Yascra

That one should hope that those watching and observing masters and grandmasters are good guys, maybe Might end in paranoia otherwise, lol Nice description

Hm. Well, tbh, I'm afraid you lack knowledge 'bout buddhism.

That is, generally speaking, not correct.Any buddhist sect I know 'till now offers possibilities for spontaneous realization. I would more tend to the idea that maybe taoism has lost most of the knowledge about what has to happen after some kind of first awakening.

Oh. Keep calm anyway Greetings

Guess so ;-) Nice answer, thanks. I for my part would have added some grains of criticism, but fits well

Sure, noticed that. But on the one hand I already had one experience with you in which you were very fast in drawing conclusions, on the other hand it might not necessarily be a waste of time. You state a genuine teacher acts in a certain way, Tibetan_Ice argues that two teachers to whom you might have some kind of a connection did behave in ways that undermine that some kind of cruelty, harshness and roughness were obviously very present in their behaviour. You might call me disingenuous as well, but I think Tibetan_Ice definitely has a point there, so I'd like to ask you how you manage to bring this behaviour in accordance to your view of what you state should be charasterics of a good teacher. You can't deny it's contradictive, at least to some extent.

Do you know each other extremely well or what made you conclude he or she is disingenuous?

I'd like to read your answer to #773 by Tibetan_Ice considering this.

Anyway it's a problem if you declare that "lying is okay, as in absolute reality truth doesn't exist". But well, maybe you're working in a system in which virtue is not estimated as worthwhile, such things do happen. The mistake in this way of thinking is that karma indeed does affect even Buddhas. So one has to set priorities.

Yepp, that's one of those dangerous aspects. Common sense tells you that usually, if someone says one thing and then completely contradicts him- or herself this person is dishonest. In spirituality you always have the excuse that we are all buddhas, and whoever is lying or behaving badly in another way is just using "skillful means", or that things like being consistent concerning the things you state are for those in "lower paths" or stuff like that. Rubbish.

Is that a posit or a conclusion?

At least they do change, thereby are subject to change, and thereby are not absolute.

Oki, np.. Were you serious when you wrote you're on drugs sometimes? If yes, then stopping to poison your body might be a first step to get some kind of control.. Just as an idea. Did you ever consider to make a list with everything that has to be done? As long as you have mainly one body to work with it might be helpful to consciously set priorities. I know it's boring and definitely anti-creative to sort things, but it's actually a way to get rid of a certain kind of stress And please don't make me a stress-factor for you, lol If you don't have the time you don't have the time - no problem or hurry there on my side. Doesn't mean I don't appreciate your threads or thoughts and all, but... Creating a situation in which you're suffering from having a bad consciousness and pressure all the time is really not the purpose if writing here, right? Take it easy, I for my part am not participating in any kind of a race here. :*

Well, if you wish so. Take your time. All the best to you

I for my part think that it is difficult to elevate culture by fights. How can lack of education, wisdom and knowledge produce high culture anyway? So first you have to get rid of the lack of those. I fear that what you'll bring about with changing culture by fighting will be a culture of fight .. and after we had this in huge expanse in the past, how would we want to engage in building up s.thing like this, being aware of at least some of the consequences? Without any doubt, there are situations in which you have to fight or even use violence. In many, many cases it will be possible to use softer methods anyway. It may not be impossible to cultivate in hell or as a hungry ghost .. but without a question it's difficult. Being aware of this, one should at least try to handle people, things and situations with wisdom. More work in the beginning .. but less to clear up lateron. As I mentioned, I don't say that you'll always be able to avoid fights, sometimes they are necessary. But fights always consume a lot of ressources that could in most cases be used for better purposes. In the end people will prefer a king who loves them. Best regards

Dharma battles can be a great exercise. Unfortunately some people mistaken them as an excuse to use violence whenever they encounter other practicioners, and of course that's what this kind of debates or battles should not be about. Ouh, the group mind in here is positive, in general. You just notice that there are people over here who cultivate. I really enjoy that, tbh, it's definitely not what I'm used to But concerning this being selfish.. Well, whoever of you sincerely brought up that's right would receive a " and with this you are ... out!", if it was a dharma battle. Of course being self-ish is stupid in it-self. How could it be clever to emphasize s.thing that basically doesn't even exist.

Ouh ... Be kind to yourself There will be a time in which you'll have trained to help without thinking. In which you might even plan to watch, consciously ... and still catch the child out of a compassionate reflex - if you just train it. Helping and reacting properly are things you can train, you know, they can simply become habits. As long as you know that watching bad things happen without interfering is not good, you can at least mark the lesson as "not how one should act, don't repeat". That's how you train, you know .. Sometimes things don't work, for whatever reason. Just go on purifying karma, practice and do better next time All the best to you!

Well, another name for affinity and trust of which you don't understand where exactly they come from is ... karma.As long as one does not see all afflictions clearly it's always a good idea to not blindly rely on the hope that some karma is a positive one, but additionally analyze things from the perspective of a neutral observer to really find out what's beneficial and what not I know that this is less touchy and might sound uncool, in the end people want to have some object on which to project their own devotion. But of course it is a spiritual system. If you're interested in discussing details of "system vs. path", I'd recommend you open up a new thread for this, then we might see It would be off topic in here I suppose.

What I said was: Emphasizing a bad teacher over own wisdom, okay?That was about comparison and about setting priorities, and if you read the rest of my posting I wonder how you could miss that point, for I think I really got deeper into the problems arising out of this. I did already go into details, so I won't repeat this. Keypoints: Vajrayana doesn't work without guidance by a genuine teacher. Genuine teachers are rare. How do people solve it? Want to go on with Vajrayana, so rely on SOME teacher, which will usually be someone who is not qualified for this task. Further conclusions left to you, details in my former posts. And sorry, but as "you don't have a clue" is more like being rude than an argument with real content I won't answer to posts of this kind. Furthermore I'd ask you to read whole sentences and the whole context, as this is the second time now that obviously you didn't read the whole posting, otherwise I consider it quite difficult to misinterpret what I wrote in such a manner; and if my expressions are so strange that you absolutely don't get what I might have meant, there would be possibilities to ASK. By the way, which Karmapa is the real one? Best regards

Read my postings again. Denigrating the WHOLE tradition AS SUCH is not what I do. I just say that from my experience of this system I estimate that your chances to succeed in it might be extremely low. But if you want to work with that system that's of course not of my business. See it with a blinking eye, though. But actually the skill to take one's own tradition not too serious is something I largely missed in a system in which secterianism is so present that most of it's teachers actually denigrate other sects just because the lineages split up suchandsuch hundred years ago, instead of seeking possibilities to work together. Of course a reason for this is that Tibetan buddhism has become largely involved with politics. But actually as a spiritual seeker and spiritual person I don't care so much what reason a tradition finds to drop virtue.. and splitting the sangha in ANY way is definitely not virtuous. Maybe this constant fight between different sects, that in essence, and even concerning their techniques, are more than 80% identical is one of my main points of criticism with this system in general. But I think I'll get out of this discussion. It'll just end up in kind of "religious war", and as I mentioned somewhere else, I'm sick of it. Take it as a hint, and whenever you might yourself wonder about things that might not be okay in large parts of this system, you have the possibility to come back to it, and find that you're not the only one wondering about certain things. I guess if you keep that in mind, then that's a sufficient outcome for this writing here, and if you might not find anything useful in it, maybe somebody else might do so. Well, in Tibetan Buddhism you might even inherit it, so by being a (mostly male) member of a certain family you get this licenses for free, so to speak, as kind of a birthright, and no matter whether spirituality matters to you at ALL, lol Faith is a beautiful thing if you know how to apply it correctly. Think I'll leave it with that. Keep your religious believes as long as you need them. Don't forget to drop them when they've fulfilled their purpose anyway. All the best, Ith

Oops.Didn't read that before, otherwise I wouldn't have made the effort to explain things in the other post. Find an ENLIGHTENED master. Ask him or her. Good luck.

You mean directly discrediting people, publicly?No, thanks, too many of those. But you might right start with most Rinpoches who in some way or another inherited their "title" and haven't even been to retreat for, let's say, six or more years. To be honest, I think you're a believer and simply want to fight for your opinion to be the right one. And guess what.. If you didn't recognize yet what problems this system has, and if you don't want to hear that, that's basically your theme or topic, not mine. If you're sincere then write me a name of s.one, then I may have a look at him (in most cases it will be a male, right?) and tell you what I think about that person. Let's express it the other way round: My personal opinion is that there is not even more than two dozens of persons who can practice Vajrayana without going astray, on this whole planet, let alone teach it, at the least if you keep out knowledge from other system. Not because t's so great, but because it's so easy to go wrong in that systems. Let it be fifty, but that would really be a great guess then, ok? So, just take this number and then count the persons in Vajrayana who are authorized to teach, and you might notice a big discrepancy. Sure, part of it is just the religious stuff, like you have lots of Christian priests nowadays who can't do anything but cite texts, so you need a low-level person to keep s.thing of the teachings, as no person is available who could really fulfill the requirements. Which is the case for all institutionalized religions, more or less. Nothing against this principle. The problem I see there is a pressure to "have a guru", hold a person dear etc... But that's really a waste of time in most cases. YOU have to have great devotion and talent to use the help of a non-enlightened master to awaken yourself. The scriptures can indeed help with it, sometimes - and if the "guru" is sincere enough to, for example, being aware of the fact that being Tibetan doesn't make you a better buddhist than being a Westerner, there might be a chance it can work. Even if you're just after rainbow body you should at least pick s.one as a master who has some students who already attained that. Otherwise your chances to get help with it are relatively low, I'd say. I don't say such guys don't exist. But they are definitely the rare kind of, and few will take the time to personally teach you and lead you, for example, in retreat. Anyway, it's not about fighting for me. I'm basically not a religious person, I just make experiences, observe, analyze and draw conclusions. So I'm not gonna discredit particular persons here. In the end they are human beings, too, some of them not being bad guys in general. Part of the problem finally arises out of the situation that there's politics involved which sometimes make people teachers who don't even want that at all. But, hm, what am I telling you anyway. I think you agreed with BKA that licenses are s.thing you might buy, if you have the money and connections. Being aware of that you should know about at least some of the problems yourself. All the best

Hi there, I'm 29 years old, transgender, have had not so great experiences with Tibetan buddhism, have had negative experiences in the trial to find some kind of a teacher (which means I met cheaters whom I allowed to influence me in a bad way and am still not done with some of it), and concerning spiritual practice I'm going on, but tend to be very lonely with my "superstition" in a largely scientific world in which there's no place for things like siddhis, though I'm aware of the fact that such things do exist. I'd hope for some exchange here on basis of the knowledge about some things a natural-scientific worldview would regard as "should not exist, so if you believe in it, you're insane and should be treated like that". So, hope for some clear views and for some discussions concerning things that are not meant to exist inside the "matrix" ;-) See you, Ith