Apech

Am I the only one to find 'unborn' to be a hopeless expression? Not having a go at you Rigdzin - but on first reading it's kind of meaningless. One feels that you might start a campaign - 'the rights of the unborn phenomena' ... it's clumsy English but of course I don't have a solution for it since I know it's probably an accurate translation.

If we subscribe to rebirth then we are all tulkus of someone I suppose - which levels it out a bit. I can't imagine anything more disturbing for a small boy to be told he is someone else and whisked away from his parents and force fed Buddhist philosophy for fourteen years. I think the young Kalu Rinpoche went through hell because of this - though now he seems to have adjusted.

Thanks I haven't read that one. I don't know if he makes this point - that our romanticisation of both Tibet and India is part of colonial thinking. For instance the older western Indologists go on endlessly about 'timeless', 'mystical', India - as if it has no actual history.

8/10 despite points being deducted for using a computer - you raise some valid points. I'm kind of torn between respect for the old ways and realising that many people who are drawn to Buddhism and Daoism rather then being culturally born into it are better practitioners. Also they have some karmic connection - or so I imagine. I do believe for instance that the forms of etiquette should be changed to western ones - we should treat teachers much as we do aged and respected professors or venerated members of one's family - not so much bowing and white scarves and going through the motions that we don't understand.

Try driving a Skoda Fellatio ... at least I think that's what it's called.

Transistor radios! I have similar memories. A tranny meant something different in those days.

What's that Brian?

Here's the Dzongsar Khyentse bit if you don't want to watch the whole thing:

If the vase is not empty then how do you fit the flowers in it? I'l bet Tsongkhapa didn't have answer to that one.

I think another thread on distinguishing between what is Buddhism and what is Tibetan (or other) cultural hangover would be interesting. I'll start one.

Didn't know what time it was and the lights were low I leaned back on my radio Some cat was layin' down some rock 'n' roll 'lotta soul, he said Then the loud sound did seem to fade Came back like a slow voice on a wave of phase That weren't no D.J. that was hazy cosmic jive

'lemniscates' - thank you I shall drop that word in every conversation I have for the next week. Just because I can.

coffee, tobacco... have yourself a Marcel Proust moment of your own.

Last time I'm going to say this - it's not after ....

Two points of information to the thread. 1 ) ngondro - if this is being taught as a kind of collection of badges before higher teachings this is wrong. I suspect none of the good teachers do this but a lot of students don't bother to ask and so think this is what they are doing - mostly cos of pride in being able to say 'I've completed 100,000 prostrations or whatever - which of course means absolutely nothing. 2 ) bodhicitta is the realisation of emptiness - the realisation of emptiness expresses through the lens of the relative world as compassion - so bodhicitta is directly related to the natural state which can be termed the union of emptiness and appearance/luminosity/clarity. In the progressive sense of developing meditational experience many people have emptiness realisations first and so it is important. Also the compassion it gives rise to is based on understanding and not sentiment.

I don't think anyone on here is in a position to authoritatively tell anyone else what is correct and what is not. I just speak from my own experience and my own practice and what has worked, and is working for me. I do this in the spirit of free exchange and fundamentally I don't care about what other people do at all, though I like to listen to as much opinion as I can so I can check my own knowledge.

I vote for a Malcolm free zone. If you have something to say then say it in your own words.

The point I was trying to make which is usually overlooked is that the ngondro are not stepping stones to higher teachings - they are higher teachings and you do mahamudra meditation from the beginning. This is in line with the concept of the basis, path and fruit. In non-dual systems the basis or cause , the path itself and the result are all in the natural state. You are right about Tibet. I have just read van Shaik's book on this and the history of Tibet far from being a peaceful shangrila of smiling Buddhists is constant tribal war, political intrigue and other forms of unpleasantness. The monasteries were largely about power and land ownership and the ordinary people were kept in peasant poverty. In fact most actual practitioners were either lay yogis or left the monasteries to live in either caves or camped settlements. There's nothing special about Tibet except they kept and preserved the Buddhist vajrayana from old India which otherwise would have been lost.

How did you get hold of my passport photo?

Well, you seem very certain of all this. But from my experience this is a misunderstanding of ngondro - because of the word 'preliminary'. The ngondro are not like badges you need before higher practice - and where I depart from CT's view is to say that whether you do them or not, whether you do 100,000 or not is really not important. Ngondro is just a way of firming up your natural state practice - which you do at every stage. In other words after completing a number of prostrations each day you sit and do direct practice. You of course may be one of those rare practitioners who have few obscurations to the natural state and thus I would agree that if this is the case then there would be no purpose to the ngondro, just sit ... or don't even sit if you don't need to. They serve to remove obscurations which are empty illusory things ... But I can only voice my own experience and that is that they strengthen and improve your meditation. Not theoretically, actually.

I think perhaps one way of understanding the use of the term 'superior' in Buddhist and Bon texts is to mean more direct or more immediate. For instance a superior student of a teaching is often described as such as one who immediately on hearing a teaching gains realisation. They are primed and ready so to speak and just hearing the words one time causes the teachings to bear fruit. In terms of paths - there are those which are more indirect and spend a lot of time laying foundations and so on - and those which deal with the essence directly or immediately. So the mahayana is usually taught as a gradual path of accumulating merit over several life times, the vajrayana as more directly going to addressing energy transformation through sadhanas, and dzogchen as being even more direct in pointing at the 'truth' = rigpa. I think it is a slight misunderstanding if you think because of this that the more indirect paths are just discarded in terms of praxis - though of course in terms of the guidance of the mind you would perhaps avoid any focus on gathering merit , or visualisation of deities and so on, you would let them drop away - but you would still understand them as support and remedy for self and others in appropriate circumstances. So there might be circumstances where you would apply a tantric practice to clear certain obstacles and so on even though one's main practice is dzogchen. I am basing this mostly on what I understand through mahamudra so if it is incorrect I apologise and stand to be corrected by true dzogchenis.

Do you mean mercury in the context of palm reading - or mercury generally?

This book includes Tonglen as well as other aspects of mind training as it is known in Buddhism. Its very good. the author died last year unfortunately. I think ralis is right to point out that care is needed. But I can say I have found it very helpful when integrated in with my other practices.