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unless you can see everything are in a position to know everything – how can you discount another persons experience.”
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Part V – Live Organ Transplants
Two paramedics (Chapman and Cleese) arrive at the doorstep of Mr Brown (Gilliam), a card-carrying organ donor, to claim his liver, gruesomely operating on him against his will.
Cleese's paramedic unsuccessfully attempts to chat up Mrs Brown, then requests her liver as well.
She initially declines, but after a man (Idle) sings a song about man's insignificance in the universe ("The Galaxy Song"), she agrees.
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Likewise, the live liver “donation” sequence, with its gurgled screams, arterial blood plumes, and handfuls of intestines brandished about before the lens: sure it's gross.
But is that all it is?
*(Corboy note- the man is butchered in front of his missus. Egregious suffering. Imagine guru grooming and then serially preying on students)
The wife of the just deceased (bloodily butchered-Corboy)donor is given an unmistakably sexual come-on by one of the white-coated men in order to get her to give up her liver.
She demurs.
Out of her refrigerator pops a man in top hat and tails (also white), who with a wave of his cane blows out the dingy walls of her kitchen to reveal the star-bejeweled vastness of the universe sparkling around them. They stroll along an invisible path through the firmament.
He sings to her about the size of it all, and our comparative insignificance.
*(Might as well be a Vajrayana visualisation--eh? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Corboy)
Completely dazzled by her intergalactic wooing, upon return to her kitchen she agrees readily to give up her liver
— and her life.
From Jump Cuts by Fred Glass
[www.ejumpcut.org]
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The Tonglen practice is a method for connecting with suffering– oursand that which is all around us– everywhere we go. It is a method forovercoming fear of suffering and for dissolving the tightness of ourheart. Primarily it is a method for awakening the compassion that isinherent in all of us, no matter how cruel or cold we might seem to be.
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132. dominique, on August 13, 2011 at 6:51 pm said:
I did not do the 3 year retreat in Lerab Ling.I have been a practicing Buddhist for 40 years, and wish to share my experiences in dysfunctional Dharma structures.
I have also noted that many people who are willing to rationalise the behaviour of an abusive teacher are often from homes where this kind of behaviour took place.
They repeat history enabling the guru rather than finding freedom.
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Maybe you are able to name your pain. You recognize it clearly as terror or revulsion or anger or wanting to get revenge.
So you breathein for all the people who are caught with that same emotion and yousend out relief or whatever opens up the space for yourself and all those countless others.
Maybe you can't name what you're feeling. But you can feel it-– atightness in the stomach, a heavy darkness or whatever.
Just contactwhat you are feeling and breathe in, take it in– for all of us and sendout relief to all of us.People often say that this practice goes against the grain of how weusually hold ourselves together.
Truthfully, this practice does goagainst the grain of wanting things on our own terms, of wanting it towork out for ourselves no matter what happens to the others.
Thepractice dissolves the armor of self-protection we've tried so hard tocreate around ourselves. In Buddhist language one would say that it issolves the fixation and clinging of ego.
Tonglen reverses the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seekingpleasure and, in the process, we become liberated from a very ancient
prison of selfishness.
We begin to feel love both for ourselves andothers and also we being to take care of ourselves and others. Itawakens our compassion and it also introduces us to a far larger viewof reality. It introduces us to the unlimited spaciousness thatBuddhists call shunyata.
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Maybe you are able to name your pain.
(But in the Vajrayana scene, if you try to name your pain as something done to you by a powerholder, you risk being told you are projecting your stuff on to the sitaution. So..how to name the agent of the pain correctly is not straightforward-Corboy)
You recognize it clearly as terror or revulsion or anger or wanting to get revenge.
So you breathe in for all the people who are caught with that same emotion and you send out relief or whatever opens up the space for yourself and all those countless others.
Maybe you can't name what you're feeling.
But you can feel it-– a tightness in the stomach, a heavy darkness or whatever. Just contact what you are feeling and breathe in, take it in– for all of us (generalizing the situation -- Corboy) and send out relief to all of us.
People often say that this practice goes against the grain of how we usually hold ourselves together.
(It goes against the grain of what created the United States of America and its generous tax exemptions that have made US turf so attractive to all these lams and rinpoches. Corboy)
Truthfully, this practice does go against the grain of wanting things on our own terms, of wanting it to work out for ourselves no matter what happens to the others[/i].
First 'wanting things' then 'wanting it' --there is confusion between singular and plural.
**(This sentence posits an unsatisfiying premise. The language is tangled. Wanting it to work out for ourselves--an alert English Composition teacher would red pencil the sentence construction for grammatical errors.
In addition, the language is vague. What is 'it'?
Next, "Working it out" does not have to be a selfish enterprise.
'working it out for ourselves no matter what happens to the others' -- that makes it seem that people are inherantly selfish and indifferent 'to the others' and that tonglen is the remedy.
"working it out" with an attitude that is different from the attitude governing use of tonglen means ignoring or not caring what happens to the others.
As a citizen, I suggest that 'working it out' can mean identifying the social context, who has agency and fiduciary responsibility for using money and power responsibly and--identifying where there is trouble, naming the trouble and fixing the problem so ALL CAN BENEFIT, not only the person who has been harmed, but future arriving students at that center.
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Any attempt at debate with the hierachs of a cult is doomed*, because a critic can never disprove the hierachs' claim to a special revelation, or to a more profound understanding of the group's core beliefs.
(Corboy: *Or that a guru or senior teacher is abusing people, power and or money)
So attempts to reform a cult from within tend to be futile.
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This is because a hierarchical type of belief system, with its ideas about lower and higher levels of awareness and understanding, is intrinsically non-falsifiable. [22] No counter observations or criticisms of a hierarchical type of belief system can ever be established as objectively true.
It is impossible for an investigator to prove any fault with the tenets of a hierarchical belief system, even after long term personal experience of the belief system, or to censure any of the methods (short of physical force) which might be used to promote such a belief system.
It is never actually possible to prove that a group promoting such a belief system has used 'devious psychological techniques to gain and control adherents', even if they have, because critics can never prove that their criticisms are not based merely on mundane ignorance and misunderstanding. From the perspective of a hierarchical, dualistic type of belief system, critics are deemed to be at a lower level of awareness, and are thus effectively disenfranchised. [23]
Any attempt at debate with the hierachs of a cult is doomed, because a critic can never disprove the hierachs' claim to a special revelation, or to a more profound understanding of the group's core beliefs.
So attempts to reform a cult from within tend to be futile.
It may also be difficult to warn outsiders what the 'inner life' of the belief system is actually like, because critics can never actually prove that their criticisms are objectively valid, not just personal and subjective.
These difficulties tend to be characteristic of cult-type belief systems, and help to put cult organisations beyond the reach of any outside authority.
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In the case of a cult, the 'powerful, privileged minority' are the cult leaders and hierachs. The difficulty is that an investigator (or potential new member) has to exercise a hermeneutic of faith as well as of suspicion, if they are to succeed in penetrating into the mind set of a cult member and in unmasking therein any 'unconscious ideological structures'. Only someone with hands-on experience of the ethos and interior dynamics of the group actually knows the point of view of an engaged believer. Only an insider can really tell us if the 'inner life' of the belief system serves the members or a privileged hierarchy.
This places an investigator in a dangerous paradox. On the one hand, they have to go native and enter into the belief system to some extent, if they want to know whether the 'inner life' of the belief system serves the members or the hierarchy. But the difficulty with experimenting with this sort of belief system is that at no point is it possible for an investigator to know for sure when to stop. Having begun to adopt, cautiously and on a trial basis, elements of a hierarchical, dualistic belief system, it is never possible to know when the belief system has been given a fair trial.
At no stage can an investigator or a newcomer eliminate the possibility that they have failed to attain any more than a mundane level of insight into the group's beliefs.
(CorboyOr their assessment of a guru's fitness to be their teacher, especially the kinds of gurus who claim 'crazy wisdom')
They can never be sure that a breakthrough to a deeper level of understanding is impossible, or that valuable insights will definitely not result from attending the next training course or residential weekend offered by the group. Or from the next course after that. A hierarchical cult-type belief system is like an endless road to a uncertain destination.
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23 Re: Critics disenfranchised and the non-democratic nature of cults:
'There's no democracy in the Western Buddhist Order! .... It's a hierarchy, but a spiritual one.... It is the broad feeling that there is in someone, or in certain people, something higher and better than yourself to which you can look up.... It's a good, positive thing to be able to look up to someone! If you can't, you're in a pretty difficult position. You're in a sad state.... like a child that hasn't even got a mother and father to look up to....But this sort of assertion, that you're just as good as anybody else in the egalitarian sense, is really sick.'
From 'The Endlessly Fascinating Cry.' A seminar by FWBO leader Sangharakshita on the Bodhicaryavatara, transcribed and published FWBO, 1977, p.74-5
[www.fwbo-files.com]
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12 Re: justification of lies and deception:
From a conversation posted on the internet newsgroup, alt.support.ex-cult on Fri 24 Mar 2000, on thread: '$cientology: Cult of LIES'
Poster 1
>>Lying implies some kind of malicious intention <<
Poster 2
'Lying does not by definition imply malicious intent - you can lie out of politeness, out of pity, because you think the truth would be bad for that person, etc. etc. etc.
'Outright lying means to tell people things that you do know are not true - Tantric practionters do that at times, when they are honestly convinced that this is better for Tantra.
'But there are finer variations where one can convince oneself, that one is not really lying:
You can tell only a small part of the truth, you can tell the truth in a way that the other person does understand it differently as it is, you can consciously omit important facts, you can formulate things generally and unspecific - all with the intent that the other person judges the situation according to your wishes while you objectively do not give the person the information necessary to judge the situation impartially.
'Sure you can say, that you did not lie - but you did not tell what is, in your conviction, the full truth.'
Poster 1
>>Because tantric practionters believe in their tech does not make them liars. For the most part, tantric practionters are honest and well-meaning. Just like most critics. <<
Poster 2
'The point is not, that tantric practionters believe in their tech - they have the right to that.
'Also Tantric practionters themselves do try their best to act ethical (as they define it) and they are sincere in that.
'But Tantric practionters do have their own definition about ethics which does not fully correspond with the general understanding about ethics.
'And also Tantric practionters do have their own understanding about reality, about what to tell other people as truth about Tantra - again their view of these things is in conflict with the general understanding.
'This does not only concern staff - also public Tantric practionters are formally and informally told how to best explain Tantra to others, what to mention, how to mention it, what not to mention - all with the best intent, but the result is still, that you cannot, as an outsider, get fully informed about Tantra by a Tantric practionter. I do know that, because I did it myself and I taught it myself for years.
'Hardly any Tantric practionter lies consciously to you - but he tells you only a truth he thinks acceptable to you (and this might be so small a part of truth, that it results in disinformation, not information)'
Poster 1
>>Maybe this is true in any religion. If there is really no heaven, have the priests all lied to us? <<
Poster 2
'A voodoo adherent who firmly believes in voodoo, does not lie to you, when he tells you about voodoo, if he is sincere in telling you what he believes.
'A moslem who believes that non-moslems will go to hell, does not lie, if he tells what he sincerely believes - no matter, if the moslem hell factually exists or not.
'A protestant priest who does not believe that Jesus rose from the dead and still preaches he sure did, is lying - he tells something as truth which he does not believe in.
'A Tantric practionter who says Tantra is a religion and privately thinks it is a technology for self-betterment does lie to you - what he is saying is not what he believes. A Tantric practionter who believes Tantra is a religion and says it is a philosophy because a as religion it would not be acceptable in e.g. Greece, is lying - what he thinks and what he says is not the same and he knows it.
'One of the problems of Tantra is, that people are actually taught to tell outsiders not what insiders see as the truth - and that Tantric practionters feel it is ethical to do that. This sort of re-education about what is ethical or not does lead to conflicts with non-Tantric practionters.'
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12 Re: justification of lies and deception:
From a conversation posted on the internet newsgroup, alt.support.ex-cult on Fri 24 Mar 2000, on thread: '$cientology: Cult of LIES'
Poster 1
>>Lying implies some kind of malicious intention <<
Poster 2
'Lying does not by definition imply malicious intent - you can lie out of politeness, out of pity, because you think the truth would be bad for that person, etc. etc. etc.
'Outright lying means to tell people things that you do know are not true - Scientologists do that at times, when they are honestly convinced that this is better for Scientology.
'But there are finer variations where one can convince oneself, that one is not really lying: You can tell only a small part of the truth, you can tell the truth in a way that the other person does understand it differently as it is, you can consciously omit important facts, you can formulate things generally and unspecific - all with the intent that the other person judges the situation according to your wishes while you objectively do not give the person the information necessary to judge the situation impartially.
'Sure you can say, that you did not lie - but you did not tell what is, in your conviction, the full truth.'
Poster 1
>>Because scientologists believe in their tech does not make them liars. For the most part, scientologists are honest and well-meaning. Just like most critics. <<
Poster 2
'The point is not, that scientologists believe in their tech - they have the right to that.
'Also Scientologists themselves do try their best to act ethical (as they define it) and they are sincere in that.
'But Scientologists do have their own definition about ethics which does not fully correspond with the general understanding about ethics.
'And also Scientologists do have their own understanding about reality, about what to tell other people as truth about Scientology - again their view of these things is in conflict with the general understanding.
'This does not only concern staff - also public Scientologists are formally and informally told how to best explain Scientology to others, what to mention, how to mention it, what not to mention - all with the best intent, but the result is still, that you cannot, as an outsider, get fully informed about Scientology by a Scientologist. I do know that, because I did it myself and I taught it myself for years.
'Hardly any Scientologist lies consciously to you - but he tells you only a truth he thinks acceptable to you (and this might be so small a part of truth, that it results in disinformation, not information)'
Poster 1
>>Maybe this is true in any religion. If there is really no heaven, have the priests all lied to us? <<
Poster 2
'A voodoo adherent who firmly believes in voodoo, does not lie to you, when he tells you about voodoo, if he is sincere in telling you what he believes.
'A moslem who believes that non-moslems will go to hell, does not lie, if he tells what he sincerely believes - no matter, if the moslem hell factually exists or not.
'A protestant priest who does not believe that Jesus rose from the dead and still preaches he sure did, is lying - he tells something as truth which he does not believe in.
'A Scientologist who says Scientology is a religion and privately thinks it is a technology for self-betterment does lie to you - what he is saying is not what he believes. A Scientologist who believes Scientology is a religion and says it is a philosophy because a as religion it would not be acceptable in e.g. Greece, is lying - what he thinks and what he says is not the same and he knows it.
'One of the problems of Scientology is, that people are actually taught to tell outsiders not what insiders see as the truth - and that Scientologists feel it is ethical to do that. This sort of re-education about what is ethical or not does lead to conflicts with non-Scientologists.'
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Transgression, Bataille argues, is not simple hedonism or unrestrained sexual license; rather, its power lies in the dialectic or "play" (le jeu) between taboo and transgression, through which one systematically constructs and then oversteps all laws.
Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of eroticism. Not a matter of simple nudity, eroticism arises in the dialectic of veiling and revealing, clothing and striptease, between the creation of sexual taboos and the exhilarating experience of overstepping them.
So too, in ecstatic mystical experience or religious rites (such as blood sacrifices, carnivals, etc.), one must first create an aura of purity and sanctity before one can defile it with violence, transgression or the overturning of law. "The prohibition is there to be violated;" rules are made to be broken, for it is the experience of over-stepping limits that brings the blissful sense of continuity and communion with the Other:
Taboos...are not only there to be obeyed...It is always a temptation to knock down a barrier...Fear invests [the forbidden act] with an aura of excitement. ..
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Both Hindu Shakta Tantra and Crowley's magic do center in large part around the acquisition of power (shakti in the Indian case), a power that flow lies within both the natural cosmos and the human self, a power that has both spritual and socio-political dimensions.
And both employed explicit acts of transgression -- the deliberate violation of accepted social, moral and sexual codes -- as one very potent means of awakening and harnessing that power. Yet at the same time, on the other hand, the ends to which that power was directed seems to be quite different in Shakta Tantra and in Crowley's magic.
As we saw above, most forms of Hindu Shakta Tantra have historically been quite conservative in orientation, tending to reinforce rather than subvert the existing social order
Tantric ritual does often involve deliberate inversions and transgressions of normal social laws and sexual taboos; but these are closely guarded by ritual secrecy and generally tend, in the end, to re-assert the power of the elite, male, well-educated Brahmins as the ritual experts who alone have the authority to overstep conventional social boundaries. [115]
Crowley, conversely, set out deliberately to overthrow, tear down and supplant the entire religious, social and moral world in which he was raised. From the revelation of his Book of the Law and continuing throughout his life, he set out to deconstruct an entire worldview and social order -- what he regarded as the effete, corrupt and bankrupt world dominated by Christianity -- and to set up in its place a new order based on the law of the Thelema.
In other words, both the Sakta Tantrikas and Crowley made use of explicit inversions of conventional morality and sexual taboos, but they did so for very different, even opposite reasons -- the one to reinforce the existing social order and status quo, and the other to destroy it.