The passage that stands out to me is the “seeming competence of the speaker.” Some people have dynamic, forceful personalities. In the well-known and mostly misunderstood Kālama Sutta, the Kālama people go to the Buddha and ask him how to know if a teaching or a teacher are authentic:Ĭome, Kālāmas, do not go by oral tradition, by lineage of teaching, by hearsay, by a collection of scriptures, by logical reasoning, by inferential reasoning, by reasoned cogitation, by the acceptance of a view after pondering it, by the seeming competence, or because you think: ‘The ascetic is our guru.’ But when, Kālāmas, you know for yourselves: ‘These things are unwholesome these things are blameworthy these things are censured by the wise these things, if accepted and undertaken, lead to harm and suffering,’ then you should abandon them. Very few of them understand dependent co-arising or non-self. Most Western teachers do not even teach rebirth or jhāna. Western Buddhism is full of what I call “celebrity teachers.” They are people who – for the most part – are popular because of their personalities, not their understanding of the Dharma or the depth of their practice. When I stood my ground, Kornfield called me a “demon” and referred to Das as his “close friend.” Kornfield is no saint. Kornfield tried to intimidate me and tried to force me to leave the Dharma event. I’d never met or had spoken to Kornfield. In fact, Kornfield singled me out to have a talk with me. The next day, Das sicced Kornfield on me during a Dharma event. I guess he finally realized he was never going to get anywhere with me, it took years to convey this message. One time I rejected Das’ invitation to give me a ride. In your article you speak of “Kornfield” and his “investigation.” Kornfield is a close friend of Das. But this paragraph about Jack Kornfield really stuck out to me: Most of this entry is about Surya Das himself. Words are like birds, passing through the trackless sky.Apropos of my last blog entry about Lama Surya Das and his acts of sexual misconduct, I ran across this entry from a forum on Surya Das’ sexual abuse at Against the Stream (ATS) Buddhist Society. “The thing is that this life is so precious and mysterious, I don’t know what to say about it most of the time. His name, which means “Servant of the Sun” in a combination of Sanskrit (surya) and Hindi (das, from the Sanskrit dasa), was given to him by the Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba. Surya Das is a Dharma heir of Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche, a Nyingma master of the non-sectarian Rime movement. He has long been involved in charitable relief projects in the Third World and in interfaith dialogue. He is a poet, chantmaster, spiritual activist and author of many popular works on Buddhism a teacher and spokesperson for Buddhism in the West. Surya Das (born Jeffrey Miller in 1950) is an American-born lama in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. If you are in this seat, remember to pay homage to the Buddha sitting in your seat: please don’t overlook her! Most of us strive to do the best we can amidst life’s inevitable challenges, obstacles, and surprises. But don’t take my word for it–check it out. When you learn to better love and accept yourself, the world follows suit this is ancient, timeless wisdom. Self-compassion is an important part of cultivating lovingkindness and warm empathic compassion which feels what others are feeling and resonates with them. When people write me of their struggles to lead a more fulfilled life, I often see that many are very hard on themselves, prompting me to remind them to lighten up, enlighten up a little and give themselves a break. May we all join skilled hands and altruistic hearts in furthering that e-motion. In fact, I find it’s not that hard to notice the plenitude of miracles not to mention progress around us, visible to the discerning iye, and I’m grateful and even reverent before it and all to those who’ve worked hard to contribute to that. I’m not sure it’s worse now than ever before, as some people like to say. Life isn’t easy, as Buddha himself said way back then and still gently reminds us.
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