- Mark

Good point about CTR Rita, yes he reportedly could of course manifest a wrathful quality, being a Mahasiddha and all, I guess the way he often emphasized gentleness as the basis of mindfulness was what I was referencing.
This seems like good advice particularly in relation to e-communication and our tendency to, like Jim said, project more easily and sometimes readily.

Having said that I’m not judging anyone other than my own projections here yall!

Secondly, though this should really come first, we know better and shouldn’t be doing this at all. Trungpa very clearly brought up the possibility of spiritual materialism and about the inauthentic presentation of the teachings. He told us that there was no such thing as an insurance policy. The only way to guard and preserve the teachings was to practice them in a genuine way. Why then are people so easily led to assume that the way to protect and preserve the teachings is to reduce them to the fixated form of a property relation? Is this an instance of forgetfulness?

Branding (service marks). Is this really necessary? It reminds me of these Homeland Security measures we hear so much about. Senior officials create a problem so they can jump in there and save the day, protecting us against these unseemly hijackers and wrong minded people. But we know better than that to. It introduces a note of confusion. It might start small, but at a certain point it all starts to get out of hand. Better to avoid the business in the first place.

So e-communication has most of the real time quality of speech but the speaker is much more susceptible to responding to their projections of what is said because the live qualities of speech that ground the communication in a human context are missing. This is why “flame wars” are a problem on on-line message boards.

Except for some exchanges during the dun season — I think that this site has generally been better than most in maintaining civilility.

This is not to say that Suzanne isn’t completely off the wall with her opinions (just kidding).

Just a spin off thought on the above CTR was also forceful through gentleness –that crazy wisdom aspect – that’s why I think people are really still interested in him.

Aka forcefulness in Art recently seen utube video with Ken Russell, the movie director, discussing the movie the Devils about the Catholic church in France – he said he was just portraying the truth with his film and that the censor was wrong when he censored a very violent scene. Truth a veritable many-edged diamond – it should be explored both meditationally, artistically, and philosophically –that’s why I like reading stuff on this site.

Re the copyrights issue – I think it’s a side issue – the dharma is exploding in the west –who knows what kind of dharma will predominate here but safe to say religion in the west is like our Art provocative and communal.

Best

Rita Ashworth

Anyway, I have read some positive and brave ideas discussed here with a gentle and open presentation CTR would surely have appreciated (like i know) along with some of the less attractive potentials.

I guess the challenge modern dharma teachers face is not just how to present teachings but also how we communicate with each other in this “instant msg” culture. The speedy nature of this time is reflected in our means of action, particularly communication. Excellent that a potential to create reflection and insight within such a medium exists. Cheers

There’s is nothing our dualistic minds can’t complain about.
Talking about greviances can be useful, even therapeutic but no amount of inter-chat will actually change our perception unless accompanied by a minimum of mindfulness. Most especially in relation to, as David pointed out, how we relate to others in a less aggressive and 100% certain attitude.

Awareness through Gentleness was the beautiful hallmark of CTR’s presentation of teachings, particularly Shambhalian. Blogs that arent just for harmless horseplay can only begin to acheive this if the majority involved actually apply it. And its clearly a hard thing for us to do whilst busily involved in our own opinions, which I for one am thoroughly (and sadly happily) engaged in most of the time. . The written word is a beautiful thing when nothing can be taken the wrong way and create some negative potential. How often is that the case here? Just a thought!
All the best

The copyright issue is bound to arise after Lady Diana passes away, unless it has been clearly established beforehand how and to whom that will be passed on.

This will not affect ability to link to texts that are online and public, or to quote portions of texts as fair use as part of study materials or commentaries, but it will affect the ability to make entire texts available, as well as how restricted materials and those with prerequisites are disseminated.

With all do respect that comment presented with such force and conviction is indicative of a lot of your posts, in that it is not factually accurate or truly thought out. Please if you are going to be saying aggressive things do not spread things that are not accurate. That is not mindful speech and is also indicative of the rumor spreading and gossiping that is prevelant in our community, particularly on this site. Get the facts straight if you have the blind conviction to spew it to other people.