"I'm not really a person, but more a program,"

I think, with such an oblique statement, that he is implying to anyone impressionable enough to believe it, that he has used the raft to cross the river and has now discarded it.
He knows why his audience is there and he is implying that he can give them (or lead them to) what they think they want, the big 'E' in other words.

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jah
Very revealing portrayal of how Lama Ole thinks, which I have found helpful so thanks.

I found this statement, "I'm not really a person, but more a program," in many ways an accurate description of how he comes off. I'm wondering what other people think of that statement.

I think that on one level he is aiming at the Buddhist idea of going beyond the self, but as usual he has distorted it to suit his own ends. He seems to really believe that he is simply an instrument of some higher power, a discourse which is reminiscent of Stalin's.

This avoids him having to take any responsibility for himself. Any idea of self-awareness seems lost, and is instead projected onto some external phantasy, much like his version of enlightenment being about an awareness of what is happening in other people's houses rather than any awareness of what is going on in his own mind.

One thing that I found interesting was the way the quote from Guru Rinpoche was used to try to legitimise this enterprise, accompanied by the false claim that Nydhal was the first westerner to spread the dharma. This seems to me a crude attempt at creating a revisionist history (and interesting that when the Dalai Lama acknowledged one Karmapa over the other, DWB claimed he was of a different lineage and so had no authority there, yet now that it suits them they choose to try to claim legitamacy using a Guru from another lineage).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2011 06:45AM by suenam.

'He seems to really believe that he is simply an instrument of some higher power, a discourse which is reminiscent of Stalin's.'

Yes, and like Stalin, I would say that he is equally deluded.
The fact that this idiot might believe in his own grandiosity is no reason for anyone else to believe in it, or give it any credence at all.

This idea of being able to tell what Mrs Smith is doing 4 doors away always struck me as a very strange way of qualifying enlightenment.

Ole often tells stories about his time with H.H. 16th Karmapa. One story I would always challenge was his claim that the 16th Karmapa would know who Ole had spoken to and what information he had to pass onto H.H.

Ole would claim that on his travels people would give him letters to pass onto 16th Karmapa. As Ole and his entourage were travelling by quicker means than most Tibetans he could beat other couriers to 16th Karmapa.

Ole would often forget he had the letters in his possession when returning to Karmapa. He would then claim (and his deluded students would recount the story with enraptured faces) that 16th Karmapa would ask him for the letters. Ole claimed that 16th Karmapa could not possibly know who had given Ole letters due to the speed he had travelled and the lack of a telephone line. So Ole and his students give this as an example of 16th Karmapa's enlightened abilities. An ability to know that Ole has letters in his possession and to know who the letters are from!!

Now.... my critical mind immediately threw up the question that if H.H. 16th Karmapa had such abilities why did he need to read the letters in the first place? Why not read the mind of the person who wrote the letter?

I requested a answer to this question several times and the answer is the kind of avoidance behaviour you would expect from people who would rather hold onto the improbable than face the reality that they might have been duped. After all it's not pleasant to discover you have been propogating a fantasy while beliving it to be real.

The answer was that "how else was H.H. 16th Karmapa to give a demonstartion of his abilties? H.H. used these situations to demonstrate his psychic abilities".

Now I write this, not out of disrespect for H.H. 16th Karmapa, but to give anyone new or old to DWB a chance to sit and reflect upon the validity of Ole's recounting of these tales. I never met 16th Karmapa but I have deep respect for his teaching and work. I never encountered any such tales as penned by H.H. 16th Karmapa. All historical evidence of such stories appears to come from Nydahl. So I write to discredit Nydahl and not H.H 16th Karmapa.

As for those "travelling teachers" within DWB who roll this story out with nauseating regularity think about the validity of the story before regurgitating it parrot fashion. You won't of course, because you hope that the impressionable people you tell it to will think you have some special position within DWB and will eventually elevate you to the same duluded heights that you have elevated Ole Nydahl to.

Steve

It might be that HH 16th Karmapa knew he had written to someone requesting or expecting a reply. People who maintain correspondance with others tend to fall into patterns and become accustomed to getting mail from particular parties by a certain time.

If one doesnt get mail by that expected time, it would be normal, and no sign of psychic ability, to quiz the mail carrier about whether he or she had seen any letters from so and so sitting in the postal facility.

Especially if in parts of the world where mail delivery is infrequent or subject to tie ups.

If one wants to have an enjoyable time listening to tales of wonder, the thing to do is go to the cinema or see a play or read some fantasy.

One isnt supposed to seek entertainment and thrills from Buddhadharma; one embarks upon studying and practicing Buddhadharma to investigate the root of why we so crave entertainment in the first place.

(And this isnt to say that one cannot have humor or a good time as a student of the Buddha Way. But...the Buddha Way is not about seeking escape or entertainment. Anyone who equates the two is confused, whether that person is a teacher or student. And a teacher who equates Buddhadharma with being an entertainer and with pandering to people's fantasies is acting like a dope dealer.

Entertainment is as much an intoxicant as alcohol, heroin, marijuana and other drugs.

And entertainment is a far more subtle intoxicant than drugs, because it doesnt generate obvious and painful hangovers and can lead a person much futher into the zones of distraction and illusion. A real teacher of the Buddha Way points this out, instead of functioning as yet another entertainer/performance artist--the culture is already teeming with those.

Hi Corboy.

Exactly!!! It shows Nydahls lack of maturity (and perhaps shows how serious the damage his experimentation with halucinogenics actaully is) that he can't see the most obvious explanation and looks for some contrived supernatural explanation.

Steve

It is said that as one progresses along the path, that one develops Siddhis (psychic powers). Yet it is also said that these are mere symptoms of a far deeper spiritual understanding. The fact that Nydahl and DWB members assign priority to what is essentially a side-effect suggests that they are spiritual materialists. [en.wikipedia.org]


I notice that in the new trailer for Lama 24h, Nydahl suggests that one avoid being addicted to drugs in favour of being addicted to "girls". Since when has such desirous behaviour been prescribed by Buddhism? This shows what is foremost in his mind and how he views the world; from a male perspective which sees women as things to be enjoyed.

Hi Suenam.

Yea I thought the comment about men being addicted to women was more than a little strange. In fairness, he makes the same comment for women finding handsome men in the clip I saw although he was keen to point out that this is not his preference.

But I agree that it gave me the impression that it objectifies women (and men also) which is not an entirely healthy state of affairs.

But do you expect anything else from the serial adulterer? He has to be seen justifying his own behaviour. How could he do otherwise?

In reference to the karmapa and the letters.......I think there is a big difference between intuition and the kind of psychic skills that might make it possible to know what is in a letter. For instance, knowing someone has a letter for them and even knowing what the content is going to be about (without prior warning) is the kind of experience that intuitive people have all the time. Even if the karmapa could psychicly read the exact words of the letter in advance of actually reading it, demonstrating that would be pompous and arrogant and more than little egotistical and not somethng a spiritual teacher of any calibre would likely do.

Ole's reference to the Karmapa being enlightened and enlightenment being characterized in part by having an omniscient mind was formed primarily by the fact that karmapa often seemed to demonstrate a kind of empathic awareness of specific events elsewhere where people were suffering.....disasters and the like. Whether this was real or not, who can say? But I think these experiences were a more genuine influence on Ole's thinking and his concept of what enlightenment is characterized by.

All of this was in the early days of course and seems to have been overrun by his own "program," which could be alternatively called an "obsession." There was a radio interview about 20 years ago that explained the three levels of enlightenment as he originally learned it It was fresh and interesting back then, free of the religious trappings of Tibetan Buddhism.

Now it all seems like a personality cult, empire building, and a kind of dumbing down of it all.