The Dogma of the Buddhist Master’s Infallibility: A Reappraisal of “Buddhist Modernism”

The Watercooler
41

You are still talking about oneness, whereas Advaita clearly means not-twoness. Allow me to quote from MN1:

“He directly knows Nibbāna as Nibbāna. Having directly known Nibbāna as Nibbāna, he should not conceive himself as Nibbāna, he should not conceive himself in Nibbāna, he should not conceive himself apart from Nibbāna, he should not conceive Nibbāna to be ‘mine,’ he should not delight in Nibbāna. Why is that? Because he must fully understand it, I say.

This sounds like it totally conforms to not-twoness. If you are finding twoness in the realisation of nibbana, I am surely not seeing it!

Now, regarding ‘an untaught ordinary person, who has no regard for noble ones and is unskilled and undisciplined in their Dhamma’, there is clearly twoness:

“He perceives unity as unity. Having perceived unity as unity, he conceives himself as unity, he conceives himself in unity, he conceives himself apart from unity, he conceives unity to be ‘mine,’ he delights in unity. Why is that? Because he has not fully understood it, I say.

Here it is clear that the perceiver and nibbana are being experienced as/taken to be two.

You have apparently changed your argument, and seem to be now assuming that devotion is bad because it must be ‘wrong saddha’, even though I fail to see any support being provided for your claim.

Have you failed to differentiate between the bhikkhu sangha and the ariya sangha perhaps? To remind you of your statement, you said: “If there was a Noble Sangha, why do the monks disagree with each other?” And have you also mistakenly assumed that stream enterers can have differing opinions? I am unaware of any definitions of stream enterers that includes omniscience.

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42

[quote=“Deeele, post:33, topic:5924”]
“Advaita”, which means “One God” or “One Deity” or “One Self”
[/quote]I am pretty sure that “One God” or “One Deity” or “One Self” would probably be something like “eka iśvara” or possibly “ekātman” or something like that.

Advaita means non-dual, or more literally, not-twoness.

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43

“So did I steal these last three precepts, thereby violating the first precept?”… You have said.
It is perfectly acceptable to undertake precepts, by yourself without a living teacher present.---- The reason the monks says the precept first, and the lay audience repeats it afterwards, is not that he gives this audience something, excepts the correct Pali wording, since the audience are not expected to know Pali well. But the precept itself is fulfilled by observing it. To “receive” and “take” it in a special (public) ceremony only serves the purpose of making your promise to observe it more solemn, to strengthen your resolve… But there is no “theft” involved, if you undertake the precept just by yourself.

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Sogyal Rinpoche Pledges to Enter Retreat After Rigpa Members Detail Abuse Allegations

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I see that, unfortunately, another well-known meditation teacher, Culadasa (John Yates), author of The Mind Illuminated, has been found to have feet of clay (though at least none of this was with students). There’s a statement from Dharma Treasure Sangha here (with his wife as one of the signatories) and a response from Culadasa himself here (P.S. I did not think this merited a new separate thread so I just tagged it on here).

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46

Sogyal Rinpoche has passed:

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47

May he be reborn in a situation wherein he learns from the mistakes he made in this life, finding peace.

:pray:

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48

Perhaps his victims now can feel some sense of safety, and pursue his estate for damages to help pay for therapy and just compensation for what can only be described as sociopathy in the guise of “crazy wisdom” Buddhism.

Now his personal attendant, the frequency and severity of private beatings and public humiliations increased. For many of us in the “inner circle” it was not uncommon to have multiple lumps on our skulls or split scalps from beating. He once ripped my ear.

We all saw that his worst moods were caused by problems with the young attractive females—students he’d groomed for sexual relationships—that were on call to him 24/7. Only later was I to hear from some of them personally that they had been raped. They had been coerced into the relationship by being told they were engaging in consort practice, karmamudra .

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I did a meditation retreat with Sogyal Rinpoche in Ireland many years ago. I still remember his teachings on spacious mind.
Obviously a flawed character, but still one one of my teachers.