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Crazy Wisdom Trailer: movie about Trungpa Rinpoche
Jeffrey
Veteran
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johanna-demetrakas/crazy-wisdom-chogyam-trungpa-rinpoche_b_1113803.html?ref=buddhism
Love him or hate him, but speaking for myself I am intrigued to see a movie.
Love him or hate him, but speaking for myself I am intrigued to see a movie.
0
Comments
As for ego-reducing, that's just a recipe for our own happiness; we don't have to reduce ego if we don't feel like it. If you have chosen to study or follow Buddhism, it contains a deeply-explored theory that reducing ego reduces your pain. You don't have to do it if you don't want to, but given its centrality to Buddhist theory, it would probably be akin to following Christianity while rejecting the concept of forgiveness as "too demeaning" or something, IMO.
Anyway, it looks like it's going to be a really interesting movie.
any 'teacher' who says he is 'breaking your ego' by verbally abusing you in a drunk tirade is a joke.
Please explain how your experience in Buddhism justifies implying that most Tibetan teachers are abusive. I've just listed six teachers--from only one gompa--who are not.
My gompa is Gelug.
Dakini, let's be open here. Saying that a gompa having good teachers is utterly refreshing news, implies that you believe it's utterly unusual for a gompa to have good teachers - which is not a positive note.
I'm not saying there have never been abusive teachers - I'm asking why you feel comfortable hinting that most are abusive.
I think you need to re-read the thread again. @Sile said he joins a Gelug gompa, which means he's practicing Tibetan Buddhism. I and a few others also practice Tibetan Buddhism. Not once have I or any one of the people I personally know have been abused by any lama or Rinpoche or Geshe, in both the traditional and modern sense of the word. We would feel taken aback by some harsh words, and some admonishments. But when we go back to our practice of listening, contemplating and practicing, most of us realize that almost always we were acting out of ignorance and could have made things worse. For that I'm always appreciative.
As to Trungpa Rinpoche's approach, I confidently believe that he is the exception to the norm. Not once in my lifetime have I encountered any lama who goes to the extremes.
But then again, he is different. How many lamas can beautifully transmit teachings to his students with such clarity and understanding even when drunk?
My point is: it's not logically sound to paint everyone with the same brush. If I said that all Americans are obese, low gullible, violent, loudmouth Christian zealots, you'd feel offended too.
The following is all I am going to say so I hope it is read by someone. It really depends on what one thinks is possible:
The Meaning of Transformation
By cutting through attachment to hatred, it is transformed, and there is the recognition--and release--of the wisdom that exists within it. Now, we might assume that those who have accomplished this energy of clarity will always appear to be happy, energetic individuals. But it doesn't necessarily work like that. They may even seem to be rather angry people. We have only to look at the life of Marpa, and there are many other examples.
Trungpa Rinpoche said that Vimalamitra would get very angry with people who didn't understand the Dharma. If that were just ordinary rage, caused by their failure to understand, it would be pretty useless. But Vimalamitra's anger affected people he encountered in a positive way, and he was able to cut through some of their obstructions, turning their minds more deeply towards the Dharma. Anger of this kind is always oriented towards overcoming obstacles--either further obstacles within oneself or those that exist within others. It's very different from ordinary anger.
While it is good to talk about the possibility of transforming anger, we need to be very careful not to get carried away by it. Obviously there is always the danger that someone attempts this and ends up getting angry in an ordinary way. Furthermore, it's no good thinking your anger is special because you are Dharma practitioner and can therefore go around putting other people right--although it can be interesting when two people who think like this meet one another.
Nevertheless, it is indeed possibe to transform anger so that it helps others. How do we recognize an individual who can do this? We are unlikely to meet someone who can do this at the highest level. It is more common to find an individual where this ability comes and goes, but even that is rather unusual. Like everything in Dharma training, we need to use our own intuition, our feeling for the person and the effect he has on us, to determine whether the anger is useful or not.
When anger is genuinely transformed, it energizes everything you do. If you are talking with a really irritating person, for example, you might find the situation amusing rather than annoying. Or, when a difficult situation is developing, you may be able to say something to resolve it. Your response comes from a kind of clarity that sees the significance of things. By cutting through the double negativity, the energy of anger is transformed into a different way of experiencing the world.
In order to develop understanding, we need clear healedness, emotional clarity, and consequently some ordinary sense of control. But the Buddhadharma is not some ancient system of psychotherapy; it is concerned with something totally different. It is more concerned with what emotions are, in and of themselves, and not with anger management.
There is a special quality of wisdom in the heart of our anger and other emotions, which needs to be met face to face. And we need to discover for ourselves just why we don't want to do that.
The same thing has happened when I realize I am devoting too much time to gaming and the internet and I get angry and practice meditation.
Its a kind of anger that is not really anger in that it is destructive of an obstacle and energizing towards another constructive effort which could be the Dharma.
Another example is when my brother got angry with me and we had an angry discussion. I transformed it my not making it about me (ego) and making the anger an energy of discovery rather than winning or losing. As a result we destroyed some obstacles in our relationship. We have been on better rather than worse terms since that angry exchange.
My teacher says that in her experience Trungpa was quite lucid while drinking. Now if he was speaking gibberish during his talks I would presume there is some evidence of a youtube video? But yet there isn't. Quite the opposite, I find his talks on youtube quite good Dharma teachings.
Anger + ego is the big disaster at that point you lash out and your mind does not think as clearly. Transformed anger on the other hand is when you see clearly something you don't want. For example some problem in a relationship. You can transform this by phrasing it as a positive. For example "i want more space" or "i want more intimacy". From that standpoint of looking at your needs the anger is transformed from a lashing out to a positive. And as you become clear on the wisdom within the anger the resources in your own being are called forward to deal with the situation.
So I think its true 1) anger is always bad 2) anger is sometimes good.
The reason those contradictory statements are both true is because we are using words to point to the world of practice. Sometimes 'anger' means one thing and sometimes another. Such is the nature of a relative world in which things are meaningful in a context rather than as absolute truths.
note: in the previous post with the underlines and so forth 'double negativity' is when you respond to the negativity with more negativity towards the anger itself.
"The conclusion is that if no one has anger towards us, we can never develop patience. If everybody loves us then we can never generate the precious quality of patience, the path of patience. So therefore there is an incredible need in our life for someone to have anger towards us. It is so precious, so important that someone has anger towards us. It's not precious for that person, but for us it's very precious. For that person it's torturous, it's like living in the lower realms. But for us, that person having anger towards us is so precious. We have a great need for this, a great need." (Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Vajrapani Institute, Boulder Creek, CA)
There is no teacher we will ever have, of any subject, that isn't a flawed human being.