tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post3268448111112404862..comments2024-03-22T14:47:42.501+02:00Comments on Tibeto-logic: The Padampa Diet PlanUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-30580374515753012962015-11-26T02:25:42.944+02:002015-11-26T02:25:42.944+02:00Actually, I'm following up on your opinion on ...Actually, I'm following up on your opinion on that image found in the publication called *The Buddha Scroll.* We're all ears, Professor ...!Short Person. :)noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-57732267339726678152015-11-25T22:54:58.391+02:002015-11-25T22:54:58.391+02:00Hello S.P.! I guess you mean the Phadampa diet? ...Hello S.P.! I guess you mean the Phadampa diet? No, there is no hope for the idea you can just eat any old stuff. You have to do away with empty calories, avoid the sugar, fizzy drinks and white starchy foods. Green is good, but red foods are better.<br />Yours,<br />DDanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-39105343720137526752015-11-25T21:32:34.134+02:002015-11-25T21:32:34.134+02:00Checking in. Is there any hope for this?Checking in. Is there any hope for this?Short Person. :(noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-55006093869627102852015-10-10T17:29:45.515+03:002015-10-10T17:29:45.515+03:00As long as it is no black egg...
No need for head...As long as it is no black egg...<br /><br />No need for headstands, I already did some in my blog Aux sources du Milarepa Rechungpiste (http://hridayartha.blogspot.fr/2012/10/aux-sources-du-milerapa-rechungpiste.html). Call me a contradictionist, but I don’t buy the Khyungtsangpa transmission story. If you do the exercise of trying to read the stories as a writer or Tibetan hagiographist, you tend to see other things. Things that often come back in hagiographies like markers. When I see them I tend to stop and think. One of them is the need to go and see Rechungpa at Lo ro, where he was based in his later years. The very last opportunity to get something from him if you needed it for your ininterrupted transmission… And some heavy stuff has been transmitted in Loro ! Why Khungtsangpa didn’t go and see Rechungpa directly is cleverly explained away with a joke, and Rechungpa is said to have required from Khungtsangpa to keep their relationship plus the fact he received the complete « initiations and secret precepts relating to the ear-whispered teachings (snyan brgyud) » a secret until after Rechungpa’s death… Khungtsangpa hagiography also makes a special mention of his performance of grong ‘jug (into a pigeon once again) to show that he must have received the real stuff. That’s too much for me. I need some other proof. Please help me out !<br /><br />I am not the only one to be suspicious about Rechungpa’s heritage. Chag lo also was like you wrote in Lay religious movements in 11th- and 12th-century tibet: a survey of sources. :-)<br /><br />Joy<br />Hridayarthahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10713264962804395563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-14233774432690919062015-10-10T14:50:08.998+03:002015-10-10T14:50:08.998+03:00Oh Joy, Now I seem to have egg on my face. Did I ...Oh Joy, Now I seem to have egg on my face. Did I really say that Khungtsangpa had Zhama among his teachers? I most certainly did, now that I look at the entry in Treasury. And I thought the Brahmi memory dust was working. Sorry about that. But I still doubt you will find the black egg source in Rechungpist realms, since Zhama is hardly of much interest for them, and not much reason for them to tell long stories about her, beyond noting that she was one among a number of teachers of Khyungtsangpa, not being the one teacher that really counted for their tradition, Rechungpa himself. Should I go back to doing headstands?<br /><br />D<br />Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-14620728932959298382015-10-10T13:59:31.107+03:002015-10-10T13:59:31.107+03:00Ok for the Gewurztraminer!
You wrote on Treasury ...Ok for the Gewurztraminer!<br /><br />You wrote on Treasury of Lives that Khyungtsangpa (1115-) studied Lamdre with Machig Zhama, who was one of his teachers, and that Machik Ongjo was Khyungtsangpa’s student ? <br /><br />Based on Carl Yamamoto’s lamdre lineage (Vision and Violence, p. 358), I would suggest the following soap. <br /><br />All is fine with the lamdre transmission until Se ston. But then, we see pop up a Jo mo zha chung ma [ma gcig zha ma] (1062-1149) in Yamamoto’s list. She could have past on the transmission to Sachen (1092–1158), but it didn’t happen for a reason we don’t know. And Se ston was incapable of doing so either, « because there were obstacles ». So the lineage had to come to Sachen via a little bypass : Shang ston chos ‘bar, 1053-1135, born in Ding ri. In exchange for this transmission by Se ston, Shang ston had to offer « all he owned ». Then Shang ston passed it on to Sachen, probably in exchange for « all he owned » too. In the Sakya headquarters they must have wondered with what money Zhama had bought her transmission. What ? she didn’t own any money ? But then how did she convince Se ston to give her the transmission ? In exchange for what ? …. No, really ? So, this woman was higher on the transmission list than Sachen and she got it for free, or almost… They must have felt things needed to be put straight, and a zealous clerc with a lively imagination took care of it. Zhama‘s transmission was compromised through meditation faults, or procedurial faults, or because she was a « loose mudrā », seven faults in total. Those who wanted a genuinely pure transmission could turn to Sachen’s descendants instead.<br /><br />As for the black egg, things start to look a bit bad for ‘Gos.<br />Hridayarthahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10713264962804395563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-6511795177433952042015-10-10T11:24:40.465+03:002015-10-10T11:24:40.465+03:00Dear HA/J,
Oh well, I don't think the Rechung...Dear HA/J,<br /><br />Oh well, I don't think the Rechungpist theory is going to work out with further investigation. The biography of Machik Ongmo (sometimes 'fixed' to Machik Kongjo), one of two transmission holders of the Rechung Nyengyü, is I once looked into as far as I could. It's actually one of the signs of a relative lack of interest in women's leadership that allowed past writers to confuse their identities with ease. But there is really no reason for compounding the confusion here. The biography of Ongjo has nothing to do with the lives of Zhama or Labdron, really, apart from the 'women' thing they all have going for (or against) them.<br /><br />One interesting detail I noticed that seems relevant to your take on the black egg story (as I call it for simplicity's sake) is this: I found out that where Blue Annals refers to Machik Ongmo as a shes-rab-ma, or tantric assistant, the very source it was based upon says nothing of the sort. (Hmmm... One of those unusual cases where Blue Annals does not adhere so closely to the source works!) One manuscript of that source does say that she served as a Vajra Master, while another says that she (apparently) "performed the initiation." In either case, it's quite a presiding role she was playing, and Blue Annals takes it down a notch. (Source: J. Gyatso & H. Havnevik, Women in Tibet, p. 68, note 51. The story of Zhama is in the same book, pp. 52-56, making only passing reference to the black egg story without mentioning the egg itself. If I had it to do over... Wait, maybe I do.)<br /><br />I'm not a great fan of kumiss after having tried it out not long ago in the wilds of Mongolia, but if you've got some Gewurtsraminer, that would be fine, no need to shed blood. Really!<br /><br />Yours,<br />D<br /><br /><br /><br />Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-45549598823337745002015-10-10T10:20:25.761+03:002015-10-10T10:20:25.761+03:00Dear Dan,
Thank you for the additional informati...Dear Dan, <br /><br />Thank you for the additional information. Whenever I see the name Gayadahara pop up, I know there will be trouble at t’mill . Everybody seemed to owe money to the holy man. Could this be the reason to Zhama’s debt (« little devotion to her teacher ») too ? Another possible telling detail is the fact that apparently Zhama had to disguise as a woodcutter woman in order to pay her last respects to Dampa. She couldn’t have simply turned up as Zhama ? Or perhaps women weren’t allowed there, only female servants ? <br /><br />The transformation into a pigeon is another popular (grong ‘jug) theme used by hagiographers to cover a time lapse. I read these hagiographic elements as symptoms. Obstacles occurring when a student is to receive instructions and then doesn’t receive them is another one, like in the case of Sa chen kun dga’ snying po, who then « had to » receive the transmission from Shang ston chos ‘bar, 1053-1135, born in Ding ri) instead of from Se ston Kun rig. Chos ‘bar received them from Se ston « who required that Chos bar give him all he owned in exchange » [his full devotion] (Historical Dictionary of Tibet by John Powers and David Templeman). Gayadahara’s spiritual descendants are very pragmatic fellows...<br /><br />I also make a note of the fact that the Rechungpist Khyungtsangpa is presented as one of Zhama’s students, for a possible Rechungpist source of the black egg story. My intuition tells me that’s where we may find our source :-)<br /><br />All this to be discussed over one or more glasses of Mongolion beer brewed in Pagpa style, as the best of friends. And if your ritual fetish still requires to be stilled I suggest we do the little Tibetan head bump thingy instead of cutting our fingers. ;-) I am not sure from when dates my last tetanus booster. <br /><br />Your friend JoyHridayarthahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10713264962804395563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-24672369869290185612015-10-09T19:48:14.857+03:002015-10-09T19:48:14.857+03:00OK, J, I think we're on the same page saying m...OK, J, I think we're on the same page saying more or less the same thing, which isn't such a surprise after all.<br /><br />My main point would just be that the earliest sources, like the Kunga history of the 24 women disciples of Padampa (omitted from the recopied version in Blue Annals, p. 919, because it "was related above" meaning at p. 220 or so) do not have the black egg story. It reads like this in Cyrus Stearns' translation (Luminous Lives, pp. 239-240:<br /><br />"the 22nd was Lady Zha chung ma. She was a woman from Dman chu rgyab pa, a region to the east of Ding ri. She had seven brothers, beginning with Zha ma Ston pa. Because of her natural physical beauty she served the translator Rma ban Chos 'bar. She requested the entire initiations of the Lam 'bras from Pandita 'Gha yan dha ra (Gayadhara) and meditated. Then, after her faults in meditation were cleared away by Dam pa she reached attainment. When Dam pa died and his body was being cremated, she disguised herself as a woodcutter woman and left a bundle of firewood and an ounce of gold at the crematorium. On the road back she transformed into a pigeon and flew away. So it is said."<br /><br />But then as Cy goes on to say:<br /><br />"As will become obvious below, there are several points in the story that differ from that of the Lam 'bras tradition. The most significant differences are that she received the Lam 'bras from Gayadhara and that Pha dam pa removed her illnesses. Actually, she received the Lam 'bras from Se ston and, according to the Lam 'bras histories, it was Se ston who cured her chronic ailments."<br /><br />The way I read this evidence, the black egg associated with Padampa is based in confusions and in the sources of the early Zhijé and Lamdré both it tends to dissolve away (and become a less "interesting" story, actually) rather than gain solidity.<br /><br />But notice your Blue Annals (p. 220) story is retold by a more recent Lamdre historian translated in Cyrus' other book Taking the Result as the Path, p. 208 ff.<br /><br />I'd like to know the source of the black egg story. I can't identify it for the moment. I doubt the Blue Annals author created this elaborated story himself. He doesn't seem to stray very far from his source works most of the time.<br /><br />So anyway, it's all too complex and maddening to try and straighten it all out today (will give ref. to the Lo Bue article if you don't have it), but we should try again in the future, I think. Even if it's not a story correctly told about Padampa, that it came to be told about Padampa in later times is also of much interest to me these days.<br /><br />So instead of risking becoming bitter blog enemies, let's be best of friends, blood brothers, even (go ahead, you cut your finger first), and work together to search out truth against all odds, OK?<br /><br />Yours,<br />D<br />Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-9594380588536133632015-10-08T13:13:08.042+03:002015-10-08T13:13:08.042+03:00Hi Dan,
You are right, there probably is a place s...Hi Dan,<br />You are right, there probably is a place somewhere for magical or supernatural tendrel in the big network of tendrel, but my honest bet (insofar bets can be honest) is that it has become o lot smaller in the last centuries and will become even smaller yet.<br /><br />As for the deal behind the telling that cocktail of political incorrectness about Zhama, we would have to ask our friend ‘Gos first, who wrote so nicely about Buddha nature. What was he thinking of ?! I didn’t recognise my Padampa, did you recognise yours ? Since you ask, I will try and explain, taking the risk of stating the obvious.<br /><br />A lot (of jumble ?) can be said about and derived from what is written here (Blue Annals, pp. 222-225) about Zhama, especially from my comfortable 21st century armchair (your « *very* weird » suggests to me that yours must be pretty comfy either ;-)). Other times other customs. First, this anecdote can be used as a reminder of the fact that Tantra is not nice, far from it. We could tend to forgot this, with all the attention given to mindfullness, love and compassion, vegetarianism, rights for animals etc. So those who would like to go for traditional tantrism ought to know what part of it they exactly want to go for.<br /><br />I don’t recognise my Padampa, and suspect this piece of « weird stuff » to be an apocrypha or pseudepigrapha, and not only because it suits me better that way. The follow-up question then would be who could have written it, when and why ? How come Padampa’s attitude towards women seems to have changed so much ? E.g. compare with his advice to the nun Düdsi gyi. And didn’t this strike ‘Gos too ? You point to Lamdre littérature and perhaps it was indeed one of ‘Gos lotsava’s sources. This anecdote reminds us that not everything attributed to Tibetan saints was said or written by them. And even if it were, not everything said or written by Tibetan (or Indian) saints ought to be followed mindlessly. <br /><br />I am also shocked by the fact that ‘Gos apparently is not. Not the slightest sign of indignation, or attempt of justification in his rendering. This seems to be orthodox behaviour for him. And perhaps it was in those days, like it probably was here. But then again, my armchair is really very comfortable. Ok there were no women rights in those days, and women were always the property of a man. But in this piece of « weird stuff », there is something more. This fact is rubbed into Zhama’s face by Padampa with a certain amount of abuse of power (my western jumble, still considered from my armchair), when they exchange about the initiation fee (dbang yon). She (or someone else through her and through this text) apparently needed to be reminded of it. If you look at the series of seven, this is the fault corresponding to the egg and the black liquid oozing from it. This is not crazy wisdom, this is sheer nastiness and misogyny. It’s perhaps also about showing an intelligent woman her place and reminding her she’s still a woman through « upāya » (having her shove an egg up her vagina). Perhaps, in theory, the difference between man and woman was slightly attenuated on the bodhisattva path, but, in practice, Tantra showed the mudrā where her real place was and what her real rights were…<br /><br />Where is Padampa’s wisdom in this anecdote ? Where did it all go ? All there seems to be left is upāya, with magical links between specific actions, specific results and *very* specific remedies. Perhaps that aspect has always been there in Buddhism, right from the moment of awakening under the Bodhi Tree, but here it seems to have taken an importance out of any proportions, and it doesn’t look good IMHO.<br /><br />Of course this is not about Padampa or Zhama, but about some clerc writing stuff, probably at a later time with a certain agenda. It will be hard and probably impossible to identify that clerc and kick his ass, but at least this sort of agenda could be exposed as something not wished for then, and even less now. Hey, that’s my agenda ! <br /><br />HA/JoyHridayarthahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10713264962804395563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-37695439855936129832015-10-07T12:55:48.968+03:002015-10-07T12:55:48.968+03:00I have neither the know-how nor the equipment to g...I have neither the know-how nor the equipment to get the image to you. What to do ...?Short Personnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-25610742560027869872015-10-07T11:26:03.051+03:002015-10-07T11:26:03.051+03:00S.P., I tried downloading a copy of the book with ...S.P., I tried downloading a copy of the book with my Mac, but it failed since Mac can't deal with the PC file format. So at the moment it's not possible for me to see what you are talking about. -DDanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-20354192147883598092015-10-07T11:03:37.927+03:002015-10-07T11:03:37.927+03:00Interesting, H.A. Myself I'm not ready to mak...Interesting, H.A. Myself I'm not ready to make comparisons between western theories about the effectiveness of magic (or of ritual more broadly speaking) and Tibetan theories. Thinking about it just makes a jumble of my words and thinking (and we don't want that, do we?). But I do think that the sense of tendrel (so sympathetically connected to tendril!) in the ZC does have to do with meanings it does have still today, in areas of teacher-student relations and divination. I do allow myself to make the leap of thinking—a leap I know not everyone is eager to make— that it really does have to do with the interdependence of phenomena (at their time of causation) that the Buddha fully realized under the Bodhi tree. "This happens. This also happens." I don't see any need to integrate it into Buddhism when it was there all along. IMHO.<br />In another matter, what's the deal with telling that *very* weird story about Zhama on your newest blog? I may have to write a blog myself, since there is little more than a hint that Padampa helped her (if and only if she is "Zha-chung-ma") with obstacles described simply as "faults in meditation" in the ZC. These elaborate stories seem to come from the Lamdre literature (Cyrus Stearns goes into them in impressive depth in 2 of his books [Luminous Lives, & Taking the Result as the Path] and comes to some conclusions about their value for history). <br />DDanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-55768541429415059072015-10-05T14:30:37.707+03:002015-10-05T14:30:37.707+03:00Yes. I attempted to post a comment. Arrrrgh ...!...Yes. I attempted to post a comment. Arrrrgh ...! (Murmur, murmur, mutter ...!) >:-|<br /><br />Okay. Trying again. (Chuckle, chuckle.)<br /><br />Speaking of depictions, is there yet another sighting of Padampa? There is a publication called *The Buddha Scroll* by Ding Guanpeng, introduced by Thomas Cleary (Shambala Publications: Boston, Massachusetts). Described as a collection of Buddhist icons, does Figure #50, identified as "Marichi Bodhisattva," have Padampa as its support below? Is what the support holding in each of his hands, a stone?<br /><br />Many thanks for any answers and/or theories. Short Personnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-19208605529997763012015-10-05T11:59:39.440+03:002015-10-05T11:59:39.440+03:00S.P., Didn't you write a comment with a questi...S.P., Didn't you write a comment with a question about a possible Padampa picture in the book called "Buddha Scrolls"? <br />I was going to try and answer it, but it disappeared.<br />I can't answer it, really, because I haven't ever seen this book. You have perked my interest, however.<br />Yours, DDanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-5872217236900887632015-10-05T11:23:57.442+03:002015-10-05T11:23:57.442+03:00Thanks for the interesting blog. As for the meanin...Thanks for the interesting blog. As for the meaning of tendrel in this context, I see it along the lines of the idea of sympathetic magic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_magic). There is another older alchemical term for this phenomenon, but it doesn't want to pop to my mind just now (like in the good old days). Perhaps while sipping a cup of tea later on.<br /><br />Initially Padampa may or may not have used « sympathetic magic » willingly as upāya (therapeutics), thereby integrating it into streamline Buddhism. But anyway, gradually, whilst becoming integrated in tradition, the upāya-therapeutical aspect was lost, and the rten 'brel gyi referred to genuin sympathetic magic. Without hardly any link left with the meaning of rten ‘brel as in e.g. rten brel gyi sngags (pratītyasamutpādamantra). IMHO. <br />Hridayarthahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10713264962804395563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-10570338722855870252015-10-04T12:03:36.481+03:002015-10-04T12:03:36.481+03:00Tendrel-gi dzey. Well, S.P., not surprised that yo...<br /><br /><br />Tendrel-gi dzey. Well, S.P., not surprised that you ask this. That's a difficult one to translate with all the deep associations. Tendrel means interpersonal connection, but also wider sense of interdependent connections that were there already at the causal level of coming into being. It also means like Jungian synchronicity (co-incidents, simultaneous occurrences), and include 'signs' of destiny or of other things... I think when you occasionally find this expression 'substances of interdependence' in early Zhijé sources it's exactly what other sources call damdzey ('commitment substance'), and this covers the large category of sacramental substances (even objects). What was this exactly in the ZC? It is never made clear there as far as I know. It is one of the many things it assumes you know (the ZC is an 'inhouse' work, for members only). Nowadays it would most likely be ritually-empowered pills. Today it's a practice for practically every Tibetan Rinpoche to give them. I don't know of any book that deals very well with this side of Tibetan Buddhism. You really need an insider view, and for this I think Norma Levine's book "Blessing Power of the Buddha" does well communicating in an understandable way, with a lot of personal anecdotes, which is good. The professors may scoff at this, but I say let them.<br />You're already familiar with the 'interdependence bag' and 'interdependence house' in the Zhije Collection. When Padampa was ready to breathe his last, he handed on to Kunga his interdependence bag and a stone, the two most important objects... This tells you something about their very different ideas of what counts as valuable.<br />Yours,<br />D<br />Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-82168084890379407672015-10-04T01:31:10.734+03:002015-10-04T01:31:10.734+03:00Quick Question: Under the description for Tsugmoza...Quick Question: Under the description for Tsugmoza Gendunkyi, what exactly are the "substances of interdependence?"Short Personnoreply@blogger.com