Tradition and Lineages

[Vajrahridaya]

Are you referring to yourself?

 

Nice try.

[3bob]

Thus the blind keeps leading the blind to re-absorption. I don't see how the 4 fold negation reifies an ultimate transcendent.

 

As the Buddha said, dependent origination is the all, those that see this, see the Buddha. Everyone here seems to be fighting to find an ultimate self existence.

 

"I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata is after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata is not after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata both is and is not after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata neither is nor is not after dying."

[Vajrahridaya]

"I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata is after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata is not after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata both is and is not after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata neither is nor is not after dying."

 

How does that reify an ultimate.

 

Even Robert Thurman say's. "The state of liberation is the same between Hindu's and Buddhist's, it's just that Buddhists get to keep it for longer."

 

It's really that simple. It's the difference between reifying a formless transcendent and seeing it's dependent emptiness, directly.

 

Once you think you've found a state that transcends phenomena, you've merely found another aspect of phenomena.

[Vajrahridaya]

[Vajrahridaya]

"I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata is after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata is not after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata both is and is not after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata neither is nor is not after dying."

 

This is merely explaining dependent origination/emptiness within the spectrum of infinite dimension.

[Informer]

"I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata is after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata is not after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata both is and is not after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata neither is nor is not after dying."

 

 

He is listing the variables. (Perspective)

 

He is none of them, therefore is all of them, like water.

[ralis]

Attaching to a state that transcends phenomena is just attaching to another aspect of phenomena.

 

One can also tell by the attachment to anti-lineage stances of the persons pride of self existence.

 

That has nothing to do with pride. In fact, the real problem would be of identifying with religious biases. Lineages will stand firm and accuse anyone not following their doctrines, prideful. Just another way of maintaining power and subverting an individuals personal authority.

[Informer]

That has nothing to do with pride. In fact, the real problem would be of identifying with religious biases. Lineages will stand firm and accuse anyone not following their doctrines, prideful. Just another way of maintaining power and subverting an individuals personal authority.

Some make it theirs.

[3bob]

How does that reify an ultimate.

 

Even Robert Thurman say's. "The state of liberation is the same between Hindu's and Buddhist's, it's just that Buddhists get to keep it for longer."

 

It's really that simple. It's the difference between reifying a formless transcendent and seeing it's dependent emptiness, directly.

 

Once you think you've found a state that transcends phenomena, you've merely found another aspect of phenomena.

 

Om Shanti

[Vajrahridaya]

That has nothing to do with pride. In fact, the real problem would be of identifying with religious biases. Lineages will stand firm and accuse anyone not following their doctrines, prideful. Just another way of maintaining power and subverting an individuals personal authority.

 

Ok ego. Nice rationalization for your existence.

[Vajrahridaya]

He is listing the variables. (Perspective)

 

He is none of them, therefore is all of them, like water.

 

Yes, "like" water... quite flexible due to non-clinging.

[Vajrahridaya]

Om Shanti

 

You too. I know we disagree on the fundamental nature of things, but... we don't disagree on the fact of the 4 brahmaviharas being the key to overcoming negative feelings.

[ralis]

Ok ego. Nice rationalization for your existence.

 

You don't have an ego?

[Vmarco]

Attaching to a state that transcends phenomena is just attaching to another aspect of phenomena.

 

One can also tell by the attachment to anti-lineage stances of the persons pride of self existence.

 

So,...who's saying that attachment to anything is not a distraction? To say, for example, that a ripe banana is yellow to our perception because it absorbs almost all wavelengths except yellow, which the surface of its form reflects to our sensory apparatus, is an attachment to bananas?

 

Is there a Sakyamuni, Tilopa, Saraha, Padmasambhava, Quan Yin, living today,...among the Lineages? If there is a Sakyamuni, Tilopa, Saraha, Padmasambhava, Quan Yin, living today, I'd bet they would not be among the Lineages,...the Lineages would be quite upset with their presence.

 

V

[rex]

I think traditions are important as they preserve and transmit a body of knowledge for posterity. Lineages are also important as they can give access to inner sources of support (not that traditions don't).

 

No one tradition or lineage is better than any other, just more appropriate for where people are.

 

The relationship between tradition and lineage can be mutually supportive or sometimes even antagonistic. Traditions are human institutions operating in the world so are not immune to human folly - new lineages may be viewed with suspicion by an older structure and a lineage may exist despite a tradition, almost as if the tradition happened to be an expedient host for a lineage or a ray of sanity and grace working itself through a rigid human culture.

[ralis]

I think traditions are important as they preserve and transmit a body of knowledge for posterity. Lineages are also important as they can give access to inner sources of support (not that traditions don't).

 

No one tradition or lineage is better than any other, just more appropriate for where people are.

 

The relationship between tradition and lineage can be mutually supportive or sometimes even antagonistic. Traditions are human institutions operating in the world so are not immune to human folly - new lineages may be viewed with suspicion by an older structure and a lineage may exist despite a tradition, almost as if the tradition happened to be an expedient host for a lineage or a ray of sanity and grace working itself through a rigid human culture.

 

If lineages gave away the teachings without limit, then I would not have an issue. However, that does not happen. There are always various levels, initiations and secret teachings that are rarely available to the public. Excuses abound as to why certain teachings are not available. It should be at the individuals discretion whether or not to request a teaching and that teaching should be given without limit if the student requests it. No authoritarian system has the right to determine if an individual deserves a certain teaching or not.

[LBDaoist]

Maybe the OPs question can be refined.

 

Can you receive benefit from being Connected to a lineage. (notice I did not say attached).

 

In my mind the benefit of learning from a lineage holder is that they are not figuring out. Someone else in this thread asked (and I'm paraphrasing) "How do you know that what you're doing is different than what I'm doing?"

 

I do not have to consider that question. That question does not matter. Working with a lineage, I can look back on a long history of people who have been pursuing a single goal and getting results from it. They are not wondering what will happen when they practice. The results are there and documented. The exercises for opening the channels are codified. The techniques for circulating the qi are codified. The philosophy of the art has already manifest through the practice and the teaching.

 

At the end of the day, it comes down to being healthy and helping others be healthy.

 

My own experience went something like this: I had an idea about qi, it seemed logical to me. I did some reading and developed what I thought was some understanding. I did some practices on my own, breathing exercises, physical exercises, etc. I found a teacher. A few years later, I realized that most of what I thought based on what I had read was wrong. I spent a long time unlearning what I thought I knew. I came to appreciate Lao Tzu's saying, "The way that can be spoken of is not the true way."

 

The teaching is not knowledge. It is not a concept that you get. It is a way of being. On one level it is like a vibrational frequency. Anyone who has experience with healing sounds will understand. Each organ has an optimal resonance. The body as a whole has an optimal resonance as well. For lack of a better term, a lineage holder, a true teacher is someone who is calibrated to the right frequency. Yet the teacher does not own that frequency. It is the frequency of life. A lineage does not own the frequency.

 

Anyone can find the frequency at any given time. What a teacher and what a lineage provide is calibration. A teacher tunes people to the right frequency.

[Vajrahridaya]

Is there a Sakyamuni, Tilopa, Saraha, Padmasambhava, Quan Yin, living today,...among the Lineages? If there is a Sakyamuni, Tilopa, Saraha, Padmasambhava, Quan Yin, living today, I'd bet they would not be among the Lineages,...the Lineages would be quite upset with their presence.

 

V

 

Yes, in fact there are plenty! But, you are too blinded by your assumptions and pre-conceptions, as well as this attachment to a fundamental basis of things that's causing an erroneous comprehension of the dharma. You are too caught up in romanticized ideas of these beings who's writings you swing on and quotes you mis-contextualize, and this fact diminishes your ability to see a Mahasiddha objectively.

 

It's plain to see brother... you've got high minded pride.

Edited August 3, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[LBDaoist]

If lineages gave away the teachings without limit, then I would not have an issue. However, that does not happen. There are always various levels, initiations and secret teachings that are rarely available to the public. Excuses abound as to why certain teachings are not available. It should be at the individuals discretion whether or not to request a teaching and that teaching should be given without limit if the student requests it. No authoritarian system has the right to determine if an individual deserves a certain teaching or not.

 

When I read this the subject of timing comes to mind. It has been my experience that all of the teachings are very simple. What often occurs seems to be that the student does not yet have the capacity to accept or appreciate them.

 

In the subject of training martial arts this comes up quite frequently. The sifu can show a student a "secret" kick, or in the tradition I study, the three inch punch. However without years of repetition and training, simply knowing the technique is worthless. It has often been said, "The sifu can only take the student half way." At a certain point, the student needs to build upon the foundation provided to them by the sifu.

 

I spend time studying baguazhang. It is a complex art. There are many layers of intricacies and subtle movements. There are questions that I do not even yet know to ask, and even if I did, the answers would be worthless without the physical conditioning and muscle toning to make use of them.

 

Just as a student might have the right to "request" something, a teacher has just as much right to laugh at them. What right does a student have to a master's time? A master is just a student, with their own studies to pursue and their own questions to answer for themselves.

 

I've only been teaching for a few years, but I've already had students come up to me and say, "When you told me X a long time ago, I didn't get it. But now that I've been training for a few years, it makes sense."

 

Often times, a teacher is presenting lessons. The students are too focused on what they think they want and they fail to absorb what they are being given.

[Vajrahridaya]

If lineages gave away the teachings without limit, then I would not have an issue. However, that does not happen. There are always various levels, initiations and secret teachings that are rarely available to the public. Excuses abound as to why certain teachings are not available. It should be at the individuals discretion whether or not to request a teaching and that teaching should be given without limit if the student requests it. No authoritarian system has the right to determine if an individual deserves a certain teaching or not.

 

You gave way too much credit to the state of minds of any individual without realization. Certain teachings and methods can be dangerous to those without actualized capacity. It's dumbfounding how someone who claims to be as smart as you cannot see this, the same with GIH, two brilliant people for sure,... but. It's just easily seen through the eye of compassion why this is so.

 

There is an energy about certain things that you don't want to dissipate and water down. You will project that this is mere conditioning, but it's really through seeing with objective eyes of compassion that the reason why masters do this, including ChNNR is because they do see what is needed for any individual.

 

ChNNR is far more realized than you give him credit for.

[Vajrahridaya]

You don't have an ego?

 

Of course I do... I just know that's it's empty of inherent existence.

[ralis]

You gave way too much credit to the state of minds of any individual without realization. Certain teachings and methods can be dangerous to those without actualized capacity. It's dumbfounding how someone who claims to be as smart as you cannot see this, the same with GIH, two brilliant people for sure,... but. It's just easily seen through the eye of compassion why this is so.

 

There is an energy about certain things that you don't want to dissipate and water down. You will project that this is mere conditioning, but it's really through seeing with objective eyes of compassion that the reason why masters do this, including ChNNR is because they do see what is needed for any individual.

 

ChNNR is far more realized than you give him credit for.

 

Lama Ken McLeod addressed this at a weekend teaching I attended 22 years ago. He said something to the effect of; that the idea of any teacher reading one's mind and telling one what practice to engage in or not would be ludicrous. Ken is well qualified to make such a statement in that, he was one of the first Westerners to participate in a six year retreat in France, under the direct guidance of Kalu Rinpoche.

 

Why do you continually bring in ChNNR into these debates? I know you have admitted that you see him as your spiritual father projection. However, I have never said a disparaging word about him! Kindly refrain from injecting and attributing false statements into these threads.

[Vmarco]

Of course I do... I just know that's it's empty of inherent existence.

 

 

Good for you,....I gnow that ego is empty of inherent existence also.

 

However, where I wish to cooperate, you consistently strive to compete.

 

I am happy for you, that there are plenty of Sakyamuni's, Tilopa's, Saraha's, Padmasambhava's, Quan Yin's and other enlightened people in your Lineage. If I knew such an admirable group, or even one of the above, I would not be dabbling on this forum, looking for ways to cooperate through language.

 

V

[Vajrahridaya]

I know you have admitted that you see him as your spiritual father projection.

 

I have not said this. This is your erroneous projection based upon your preconceptions.

[Vajrahridaya]

I am happy for you, that there are plenty of Sakyamuni's, Tilopa's, Saraha's, Padmasambhava's, Quan Yin's and other enlightened people in your Lineage. If I knew such an admirable group, or even one of the above, I would not be dabbling on this forum, looking for ways to cooperate through language.

 

V

 

Why not?