Who Is The Highest-Level Master In The World Today?

[gendao]

Who do you think is the highest-level master in the world today?

 

Wang Liping?

An unknown hermit in the mountains of China?

Some Indian guru?

 

Just a silly question for a Monday morning...

[Yen Hui]

Who do you think is the highest-level master in the world today?

 

Well, I'm not sure where s/he would reside, but I believe that s/he is unknown

to the masses. There is no question of that, in my mind. That is the absolutely

clear and unmistakable teaching of Hexagram 36.

 

THE IMAGE

The light has sunk into the earth:

The image of DARKENING OF THE LIGHT.

Thus does the superior man live with the great mass:

He veils his light, yet still shines.

 

"In a time of darkness it is essential to be cautious and reserved. One should not needlessly awaken

overwhelming enmity by inconsiderate behavior. In such times one ought not to fall in with the practices

of others; neither should one drag them censoriously into the light. In social intercourse one should not

try to be all-knowing. One should let many things pass, without being duped."

 

Now, according to the above, since our contemporary times are times of darkness, we can never know

who the greatest living sage is, since s/he would exercise extreme stealth in regard to any public show

or disclosure of the full reach of their spiritual achievement(s).

[thelerner]

I have to agree with Yen Hui. The highest level masters are probably unknown to the masses and would probably be walked past. We feed on TV images and stereotypes, Value things through Western materialistic eyes.

 

In China anyone w/ any reputation was sent to re-education camps or worse during the cultural revolution. The quiet ones survive.

 

 

 

 

Michael

[xenolith]

The wisest speak not. Indeed they are not observable. For they seek isolation. And deprivation. Such is the paradox. The wisest are unknowable. Therefore one must seek wisdom from one's self. As do the wisest.

 

Love.

 

xeno

[Yoda]

I guess nobody wants to touch that one.

 

How about this: who is the hottest teacher-guru-avatar out there? Who's fly? (did I say that right?)

 

In the classics league Krishna would have been top of the list if he hadn't taken a Smurf for his mother. That leaves the field wide open for Buddha or Jesus to take the prize... (Buddha when he was at fighting weight, of course)

 

I'm most interested in the alive-and-kicking department and am not as concerned about level of enlightenment. A note from Mom will work. On the other hand, those are harder to get than you'd suppose. Maybe just writing a book or making it to youtube will suffice.

 

So far, I've been pretty underwhelmed by what's on the market currently. In the classics league, I'd go with Green Tara. I know the green is... distinctive... but there you have it.

 

Yoda

[GrandTrinity]

I am inclind to say Chia, Yuanming Zhang, perhaps Dirk Oillibrandt... but the real ones do not speak at all. As for the open ones - these people have influenced me most. Jerry Alan Johnson is pretty good too, Jampa Mckenzie Stewart, Roger Jahnke is good...Winn... etc.

[freeform]

In terms of cool and dead - I'd say Mullah Nasrudin wins hands down in my book... although he is a mythical sort of charcter... that doesn't make him any less 'real' - right?

[gendao]

Good points everyone...yes, it may be very likely that the highest master is well-secluded and unknown to us.

 

And I dunno about Chia - he talks a lot, but "words don't prove words, WORKS prove words." So, what has he actually achieved that has proven any of what he preaches? Is he in extraordinary health? Can he do some qi tricks or heal? I don't know, but the way that I saw him ramble on in one video - it didn't seem like he had much of detailed substance to say? And I've certainly met qigong-type people who seemed far more accomplished and advanced in person.

 

But that Nasrudin character is hilarious!

[Wayfarer64]

So far, I've been pretty underwhelmed by what's on the market currently. In the classics league, I'd go with Green Tara. I know the green is... distinctive... but there you have it.

 

Yoda

 

Yo Yoda,

 

check out the Green Tara I have for sale - I give you very special good-buddy price...

 

http://www.pdgart.com/Thangkas1.html

 

enjoy dude - she is the real thing

Edited May 8, 2007 by Wayfarer64

[mbanu]

Depends on how you define it.

 

In the enlightenment arena, past a certain level, masters become useless as masters because they no longer have the minimum required attachment to their students, and because of this lose their ability to teach. Enlightenment doesn't occur through osmosis. This is also the reason why traditionally so many students have gone into seclusion past a certain point in their cultivation (and then are hunted down by their juniors and pleaded to for instruction ); because they have reached the level beyond which effective teachers no longer exist, besides the Tao and themselves.

 

In the immortality arena, I would assume the highest-level masters would be the immortals, no?

[thelerner]

Mbanu, this leads to the questions. Do we think immortal exist (physically)? Any evidence of them these days? Why not?

 

Its been a while since we've batted this around. Its fundamental to Taoism though. Religious Taoism prays to a pantheon of immortals. In shamanistic meditations some taoist connect and learn from the immortals.

 

I think its an old mistranslation or superstition. I don't think we have living immortals around. I've paged through books about Chinese taoists hermits. Some who've been assumed by village folk to be immortals. They weren't. Live long enough as a hermit and rumours spread.

 

I do think there may be documented evidence of taoists going into month long (years) meditation. Which is something of a superhuman mystical feat. I'd like to get more info on that phenomena though.

 

 

Michael

[fatherpaul]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA "Highest Master"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Yoda]

Wayfarer,

 

Wow, those are some serious Thangkas! I'm not in the market, but thanks for sharing!!

 

Yoda

[Wayfarer64]

Wayfarer,

 

Wow, those are some serious Thangkas! I'm not in the market, but thanks for sharing!!

 

Yoda

 

I once said something similar to Allen Ginsberg when I greeted him at an exhibition of his photos.

(We had met socially before. He was a teacher to the poet/publisher/teacher Jeffrey Cyphers Wright who I had/have worked with for years... as well as the close friend to the parents of my great friend Mike Savage, Allens' mom and Mike's grandma -not remembering which side of the 'rents ...were best friends and neighbors for years etc...)

 

He looked at me as if I were crazy and said - " SHARING- hell-you wanna buy any of 'em?"

 

I always wished I had the bucks at that time- there was a shot of N. Cassady that was classic...

 

But glad ya like em- any clues as to the third one? Maybe I should start a seperate thread to help the research effort that I have let slide lately...

Namaste

[mbanu]

Mbanu, this leads to the questions. Do we think immortal exist (physically)? Any evidence of them these days? Why not?

 

Its been a while since we've batted this around. Its fundamental to Taoism though. Religious Taoism prays to a pantheon of immortals. In shamanistic meditations some taoist connect and learn from the immortals.

 

I think its an old mistranslation or superstition. I don't think we have living immortals around. I've paged through books about Chinese taoists hermits. Some who've been assumed by village folk to be immortals. They weren't. Live long enough as a hermit and rumours spread.

 

I do think there may be documented evidence of taoists going into month long (years) meditation. Which is something of a superhuman mystical feat. I'd like to get more info on that phenomena though.

Michael

 

I can't speak for we, but I can speak for I. I believe immortals exist, or at one time existed. I say believe because really I haven't enough evidence to consider it a certainty of any sort. Perhaps it's simply wishful thinking. I'll certainly never meet any of them. Maybe in my dreams, for what they're worth. However, the Heavenly immortality formulae that I've seen make sense up to the point the transmissions break down, and the Earth immortal practices make sense from a theoretical TCM perspective, as far as I can tell (since the only real bottleneck there is prenatal jing, and if you can figure out a way of replenishing it while avoiding death due to violence or illness, well...), although I've never seen any specific formulae for them. Considering the sheer volume of stories about immortals, not only in Chinese culture but in most of the ancient world, there surely must have been something to base the exaggerations on? Just as Eastern culture has a bias to assume their ancestors were much smarter and wiser than they are, Western culture has a bias to assume their ancestors were much stupider and easily duped. I'd argue that really we're more or less the same as they were in those respects, and while we shouldn't take their stories as gospel, we shouldn't necessarily brush things off or not assess them seriously, either.