Best Of

Work off bad karma, try not to generate new bad karma, continuous re-dedication.

My offering is continual effort toward uncovering, disenchanting, and renouncing the wrong views which lead to attachments and grasping.
My practice is in prudently letting them go as awareness of grasping arises.
Maybe with enough practice I will see what this being's contribution to others will be. It's clearly not art or making deep social bonds.

@Bunks said:
2. Tonglen (Taking suffering and Giving compassion)

Ah ha! The hard stuff eh …

I modified the tonglen for my Western/non-Bon/heretical sensibilities. I found my application more appropriate to my aversion to dukkha

1. Create a rainbow bubble around your being, this allows the good stuff in AND
2. Boost it with gratitude, metta and imagining a higher form
3. Resonate it outward, transforming

Not everyone is suited to Tonglen eg masochists, depressives, buddhist vampires
https://buddhism-for-vampires.com/

I suppose the wonder and power of feeling a great insight into practice can cause someone to think bad ideas are good ideas. Dare I say that it happens to all of us?

@federica said:
With all the world's wonders, sometimes, a little corner of England, delights and suffices...

I love the English country side! Having grown up in an environment that’s generally more brown than green, it’s such a refreshing change

@Jeroen said:

True, but when you realise a guru was just a human, there is going to follow somewhat of a reassessment of their teachings. Yes, don’t throw out the baby with the bath water, but you need to identify what is baby and what is bath water.

I've never seen any guru/teacher as anything other than a human being warts and all...some more wise than others and how I interpret their wisdom depends on how beneficial their teachings were for my sense of peace and well being...

If after carefully analysing a teaching and it does not sit well with me, then this approach will not be adopted as part of my practice....

The guide I use is my experiential understanding (be it somewhat limited...however...so far so good) of the 4NTs and 8FP...

After listening to or reading the teaching, it's a case of 'Ehipassiko'...I see for myself...

One practitioner's meat is (perhaps) another practitioner's poison

With all the world's wonders, sometimes, a little corner of England, delights and suffices...

@Jeroen said:

@Shoshin1 said:
And when it comes to blindly following a Guru...I keep this in mind...

Even some of the so called bad ones have something good/beneficial to teach/share...

So don't throw the baby (beneficial teachings) out with the bath water (the guru's bad behaviour)

True, but when you realise a guru was just a human, there is going to follow somewhat of a reassessment of their teachings. Yes, don’t throw out the baby with the bath water, but you need to identify what is baby and what is bath water.

Well, as Stephen Batchelor said in a meeting between Western Dharma teachers and the Dalai Lama, "Why would we follow teachers who are much more flawed than we are?" The DL doesn't tell people to look for flawed teachers; to the contrary, he advocates thoroughly checking out the teacher, going to the teahouses to pick up the gossip (if there is any), "spying on" the teacher, to make sure they're trustworthy and set a good example. A good teacher walks his talk.

And frankly, in my observations, those who walk their talk are often the little-known ones, who quietly pursue their studies and their practice, not the ones whose biographies boast of a long lineage of reincarnate lamas. The ones who have reached a level of renown seem to be a bit spoiled by the attention, and seem to have a sense of entitlement to take liberties with their students.