Intellectual Buddhism and Moral Principles

[Onlyhuman]

Trungpa Rinpoche for instance described "samsara" (the cycle of rebirth) this way:

(snip)

That is precisely why you are in samsara, confusion — because you know what you are doing, but you still keep doing it. However, in being a Ping Pong ball there are still gaps of not being one. There are gaps in which something else is experienced. In fact, during that Ping-Pong-Balling, another experience takes place constantly: the experience of awareness. You begin to realize what you are, who you are, and what you are doing.”[/i]

Would you claim that this highly regarded teacher is not in fact teaching Buddhism here?

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In 1969 he experienced a tragic automobile accident which left him paralyzed on the left side of his body. The car had careened into a joke shop; Trungpa had been driving drunk at the time (Das, 1997), to the point of blacking out at the wheel (Trungpa, 1977).

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Bhagavan Das (1997) related his experiences, while teaching Indian music for three months at Naropa in the ’70s:

The party energy around [Trungpa] was compelling. In fact, that’s basically what Naropa was: a huge blowout party, twenty-four hours a day....

I was in a very crazed space and very lost. One day, after having sex with three different women, I couldn’t get out of bed. I was traumatized. It was all too much.

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During an annual seminar in the autumn of 1975, for example:

A woman is stripped naked, apparently at Trungpa’s joking command, and hoisted into the air by [his] guards, and passed around—presumably in fun, although the woman does not think so (Marin, 1995).

The pacifist poet William Merwin and his wife, Dana, were attending the same three-month retreat, but made the mistake of keeping to themselves within a crowd mentality where that was viewed as offensive “egotism” on their part. Consequently, their perceived aloofness had been resented all summer by the other community members ... and later categorized as “resistance” by Trungpa himself.

Thus, Merwin and his companion showed up briefly for the aforementioned Halloween party, danced only with each other, and then went back to their room.

Trungpa, however, insisted through a messenger that they return and rejoin the party. In response, William and his wife locked themselves in their room, turned off the lights ... and soon found themselves on the receiving end of a group of angry, drunken spiritual seekers, who proceeded to cut their telephone line, kick in the door (at Trungpa’s command) and break a window (Miles, 1989).

Panicked, but discerning that broken glass is mightier than the pen, the poet defended himself by smashing bottles over several of the attacking disciples, injuring a friend of his. Then, mortified and giving up the struggle, he and his wife were dragged from the room.

[Dana] implored that someone call the police, but to no avail. She was insulted by one of the women in the hallway and a man threw wine in her face (Schumacher, 1992).

And then, at the feet of the wise guru, after Trungpa had “told Merwin that he had heard the poet was making a lot of trouble”:

[Merwin:] I reminded him that we never promised to obey him. He said, “Ah, but you asked to come” (Miles, 1989).

An argument ensued, during which Trungpa insulted Merwin’s Oriental wife with racist remarks [in return for which she called him a “Nazi”] and threw a glass of saké in the poet’s face (Feuerstein, 1992).

Following that noble display of high realization, Trungpa had the couple forcibly stripped by his henchmen—against the protests of both Dana and one of the few courageous onlookers, who was punched in the face and called a “son of a bitch” by Trungpa himself for his efforts.

“Guards dragged me off and pinned me to the floor,” [Dana] wrote in her account of the incident.... “I fought and called to friends, men and women whose faces I saw in the crowd, to call the police. No one did.... [One devotee] was stripping me while others held me down. Trungpa was punching [him] in the head, urging him to do it faster. The rest of my clothes were torn off.”

“See?” said Trungpa. “It’s not so bad, is it?” Merwin and Dana stood naked, holding each other, Dana sobbing (Miles, 1989).

The scandal ensuing from the above humiliation became known as, in all seriousness, “the great Naropa poetry wars.” It was, indeed, commemorated in the identical title of a must-read (though sadly out of print) book by Tom Clark (1980). If you need to be cured of the idea that Trungpa was anything but a “power-hungry ex-monarch” alcoholic fool, that is the book to read. (Interestingly, a poll taken by the Naropa student newspaper in the late ’70s disclosed that nine of twenty-six students at their poetry school regarded Trungpa as being either a “total fraud” or very near to the same.)

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* * *

Allen [Ginsberg] asked Trungpa why he drank so much. Trungpa explained he hoped to determine the illumination of American drunkenness. In the United States, he said, alcohol was the main drug, and he wanted to use his acquired knowledge of drunkenness as a source of wisdom (Schumacher, 1992).

[Trungpa’s] health had begun to fail. He spent nearly a year and a half in a semicoma, nearly dying on a couple of occasions, before finally succumbing to a heart attack (Schumacher, 1992).

Before he died of acute alcoholism in 1987, Trungpa appointed an American acolyte named Thomas Rich, also known as Osel Tendzin, as his successor. Rich, a married father of four, died of AIDS in 1990 amid published reports that he had had unprotected sex with [over a hundred] male and female students without telling them of his illness (Horgan, 2003a).

Tendzin offered to explain his behavior at a meeting which I attended. Like all of his talks, this was considered a teaching of dharma, and donations were solicited and expected (Butterfield, 1994).

Having forked over the requisite $35 “offering,” Butterfield was treated to Tendzin’s dubious explanation:

In response to close questioning by students, he first swore us to secrecy (family secrets again), and then said that Trungpa had requested him to be tested for HIV in the early 1980s and told him to keep quiet about the positive result. Tendzin had asked Trungpa what he should do if students wanted to have sex with him, and Trungpa’s reply was that as long as he did his Vajrayana purification practices, it did not matter, because they would not get the disease. Tendzin’s answer, in short, was that he had obeyed the instructions of his guru. He said we must not get trapped in the dualism of good and evil, there has never been any stain, our anger is the compassion of the guru, and we must purify all obstacles that prevent us from seeing the world as a sacred mandala of buddhas and bodhisattvas.

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To this day, Trungpa is still widely regarded as being “one of the four foremost popularizers of Eastern spirituality” in the West in the twentieth century—the other three being Ram Dass, D. T. Suzuki and Alan Watts (Oldmeadow, 2004). Others such as the Buddhist scholar Kenneth Rexroth (in Miles, 1989), though, have offered a less complimentary perspective:

“Many believe Chögyam Trungpa has unquestionably done more harm to Buddhism in the United States than any man living.”

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[Googaw]

Onlyhuman, the question was this: Would you claim that this highly regarded teacher is not in fact teaching Buddhism here?

[Onlyhuman]

I know Googaw. I just thought it was worth giving you a few salient details about your precious, "highly regarded" guru.

It's also for the benefit of other people who might be reading. They will be able to see the kind of person who is "highly regarded" by Buddhists like yourself, and be able to make up their minds about the value of what both you and he have to say.

[Mononoke]

The more subtle concept of rebirth involves look at how the mind work and understanding that the mind-continuum is actually a chain of momentary bursts of consciousness each discrete but dependent on the ones before. Kind of like a Markov chain. It this sense the mind is reborn every living instant.

That makes sense, but it would still be distinguished upon the moment of death.

Do you really think it makes sense arjandirkse? Do you think having this idea in one's mind advances the understanding in any concrete way? Do you think it would be helpful in living your daily life?

I don't. I think it's empty priest talk.

If that is empty priest talk then people like Kant, Plato and Hegel are also full of bullshit priest talk. I don't advocate mental exercise or anything like that, i don't care too much about those, but Buddhist philosophy is every bit as developed as it's western counter part. And you shouldn't dismiss it prematurely lest you want to sound like a fool.

[Onlyhuman]

Buddhist philosophy is every bit as developed as it's western counter part. And you shouldn't dismiss it prematurely lest you want to sound like a fool.

Nonsense. It is a load of vacuous waffle. And I'm not dismissing it prematurely, I'm dismissing it after several decades of careful consideration, and prolonged discussion with leading practitioners and teachers.

Shall I tell you who seems like a fool to me: anybody who holds a "teacher" like Trungpa Rinpoche in "high regard".

[Googaw]

I know Googaw. I just thought it was worth giving you a few salient details about your precious, "highly regarded" guru.

It's also for the benefit of other people who might be reading. They will be able to see the kind of person who is "highly regarded" by Buddhists like yourself, and be able to make up their minds about the value of what both you and he have to say.

So back to "intellectual Buddhism and moral principles"... Are you saying you believe in the existence of objective morals?

[Googaw]

Shall I tell you who seems like a fool to me: anybody who holds a "teacher" like Trungpa Rinpoche in "high regard".

How come? I mean, I never met him or anything. Maybe he was an asshole. But he conveys Buddhist principles to a modern western audience in a very unique way. Sometimes he seems brilliant to me, and sometimes I have no idea what he's on about.

Your moral indignation is surprising, considering your own unique style.

[Mononoke]

Buddhist philosophy is every bit as developed as it's western counter part. And you shouldn't dismiss it prematurely lest you want to sound like a fool.

Nonsense. It is a load of vacuous waffle. And I'm not dismissing it prematurely, I'm dismissing it after several decades of careful consideration, and prolonged discussion with leading practitioners and teachers.

Shall I tell you who seems like a fool to me: anybody who holds a "teacher" like Trungpa Rinpoche in "high regard".

Trungpa is a spiritualist. He is in no way a Buddhist philosopher, and no academic will ever take his teachings as part of Buddhist philosophy. There are genuine buddhist philosophers, like nagarjuna, who were purely academics.

And think about it is it really rational to beleive that intellectuals all over the subcontinent spent 2500 years spurting bullshit at one another. And more importantly Buddhism always had a ideological opponent in Hinduism, both camps had smart people you think they wouldn't have called each other out for talking nonsense.

Here is Prof. Jay L. Garfield of MIT on Madhyamika Buddhism

In themselves, from their side, things are free of imputation, even though there is really nothing at all that can be said from their side. This dynamic philosophical tension—a tension between the Madhyamika accounts of the limits of what can be coherently said and its analytical ostension of what can't be said without paradox but must be understood—must constantly be borne in mind in reading the text. It is not an incoherent mysticism, but it is a logical tightrope act at the very limits of language and metaphysics.

Go to something like JSTOR and look for modern critical analysis of Buddhist philosophy. Or alternatively look for books on Buddhist philosophy written by serious academics. ' The central Philosophy of Buddhism' by Prof. T.R.V Murti is a good introductory book, though it is rather biased.

[Onlyhuman]

Your moral indignation is surprising, considering your own unique style.

I haven't expressed any moral indignation, I was just pointing out why, far from being "highly regarded" as you claimed, your guru was regarded as a drunken fool.

[blindedbyscience]

The Buddha himself was an idiot, an arsehole, a creep, a terrible role model, he abandoned his wife and child and a perfectly good life to waste the rest of his precious time on earth trying to find something he was too stupid to realise he already had.

It made him calm and happy though

I think your words are a bit strong though obviously if his life had been that great he wouldn't have abandoned it in the first place. I'm for the Buddha fuck conventions do your own thing Yay!

[Onlyhuman]

And think about it is it really rational to beleive that intellectuals all over the subcontinent spent 2500 years spurting bullshit at one another.

It's still going on now, so why not?

Go to something like JSTOR and look for modern critical analysis of Buddhist philosophy.

No Mononoke, I won't, and can you fuck off trying to indoctrinate people? I've told you, I've read enough books about it and talked to enough people about it. It's a fucking RELIGION, it makes no sense in a rational context.

[blindedbyscience]

It's also for the benefit of other people who might be reading. They will be able to see the kind of person who is "highly regarded" by Buddhists like yourself, and be able to make up their minds about the value of what both you and he have to say.

Don't confuse the teacher with the teaching.
In my view the sayings of Buddha make some salient and relevant points about living ones life that are universal regardless as to how many mad men put on a cap that says I'm a Buddhist. I am not a Buddhist I am in agreement with the essence of Buddha

[blindedbyscience]

I've read enough books about it and talked to enough people about it. It's a fucking RELIGION, it makes no sense in a rational context.

Obviously not understood it then

[Onlyhuman]

It made him calm and happy though

How do you know?

Read through the descriptions of the behaviour of the "highly regarded" Trungpa above. He was a lifelong alcoholic, from his drunken car accident in 1969 to his death from alcohol in 1987.

In 1981, Chögyam Trungpa and his students hosted the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in his visit to Boulder, Colorado. Of Trungpa, he later wrote, "Exceptional as one of the first Tibetan lamas to become fully assimilated into Western culture, he made a powerful contribution to revealing the Tibetan approach to inner peace in the West.

Inner peace?

...when asked in a November 2008 interview, "What was he ill with? What did he die of?," his doctor Mitchell Levy replied, "He had chronic liver disease related to his alcohol intake over many years." One of his nursing attendants reports that in his last months, he suffered from the classic symptoms of terminal alcoholism and cirrhosis, yet continued drinking heavily. She adds, "At the same time there was a power about him and an equanimity to his presence that was phenomenal, that I don't know how to explain."

Some people will believe anything.

[michael^3]

The form of Buddhism I was most closely involved with was Soto Zen, which holds up as a role model a man sitting for years silently facing a wall. Intelligent, talented people are wasting their lives doing this as we speak. Of course people waste their lives in many different ways, but Buddhism holds this rejection of life up as an example to be followed, and I find that rather nauseating.

So at one point you were really into Buddhism, but now it seems you hate it with a vengeance. What happened?

[Onlyhuman]

Don't confuse the teacher with the teaching.

Fuck off. It's not like he was a drunken, violent sexual predator and maths teacher. No, he was telling other people how to live, and his own life was a disaster.

[blindedbyscience]

It made him calm and happy though

How do you know?

Well he sounds happy and that is good enough for me

Read through the descriptions of the behaviour of the "highly regarded" Trungpa above. He was a lifelong alcoholic, from his drunken car accident in 1969 to his death from alcohol in 1987.

Fail to see what that has got to do with Buddhism. I know plenty of alchoholic atheists that doesn't mean that God exists

Inner peace?

Have you got inner peace?

Some people will believe anything.

Actually all people will believe anything if it fits in to their world view. Some times they are right some times they are wrong.
You have obviously only looked at Buddhism from one viewpoint and are seemingly quite blind to its positive aspects.

[blindedbyscience]

Don't confuse the teacher with the teaching.

Fuck off. It's not like he was a drunken, violent sexual predator and maths teacher. No, he was telling other people how to live, and his own life was a disaster.

Dear dear somebody needs inner peace I can see.
Are we talking about Buddha here or some alleged Buddhist teacher?

[Onlyhuman]

So at one point you were really into Buddhism, but now it seems you hate it with a vengeance. What happened?

I saw through it.

[Onlyhuman]

It made him calm and happy though

How do you know?

Well he sounds happy and that is good enough for me

That's nice. Now could you fuck off out of the philosophy forum?

[Mononoke]

And think about it is it really rational to beleive that intellectuals all over the subcontinent spent 2500 years spurting bullshit at one another.

It's still going on now, so why not?

Go to something like JSTOR and look for modern critical analysis of Buddhist philosophy.

No Mononoke, I won't, and can you fuck off trying to indoctrinate people? I've told you, I've read enough books about it and talked to enough people about it. It's a fucking RELIGION, it makes no sense in a rational context.

Whatever floats your boat sonny.

[blindedbyscience]

It made him calm and happy though

How do you know?

Well he sounds happy and that is good enough for me

That's nice. Now could you fuck off out of the philosophy forum?

You may know a lot about Buddhism but you evidently DON'T understand it

[RaspK]

Too much needling I see here, both in the nice and not so guises.

Until a short while ago, I thought everyone was handling it, but I see that's not the case; I'll refrain from any sort of judgement for the moment, but that is not my final statement. In the meantime, please chill out.

[blindedbyscience]

I agree. I was being quite naughty with Onlyhuman but I find it hard to resist trying to get people to question their views.
My take is that there is good and bad and one has to use discretion when looking at any teaching but at the same time one shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I am not a Buddhist but I do find that living my life by some of the tenets of Buddhism (or Daoism for that matter) makes it a far nicer place to live in

[blindedbyscience]

So at one point you were really into Buddhism, but now it seems you hate it with a vengeance. What happened?

I saw through it.

I apologise for winding you up earlier but it was easy to do.
My view is that you have come across one aspect of Buddhism and that was a bad experience so you have simply shut your mind to any notion that there may be some benefit in what it has to say. Really neither of us knows the Buddha. If he had a good life or really hated his life. But the essence of Buddhism "You are what you think" is something we can test and adapt to our own situation. I have come across many phrases in Buddhism and thought "Yeah that's exactly IT!" I have also come across similar in Daoism and Cognitive psychology. What they are is universal truths that are not always self-evident. If they were then it would be a happier planet. Yes there are people calling themselves Buddhist and no doubt believing it and no doubt rightly so in some aspects who are complete shits. But they are nothing it is how you see yourself and life your life that matters. You can take what you like from where ever you find it and if it works for you then who's to say different. I like the Buddha, I like what he stands for but I wouldn't follow him except that to be truly Buddhist is to ditch the Buddha. You are what you think, all that we are arises with our thoughts, with our thoughts we make the world. Simple.