Best Of

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.

The more mature practitioners among us are already well-pickled in words and experiences, yet are not exactly enlightened. So are we such great exemplars? Shine your light, but do so with humility and while leaving the space for others to shine theirs, and appreciate all equally.

From another thread:

If one can not even understand how a discussion on one's spiritual experience can make others suffer, then what does that say about that speaker's understanding of empathy, sympathy, tenderness or compassion for others.

There is talk today about how its important to look beyond our intent to the impact our words have on others. But when does that cross over into diminishing yourself and can that act also have a negative impact? My thought immediately went to the Marianne Williamson quote.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I feel there is some balance to be found here. Don't brag on yourself, but also don't hide your light. Your spiritual experiences might make some feel small but it also might inspire others. How responsible exactly are we for the feelings of the most wounded person in the room?

Considering others or diminishing your light?
How responsible exactly are we for the feelings of the most wounded person in the room?

Interesting question...

It's a case of "Words can please some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time" ....no matter how careful one is with choosing what to says....

One person's kind words is another person's fighting talk (No pun intended...Hmm perhaps just a little one )

If one can not even understand how a discussion on one's spiritual experience can make others suffer, then what does that say about that speaker's understanding of empathy, sympathy, tenderness or compassion for others.

Indeed.

The function we can each understand is bringing others to wisdom, humility, virtue, insight and the many descriptions of helpful behaviour and practices.
https://thewisemind.net/what-are-buddhist-virtues/

Sitting around like self congratulating fruit does not serve others. It is clearly narcissistic inflation.

I knew that.
I must be some kind of … person with common sense. Yeah beginner for ever …

If you'd like to nurture a spiritual experience, pay no more specific attention to it than you would to anything else. Treat it no differently than any other arising, existing, and departing phenomena. This is largely what a meditation practice is for.

If you want to turn the expansive fluidity of a spiritual experience into a still postcard of a memory, just try to mentally dissect it. It will simply become as sullied as any other arising. existing and departing phenomena that we are unable to meditate with.
All spiritual experiences are little more than the veil of our own obscurations being pulled aside. That obscuration is just the habitual storytelling of our ego/identity or the selfish self. The absence of that obscuration is the fruit of selflessness.

Some reasons for not deliberating on spiritual experiences are...

Monasteries traditionally teach their practitioners to not deliberate on such experiences because such actions are the actual antithesis of what was allowing those experiences to arise in the first place.
All that separates each moment of a spiritual experience from manifesting as enlightenment or as delusion, is your ability to meditatively get yourself out of its way.
The common ego makes us all junkies in relative states of re-hab. Spiritual experiences that can be personified by our ego are like a beckoning source of crystal meth. The only thing that's tough enough to not have the ego indulge within it to some degree, is a meditative practice that trains us how to stop empowering that ego.

All humans suffer under relative states of an innate inadequacy. There is no easy way to talk about a spiritual experience without having many of those who have not had such experiences, feel even more inadequate. If one can not even understand how a discussion on one's spiritual experience can make others suffer, then what does that say about that speaker's understanding of empathy, sympathy, tenderness or compassion for others.
Are they actually speaking from that spiritual experience or from their ego's grasping of it?

Everyone eventually seems to have spiritual experiences in life. Much of a spiritual practice is just our preparation to not fiddle around with it as it passes by. Large or small, singular or many, they have as much potential to enlighten as to delude. Most Sangha are usually littered with the examples of both. 2600 years of history has resulted in most teachers saying that as with any phenomena, its not about whether it arises, exists or departs but is about how we can allow it its own unmolested passage through our sense gates that's actually the important thing.

Is the deliberation of a spiritual experience about a practice of accumulation or a
renunciation?

LOL
Perhaps the guy who just missed his own zoomed sitting while focusing on writing about this, should just pay a little more attention to his own practice.