Tibetan Buddhism is not Buddhism; Lamas are not Buddhists.

[Buddhism]

...Just because the contents pages tell us that a few chapters (a minority, in fact) are about a certain topic is not a valid reason for saying that the whole book focuses on that topic. It's like saying the focus of the bible is creation, simply because it's the subject matter of Genesis....

Very good example here, now you mentioned it.
If there is no "creation" as the basic, what is the whole existence of the Bible for?

The Buddha dharma is not based on skillful wording, languages, or phrases; it is not worldly games or techniques.
It is the true essence that leads to the prajna wisdom.
It is like a map of treasure island, we have to decode the landmarks and hidden signs in order to get to the treasure gate, instead of sticking to the map itself and hindering the route to the treasure island.

Of course, you are your own boss, and you have every right to choose your cultivation way.
Thank you.

[SauLan]

“'It is difficult for the correct dharmas to manifest if the erroneous ones are not destroyed 若不破邪，難以顯正.” Bodhisattva Xuanzang (玄奘菩薩) stated in the past."

If the correct dharmas have not manifested, how can you have enough information to be certain you are destroying the erroneous ones? If you are certain yours is a fully-manifested correct dharma, then the erroneous ones must already have been destroyed, and the remaining ones are not erroneous.

[sandman]

Look. It is SIMPLE. You guys are Bhddhists, right? Therefore, all you do is go to the shop that sells the Buddhist stuff, buy up a few dozen tropical snakes, take them into the cold mountains, let them loose to die slowly and painfully. See? Buddhsim is EASY! But WAIT! It gets better! The more you buy, the better your karma! A few thousand measly snakes for a better reincarnation? You cant' BUY that kind of shit. Oh, wait! No, you CAN actually buy it.

[adikarmika]

The Buddha dharma is not based on skillful wording, languages, or phrases; it is not worldly games or techniques.

That's what you always say when I point out the self-contradictions, illogicalities and absurdities (not to mention downright falsities) that routinely occur in your posts. What a cop out!

Unfortunately, however, the fact that the dharmakāya transcends language is not a justification for writing nonsense.

On the other hand, I believe it's sometimes used as a justification for maintaining silence, which might be a better course of action for you to take.

Of course, you are your own boss, and you have every right to choose your cultivation way.

Do I have the right to define my "cultivation way" (as you put it) in my own closed-minded, semi-informed, heterodox, dogmatic way, call it the "essence of Buddhism", and then go around telling other people that they are excluded from the Buddhist church unless they conform to my definition?

Of course not. So how come you think you have such a right?

[Fortigurn]

Look. It is SIMPLE. You guys are Bhddhists, right? Therefore, all you do is go to the shop that sells the Buddhist stuff, buy up a few dozen tropical snakes, take them into the cold mountains, let them loose to die slowly and painfully. See? Buddhsim is EASY! But WAIT! It gets better! The more you buy, the better your karma! A few thousand measly snakes for a better reincarnation? You cant' BUY that kind of shit. Oh, wait! No, you CAN actually buy it. Peabrained numpties.

This kind of post contributes nothing to what is already a tense discussion. Please refrain.

[Zla'od]

Hi everybody! I'm back--sorry for going "poof" on you. I was out of e-mail range for maybe a week of that, and the rest was me dreading Adikarmika's demolishing of my case! Unfortunately, my knowledge of Tibetan logic and debate form is not up to his level, which is why he kept having to step in and help me out. (This departs from the relatively game-like, competitive style of Tibetan debate, which Georges Dreyfus says is more like lawyers arguing their cases in court than like Western-style philosophical discussion.)

The key issue:

So you need to come up with a definition of "to be contrary to (or to contradict) the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha" that not only deals with the essentialism issue, but also manages to include killing and highest yoga tantra, but exclude bodhicittotpāda.

I was trying to argue based on Shakyamuni Buddha's teaching that one ought to follow the five precepts rather than samsaric pursuits. Sexual pleasure would be a samsaric pursuit, at least according to what the Buddha can be assumed to have historically taught, though tantric devotees would argue otherwise. (Food, though also contributing to sense pleasure, can at least be excused as necessary to some degree.)

Since sex within marriage is not absolutely forbidden by any interpretation of the five precepts (only restricted in modest ways), it occurred to me that Adikarmika might propose that married people could practice highest yoga tantra. However, calling it HYT suggests that sex can be a wholesome spiritual practice rather than a concession to human weakness, as the Buddha probably considered (especially in view of his own biographical details).

Now, the nature of contradiction: Clearly Buddha did not set forth laws that proclaim, e.g., "Thou shalt not kill!" and then expect to be obeyed; instead, he described the impersonal principles of karma, along with a means of avoiding their worst consequences. To teach that killing is good would contradict this central message, therefore no group which praises killing deserves the name of "Buddhist."

But what about Buddhist groups which do in fact kill, or cause to be killed (e.g. by eating meat), without praising the act of killing? Do they thereby cease to be Buddhist? Their actions may contradict the Buddha's recommendations, but their statements do not contradict his statements (on this point), so I would say they have not forfeited their "Buddhist" status. Expanding the principle to tantra, what matters is not so much whether one personally engages in HYT, but whether one claims HYT to be spiritually beneficial (I was going to say "to represent the teachings of Buddha," but it is conceivable that one might ascribe HYT to a Buddha other than Shakyamuni, and about whom historians will have little to say).

Yes, I realize that I have departed from the Zhengjue line, which is far less concerned with the opinions of historians. I feared that I would be asked to provide some reason why the Mahayana sutras ought to be accepted (as Zhengjue accepts them), but not the tantras (which Zhengjue of course rejects). Perhaps Buddhism (the poster) can suggest such a reason.

[SauLan]

Sexual pleasure would be a samsaric pursuit, at least according to what the Buddha can be assumed to have historically taught, though tantric devotees would argue otherwise. (Food, though also contributing to sense pleasure, can at least be excused as necessary to some degree.)

Sexual pleasure is not pursued in devotion to tantra.

I study regularly with loads of fellow tantric devotees, and sex isn't even a focus of conversation, let alone of practice.

For those rare people who do or have worked with the bliss state using reproductive energies, "sexual pleasure" is not the pursuit any more than "musical pleasure" is what is pursued during mantra recitation, or "physical pleasure" is pursued during prostrations, or "visual pleasure" is pursued when focusing on a statue of the Buddha.

[sandman]

.

[adikarmika]

Now, the nature of contradiction: Clearly Buddha did not set forth laws that proclaim, e.g., "Thou shalt not kill!" and then expect to be obeyed; instead, he described the impersonal principles of karma, along with a means of avoiding their worst consequences. To teach that killing is good would contradict this central message, therefore no group which praises killing deserves the name of "Buddhist."

But what about Buddhist groups which do in fact kill, or cause to be killed (e.g. by eating meat), without praising the act of killing? Do they thereby cease to be Buddhist? Their actions may contradict the Buddha's recommendations, but their statements do not contradict his statements (on this point), so I would say they have not forfeited their "Buddhist" status.

I'm still not entirely happy with your gloss of "contradiction". Your statement that "their actions may contradict the Buddha's recommendations, but their statements do not contradict his statements" implies that both statements and actions enjoy some sort of equivalent status, and this, I believe, is where some of the problems in the foregoing exchanges lie.

To avoid ambiguity, I would like to apply the expressions "contradicts" and "does not contradict" to statements only.

Thus, the statement "killing has undesirable karmic consequences" is contradicted by the statement "killing has desirable karmic consequences". But I would not say that it is contradicted by the act of killing. More on that below.

Although injunctions and precepts are speech acts, and therefore a somewhat different kettle of fish (see John Searle, Elizabeth Anscombe, and the notion of "direction of fit"), I think we can also speak of, indeed, we must speak of, contradictory and non-contradictory injunctions or precepts. Thus, the precept "thou shalt not kill" is contradicted by the precept "thou shalt kill".


Now to another notion - that of actions that are "in accordance with" or "not in accordance with" certain injunctions.
We may say that the act of killing is not in accordance with the injunction "thou shalt not kill".


The third concept I would like to clarify is that of being "contrary" to something. I would like to use this term to describe a state of mutual exclusivity. Thus, actions that are in accordance with a given injunction are contrary to actions that are not in accordance with that injunction.
More specifically, the act of killing is contrary to the act of saving lives, and the act of drinking alcohol is contrary to the act (if it can be considered an "act") of abstaining from drinking alcohol.

If you interpret the statement "Tibetan Buddhism is not Buddhism" to mean that Tibetan Buddhism and Buddhism are mutually exclusive, then you may wish to express your thesis as "Tibetan Buddhism is contrary to Buddhism". But I'll leave that up to you. Not being something is, IMO, not necessarily the same as being contrary to something.

Note that according to the definitions I have just given, we probably should avoid saying things like "killing contradicts the teachings of Śākyamuni" since killing is an action, not a statement (purportedly) of fact or an injunction.

And we probably shouldn't say that the act of killing is contrary to the teachings of Śākyamuni, either.
Although I would argue that such a statement is true, I would also argue that the act of saving lives is contrary to his teachings too, since there does not exist anything that is both an act of saving life and a sūtra. (However, it's a debatable point that should perhaps left to Tibetan monks to consider.)

Without trying to put words in your mouth that would turn the debate to my advantage, I think that what you should be saying is that certain actions, such as killing and the practice of highest yoga tantra, are or aren't in accordance with the teachings of Śākyamuni.

We should also distinguish between the practice of highest yoga tantra, which may or may not be in accordance with the teachings of Śākyamuni, and the doctrines of highest yoga tantra (or the tantric texts themselves), which may or may not contradict his teachings.

Sorry to be so pedantic, but one of the reasons things started to get so messy earlier was because both of us were using a number of terms in vague in overlapping ways.


If you can accept the above definitions, I put it to you that the practice of highest yoga tantra is a non-Buddhist practice.

Assuming you accept the statement, I must ask you for a reason.

Expanding the principle to tantra, what matters is not so much whether one personally engages in HYT, but whether one claims HYT to be spiritually beneficial ...

I think you're straying from the topic here. We aren't really concerned with individual practices or beliefs. The issue is whether Tibetan Buddhism as an institution is a form of Buddhism.

[SauLan]

Which definition of highest yoga tantra are you using--Nyingma, or new school? If new school, do you exclude Kriyā, Caryā, and Yoga tantra from the proposed de-Buddhisting list? (And does Vajrayogini make the cut?)