Comments on: The Great Earthquake at Jyekundo https://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/2010/04/15/the-great-earthquake-at-kyikudo/ Jamyang Norbu's blog Thu, 09 Nov 2023 13:46:54 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.25 By: Mila Rangzen https://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/2010/04/15/the-great-earthquake-at-kyikudo/#comment-6175 Sun, 23 May 2010 03:45:30 +0000 http://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/?p=1276#comment-6175 truth does hurt sometimes initially but ironically in time it is truth which heals and helps the experiencer find a new direction in his life. it may not be meant for him who is faint hearted and cannot learn from experience and grow. for him truth be not told instead shove it up his rear literally by simply leaving him for good.
well i see you forlorn with a big beer bottle in your hand running around the building in which she has just moved with her new man. you know what? try this…sing this song….”kya huwa, tera wada!”

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By: Arihant https://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/2010/04/15/the-great-earthquake-at-kyikudo/#comment-6171 Sat, 22 May 2010 21:46:02 +0000 http://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/?p=1276#comment-6171 Can’t resist but to post this here. Kalsang Phuntsok la, watch this movie directed by Rigdol, Tenzing called Beautiful Betrayal; http://vimeo.com/11901625
Pay special attention when you get to 3:15 minute line in the movie.

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By: Kalsang Phuntsok https://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/2010/04/15/the-great-earthquake-at-kyikudo/#comment-6136 Wed, 19 May 2010 13:24:29 +0000 http://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/?p=1276#comment-6136 For those who have volunteered to take offence on behalf of Tibetan Buddhism, let me assure you that my intention is not to redicule my own culture. I am proud to be a Tibetan. If left to chose between all the world religions, I will not hesitate to chose Buddhism. Not because I am a Tibetan but because it offers way much more than any other religions of the world. My frustration though, is that the tenets and philosophies of Buddhism are often founded on unnecessarily complex logic and when you add rituals and the peripheral beliefs on top of it, it begins to look a lot like any other religion.

I think that the main task of the students of Buddhism today should be to filter out the real knowledge from the rest of the stuff and offer it to humanity and do away with the religious aspects while developing and promoting the philosophical aspect of Buddhism.

Thank you.

Bhod Gyallo!

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By: arihant https://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/2010/04/15/the-great-earthquake-at-kyikudo/#comment-6131 Tue, 18 May 2010 22:34:15 +0000 http://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/?p=1276#comment-6131 Kalsang Phuntsok la,
I think we have expressed enough to make our points across. Any differences in our stands are because there are different opinions out there for different reasons.
In the course of our discussion, I hope that we both have gained some new perspective on things that are parts of our everyday life. I am anticipating to have discussion with you on some other topics as well.
Bod Gyalo.

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By: Kalsang Phuntsok https://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/2010/04/15/the-great-earthquake-at-kyikudo/#comment-6127 Mon, 17 May 2010 13:42:11 +0000 http://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/?p=1276#comment-6127 Arihant,

First of all I don’t know why Prof. Thurman felt the need to compel himself to love Dick Cheney. Second of all, whether this thought action of him is a moral act or not is questionable. Who is benefitting from this act other than Prof. Thurman himself? I can be quite sure that Dick Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass what Thurman thinks of him. Should we thank Prof. Thurman for not killing Dick Cheney?

Even if I grant you that this is somehow a moral act, it only manifests in Thurman’s mind after altering the reality in his mind and therefore no strong a compassion than anyone else’s. I don’t have any real hate or affection towards Dick Cheney, but if I were to find a reason to show some compassion towards him and forgive him for whatever mistakes he may have made, I would simply think of him as a human being and human beings make mistakes. No elaborate fantasies required.

I hope my English is simple enough for TD to understand.

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By: Arihant https://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/2010/04/15/the-great-earthquake-at-kyikudo/#comment-6105 Sat, 15 May 2010 17:30:10 +0000 http://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/?p=1276#comment-6105 Kalsang Phuntsok la,
I see your emphasis on the importance of “rational reasoning” rather than “superstitious thinking”. I myself would best be described as an agnostic if I have to subject myself to a category. But I see the importance of the merit of the experiences we have in our lives. At the end of the day, what really counts is the pleasant experiences we have in our lives no matter whether they are coming from a fanciful ideal such as dreaming Rangzen while CCP is burning the very bed you are sleeping on, ruling an imaginary castle with a magic stick, thrilling with a freakish adventure, or calculating every feeling and thought in the “rational formula”.
Sometimes I think faith is one of the building blocks of your dream. You work with the faith as a guide. Faith does also condition you in certain mental dispositions. As His Holiness often tells to injees that the drastic change from one’s own faith to another may bring more inconveniences than good, the same goes the other way around for Tibetans. Abandoning one’s own traditional mentality to another set of mentality can bring conflicts within self. I am not only talking about individual life. Changes to our society that are foreign and drastic can bring more conflicts within the society. I won’t stray away from our main topic.
Of course, there is the danger to fall in the trap of one’s own faith that could turn out to be a disaster. The same goes to the romantic love. I think these things such as love and faith can get in the way of our rational thinking. That should not be the reason to denounce love and faith and superstition from our lives. I think millions of people all around us walk and breathe and live on simply because they hold onto a love, a faith, a superstition, or fantasy.
Can we let our rational thinking dictate our love, faith, fantasy, superstition, so on and so forth that are very much parts of who we are?
What if this earth is a petri dish of aliens from other planets that our thinking processes or brains are mysteriously controlled by parasites created by them?
You asked me to give you an example of something that you who don’t believe in afterlife can’t do what people who believe in afterlife can do. Robert Thurman loving Dick Cheney in the reverence of being Dick Cheney a possible mother in the previous life is something you can’t have. That was the reason I brought this example in here to say that believing in afterlife whether is unprovable but out of a blind faith doesn’t really matter that much. Because believing in afterlife is not an end in itself. What is important is the accompanying feeling that comes with this belief.
Therefore, trying to collect evidence if the existence of afterlife can be proven is like trying to understand why an apple falls on the ground. There are people like you who would investigate the reasons why the apple falls while there are other people like me would just eat the apple and have me nourished.
Kalsang Phuntsok la, you left one of T.D’s question unanswered. I think it’s one of the strongest arguments from people who believe in life-before-birth and life-after-death?

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By: Arihant https://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/2010/04/15/the-great-earthquake-at-kyikudo/#comment-6104 Sat, 15 May 2010 17:03:04 +0000 http://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/?p=1276#comment-6104 Tsewi akhu Thompa la,
When I say “Here is the apple”, you then ask me “Are you saying there is no orange?”
I said you can question your faith. I said you can have faith without fully knowing the object of your faith. Once you have faith it becomes a part of your world view. Even though you see some shortcomings of your faith in a particular religion, after weighing in the ups and downs of it, you settle with the faith you are most comfortable and it becomes your identity.

It’s unnecessary to subject your faith to “rational thinking” because “rational thinking” itself is subjective. Unfortunately, our brains are not digitized. The same inputs our brains receive from outside are interpreted differently inside. Therefore, what you think is a “rational reason” may very well be interpreted as an “irrational reason”.

See ཨ་ཁུ་ལགས། and Kalsang Phuntsok la, what we think what we are discussing here is important is seen as a “silly squabbling” by others is a live example of what I am trying to tell you that we see things differently.
Regarding lapug (ལ་ཕུག) story, we conclude two different morals of the story. Yours and most probably Kalsang Phuntsok’s take of the story is not to blindly believing in what others preach. Mine is it doesn’t matter whether the story is falsified with whatever reasons. The important thing here is the experiences these nuns had from the story.
It doesn’t matter whether there is a life after death. The important thing is the ability of Robert Thurman to experience love toward Dick Cheney with this belief.
ཨ་ཁུ་ལགས། you asked me an example of a Buddhist faith that doesn’t require “rational wisdom” as its base. While if you come to Mimang Lhapsol tomorrow, I will show you a couple of bus loads of Tibetans who have “Buddhist faith” that aren’t borne out of “rational wisdom”. I don’t care how technically the concept of faith is described in Buddhism or any other religions. What I care is how it has been used by living-breathing human beings. The important thing for me is what has happened and what has experienced not what is written in a text.

Regarding your quote, I have used “if” Buddha thinks that his teachings are universally accepted truth, then He implies any another contradictory “truth” claimed by any other religions are not the truth. If that’s the case he might have said “either you believe in my teaching which is the universal truth or you are heading toward wrong direction?” I don’t think that’s the case here. I think Buddha means to say that “don’t believe in my words as I say. Come to conclusion on your own”. That is what I have been doing all along by not jumping from one set of mentality to the other.

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By: Arihant https://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/2010/04/15/the-great-earthquake-at-kyikudo/#comment-6103 Sat, 15 May 2010 16:37:15 +0000 http://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/?p=1276#comment-6103 Correction in comment #96 in 4th paragraph.
It should be corrected as “Shedding tears from developing compassionate feelings regardless of the object on which the compassion arises is not something to laugh at”.

Gashi la,

I googled “yawnnnnnnn” and turned out a picture of a big gorilla yawning under a tree. Anyway, I also found out that even unborn babies and animals do yawn sometimes. So Kalsang Phuntsok and Mila should not rush to find a rational reason why Gashi is yawnnnnnnning unless he is passing out.

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By: Thompa https://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/2010/04/15/the-great-earthquake-at-kyikudo/#comment-6099 Sat, 15 May 2010 07:01:29 +0000 http://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/?p=1276#comment-6099 Kalsang la, I think what Arihant meant was compassion of bodhisatva which we dont have yet. yes, base on buddhist text, it says this is one of the method aomong many to invoke or awake the compassion of budhisatva.(jangchup ki sem) the comapssion that we have is like candel in the wind. very weak.

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By: Kalsang Phuntsok https://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/2010/04/15/the-great-earthquake-at-kyikudo/#comment-6092 Fri, 14 May 2010 15:30:47 +0000 http://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/?p=1276#comment-6092 Arihant,

Apology accepted. Moving on…

You wrote the following:
“Anyway, believing in afterlife is not an end to itself in Buddhism. The practitioners of Buddhism would think things in term of ཐབས་ཤེས་ཟུང་འབྲེལ། There is this idea of afterlife and then there is this accompanying behaviors of being loving compassionate even that means falling in love with Dick Cheney la.”

Give me one example of a moral or compassionate deed that I can’t do or an statement that I can’t make without believing in after life or the previous life?

The real question is not whether there is life after death or whether the soul is transfered into another body etc. etc. I think almost everybody here knows deep within that there is almost no evidence to support that proposition. The question really is whether this sort of reasoning or rather the invention of reasons, is necessary to invoke the moral or compassionate sense in humans. I don’t think so.

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