Dharma practice is a placebo.

[gregkavarnos]

it's 23 hours of recorded teachings.

My dear Rai, I am responsible for many of the recordings (video and audio) from teachings and retreats here in Greece (including editing etc...) and I can assure you that a downloaded electronic version of a 23 hour audio recording does not cost $50. I am sure that those that followed the retreat also paid to be there, and that their payments more than covered the costs of the retreat. This profit to the nth degree of Dharma teachings is a little too much for me sometimes. I personally do all the work and distribution of the recordings for free, for the benefit of the sangha.

here are some free Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche's teachings on Parting from the 4 Attachemnts from Walden, 2009 http://www.khyentserecordings.org/namo/Podcasts.html

Thank you!

[Dechen Norbu]

May I ask to close this tread.

Thank you.

You may ask, but what are your motives? Seems to me people are still debating this issue.

[Blue Garuda]

A find myself and way of talking quite entertaining. I am quite happy with myself. I could change things if I saw need. ONly compassion would show need to me....plainly speaking neither you nor DN particularly impress me in that regard so I will not make a effort to please.
Sometimes covert but mainly overt compassion.....that incites me to act in any sort of ways....I just don't see it in you two. Sorry I don't.

And I am not saying I am that way...only that is what incites me to act to please..rarely anything else. I personally am most noncompassionate.

The forest calls to me.I must not dawdle, Time as human it is so short.

A find your way of talking.......................er, impenetrable. Firstly, you are not talking, you are writing. Secondly, what you write often makes no sense. The language medium of the forum is English. Others whose first language is not English do at least try to be understood, but it is apparent that in any language you are 'happy with your Self'. Maybe a Buddhist forum is not the best antidote to that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3HemKGDavw

[muni]

May I ask to close this tread.

Thank you.

You may ask, but what are your motives? Seems to me people are still debating this issue.

Rai post is sufficient, thanks a lot. The discussions/debates about have already demonstrated how to depart from attachments.

I will open a tread with a brief teaching.

[gregkavarnos]

Okay, I understand. We talk so much about all is mirage, isn't? The teaching throws a light. As nature is already perfect.

How to explain by mind so that it fit for mind what can be recognized by nondualism?

A mirage is a reflection of something that actually exists somewhere.

mirage.jpg (8.02 KiB) Viewed 599 times

A placebo can sometimes have better results than a "real" medicine (placebos never have side effects).

[muni]

Since this tread is still open, great, I like to ask one question.


When the placebo works, where then are all others and not liked/liked phenomena?

[Dechen Norbu]

I don't understand your question muni. Can you rephrase it or elaborate a little?

[muni]

I don't understand your question muni. Can you rephrase it or elaborate a little?

How phenomena appear/are when the conceptual mind is not involved?

Maybe the teaching of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche about Penetrating wisdom is making it clear.

http://dpr.info/media/www.DPR.info%20-% ... Wisdom.pdf
Thanks anyway Dechen!

[Nemo]

Medical placebos work on roughly 23% last time I checked. This phenomena, which may denote a lack of mental acuity and critical reasoning capacity, explains many things to me. Like fundamentalist Christianity, tea baggers, trickle down economics, New Age-isms etc.

Dharma and it use for wish fulfillment in the world of things and separateness is not the same thing. Dharma actually has medicinal ingredients if you will. Simply understanding cause and effect makes one a very magical being. I don't think that is the right term for using Dharma to play with phenomena and not transcend it.

P.S Ron, your post are unreadable. Is English not your first language? I skip them as well since they often make no sense to me.

[muni]

I was thinking to open an new tread about what happened in this tread. But, maybe right here is okay.

First of all I must say not to be able to speak english correctly, so skip my post.

Then, since I learned to see "behind" words without fixations in a way it fits me; I see this in ron posts:

Pride its intellectual knowledges is nothing more than pain, samsara. In daily life no understanding is emerging through such, rather it is by compassion. When ron sees small light in muni post, it is not muni but my humbly Guru which is shining.

Wratfull compassion is to apply when haughty prideful separate drops on the beach are selling eachother their great knowing about the ocean. What is written on the stone in the movie samsara, is nothing others than to throw the drop in the ocean, that is the only way to stop the suffering drop to prevent it from drying-out.

If texts are used to increase a separate me, then there can be whatever text about dependency and emptiness, it is just another grasping and so samsara. This again is related to the tread placebo.

At least ron never showed pride, remained simple. Being simple is closer home than the artificial pride.

Ps drop=ego, ocean=nature

[gregkavarnos]

...At least ron never showed pride, remained simple...

Now that is the best joke I have heard for a long time!

[muni]

...At least ron never showed pride, remained simple...

Now that is the best joke I have heard for a long time!

Okay, then you saw pride. There is no need to focus on other solid practicioners for me and to point to their faults.

I am not focussing on names and could also leave ron-name out, since that itself is drops seeing mistakes in other drops. I try to use what is written and not to slay others down, which is samsara. So therefore I alsmost never use names in posts.

There are already enough examples of attachment-aversion on this forum! Drops are always slaying other drops, this is samsara, and this is promoted. The ocean doesn't slay its drops.

Protection of imagined me or Dharma? It is a question we honestly can ask ourselves only!

[gregkavarnos]

That's all well and true my dear muni BUT if I am acting like an a**hole then it is not wrong to say that I am acting like an a**hole. It's not a lie. It's not divisive speech. It's not gossip. etc... So saying when a group of people say to ron that maybe he should try to write more simply, or structured, because they are all having problems understnding him (and they all want to undertand him) and he responds by (basically) saying: that's how I write and I don't care if you understand it or not and actually I don't even want some specific people to understand me because they make me want to vomit... Well... if you do not think that is pride and if you do not believe that ron is being purposefully obtuse then...

Like I (and many other people) said: we actually want to (not need to, want to) understand what he is trying to say, but after his outburst I personally see no reason to make an effort. Especially if he does not care if I understand or not, and especially since he is even averse to me understanding him.

[muni]

Okay okay!

For me I don't merely think it is pride or wratfull compassion. I just see what is useful for me in posts, which was about arrogance and grasping to intellectual. maybe people can go in pm when there is some kind of conflict or just ask if it is possible to write more clear.
We can only purify or realize own minds' nature. And that is no **hole.

[catmoon]

[quote="gregkavarnos"]That's all well and true my dear muni BUT if I am acting like an a**hole then it is not wrong to say that I am acting like an a**hole. It's not a lie. It's not divisive speech. It's not gossip. etc...

But it is harsh speech, it may be untrue, it is almost never beneficial and the right time for it comes but rarely.

[gregkavarnos]

That's all well and true my dear muni BUT if I am acting like an a**hole then it is not wrong to say that I am acting like an a**hole. It's not a lie. It's not divisive speech. It's not gossip. etc...

But it is harsh speech, it may be untrue, it is almost never beneficial and the right time for it comes but rarely.

If it is true and it is not said with the intention to harm but the intention to describe then it is not harsh speech. If I am being an asshole and you say to me: "You are being an asshole, please stop it!" it is hardly an incidence of harsh speech. The stung ego may interpret it as harsh, but it is not. The intention is to protect the person from accumulating more negative outcomes, so... The Buddha, for example, called people "fool" on a number of occasions when they were speaking and acting like fools. He did it to clearly point out to them the destructiveness of their views and behaviour.

[catmoon]

That's all well and true my dear muni BUT if I am acting like an a**hole then it is not wrong to say that I am acting like an a**hole. It's not a lie. It's not divisive speech. It's not gossip. etc...

But it is harsh speech, it may be untrue, it is almost never beneficial and the right time for it comes but rarely.

If it is true and it is not said with the intention to harm but the intention to describe then it is not harsh speech. If I am being an asshole and you say to me: "You are being an asshole, please stop it!" it is hardly an incidence of harsh speech. The stung ego may interpret it as harsh, but it is not. The intention is to protect the person from accumulating more negative outcomes, so... The Buddha, for example, called people "fool" on a number of occasions when they were speaking and acting like fools. He did it to clearly point out to them the destructiveness of their views and behaviour.

Yes people use these excuses all too frequently. It seems that Buddha did this something like once every ten years, yet some people take it as a model for routine daily conduct.

[gregkavarnos]

Yes people use these excuses all too frequently. It seems that Buddha did this something like once every ten years, yet some people take it as a model for routine daily conduct.

This is true!

Has it occurred to you though that, maybe, people nowdays actually are foolish more often and need to have it pointed out more often?

[catmoon]

Yes people use these excuses all too frequently. It seems that Buddha did this something like once every ten years, yet some people take it as a model for routine daily conduct.

This is true!

Has it occurred to you though that, maybe, people nowdays actually are foolish more often and need to have it pointed out more often?

No, it had not occurred to me. Now that you mention it, it still doesn't.

[gregkavarnos]

Uuuuuummmmm... it was a joke! Obviously that didn't occur to you either?