Dharma Wheel

The authority of texts and the reliance on the lama aren’t contradictory. We rely on the lama to open the door to the Dharma: no lama, no vajrayana. But no lama can contradict authoritative texts. An ad absurdum example - your lama says that interdependent origination is a provisional teaching and ...

@PeterC You write: Reliance on scripture is not 'unique', it's what Tibetans do and have done for a thousand years. Our lineages use texts for authority. You turn to a teacher because the teacher can tell you what the relevant texts say. Ask this question of a Khenpo or Geshe and they'll cite an aut...

Three observations here, the first of them completely trivial: if we’re talking about doing a regular yidam / dakini / etc practice that involves self generation, and you haven’t had the empowerment. What, then, are you doing exactly? None of the interdependently originated conditions that the empow...

There is no vajrayana practice without empowerment. In some (limited) cases if you’ve received a major empowerment and the lung of certain other practices you can do those practices as front-generation. But absent *any* empowerment, you cannot do vajrayana practice. End of story. This interpretatio...

After having a number of conversations with a Khenpo and Geshe trying to clarify what actual sadhanas and practices were what classification of Tantra, I concluded that in terms of practice this classification is ad-hoc, and plenty of practices could be said to occupy multiple positions in the sche...

Hi, so I am European, doing vajrayana some 15-20 years. And I try to visit every tibetan buddhism even / lama that comes to my country (which is easy since I live in a capital city). In these years I have collected a considerable number of wangs - which is nothing to brag about, but I want to use t...

You can and should discuss this with your teachers. But terms like rigpa, gzhi, kunzhi, etc are basic terminology whose meanings don’t change. Anyone serious about practising Dzogchen should understand those meanings. Believe it or not, but ChNN would discourage some people I know from inquiring ab...

You can and should discuss this with your teachers. But terms like rigpa, gzhi, kunzhi, etc are basic terminology whose meanings don’t change. Anyone serious about practising Dzogchen should understand those meanings. Believe it or not, but ChNN would discourage some people I know from inquiring ab...

I understand I will not endear myself to any people posting in/following such threads, but I have one of my Martin Luther moments, and cannot but speak: These are things to be talked about with one's teachers. There is nothing to be gained in "settling" such issues by reading what in the e...

Hello, I know this has been 10 years, but I am trying to clarify some empowerment from my past and surely someone know better than me on this amazing forum. When we did the SMS Base exam on Crimea (Kunsangar South), there was a classic-style empowerment from ChNNR. What I am trying to find out is w...

Hello, I know this has been 10 years, but I am trying to clarify some empowerment from my past and surely someone know better than me on this amazing forum. When we did the SMS Base exam on Crimea (Kunsangar South), there was a classic-style empowerment from ChNNR. What I am trying to find out is w...

He probably cares because he was/is a DC member and cares about the future of it, and of ChNNs legacy. I feel similarly. It would be weird for a student of Rinpoches to -not- care about goings on in the DC. Precisely. Still a member, btw. I have heard Yeshi say that lungs are are an embellishment o...

Anyway, I will bow out now, I think. PS. I am not trying to judge Yeshi here. I do not consider him my teacher, and never have, and probably never will, but as far as I am concerned, he is entitled to his views, whether I share them or not, and certainly has his reasons to hold them. His father nev...

...he has more than once dismissed lungs and lung transmissions as outdated cultural artifacts... ...seems to consider them a useless ornament... This is completely false. You could probably say that Yeshi considers Dzogchen far superior than Vajrayana and something that the Dzogchen Community need...

Basically, lungs are not important. I don't think Rinpoche would agree. One could also ask how can the newcomer who has Yeshi Namkhai's transmission "deepen their understanding and knowledge of secondary practices transmitted by Chögyal Namkhai Norbu." Yeshi does not transmit the latter. ...

Thanks for your very interesting answers. I guess the end of the tunnel is unfortunately not soon to come... A lung-related update: "For those newcomers who have Yeshi Namkhai's transmission and who are seeking to deepen their understanding and knowledge of secondary practices transmitted by C...

Thanks for your very interesting answers. I guess the end of the tunnel is unfortunately not soon to come... A lung-related update: "For those newcomers who have Yeshi Namkhai's transmission and who are seeking to deepen their understanding and knowledge of secondary practices transmitted by C...

Thanks for your very interesting answers. I guess the end of the tunnel is unfortunately not soon to come... I am afraid so, very much. The fact that the IDG deliberately avoids clarifying things or responding to what Yeshi says (during the last Merigar event he said that while he provides DI for t...

I hope ye guys will not jump at my throat because I raise the following questions... Please bear with me, I’m just trying to understand the situation which is quite opaque to me. I’d be really interested in having clear answers (although I understand the subject is a total mess, at least for me...)...

ChNN was so clear on these things in so many ways even if he didn’t spell it out publicly in order not to force anything on anyone... And yet not just we here, but Rinpoche's students in general, including people who followed him for half a century, cannot agree what in this context he was so paten...