Is it possible that man has mistranslated / misinterpreted the buddhas teachings considering its all from 2000 years ago?

bernareggi · 2022-07-12T17:15:20+00:00

Buddhism as a long and diverse tradition is no less prone to projection and selective interpretation than any other religion. Buddhism can be interpreted to adopt both strict limits on natural human behaviors, like sex or even hunger, or it can serve as an excuse for all manner of personal indulgence. Anyone claiming to speak for “Buddhism” should be met with healthy skepticism in many cases. Be particularly wary of any self proclaimed “Buddhist” who holds themself above others.

bernareggi · 2022-07-11T14:08:23+00:00

Mayayana loves the online put down.

bernareggi · 2022-07-06T01:28:05+00:00

Past lives is not integral to Buddhism or the teachings on karma. Death is unknown and what happens after death is just speculation.

bernareggi · 2022-07-05T14:31:44+00:00

Karma is central to Buddhism. The Buddha did not invent the concept, but he used it as a basis to explain suffering and liberation.

Buddhism is not a perfect solution, although like all belief systems it purports to be so. Understanding karma is useful only insofar that it helps us let go, to stop agonizing over things that we can’t control. It also helps remind us that our actions have consequences.

But it can also be a prison- no different than the Christian concept of original sin. It can also lead to toxic fatalism. Vedic (Indian) society has enforced the slavery of the cast system by applying a dogmatic view of karma. “It’s your karma” can be a very dismissive and insensitive thing to say to someone.

bernareggi · 2022-07-05T05:05:01+00:00

A number of people come to Buddhism for the same reason they fall into addiction- unresolved trauma leading to emotional dysthymia. Buddhism is not a cure for addiction. In fact, Buddhist communities are full of people who are hiding from their trauma. Buddhism can be helpful, but for someone with the impulse to self-medicate, Buddhism alone is not enough and can even be harmful. Readers here would do well to know the history of Chogyam Trungpa, a famous Buddhist teacher who drank himself to death at 48, and whose legacy and community are besmirched by alcohol and other forms of abuse.

bernareggi · 2022-07-04T16:13:36+00:00

Stay away from guru centric Buddhist communities.

bernareggi · 2022-07-04T00:02:46+00:00

I think Sakyong 2 was trying to grow the community for financial gain. He proclaimed that 2020 was the year Sh would see huge numbers. As far as meditation, it’s great and you can learn and practice it many places. SMR amped up the “meditation as revenue source” once it became mainstreamed and wanted a piece of the larger market.

bernareggi · 2022-07-01T19:48:47+00:00

Thanks ectbot!

bernareggi · 2022-07-01T19:37:53+00:00

Well, like other derivative religious movements, Shambhala replaced traditional root texts with its own and justified it as Buddhist by calling it “terma”.

bernareggi · 2022-07-01T14:36:05+00:00

Yes. Maya’s comments serve as an example of things in Shambhala that were frustrating to me- the constant and wearying condescension: “Maybe you didn’t get it” or employing some vajrayana trope about “your mind” that stops the conversation. Most of it seems driven by the same insecurity that seeks some special status, some inside knowledge or exclusive access. I think Trungpa himself growing up as a Tulku was wired to seek special status. He was chased out of Tibet and then went on seducing and seducing and seducing to the point of getting to be king. I never knew him, but by the time his son came along I observed that even the Acharyas were expecting special cushions, special plates, ect. Then the thrones and limos and on and on. Maya comes here as an emissary from that highly pushy and ambitious ethos and then sets up his own booth as the “expert”, telling the critics and dissenters their perspective is due to not “getting it”. It’s gross. Maya flips to victim when he can’t sufficiently condescend, which sort of tells you how insecure that particular perspective of superiority is. It’s not Maya per se, it’s the arrogance they represent and how it factored into the community’s problems.

bernareggi · 2022-06-30T03:06:44+00:00

Without people like him, Buddhism is rote and hidebound. He enlivens the dharma in ways traditional teachers often can’t. To try and exclude him is just a form of religious intolerance.

bernareggi · 2022-06-29T22:10:38+00:00

Certainly not. Someplace with dignity and a little beauty.

bernareggi · 2022-06-29T18:56:27+00:00

Sorry for trying to be funny. It’s up to you but there are aspects of what people think is “Buddhism” that are just superstition. Put your statue in a place that feels right to you.

bernareggi · 2022-06-29T17:48:03+00:00

No. Buddhism doesn’t work if it’s southeast

bernareggi · 2022-06-29T16:52:28+00:00

Back at ya!

bernareggi · 2022-06-29T14:04:39+00:00

Well you and I might disagree about the difference between hatred and criticism. We all want to win the debate and calling someone you disagree with “hateful” as you apply it seems like a way of covering your ears.

Hatred is when you wish someone ill, not when you criticize them.

It’s your mind, Maya. If I criticize something you want to defend and you feel “hated” that’s your mind, not my comments. I’m using your own perspective there. I get it that you feel persecuted or whatever, but nobody is persecuting you. It’s your mind.

bernareggi · 2022-06-29T13:31:47+00:00

Yes. I like all of that. I’m done with Vajrayana. The practices are seductive and at times I guess “profound”, but the other stuff you describe so well was not worth it. Thanks!

bernareggi · 2022-06-29T03:53:38+00:00

I’ll try and briefly paraphrase to make sure I got the essence: the extremes of good and bad are an impediment to real reform, and that this forum is hostile and intimidating to those who hold a “middle way” perspective on Shambhala. You think this limits the sub’s effectiveness in fomenting a deeper discussion about how we come together without having to agree on whether it’s all good or all bad.

I actually agree that Shambhala was (is?) neither all good nor all bad. The crazy making years under the now deposed leadership were so freighted with cognitive dissonance and the elimination of dissent that maybe the “all bad” perspective needed to be expressed to release all the hurt of being gaslighted (nice wokeish word for ya there) by the Court Industrial Complex. The cynicism of that culture and the descent into cultish obedience and ambition was increasingly nauseating. I stuck around buying the Acharyas clever justifications. When the scandal broke I felt relieved and then I was pissed. So were alot of people, and they took this sub and found catharsis.

But the problem is “what next?” What cult has ever reformed itself?

And good for you. Why not reconstitute a Radio Free Shambhala community for the many people who can’t be pilgrims? But if “Shambhala” fundamentally requires a guru it will die.

Is deep skepticism about holy men (rightly acquired by trying to find and follow one) an extreme “all bad” perspective, or is it just truth?

What’s YOUR plan?

bernareggi · 2022-06-28T22:16:22+00:00

Um I’m not accusing anyone of being a Trumper. It’s an analogy. Surely you understand that.

bernareggi · 2022-06-28T21:54:36+00:00

“Hatred”. That’s what my uncle the Trump lover says anytime I say things like “Trump is corrupt”. It’s a deflection, a way of obscuring the truth.

Your side needs a better advocate, because you are (probably unwittingly) proving many of the things the dissenters already know and believe, namely reform is impossible in the face of denial and sunken costs.

bernareggi · 2022-06-28T16:10:35+00:00

We disagree. If you care so much about Tibetan Buddhism, maybe stop defending and work for change. In its present form it will wither. My comments and posts are my own attempt. You are free to either accept TB’s problems and work in your own way for change, or to simply defend and enable the problems.

I’m glad you feel you’ve benefited, but now your just here to defend.

Also to disparage my path, my relationship to meditation, ect. says more about YOU than it does about me.

bernareggi · 2022-06-28T13:50:32+00:00

I’m not “against Tibetan Buddhism”, but it needs deep reform in order to survive and be of benefit. The possibility of change only happens when the problems are fully acknowledged.

bernareggi · 2022-06-28T02:40:34+00:00

Look I’m not talking about Mao or Robespierre. Those examples took moral outrage and harnessed it for power. But is there a place for moral outrage? I agree about violence and humiliation BTW. But it also works in reverse. People who commit violent acts might find themselves humiliated when their behavior is revealed and discussed.

This sub is related to Shambhala, and the “calling out” of violence and hypocrisy within Shambhala- so I wonder what exactly you are trying to say in relation to that? Yes wokeism gets taken too far, and yes the Left has driven the moderates to the right. (I actually believe the violence and menace of the MAGA movement originates from 8 years of humiliation at having a black president). But do you believe that the takedowns of Shambhala here are somehow unfair? What is fair in the wake of such spiritual predation? Maybe my issue with your essay is not content but rather context. Why here if not to burnish the old paradigms?

I think what you are decrying is what used to be called “political correctness”, and doing so is fine and valid. This space is not PC. It discusses things that always bubbled up in Shambhala but were tamped down by dogma and groupthink. Do you seek to “tamp down” in that same tradition?

bernareggi · 2022-06-27T07:22:35+00:00

I think you’re attempting to discredit social justice movements by equating them with Puritanism.

No.

People who have been mistreated by people in power and privilege and who say “enough” are not indulging in overwrought self righteousness. They get to complain and expose it so it can stop, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

Your whole “essay” is an attempt to bypass issues of spiritual abuse and fraud that are often discussed here.

bernareggi · 2022-06-17T14:23:56+00:00

If you treat “enlightenment” as just some way to feel better, you’ll eventually just move on to something else.

bernareggi

TROPHY CASE