The Vajrayana Cognitive Economy is different from that of Secular Westerners, even different from Secular Buddhists--who dont believe in rebirths.

The difference is so very great that thats a reason to draw a line around TB/Vajrayana and examine it more closely.

If one is defending Vajaryana or ones Vaj lineage from skeptics or doubters (and fighting down one's own doubts by doing so)...one automatically earns and accumulates merit.

Doubt causes the Vaj practitioner to lose merit and even accumulate bad karma and a rebirth in hell.

If someone posts material about harm done by Vajrayana gurus, or suggests that Vajrayana itself is not special, but is as capable of social psychological abuses as any other organization or belief system, this is material that has to be argued against.

Why?

Because Vajaryana considers itself the real true best Buddha Way. It privileges itself.

And in Vajrayana, going by 50 Stanzas of Guru Devotion doubt about authority figures is not merely an intellectual stance as it is considered in the West.

Doubt about one's guru or practice path has drastic consequences if one is a tantric aspirant. Doubt about ones guru or lineage or even the specialness of Vajrayana can cost the practitioner all the merit one has already accumulated through years of practice. And it can send a person to deeper hells than before.

Doubt arousing material might even disuade someone from becoming involved with Vajaryana - and remember, the Vajrayanas consider Vaj the Best of All Buddha Paths.

So, when former Vajrayanas or Vajrayana reformers or total outsiders publish doubt arousing material arguing against such material, will gain one merit, just like doing repeats on one's mala. Doesnt matter how repetitive or illogical or circular or heated the argument becomes.

I dare to suggest that anyone, even outside of Vajrayana, who posts material that could potentially arouse doubt in Vajarayana praticitioners or those who might be turned off from entering Vajrayana is threatening practitioners merit bank accounts.

And arguing against such material gives practitioners the valuable opportunity to add to their merit bank accounts. Its an incentive not available to those who were not socialized in Vajaryana and for whom evidence and logic count. Vajaryana gives payoffs, that though imaginary, are powerful for those who belive in it.

So whatever one does to fight against these Doubt Demons, no matter how nasty their manners or illogical their line of reasoning by Western standards, that advocate, however illogical by Western standards is operating quite rationally from the Vajrayana standpoint.

They are fighting back the Doubt Demons that could cause them to lose what merit they have, and are gaining additional merit for their Rebirth Bank Accounts as well.

**So this is very good reason to 'draw a line' around Tibetan/Vajaryana Buddhism.

The cognitive economy of Vajrayana is different from that of the West, so very different that most Westerners invited to these TB interfaith dialogues are unaware of how different these minsets actually are.

Secular

Logic and rhetoric can be used for non salvific purposes. Logic and rhetoric are for effectively transmitting information (exposition) and for purposes of persuasion.

One lifetime --

Society is considered improvable.

Consequences.

Justice and restitution of injury in this lifetime matters. So justice matters, impatience with one's circumstances leads to effort to improve those circumstances. Doubt is respected and having doubts will not send you to hell. (If you're secular, at any rate)

Vajrayana

Rebirth through myriads of lifetimes.

Society is static and hierarchical, not considered improvable.

Logic and rhetoric have no non religious applications, are used only to impart information that leads to deepening practice and attitudes that support practice and eliminating doubt.

Society not considered improvable, many lifetimes. What one can improve is not society but one's future rebirth, so one seeks to gain merit as efficiently as possible.

Doubt will rob you of fruits of practice and cost you merit you've so far accumulated.

*Patience with one's unjust treatment by others will support your practice. Patience with injustice by a guru will accumulate you merit for your next lifetime. Doubt in the guru or anger toward that guru will cost you whatever merit you have attained and even heap yet more hellish assignments on you.

This is a cognitive set up that is different and has a different set of incentives than that of the the West.

TB is pulling a lot of money, energy and talented people from the West, instigating alleged interfaith dialogues and considers itself superior to all other belief systems and that the power abuses that have happened in other belief systems could never happen in Vajrayana or are opportunities for the victims to adjust their attitudes and Acquire Merit.

Yet creative and dynamic Western societies made possible by Western impatience and belief in social improvability are by their great wealth desirable for the lamas to come visit -- preaching attitudes that would have kept the West sitting with its collective ass on a dunghill, fondling a mala and imagining future rebirths piling up and up.

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corboy
If someone posts material about harm done by Vajrayana gurus, or suggests that Vajrayana itself is not special, but is as capable of social psychological abuses as any other organization or belief system, this is material that has to be argued against.

But what I am actually saying is that vajrayana is not special. It is entirely capable of social psychological abuses as any other organization or belief system. The idea that somehow it has magical powers based upon sex magik and that they will hold anyone coming into contact with them in its thrall is just as ridiculous. My whole argument is that it is just as "capable of social psychological abuses as any other organization or belief system"

Whether following Ole Nydhal or any other Vaj guru, the apologists have incentives that keep them going long strong, incentives not provided by any evidence based, secular mindset.

Accumulate merit at all costs.

Fight down anything or anyone whose material arouses doubt, either in oneself, or ones Vajrayana-comrades, or in those who might drop out of Vajrayana or refuse to get involved.

Continuing the argument against doubt and the Doubt Demons enables one to accumulate that much needed merit for a much craved Auspicious Future Rebirth.

We seculars dont accumulate any percieved merit whatsover by involvement in this game.

So our efforst may come closer to ego free service than those who operate to accumualte merit -- a craving based psychological stance.

I did not say that Vajaryana had magical powers based on sex.

I am saying that persons who consider vajaryana exempt from the social psychological dangers that affect other belief systems are themselves psychologically drawing magic circles or mandalas around it.

I was speaking metaphorically, not literally.

But..you're arguing and through your arguements gaining that all important merit.

I am gaining nothing.

Besides, if you, suenam, say you were not involved with Ole N, why stay here on the Ole N thread.



And remember Ole N is using inflammatory langauge at the expense of Muslims.

Right at a time in history when keeping secular societies in civil peace is becoming so much more difficulty. Last thing needed is Ole fulminating against Muslims.

If an observer may add a point of view here; I have no particular interest in protecting the historic reputation of Tibetan Buddism. It seems though that if you look at the religious scriptures or behaviors of any religion or political system that was in existence in the sixth century, you are going to find a lot to horrify modern belief systems.
The tortures and burning of witches by Christian churches, stoning people to death by Jewish and Islamic religions; in the early days, there is no major religion that I know of that did not have moments of extreme cruelty.
Similarly, old tibetan texts suggesting sex with 9 or 12 year olds are horrifying.
To put this in historical context though, in Anglo Saxon society at the same time, children as young as 7 could give consent to betrothal, though generally the marriage could be voided, until the girl reached the age of 12,or the boy the age of 14. At 9 years old,a girl could recieve her dead husbands dower.

IMO,it is how these religions and societies behave today though, and whether they recognise the cruelty of past belief systems, that matters.

"Even then karam-mudra seems rather unclear about what actually happened."

Suanam, that it a mere assumption. And of course "...western evidence based thought..." is not your point, not at all. When you told me something here about "wind-disorder", a term of the utterly superstitious concept of Tibetan medicine, you have no right to appeal to the western concept of clarification and reason. Like nearly all followers of TB don´t have.

As I wrote here as an anwer to an Open Letter from Joanne to Sogyal, published on Dialogue Ireland:

[dialogueireland.wordpress.com]


Hi Joanne,

it breaks my heart reading your open letter while feeling how you are standing in need of resolve. You will only find it in freedom and in deep self-respect, not in depending on Buddha or Dharma or Sangha or what a teacher ever. So send Sogyal packing for ever and don´t wait for some “resolving” words of him.

Like I did with Ole Nydahl, you find my open letter to him here:

[marte-micaela-riepe.blogspot.tw]

As far as I understand your story I think, you have never been psychotic. It only looks like that. I see a violently opened Kundalini in your case and the best for – in my eyes – psychopaths like Sogyal is to discover missing knowledge about that technics and practises in the Western world, which are called “giving Shaktipad” in India, where Gurus are able to open the Kundalini of their students. Lamas, no, only the so called enlightened Lamas, who are just in a altered state of mind, are able to do the same and they keep it for secret . So the opened Kundalini is not a disorder, it means the state of liberation or enlightment, which should be very critically researched. The process to that state is accompanied by disorders. At least, depending on the strengh of your personality you will come through. A typical disorder on that way is addiction.


How Sogyal opened the Kundalini of a naturally gifted female student you find here:

[downthecrookedpath-meditation-gurus.blogspot.de]


Meanwhile a lot of research is done and I am an expert by experience and an expert by studying in this field. So don´t argue that I am unclear. I just do not considerably publish that contents here , it would go off topic too far, but I remember, I posted the link to Leo Sannella´s bóok: Kundalini: Psychosis or Trancendecy.

And the case will not bring some more clearness about the topic, because there will be only a decision on my right of speech or Nydahl´s right of protection of his personality.

Please stay on topic.

This thread is drifting again into theological arguments, which is both off topic and against the rules of the message board as agreed to by participants.

This thread should focus like a laser on the topic, which is Diamond Way and its leader Ole Nydahl.

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corboy
Besides, if you, suenam, say you were not involved with Ole N, why stay here on the Ole N thread.



And remember Ole N is using inflammatory langauge at the expense of Muslims.

Right at a time in history when keeping secular societies in civil peace is becoming so much more difficulty. Last thing needed is Ole fulminating against Muslims.

I didn't say I had no experience of Nydahl, what I said was that I didn't persevere with the DWB practices. I agree completely about Nydahl's anti-Muslim speech, but I also include anti-TB speech in the same category.

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corboy
I am saying that persons who consider vajaryana exempt from the social psychological dangers that affect other belief systems are themselves psychologically drawing magic circles or mandalas around it.

I was speaking metaphorically, not literally.

But..you're arguing and through your arguements gaining that all important merit.

I am gaining nothing.

You do seem to be giving credence to ideas which appear essentially to be living in a fairy tale. I really don't buy this idea of magic circles or that merit is out there floating around to be magically granted on the basis of an internet discussion. As I see it, the social psychological dangers lie in exactly this kind of pseudo-mystical BS that people choose to buy into. That's exactly why I'm focusing on the empirical evidence.

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yasmin
IMO,it is how these religions and societies behave today though, and whether they recognise the cruelty of past belief systems, that matters.

I agree. I have seen no evidence in Tibetan Buddhism to see a widespread promotion of these archaic practices. There are however a few misguided individuals from both East and West who dig these things up, and as far as I'm concerned this is entirely due to their own misguided judgement.

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karam-mudra
Like I did with Ole Nydahl, you find my open letter to him here:

[marte-micaela-riepe.blogspot.tw]

Here you have included the quotes,
(Quote from Wikipedia) „An attempt to perform Six Yogas of Naropa fully or partially, while not being properly instructed or guided and without proper preparation is possible but sometimes it causes serious and potentially irreversible phisical and psychological complications.“

(Quote from Wikipedia) "The practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa requires a high degree of meditative ability and spiritual knowledge due to its intrinsinc effects like extremely powerful, energetic emanations and especially due to its far-reaching consequences.“

I highlighted in bold the argument to reinforce what I am trying to say here. Nydahl didn't do it correctly, and lacks both a high degree of meditative ability and spiritual knowledge. The same thing would go for a doctor who performed a procedure incorrectly and without the proper training or knowledge - this is not a good reason to condemn all doctors.