Dharma Wheel

Sherab Dorje wrote:

boda wrote:Likewise, he's not responsible for any of the accomplishments of his students either.

Obviously you do not practice Vajrayana. In which tradition do you practice?

What exactly is obvious?

According to Diana Mukpo, wife and widow of Trungpa, he ultimately became disillusioned with Tendzin as his heir, and during his final illness he called Tendzin "terrible" and "dreadful", and indicated that he would have gotten rid of Tendzin had he a suitable candidate with which to replace him.[24] Rick Fields, the editor of Vajradhatu's publication the Vajradhatu Sun, wrote that he resigned from his editorial position after Ösel Tendzin and the Board of Directors stopped him from publishing news of the events.

The obvious question now is how could he have made such a grievous error?

There are truths in Buddhism which describe suffering, the cause and the way to the cessation of it. In the part that describes the way to the cessation of suffering it mentions not getting intoxicated. Perhaps these truths are true?

boda wrote:The obvious question now is how could he have made such a grievous error?

Boda, seriously, have a look at the books by Jeremy Hayward and Diana Mukpo, at least the parts where Rich is discussed. Things may not be as simple as you seem to want them to be.

dzogchungpa wrote:

boda wrote:The obvious question now is how could he have made such a grievous error?

Boda, seriously, have a look at the books by Jeremy Hayward and Diana Mukpo, at least the parts where Rich is discussed. Things may not be as simple as you seem to want them to be.

Do I want things to be simple or do others wish to obscure uncomfortable truths? Truths which may be cause for cognitive dissonance.

Malcolm wrote: Dylan, it is a long complex story. What matters is this:

According to Diana Mukpo, wife and widow of Trungpa, he ultimately became disillusioned with Tendzin as his heir, and during his final illness he called Tendzin "terrible" and "dreadful", and indicated that he would have gotten rid of Tendzin had he a suitable candidate with which to replace him.[24] Rick Fields, the editor of Vajradhatu's publication the Vajradhatu Sun, wrote that he resigned from his editorial position after Ösel Tendzin and the Board of Directors stopped him from publishing news of the events.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;Ösel_Tendzin

I was fully aware of this. He could have said he would have no successor, he could have done a lot of things. Craziness like that doesn't come out of nowhere. Results have causes and conditions. CTR should have been aware of these causes and conditions before the result (before his craziness started to more concretely manifest).

boda wrote:Do I want things to be simple or do others wish to obscure uncomfortable truths?

Well, all I will say is: you don't seem to do nuance.

boda wrote:What exactly is obvious?

That you have no idea of the role of the guru in Vajrayana. That you are not a Vajrayana practitioner.

Which tradition do you practice in?

Sherab Dorje wrote:

boda wrote:What exactly is obvious?

That you have no idea of the role of the guru in Vajrayana.

But I do know the role of the guru.

boda wrote:
But I do know the role of the guru.

Well please explain it to us then, so we can see where you are coming from, shel.

If you knew about the role of the guru in Vajrayana then you wouldn't have said this:

boda wrote:Likewise, he's not responsible for any of the accomplishments of his students either.

You have no idea about the role of the guru in Vajrayana. In Vajrayana, the guru is the sole source of blessing.

Sherab Dorje wrote:If you knew about the role of the guru in Vajrayana then you wouldn't have said this:

boda wrote:Likewise, he's not responsible for any of the accomplishments of his students either.

You have no idea about the role of the guru in Vajrayana. In Vajrayana, the guru is the sole source of blessing.

uh, I didn't mention anything about blessings.

dzogchungpa wrote:

boda wrote:Do I want things to be simple or do others wish to obscure uncomfortable truths?

Well, all I will say is: you don't seem to do nuance.

Religion is all about meaning, and of course different shades of meaning, thought the hue is usually rosy.

boda wrote:

dzogchungpa wrote:

boda wrote:Do I want things to be simple or do others wish to obscure uncomfortable truths?

Well, all I will say is: you don't seem to do nuance.

Religion is all about meaning, and of course different shades of meaning, thought the hue is usually rosy.

Yes shel, we are aware of your tired argument. You've expressed it countless times in a number of threads.

boda wrote:uh, I didn't mention anything about blessings.

Yet more proof that you have no idea about the function of the guru in Vajrayana.

Sherab Dorje wrote:

boda wrote:uh, I didn't mention anything about blessings.

Yet more proof that you have no idea about the function of the guru in Vajrayana.

All religious authorities perform the same essential function, which is simply to supply meaning to those that require it. That's exactly why they can do whatever they want and it's cool.

This topic is a perfect example. In the story mentioned in the OP, Chogyam Trungpa's students believed that he turned water into wine. They believed because they wanted, or needed, to believe. And despite his condemnation of their gullibility they probably still believed. Those that believe Chogyam Trungpa's alcoholism and womanizing were teaching methods are just like his students who believed that water was wine. Even if he explicitly stated that they were not teaching methods it wouldn't matter, they would still believe that they were teaching methods.

ToS wrote:This is not a "comparative religion site", it is a site to learn and discuss the Buddha's teachings without animosity. In support of this:

~ Badmouthing of other spiritual paths is not allowed.
~ Proselyting/evangelizing other paths which includes for example arguing some other path is superior to the Buddhist path is not allowed.

Not quite here yet, but we are veering close. If you want to discuss what's wrong with religion or religious people, or religious cultures, do it somewhere else, there are a million better places to do it than DW. We've had enough protracted threads of this sort, and they don't belong here any more than proselytizing from another religion does. Hope that's clear before we go off the deep end, and I need to lock the thread.

boda wrote:All religious authorities perform the same essential function, which is simply to supply meaning to those that require it. That's exactly why they can do whatever they want and it's cool.

Yes shel, we have heard you make these arguments before. You know, personally for me it is not cool. But then I did not have the karma to have Chogyam Trungpa as a teacher. Which is a shame really, because for all his apparent flaws, his Dharma teachings were 100% on target. My guess is that if somebody is willing to learn, they can learn from anybody, but if somebody is not willing to learn, not even the Buddha himself could teach them.

When you first begin to practice the vajrayana, you are just committing yourself loosely to the vajrayana. But when you take part in a vajrayana abhisheka, or empowerment ceremony, you drink what is called the samaya oath water. At that point, you are actually taking the formal samaya vow. When you take the samaya vow, you surrender your sanity completely to the teacher and the lineage with ultimate devotion and faith.

At that point, if you try to take your vow back due to resentment, confusion, and ignorance, what you get back is vajra neurosis. Because you have violated samaya, you go utterly crazy. If you go against your samaya oath—that is to say, if you go completely against it—you are destroyed and made into dust. You go really crazy. The vajra master is always helpful in such difficult situations, but if you do not let the vajra master be helpful, in either the wrathful or peaceful fashion, you have a problem.

In the vajrayana, you have a chance to create miracles because you do not particularly trust in normal logic. This seems to be quite different from the logic of the Zen koan tradition. The question, “What is the sound of one-handed clapping?” is still feeble logic. The assumption is that there should be the sound of a one-handed clap, so in presenting the impossibility of this, there is still logic involved. But in the vajrayana, there is no logic at all.

Samaya could be regarded as a booby trap, a net, or a vajra prison. But actually, it is less like a prison than a mental institution. In a prison, you have no choice about committing yourself, but in a mental institution you do have the choice. So samaya is more like a mental institution in that you commit yourself. At the beginning, you have a devotional inspiration to get into the vajrayana, so you commit yourself into the samaya trap. Your approach is open; you decide to commit yourself. But having committed yourself, the vajra gate closes, and you are included in the vajra world. This could be regarded as imprisonment or as entering into the vajra world. In either case, it is somewhat the same.

Once you have entered the vajrayana, you have no choice. There is no opportunity to manipulate your deceptions. On the bodhisattva path, you have the possibility of manipulating your experience, and exposing and demonstrating your characteristics. There is still showmanship at the bodhisattva level. You have a good chance of becoming a star, and if you become a mahasattva, or “great being,” there is a good chance of becoming a superstar. But in the vajrayana, there is less chance of becoming a superstar and more chance of becoming an inmate of a vajra dome. Like a geodesic dome, the vajrayana is a round world. It is no longer square, because square worlds give you too many chances to hide behind something.
Trungpa

Sherab Dorje wrote:his Dharma teachings were 100% on target.

Even if they were a smaller percentage on target it would still be okay, right?

boda wrote:

According to Diana Mukpo, wife and widow of Trungpa, he ultimately became disillusioned with Tendzin as his heir, and during his final illness he called Tendzin "terrible" and "dreadful", and indicated that he would have gotten rid of Tendzin had he a suitable candidate with which to replace him.[24]

The obvious question now is how could he have made such a grievous error?

There are truths in Buddhism which describe suffering, the cause and the way to the cessation of it. In the part that describes the way to the cessation of suffering it mentions not getting intoxicated. Perhaps these truths are true?

No one has responded to this. I find it particularly interesting in light of this earlier claim:

He minds your business completely; he minds every inch of your life. Your guru has the ability to do such a thing, because he knows every inch of your life, of your state of consciousness. He knows the tiniest fragments of your subconscious gossip, he knows all the little freckles in your mental functions. The guru has a complete understanding of all this. Therefore you are highly exposed, fully exposed.

Trungpa, Chogyam (2010-09-28). The Lion's Roar: An Introduction to Tantra (Dharma Ocean Series) (Kindle Locations 930-940). Shambhala Publications. Kindle Edition.

If he knew the tiniest fragments of Tendzin subconscious, and Tendzin was indeed completely exposed, then how could Chogyam Trungpa have made the mistake of making him his heir? Is there some nuance that I'm missing which accounts for this apparent contradiction?