[Buddha-l] Good resource site shut down

[Jo]

Hi Joy and Chris,

Hm---the template for starving ethnics used to be Armenians ("Eat up your dinner, dear--remember the starving Armenians.") --now it's Africans. I would hope, in their eagerness to make merit and/or to be bodhisattvas, that Buddhists would give some preliminary thought as to the harm already caused by transfers of coin and credit to corrupt African governments and organisations, as well as to the fact that some NGOs simply end up providing jobs for non-Africans even as they act as quartermasters for US-produced commodities -- while the starvation and mayhem in Africa not only continues, but gets worse. 

Joanna
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Of Joy Vriens
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2012 7:41 AM


Hi Chris,

I am convinced he is a nice man with the best intentions. A fair amount of literalism and orthodoxy have helped Tibetan Buddhism survive, but perhaps other qualities are required now. I recently read about the Thai "awakening" during the 19/20th century, with figures as Buddhadasa and regretted how none such thing seem to have happened for Tibetan Buddhism, or rather too discretely, with some exceptions like Gendun Chöphel. Other lamas adopted a certain openness publicly towards a Western public, while actually remaining very traditional and literalistic. But things seem to be changing now fortunately. It is not an option anymore. Tibetan Buddhism has to, not only for the sake of "convert" Buddhists, but also for its own youth. There seem to be lamas with a genuin wide interest, who perhaps don't exactly welcome critical thinking yet but don't shy away from it.

In the past bodhisattvas would purposely go to hell to make themselves useful there. Nowadays they seem to want to create merit in order to avoid being reborn in starving countries. Bourgois Buddhism must be spreading fast. As an alternative to creating merit, something could perhaps directly be done about the situation in "Africa". If the situation is improved globally, it doesn't matter where one will be reborn, in "Africa", another continent or in Buckingham Palace (which may seem appealing but it does come with Windsor genes).  I am sure we could amend the law of Karma to make that into a case of merit creation. ;-)

Joy

---
Though Thrangu Rinpoche is a nice man, some of the stuff he teaches to a supposedly educated western audience is shocking - and it is even more shocking that this audience rarely challenge his views. Fortunately not all Tibetan Lamas are so literalistic. - (Recently I read a transcript of one of Thrangu Rinpoche's teachings - when asked a question about how something he had said related to something Longchenpa had written - he told the questioner that he had never read the works of Longchenpa. And this man is supposed to be one of the foremost Tibetan scholars!) . For saying this I've probably lost whatever merit I have accumulated and now I'll be reborn as one of those starving children in Africa.
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