Dharma Wheel

Malcolm wrote:

Tenma wrote:I've been a bit curious, who is the most powerful dharmapala? Also, who would be the most fastest dharmapala with quick results and which dharmapala would be the most wisest? Not only that, but which dharmapala would be the safest especially for a fourteen year old to practice and which would be the most violent and dangerous dharmapala to practice?

Lojong training.

All patriarchy is a bad thing.

smcj wrote:

All patriarchy is a bad thing.

https://dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f ... &start=100

Malcolm wrote:
Frankly, the status of women is still very low in Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan teachers, on the whole, are still very sexist and patriarchal. Patriarchy is not a good thing, and has very negative consequences for women around the world. I suggest you look into the work of Karma Lekshey Tsomo, etc. One of the main terms in Tibetan for women is skyes dman, lower birth. This view is so endemic that the chapters on women's health in the medicine tantras begin:

• Because of inferior merit, one obtains the body of a women... female illness in the end become fourteen extra [diseases] for woman because their birth is lower.

What is your favorite Tantra, Sutra, Song of realization, or whatever comes to mind!

Nāgas lash out indiscriminately. It might be your neighbor dumping toxic shit down the drain, but your family winds up with the horrible skin diseases, not his.

This merely points to the fact that apart from the clear stupidity of pissing in ponds and streams, problems with Nāgās and other nonhumans is systemic and pervasive, as the First Nations have been warning us for centuries.

smcj wrote:

Malcolm wrote: The most widespread school of Buddhism in ancient India were the Pudgalavadins, who insisted, based on the hinayana sutras. That there was an inexpressible self that was different than the aggregates

https://dharmawheel.net/search.php?sear ... ive_topics

If you want to know the secret guru, first you must discover the inner guru; and to discover that inner guru, a realized outer guru is indispensable.

In Dzogchen and Mahāmūdra, an unrealized guru, however, is a serial killer of disciples. An unrealized guru can set one back many lifetimes. An unrealized guru breaks their own samaya the minute they open their mouths.

No one is more precious than anyone else. Either we are all precious, or no one is.

Impure vision is trekchö; pure vision is thögal. However, with the latter there is nothing you have to transform. You just have to get really, really, good at integrating with impure vision (trekchö) before you are generally given instructions (thögal) on how to allow pure vision to naturally unfold right before your very eyes without making any effort to transform anything or even entertaining thoughts such as "this is pure."

If you have to make an effort to have pure vision, you are already screwed.

KrisW wrote:also is there a list or document for the lineage of ChNN Rinpoche?

Malcolm wrote:

RikudouSennin wrote:by lineage i meant is there a list that goes back to Garab Dorje or the Omniscient One Longchenpa?

According to the dgongs pa zang thal cycle of teachings there are three basic lineages: the long kama lineage; the short treasure lineage, the very short direct lineage i.e. samantabhadra, vajrasattva, one's guru. Of these three, the latter is the most critical.

M

The erroneous path of the mind that places hope for a result from any virtue, perfections, samaya, practice of accomplishment and so on are said to be deviations from the great vehicle without effort. Now then, if one proposes a cause of realization, because the absence of any activity and the absence of thought are a conducive cause, vidyā is held to arise from within. Since there are many thoughts due to activities, this is not a cause [of realization], again there is obscuration because of many perceptions.

-- The Commentary of the Inner Great Potentiality of The Great Perfection

I would rather obtain one line of Dharma teachings than attain all the mundane siddhis in the universe.

Qualified teachers like Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, Chokyi Nyima, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Pachog Rinpoche, Tulku Sangngag, HH Shenphen Dawa Rinpoche, Tulku Dakpa, and so on can be easily met and studied with.

Malcolm wrote:I once forced Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso to admit (I have a witness, incidentally) that there was no substantial difference between Advaita Vedanta and Gzhan stong in terms of how they presented their view. His only response was a sectarian polemic "But there is no buddhahood in Vedanta!" Now, mind you, I am not saying that there is such a thing. But when you study these texts, you come to realize, even as Bhavaviveka and Shantaraksita both observed, that language of Advaita and the language of Madhyamaka are more or less identical. Shantaraksita complains in his Tattvasiddhi to the effect "If you accept the nature of things is non-arising, why do you not become Buddhist!?"

Now, again, I am not saying that if you practice Advaita you will become a buddha -- I honestly do not know. But I am saying that when you study these things, philosophically, at any rate, it is very hard to show the difference between Advaita and Madhyamaka. The main difference between them is that Hindus accept the Vedas as self-originated and Buddhists do not.

Malcolm wrote:All conditioned phenomena are impermanent.
All afflicted phenomena are suffering
All phenomena lack identity
Nirvana is bliss.

You can find these four seals in Advaita Vedanta as well. Just substitute brahman for nirvana and you have a perfect match. It is very hard to differentiate brahman from nirvana. Really, go ahead and try.

Malcolm wrote:Though Dzogchen tantras do take pains to differentiate themselves from Upanishadic doctrines of the atman, these very same ideas get used in Dzogchen in a very similar way -- which is why there is a rebuttal in Dzogchen tantras of certain ideas we find in the Upanishads so we don't run out and say "The Upanishads teach the same thing as Dzogchen".

So we can find a lot of parallels in Dzogchen and non-Buddhist teachings. The one main difference between Dzogchen and most non-Buddhist traditions is that in Dzogchen there is a definite rejection of creation by a creator. Even in Advaita, on a relative level, they accept Ishvara as a creator. So this is an important difference.

Malcolm wrote:I once forced Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso to admit (I have a witness, incidentally) that there was no substantial difference between Advaita Vedanta and Gzhan stong in terms of how they presented their view. His only response was a sectarian polemic "But there is no buddhahood in Vedanta!" Now, mind you, I am not saying that there is such a thing. But when you study these texts, you come to realize, even as Bhavaviveka and Shantaraksita both observed, that language of Advaita and the language of Madhyamaka are more or less identical. Shantaraksita complains in his Tattvasiddhi to the effect "If you accept the nature of things is non-arising, why do you not become Buddhist!?"

Now, again, I am not saying that if you practice Advaita you will become a buddha -- I honestly do not know. But I am saying that when you study these things, philosophically, at any rate, it is very hard to show the difference between Advaita and Madhyamaka. The main difference between them is that Hindus accept the Vedas as self-originated and Buddhists do not.

Malcolm wrote:All conditioned phenomena are impermanent.
All afflicted phenomena are suffering
All phenomena lack identity
Nirvana is bliss.

You can find these four seals in Advaita Vedanta as well. Just substitute brahman for nirvana and you have a perfect match. It is very hard to differentiate brahman from nirvana. Really, go ahead and try.

rachmiel wrote:

Malcolm wrote:I once forced Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso to admit (I have a witness, incidentally) that there was no substantial difference between Advaita Vedanta and Gzhan stong in terms of how they presented their view. His only response was a sectarian polemic "But there is no buddhahood in Vedanta!" Now, mind you, I am not saying that there is such a thing. But when you study these texts, you come to realize, even as Bhavaviveka and Shantaraksita both observed, that language of Advaita and the language of Madhyamaka are more or less identical. Shantaraksita complains in his Tattvasiddhi to the effect "If you accept the nature of things is non-arising, why do you not become Buddhist!?"

Now, again, I am not saying that if you practice Advaita you will become a buddha -- I honestly do not know. But I am saying that when you study these things, philosophically, at any rate, it is very hard to show the difference between Advaita and Madhyamaka. The main difference between them is that Hindus accept the Vedas as self-originated and Buddhists do not.

Malcolm wrote:All conditioned phenomena are impermanent.
All afflicted phenomena are suffering
All phenomena lack identity
Nirvana is bliss.

You can find these four seals in Advaita Vedanta as well. Just substitute brahman for nirvana and you have a perfect match. It is very hard to differentiate brahman from nirvana. Really, go ahead and try.

Hold the presses! Did Malcolm *really* say/write these? They sound very un-Malcolm ... Maybe his views have changed since 2010?

• The mind essence is unconditioned, empty clarity. The mind is conditioned. A person who has directly perceived their own mind essence is someone who has rig pa, knowledge.
  
  The mind essence is not cognizant, however, any more than a mirror is cognizant of the reflections on its surface.
  
  For example, to use a metaphor Norbu Rinpoche frequently employs for making people understand clarity, when you look at a vista and swiftly move your head from one side to the other, all of the impressions on your sense organ of the eyes (in this example) are part of your clarity, but one has no awareness or cognizance of any object within that field. If you recognize something in that field and pick it out, that is mind, not clarity.
  
  "Cognizant" (meaning to know of or be aware of something, ) means that one must have something to be cognizant of. It's built into the way the word is used in our language. You never use the verb without "of" being appended to it.