Mahamudra in the Modern World

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dharmagoat
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by dharmagoat »

Malcolm wrote:A promise of happiness underlies all successful marketing.
Doesn't the Buddha promise happiness too?
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by Malcolm »

dharmagoat wrote:
Malcolm wrote:A promise of happiness underlies all successful marketing.
Doesn't the Buddha promise happiness too?
He does not make promises of that kind. But what he does say is that if you follow the Dharma, you can discover total freedom from suffering. If you want to call that happiness, ok. But it is more like describing absence of disease as health.
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dzogchungpa
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by dzogchungpa »

Well, I know this is a Mahayana board, but there's a whole section of the book of the twos in the Anguttara Nikaya about happiness or sukhaṃ in Pali. It might just be marketing though. :smile:
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by Malcolm »

dzogchungpa wrote:Well, I know this is a Mahayana board, but there's a whole section of the book of the twos in the Anguttara Nikaya about happiness or sukhaṃ in Pali. It might just be marketing though. :smile:
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by Natan »

Sukh means relaxed and at ease. No tension. Happiness is Piti. It's a sharp and transient state among the jhana.
Vajra fangs deliver vajra venom to your Mara body.
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dzogchungpa
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by dzogchungpa »

Crazywisdom wrote:Sukh means relaxed and at ease. No tension. Happiness is Piti. It's a sharp and transient state among the jhana.
Well, somebody better let Bhikkhu Bodhi know, pronto. :smile:
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by Natan »

dzogchungpa wrote:
Crazywisdom wrote:Sukh means relaxed and at ease. No tension. Happiness is Piti. It's a sharp and transient state among the jhana.
Well, somebody better let Bhikkhu Bodhi know, pronto. :smile:
Yep. Somebody should.
Vajra fangs deliver vajra venom to your Mara body.
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by Bakmoon »

Crazywisdom wrote:Sukh means relaxed and at ease. No tension. Happiness is Piti. It's a sharp and transient state among the jhana.
I think for most people, a pleasurable state of relaxation and ease matches up with the word happiness pretty well.
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

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Simon E. wrote:The content of [Chogyam Trungpa's] Vajrayana teaching was completely traditional..he saw Shambala as a useful introduction for those not ready for commitment to Dharma.
Reginald A. Ray, in the Dharma Ocean Foundation Path Structure & Requirements writes:
The spiritual journey outlined by Trungpa Rinpoche included five stages of development. The first stage in fact precedes the official entry onto the Buddhist path; in Rinpoche’s presentation, it involved discovering and connecting with our basic human situation and becoming healthy, grounded, and decent people. He called this stage introducing the world to the basic Shambhala principles, and he believed that it can be presented to anyone, regardless of whether or not they ever become a Buddhist. The next three stages are traditionally called the three yanas: the Hinayana, focusing on the development of discipline and a sustained meditation practice; the Mahayana, focusing on awakening the compassion of the heart and the realization of the interconnection of all beings; and the Vajrayana, through uniquely powerful practices and methods, focusing on fully transforming the two veils of emotional upheavals and deeper unconscious obscurations that get between us and our true self. The fifth stage taught by Rinpoche (roughly corresponding to the fruition stage of Dzogchen) revisited the Shambhala teachings, but at a deep post-Vajrayana and post-Buddhist level. In this stage, the basic Shambhala principles—the fundamental openness of reality, the perfection of the unfolding of the universe, and the utter sacredness of our incarnation—become matters of direct and personal experience and an actual way of being in the world, rather than being mainly an intellectual understanding.
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dzogchungpa
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by dzogchungpa »

dharmagoat wrote:
Simon E. wrote:The content of [Chogyam Trungpa's] Vajrayana teaching was completely traditional..he saw Shambala as a useful introduction for those not ready for commitment to Dharma.
Reginald A. Ray, in the Dharma Ocean Foundation Path Structure & Requirements writes:
The spiritual journey outlined by Trungpa Rinpoche included five stages of development. The first stage in fact precedes the official entry onto the Buddhist path; in Rinpoche’s presentation, it involved discovering and connecting with our basic human situation and becoming healthy, grounded, and decent people. He called this stage introducing the world to the basic Shambhala principles, and he believed that it can be presented to anyone, regardless of whether or not they ever become a Buddhist. The next three stages are traditionally called the three yanas: the Hinayana, focusing on the development of discipline and a sustained meditation practice; the Mahayana, focusing on awakening the compassion of the heart and the realization of the interconnection of all beings; and the Vajrayana, through uniquely powerful practices and methods, focusing on fully transforming the two veils of emotional upheavals and deeper unconscious obscurations that get between us and our true self. The fifth stage taught by Rinpoche (roughly corresponding to the fruition stage of Dzogchen) revisited the Shambhala teachings, but at a deep post-Vajrayana and post-Buddhist level. In this stage, the basic Shambhala principles—the fundamental openness of reality, the perfection of the unfolding of the universe, and the utter sacredness of our incarnation—become matters of direct and personal experience and an actual way of being in the world, rather than being mainly an intellectual understanding.
Are you implying that Ray might know more about CTR's teaching than our very own Simon E.? :smile:

For an interesting example of some of CTR's completely traditional teachings, check out "The Highest Maha Ati Teachings: Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in Great Britain" by RIgdzin Shikpo from the book "Recalling Chögyam Trungpa". It can be read online, for example here.
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by Sherlock »

Why are you so enamoured with Chogyam Trungpa when you have no possibility of receiving teachings from him? Did he authorize any of these students to teach Mahamudra or Dzogchen in their entirety?

Tony Duff is also a student of Trungpa and presents himself and Trungpa as very traditional BTW.
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by dharmagoat »

dzogchungpa wrote:Are you implying that Ray might know more about CTR's teaching than our very own Simon E.? :smile:
Heavens no!

Simon made a point that Ray could elaborate on.
dzogchungpa wrote:For an interesting example of some of CTR's completely traditional teachings, check out "The Highest Maha Ati Teachings: Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in Great Britain" by RIgdzin Shikpo from the book "Recalling Chögyam Trungpa". It can be read online, for example here.
Thank you for this.
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

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I had the idea that tantric practices generally were often transgressive of tradition - that was part of their rationale, whereas the Theravadin approach is conservative and traditionlist. They put a lot of emphasis on the letter, i.e. the word of the teaching, whereas the emphasis on guru devotion in tantric practice is due to the esoteric nature of transmission in those lineages.
'Only practice with no gaining idea' ~ Suzuki Roshi
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by dzogchungpa »

Sherlock wrote:Why are you so enamoured with Chogyam Trungpa when you have no possibility of receiving teachings from him?
I have my reasons.
Last edited by dzogchungpa on Wed Apr 29, 2015 1:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

I'm enamored with Trungpa too, I admit it. I would have never bothered further pursuing Buddhism without his writings and would have simply admired it form a distance. It may not be a blessing as such, but I feel extremely fortunate to have come across his teachings at the time of my life that I did...Cutting Through had such a profound effect on me, and does every time I reread it.
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Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

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Sherlock
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by Sherlock »

OK, that's interesting, thanks for sharing.

Maybe his message was particularly resonant for many in Western culture, I am personally not really a Westerner so I didn't really feel inspired by some of his stuff I've read.
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by dharmagoat »

Wayfarer wrote:I had the idea that tantric practices generally were often transgressive of tradition - that was part of their rationale, whereas the Theravadin approach is conservative and traditionlist. They put a lot of emphasis on the letter, i.e. the word of the teaching, whereas the emphasis on guru devotion in tantric practice is due to the esoteric nature of transmission in those lineages.
Milarepa is a well known example of a Vajrayāna tāntrika who was critical of institutional religion. In The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa he includes monasteries among the "Six Deceptions":
  • Monasteries are like collecting-stations
    For hollow driftwood –
    Though they claim
    That the priestly life is divine and pure,
    It is deceptive and illusory to me;
    Of such companions I have no need!
Milarepa was a devoted disciple of his teacher Marpa and a faithful adherent of the Mahāmudrā tradition of his time.
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by Berry »

dharmagoat wrote: Milarepa was a devoted disciple of his teacher Marpa and a faithful adherent of the Mahāmudrā tradition of his time.
and of course before Milarepa, Marpa and Naropa, there's Tilopa and Ganges Mahamudra.....

http://www.amazon.com/The-Life-Tilopa-G ... 1877294225

http://www.naturalawareness.net/ganges.html
Mind without projection is mahamudra.
Train and develop this and you will come to the deepest awakening.

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Leave the polluted water of conceptual thoughts in its natural clarity. Without affirming or denying appearances, leave them as they are. When there is neither acceptance nor rejection, mind is liberated into mahāmudra.

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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by Natan »

Bakmoon wrote:
Crazywisdom wrote:Sukh means relaxed and at ease. No tension. Happiness is Piti. It's a sharp and transient state among the jhana.
I think for most people, a pleasurable state of relaxation and ease matches up with the word happiness pretty well.
Buddha is not most people. He is precise to distinguish a liberated state from a state of bondage with a shit eating grin..
Vajra fangs deliver vajra venom to your Mara body.
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Re: Mahamudra in the Modern World

Post by Natan »

Sherlock wrote:Why are you so enamoured with Chogyam Trungpa when you have no possibility of receiving teachings from him? Did he authorize any of these students to teach Mahamudra or Dzogchen in their entirety?

Tony Duff is also a student of Trungpa and presents himself and Trungpa as very traditional BTW.
Can't wait to slap his ass around good.
Vajra fangs deliver vajra venom to your Mara body.
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