart from rock and rollers, were Buddhists in Dharma centers.
How many people do you know that believe that there is no intrinsic purpose or meaning to life, and that we just have to make it enjoyable on our own terms? Or how about the opposite? How about the christian fundamentalist that sees the modern world as a threat and must be bullied into conforming to their beliefs?
Last edited by Schrödinger’s Yidam on Fri Oct 18, 2013 7:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
1.The problem isn’t ‘ignorance’. The problem is the mind you have right now. (H.H. Karmapa XVII @NYC 2/4/18)
2. I support Mingyur R and HHDL in their positions against lama abuse.
3. Student: Lama, I thought I might die but then I realized that the 3 Jewels would protect me.
Lama: Even If you had died the 3 Jewels would still have protected you. (DW post by Fortyeightvows)
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Karma Dorje »

Malcolm wrote:
heart wrote:Actually, Mahayana might have been taught by the Buddha. The archeological proofs are becoming just as solid as for the Hinayana scriptures.

/magnus
Really, what proof?
Yes, Magnus... what proof? After all, you know what they say: No soteriology without archeology.
"Although my view is higher than the sky, My respect for the cause and effect of actions is as fine as grains of flour."
-Padmasambhava
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Malcolm »

dzogchungpa wrote: I'm not so sure about that. Have you been to any of his empowerments?
No, I have not, precisely because of the kinds of things he says.
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by dzogchungpa »

Malcolm wrote:
dzogchungpa wrote:Have you been to any of his empowerments?
No, I have not, precisely because of the kinds of things he says.
Well, I have. I think I am at least as western as you, and I did not get the impression that he does not understand us. Are we really that hard to understand? He's not stupid, you know.
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Karma Dorje »

dzogchungpa wrote:
Malcolm wrote:
dzogchungpa wrote:Have you been to any of his empowerments?
No, I have not, precisely because of the kinds of things he says.
Well, I have. I think I am at least as western as you, and I did not get the impression that he does not understand us. Are we really that hard to understand? He's not stupid, you know.
I've found him to be quite ecumenical in his criticism; he is intensely critical of the form of Tibetan institutions and the often realized potential for abuse. What on earth is this "Western mind" people keep talking about? As a "Westerner" I completely sympathize with his puzzlement about Buddhologists who aren't also practitioners. It has always amazed me to find creatures that spend their entire life studying something in the abstract without putting it into practice. I suppose it is a way to make a cozy little living and to increase one's cred with undergrad hippie chicks, but aside from that it seems a pretty bloodless discipline.

There's no yawning gulf between Tibetans and Westerners, as far as I can see. Same afflictions, same institutional bugbears, same overweening conceits of intellectual prowess...
"Although my view is higher than the sky, My respect for the cause and effect of actions is as fine as grains of flour."
-Padmasambhava
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by heart »

Malcolm wrote:
heart wrote:Actually, Mahayana might have been taught by the Buddha. The archeological proofs are becoming just as solid as for the Hinayana scriptures.

/magnus
Really, what proof?
It is actually old news http://www.tricycle.com/feature/whose-b ... page=0%2C0

But it seems to take some time to land.

/magnus
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~Kurt Vonnegut

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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by dzogchungpa »

heart wrote:
Malcolm wrote:
heart wrote:Actually, Mahayana might have been taught by the Buddha. The archeological proofs are becoming just as solid as for the Hinayana scriptures.

/magnus
Really, what proof?
It is actually old news http://www.tricycle.com/feature/whose-b ... page=0%2C0

But it seems to take some time to land.

/magnus
Does that article provide some evidence that Mahayana might have been taught by the Buddha? I looked through it and I didn't see anything like that.
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Malcolm »

heart wrote: But it seems to take some time to land.

/magnus

Sorry Magnus, this does not rate.
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Malcolm »

dzogchungpa wrote:
Malcolm wrote:
dzogchungpa wrote:Have you been to any of his empowerments?
No, I have not, precisely because of the kinds of things he says.
Well, I have. I think I am at least as western as you, and I did not get the impression that he does not understand us. Are we really that hard to understand? He's not stupid, you know.

Many people with entrenched biases are not stupid.
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Malcolm »

Karma Dorje wrote: There's no yawning gulf between Tibetans and Westerners, as far as I can see. Same afflictions, same institutional bugbears, same overweening conceits of intellectual prowess...
It would be nice of Tibetan exponents of Buddhism such as Dzongsar would cease advertising how much more afflicted and so on Westerners are supposed to be. So far as I know, no incarnated Lama has ever been murdered by their own Western students.
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by dzogchungpa »

Malcolm wrote:Many people with entrenched biases are not stupid.
Yes, and DJKR is not one of them.
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
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Re: Dzongsar Kyentse Rinpoche brief comment on Je Tsongkhapa

Post by Alfredo »

Magnus, when you put it that way, the Buddha might just as easily have been a Jehovah's Witness.

When I consider the contributions of Religious Studies to Buddhology, I see what amounts to a tsunami of high-quality academic works on virtually every area of Buddhism imaginable. Scholars protest that the field is too huge, and they've only made a beginning, but this "Western" (read "academic"; there are a bunch of Asians involved too) influence is responsible for a veritable golden age of critical Buddhist scholarship which has broadened and deepened the understanding of "outsiders" and Buddhists alike. Just look at your library's holdings (not to mention internet-based resources), and tell me we're not living in a golden age, comparable to earlier transmissions of Buddhism and their associated cultural florescences.
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