konchog uma

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Posts posted by konchog uma

  1. Posted

    If you want to understand Tibetan Buddhism's relationship to your own personal concept of traditional Buddhadharma, i suggest reading Lotus-Born: The Life Story of Padmasambhava by Yeshe Tsogyal. People who are looking for "truth" often have a hard time relating to Buddhism because there are so many different variations that the short-sighted response is "well they can't all be right! so some of them are wrong!! aaa" but in reality the dharma is flexible, and includes a wide range of views and practices aimed at increasing ones direct relationship with the present, or things as they are, rather than being aimed at some kind of truth with a capital T. In other words, just because you don't understand something doesnt mean its not the real dharma. Its pretentious to think so. I hope you make time to read that book, its great.

     

     

  2. Posted

    i used to go thrifting for a fresh plaid suit for each bosstones show, i think i've been to 10... then the scene broke and mtv started playing that music.. the shows totally changed, it used to be hardcore and we would dance on stage with dicky barrett and then all of a sudden like overnight they started putting a barrier between the fans and the stage at all their shows, which incidentally were populated with teeny-boppers on drugs and drunk suburban punks. fuck it another scene ruined. The funniest thing is that those teenyboppers have no idea how much mtv and pop culture ruined music, they think that i and everyone like me is whining because we are elitist scenesters who don't want to share the good music! hahahha just thinking about the bosstones takes me back to pre-Dookie punk rock and shows the likes of which could never possibly happen now that the internet makes everything popular within 15 minutes.

     

    now that you've listened to my elitist scenester rant, i will regale you with great music from devendra banharts new album mala

     

     

     

  4. Posted

    This is a Sept 2012 Times Of India interview with HHDL that i have been meaning to post here for a while

     

    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/We-need-to-be-21st-century-Buddhists-Dalai-Lama/articleshow/16583639.cms?intenttarget=no

     

    "I don't especially favour constructing a monastery or temple, I'd prefer to see an academic centre of learning instead, and somewhere that could be a focus for the study of Buddhist philosophy, Daoism and secular ethics. I recently told people in Ladakh that they should aim to make their monasteries centres of learning,"

    • Like 1

  5. Posted

    yeah i just read about the pardon, and Norways Foreign Minister had this comment

     

    "Eide told the Norwegian news agency NTB that international media attention and Norway’s diplomatic measures helped Dalelv, who was free on appeal with her next court hearing scheduled for early September."

     

    http://www.france24.com/en/20130722-dubai-pardons-norwegian-woman-rape-case-sex-outside-marriage-sentence

     

    the whole debacle is a stain in the undies of humanity, but at least she isn't being detained in dickland

    • Like 1

  9. Posted

    I'm not not saying they wouldn't, it's just I haven't come across an explicit reference to the 4NT/8FNP when reading about the grounds and paths of tantra.

     

    i've never seen specific reference to it either, although i haven't studied the tantras deeply. But it raises a question

     

    is it always the case that tantric practice is grounded in sutric study (to some degree anyway?)

     

    because i only have experience with my lineage, which has prerequisite vows to tantric vows and practice, and those vows entail a study of sutric buddhism, as encouraged by my lama anyway. And from what i've read, that is common, to have a foundation of sutra to build the body of tantric practice on. But is that a (more-or-less) universal thing?

  12. Posted · Edited by konchog uma

    "Shunyata, or emptiness, is empty of subject-object relationship. Nonexistent subject, nonexistent object. Perceiver and perceptions do not exist. As far as the groundwork is concerned, there is no definite ground. As long as there is definite ground on the spiritual quest, it becomes a struggle, a deliberate attitude of achievement. And once we begin to be aware of our process of searching as an ambitious struggle, that struggle automatically becomes a formulated struggle, a struggle with ideas, a struggle with theology, conceptwhich is perpetually creating samsaric mind rather than the spiritual path. The spiritual path becomes religion from that point of view, pejoratively speaking."

     

    -Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

     

    Even though this quote utilizes Buddhist terminology, I think the point it makes transcends ideologies and strikes at something universal. So I have posted it in the general section.

    • Like 2

  13. Posted

    awesome video Chang, thanks for sharing! i'm only 20min into it but already learned a lot and going to finish it after this break.

     

    what im reading:

    On The Lower Frequencies: A Secret History of the City

    by Erick Lyle (author of San Francisco zine SCAM)

     

    "Forget statistics and pretentious analysis of urban society. Take a walk through the city with Erick Lyle and discover the reality of how people live in an American city." -Howard Zinn

     

    punk as fuck, a totally great book

  17. Posted

    It is merely a page on the eightfold path, of which right view is a component.

     

    again, well observed. lol however if one were to read that page, they would find that it supports the idea that within the sutra system, right view is considered a prerequisite to any dharma practice. You asked how the 8fold path related to vajrayana.

     

    Has anyone ever brought to your attention that you never really answer posts as they are written, you just pick the parts that you can respond to smugly with a brief negation. It makes conversation with you pointless, which is probably the goal of your approach, but you're not helping anyone, much less yourself. I don't really care to talk to you about this any more since this is like the 3rd post in this conversation in which you have missed the stated point entirely and instead picked bones with the related minutae. Thanks.

  18. Posted

    By the way, Bliss of Inner Fire states that tummo is superior to meditation:

     

    its superior for cutting through obscurations, but not everyone can learn tummo, and trying to practice from books is universally taught to be dangerous.

     

    Like i said, in my lineage at least, one can learn tummo from the lama after refuge, bodhisattva, ngondro, tantric vows, and if the lama thinks youre ready. lol meditation is a little more accessible than that.

     

    i didn't say meditation was the most superior for everything btw so your point is a bit of non sequitur

  20. Posted

    in my lineage of vajrayana (drikung kagyu), under my teacher anyway, we have to take refuge and bodhisattva vows (hinayana and mahayana) and spend time with those teachings before we can take tantric vows and receive instructions in the yogas.

  25. Posted

    In every Buddhist tradition, shamatha is an integral foundation. Vajrayana, Dzogchen, all of them. It's indispensable.

     

    The 8fold path goes all the way, just each aspect has deeper, less conceptual interpretation further along the path.

     

    A tantric path without virtue, shamatha and prajna is missing the point somewhat. Ngondro and shamatha and vipassana practices are there for a reason.

     

    Nobody gets even as far as stream-entry without shamatha.

     

    Those of us who haven't achieved even that shouldn't be arrogant, looking down on Theravada and other Mahayana traditions, as though our wisdom is greater because we have a different intellectual opinion.

     

    How many of us are actually on the Bodhisattva bhumis, to be able to look down and complain that Theravada only leads to Arhatship, or some Mahayana school has a slightly wrong view on an extremely subtle concept which we only comprehend intellectually at best?

     

    It's like a preschooler criticising string theory. Ridiculous.

     

    Alan Wallace consistently emphasises the need for shamatha as a foundation for explicitly Dzogchen practice.

     

    Shamatha is a Buddhist thing, not any less valuable because it came before. Shakyamuni mastered it before then doing vipassana. It's necessary to make the mind serviceable so realisation can blossom.

     

    You're mining quotes to try to support your arrogant looking down on everyone else; ignoring significant parts of the Buddha's teaching like his enthusiastic recommendation of anapana sati, shamatha and vipassana together leading to attainment in the parable of the misbehaved prince; and most of Alan Wallace's career.

     

    How is meditation conceptual? It's not exactly conceptual to watch the breath, or thoughts, or use a koan, with no judgement or rumination or analysis or attempt to understand conceptually whatsoever.

     

    There's little point trying to make a point to any scholar who is so wrapped up in their scholarship that they are completely convinced that they are right and anyone who practices a different way is wrong. Alwayson is really smart but there is some kind of ivory tower complex going on where he only sees things in his own way (or Malcolms). His loss really.

     

    The Buddhadharma has always been flexible to a point, and its not about finding a Golden Truth, but about finding practices that work to liberate and awaken innate wisdom. Within those rough guidelines, there are lots of ways to practice. Thats why the mahasiddhas could have visions and innovate new practices that Shakyamuni didn't teach, and its still considered Buddhadharma. Ken McLeod gives a great interview about this in the latest podcast on BuddhistGeeks called "truth is a red herring".