Namkhai Norbu lineage

PeterC
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by PeterC »

treehuggingoctopus wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 9:25 am
PeterC wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 4:59 amthe person giving it needs to be able to read it in the language it was originally given, and give any associated empowerments and methods of introduction required in order to read it
Very reasonable. And, if I understand it correctly (you seem to be saying that in order to transmit Longsal lungs one needs to be able to give the Longsal wang), it also means that, with literally a handful of exceptions, no one is even potentially able to transmit Longsal.
I wouldn't venture to say how many. I'm pretty sure there are people quite capable of doing this. Look at it this way, perhaps. Most people are happy to receive empowerments from a random teenage tulku that they don't know provided they come from a famous family or have been given an impressive title. We should be willing to receive reading transmissions from people we know to be long-term, serious students of ChNNr. If we're not, then why? Do we think that ChNNr and his teachings were unable to lead students to realization? That absolutely nobody in the DC got anywhere in their practice? If we think it's a question of capacity, we should reflect on why we think that. If it's a question of Rinpoche's intentions, then we should provide specific evidence of why we think that too. And if someone comes up with a time and place where Rinpoche said, nobody apart from me can pass on my termas, then sure, nobody should pass them on and that's the end of it.

Of course any of us might decide that we don't want to receive anything from person X because we doubt that person's capabilities. Which is absolutely fine and is a choice when it comes to any teacher. People are a bit illogical when it comes to deciding who is 'qualified'. I've seen people refuse teachings from very qualified lamas because they're not high-profile enough for them.

Also there's a lot of different teachings in the Longsal termas overall. Not all of them have associated empowerments, methods of introduction, etc. I was just trying to give a generic answer to what would 'properly received' mean.
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treehuggingoctopus
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

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PeterC wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:29 amWe should be willing to receive reading transmissions from people we know to be long-term, serious students of ChNNr. If we're not, then why? Do we think that ChNNr and his teachings were unable to lead students to realization? That absolutely nobody in the DC got anywhere in their practice?
Apart from being a test of trust, it is also an exercise in applied hermeneutics: which statement (or combination of statements) of Rinpoche's will one take for the definitive one? Hundreds of typescripts and recordings available, let the battle begin.

The moment when someone has decided to transmit Longsal lungs, and "advertises" it on an open forum, while also saying that they will not reveal their identity, throws into sharp relief the sadness of the farce that is going on.
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PeterC
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

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treehuggingoctopus wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:36 pm
PeterC wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:29 amWe should be willing to receive reading transmissions from people we know to be long-term, serious students of ChNNr. If we're not, then why? Do we think that ChNNr and his teachings were unable to lead students to realization? That absolutely nobody in the DC got anywhere in their practice?
Apart from being a test of trust, it is also an exercise in applied hermeneutics: which statement (or combination of statements) of Rinpoche's will one take for the definitive one? Hundreds of typescripts and recordings available, let the battle begin.
A discussion based on what he said would be fine. Much of the discussion is not really based on anything.
The moment when someone has decided to transmit Longsal lungs, and "advertises" it on an open forum, while also saying that they will not reveal their identity, throws into sharp relief the sadness of the farce that is going on.
Well if you need to tell people you're doing something, but not tell them your name, then usually that should raise some questions.
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treehuggingoctopus
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by treehuggingoctopus »

PeterC wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:52 pm
treehuggingoctopus wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:36 pm
PeterC wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:29 amWe should be willing to receive reading transmissions from people we know to be long-term, serious students of ChNNr. If we're not, then why? Do we think that ChNNr and his teachings were unable to lead students to realization? That absolutely nobody in the DC got anywhere in their practice?
Apart from being a test of trust, it is also an exercise in applied hermeneutics: which statement (or combination of statements) of Rinpoche's will one take for the definitive one? Hundreds of typescripts and recordings available, let the battle begin.
A discussion based on what he said would be fine. Much of the discussion is not really based on anything.
An actual discussion would be good enough for me, truth be told. But of course for it to happen another discussion is necessary, one which attempts to clarify who is eligible to ask questions, and who is eligible to respond. And another one, about establishing the criteria of validity, or the topics that can be discussed, or the things that can be settled by means of a debate. And round and round we go.
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PeterC
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by PeterC »

treehuggingoctopus wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:57 pm
PeterC wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:52 pm
treehuggingoctopus wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:36 pm

Apart from being a test of trust, it is also an exercise in applied hermeneutics: which statement (or combination of statements) of Rinpoche's will one take for the definitive one? Hundreds of typescripts and recordings available, let the battle begin.
A discussion based on what he said would be fine. Much of the discussion is not really based on anything.
An actual discussion would be good enough for me, truth be told. But of course for it to happen another discussion is necessary, one which attempts to clarify who is eligible to ask questions, and who is eligible to respond. And another one, about establishing the criteria of validity, or the topics that can be discussed, or the things that can be settled by means of a debate. And round and round we go.
I suspect you've been reading too much Foucault :)

The simpler answer would be: people are going to do what they're going to do anyway. You can't stop them all. (In my experience, you can't stop any of them.) You can only be concerned about what you do.
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treehuggingoctopus
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by treehuggingoctopus »

PeterC wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 3:32 pmI suspect you've been reading too much Foucault :)


Well, it would be Habermas or Haraway in spite of (though not exactly in the stead of) Foucault :-)
PeterC wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 3:32 pmThe simpler answer would be: people are going to do what they're going to do anyway. You can't stop them all. (In my experience, you can't stop any of them.) You can only be concerned about what you do.
Well. I am also concerned about what we do or fail to do, and I feel we all should be. To ground the talk a bit: lots of pain in here and out there, something which the very notion of clandestine transmission of Longsal lungs testifies to.

In any case, I feel I am running around in circles and flogging a dead horse at the very same time. And in the end it is an endgame, pretty much -- so I guess, you are right in the context: right now, as far as the DC goes, all one can do is be concerned about what one does. That, however, is hardly good news: the word "community" is well on its way towards becoming an empty sound.
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PeterC
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

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treehuggingoctopus wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 4:11 pm Well. I am also concerned about what we do or fail to do, and I feel we all should be. To ground the talk a bit: lots of pain in here and out there, something which the very notion of clandestine transmission of Longsal lungs testifies to.

In any case, I feel I am running around in circles and flogging a dead horse at the very same time. And in the end it is an endgame, pretty much -- so I guess, you are right in the context: right now, as far as the DC goes, all one can do is be concerned about what one does. That, however, is hardly good news: the word "community" is well on its way towards becoming an empty sound.
You're right to be concerned. But ultimately we can't police others' behavior. The list of people transmitting Vajrayana practices improperly is extensive and goes back centuries if not a millenium or so. (I don't know if what OP here did was proper or not - I don't have the facts.) (deleted at author's request) The survival of ChNNr's termas - i.e., their proper transmission - is something we perhaps can do something about, though.
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

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PeterC wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 4:59 am
Well, others will have more detailed explanations, but just by the normal standards for transmission of lungs:
1/ the person giving it needs to be able to read it in the language it was originally given, and give any associated empowerments and methods of introduction required in order to read it;
But isn't that the problem here? CNN didn't authorize anyone to transmit his Longsal cycle besides his children, neither of whom want to do that, and so there is really no-one to transmit it?

These will disqualify a lot of people. I suspect that they may disqualify OP here, but I don't know his/her situation. The facts that someone received the lung from Rinpoche and then bought the book from SSI do not, alone, qualify them to give the lung.
For sure.
The question that people will understandably focus on is whether giving a lung of a Longsal teaching under any circumstances is inconsistent with Rinpoche's intent. This is situation-specific, and would be extremely unusual. I struggle to think of other situations where there is a restriction on someone giving a lung when they have received it. The obvious ones are terma lineages where the terton has been told to keep it to one person only for a certain number of generations. In general if the person who revealed the teaching sets specific restrictions on subsequent transmission, of course those should be respected: but tertons usually want their termas to survive and be practiced by serious practitioners, the termas manifest in the world for a reason. The issue in this debate is disagreements on what Rinpoche's specific intent was, and whether he intended to restrict transmission of his termas beyond what is normal. He clearly intended to keep the Longsal teachings more restricted than the other teachings that he gave. But I don't think anyone is asserting that he ever said, nobody apart from me can ever give reading transmission of these; or, that only persons X and Y can give reading transmission of these. If he ever made specific statements of this kind, those statements would be important, but after considerable discussion on this topic in the DC nobody has come forward with them.
No, but at the same time no one made it past level 4 and didn't he say one needs level 5 to teach Dzogchen? Or something to that effect?
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by Malcolm »

Arnoud wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:11 pm
PeterC wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 4:59 am
Well, others will have more detailed explanations, but just by the normal standards for transmission of lungs:
1/ the person giving it needs to be able to read it in the language it was originally given, and give any associated empowerments and methods of introduction required in order to read it;
But isn't that the problem here? CNN didn't authorize anyone to transmit his Longsal cycle besides his children, neither of whom want to do that, and so there is really no-one to transmit it?
There is no official lineage holder. This does not mean that there are no people who are qualified to give the transmissions they have received.
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by Arnoud »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:12 pm
Arnoud wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:11 pm
PeterC wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 4:59 am
Well, others will have more detailed explanations, but just by the normal standards for transmission of lungs:
1/ the person giving it needs to be able to read it in the language it was originally given, and give any associated empowerments and methods of introduction required in order to read it;
But isn't that the problem here? CNN didn't authorize anyone to transmit his Longsal cycle besides his children, neither of whom want to do that, and so there is really no-one to transmit it?
There is no official lineage holder. This does not mean that there are no people who are qualified to give the transmissions they have received.
I think I understand the difference. Possibly. However, due to the fact that CNN held the Longsal cycle so closely, and the fact that he never really authorized anyone except his own children to hold his lineage, I assumed special permission was needed to transmit the Longsal cycle.
Do you think anyone who has done the necessary retreats to act as a Vajra master can transmit them? Does that mean that any legitimate Vajra master can transmit any of the empowerments they themselves have received?
Maybe I understand less about the subject than I thought.
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

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Arnoud wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:41 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:12 pm
Arnoud wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:11 pm
But isn't that the problem here? CNN didn't authorize anyone to transmit his Longsal cycle besides his children, neither of whom want to do that, and so there is really no-one to transmit it?
There is no official lineage holder. This does not mean that there are no people who are qualified to give the transmissions they have received.
I think I understand the difference. Possibly. However, due to the fact that CNN held the Longsal cycle so closely, and the fact that he never really authorized anyone except his own children to hold his lineage, I assumed special permission was needed to transmit the Longsal cycle.
Do you think anyone who has done the necessary retreats to act as a Vajra master can transmit them? Does that mean that any legitimate Vajra master can transmit any of the empowerments they themselves have received?
Maybe I understand less about the subject than I thought.
This is an inference. To my knowledge he never said this.

The norm is not that one requires specific authorization from ones teacher before giving a reading transmission. My point was, in part, that if we are going to insist on that, which is a higher standard than normal, we need some reason to do so.
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by Arnoud »

PeterC wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 12:43 am
Arnoud wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:41 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:12 pm

There is no official lineage holder. This does not mean that there are no people who are qualified to give the transmissions they have received.
I think I understand the difference. Possibly. However, due to the fact that CNN held the Longsal cycle so closely, and the fact that he never really authorized anyone except his own children to hold his lineage, I assumed special permission was needed to transmit the Longsal cycle.
Do you think anyone who has done the necessary retreats to act as a Vajra master can transmit them? Does that mean that any legitimate Vajra master can transmit any of the empowerments they themselves have received?
Maybe I understand less about the subject than I thought.
This is an inference. To my knowledge he never said this.

The norm is not that one requires specific authorization from ones teacher before giving a reading transmission. My point was, in part, that if we are going to insist on that, which is a higher standard than normal, we need some reason to do so.
I have no problem with qualified people giving whatever they can give. So, what is qualified? You said the person needs to be able to give the necessary wangs as well. So, a Vajra master is qualified and I agree. Still, I always thought that Termas require the Terton's permission to his disciples for them to hold and thus transmit the Terma. Even for otherwise qualified Vajra masters.
Am I wrong? Asking Malcolm as much as you really. I would like to know what the texts say on this.
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by Aloke »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:12 pm
Arnoud wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:11 pm
PeterC wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 4:59 am
Well, others will have more detailed explanations, but just by the normal standards for transmission of lungs:
1/ the person giving it needs to be able to read it in the language it was originally given, and give any associated empowerments and methods of introduction required in order to read it;
But isn't that the problem here? CNN didn't authorize anyone to transmit his Longsal cycle besides his children, neither of whom want to do that, and so there is really no-one to transmit it?
There is no official lineage holder. This does not mean that there are no people who are qualified to give the transmissions they have received.
This doesn't seem to be the official position of the Dzogchen Community. But something that you are repeating, maybe to reinforce your self proclamation as one of  the lineage holders? As you already give teachings, lungs/empowerments. It is just a question ok?  
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by Virgo »

Aloke wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:11 am

This doesn't seem to be the official position of the Dzogchen Community.
It is simply the way Vajrayana works. No tantra proclaims that it must be announced who can transmit something - just that certain criteria are met.

Virgo
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by Aloke »

Virgo wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:26 am
Aloke wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:11 am

This doesn't seem to be the official position of the Dzogchen Community.
It is simply the way Vajrayana works. No tantra proclaims that it must be announced who can transmit something - just that certain criteria are met.

Virgo
The Dzogchen Community is not following the Tantras then? What a curious situation.
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by Arnoud »

Aloke wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:32 am
Virgo wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:26 am
Aloke wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:11 am

This doesn't seem to be the official position of the Dzogchen Community.
It is simply the way Vajrayana works. No tantra proclaims that it must be announced who can transmit something - just that certain criteria are met.

Virgo
The Dzogchen Community is not following the Tantras then? What a curious situation.
Actually, Virgo's answer corresponds to Malcolm's. There is no official lineage holder but qualified people can transmit what they have received. The tantras describe when someone is qualified.
Now, to me, all this makes sense. I just thought that in the case of Termas, the Terton has a say in it. Or, traditionally, does bequeath permission.
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by Malcolm »

Aloke wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:11 am
Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:12 pm
Arnoud wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:11 pm
But isn't that the problem here? CNN didn't authorize anyone to transmit his Longsal cycle besides his children, neither of whom want to do that, and so there is really no-one to transmit it?
There is no official lineage holder. This does not mean that there are no people who are qualified to give the transmissions they have received.
This doesn't seem to be the official position of the Dzogchen Community.
The Dzogchen Community, by their own admission, has no authority here.
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by Malcolm »

Arnoud wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:41 pm Do you think anyone who has done the necessary retreats to act as a Vajra master can transmit them? Does that mean that any legitimate Vajra master can transmit any of the empowerments they themselves have received?
Yes.
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by Aloke »

Arnoud wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:39 am
Aloke wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:32 am
Virgo wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:26 am
It is simply the way Vajrayana works. No tantra proclaims that it must be announced who can transmit something - just that certain criteria are met.

Virgo
The Dzogchen Community is not following the Tantras then? What a curious situation.
Actually, Virgo's answer corresponds to Malcolm's. There is no official lineage holder but qualified people can transmit what they have received. The tantras describe when someone is qualified.
Now, to me, all this makes sense. I just thought that in the case of Termas, the Terton has a say in it. Or, traditionally, does bequeath permission.
So, as the Longsal Cycle is a cycle of Termas, and the terton is no longer physically among us...

Are you saying that anyone could meet certain criteria and just make a self proclamation as being able of transmitting whatever one wants? If you are, what would be the point of keeping lineages, from "teacher to student, from mouth to ear"?
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Re: Namkhai Norbu lineage

Post by PeterC »

Arnoud wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:39 am
Aloke wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:32 am
Virgo wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:26 am
It is simply the way Vajrayana works. No tantra proclaims that it must be announced who can transmit something - just that certain criteria are met.

Virgo
The Dzogchen Community is not following the Tantras then? What a curious situation.
Actually, Virgo's answer corresponds to Malcolm's. There is no official lineage holder but qualified people can transmit what they have received. The tantras describe when someone is qualified.
Now, to me, all this makes sense. I just thought that in the case of Termas, the Terton has a say in it. Or, traditionally, does bequeath permission.
Sometimes a terton may pass on instructions, eg for X generations only give this to one student. But otherwise, when someone passes on a terma they accept the possibility that the student may pass it on to others. By giving her termas to a young ChNNr, for example, Ayu Khandro accepted that he may pass them on one day.
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