Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Casual conversation between friends. Anything goes (almost).
Simon E.
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by Simon E. »

I take your point J Khedrup..
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to me.
untxi
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by untxi »

Thank you Khedrup. I try to frame these things in a larger picture that looks outward if possible. It really shows how umportant and necessary these conversations are. I hope they continue. That's more important than the annoyance and harm of one person. Then again, if ive been flamed others certainly have. Ill leave it to the more competent and seasoned members of the forum to figure out how to keep it all rolling. I was thinking perhaps a thread that is all share no comment. Ive seen forums like that such as FML. I obviously have no clue.
JKhedrup wrote:Thank you Untxi.

We should continue, though I think your relating of the harassment should also stand.

We need to send a message to the prejudiced person who harassed you:

You failed. We will not be intimidated and will discuss this important issue. We will support and protect people here if they are menaced by cowardly anonymous threats
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

conebeckham wrote:
Johnny Dangerous wrote:Just FYI due to the direction the conversation seems to be heading, the ToS states:
No Disclosure of Internal Private Messages/Off-Site Emails or Any Type of Private Correspondence Without Prior Consent from the Sender
Not that it's happened, just a rule to keep in mind.
On the other hand, if any member is getting threatening or offensive PM's, I believe it is that member's obligation to report such activity to the mods....and if the sorts of threats Unxti refers to have been made, any member making such threats should be banned. For Life.

EDIT: But those sorts of issues should be dealt with privately, via PM's with mods and admin.
As for the "off-list" activity, I feel strongly that if it can be determined that someone is verbally abusive on some other site, or via guerillamail or whatnot, and we know who they are here...I say Ban 'Em.

There is no way to know, or prove who would do a thing like this..which i'm assuming is the whole point of the harasser using Guerillamail. There really isn't anything we can do but make note of the fact that we only moderate through PM, not through email, and certainly not through an anonymous email service.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

-Khunu Lama
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conebeckham
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by conebeckham »

Understood, Johnny. I was speaking philosophically, and not realistically as a moderation suggestion!
:smile:
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."
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Zhen Li
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by Zhen Li »

That's a very shocking experience untxi. Of course, talking about hot-topic issues and being harassed are not the same. I hope it doesn't scare you away from continuing to engage on the board, since your input is very interesting, well thought out, and you're clearly a bright mind with a wealth of experience in the world.
Adi
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by Adi »

untxi wrote:This story seems appropriate as it is metaphoric of larger things while being immediately relevant….
I am sad and somewhat shocked all that has happened to you. I am also very sorry to hear of it and hope it does not deter you from what seems to me to be a very noble thing, seeking right treatment for others.

Adi
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rory
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by rory »

Wow what is it with people? Before we write, we should think if what we are saying is compassionate. I'm so sorry unxti....

Ven. Khedrup, ah the deficiencies of my typing and posting in a forum. I meant that I was friends with Ven. Indrajala and he and I differed on many things (women's rights, gay marriage etc..) You and I have much more in common and I am glad to become linked on fb and really get to know you like I have with Ven. Indrajala.
with gassho
Rory
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The Tai-ching states "the women in the realms of Mara, Sakra and Brahma all neither abandoned ( their old) bodies nor received (new) bodies. They all received buddhahood with their current bodies (genshin)" Thus these verses state that the dharma nature is like a great ocean. No right or wrong is preached (within it) Ordinary people and sages are equal, without superiority or inferiority
Paul, Groner "The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture"eds. Tanabe p. 58
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JKhedrup
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by JKhedrup »

It's cool to get to know people outside the forum, Rory and I shate some similar tastes in humour and books, which I would not have known otherwise. We only see a small aspect of people here on the forum.
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kirtu
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by kirtu »

Johnny Dangerous wrote: There is no way to know, or prove who would do a thing like this..which i'm assuming is the whole point of the harasser using Guerillamail.
GuerillaMail sends the originating IP address in the message header. So that can narrow it down. If they used Tor, then we probably can't really trace it back without some tools and a court order (esp. since GuerillaMail claims to purge their logs every 24 hrs and deletes email from their servers after 1 hr). However neither Tor nor GuerillaMail are truly anonymous.

We could also linguistically analyse the email if the harasser is a registered user and has posted a large enough set of postings. This is highly accurate. Large enough doesn't have to be that large BTW.

Kirt
“Where do atomic bombs come from?”
Zen Master Seung Sahn said, “That’s simple. Atomic bombs come from the mind that likes this and doesn’t like that.”

"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."
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untxi
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by untxi »

There are actually many ways of looking at this recent harassment issue.

One is that it is all just karma. Another is from the level of the technicalities of what the ToS are for different products (DW, GuerillaMail) and possible legalities. Yet another is the extent to which this is a sangha as opposed to a forum. For me, any gathering of Buddhists is a sangha, and as such the rules governing speech are determined by the teachings, not ToS, free speech, or laws governing harassment. Ethics always largely superscribes law, custom and rules.

Another layer is back to the original theme. Why is it so hard to discuss social justice in general, and in particular, social justice in the sangha? There are clearly voices asserting a status quo, and trying to shut people up is a method of maintaining the status quo. What is this "tradition" that we're trying to maintain? Does it really exist? Who decides and to what extent are we willing to defend it? What in the tradition are we defending? Are we willing to corrupt our Buddhist ethics and training for this?

Another layer is that whatever harassment I've received is really nothing compared to the crap that people of color, women, gender minorities, disabled people, and the poor have to deal with daily. If these people are activists in any way, even at the level of owning and voicing their own experience, then the crap they get is nothing compared to what I've gotten here. If they do it in the sangha, that grief might be a bit more civil, but as I've seen, that's not necessarily the case. This is a blessing. It's really a portal into what many many many others experience. Look at the news. People are dying because they exist.

Yet another layer is how to take all of this back to the teachings. Sitting there with your own mind on the cushion on in daily life. Whether we like it or not, in this post-modern pluralistic world all this stuff is part of our reality and our dialog whether we want it to be or not. We're going to have feelings about it. We're going to wrong people. People are going to wrong us. As we seek compassion and justice for others we're going to stir the pot and get more of all these conflicted emotions and grief and the like. It all has to come back to practice as well as service to others.

As for me, the jury is out.
I haven't digested my experience yet.

-U
Simon E.
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by Simon E. »

kirtu wrote:
Johnny Dangerous wrote: There is no way to know, or prove who would do a thing like this..which i'm assuming is the whole point of the harasser using Guerillamail.
GuerillaMail sends the originating IP address in the message header. So that can narrow it down. If they used Tor, then we probably can't really trace it back without some tools and a court order (esp. since GuerillaMail claims to purge their logs every 24 hrs and deletes email from their servers after 1 hr). However neither Tor nor GuerillaMail are truly anonymous.

We could also linguistically analyse the email if the harasser is a registered user and has posted a large enough set of postings. This is highly accurate. Large enough doesn't have to be that large BTW.

Kirt
I am still confused...how does someone send a fraudulent message purporting to come from a mod on this forum via another site ? :shrug:
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to me.
untxi
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by untxi »

Simon E. wrote:I am still confused...how does someone send a fraudulent message purporting to come from a mod on this forum via another site ? :shrug:
It's simple. You figure out somebody's identity off the forum (I explained how that happened above). Then you go to GuerillaMail, claim to be a forum member, and email them. If the person believes you, you've managed to be divisive.
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

untxi wrote:
Simon E. wrote:I am still confused...how does someone send a fraudulent message purporting to come from a mod on this forum via another site ? :shrug:
It's simple. You figure out somebody's identity off the forum (I explained how that happened above). Then you go to GuerillaMail, claim to be a forum member, and email them. If the person believes you, you've managed to be divisive.
That's completely unacceptable. If the person doing that reads this, please stop what you are doing and reflect on your actions. If your communication is so vile you have to hide your identity, then than should be a hint that it is inappropriate.
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Simon E.
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by Simon E. »

untxi wrote:
Simon E. wrote:I am still confused...how does someone send a fraudulent message purporting to come from a mod on this forum via another site ? :shrug:
It's simple. You figure out somebody's identity off the forum (I explained how that happened above). Then you go to GuerillaMail, claim to be a forum member, and email them. If the person believes you, you've managed to be divisive.

So whats in it for 'Guerillamail' ? Does the person sending pay them ? ( I am sorry to go off topic but its a whole new and pretty nasty world ).
“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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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Simon E. wrote:
untxi wrote:
Simon E. wrote:I am still confused...how does someone send a fraudulent message purporting to come from a mod on this forum via another site ? :shrug:
It's simple. You figure out somebody's identity off the forum (I explained how that happened above). Then you go to GuerillaMail, claim to be a forum member, and email them. If the person believes you, you've managed to be divisive.

So whats in it for 'Guerillamail' ? Does the person sending pay them ? ( I am sorry to go off topic but its a whole new and pretty nasty world ).

There have been anonymous email providers, of differing types, for free, since as far back as I can remember internet wise - early 90's iirc.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

-Khunu Lama
JKhedrup
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by JKhedrup »

Also what is Tor? Is it an acronym for something?
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

JKhedrup wrote:Also what is Tor? Is it an acronym for something?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

-Khunu Lama
untxi
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by untxi »

There are reasons I mentioned GuerillaMail and Tor. Research done. Dead end-- nothing here for anyone.

My comments as to how to make this a positive still stand.
It's clearly not my place to start that conversation.
I may not be shut up by the admins and mods-- but by somebody here.

-U
Adi
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by Adi »

I find many interesting things in this posting, one of which is:
untxi wrote: Yet another is the extent to which this is a sangha as opposed to a forum. For me, any gathering of Buddhists is a sangha, and as such the rules governing speech are determined by the teachings, not ToS, free speech, or laws governing harassment....
That really does make a lot of sense to me. All open internet forums are open internet forums but not all, actually very few, are "A Buddhist discussion forum on Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism." This seems like the perfect place for everyone participating who identifies as a Buddhist to consciously (actually, mindfully) step up and work on things like right speech and right conduct, even if it means one can't be the charming, witty, snarky, and clever fiend one's friends know and claim to love.

The Dharma is precious, inconceivably so, and it does presume to change one's view of everything, including valuing all lives. In the many kinds of paths that result, some are called into retreat, some into cities, some into quiet practice unknown to anyone else. And some feel the overwhelming compassion to help out others who are obviously suffering from the most basic cruelties such as hunger, abuse, and violence. So in order to help all such beings, it really does make sense to setup it up and not rely on the floor of a TOS but reach up a bit to noble things, noble paths, and certainly noble conduct. One's view may be as high as the sky but I'm told one's conduct should be as fine as grains of flour. Somewhere in between those places is the internet and one's keyboard. :smile:
I haven't digested my experience yet.
I would offer you ginger tea if I could, or good brandy if you prefer.

Adi
Simon E.
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Re: Personal Experiences of Discrimination

Post by Simon E. »

I simply don't accept that this or any other forum represents Sangha.

Which carries no implication that it gives me license to behave in a way incompatible with Sangha if it were one...and I sometimes do act in such a way. I am working on that.
But a Sangha ?...no.
“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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