[Buddha-l] Subject: Re: [Fwd: Kyabj? Pema Norbu Rinpoche Enters> Parinirvana]

[Robert Leverant]

This is a profound and important subject that Jayarava has opened up. His
response is from  the soul view; the human view. The formal announcements
and the ceremonies represent the spirit view -- realized in the stage of
Thugdam by H.H. Pema Norbu Rinpoche; which is a goal for Vajrayana
practioners of Tibetan Buddhism.

In the Western World, the split between soul and spirit was formalized in
869 A.D. In Constantinople  at the Council of the Principals of the Holy
Catholic Church & earlier in Nicea in 787.

In an overview: in these meetings  there was a separation made between the
two through which images were deemed acceptable to the Church Fathers.

Surprisingly, in Tibetan Buddhism there is the same separation/distinction
made between Spirit (Peaks) & Soul (Vales).

"Soul is at home in the deep, shaded valleys. ... Spirit is land of high,
white peaks, and glittering jewel like lakes and flowers.  ...But the
creative soul craves spirit. Out of the jungles of the lamaserary, the most
beautiful monks one day bid farewell to their comrades and go to make the
solitary journey toward the peaks, to mate with the cosmos . ..." (H. H. the
Dalai Lama in a letter to Peter Goullart... Quoted in an essay by James
Hillman Peaks & Values, Puer Papers, Spring Publications, 1979.

For those of you who are interested in this very important subject  of being
human & soulful vs. divine/realized and the split between the two inside
each of us and the collective,  read this reflective and scholarly essay by
Hillman presented to a conference on Eastern & Western psychologies in 1979.

This conflict is epitomized and enacted in the journey of Kennard Lipman,
who, after thirty years of devotion to the practice of Tibetan Buddhism,
found his spiritual home in the religion of his ancestors. Lipman was an
accomplished Dzogchen practioner and translator and commentator of texts
including one by Longchenpa. Having scaled the peaks (spirit), he found
himself not fed, and returned to the vales (soul)  and became a Rabbi.
http://www.reformjudaismmag.net/03summer/buddhist.shtml