Blue Dakini:
"I presented an alternative perspective on June Campbell -- one that is widely shared within the TB community."

Who exactly shares this view? And what are the origins of this view? I think Ole Nydahl gave June Campbell lots of negative publicity, calling her publicly during his lectures: "neurotic". I have heard it several times from him.

Do you know any other teachers publicly expressing this type of opinions during their lectures? Or if not during the lectures; how do they express it?

'I have nothing to do with lamas and gurus, Stoic. The problem is they are ordinary people, not enlightened at all.'

And thats a problem?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2011 06:19AM by Stoic.

This is an book review that I wrote on Tantric teachings:

This book, Tantrism, Its Secret Principles and Practices by Benajmin Walker is a small book but every page is filled with shocking information, much more so than the Kalacakra book. I also learned that the two other Hindu yogi groups that I had been in years ago, taught Tantrism in secret. I had been suspicious even then but had no way to know, and this book cleared all of this up for me.

The Kalacakra as presented in the west is that of peace, but if you actually read it you will find that there is going to be a battle with the Buddhists killing the Jews and Muslims, if I have this part correct. Gandhi actually believed that Hinduism was peaceful and so decided to reinterpret the Gita, as not as a real battle, but as one within each of us, of the good and bad. This information comes from the book, Buddhists at War. In Walker's book he said that the Kalacakra can be translated, not just as "time" but "black", "death" or "fate."

Tibetan Buddhists will claim that you can't understand these books because they are written in the Twilight Language, but the Commentary book I mentioned translates it for you. And as Walker said in his book, "The writings are often so explicit that it would be stretching one's imagination too far to read them in any other way." I thought that myself when reading the Commentary book, especially when it says that you will eventually need a real consort and not just visualizations. Tibetan Buddhists try to tell you it is only done through visualizations; if they tell you anything at all that is anywhere near the truth.

While the Commentary goes into detail of the sex practice, this book goes one step further, The Commentary hints at after being taught the precepts and the Bodhisattva Vow, and when you are ready to take the empowerments, you can now drink wine, eat beef, and have sex with women. Well, Walker's book takes his book deeper into the subject. Many of the practices are so degrading, that I can't imagine posting them here; it was hard enough reading them. Some include eating feces, drinking menstrual blood, eating corpses, etc. to name a few.

Here are some more:

"Forbidden sexuality, including incest and adultery can and indeed must be practiced. Meats like beef, taboo to the Hindu, must be eaten. Alcoholic liquor, so hateful to the orthodox must be drunk. A tantric precept says, `By drinking and drinking and drinking again, rolling on the ground, rising and still drinking, a man saves himself from rebirth.'

And of course without real sex you cannot become enlightened. What a drawing point this has become, because people drawn to this religion desire enlightenment, only the lama slowly prepares people towards this end for his own enjoyment. Some lamas are sexual predators, using the same techniques as those in public, where they get children to trust and love them first.

Also there are women who were married and came to Tibetan Buddhism just to learn that they had to share their partner.

And more: "Success with women and the ability to satisfy any number of them was the most coveted goal. This woman-subduing power was aimed at reducing females to a state of insane and demonic desire that only the tantric could assuage. Women could be tormented beyond endurance so they would come in hundreds with disheveled locks, their bodices bursting with ardor for the tantric, however decrepit, old, ugly or impotent he might be.'

...As a cult obligation, followers are enjoined to carry out acts of a progressively more and more anti-social nature, to tell lies in preference to the truth, to steal what belongs to others, to commit robbery and violence, and in the final phase, to commit murder.

...In certain forms of tantric initiation, the candidate is asked whether, for the sake of the goddess, he would be prepared to kill anyone, even members of his own family."

Walker states that "Tanriks are men of strange and malignant force, and it is widely believed in India that it is dangerous to thwart or provoke them, for they are malicious in the extreme." Well, I have been threatened to keep quiet, but so far nothing has happened. My feeling is if they can't heal, if their prayers don't really work, why would their black magic? But there are women who have been terrified into not talking in the open about what they went through with lamas. I know these women.

How did Tantra really come to Tibet: When the King of Tibet asked Padma-sambhava, the Buddhist master who brought Tantric teachings to Tibet, to teach Buddhism, he had no idea that they were other than the real teachings of Buddha. The King's chief wife called a meeting to voice her distaste for the teachings and concluded, "This is no religion, but the evil India has taught Tibet." It flourished in Tibet in spite of her meeting.

I also thought that the last chapter of the book, the Comments had a wealth of information on the dangers of meditation, Hatha Yoga, and other practices that have found their way into the west, and so all I can say is that I would give this book more than 5 stars, if I could. You will learn more about Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism that you ever wanted to know. But most of all it may help someone to not make the mistake of joining such groups and end up being disappointed as distraught as I had been.

stoic, i guess i don't understand your line of questioning. the problem is that lamas and gurus pretend to be enlightened and moral, and they are not. they are just ordinary people who have power and with that power end up abusing people.

Who gives them the power?

Re the 'enlightenment' you must have heard the old Irish joke (I was born there so I think it passes the PC police):

A man walking on a rural road stops to ask an old farmer for directions to a nearby town. The farmer ponders the question and replies, “I’m afraid you can’t get there from here.”

It is about people having differing views of the world, not trying to be particularly cryptic.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2011 06:48AM by Stoic.

The problem is that many gurus tell their students that the guru is an enlightened master, i.e. a demi-god. Students need to know that the master is an ordinary person, and is not to be revered. Respected, yes, if he proves himself worthy of respect. I think there needs to be a major adjustment in how some teachers (or the tradition) present themselves, and in the expectations or projections students place on the teacher.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that Kalu thought June wanted a sexual relationship with him. Wasn't she a nun the entire time that she worked as his translator and interpreter? And if he thought it's what she wanted, wouldn't he have backed off when she initially refused his "offer" out of shock? Did he also think she wanted a sexual relationship with his monk-gatekeeper? Did he think she wanted to be a "consort" along with a Tibetan teenager?

There is a part of the Bodhisattva Vows, called the Secondary Bodhisattva Vows (see berzinarchives.com, Secondary Bodhisattva Vows) that outlines the circumstances in which one can break the precepts, indeed, is required to break the precepts. Regarding sexual misconduct (and/or celibacy), one is required to have sex with a woman if she is so desirous of having sex with the teacher that not having sex with him (it's all about the male perspective) will cause her to abandon the dharma and carry resentment toward the dharma into future lives. Clearly, this is can create situations rife with the possibility of misunderstanding, and projecting one's desires onto another. It's a recipe for a train wreck.

Maybe this is one explanation, or part of the explanation, for Kalu's behavior. It's also the perfect excuse for any teacher who wants to have sex with students.

Yes Mysstyk, and it was written over 2000 years ago by a man for men ---does this ring any bells?

What other 2000 year old directives written by some unknown person do we rigidly adhere to today?

I'm not sure what your point is, Stoic. But these rules were contributed by the Dalai Lama to the Berzin Archives as part of contemporary vows and practice. I mean, a large part of the problem we're dealing with is a tradition that's archaic, and hasn't been reformed.

Its about ground rules, you have to know the ground rules before going in--its the reason I never signed up as a buddhist. There is no way I am taking vows:
A) that are impossible to fulfil.
B) have never been kept since they were written.

I did accept the ground rules of my teacher, which were simple and clear. I abided by them scrupulously too.

I have respect for my word and do not give it unless I intend to do my damn best to live up to it.

Who really thinks that they are going to save all beings? Thats a fast road to delusion and megalomania there.

Its on a par with the enlightenment trick, how can you attain something that is utterly undefined? Its a word I never heard my teacher mention, thank god, or I would have been out of there. 'Spiritual', another undefined word, never passed his lips either. In fact the only time I ever saw him spitting mad--not a pretty sight--was when someone else used that word in his hearing.

I think that this is part of how Sogyal works his schtick. He knows that vulnerable people are going to take all this stuff seriously, why else would they join unless to gain some benefit?
He, as a longtime part of the system, knows that the rules do not apply to him or his fellows which gives him both carte blanche to abuse his power and the sure knowledge that not one of his fellows will rat him out.

Its not about tradition or about the rules being archaic, its a con --where those in the know profit and those not in the know get screwed. That is neither traditional or archaic, it is a cabal of powerholders making the most of the power that their disciples give them.

The vast majority of buddhists are not at all like that. They are ordinary people, exactly the same as you and me, just with a different belief system.