On Jan 23, 6:01 am, Erwin Hessle
erwinhessle.com> wrote:> On Jan 23, 7:28 am, norbu.tra...@
gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
>> On Jan 22, 5:01 pm, Erwin Hessle
erwinhessle.com> wrote:>
>>> On Jan 22, 7:01 pm, Chade
newsguy.com> wrote:>
>>>> On Jan 22, 1:31 am, Erwin Hessle
erwinhessle.com> wrote:>>>>> And does he give any practical advice on "selecting a guru," as
>>>>> opposed to telling you how not to select one?
>
>>>> Not really, about the most he says is that it should be someone you
>>>> can communicate with.
>
>>> Right then.
>
>> Trungpa did not give detailed advice in that general interest book on
>> how to select a guru
>> in the Indian/Tibetan Vajrayana tradition, because it it was a general
>> interest book,
>> and it was assumed that people interested would look into the topic
>> further.
>
> So what's the rationale behind giving detailed advice on how *not* to
> select one, then?
At the time a lot of teens (and adults, tisk tisk) wanted to jump into
anything that was a wonderful
spiritual disneyland ride into whatever the selling slogan was.
The message given instead was "be careful", do what your mama said, be
skeptical,
look out for frauds, con-men, etc, notice if they try to use you, set
themselves up as gods, etc,
in particular notice how you look for something to make yourself feel
secure,
reassured, safe, etc...Don't take candy from strangers, ,,,in general,
not always,
sometimes strangers are nice folks, not always, so use some smarts.
>
>> Meet with various teachers and use their own smarts and intuition as
>> to who
>> was honest or a a dealer in horseshit.
>
> Those "smarts and intuition" apparently not being enough to figure out
> that they shouldn't select a guru based on reputation though, right?
> Seems rather arbitrary to me.
Where you get that? In the chapter on "Initiation" Trungpa cautions
against reputation:
"Or someone might join a club, be initiated into a particular
organization because he feels starved, worthless. The group
is fat and wealthy and he wants someone to feed him....
leading them to believe they have become wiser, more spiritual,
simply because they have commited themselves to his
organization, and have been labeled monks, yogis, whatever titles
they may have recieved...."
>
>>> Bah, nothing wrong with that. Unless you're talking complete shit, of
>>> course. Which he is.
>
>> Saying someone is talking "complete shit" is avoiding open discussion.
>
> You're patently going against the obvious facts, here.
i can say that too:
You're patently going against the obvious facts, here.
Saying something doesn't make it so.
Santa is my best friend and the Easter Bunny will pay my debts.
> You, in
> particular, have chosen to respond. Are you saying that you're not
> engaging in "open discussion"? Or are you telling fibs?
If you say "All possible disagreement with me, and all alternitive
views are "complete shit" that doesn't leave a lot of room for open
discussion
of what was being talked about, i.e., students, teachers, etc...
>
>> It ends with everyone saying everyone is talking "complete shit",
>> at which point we all go into pre-verbal barbarism.
>
> Ah, I see, you're one of these folks who thinks that some words are
> worse than other words, right?
Not at all...
> You need to use some of that "smarts
> and intuition" you were talking about to get over this neurosis of
> yours, because it's really not a very sensible way to behave.
First you claim that i do something i do not do, and then you label
that
imagined activity neurotic, and then give that imaginary person
advice.
and then:
>
>>>>> See, that's the problem with gurus, right there. It's a logical
>>>>> contradiction. What you actually want, in theory, in someone to tell
>>>>> you stuff that you don't already know, and, more to the point, stuff
>>>>> that you don't particularly want to hear.
sorry, but no, that ain't quite right.
In Vajrayana the guru is more like an older brother or sister passing
on advice from their
older brother or sister...hmmm...sort of like most teachers....
the main thing they teach is for you to find your own
situation, whatever that is, and find your own awareness in that -
they do not sell you some foriegn item you don't already have
or expect you to become someone else, or whatever....
the harsh part of the guru relationship is that
you are still you all along and you have have to deal with being
you...
the guru's part isn't to change that or offer sweet or sour
alternives.
The guru is someone who has had to come down to earth with that
same situation, which isn't particularly good or bad, and is a
"heavy weight" (meaning of the word "guru") when you want to spaceout
into feeling miserable or blissful over some yatta-yatta
- they just
call you back to looking at yourself again.
That's all any teacher or friend can ever do.
>
>> Wow. No. A guru relationship is nothing like that.
>
> Yes. I know. That was the whole point of making that comment. A guru
> relationship is nothing like that. Hence the "that's the problem with
> gurus ... what you actually want is ... " construction.
>
>> Guru and student is a relationship of mutual respect.
>> There is a mutual recognition of good heart and honesty.
>
> Ah, that's so sweet. A total and utter waste of time for anybody who
> wants to learn some hard lessons about the nature of their own self,
> but sweet, nevertheless.
The hard lessons about yourself is that there are no lessons.
Everything you need to find out you can only find out for yourself.
If you start jumping up and down saying I'm immortal!!! or I don't
exist!!!
or I'm Goood!!! or baddd.....etc, the guru says "look again"...
When they talk about a personal guru eventually dissolving so that
the
whole world is guru that is what is meant - the same old "heavy" -
"Look again"....
>
>> The guru is an older brother or sister, further along the path, knows
>> the route,
>
> Knows *a* route. The odds against it being the route you actually want
> to take are billions to one, however.
i didn't say *a* route. we're all stuck with our own paths and if a
"guru"
wants you imitate him or her they ain't no guru at all.
>
>>>>> If you go around "selecting
>>>>> your own guru," the odds are fantastically against you selecting
>>>>> anything else that someone who will tell you what you already think
>>>>> you want to know.
>
>> Thing is, everyone has a little edge going, some sort of aspiration,
>> to get
>> beyond what they think they know....
>
>> Maybe sometimes a deep longing to find the truth or what makes sense
>> or whatever...
>
>> ...they don't just want a mirror of a concrete wall, - far from
>> that....
>
> So....you're agreeing with me again, then?
>
> Good.
>
>>>> Trungpa was taught in a monastery, where people would have been
>>>> assigned a guru I expect.
>
>> Trungpa was assigned teachers and went out and found a couple honest
>> guys to be his real
>> friends/gurus.
>
>>> Then he has no real idea about "selecting a guru" and he's talking out
>>> of his ass. Q.E.D.
>
>> See comment above re what he did.
>
> OK, so he "found a couple honest guys to be his real friends". And
> this makes him an expert in finding a guru, I suppose?
He had to go against the authorities trying to steer him, went outside
his tradition,
etc...His "guru"s came from a non-sectarian movement only a hundred or
so
years old at the time....so, yeah, i think he learned a little about
getting over
authority and what should be and cling to -isms....
>
>>>> I'm not convinced on this submitting to a guru malarky.
>
>>> A good rule of thumb to go by is "fuckwits submit, and I don't."
>
>> a good rule of thumb to go by is that submitting or not are
>> irrelevant.
>
> No. That's what we call a "bad" rule of thumb, right there. There's a
> subtle, but important, difference.
>
>> you want to be honest with yourself
>
> This is certainly a good rule of thumb.
>
>> and find other honest people.
>
> This isn't. It might be pleasant for you, but it has little to do with
> progress.
everyone is honest when you find them being honest, and
somefolks are dishonest at times...i look for honesty...
you can look for what you want if you think there's an alternitve...
> The other problem is that we don't have an honesty-detecting
> tricorder at our disposal. What is your strategy for detecting honest
> people?
Breathing is a good sign. Talking ... not so much.
a joke. lame. yes.
People who are avoiding being themselves invest
to a strident degree in belief systems of all sorts,
have causes rather than friends, lifestyles rather than lives...
It's what they avoid....But that doesn't make them
"dishonest" as such...they are honest at times....
even a broken clock is twice a day....
> Going with people who talk softly, smile a lot, and feed you
> some mystical claptrap?
Yeah, i love it when bodhisattvas stroke my dharmakaya with their
cakras...
....ewwwww!!!!!!!!!
> If you are already able to reliably determine
> whether or not what your guru is saying is "honest," then that guru
> begins to seem rather superfluous, to me, unless, as I said, you're
> interested in a jolly good round of mutual back-slapping.
There's an occasion hug, but it's based on "what the fuck are you
doing??, and look again".
> Moreover,
> what's your motivation in finding honest people?
...uhm...so i can fool them?
> So you don't have to
> go through the inconvenience of having to question what they say, and
> test things for yourself?
yep. that's why i like critical free-thinkers. to herd together in a
thoughtless mass.
> This is not a smart way to proceed.
Who said i was proceeding? i'm ok being here.
>
>> the only alternitive is being dishonest with yourself, etc....
>
>> So it becomes an issue of how we become honest with ourselves, rather
>> than any particular dogma....
>
> OK, now we're getting somewhere. "it becomes an issue of how we become
> honest with ourselves" is a crude way of putting it, but basically
> correct.
yu stroke my ego....
> However, we're still left with the original issue of how and
> why having a "guru" must necessarily be a fundamental part of this
> process,
-cough- uhm....i never said that....look over the google archive if
choo want...
never ever said that...
> which your entire post has failed to address.
....because that wasn't the topic?
> We've already
> established that it's nice and fluffy and might make you feel good in
> the short term, but that's not the issue at hand, as you state
> yourself in your last sentence. Let's try addressing that real issue,
> shall we? How precisely do you think that "emptying yourself and
> becoming a vessel for your guru's teachings" is going to help you to
> accomplish this objective?
i'm not sure what objective you're talking about...Being honest with
yourself?
i think folks do that when they really see there's no workable
alternitive.
The goal, so to speak, the buddhadharma is just following the
eightfold path
to extinguish personal suffering....If you're into the mahayana thingy
to
help others as well, peace on earth, all that stuff....
- best,
- n.
> Erwin Hessle, 8=3
"emptying yourself and becoming a vessel for your guru's teachings"?
Did Trungpa say that? ....
