Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it is.

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Alfredo
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by Alfredo »

PS Montana, never mind. I saw your other posts--I assume you're thinking of Jabba again.
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montana
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by montana »

Jabba? Maybe I'm dumb because I don't know what thaet means.
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heart
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by heart »

Konchog1 wrote:
heart wrote:
Konchog1 wrote:Samaya or pledges are things that you promise the deity to do during empowerment. Samvara or vows are things that you promise not to do. One of the common samaya is to keep your Samvara.
You promise the guru, not the deity.

/magnus
That doesn't match with my recollection...
You receive the empowerment from the Guru.

http://kunzang.org/kplblog/2010/09/30/about-samaya/

/magnus
"We are all here to help each other go through this thing, whatever it is."
~Kurt Vonnegut

"The principal practice is Guruyoga. But we need to understand that any secondary practice combined with Guruyoga becomes a principal practice." ChNNR (Teachings on Thun and Ganapuja)
Simon E.
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by Simon E. »

heart wrote:
Konchog1 wrote:Samaya or pledges are things that you promise the deity to do during empowerment. Samvara or vows are things that you promise not to do. One of the common samaya is to keep your Samvara.
You promise the guru, not the deity.

/magnus
Magnus is correct. The guru is the fourth Refuge.
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to me.
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conebeckham
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by conebeckham »

Sure. But the Guru is the deity, too.

So, both...... :smile: But primarily the guru.
དམ་པའི་དོན་ནི་ཤེས་རབ་ཆེ་བ་དང་།
རྟོག་གེའི་ཡུལ་མིན་བླ་མའི་བྱིན་རླབས་དང་།
སྐལ་ལྡན་ལས་འཕྲོ་ཅན་གྱིས་རྟོགས་པ་སྟེ།
དེ་ནི་ཤེས་རབ་ལ་ནི་ལོ་རྟོག་སེལ།།


"Absolute Truth is not an object of analytical discourse or great discriminating wisdom,
It is realized through the blessing grace of the Guru and fortunate Karmic potential.
Like this, mistaken ideas of discriminating wisdom are clarified."
- (Kyabje Bokar Rinpoche, from his summary of "The Ocean of Definitive Meaning")
montana
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by montana »

Maybe I have a warped view.
But I see the samaya being with the deity and the Guru being identical with the deity.
I also see the possibility that the individual human guru breaking samaya at a later time and no longer being identical with the deity. In which case the samaya with the deity and the deity as the Guru could remain intact when the teacher student relationship does not.

Maybe that's just a view I've put together out of optimism though. It just doesn't seem like a student who keeps their close connection to a deity could break their samaya because their teacher loses it and they have to distance themselves and not keep their promises to the teacher.

So like, people become schizophrenic, they become manic-depressive, they develop dementia or suffer brain damage and you can't keep the promises you made to the teacher any longer. I just don't see why the relationship to that person should effect the relationship with the deity.
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practitioner
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by practitioner »

heart wrote:
Konchog1 wrote:Samaya or pledges are things that you promise the deity to do during empowerment. Samvara or vows are things that you promise not to do. One of the common samaya is to keep your Samvara.
You promise the guru, not the deity.

/magnus
Is there really a difference during an empowerment...
One should do nothing other than benefit sentient beings either directly or indirectly - Shantideva
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heart
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by heart »

Ultimately you recieve the empowerment from the Guru, not the deity. Also the meaning of the empowerment is that the Guru introduce the student to the real nature of everything and the deity as the path to arrive at it, but there are also empowerments that are not connected to a particular deity. You can read about it in detail in Tsele Natsok Rangdrol's "Empowerment and the path of liberation". The Guru is the most important part of any empowerment and because of this the samayas always give relationship with the Guru most importance.

So to say that the deity is more important or even of equal importance to the Guru don't really correspond to the meaning of the empowerment.

/magnus
"We are all here to help each other go through this thing, whatever it is."
~Kurt Vonnegut

"The principal practice is Guruyoga. But we need to understand that any secondary practice combined with Guruyoga becomes a principal practice." ChNNR (Teachings on Thun and Ganapuja)
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byamspa
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by byamspa »

practitioner wrote:
heart wrote:
Konchog1 wrote:Samaya or pledges are things that you promise the deity to do during empowerment. Samvara or vows are things that you promise not to do. One of the common samaya is to keep your Samvara.
You promise the guru, not the deity.

/magnus
Is there really a difference during an empowerment...
Or afterward, or before, or whenever. I'd say generally no, but practically yes. Most of us are probably not omniscient enough to really see the sameness. Its easier by far to perceive the Guru over the Yidam, as one can see them with one's water bubble eyes. During practise its easier to blur the distinction closer to the actual reality, perhaps close enough to grok the nature of the mind itself, when all walls of delusional self and other really fall apart. But for that to occur, you gotta keep the connection, and that is the samayas. Its quite important.
Phenomenon, vast as space, dharmata is your base, arising and falling like ocean tide cycles, why do i cling to your illusion of unceasing changlessness?
Caz
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by Caz »

The commitments you keep to your guru even as the most blessed basis for accomplishing realization.
Abandoning Dharma is, in the final analysis, disparaging the Hinayana because of the Mahayana; favoring the Hinayana on account of the Mahayana; playing off sutra against tantra; playing off the four classes of the tantras against each other; favoring one of the Tibetan schools—the Sakya, Gelug, Kagyu, or Nyingma—and disparaging the rest; and so on. In other words, we abandon Dharma any time we favor our own tenets and disparage the rest.

Liberation in the Palm of your hand~Kyabje Pabongkha Rinpoche.
montana
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by montana »

All the tantric lineages begin with the transmission from the deity to a guru.
If we are to show preferential respect to the guru of our guru when both are present, then given the situation of an empowerment, surely we should give preferential respect to the deity in every case.

What do you guys think of this line of reasoning?

I recognize this is potentially a dangerous view also, because there are a lot of wackos just waiting for a justification to create their spin off religions where they have a direct connection to some deity and no one can tell them they're wrong.
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heart
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by heart »

montana wrote:All the tantric lineages begin with the transmission from the deity to a guru.
If we are to show preferential respect to the guru of our guru when both are present, then given the situation of an empowerment, surely we should give preferential respect to the deity in every case.

What do you guys think of this line of reasoning?

I recognize this is potentially a dangerous view also, because there are a lot of wackos just waiting for a justification to create their spin off religions where they have a direct connection to some deity and no one can tell them they're wrong.
Read biography of Marpa the translator. He did the same mistake you want to do and for this reason his family lineage never blossomed. The Guru is always the most important.

/magnus
"We are all here to help each other go through this thing, whatever it is."
~Kurt Vonnegut

"The principal practice is Guruyoga. But we need to understand that any secondary practice combined with Guruyoga becomes a principal practice." ChNNR (Teachings on Thun and Ganapuja)
montana
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by montana »

Marpa's family did not receive the lineage because he tried to give the dangerous ejection syllables teaching to his son dharma dodey against the wishes of his Guru and a tantrikka destroyed Dodey's body. However, I have no where read where any deity gave permission to Marpa that contradicted his guru's.

That is what you're talking about right?
Pero
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by Pero »

montana wrote:Marpa's family did not receive the lineage because he tried to give the dangerous ejection syllables teaching to his son dharma dodey against the wishes of his Guru and a tantrikka destroyed Dodey's body. However, I have no where read where any deity gave permission to Marpa that contradicted his guru's.

That is what you're talking about right?
http://www.kagyudc.org/golden_rosary/vdolma_lineage_talks_3_marpa_mila_gampopa.html wrote: It was during this same visit that Naropa, as a test of his student, manifested the Hevajra mandala, asking Marpa to whom he would bow first: to the vision of Hevajra, or to himself, Naropa, its creator. Overwhelmed by the grandeur of the Hevajra deity and retinue, Marpa made the mistake of bowing to the emanated mandala first. Naropa immediately corrected him, saying in effect that the guru always takes precedence because it is he who makes the deities real for us. But the damage was done, and Naropa warned Marpa that this was an omen that his biological descendants would die out, but that his spiritual lineage would continue as long as the Buddha's teachings continued.
Although many individuals in this age appear to be merely indulging their worldly desires, one does not have the capacity to judge them, so it is best to train in pure vision.
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montana
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by montana »

ooh. That thing, I forgot about that.
I don't think a biography is a suitable source to base doctrine on personally.
We have tantras, sutras, valid commentaries, reason, etc, that you can use to back up your views.

It occurs to me that what I said about Dodey is probably not in the biography of Marpa. It has been a long time since I read biographies of Kagyu lineage.
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Palzang Jangchub
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by Palzang Jangchub »

Namthar are certainly a source of generating devotion, if not the doctrine itself. Many of the most eminent masters have said that reading namthar is critical to remaining inspired while traversing the path.

Are they 100% historically accurate? Likely not. But they do represent how the lineage has come to see their forebears, and the lessons that can be learned from how they lived, having appeared (whether as ordinary or extraordinary beings).

Telling someone that doctrine shouldn't be based on the life stories of past masters is like asking a Muslim to approach Islam strictly thru the Qur'an, and to not base any understanding on the Sura (hadith, or sayings and life example of the Prophet). Or for a Christian to only read Jesus' sermons, but not pay heed to how He or his disciples lived that message.

All religious/spiritual traditions and paths have the ideal in their scriptures, but practitioners should be careful, lest those ideals be reduced to mere theories that only serve to increase one's conceptual thoughts and therefore detract from liberation in the long run. It's all much more messy and beautiful than being that simple.

Very few of us make it very far up the mountain, no less to its peak. Most of us are down here on ground level, looking up. But we should let those who have made it inspire us and inform our climb with what they did to reach the highest goal, and with what the view is like from the top.

</ :soapbox: >
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"The Sutras, Tantras, and Philosophical Scriptures are great in number. However life is short, and intelligence is limited, so it's hard to cover them completely. You may know a lot, but if you don't put it into practice, it's like dying of thirst on the shore of a great lake. Likewise, a common corpse is found in the bed of a great scholar." ~ Karma Chagme

དྲིན་ཆེན་རྩ་བའི་བླ་མ་སྐྱབས་རྗེ་མགར་ཆེན་ཁྲི་སྤྲུལ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ཁྱེད་མཁྱེན་ནོ།།
རྗེ་བཙུན་བླ་མ་མཁས་གྲུབ་ཀརྨ་ཆགས་མེད་མཁྱེན་ནོ། ཀརྨ་པ་མཁྱེན་ནོཿ
Malcolm
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by Malcolm »

montana wrote:All the tantric lineages begin with the transmission from the deity to a guru.

No, they all begin with a transmission from the Sambhogakāya to a mahāsiddha, or in certain cases, like Virupa, from a Nirmanakāya to a mahāsiddha.
Malcolm
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by Malcolm »

Karma Jinpa wrote:Namthar are certainly a source of generating devotion, if not the doctrine itself. Many of the most eminent masters have said that reading namthar is critical to remaining inspired while traversing the path.
The problem with this is when we discover that the Namthars we are supposed to rely on are merely pious fictions that deeply contradict the earliest accounts of this or that master -- Milarepa comes to mind here.

Are they 100% historically accurate? Likely not. But they do represent how the lineage has come to see their forebears, and the lessons that can be learned from how they lived, having appeared (whether as ordinary or extraordinary beings).
Or they represent an author with an agenda which may not be so obvious on the surface.
montana
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by montana »

Malcolm wrote:
montana wrote:All the tantric lineages begin with the transmission from the deity to a guru.

No, they all begin with a transmission from the Sambhogakāya to a mahāsiddha, or in certain cases, like Virupa, from a Nirmanakāya to a mahāsiddha.
How does a Buddha deity differ from Nirmanakaya and Sambhogakaya?
Malcolm
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Re: Everybody speaks about samaya, but nobody knows what it

Post by Malcolm »

montana wrote:
Malcolm wrote:
montana wrote:All the tantric lineages begin with the transmission from the deity to a guru.

No, they all begin with a transmission from the Sambhogakāya to a mahāsiddha, or in certain cases, like Virupa, from a Nirmanakāya to a mahāsiddha.
How does a Buddha deity differ from Nirmanakaya and Sambhogakaya?

The three kāyas are our gurus. Not the methods they provide us.
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