Comments on: Truth or Trend?

By: Linda

Linda — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:51:26 +0000

Yep.

By: Linda

Linda — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:49:21 +0000

The questioning of rebel buddha mind, especially sincere questioning that can tolerate doubt, surprises and stops-and-starts, can look in new places in the mind/heart, and can wonder in the company of others–this is truth. Inquiry is truer than anything you can hold as a belief.

By: Submit Form

Submit Form — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 10:53:07 +0000

I am doing research for my university thesis, thanks for your excellent points, now I am acting on a sudden impulse.

- Laura

By: fitri

fitri — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 07:27:41 +0000

I just have to come back and post another comment. Reading all the other comments by wonderful, intelligent people on this site is such a learning experience for me. And the fact that i also do have the guts to post my comment with my real name is also another personal breakthrough.

One personal note i want to express, i don’t really care what people think of Rinpoche, whether He’s a rebel or not, He can rebel or not, He’s selling the book or not, or what have you, because to me He is just someone who has been dedicating His life for the benefit of so many beings, seen or unseen.
At the end of the day, He is just a Ponlop Rinpoche who came to this world 45 years ago.
He is just a simple Tibetan Lama, folks! What can be more simple and beautiful than that?

By: fitri

fitri — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 05:19:34 +0000

For an unenlightened being like myself, i set the “Truth” as my “object of destination” (notice that it’s in quotes). I have not experienced it yet, but every twist and turn i take on my way to get “there” is a clue on what the real truth is. I tell myself that it’s ok to unintentionally take wrong turns once in while,as long as i know where i’m going. “Truth” doesn’t change, but the clues do change, depending on where we’re at.

Doesn’t matter how many turns a river makes, it will go the ocean; unless it dries up before reaching the ocean– this is when one is afraid of taking risks & making mistakes, and stops searching for the truth altogether. I think

By: Ceci Miller

Ceci Miller — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 02:37:53 +0000

“We can go on and on trying out and casting off the latest approaches to truth, without ever seeing the real truth they can lead us to.”

This statement reminds me of the times when, as a teenager, I would go into a “clothing frenzy” trying on one outfit after another, never satisfied it was the “right one.” Seems like the post is saying that, whatever we “put on” in the way of outer dharma “clothing” we won’t get anywhere unless our ultimate goal is to know a changeless truth, a truth that can wear any outfit and still be complete and whole, exactly as it is.

By: Robert J. Bullock

Robert J. Bullock — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:12:28 +0000

That’s a beautiful post, Susan, and I agree wholeheartedly!

I hope I did not say anything to suggest we should reject Tibetan culture. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that!

I would hope that nobody is suggesting that Tibetans should not defend their cultural heritage, just that we as “Westerners” have to figure out just how much of that heritage we can really adopt for ourselves.

At the same time, we should do all we can to help Tibetans preserve Tibetan culture, including the form of their practice.

By: Robert Bullock

Robert Bullock — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 22:29:39 +0000

Religion is yet another symptom. It’ not the disease and it’s not the cure.

By: Ove Lauridsen

Ove Lauridsen — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 20:57:45 +0000

As a member of the Danish sangha for about 40 years I can see today, that many of them are grasping to both branches and therefore getting nowhere!
Maybe it’s better to let go and be grounded to realize the fundamentals of Buddha’s teachings and let go of religion.

By: shiwapema

shiwapema — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 20:37:35 +0000

Rinpoche does not need to be a rebel–he is already awake. He is encouraging *us* to be rebel buddhas.

An analogy that he often uses to illustrate transfering Buddhism from one culture to another is that of a monkey leaping from one branch to another…that you cannot let go of the first branch too soon (Tibetan Buddhism) before grasping the second branch (American/Western Buddhism) otherwise you slam to the ground. I personally think Rinpoche is being very skillful in weaning us off the non-useful cultural forms of Tibetan Buddhism as we discover what is more useful in the context of our culture. And *we* also need to be participating in this process of discovering what is useful and what works and what doesn’t.

Devotion is the bull’s eye path, but one must connect properly. Just because it is difficult or often misunderstood does not take away from the genuiness, directness and profundity of that path.

Just my 2 cents

By: Ove Lauridsen

Ove Lauridsen — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 11:38:06 +0000

Another comment about the truth:
“If the mind when filled with some desire
should seek a goal
it only hides the light”
Truth does not have to be achieved. It simply has to be realized that it is there..!

See more on my website about tibetans in Denmark

By: Ove Lauridsen

Ove Lauridsen — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 11:11:53 +0000

Thinking about the truth is an impossibility. Either you know it or you don’t.