Comments on: Creating Enlightened Society

By: Andrew Safer

Andrew Safer — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:16:48 +0000

Jason and others:

The link to these talks is at the top of this article, where it says: “Google Video”.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:22:05 +0000

These talks were available on You Tube for awhile. I have some of them on Robin’s old computer if folks are interested I can try to make them available. Email direct at argentum111@mac.com

Thanks!

By: Petra Mudie

Petra Mudie — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:07:57 +0000

Thanks for sharing all this – Robin was a brilliant giant, and it is great to be able to still learn from him. Let us never give up the effort to transform our world and the way that we live in the world, so that eventually you are meditating eight or ten hours, well, you’re meditating 24 hours a day because everything you do is part of your meditation.

By: Andrew Safer

Andrew Safer — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:34:53 +0000

I am so glad that people are enjoying this talk! I find it tremendously inspiring. I am just waiting on the confirmation of the spelling of one Tibetan word (Mark Nowakowski is assisting with this), and Part Two should be ready to go up soon.

By: Michael Sullivan

Michael Sullivan — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:05:55 +0000

Robin’s staff at the program (some Shambhala students and others who would be more correctly described as Robin’s students) really went all out… The shrine itself was totally “Old School Dharmadhatu” with Dilgo Khyentse’s picture as well as Suzuki Roshi’s. One of the thangkas on the wall was of one of the Rigden Kings (very different than the standard SI one now) and included a little section with the king surrounded by his court. IIRC there was also a table with a selection of books that were Western Classics that resonated with the topic. All in all, quite a “time machine”!

Thanks to Andrew for doing the hard work of transcribing.

By: Edward

Edward — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:43:45 +0000

There was art on the walls, we lived a very formal life, we dressed up in suits for every single talk. What we were doing is we were recreating in a Western context a thing that Trungpa Rinpoche called the Court principle.

I still find this so interesting… if I can comment on one small aspect of this presentation.

“Recreating in a Western context… the Court principle”…

I don’t really know too many teachers who try to translate uplifted cultural principles into a Western context. So many people assume that being spiritual or being Buddhist means becoming a foreigner, dressing up in foreign costumes, forgetting who you are and your own roots in order to become something better.

I wonder what Padmasambhava did when he went to Tibet. According to legend, did he try to live like a foreigner among the Tibetans? Or did he transmit the dharma to them as something native to them and their existing culture? I know that he took a Tibetan consort, so that seems significant.

Whatever he did, I don’t see Tibetans today going around worshiping Indian culture and feeling poverty stricken that they come from a barbaric background. “What a gift to meet so many Aryans! Did you know English is descended from Sanskrit?!” So something seems to have worked in the transmission of the dharma to Tibet.

There’s a funny scene in The Onion Movie where this suburban white teenager is dressed up like a stereotypical black ghetto kid, and trying to imitate ghetto talk. He wears his pants low and shuffles when he walks and the whole thing. What makes it funny is that so many white American kids actually do that, perhaps in a subtler way, because they are so desperate to feel connected to something genuine. They are convinced that being white is empty and meaningless and evil, and they’re so desperate for some sort of identity.

And then we have all the people who come along and prey on that weakness. The German people in the 1930s were desperate for identity, and there are probably many other examples.

It’s amazing how Trungpa Rinpoche could see such richness wherever he went– in Japanese culture, Irish culture, American culture. He never played on people’s weaknesses or their poverty-mentality. I think it’s interesting to reflect on this.

Thanks for publishing this.

By: rita ashworth

rita ashworth — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:49:15 +0000

Great, great. great……….if at all possible it would be brilliant if you could publish these talks in a pamphlet format that way you could make some money and also disperse the talks even further in the world.

best

rita ashworth

By: Ginny Lipson

Ginny Lipson — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:50:03 +0000

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for bringing these precious talks to the ” top of the front page ” and so available and easy to access. How wonderful!!!!