Hi Sunshine.

I hope the discussion is of some help to you.

Steve

Thank you much Sunshine. The phrase you use reveals exactly the confusion that I have been contemplating these past few weeks...

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sunshine came softly
...utterly devoted (read: utterly blind and able to pass off many bizarre and troubling behaviours with a kind of "highest-view" white out).

On the one hand there is the Vajrayana (diamond vehicle) idea of a "pure view" which sees the illusory nature of samsarra - the idea of "one taste" - which could be described in the phrase "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" - beauty, good, evil, or whatever is perceived is simply a creation of the perceiver and we take responsibility for the judgements we make about the world as they are simply a reflection of our own desire.

On the other hand we hear statements like - "your fate in this life is a result of your good and bad actions in a previous life", such as Ole's views on citizens of third world countries and the idea that they are suffering due to previous bad karma - which belongs to the viewpoint of the lowest vehicle. (Perhaps this shows why DWB looks towards the accumulation of wealth and power as if it were a reflection of "good" karma, because the members precisely assume in their perceptions that such things are objectively good rather than questioning their own desires).

It can be very confusing that an organisation calling itself "diamond way" and practising guru yoga would then promote the lower view over the higher one in its everyday speech and actions.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2011 10:58AM by suenam.

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On the one hand there is the Vajrayana (diamond vehicle) idea of a "pure view" which sees the illusory nature of samsarra - the idea of "one taste" - which could be described in the phrase "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" - beauty, good, evil, or whatever is perceived is simply a creation of the perceiver and we take responsibility for the judgements we make about the world as they are simply a reflection of our own desire.

On the other hand we hear statements like - "your fate in this life is a result of your good and bad actions in a previous life", such as Ole's views on citizens of third world countries and the idea that they are suffering due to previous bad karma - which belongs to the viewpoint of the lowest vehicle.

Note: the word impugn means To attack as false or questionable; challenge in argument.

In his memoir, The Ochre Robe, Agehananda Bharati a Hindu monk of the Dasnami Bharati Order described an alternative to blanking into a 'white out' or the repugnant and vile conclusion that one is justified in seeing the sufferings of the poor as evidence of badly lived past lives. He was told by a learned monastic of the work of Sri Harsha. In a moment you will see that this may pertain to Buddhist studies, too.

It is a method used by Nagarjuna of interior critique.

Interior critique being the ability to affirm axioms (eg rebirth) without egoically identifying with them as fixed opinion/unquestionable dogmas.

And, by extension, not using them to justify ignoring the plight of those less fortunate by saying the poor and miserable are working of bad karma accumulated by badly lived past lives.

Bharati tells us:

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in Hinduism:Shriharsa* and the later thinkers were exceptions and are not really accepted as exemplars in Hindu scholasticism. This important attitude can be summed up very succinctly:

(Sometimes spelled Sri Harsha or Sri Harsa)

‘Here is a set of canonical doctrines, which cannot be impugned without forfeiting Hinduhood.

But—they can be freely interpreted.

(Corboy note--Ole is giving an interpretation that is commonplace because it serves the desires of those who want to accumulate wealth and power and remain bigots while still claiming membership in Buddhadhama. There are reasons why this particular interpretation remains popular--it eases the consciences of the rich and powerful and allows them to feel spiritual.)

Bharati continues

'And if interpretation (such as Oles teaching that the poor lived bad lives and are therefore born poor in this life)does not suffice to make a doctrine discursively acceptable, or at least plausible......then let us regard this doctrine as appertaining only to the inner most world of yoga, of meditation, and as having no bearing on our natural world.


Bharati summarizes this strategy:


‘I accept this doctrine non discursively, as having a purely private, incommunicable validity, of an aesthetic kind, perhaps akin to some yogic vision or a powerful hallucinatory experience, resulting say, from some alkaloid drug. But I do not assign discursive validity to it.’

(Corboy-in contrast to Ole using this interpretation as a public teaching)

.

What does this Hindu business have to do with Buddhist practice? Here is a what Bharati says:

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Among the Buddhists’ Bharati continues, ‘such had been the attitude of one of its greatest teachers, Nagarajuna. With them, this attitude fortunately became the normal.

(From Agehananda Bharati, The Ochre Robe, Second edition pages 188-189)

A friend who read this from Bharati ID'd this as a philosophical approache used by Nagarjuna known as the prasanga (internal critique) technique of the Madhyamikas.

The person recommended this as a source for Nagarjuna's approach to this issue:

[www.amazon.com]

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corboy
'And if interpretation (such as Oles teaching that the poor lived bad lives and are therefore born poor in this life)does not suffice to make a doctrine discursively acceptable, or at least plausible......then let us regard this doctrine as appertaining only to the inner most world of yoga, of meditation, and as having no bearing on our natural world.

I was actually suggesting that this idea completely contradicts the innermost world of yoga or meditation because the ideas of "poverty" and of "bad past lives" are actually subjective mental constructs about a perceived external world, but the point of Vajrayana is to achieve selfless non-conceptualisation.

There is a subtle difference between non-conceptualisation and a white-out insofar as the latter involves willful ignorance whereas the former involves admitting what occurs and accepting without judgement or attachment to a particular outcome.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2011 01:05AM by suenam.

Suenam wrote:

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but the point of Vajrayana is to achieve selfless non-conceptualisation.

Another way to state 'selfless' is to name it as 'non self-serving'.

John Donne, the English poet and divine, may have come closer to bodhichitta when, in his Devotions, he lay in bed, dangerously ill. He heard in the distance, the 'passing bell' rung in the bell tower of some distant church where a parishioner was dying--a signal the the neighors to pause and offer prayers of assistance to the departing one.

'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.

No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. [/quote]

My idiosyncratic reading is that Donne was not speaking of suffering as we Buddhists do, the affliction that degrades and dehumanizes, but as Aeschylus did, when he said, 'Through suffering (consciously recognized and endured), we gain wisdom.'

To set the alarm clock for 5 AM and drag out of bed in the dark is part of this consciously endured hardship.

When the teachings of Buddha dharma are used to keep one's finer awareness asleep in the face of the worlds grief--thats a medical malpractice at religious level.

'Great is the matter of birth and death
Time is passing, gone, gone,
Wake up, wake up
Do not waste your life.'

(Inscribed on the wooden hammer and sounding board used to summon practitioners to the Soto Zen meditation hall)

To my understanding, and I’m no authority on this, all our experiences are merely mind observing its own projections and making the mistaken assumption that these projections are something other than mind itself.

I also understand that there are two modes of reality, relative and absolute. They are not different than each other but are the same ‘thing’ which is why it is said that samsara and nirvana are the same thing. Mind, ignorant of it’s ignorance perceives nirvana as samsara.

On the absolute level there is no suffering because the concept of self is dissolved so there is no ‘one’ to experience the suffering. Anyway, this is all just conceptual gymnastics and must ultimately been given up. I once read that enlightenment is unlike anything we could ever imagine and this was why it was real. So if you can conceptualise about it it’s samsara.

So, we are all firmly rooted in relative reality in which things like good and bad, wealthy and poor and even karma appear real. In relative reality these things are ‘real’.
Nydahl’s talks about maintaining a ‘pure view’ makes no sense to me because we have no idea what the ‘pure view’ is. So what his students conjure up is a conceptual state they imagine the ‘pure view’ to be. To me it makes more sense to understand what is impure in the mind and try to eradicate it.

On the relative level I’m led to believe that karmic seeds must bear fruit. If not in this life then postulated future lives. But on the relative level one person’s quiet is another person’s din.

So Nydahl makes a point about how an accumulation of negative karma can result in being born a person of colour in Africa. Surely his responsibility should be to work tirelessly to eradicate the suffering of beings in these countries rather than pander to the needs of people who think that splitting up with a boyfriend/girlfriend is ‘suffering’ or debating the ‘importance’ a £500 Buddha statue over a £5 statue while people in Africa are starving.

I know some DWB practitioners who do donate generously to help alleviate the suffering of other so I don’t want to suggest that there are no decent individuals in DWB.

This is samsara and the suffering is real to beings in samsara. To hold some ‘pure view’ in which you tell yourself their suffering is an illusion is an insult to the millions of people starving, dying of AIDS or displaced by civil wars.

I agree with Suenam in that I experienced a sense of ‘wealth is good karma’ within DWB. It really depends on what you do with your wealth. It seemed to me that there was a culture of using western wealth to build centres and monuments as a mark of respect to the Buddha’s. I would like to think the Buddha’s don’t need to feel respected and that they would rather see genuine altruistic actions.

Steve

On a relative level there are myriad causes. Many of the causes of the situation in Africa and the Middle East would seem to involve poorly judged interference from the more developed countries.

On a Dharmic level, the only real poverty is being unable to learn and practice the Dharma (obviously food, shelter, and the basics for life come into this). The idea is to work for the enlightenment of all beings in all realms, and while many individual cases of suffering may present themselves, the only real sphere we can really learn to develop full control over is our own mind - a difficult enough task in itself.

If a group of people are outside when it unexpectedly starts to rain, some of them may well dislike that because of their past experiences, which influence the concepts they hold about it, and which dictate how well prepared (both physically and mentally) they are for such an event. They may even have had a life threatening experience due to exposure to the cold and wet, and so common sense would tell us that their fearful response was entirely justified.

The idea of Karma would suggest that their response is an indication of their desire (attachment to staying dry/aversion to getting wet) rather than a form of punishment for their previous wrongdoings. To hear Ole speak in this way tells me that his idea of Karma is totally incorrect because he has both overlooked the physical causality of the relative sphere, and the psychological causality of desire/aversion which is precisely the area that he is supposed to be working with.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2011 12:44PM by suenam.

Hi Suenam.
I totally agree that Ole’s presentation of karma and the conditions some people find themselves born into, seems to imply a notion of ‘punishment’ for previous negative acts. This is of course absurd from a Buddhist perspective as there is no-one sitting in judgement meting out punishments or rewards for previous acts.
That said, I’m led to believe that our karma at death will have a bearing upon our rebirth if all of the conditions for that ripening are in place.

I’ve mentioned before that, while I accept cause and effect appears infallible, I am unable to fully embrace the idea of rebirth. For me this requires a leap of faith which I’m unable to make. Karma for me is as simple as this; you can’t be killed or injured in a plane crash until all the conditions for such an event are in place. For this one needs to be born in a time when planes have been invented, one needs to be in the plane or under the plane when the crash takes place and there needs to be a catastrophic failure of a part of the plane, either due to negligence, stress or an act of terrorism. I don’t believe that being killed in a plane crash is a punishment for past negative actions. This would suggest death is a punishment when it is simply the inevitable outcome of being born.

With many of the DWB practitioners I spoke to I had the impression that they were happily donating money to the organisation in return for the promise of some ‘good karma’ in the next life. This struck me as self-serving and perhaps this is why Nydahl sells this idea of karmic retribution… it induces fear about the conditions of a possible future life while Nydahl peddles the antidote… give generously to the DWB cause and your good karma is ensured!!! Ker-ching!!! I hear the tills ringing.

Steve

One example of Karma in action would be the progressive development of a phobia, where someone starts to completely avoid the event itself and instead responds only to the word, for example to the word "spider", which can trigger an extremely anxious response merely to the concept rather than to the encounter with the thing itself.

This makes me wonder if Ole has ever met and spoken to any of the people he holds such strong opinions about.

I strongly suspect the answer is no, and so his response is entirely based upon gossip (albeit from the legitimized source of the mass media).

In my experience this was reflected in the behaviour of the majority of members, where the rumour of a former member's (sudden and surprising) "mental illness" was enough to get them ostracised, and not one single member would actually make the effort to discover the truth or even bother to find out how they really were.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2011 01:21PM by suenam.

Having read the books about his early adventures it appears that Ole travelled through Afghanistan quite frequently during his days as a drug smuggler. I recall him refering to the burka clad women as 'walking tents'. I don't think this analogy is particularly helpful and may actually point to his prejudice.

That said, his comments on the treatment of women in some Muslim countries are often accurate. Women may feel that the wearing of the burka is their own free choice but the actual suggestion that women cover themselves is a male idea. I don't think women should be made to feel that they should cover themselves to such a degree so as not to be a distraction or stir feelings of desire in men. It's the men who should be able to practice more restraint!!!

So for me Nydahl does have some valid points with regards to Islam but my problem is that the comments don't take into account the good and moderate Muslims who are being tainted by these comments. His comments are then picked up by members of his congregation who have made overtly racist remarks to me. Because Nydahl is their 'Guru' they accept his views without question, more often than not because they re-affirm their own prejudices.

Steve