On Jan 23, 12:03 pm, norbu.tra...@
gmail.com wrote:
> On Jan 23, 6:01 am, Erwin Hessle
erwinhessle.com> wrote:>> 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.
If you are stupid enough to need this kind of advice, then you may as
well not bother with a "guru" in the first place, since it's too late
for you.
>>> 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?
See, that's one of the helpful things about holding discussions on
Usenet. If you are wondering where someone "got that," you can just
scroll up a few messages and find out for yourself. Isn't that clever?
Of course, if you're the kind of person who likes jumping into
discussions without reading them, and consequently having no idea at
all what is actually being discussed, then I predict you will incur
great derision.
>>>> 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.
As you've already been told, the difference between you saying
something, and me saying something, is that I'm right about it, and
you aren't. You are engaging in open discussion. Ergo "saying someone
is talking 'complete shit' is avoiding open discussion" is patently
untrue, by your own actions. Ergo, you're patently going against the
obvious facts, here.
Pay attention.
>> 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...
Feel free to quote where I said such a thing. If you can. Which you
can't.
>>> 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...
"Saying something doesn't make it so."
Remember that little chestnut?
>> 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,
No, firstly you claim that you do not think something that you do
think, as evidenced by your own words, despite your protestations to
the contrary. There are only two alternatives, here; either you think
what I said you think, or you were talking complete shit in the first
place. Which is it?
> and then you label
> that
> imagined activity neurotic, and then give that imaginary person
> advice.
See, you *can* pay attention! Do it more often.
>>>>>> 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
Listen, cretin. I keep saying "this is not what a guru does," and you
keep responding with, "no, no, that's not right, that's not what a
guru does." Make your mind up; either you think I am right, and that's
not what a guru does, or you think I'm not right, and that is what a
guru does. You can't have it both ways.
> - they just
> call you back to looking at yourself again.
>
> That's all any teacher or friend can ever do.
Well that's nonsense, for a start. They can help you put wallpaper up
and and kinds of crazy shit.
>>> 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.
Then the fact that "there are no lessons" cannot possibly be a "hard
lesson" then, can it? So you admitting that you're talking shit once
again, right?
> Everything you need to find out you can only find out for yourself.
Then you don't need a guru. Q.E.D.
>>> 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.
I know you didn't, you clown. *I* said that! If you'd said it, I
wouldn't have had to say it, would I?
I'm beginning to suspect that you're somehow educationally deficient.
> 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.
Then they ain't no guru at all, and you don't need one. Q.E.D.
You're making this too easy.
>> 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....
Answer the question. Is he an expert in finding a guru, or isn't he?
> everyone is honest when you find them being honest,
Well, good job we have people like you to tell us things like that,
eh?
> and
> somefolks are dishonest at times...
Just not at the times you find them being honest, right?
> i look for honesty...
Oh really? How?
> you can look for what you want if you think there's an alternitve...
Well, now that I have your permission...
>> 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.
Ah, I see. So if somebody is breathing, that's a good sign that
they're honest, right?
> Talking ... not so much.
So if they are talking, but not breathing, then that's a good sign
that they aren't honest? Or just not a good sign of anything at all.
> a joke. lame. yes.
Yes. Lame.
> People who are avoiding being themselves invest
> to a strident degree in belief systems of all sorts,
They do indeed.
> have causes rather than friends, lifestyles rather than lives...
Huh?
> It's what they avoid....But that doesn't make them
> "dishonest" as such...they are honest at times....
Oh I see, so it's not necessary to find people who are honest at all,
just people who are honest at times, right? Because people who are
honest at times cannot be dishonest, right?
> even a broken clock is twice a day....
English, please.
And it's a stopped clock, not a broken clock. If I break a clock by
pulling the hands off, it doesn't tell the right time ever.
>> 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!!!!!!!!!
Are you trying to be cute? It's not working. You sound like a buffoon.
>> 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".
What?
>> Moreover,
>> what's your motivation in finding honest people?
>
> ...uhm...so i can fool them?
Why are you asking me what your motivation is? Don't you know? Didn't
your guru tell you?
>> 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.
I thought so.
>> This is not a smart way to proceed.
>
> Who said i was proceeding? i'm ok being here.
You only think you are. If you weren't proceeding, you wouldn't have
posted this message.
>>> 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....
Making one crude and half-way accurate statement once in your life is
an ego boost for you? You need to get out more, son.
>> 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...
Cough, uhm, let's just remember that you jumped into a discussion that
was already going on, shall we?
>> which your entire post has failed to address.
>
> ....because that wasn't the topic?
That was the topic. You, apparently, just didn't bother reading the
discussion you jumped into to figure out what the topic actually was.
That's why your responses have come across as being so retarded.
>> 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...
Once again, the miracles of the interweb enables us to answer
questions with such ease. In this case, it's made even more easy for
you by being in the very paragraph you're quoting. Here, I'll show
you:
"'it becomes an issue of how we become honest with ourselves' is a
crude way of putting it, but basically correct."
Looks like that ego stroking really threw you off, huh?
> Being honest with
> yourself?
> i think folks do that when they really see there's no workable
> alternitive.
No workable alternative to what? If being honest with yourself is the
objective, how can people "do the objective" when they see there's no
workable alternative to "doing that objective"? What you're saying is
gibberish, but yet again, my hopes weren't high.
> 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....
That might be your goal. It certainly isn't mine.
> "emptying yourself and becoming a vessel for your guru's teachings"?
> Did Trungpa say that? ....
How about you read the thread you're in and find out for yourself?
There's only about 20 posts in it, it shouldn't be too hard for you to
do. Maybe you can get your guru to help you.
Erwin Hessle, 8=3
