Pero

Happy birthday dude.

Diamondway has quite a good following if I'm not mistaken. It should. At least one wouldn't go blindly into something. THe point was that he doesn't really know what he's talking about IMO, not that he said something childish.

That's the best advice, considering that apparently some of the people here who heard the horse's language misunderstood it to be the elephant's.

I refer to you to a 54 pages long E-Sangha thread about him here. Actually maybe I shouldn't have said he's not a "nice" guy, but in short he isn't really an authentic teacher and he basically created a kind of cult. What he's teaching are his own interpretations of the dharma mixed with correct teachings, told in a way bound to attract many people who are ignorant of authentic teachings. Like mahamudra video is a joke, also mentioned in the above thread. "wow, I've got rid of it all, free space and stuff like that", I still can't believe someone claiming to teach mahamudra would actually say something that sounds like a teenager with no understanding would say. Anyway in there, he says angry people are more suited for Nyingma/dzogchen teachings, intellectuals for Gelug and those with a lot of desire for Kagyu. Now there are indeed some correspondences like that in Tibetan Buddhist teachings. However, from his way of presenting it you would decide Kagyu/Mahamudra is best. Would you prefer to be considered an angry and prideful person, a boring intelectual or a person with a lot of desire and playful mind? I bet most people would go for option three. Guess which lineage is Ole? Kagyu. A hilarious thing he says in that video is something like Kagyu people like to stay close together and touch each other. LOL. Yes well, what I see a lot of is people saying "oh this teacher is nice" without checking if he's authentic or not at all. Then after following a teacher for some time when it turns out he's not so nice or just not suitable for them, they cry foul and complain how they were deceived and all gurus are bad and corrupted. Well gee, why not take the time to check out the teacher and find out before you enter a deeper relationship and get screwed. And especially these days with the internet it's not so difficult to find out a little about someone.

He's not. Better to stay away from him IMO.

Yes. Yes.

Eh, I started writing a reply, but deleted it, since there is no point in continuing this discussion. I shouldn't have even said anything in the first place, too bad I'm such an idiot. Maybe some day I'll learn not to talk about secret teachings, even though I have not said much. And what I have said could've been wrong so I'm doubly an idiot. Although I could not have said much anyway since I don't know almost anything. Even though I don't know anything, this is better than thinking I know something, when that something is non-sense. No. What Apepch said. But it's not surprising you'd think that. You see only the words and not the meaning. Most of the time we can't see the meaning unless we are taught. If we take a piece here and a piece there every once in a while without having the whole picture we get nothing but confusion. And even if we know the whole picture, without a qualified teacher one can't practice Vajrayana. If one does so, it just remains at the level of fantasy and probably we'd be much better off just watching porn or something. A great sentence I read today, it said something like "A person who takes himself as his guru, has a fool for a student." Oh well, off to smarter things. For sure this time.

There is something I forgot to say. I want to say thank you for your lessons.

Such a shame. All these poor old masters, practiced virtue, mind trainings, purification, Bodhicitta etc. for nothing. It's too bad you weren't there to tell them that thoughts don't matter, they could've saved so much time on their way to enlightenment. Remember that when you'll be lying in the gutter with a stab wound in your abdomen. Farewell.

Well, it's not so much that I don't trust translations I guess, after all, I do read them. But the thing is that the translators from Tibetan don't really have a common way of translating (don't know how to put it otherwise). One translator translates a sentence or word one way and a second translator another way. And then you read both, and they seem totally different (although it can be if you understand a little, that both have the same meaning for you, just conveyed differently). Since my knowledge of Tibetan is basically non-existant, it's impossible to say which is correct or better. And then you can just go by feeling, especially if you don't have much knowledge of the teaching like myself. But it's still good to read. I haven't seen any of Sam van Shaik's books, so I don't know how he's translating. But in any case, if it's not too much for you, please post it, now you've got me curious. Ha, you aren't related to Patrick Brown by any chance? Ok so, to repeat myself, if someone would try to stab you, would you just wait for him to do it? I imagine not. But why? If you think there is no dichotomy of good (not stabbed) and bad (stabbed)? So of course one should also try to avoid bad thoughts, and create positive ones. That is basic, and Jigmed Lingpa's Longchen Nyingthig contains ngondro (prostrations, refuge, purification, mind trainings, stuff like that). If what's in your mind wasn't important, that wouldn't be there. We shouldn't consider ourself like we are realized and not care about good and bad. That is the path to the dark side. I guess my favourite quote the past few days, Padmasambhava said something like: "Though my view is as high as the sky, my attention to cause and and effect of karma is as fine as flour." If the view comes too close to the conduct, we can become like demons. (maybe he said this also) For sure, our thoughts are part of our conduct. And Jigmed Lingpa would not contradict that I am sure. If it seems so, it's because you misunderstood. Always it's important to remember the context of what is being said.... Possible. If so, I apologize. Recent events have made me more suspicious than ever, and I'm almost totally convinced now that discussing these things too much in more public ways brings misfortune eventually.

Oh and one last thing. It's just wrong to tell someone to "use" his lama to get anything.

I'm not sure about Milarepa, but Nyagla Pema Duddul did not eat meat. In fact, towards the end of his life he didn't eat much of anything if I remember correctly. The Dalai Lama eats meat, although according to him he tried to become vegeterian against the advice of his doctors and then his health deteriorated and he started eating meat again. Shabkar, Jetsun Dragpa Gyaltsen, Patrul Rinpoche, Chatral Rinpoche, Karmapa Urgyen Thinley and many others also did not/do not eat meat. So, there are many excellent masters who didn't/don't eat meat also. Not really. (I eat meat BTW) Because of the conditions of time and place.

No. Translations are not necessarily correct. Also even if a translation is correct, it doesn't mean you can correctly understand what it is saying without a teacher explaining it to you. Although then you could argue if you can even translate something correctly if you don't have correct understanding of the meaning of what it is saying... The old translators were very good practitioners themselves. Frankly, giving Tolle as something people could relate to, is like if I know what an apple is and you don't, but you know what a rasin is, and I would tell you, oh the apple is a rasin. I'm pretty sure he doesn't just say there's no such thing as good and bad thoughts, which is what you said. "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 Many people (like Jax) forget or just conviniently disregard that.

Yeah that's good, no doubt.

Well maybe there are different kinds of ngagpas. I remember reading a thread on E-Sangha where ngagpas were in contrast with yogis and so not the same at all. Like for changing the weather if they have some realization they both can do it, but go about it in different ways.

I don't think this is entirely correct. By that definition, any Tibetan Buddhist that is not a monk would be a ngakpa. Ngakpas have their own vows (very strict if I remember right). Also in general I had the impression that ngakpas are considered more like sorcerers, for controlling weather and stuff. I think it was Kamalshila, who taught gradual sutra, while Hashang taught non-gradual sutra. I've heard that Tibetans in general like things more gradual, so Kamalshila "won". Oh someone from Yahoo groups. His real name (I guess) is Jackson Peterson or something like that.

Gita is very cute and looks like a really nice girl, but I don't understand why someone would stay with a person for so long if that person would be causing them to suffer. Was she in love so much or are the orgasms just that good?

Why Starjumper, I didn't know you had a vagina.

Yeah I think the same.

No kidding.

Must be a good GF then.