Best Of

@Dakini said:

@ollaimh said:

the big lesson is to remember that many teachers can teach good, well tried practices but be unenlightened. best to not get too close. learn the practice and stay at arms length.

in the sakyas i used to hear the saying."sit only close enough to the teacher to hear the teaching"

This is a good one. I haven't heard that before. One thing that impressed me with the Sakyas in Seattle is that they run a clean show. No funny business. They got a very good orientation from the Tibetan Studies professor who brought them to the US in the 60's, and their monastery has an insurance policy that requires the avoidance of anything, including behavior, that could lead to a lawsuit. One of the Sakya matrons would gather together newbies to the sangha, and teach a little mini-course as an orientation to proper dress and behavior during teachings, and so forth. It was a good introduction to Tibetan culture and behavioral norms in a religious context, too.

i can't say enough good things about sakyas in seattle vancouver and vancouver island. they are all great. i may ditch my present practices some day and go back to jeston kushock's v.y.. it's deep full rich and transcendnt.

now i have to deal with too many trungpa students. i like a lot of what the group i'm in does but the trungpa students are taxing.

my greater concern is the sexual abuse. trungpa had sex with a lot of students, many undrr ge while in canada. in canada the age of consent with a person who stands in a position of authority is twenty one years of age. moreover there had to be senior students who knew what was up and covered up from authorities. both are unethical. i have tried to discuss this with people and they can often go ballistic. i have been tols this is wrong speech. i think defending the vunerable is never wrong speech. i now quote such people dudjom rimpoche's saying:"ethics are the highest dharma".

@ollaimh said:

the big lesson is to remember that many teachers can teach good, well tried practices but be unenlightened. best to not get too close. learn the practice and stay at arms length.

in the sakyas i used to hear the saying."sit only close enough to the teacher to hear the teaching"

This is a good one. I haven't heard that before. One thing that impressed me with the Sakyas in Seattle is that they run a clean show. No funny business. They got a very good orientation from the Tibetan Studies professor who brought them to the US in the 60's, and their monastery has an insurance policy that requires the avoidance of anything, including behavior, that could lead to a lawsuit. One of the Sakya matrons would gather together newbies to the sangha, and teach a little mini-course as an orientation to proper dress and behavior during teachings, and so forth. It was a good introduction to Tibetan culture and behavioral norms in a religious context, too.

Everyone has responsibility and accountability. That includes students to know what they are getting into and to discern and ask questions and seek out other understanding if they are unsure. That is really easy to do now, thank goodness. In the 70s and before with no internet, it was a different story and many Eastern gurus of all sorts of disciplines ran into problems with students. Some of them rightfully. Some of them because of a lack of understanding of politicians and others who created problems where they didn't exist because of their own religious beliefs and fears. The timeline of the whole peace and love hippie revolution during the same time Trungpa was teaching no doubt blurred those lines more.