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@Shoshin1 said:
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I like this quote, I think it highlights much of my disagreeableness around this topic. When the standard is the intention of the speaker there is some sort of obligation on their part to have a good intention, and if not then its justified in calling them out or holding them accountable.

In a world where impact is the standard I'm thinking there needs to be some sort of obligation for good faith on the part of the recipient. Without it anyone is free to practice predatory listening and turn offense taking into an art form without any ability for accountability on their end.

From what I gather ( I've been known to gather many things ...including dust )....At times when first hearing/reading what's been said , one might misinterpret it and take offence, That's not right...How dear they say that... but later on there may come a realisation that what's been said is pointing to the truth of the situation (bearing in mind words are not the truth, they are tools which can only point to the truth or its opposite)....

Also at times an unsettled/disturbed mind may be looking/itching for a fight, so will continue to twist the words/truth to suit the mood...

I guess it all depends on the frame of mind of the hearer/reader

...as to what reaction the words produce...

When all is said and done....

@person said:
Spending time in the Tibetan tradition I did see plenty of skillful means being implemented, and that is what I'd say is adjusting language to meet the recipient. I also saw people having certainty in their position, which after initially trusting later found to be either wrong or simply opinion presented as fact. It caused me to lose trust in what was being presented on the whole. So the attempt at skillful means in the long run ended up being unskillful. I do think honesty is better.

I believe if the skillful means and recipient were in a bubble, the implementation of various methods would have a potentially more successful outcome. However we are in a dynamic world full of many views and many skillful and unskillful means circulating about knowing and unknowing to various depths. It is confusing and fragmented enough as is. We may not always be able to discern the wheat from the chaff. Of course this is simply my single perspective.

@lobster said:
https://www.lionsroar.com/if-you-meet-the-buddha-on-the-road-kill-him/

I have been exploring a few realms of information regarding the topic at hand. This article wrapped it up nicely.

A few lines I enjoyed the most.

“You don’t need to call anybody your teacher. Shikantaza is your teacher.”

This teacher was not rejecting me at all, they were showing me a true path. It was my attachments that caused me to take this as a failure rather than see it for the blessing it was.

“The most important things that each man must learn, no one else can teach him. Once he accepts this disappointment, he will be able to stop depending on the therapist, the guru who turns out to be just another struggling human being.”

Rather than seeking a teacher to show me the way, I needed to become the way myself, through my own practice, through deep contemplation, through Shikantaza.

We are each our own teacher and simultaneously each our own teaching.

Lastly, moving on to the citation that took me longer, as I wasn't at a computer to look this up on the 84,000 website (a website that hosts buddhavacana). These quotations come to us from a user named jmlee369:

Having recited [the Mahāyāna sūtras], they extensively teach these sūtras to others. They say, ‘I have understood these teachings with my own intelligence; I teach them to you in this way because I am compassionate. Therefore, you must meditate on this profound Dharma in order to directly perceive it and you too will come to behold primordial wisdom, just as I do now.’ Instead of stating, ‘I have not actualized this most profound Dharma, but teach it by merely reading it out,’ they promote themselves for the purpose of gain and honor. Therefore, in the eyes of the tathāgata, arhat, perfectly complete buddhas of the three times, bodhisattva mahāsattvas, and noble beings they have become stained by faults. A heavy transgression has occurred.

The text elaborates with a simile:

The analogy here is of someone who travels out into the great secluded wilderness, where he suffers hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. He then approaches a tree, intending to eat of the great fruit it bears. However, ignoring the tree with its fine aroma and delicious fruit, he climbs instead a poisonous tree bearing fruit devoid of taste, and eats its poisonous fruit. In doing so, he causes his own death. Such a beginner bodhisattva committing the sixth transgression is said to be like the person in this analogy.

Furthermore, the text elaborates with an exegesis:

Having deceived gods and humans using the Mahāyāna, there will be no śrāvaka vehicle of the Buddha for those bodhisattvas, much less the Mahāyāna, or the particular realizations which are the entry into the Mahāyāna, or unsurpassable, perfectly complete enlightenment.

(from the translation of the Sakya Pandita Translation Group from earler)

This applies in the case of minor and severe wrongdoing IMO.

The user included some commentary from Venerable Tsongkhapa:

Having taught the doctrine of emptiness, he adds, "This I have made evident to myself. I teach it to you out of mercy, but you must cultivate it in the same way until it becomes evident and you become like myself." While having made no such personal discovery, he makes the false claim--the sense of which must be understood by the other person--with an attitude conjoined with defilement (but not including envy).

Apologies for how long it took me to post this. I knew that I had a textual citation in the Nectar of Mañjuśrī's Speech, but I also wanted a sūtra citation, and I actually had to use some Internet sources to find it (StackExchange, DharmaWheel, etc.) because I hadn't yet had the free time, till now, to be at a computer for an extended period of time. Because this post turned out to be too long for a single post here, material from the other forum will be added in a little post at the end.

Ultimately, we do not know the realization or intentions of this man who has proclaimed himself self-ordained and a stream-entrant on this website. Nonetheless, any teacher proclaiming himself to be a Person of the Path, a Buddhist saint, or a member of the Āryasaṃgha, should not be taken at his word. Why is this? Such a proclamation is not conducive to the path on either the part of the teacher claiming nor the believers following per se. More on this to come. I would like to establish in this post some precedents for advising caution with such teachers. I make no value judgement on the teachings presented in the website linked to by the OP.

So we have three situations I alluded to earlier. Just for the sake of a recap:

1) There is a Bodhisattva in contravention of his śīla, but with noble intention (no wrongdoing).
2) There is a worldling guilty of impersonating an Āryan (severe wrongdoing).
3) There is a worldling who has overestimated his progress. If he is not lying, there is still wrongdoing, but it is much less severe than if he were to lie (minor wrongdoing).

I want to try to use these three to try to tie this large post together. Three instances, one of no wrongdoing, one of severe wrongdoing, and one of minor wrongdoing.

When we encounter these difficult teachers who praise themselves on Internet documents or fora with names like "Venerable," "Master," "Arhat," "Śrotāpanna," etc., we have three options loosely corresponding to the three outlined situations above:

1) A Bodhisattva does good and bad with good intentions (i.e. "praises himself to help others:" "praising oneself" is bad, but "helping others" is good) (no wrongdoing)
2) A faux-Bodhisattva does good and bad with bad intentions, but is either too narcissistic or too confused to be able to adequately self-reflect and analyse his own intentions. (either minor or severe wrongdoing)
3) A faux-Bodhisattva does good or bad with bad or unknown intentions (i.e. "praises himself to gain followers while also helping others"), but either cannot see his own intentions or wrongly believes himself to be in a noble position. (either minor or no wrongdoing)

From Venerable Khenpo Kunzang Palden's The Nectar of Mañjuśrī's Speech, we find outlined on p. 142 the "18 root downfalls of the Bodhisattva." These transgressions of śīla cause the Bodhisattvas to "forfeit the entirety of their previously generated roots of virtue" (Ākāśa­garbha­sūtra translated by the Sakya Pandita Translation Group). In layman's terms, these transgressions mean "start again, at the beginning." From the text:

(11) To praise oneself for sake of fame and wealth,
And likewise openly to criticize another;
(12) To claim untruthfully that one has gained
The realization of the view profound;
(13) To victimize the monks [...]

(p. 142)

So we can see that this applies to the cases of severe and minor wrongdoing. It does not apply to the case of no wrongdoing. That will be dealt with later.

From a passage that comments on these downfalls:

What this actually refers to is a situation in which one has not gained realization of emptiness, but makes a pretense of having realized this and tells people, "You must meditate very well on emptiness and if you do, you will gain direct realization like I have." As soon as one utters these words, deceiving others in this way, and the words are understood by them, this root downfall is committed.

(commentary from Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey)

This covers the severe and minor wrongdoings listed above. It does not cover the instance of no wrongdoing.

"Praising oneself" is "ātmotkarṣaṇa" in Sanskrit. From the Great Wisdom Treatise (Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa):

Question. – According to a rule of human decency, even the sage cannot boast. How then could a being free of egotism boast of his ten powers? Indeed, it is said:

To boast about oneself, to blame oneself,
To boast about another and to blame another
Those are four things
Which the sage does not do.

Answer. – Although free of egotism and attachment, the Buddha possesses innumerable powers and, out of his great compassion to save beings, he speaks of only ten powers: that is not boasting.

Thus, the good caravan leader, seeing robbers deceiving his merchants and inviting them to take the wrong road, is moved by compassion and says to his merchants: “It is I who am truthful; do not follow these hypocrites!” And also, when charlatans are deceiving the sick, the good physician, out of compassion for these [sick people], tells them: “I have the good remedy and I am able to cure your illness; do not believe these impostors! You will become even more sick.”

Furthermore, the qualities of the Buddha are profound and distant; if the Buddha did not speak about himself, nobody would know him, and the little that he does say is very useful to beings. This is why the Buddha himself speaks about his ten powers.

Furthermore, there are beings to be converted to whom it is necessary to speak, and among the things to say to them, he must, at the proper time, speak of the ten powers. If one did not speak about them, [these people] would not be converted. This is why the Buddha himself tells them about them.

Thus when the sun and the moon rise, they do not think: “By lighting up the world, we will have glory.” The mere fact of their rising is worthy itself of glory. It is the same for the Buddha: he thinks not at all about collecting glory when he speaks about his own qualities. When the Buddha is preaching the Dharma in a pure voice and the brilliance of his rays destroys the shadows of ignorance among beings, he derives great glory from that automatically. Therefore there is nothing wrong in the Buddha himself speaking of his ten powers and his other qualities.

(translated by Venerable Migme Chodron)

So this is what applies to the great Saṃbuddhas. But what of the Bodhisattvas, the Mahāyāna stream-entrants, the Āryans, the Persons of the Path? They are not yet at the stage of wonderous enlightenment or "anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi" as it is called in the Mahāyāna sūtras. What of these, these ex-worldlings who are Buddhas-to-be, not yet Buddhas and no longer ordinary beings? From the Mahāsaṃnipāta (大方等大集經), we have the Inquiries of Gaganagañja which discusses the conduct of these:

[...] he becomes one who has unfailing eloquence concerning the dharma since he accomplishes the dharma of his own merits; he becomes one whose eloquence is adorned like the congregations of gods since he never praises himself or blames others, and he gives away everybody’s favorite objects; [...]

(from "The Inquiries of Gaganagañja" hosted at Bibliotheca Polyglotta)

"Everyone's favourite objects" is a bit of a clumsy translation here. It is accurate, but not specific enough. It refers to possessions that are needed by others but held by oneself. The Bodhisattva gives away everything, in the end. I digress, however. This quirk of the translation was not the main point of this post. The point of this quotation was the establish a precedence for the instance of "no wrongdoing" outlined at the beginning of this past. To praise oneself is a transgression of bodhisattvaśīla. As the Buddha says in the Flower Garland, "Only I am honoured." This has an esoteric meaning, and is not meant to be interpreted as "You cannot honour the Nobles."

Nonetheless, to praise oneself to help others is both good and bad, and when performed with pure intention, the Bodhisattva is capable of it, in the manner of a Buddha, and no wrongdoing has occurred. Naturally though, it follows that not everyone who praises themselves will be doing so in such a way.