Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo & Lama Tsultrim Allione: Shambhala's Sakyong Mipham

[Schrödinger’s Yidam]

Personally I find addiction, criminality, disease, and war absolutely and totally unacceptable. Yet I am told all that is still just part of “The Great Perfection”. So I assume at some point I will have to drop my unaware objections to life in order to see that.

But since I’m happy to just be a lower-yana practitioner.i don’t need to abandon my objections, criticisms, and opinions just yet. That’s good ‘cause I’m too attached to them to successfully implement the higher teachings anyway.

[Natan]

Here’s a crazy idea. Go do your mantras and ganapuja. Crazy behavior to shock and awaken is not necessary. So if it won’t help tantras don’t prescribe it.

[Natan]

Maybe it’s not so good to have students. Wanting students doesn’t seem to be so smart. Yeah we dedicate 7 branches etc. but when someone asks me to teach I say let’s make a schedule. Then let’s reschedule. So far no one has made past that.

[Lukeinaz]

We're talking as if the branding of Jetsun Shuksep by Lama Pema Gyatsho was a great transgression and a crime against females. Having been Jetsun Shuksep's student in my last life and one of Her present Tulku's shabji for almost 20 years in this life, I don't see it that way. Just with Marpa and Milarepa, I feel quite confident that Jetsun Shuksep would've said Lama Pema Gyatsho's acts were skillful means for the purification of Her bad karma. Did She suffer terribly? Of course She did. Besides branding, She was kicked out of Her Teacher's community, beaten, and told to walk naked around the Barkor. But She was willing to undergo these trials for the sake of Enlightenment. If, within Vajrayana, these were considered wrong or shameful acts on the part of Her Guru, they would not have been included in Her namthar. Her namthar is a record of Her Liberation and everything in it is meant as a description of what led to that Liberation. Would I like to be branded on my forehead? No way... but then I don't have Jetsun Shuksep's bravery and perseverance on the path to Liberation.

We moderns (with our liberal, humanist, relativist views) need to understand that the Vajrayana is an inherently dangerous path where all safety nets have been discarded. There are no limits to what a real Guru might do to insure the Liberation of Their student. In Alexandra David-Neel's Magic & Mystery in Tibet, there's a story where she comes across a Lama whose student is practicing chod every night and is so scared that David-Neel cautions the Lama that the student is on the verge of dying. The Lama says that the student has only to realize the inherent nature of his own mind and all fear will evaporate. The Teacher did not intervene in the student's nightly chod.

One of my own Teachers deliberately caused me immense mental and emotional pain. After years of suffering through this, She said that it was in order to insure that my mind stayed in the View every minute of every day. Harsh? Absolutely. But don't hang out with Wisdom Dakinis (a.k.a. Mamos) if you can't take the heat.

Chatral Rinpoche, one of this Teacher's Root Gurus, was also famous for doing outrageous things, making outrageous requests of students. There is a well-known story of Chatral Rinpoche shitting on a plate and asking a Western student who was requesting teachings on one taste to eat that shit. The student decided he didn't need those teachings after all. Another time, a Tibetan disciple of Chatral Rinpoche was near death. This disciple (or former disciple) had broken samaya which had never been confessed and repaired. Seeing the writing on the wall, he was now afraid he was going to Narme Hell. He invited Chatral Rinpoche out to a fashionable restaurant and bought Him dinner. He said how sorry he was and asked if Chatral Rinpoche would pardon him. Chatral Rinpoche told the man to offer absolutely every single one of his possessions to Him. If I remember correctly, the man ran out of the restaurant. I was told this story by Jetsun Shuksep's Tulku as an example of how serious Vajryana samaya is as well as how, as a Vajrayana Guru, Chatral Rinpoche "played for keeps." Today, everyone likes to say they were a student of Chatral Rinpoche. But the truth is that, for years, most people stayed away from Chatral Rinpoche out of fear.

Similar with Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche Whose bio was recently posted on this site in another thread. I personally know a well-known Western Dharma practitioner who asked Kunzang Dorje to become His student. Kunzang Dorje took out a piece of copper wire, straightened it out a bit, and told this Westerner to insert it up his penis. The Westerner decided he was needed elsewhere.

Then there's Kusum Lingpa Who gleefully shoplifted in drag while His students shuddered in a combination of embarassment and fear of being immanently arrested. And that's only one example of this Teacher's outrageous, iconoclastic behavior.

My point being, if you (we, me) are not willing to risk everything on the Vajrayana path, maybe you/we/me should not follow this path. The pervasive contemporary attempt to water down the Vajrayana to make it palatable to us moderns and profitable to its purveyors risks, as one of my Dharma brothers recently wrote, turning it into "Tibetan Presbyterianism." The 84 Mahasiddhas of India did not tell Their Gurus what They could and couldn't do in terms of Their teaching methods.

Many people gravitate to Gurus who are always nice, always kind, always "compassionate" in our everyday version of that word. We pick Gurus who we like and are easy to get along with, Who we are comfortable with. For some of us, this is all we can handle. But when you're with a highly Realized Teacher, it can be very, very scary. To Them, this world is a fiction, a dream, an illusion, and Their job is to wake us up out of that fiction as quickly and completely as possible. For this kind of Teacher, nothing is "off the table" in terms of skillful means. When confronted with this sort of Teacher, you may not be able to take the heat.

I totally understand the problem with sexual abuse that is causing so much anguish and upsetment in our Tibetan Buddhist world. One of my own Teachers was well-known for having sex with His female students. So I have some first-hand experience of this situation. But I would caution we Tantrikas to be very careful in jumping to pervasive modernist conclusions about all this. It is very, very difficult to tell who is a true Guru and who is not, and our tightly cherished notions of right and wrong don't apply in the world of the Swift Path. That's what makes Vajrayana so damn dangerous. This path is not for everyone. The fact that it's being marketed to everyone without the proper warning labels on the side of the package is part of the degenerations of the Kali Yuga.

I'm sure I'm going to catch flak for this post, but, in my opinion and experience, this whole situation is not as easy and straightforward as many seem to think. For anyone thinking about entering the Vajrayana, all I can say is caveat emptor.

Wow. Thank you for sharing this, I think there is a lot of benefit from people hearing these stories. Do you believe that "peaceful" gurus necessarily offer a sort of slower path than "wrathful" gurus as a rule?

These stories help no one. Why? None of the people advocating this behavior would put up with it themselves for a second.

Actually these stories do help people. They help the perpetrators. And the course of abuse continues.

[chimechodra]

Here’s a crazy idea. Go do your mantras and ganapuja. Crazy behavior to shock and awaken is not necessary. So if it won’t help tantras don’t prescribe it.

Exactly. I think many people can have a path free of abuse from their "lamas" and reach complete buddhahood. If anything, I think lots of Westerners have romanticized this abuse and turned it into a fantasy, stemming from stories like the Life of Milarepa or CTR. At least, in my time in Shambhala, there seemed to be this certain fascination with crazy wisdom and outrageous behavior, as if having a lama who is completely unpredictable is a necessary factor for awakening, because they'll shock you out of your stupor.

But, from reading stories of other enlightened beings and their path, it's clear that not everyone (or indeed possibly anyone) needs to go through dealing with some outrageous teacher in order to attain wisdom. And in fact, I've never seen any single root text say that this was necessary or recommended. Very evidently from what past masters have written, what is actually indispensable is bodhicitta, cultivating the view, renunciation, devotion, etc.

Ultimately, I think that Vajrayana can continue to grow in the modern world. I think that if lamas stop abusing their students, many people will still reach buddhahood. We can definitely get rid of that, it seems to be a pretty dispensable component of how the teachings have propagated in the past. We can have our modern liberal views, and they can supplement our Vajrayana view, as both of these perspectives are fundamentally based on compassion for the suffering of fellow sentient beings. The teachings have no choice but to adapt to the modern world, and in this case I don't think we are compromising the purity of the teachings one bit. The alternative is that the teachings start to disappear.

Given the choice between condoning abusive behaviors from lamas and justifying it as skillful means and possibly losing the dharma for aeons, or dispensing with said behavior and giving the still fully-intact and pure dharma a chance to thrive in the modern world, I think the choice seems pretty obvious to me.

[Johnny Dangerous]

Personally I find addiction, criminality, disease, and war absolutely and totally unacceptable. Yet I am told all that is still just part of “The Great Perfection”. So I assume at some point I will have to drop my unaware objections to life in order to see that.

But since I’m happy to just be a lower-yana practitioner.i don’t need to abandon my objections, criticisms, and opinions just yet. That’s good ‘cause I’m too attached to them to successfully implement the higher teachings anyway.

Who tells you that, and in this context?

[heart]

I am a little surprised at this discussion and several others recently. Vajrayana (including Dzogchen) is not really about finding a nice teacher that can teach you nice things, right? It is about recognising the natural state, decide on that and gain full realisation in the natural self liberation and that will leave nothing of our current like and dislikes, hopes and fears and so on. It will utterly destroy the unrealised people that we are. These stories of abuse we hear should be looked at in that context. Still none of the stories of abuse I have read (with a heavy mind) mention this important point that actually should be the main reason for getting involved with a Guru in the first place. I am pretty sure none of you think that Naropa let Tilopa abuse him to the point of death without Naropa getting some realisation, some awakening in the process. That would be very stupid on his part and I think we all know that Naropa wasn't stupid.

Pema Chödron put in nicely in this interview:

Tricycle:Grateful to Trungpa Rinpoche?

Pema Chodron: You feel such gratitude that somebody pointed out the nature of your mind and gave you instructions that actually encouraged you to be brave and compassionate and to let go of old ways of thinking and old securities. But I would say now that that devotion to Trungpa Rinpoche has gone further since his death. I’m really willing to entertain the idea that maybe he wasn’t perfect, maybe everything he did wasn’t to benefit people. In other words, my sense of not having to make it all right or all wrong is stronger now. I can actually hold my devotion purely and fully in my heart and still say, Maybe he was a madman. And it doesn’t change my devotion because he taught me something about not saying yes or no but resting in groundlessness. And that’s more profound than my saying, Oh, no, he never did anything to hurt anybody, because what do I know, that’s just my projection, and making him wrong—that’s somebody’s projection too.

I think I posted it before, but it is a very good interview, so here you go again.

https://redrockcrossing.wordpress.com/2 ... -rinpoche/

/magnus

[Aryjna]

My point being, if you (we, me) are not willing to risk everything on the Vajrayana path, maybe you/we/me should not follow this path.

As I’ve said elsewhere, maybe Vajrayana should not be taught to Westerners.

Just a thought.

In the very small chance that someone who is interested in the Vajrayana reads your recommendation and somehow change their mind because of it, the karma you will generate will be worse that that of Hitler and Stalin accumulated during their entire lifetimes put together, if the teachings on the matter are any indication.

Not to mention that great masters actually teach Vajrayana in the west, and as such clearly disagree with you.

[Virgo]

I am pretty sure none of you think that Naropa let Tilopa abuse him to the point of death without Naropa getting some realisation, some awakening in the process. That would be very stupid on his part and I think we all know that Naropa wasn't stupid.

Many of these crazy stories are horseshit fabrications.

Kevin

[Simon E.]

You tell 'em Kevin.

I agree btw. Half these 'historical' guys never even existed. Or at least the evidence for their existence is scanty. These are typical of Myths of the Great Return and are found all over the world.
They are useful, as myths. And they are true, as poetry.

[heart]

I am pretty sure none of you think that Naropa let Tilopa abuse him to the point of death without Naropa getting some realisation, some awakening in the process. That would be very stupid on his part and I think we all know that Naropa wasn't stupid.

Many of these crazy stories are horseshit fabrications.

Kevin

Could be, but it could also not be like that.

/magnus

[Pero]

I am a little surprised at this discussion and several others recently. Vajrayana (including Dzogchen) is not really about finding a nice teacher that can teach you nice things, right? It is about recognising the natural state, decide on that and gain full realisation in the natural self liberation and that will leave nothing of our current like and dislikes, hopes and fears and so on. It will utterly destroy the unrealised people that we are. These stories of abuse we hear should be looked at in that context. Still none of the stories of abuse I have read (with a heavy mind) mention this important point that actually should be the main reason for getting involved with a Guru in the first place. I am pretty sure none of you think that Naropa let Tilopa abuse him to the point of death without Naropa getting some realisation, some awakening in the process. That would be very stupid on his part and I think we all know that Naropa wasn't stupid.

Yes but that's the thing, Naropa did benefit, these people don't seem to have benefited. Also, while I accept that it's possible for teachers to benefit their students by giving them trials to overcome in order for them to progress, I would be extremely sceptical if one of my teachers tried to do so with me. The reason being that I have enough of my own shit inside, so I'm not really sure someone giving me even more shit (especially of the level talked about in this thread, giving actual shit being perhaps the least of it haha) would be at all beneficial.
On other hand if someone branded me I think at that time I would let go of all the other things....

[Virgo]

When you spend time with a teacher you should be able to smile and laugh and you should leave feeling happy, hopefully satisfied, and as if you have learned something even if only by example (which is arguably the best way since we are working with symbols). You should not leave sad, dejected, and in pain because you have been sodomized, etc. I honestly feel like I am speaking to a fourth grade class right now.

Kevin...

[Virgo]

I am pretty sure none of you think that Naropa let Tilopa abuse him to the point of death without Naropa getting some realisation, some awakening in the process. That would be very stupid on his part and I think we all know that Naropa wasn't stupid.

Many of these crazy stories are horseshit fabrications.

Kevin

Could be, but it could also not be like that.

/magnus

Well it is like that.

Kevin...

[dzogchungpa]

Does the autobiography say whether he ever branded any of his male students?

Would this make his actions any less cruel and abusive to this woman? Or are you merely trying to show that cruel and abusive behavior was a norm for Tibetans and therefore, we should not be concerned about Osel Mukpo's sexual assaults on woman since he is Tibetan?

Honestly, I just wanted to know since the context seemed to suggest that this incident was being cited as an example of sexism in old Tibet.

[Natan]

Here’s a crazy idea. Go do your mantras and ganapuja. Crazy behavior to shock and awaken is not necessary. So if it won’t help tantras don’t prescribe it.

Exactly. I think many people can have a path free of abuse from their "lamas" and reach complete buddhahood. If anything, I think lots of Westerners have romanticized this abuse and turned it into a fantasy, stemming from stories like the Life of Milarepa or CTR. At least, in my time in Shambhala, there seemed to be this certain fascination with crazy wisdom and outrageous behavior, as if having a lama who is completely unpredictable is a necessary factor for awakening, because they'll shock you out of your stupor.

But, from reading stories of other enlightened beings and their path, it's clear that not everyone (or indeed possibly anyone) needs to go through dealing with some outrageous teacher in order to attain wisdom. And in fact, I've never seen any single root text say that this was necessary or recommended. Very evidently from what past masters have written, what is actually indispensable is bodhicitta, cultivating the view, renunciation, devotion, etc.

Ultimately, I think that Vajrayana can continue to grow in the modern world. I think that if lamas stop abusing their students, many people will still reach buddhahood. We can definitely get rid of that, it seems to be a pretty dispensable component of how the teachings have propagated in the past. We can have our modern liberal views, and they can supplement our Vajrayana view, as both of these perspectives are fundamentally based on compassion for the suffering of fellow sentient beings. The teachings have no choice but to adapt to the modern world, and in this case I don't think we are compromising the purity of the teachings one bit. The alternative is that the teachings start to disappear.

Given the choice between condoning abusive behaviors from lamas and justifying it as skillful means and possibly losing the dharma for aeons, or dispensing with said behavior and giving the still fully-intact and pure dharma a chance to thrive in the modern world, I think the choice seems pretty obvious to me.

Ok. Also keep in mind mantrins who hold samaya. Disparagers become the object of ritual slaying.

[anjali]

Topic now unlocked.

Public Service Announcement: You don't have to take flame bait; report instead, and let it go...

[Schrödinger’s Yidam]

Not to mention that great masters actually teach Vajrayana in the west, and as such clearly disagree with you.

Ah yes, but are we willing to practice it the way they teach it without mixing in our own unaware preconditions?

As evidenced by our attachment to our views, no.

[Aryjna]

Not to mention that great masters actually teach Vajrayana in the west, and as such clearly disagree with you.

Ah yes, but are we willing to practice it the way they teach it without mixing in our own unaware preconditions?

As evidenced by these discussions, no.

As evidenced by this discussion the answer is yes. Even if you assume that Sakyong is an actual master, he has many students who were willing to 'practice' according to his instructions, by doing whatever he said, which apparently revolved mostly around sex. If we are talking about other masters, again there is no reason to think that the answer is no.

[Malcolm]

Ok. Also keep in mind mantrins who hold samaya. Disparagers become the object of ritual slaying.

Better make sure you can stab your wooden kīla into a rock before you attempt such feats. Otherwise, you just harm yourself.

BTW, at Lamdre, recently, His Holiness Sakya Trizen 42 made it quite clear that the guru/disciple relationship was not one of total, slavish obedience. That if one's guru asked one to do things that contradicted the Dharma, one should disobey.