Apech

How many more threads are we going to have on 'evil' asylum seekers? You can bet some human rights organisation put them up to this anyway. Everyone needs to calm down (and carry on).

That's a toilet seat.

Nice quote, thanks.

Yes ... and once again I salute the new guys - for what they are about receive may the Lord make them truly thankful.

I think distinguishing between personal comments as a member and moderation actions/notifications is very important. Sometimes as a moderator you have to be cautious about entering into long debates because you get sucked into the grey area between the two. It's not a pretty place to be.

I still have a few scars

An account called Moderation Team or some such already exists for this specific purpose. It was created because usually moderation actions follow discussion but whoever carries out the jointly agreed action often gets attacked personally.

Hi Robin, First, though its not really an answer to your question the Theraveda/Mahayana divide is not as great as it is sometimes portrayed. And the origins of it were not in some kind of sectarian dispute like Catholic/Protestant as is sometimes suggested by western commentators. Some of the rationality of insight and mindfulness practices which might be associated with Theraveda is actually quite modern - and a response to western rationalism as experienced during European colonialism. Some of the stranger sides of Mahayana come from fusion with much older shamanistic practices. But I know you are using it as a kind of illustration of different approaches to practice so I'll put that to one side for now. I practice Vajrayana for the simple reason that I feel a strong personal connection to it and some of its teachers. I don't have rose coloured specs. about Tibet or any other culture - I think that's an error based on exotic cultural appeal. I like the practice I do because it works - it addresses the things I need to address and supports me. If it didn't I would do something else. In fact I do study many systems but mostly just out of interest not as a main path. I even like to listen to or read any radical thinker including atheists and so on - not necessarily to agree with them but to get stimulating challenge to received ideas and so on.

Mercury is very low on this thread now.

about Toshibas ... I phone, you phone, we all phone, talkin' Mac-in-tosh.

Hey tell us something we didn't know already hahaha

Worked for me.

Ouch no thanks.

Do you have a basement by any chance?

Go to see a doctor.

No you are right there is nothing inappropriate in the term unborn - I wasn't saying there was. But I guess we should let my minor objections rest

They need to get off their backsides and start existing ... they can't live on welfare forever you know!

Those non-existent bastards will have happiness whether they want it or not.

I think you would just say 'perfect bliss' and people would form their own understanding drawn from experience. That would be plain English. Rather than saying something like 'unadulterated pristine euphoric super-sensual affective state' - or whatever.

closer than brother Canon hewlett packard be So epson facto?

It wasn't the philosophical significance of 'unborn' that troubled me - but it's clumsy use in everyday English which makes Buddhism inaccessible to many. Not just this term as well but also the confusing nature of Buddha-speak when it introduces people to the 'non-conceptual' for instance something like this 'the unadorned and unelaborated uncontrived base of apparently perceived phenomena unborn and non-arising in the mind' (I made this up by the way) - to which the appropriate response would be : Wot? It's an obsession of mine to try to use plain English if possible.

Ok I'm not very familiar with dzogchen but got my information from here http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php? title=Longchen_Nyingtik_Ng%C3%B6ndro

Apart from the inclusion of Cho they seem identical.

https://www.facebook.com/bbcnewsnight/videos/10153309055021200/?video_source=pages_finch_trailer&theater

I watched this nice film the other day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APuKa5-WVs4 It focusses on a few boys chosen as Tulkus in the 1970's and 80's - they are westerners - the main one being the son of Trungpa. It follows him as he returns to India and Nepal and also talks to other 'tulkus'. They all seem to be charming decent chaps and all that but none of them seem to practice or really understand what it means to be a tulku. One is clearly is quite conflicted about the whole thing. Most of them did not go through the monastic training - Trungpa prevented his own son from being sent away - but one did spend time in a monastery which he describes as a kind of cess pit full of bullying, child abuse and homosexuality (nothing wrong with that except they are supposed to be celibate). There is an interview with Dzongsar Khyentse the Bhutanese film making lama - who says as far as he is concerned the whole tulku thing was Tibetan cultural and not particularly Buddhist and should be phased out. So it raises a number of questions - like how much of what we are taught as Buddhists in the west is actually Buddhism and how much is some kind cultural hangover from Tibet (or Japan or Thailand etc.) Discuss. (Write your answers on not less than two sides of A4 paper and hand them to the moderator before you leave the classroom - calculators cannot be used and cell phones must be in flight mode.)