Apech

You make a good point of course. It is not that in quoting what my teachers have said that I wish to use the error of authority to convince anyone else that I know what I am talking about. It is simply a practical thing - that when one is a practitioner and has received certain teachings and so forth then there is a natural tendency to rely on them. However I don't think this should be mistaken for a 'belief'. As I progress I continuously assess and re-assess my understanding of the 'View' and I do this partly in the light of what has been explained to me or what I have read and also my own experience (meditational and otherwise). So I view it as more of a process than a fixed idea or concept. It is inevitable that in this process I realise that things that I thought I understood, I don't, that ideas need to be challenged and discarded or reformulated time and time again. So I do not believe things because I have been told them but I do adopt them as working models for study with some confidence in those that explained them to me. Much as you may believe that you can cross a busy road, you still look both ways before leaping into the road ... but without that initial confidence that it was possible you would never even try.

No problem.

Yes and its watching you.

Well I am relying on statements made by my own teachers so I cannot without a lot of back reading of notes counter what you say ... and you may well be right about some commentaries. My teachers are Sakya and Kagyu and views on this I am sure vary from school to school and teacher to teacher. The equation of Zhentong with Yogacara comes from Centre of the Sunlit Sky attributed to Mikyo Dorje.

Hmmm not really convinced that HHDL really understands what science is or the paradigms that it uses. Buddhism is not science and is not a science as far as I can see. It is only the success and dominance of the scientific process currently that even makes us think that such a relationship is either possible or desirable. That there should be a dialogue is of course completely reasonable and generally a good thing.

To which I would add that the Buddhist tantras contain an inherently Zhentong view which according to Mikyo Dorje is actually Yogacara. So anyone practicing Buddhist tantra is yogacara too (even though they might not admit it).

Unless you do have such knowledge. But then of course you are unlikely to speak about it, much less broadcast the fact widely on the internet. In a sense to generalise, its not much different to saying to practice law you need to be qualified and to have that you need to attend a university or school which is closed to the general public ... you have to join and be a member there to attend lectures, take exams and receive a certificate. You are right of course if you are 'pretending' then that is likely to be a commercial thing ... to make your product more interesting.

It's endless meandering monotonous eye watering subliminal messages. No way will I succumb.

I see myself as a kind of latter day Lord Byron ... When riseth Lacedemon’s Hardihood, When Thebes Epaminondras rears again, When Athens’ children are with hearts endued, When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men, Then may’st thou be restored; but not till then. A thousand years scarce serve to form a state; An hour may lay it in the dust: and when Can Man its shattered splendour renovate, Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate?

So its GrandmasterPeanuts then.

(not sure why it says Eng subs ... but there is a link to translation in comments.) Very nice to listen to.

Ah ok thanks!!!!

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Yes its easy to misinterpret words like 'refuge' and 'renunciation' like this. Actually the Buddha created the idea of being a monk in order to free people up from the life of a 'householder'. At the time of the Buddha the duties of a householder were onerous and completely consuming in terms of social and other duties even if you were rich (as he was). He realised that people needed to be able to devote time to study and meditation, cultivating an ethical life and so on if they were to get anywhere. The key to renunciation is that you are rejecting worldly values ... which is needed for any spiritual path in the sense of simplifying your life (daily deal with less and less as one great sage said). Many great Buddhist masters were not monks but lay practitioners e.g. the great Marpa and they demonstrated that it is not the ordination but the attitude which really counts. So it is not for everyone, or necessarily right for everyone to become a monk/nun ... but for some especially those particularly immersed in the world it is useful. This woman has chosen this path and good luck to her. I hope she achieves some level of peace and realisation. Her path may not be my path or your path but thinking that everyone has to be the same or fit some kind of preconceived notion of how to be is the mark of a closed mind, a state of being in which I refuse to dwell.

ref: https://www.artgallery.co.uk/artist/rebecca_adam_2 ... so that's 2014 - 1994 = 20 years. Try again Mr. GrmP.

ZHEN LOK GOM GYI KANG PAR SUNG PA ZHIN Detachment is the foot of meditation, it is taught. ZÉ NOR KÜN LA CHAK ZHEN MÉ PA DANG Attachment to food and wealth disappears TSE DIR DÖ TAK CHÖ PAI GOM CHEN LA To the meditator who gives up ties to this life, NYE KUR ZHEN PA ME PAR JIN GYI LOB Grant your blessing that attachment to ownership and honor cease. http://kscoz.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Dorje-Chang-Thungma-Aug-2013.pdf

- There is an objective reality. - No there isn't. - Yes there is. - No. - Yes. - No, no, triple no. - Is is is is is is is is. - ... not. - Absolutist! - Materialist! - You smell! - You smell double. - Pooo! - You're philosophy is poo. - Not as much as yours .. nana nana na na! ... and so ends our high level philosophical debate on the Dzogchen teachings, thank you and good night.

http://www.tricycle.com/blog/shamarpa-without-borders

I don't mind people charging at all. After all some people teach full time and they need to eat. I also think you have to factor in the expenses for setting up the event e.g. the hire of the venue (which can be a lot) and any food and so on. I think concessionary rates is a good idea so as not to exclude certain people.

“The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself.” ― William Blake The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity ... and some scarce see Nature at all. But, to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is imagination itself. ~ William Blake, in The Letters of William Blake (1906). Letter to the Reverend John Trusler (23 August 1799) To me this world is all one continued vision of fancy or imagination, and I feel flattered when I am told so. What is it sets Homer, Virgil and Milton in so high a rank of art? Why is the Bible more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because they are addressed to the imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and but mediately to the understanding or reason? ~ William Blake, in The Letters of William Blake (1906). Letter to the Reverend John Trusler (23 August 1799)

Behold yond simpering dame, whose face between her forks presages snow, that minces virtue and does shake the head to hear of pleasure’s name. The fitchew, nor the soiled horse, goes to ’t with a more riotous appetite. Down from the waist they are centaurs, though women all above. But to the girdle do the gods inherit; beneath is all the fiends'. There’s hell, there’s darkness, there’s the sulfurous pit— burning, scalding, stench, consumption! Fie, fie, fie, pah, pah!—Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination. There’s money for thee.

was this the same fencing chap you met?

Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run. Cap'n Marvellous

Been watching this so thought I'd share ... no particular reason.