Johnny Dangerous wrote: ↑Thu Nov 15, 2018 6:51 am
boda wrote: ↑Thu Nov 15, 2018 12:03 am
Johnny Dangerous wrote: ↑Wed Nov 14, 2018 5:43 am
I think if it were more fleshed out there would be some valid commentary too.
I just reread it and still don't see what some of you are seeing, though I may have been somewhat off-base in my previous comments. I think what bothers me about it is the various sweeping generalizations that are apparently designed to distance 'real' Buddhism from 'fake' Buddhism. All the bad stuff (both students and teachers) is fake and all the good stuff is real. Real life is not so black & white. 'Real' and talented teachers can have vices. Students come in all shapes and sizes. Life is messy.
It's funny that the article points a finger at "crazy wisdom," the man behind which literally wrote the book on spiritual materialism.
Well, sorry, there is fake Buddhism. Or to put it more succinctly, there is Dharma practice that is so far off the mark that its really more of a self-help/consumer product, and isn't encouraging real engagement with the path. There are -lots- of variations of of authentic teaching too, it's not a one size fits all thing, but he's just calling a spade a spade, and he's correct, there's a lot of total crap out there. I don't think he was terribly black and white, just honest about the limitations of people's infatuation with Buddhism, rather than their practice of it.
Things like 'Mindfulness' groups are not Buddhism and don't claim to be Buddhism, as well as other self-help products in the marketplace, so he's not talking about things like this. He's talking about teachers who present a Buddhism "
shorn of anything objectionable to the upscale inhabitants of London, Santa Monica, and Manhattan." Some years ago I joined a Zen temple in Santa Monica and practiced there for several months. The teacher at this temple placed a healthy reliance on authority, tradition, and sanctity. All three things that urban progressive liberals supposedly find so objectionable. There were no scandals at that, now defunct, temple.
So who is Lama Jampa talking about? He specifically points a finger at "crazy wisdom," as I've mentioned. The premier iconic figure in the West for crazy wisdom is Trungpa Rinpoche. Yet Trungpa Rinpoche wrote the book on spiritual materialism and spiritual materialism, though not explicitly stated, is apparently the basic "Western misconception" that charismatic leaders exploit. I wonder how Lama Jampa would reconcile this apparent contradiction.